Sahaflar Çarşısı (Old Book Bazaar)
Sahaflar Çarşısı is an ancient book market in Istanbul located between the Beyazit Mosque and the Grand Bazaar, operating as a trade hub for over 1,500 years. Originally the Byzantine marketplace Chartoprateia, booksellers permanently relocated to the site following an 1894 earthquake. Rebuilt in concrete after a 1950 fire, the market features a bust of Ibrahim Müteferrika, who established the first Ottoman secular printing press in 1727.
Istanbul · from the walk “Sultans, Spices & Hidden Streets” · audio ~3 min · Generated
Sahaflar Çarşısı, Beyazıt, Fatih, İstanbul
- In 1729, printer Ibrahim Müteferrika published 1,000 copies of the Vankulu Lügati dictionary, an early Ottoman printed secular book.
- Traveler Evliya Çelebi recorded around 50 shops and 300 booksellers working in Istanbul during the seventeenth century.
- Orientalist Antoine Galland purchased manuscripts at Sahaflar Çarşısı during the 1670s for the King of France.
- Following a fire in 1950, municipal authorities rebuilt the Sahaflar Çarşısı book market in reinforced concrete by 1952.
Who established the first Ottoman secular printing press commemorated at Sahaflar Çarşısı in Istanbul?
Take a breath. You are standing in one of the oldest book markets on Earth... the Sahaflar Charshisi, Istanbul's legendary Old Book Bazaar.......... This leafy courtyard, tucked between the Beyazit Mosque and the Grand Bazaar, has been a place of ink, paper, and ideas for over Fifteen centuries. In Byzantine times, this very ground was called the Chartoprateia... the empire's marketplace for books and paper. When the Ottomans took the city in fourteen fifty three, the tradition simply continued under a new name.......... The first Ottoman booksellers set up shop inside the Grand Bazaar after fourteen sixty. They formed their own guild, with strict ranks... apprentice, journeyman, master. The great traveler Evliya Chelebi, writing in the sixteen hundreds, recorded around fifty shops and Three Hundred booksellers working here. But imagine... in those days, every single book was handwritten. Calligraphers were kings.......... Then everything changed. See that bronze bust in the center of the courtyard? That is Ibrahim Müteferrika, a man born in Hungarian Transylvania around sixteen seventy four. Captured as a young man, brought to Istanbul, he converted to Islam and rose through the diplomatic ranks. In seventeen twenty seven, he did something Revolutionary... he asked the Sultan for permission to open a printing press. But there was a condition. Religious texts were strictly forbidden. Only secular works... dictionaries, maps, histories.......... In seventeen twenty nine, his press produced its first book... a massive two-volume Arabic dictionary called the Vankulu Lügati. One thousand copies. He even cut and cast his Own Arabic typeface. Over thirteen years, his press produced just seventeen titles... but those volumes are now known as "Turkish incunabula," some of the rarest printed books in the Islamic world.......... The calligraphers were furious. Legend has it they placed their inkstands and pens into Coffins and marched in protest to the Sublime Porte! And here is a detail most people miss. Before Müteferrika, a man named Antwan Galan... the French orientalist who would later give Europe The Thousand and One Nights... was Right Here in the sixteen seventies and eighties, buying manuscripts on behalf of the King of France. A calligraphy manuscript he acquired from this bazaar is Still on display at the bibliotheque Nationale in Pari today!......... In eighteen ninety four, a devastating earthquake damaged the Grand Bazaar, and the booksellers finally migrated here permanently. Then in nineteen fifty, a terrible fire destroyed the wooden shops and countless irreplaceable manuscripts. The city rebuilt the market in reinforced concrete by nineteen fifty two... and declared that Only books could be sold here.......... So look around. Every shelf in this courtyard carries echoes of a tradition stretching back to ancient Byzantium... a place where knowledge was always, always for sale.