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Kâtip Çelebi

Kâtip Çelebi () or Ḥājjī Khalīfa ()), Muṣṭafa Ben Hājī Khalīfah, Haji Khalifa, Hajji Khalifeh, Hazi Halife, Hadschi Chalfa, Khalfa, Kalfa, etc.}} (1017 AH/1609 AD – 1068 AH/1657 AD) was a Turkish polymath and author of the 17th-century Ottoman Empire. He compiled a vast universal bibliographic encyclopaedia of books and sciences, the ''Kaşf az-Zunūn'', and wrote many treatises and essays. “A deliberate and impartial historian… of extensive learning”, Franz Babinger hailed him "the greatest encyclopaedist among the Ottomans."

Writing with equal facility in ''Alsina-i Thalātha''the three languages of Ottoman imperial administration, Arabic, Turkish and Persian – principally in Arabic and then in Turkish, his native tongue he also collaborated on translations from French and Latin. The German orientalist Gustav Flügel published ''Kaşf az-Zunūn'' in the original Arabic with parallel Latin translation, entitled ''Lexicon Bibliographicum et Encyclopaedicum'' (7 vols.) The orientalist Barthélemy d'Herbelot produced a French edition of the ''Kaşf az-Zunūn'' principally with additional material, in the great compendium, ''Bibliothèque Orientale''. Provided by Wikipedia