A New Look at Sokolluzade Hasan Paşa’s Illustrated Universal History

Abstract

This article revisits a universal history written in the late sixteenth century for the governor of Baghdad Sokolluzade Hasan Paşa (d. 1602) in light of a newly-discovered source that provides the missing concluding section of this universal history. This concluding section (Bibliothèque nationale de France Supplément turc 1322), which was announced in the index but not completed in the extant presen- tation copies (Topkapı Palace Museum Library H. 1369 and H. 1230), reinforces the idea of Sokolluzade Hasan Paşa’s imperial claims at the same time as it highlights the Baghdadi tenor of the work, as it was written in Baghdad by an author who belonged to the governor’s household. However, the Paris manuscript presents no mere conclusion or continuation of a universal history. It is rather akin to a compilation (mecmuʿa) that juxtaposes sections from this universal history with sections from Zakariya al-Qazwini’s (d. 1283) ʿAjāʾib al-Makhlūqāt wa Gharāʾib al-Mawjūdāt, thus recontextualizing this late-sixteenth-century universal history.