On the construction of the pyramids, ca. 1545

Abstract

Until well into his middle years, Celalzade Salih (d. 1565) lived a comfortable yet circumscribed life as an elite Ottoman scholar. The younger brother of the Ottoman grand chancellor Celalzade Mustafa (d. 1567), Salih was groomed for success from an early age; he apprenticed with the celebrated grand mufti Kemalpaşazade (d. 1534), then began a rapid rise up the Ottoman scholarly hierarchy. by 1536 (still probably in his early forties), he was appointed to the medrese of the Eight Courtyards (Sahn-i Seman), Istanbul’s highest-ranking teaching college at the time. A few years later, in 1542, he moved to the equally prestigious imperial medrese of Sultan bayezid in Edirne.Salih’s career took a dramatic and unexpected turn when he was asked in 1544 to give up his academic position and travel to Egypt. There, he was to investigate the outgoing governor, Davud Pasha, for misuse of government funds—a distasteful task that Salih accepted much against his will. The trip to Egypt turned out to be a life-changing experience, exposing Salih to a distant corner of the empire. The result was a partly autobiographical book he wrote after his return to the capital the following year, the New History of Egypt (Tarih-i Mısr-ı Cedid), from which the excerpts below are drawn.