according ottoman and turkish historians and linguists, the romanlar in turkey are the descendants of mixed ancestry, the so called chingan (musicans-dancers), who once came from hindustan, trough trading relationships at the silk road with the byzantine empire, from the indian subcontinent into egypt, who was at that time a part of the byzantine empire. they settled in koptos (qift) at the nile for a while. later, when the muslim arabian made fight with the byzantine empire, the romanlar went with them as camp followers to asia minor and settled first in phrygia, from there they went to thrace in europe at 800 ad. the greeks called them atsingani. the oldest sedentary settlment of romanlar was in sulukule in istanbul, dating back to 1054 ad. the byzantine historian nikephoros gregoras, told of acrobats who came from egypt to constantinople in 1322. the ottoman historian evliya çelebi described in his book seyhatnâme, the language and background of the roma people, that after the fall of constantinople in 1453, sultan mehmed ii settled roma from gümülcine and muslim roma's from bayat village aydın province and sanjak of menteşe to istanbul as dancers and musicians. at the time of ottoman empire they got their own sanjak (district) in east thrace in 1530 by the order of suleiman the magnificent. turkish speaking muslim roma also settled from anatolia in the balkans under the rule of the ottoman empire. today in bulgaria, greece (west-thrace) and romania (dobruja) there live a turkish speaking muslim roma minority. many romanlar live in istanbul , edirne and i̇zmir.