Don Juan of Persia

First edition of a diary written by Don Juan of Persia, the secretary in the company of Sir Robert Sherley, from their 1599-1602 Persian embassy to Europe. With the substantial help of the his mentor, Alfonso Remón, he translated the text into Castilian, amplified its contents with references to scholarly sources, and published the work in 1604 as the Relaciones de Don Juan de Persia. All traces of the Persian “original” have been lost.

Uruch Beg, later known by his baptized name of Don Juan (1560–1604) was a late 16th and early 17th century Iranian figure in Iran and Spain. He is also known as Faisal Nazary. A native of Iran, and from the Bayat Qizilbash clan,^[1][2] he later moved westward, settled in Spain, and he became a Roman Catholic. There he wrote an account of Iran, his involvement there with Shah Abbas I, and his journey to Spain in the Persian embassy to Europe (1599-1602). He was later killed in 1604 during a street fight.

Don Juan was the son of Sultan Ali Beg, who was the brother of the Iranian ambassador Husain Ali Beg.

References

1. Fisher; et al. (1986). The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 387. ISBN 978-0521200943.
2. Blow, David (2009). Shah Abbas: The Ruthless King Who Became an Iranian Legend. I.B.Tauris. p. 61. ISBN 978-0857716767. (...) and another Bayat noble, Uruch Beg, who acted as first secretary.

Sources

• Don Juan of Persia: A Shi'ah Catholic 1560-1604 translated by G. Le Strange (New York & London, 1926). [full text]
• Don Juan of Persia: A Shi'ah Catholic translated by G. Le Strange (reprint Kessinger, 2003). [excerpt]
• W. E. D. Alden "Notes on Don Juan of Persia's account of Georgia", 1930, School of Oriental and African studies