Fleet K. The Cambridge History of Turkey: Volume 1, Byzantium to Turkey, 1071-1453
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ahmet yas¸ar ocak
everywhere, both in the court and in literature.
131
While it is debatable whether
his initiative sprang from practical motivation as the result of his not knowing a
language other than Turkish, or whether it was based on the conscious choice
of one language, there is no doubt that Turkish becoming the official language
in use in all the Anatolian beyliks was historically significant, especially from
the point of view of the political and cultural future of Turkey.
One of the factors which accelerated the process of Turkish becoming
dominant as an official language and a language of literature in Anatolia was
the translation activity which was continuous from the Anatolian beylik period
onwards. The fact that the beys and the populace did not know Arabic and
Persian was without doubt influential in the production of translations of
works related to religion, culture and literature which attracted their interest.
With the collapse of the Anatolian Seljuk state, Persian lost its former position
as a written language from the fourteenth century and the literate circles
turned their attention to compositions or translations of works which fitted
the expectations of the rulers and the people. The translation activity gradually
increased to cover a very wide spectrum from, in particular, religious and Sufi
books of a popular nature to medical texts, from rhymed and prose literary
works to encyclopaedic essays.
Translations began to appear of religious Sufi classics such as the thirteenth-
century great Iranian Sufi Farid al-din Attar’s (d. 1299) Manteq al-Tayr, Tadhkirat
al-Awliya and Abu Ishak al-Tha’labi’s (d. 1035) Qisas al-Ambiya. These transla-
tions prepared the ground for the development of a Turkish which, in the
fourteenth century, allowed the creation of popular Sufi works and espe-
cialy of a rich prose/rhymed menakıbname literature. Anonymous folk sto-
ries and epic romances such as Ebum
¨
uslimname, Hamzaname and Battalname
were also translated in this period from Persian and Arabic. In the fifteenth
century, under the Ottoman ruler Murad II, the chronicle of Ibn Bibi was
translated by Yazıcızade Ali into Turkish with some important additions.
132
131 See IbnBibi, ElEvamir
¨
u’l-Ala’iyye,p.696: ‘Hic kesba’del-yevm derdivanu dergah u bargah
u meclis umeydan cuz be-zeban-ıturkisuhan ne-guyed’; Selc¸ukName, ii,p.209:‘Bug
¨
unden
itibaren divanda, dergahta, bargahta, meclisde ve meydanda T
¨
urkc¸e’den bas¸ka dil kul-
lanılmayacaktır’ (From today no other language than Turkish will be used in the council,
in the dervish lodge, in the court, in the assembly and in the square). This day is still
celebrated in Turkey today as Dil Bayramı (Language Day).
132 See Tevarih-i Al-i Selc¸uk,TopkapıSarayıM
¨
uzesi (Revan) K
¨
ut
¨
uphanesi, nos. 1390–1392,
3 vols. Let us recall here that behind the translation of this work was the Ottoman
administration’s establishment of a political construct as proof that they came from
the Kayı branch of the O
˘
guz in order to oppose the challenge of the Karakoyunlu. A
large number of works either translated into Turkish or written in Turkish in the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries have been produced over the years as scholarly editions by
410
Social, cultural and intellectual life, 1071–1453
The encouragement of the sultans and the beys played an important role in
translation activity, and they paid a great deal of money for these translations.
We have today a fairly clear idea about which beys and sultans the small num-
ber of surviving works were dedicated to, even if there is dispute in some
cases.
What we can say, however, is that scholars and poets, Sufis and mystics
who wrote their works under the protection of the Germiyano
˘
gulları, Kara-
mano
˘
gulları and Aydıno
˘
gulları in particular were in the vanguard of the devel-
opment of Turkish as a written language. Germiyanwasparticularlyimportant
for the extensive use of Turkish in works composed in the areas of literature,
Sufism and learned knowledge and in this context the reigns of Yakub Bey, his
son Mehmed Bey (d. 1363) and S
¨
uleymans¸ah were productive. S
¨
uleymans¸ah
gave support and protection to scholars and poets of the era such as S¸eyho
˘
glu
Mustafa, Ahmed-i Dai, Ahmedi and S¸eyhi who will be briefly discussed below.
After the Ottoman conquest, almost all of these men moved under Ottoman
protection. Similar developments occurred one after the other in the other
beyliks and, with the total removal of Persian from the literary sphere and
Arabic from scientific and Sufi spheres, the dominant position finally passed
to Turkish.
The world of education, teaching, knowledge and thought
We must note here at the outset that in the transformation of Christian Byzan-
tine Anatolia into Muslim Turkey the role of Sufism, Sufis and Sufi institutions
was just as great as that of the political leaders.
133
But in the period of the
establishment and development of the Turkish states of which the most devel-
oped example was the Ottoman Empire, the greatest share in the creation and
working of the administrative, social and cultural institutions was first and
foremost without doubt that of the scholarly institutions, that is, the medreses.
This is an extremely important point and one that we need to stress and to
understand clearly.
The medreses in Turkey of the twelfth to fifteenth centuries were here, as
they had been in the entire Islamic world since approximately the eleventh
the T
¨
urk Dil Kurumu, which continues to publish these works. Furthermore, many
doctoral theses have been written, and continue to be written, on such early works in
the literature departments of Turkish universities.
133 On this subject see in particular G. Leiser,‘The Madrasah and the Islamization of Anatolia
before the Ottomans’, in Law and Education in Medieval Islam: Studies in Memory of Professor
George Makdisi, ed. Joseph E. Lowry, Devin J. Stewart and Shawkat M. Toorawa (London,
2004), pp. 176–82.
411
ahmet yas¸ar ocak
century, the main centres of the state’s official education, teaching and schol-
arly life.
