[RARE OTTOMAN TRAVEL ACCOUNT OF KASHGAR (KASHI)] Kasgar tarihi: Bais-i hayret ahvâl-i garîbesi. [i.e. History of Kashgar, and marvelous descriptions of the oddities]

MEHMED ATIF, (19. century)., Mihran Matbaasi., Istanbul, [AH 1300] = 1884.

Original handsome full leather bdg. Roy. 8vo. (24 x 17 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 464 p. With special block-printed endpapers adorned with patterns in a dark-red combination. A "Luzac & Co." bookseller label on block-printed paper.

First and only edition of this early travel account of Kashgar (Kashi), Southern Xinjiang of China by an Ottoman traveler and soldier.

A delegation was sent to the region in 1874 by the Ottoman Empire at the request of Kashgar ruler Mohammad Yakub Khan [Beg], (?-1877) against the policies implemented on Turkestan by Russia. Yakub Beg was a Khoqandi ruler of Yettishar (Kashgaria) from 1865 to 1877. He held the title of Atalik Ghazi ("Champion Father"). This delegation consists of the Military Officer Ali Kâzim Bey, Infantry officer Mehmed Yusuf Bey, Çerkes Yusuf Bey, and Ismail Hakki Bey. Ismâil Hakki Bey wrote a book including an account of their Kashgar expedition, which included the events they witnessed through which he also transferred these impressions and memoirs to Mehmed Atif Efendi. At the beginning of his work, Atif Bey, who provided ethnographic and geographical information about Kashgar, moves on to convey the wide and detailed history of the region, starting with the Hegira [i.e. Islamic Migration]. He writes about the struggles of Turks in the region with China and the complete history of the region from the beginning until the date the work was written. The work also has an important place in terms of the late 19th century Kashgar and China.

OCLC 13298608.; 976570260.; Not in Özege.