Kâtip Çelebi, Mustafa bin Abdullah, Haji Khalifa or Kalfa, (1609, Istanbul – 1657 Istanbul) was an Ottoman scholar. A historian and geographer, he is regarded as one of the most productive authors of non-religious scientific literature in the 17th century Ottoman Empire. Among his best-known works is the Kashf al-zunūn ‘an asāmī al-kutub wa-al-funūn, ("The Removal of Doubt from the Names of Books and the Sciences"), a bibliographic encyclopaedia, written in Arabic, which lists more than 14,500 books in alphabetic order.[1][2][3]
The son of a soldier, he himself was a soldier for ten years until a heritage made him turn to a more contemplative life. As the accountant of the commissariat department of the Ottoman Army in Anatolia, he accompanied the Ottoman army in the campaign against Baghdad in 1625, was present at the siege of Erzurum, and returned to Constantinople in 1628. In the following year he was again in Baghdad and Hamadan, and in 1633-34 at Aleppo, whence he made the pilgrimage to Mecca (hence his title Hajji). The following year he was in Erivan and then returned to Constantinople. Here he obtained a post in the head office of the commissariat department, which afforded him time for study. He seems to have attended the lectures of great teachers up to the time of his death, and made a practice of visiting bookshops and noting the titles and contents of all books he found there.
Katip Çelebi died suddenly and peacefully in October 1657, while drinking a cup of coffee.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.