The Turks in the Travel Books of Ibn Fadlân ( al-Risala), al-Girnâtî (Tuhfetu'l Albâb ve Nuhbetu'l A'câb), Ibn Hawqal (Sûretu'l Ard) and Ibn Battûta (al-Rihla)

Travel books that -research the communities in terms of branches of science like sociology, economy, psychology and theology and pass down communities' old cultures, customs and traditions- are considered as subbrance of memoir in the literature. At the same time, it is related to autobiography. The most important feature of travel books is to mention about the regions which the traveler visited, the events, difference of understanding of communities and their customs and traditions. We made an effort to present old Turks' lives between 10. and 14. centuries by using the arabic travel books and Chinese, Iranian and Turkish historical sources. In this context, we informed old Turkish figure in the travel books of Ibn Fadlân,el-Girnâtî,Ibn Hawqal and Ibn Battûta respectively. In the first part, we mentioned about the relations between Turks and Arab in the period of Cahiliyya, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), Rashidun Caliphates, Umayyads, Abbasids in detail. After that, We made reference to the term of travel, its importance and the first travel books and we discussed about the travel books in Turkish and Arabic Literature. Afterwards, we researched the lives and the works of the authors which wrote these four travel books that form our study's title.In the last chapter we tried to relay and evaluated old Turkish figure which is mentioned in these authors' works. We cared to take our information from primary sources during our work. In this regard we tried to benefit from many sources. We also prefered to relay the information which is related in the travel books by checking sources of the neighbouring civilizations.