Evliyá, the son of Dervísh Mohammed, chief of the goldsmiths of Constantinople, was born in the reign of Sultán Ahmed I., on the 10th of Moharrem 1020 (A.D. 1611). He records the building of the mosque of Sultán Ahmed, which was begun when he was six years old, and the gate of which was executed under the superintendance of his father, who in his youth had been standard-bearer to Sultán Suleïmán. His grandfather was standard-bearer at the conquest of Constantinople, by Sultán Mohammed, on which occasion the house within the _Un-kapán_ (flour-market), on the ground attached to the mosque of Sághirjílar, was the portion of spoil allotted to him. On this spot he erected one hundred shops, the revenues of which he devoted to the mosque. The administration of the mosque, therefore, remained in the hands of the family. He mentions more than once, as one of his ancestors, the great Sheikh Ahmed Yesov, called the Turk of Turks, a resident of Khorásán, and who sent his disciple, the celebrated Hájí Bektásh,[1] to Sultán Orkhán. Evliyá’s mother was an Abáza, and when a girl, had been sent along with her brother to Sultán Ahmed, who kept the boy as a page, and presented the girl to Mohammed Dervísh, the chief of the goldsmiths. The brother had, or received, the Sultán’s name, with the sirname _Melek_ (angel), and is mentioned in history as the Grand Vezír Melek Ahmed Pashá, in whose suite Evliyá performed a great part of his travels. [1] This Hájí Bektásh gave the Yení-cherí (Janissaries) their name.