Lâmi‘i Çelebi’s Additions to Shawahid Al-Nubuwwah Translation and Fath-Name of Methoni Castle

Shawahid al-nubuwwah, is a book telling about the evidence of Prophet Muhammad’s prophethood written by Mullah Abdurrahman-ı Jami in the year 885 Hijri. This book had been transleted into Turkish several times and the most famous and most common of these translations is the one translated by Lâmi‘î Çelebi. Its translation date is the year 915 Hijri. His translation is a word by word translation of Mullah Jami’s book. However, he made some additions to his translation. These additions have a considerable effect almost amounting to a new compiled book. Translator accomplished his book by adding an introductory part in to the heading of the book, similar examples, Quranic verses, hadiths and rumors into the main body of the book supporting the theme of the book. These additions made by Lâmi‘î Çelebi in this translation is the main theme of this study. Especially the conquest of Methoni Castle, phases of this conquest and other events during this conquest in the reign of Bâyezîd II are narrated in verse and added into the book. This part is particularly important especially because of its being a fetih-nâme regarding the conquest of Methoni castle. In this paper, first of all we generally try to evaluate the additions made into Shawahid al-nubuwwah by Lâmi‘î Çelebi. These additions will be classified according to characteristics and given information about functions and contents. Then we completed the study by giving the full text of the critical edition of Fath-name of Methoni Castle.

Keywords

Prophet Muhammed, Lâmi‘î Çelebi, Abdurrahman-ı Jami, Methoni Castle, Fath-name, Translation, Shawahi