Polish composer Ali Ufki (Woiciech Bobowski), 1610-1675.
Musician and dragoman in the Ottoman Empire. He translated the Bible into Ottoman Turkish, composed an Ottoman Psalter, based on the Genevan metrical psalter, and wrote a grammar of the Ottoman Turkish language. His musical works are considered among the most important in 17th-century Ottoman music.
Bobowski was born as a Pole in Lwów (Ruthenian Voivodeship), then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (now Lviv in the Ukraine). He was raised in a Protestant family and started a career as a church musician. At some point, he was taken prisoner (jasyr) by Crimean Tatars during one of their common raids across the border.
Because he had enjoyed musical training and was capable of reading and notating music, he was sold to the court of sultan Murad IV (and later Ibrahim I and Mehmed IV), where he converted to Islam and became known as Ali Ufqi. At the court he served as an interpreter, treasurer and musician in the sultan's seraglio. He was also known to master sixteen languages, next to Polish and Turkish also Arabic, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, and Latin.
Around 1657, approximately 19-20 years after he was captured, when on a voyage to Egypt, he regained his liberty, after which he lived in Egypt for some time. It is also likely he travelled on a pilgrimage to Mecca. After he gained his freedom he became one of the most important dragomans in the Ottoman Empire.
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