Memory of Byzantium, Mehmed II Fatih and His Entourage: The Evidence of Künhü’l-Aḫbār According to the Viennese Manuscript

The second volume of the Künhü’l-Aḫbār (“The Essence of News”) by Mustafa Âli (1541–1600) of Gallipoli describes the conquest of Constantinople and the history of the buildings of the City. Various manuscripts of Künhü’l-Aḫbār can be found in Turkish, Egyptian and European libraries in different sections of the work. Complete copies in Istanbul are available in the libraries of Nuruosmaniye (No. 3409), Topkapi Palace Museum (Ahmed III, No. 3083) and Suleymaniye (Halet Efendi, No. 598). It seems that Mustafa Âli used the texts which were composed soon after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The list of rulers of Byzantium which he cited was different from the one in the Arabic or Persian sources and must have had some Byzantine background. This shows the perceptions of the Byzantine past by the Ottomans. The latter saw the history of Byzantium in terms of Muslim eschatology and the linked the conquest of 1453 with the Byzantine Ayyubid wars of the eighth and ninth century.