Mehmed Süreyya Bey

Mehmed Süreyya Bey was an Ottoman historian and official of the Ministry of Education, author of the Sicill-i Osmani. ¹ He was born in Istanbul in 1845; his father Mehmed Hüsnü Bey held various state posts, and his father's maternal ancestor was Ibrahim Pasha, killed at Belgrade around 1750. ¹ Most of what is known of his schooling and career comes from the sicill-i umumi registers in the Prime Ministry Archive, his record being in register no. 113. ¹

He finished the Darülmaarif rüşdiye school and took private lessons in Arabic, Persian and French. ^{1 2} He began his first official post in Dhu al-Qa'da 1279 AH (April–May 1863) as a probationer in the translation office of the Sublime Porte, and in those years wrote for the newspaper Ceride-i Havadis. ² On 7 Muharram 1304 (6 October 1886) he was appointed a member of the Grand Council of Education (Meclis-i Kebir-i Maarif) in the Ministry of Education, where he received successive ranks. ²

Akbayar quotes the poet Halil Edib, his colleague at the ministry, that he had read almost every printed and manuscript work on history and biography in the libraries. ³ He came to work covered in dust in summer and mud in winter from his rounds of the cemeteries reading gravestones, earning the nickname "Ragged Süreyya Bey"; summer and winter he wore an old overcoat with pockets full of notes, and he never married. ³

Only the Sicill-i Osmani and the Nuhbetü'l-Vekayi were printed; the latter lists appointments and deaths of state officials between 1247 and 1272 AH, and only part of it was printed. ^{2 4} Bursalı Mehmed Tahir Bey names unprinted works: a two-volume Tekmile-i Sicill-i Osmani, a Zeylü'z-Zeyl, a nine-volume history covering 1808–1876, a thirty-part dictionary of Arabic, Persian, Ottoman, Chagatai and Tatar, a four-volume Mir'at-i Tarih-i Islam, and four unpublished novels; his family is reported to have said that all of them burned in the Cihangir fire. ⁴

He fell ill in 1907 and died on 30 Kanunuevvel 1324 (Rumi calendar), that is 12 January 1909, and was buried in the Karacaahmet cemetery. ² Halil Edib mourned him in a long article, and an obituary in the Nevsal-i Osmani said that no one like him in biography had arisen since İsmet Efendi. ²