The introduction of printing in moveable type was slow to develop in the Middle East. The very earliest examples of printing in Arabic script date from early sixteenth-century Europe, where religious texts were printed, especially by Italian printers. Some early Arabic religious texts were also printed from presses in Christian communities in the Middle East, but it was not until the early eighteenth century that printing in Arabic script by Islamic printing houses in the Islamic world was officially authorized.

The ongoing ban on printing in the Ottoman Empire until the eighteenth century, prevented Kâtip Çelebi atlas, the ‘Cihannüma’, from being published until seventy-five years after his death, in 1732. It was printed by the first Islamic printing house in Istanbul, owned by Ibrahim Müteferrika, who allocated two of his six printing presses to the production of the maps in this atlas. Müteferrika designed the ‘Cihannuma’ as a reflection of a traditional Ottoman manuscript in its layout, the calligraphic style of the text, and the illumination-like printed headpiece of the opening page.

Following the first edition, Müteferrika promised a second volume on Europe, Africa, and the Americas, but it was never produced. Nevertheless, the ‘Cihannuma’ became the standard work of geography in the Ottoman Empire and remained so well into the nineteenth century.

The atlas extends from Japan to the borders of the Ottoman Empire and includes a double-hemisphere map of the world, the world on an oval projection, Europe, Africa, Asia, America, the North and South Poles, Arabia, Japan, and various other parts of Asia and Asia Minor.

Katib Celebi started compiling this voluminous cosmography in 1648. Among his early sources was the ‘Tarih-i-Hindi-I Garbi’ a geographic compilation produced around 1580 in Istanbul by an unknown author. In his second manuscript version, Çelebi incorporated more European sources into the work. In 1653, Çelebi acquired a copy of the 1621 edition of the Mercator-Hondius ‘

 Minor’ and began a translation with the help of Mehmed Ihlas, a former French priest who had converted to Islam. This provided the basis for much of the second edition of the ‘Cihannuma’ along with Muslim sources, notably the mathematical and historical geography of Abu al-Fida and the charts of Ali Macar and Piri Reis. The result was an atlas that synthesised European and Arabic cartographic traditions into a unique form. 

Çelebi died before he could finish the project and the atlas was only completed in 1732 when it was published by Ibrahim Müteferrika. The Publisher added elements from Abu Bakr al-Dimashqi’s (d. 1691), translation of the Blaeu family ‘

en’ (1712). Müteferrika’s own personal interest in cartography is witnessed by the maps that he prepared himself: the Sea of Marmara, the Black Sea, Iran, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire, which is considered the first modern political and economic Ottoman map. 

In addition to the maps, Müteferrika takes credit for the planetary diagram, signing it ‘by the hand of the humble Ibrahim the geographer from among the stewards to the Exalted Throne’. He also includes an illustrated introduction to cosmography and astronomy based on the ideas of Nicolaus Copernicus and 

. He is considered to be one of the first to introduce the Copernican, heliocentric, view of the solar system to Ottoman readers.

Müteferrika appears to have commissioned much of the design of the atlas to a pair of named artists: Ahmedu’l-Kirimi’s (Ahmed the Crimean) name appears on eleven plates; Migirdic Galatavi (Migirdic of Galata – another suburb in Constantinople) appears on seven; and there is a suggestion that they were responsible for the decorative flourishes throughout the atlas, including the cartouches which neatly combine the baroque of their European cartographical counterparts and Ottoman artistic motifs.

Kâtip Çelebi (which loosely translates as Gentleman Scribe), Mustafa bin Abdullah, Haji Khalifa or Kalfa (1609–1657), was an Ottoman scholar, historian, and geographer, who is regarded as one of the most productive authors of scientific literature in the seventeenth-century Ottoman Empire. He is best known for his vast universal bibliographic encyclopaedia of books and sciences, the ‘Kaşf az-Zunūn’. The ‘Cihannuma’ (‘The Mirror of the World’) was first published in 1732, seventy-five years after the author's death by Ibrahim Müteferrika (1674–1747) who operated the first printing press in Istanbul and completed the work with updated maps. 

Kâtip Çelebi’s ‘Cihannüma’ (‘The Mirror of the World’) was the first atlas printed by İbrahim Müteferrika who operated the first printing house in Istanbul. Çelebi started compiling his ‘voluminous cosmography’ in 1648. However, an ongoing ban on printing in the Ottoman Empire prevented the ‘Cihannüma’ from being published until nearly 100 years after his death.

The atlas is an intriguing synthesis of European and Islamic cartography and cosmology. It included a comprehensive description of the regions of the world, extending westward from Japan and as far as the eastern Ottoman provinces. The ‘Cihannuma’ was the standard work of geography in the Ottoman Empire until well into the nineteenth century. This version is a deluxe issue in original binding; plates and maps contain full contemporary hand-colour, heightened in gold.

The atlas would have served both as a tool for military and bureaucratic needs as well as for educating Ottoman scholars and the elite. However, its influence was felt beyond the borders of Empire: D’Anville credits Katip Çelebi in his ‘Memoire’ accompanying his 1776 map of the Persian Gulf, valuing the ‘Cihannuma’ for ‘the systematic descriptions, collected from a variety of sources, of those parts travelers’.

World map on Mercator's projection

Bosporus Strait, Turkey

Anatolia 

Arabian Peninsula

Caucasus 

Northwestern Iran

Transoxiana

Iran

North Indian Subcontinent

Desert of Iran

Coast of China

Borneo and surrounding Islands

Malacca Straits

Moluccas

Malay Archipelago

Indian Ocean

Guinea

Japan

Polar regions

Americas

Asia

Africa

Europe

Double Hemisphere World Map

Aegean Sea

Adriatic Sea

Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea

Compass diagrams for inclination and declination 

Circle diagrams showing cardinal directions and the names of winds

Table of Climes

Table and diagram of Climes

Climes

Orbital theories: Tycho Brahe, Nicolaus Copernicus 

Orbital chars

Constellations

Heavenly Spheres according to Ptolemy

Geocentric diagram of the Heavenly Spheres

The sun, moon, and Earth

The geometric shapes of the orbits

Model of an armillary sphere

A “watershed in the Europeanisation of Ottoman geographical literature” (Karamustafa), in which East meets West, synthesizing European and Ottoman cartography and sensibilities. The first atlas to be printed at the first Islamic printing house in Constantinople, including the first map of America published in the Ottoman Empire. A superb deluxe issue of this important atlas: the plates and maps all with contemporary hand-colour in full, and heightened in gold.

Contemporary maroon calf backed black cloth, each cover decorated in blind with Islamic floral motifs and a large central foliate gilt stamp, the spine gilt-decorated in six compartments, the title in Arabic script to second compartment.   

Folio, 13 engraved plates, 27 double-page engraved maps, all with exceptionally fine contemporary hand-colour in full, and heightened with gold

The Mirror of the World

Cihannuma

Kâtip Çelebi, Mustafa bin Abdullah, Haji Khalifa or Kalfa; Mehmed Ihlas; Abu Bakr al-Dimashqi