HAJJI KHALFAH, hli'je kaFfii, MUSTAFA IBN AB DALLAII KATIB TSIIELEBI (C.1600-58). A celebrated Turkish historian and bibliographer. He was born at Constantinople about the end of the sixteenth century, and died there in Septem ber, 1658. From ]622 till 1633 he was employed in the Turkish army, and had an excellent oppor tunity of acquiring information regarding mat ters of history, geography, etc. He made the pil grimage to Mecca, whence his name Hajji (q.v.). In 1635 he was at Constantinople studying and collecting material for his encyclopedia. In 1648 he was appointed second assessor in the army bureau of provisions. From this position he got his second name, Khalfah (assessor). His works are written in Turkish and Arabic. They include, besides smaller works: (1) the celebrated Asami al-kutilb wo-al-fitnan (Names of Books and Sciences), written in Arabic, and of which Fltigel has given a Latin translation with the text, under the title .Lexicon Biblio
graphicum et Encyclopcedicum a Mustapha-ben Abdallah (Leipzig, 1835-58). In this work is given a definition of each science; the titles, con tents, language, dates of composition, and trans lation of more than 25,000 works are specified; also the names of the authors and dates of their death. It is the most complete catalogue in ex i4enee of works written in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish; (2) Ta'rikh kebir (Great History), a history of the world from the creation of Adam to 1655, containing notices of 150 dynasties, prin cipally Asiatic; (3) a history of the Ottoman Empire from 1595 to 1655; (4) a history of the maritime wars of the Turks, which has been translated into English (London, 1831).