134
The research that will result in a full and sound understanding
of both the organisation and functioning of the medreses, which gave educa-
tion and teaching in the various branches of knowledge of the period under
discussion – of their scholarly education, teaching and scholarly life, of the
scholars employed there, with their scientific and scholarly activities, and the
works they wrote – is still only at an initial stage today. We can gather limited
information partly from biographies and chronicles written in Anatolia and
neighbouring Muslim countries in the period, partly from vakıf registers and
vakıf deeds which have come down to us, even if as later copies, and partly
from works written by local or foreign ulema employed in the medresesof
the period. Modern research on this subject can provide an outline within
the framework of this material, even if it is for the moment only a general
picture.
135
Drawing on data that we have obtained from the structures which have
survived, archaeological digs and vakıf records, as well as on the research
of art historians, we can glean information about many medreses the names
of which we will not list here but which were active in various religious
and scientific spheres in Anatolia in the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, and
about the ulema who lived in them.
136
We know that, as was usual for the
teaching in the medreses in accordance with the traditional classification of
medieval Islam, knowledge was studied in two major categories, scientific
(akli ilimler) and religious (nakli ilimler). It is known that scientific studies
included geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, logic, philosophy and medicine;
and religious studies was composed of subjects such as interpretation (tefsir),
prophetic tradition (hadith), theology (kalam), religious law (fıkıh) and Sufism.
Although there was a preference that the books which were read, particularly
on religious subjects, in the medreses and the teachers who taught them should
be exclusively from the Hanefi mezhep, because the Anatolian Seljuks and
134 See F. Unan, ‘Anadolu Selc¸ukluları ve Beylikler D
¨
oneminde E
˘
gitim’, in Anadolu
Selc¸ukluları ve Beylikler D
¨
onemi Uygarlı
˘
gı I, ed. Ocak, pp. 389–400.
135 For example, see Uzunc¸ars¸ılı, Anadolu Beylikleri,pp.228–34; Turan, Do
˘
gu Anadolu T
¨
urk
Devletleri Tarihi,pp.34–40, 74–9, 120–3, 219–24;Turan,Selc¸uklular Zamanında T
¨
urkiye,
pp. 389–95.
136 Apart from the references given in note 135, see also Halil Edhem, ‘
ˆ
Al-i Germiyan
Kit
ˆ
abeleri’, Tarih-i Osmani Enc
¨
umeni Mecmuası 1 (1910), 128; Edhem, Kayseriyye S¸ehri
(Istanbul, ah 1334), pp. 98–9; A. Sayılı, ‘V
ˆ
acidiye Medresesi, K
¨
utahya’da Bir Ortac¸a
˘
gT
¨
urk
Rasathanesi’, Belleten 12, 47 (1948), 655–6;T
uran,‘S¸emseddin Altun-Aba, Vakfiyesi ve
Hayatı’, p. 204;
˙
I. H. Konyalı,
ˆ
Abideleri ve Kit
ˆ
abeleri ile Konya Tarihi (Konya, 1964), p. 851;N.
G
¨
oy
¨
unc¸, XVI. Y
¨
uzyılda Mardin Sanca
˘
gı,p.114; Ara Altun, Mardin’de T
¨
urk Devri Mimarisi
(Istanbul, 1971), p. 88;M.S
¨
ozen, Anadolu Medreseleri, 2 vols. (Istanbul, 1970–2), i,pp.75,
145–6, 166, 173.
412
Social, cultural and intellectual life, 1071–1453
the rulers of the beyliks were members of this mezhep, this was not much
enforced.
137
The official education, teaching policy and the law was, however,
in accordance with this mezhep. This was a historical choice stemming from
the Turks’ acceptance of Islam in Central Asia, and was important not only
for the political history of Turkey in that period but also for its social and
cultural history, as it had significance for the course of Turkish history in the
Islamic period in particular, and for the internal history of the Hanefi mezhep in
general.
The state’s being officially Hanefi did not create an obstacle to ulema belong-
ing to other Sunni mezheps being employed in either the bureaucracy or the
medresesinAnatoliaandweknowof manyexamplesof this. Since the ulemawho
came into the region from outside were from different regions and belonged
to different branches of learning, it is easy to understand that there was a very
cosmopolitan and international intellectual environment of learning and ideas
in the important Anatolian towns of the period, in particular in those which
were capitals.
138
The sources give important information about the scholars
who came to Anatolia in this period and either gave lessons in the medresesor
wrote works on various subjects. We can give as examples Hatib el-Kazvini
(d. 1338), one of the well-known scholars in the fields of rhetoric, fıkıh, the
method of fıkıh and theology and who was kadı in Tokat-Niksar;
139
Esireddin el-
Ebheri (d. 1265), the famous Iranian philosopher, astronomer and mathemati-
cian;
140
Kutbeddin Shirazi (d. 1311), another famous Iranian scholar of astron-
omy, mathematics, medicine and religion who taught in the G
¨
okmedrese in
Sivas, was kadı in Sivas and Malatya and later moved to Kastamonu where he
wrote a work called Ihtiyarat-ı Muzafferi, dedicated to Muzaffereddin Yavlak
Arslan;
141
the famous Hanefi expert in fıkıh, kadı Ebu Said el-Herevi (d. 1142);
and Alaeddin Kas¸ani (d. 1191), author of a famous work of fıkıh called Badai’
al-sanayi. This last figure came to Konya at the time of the Seljuk sultan
137 The vakfiye date 598/1202 of the Altunaba Medresesi in Konya imposed the con-
dition that the m
¨
uderris who worked in the medrese had to be from the Hanefi
mezhep. See Turan, ‘S¸emseddin Altun-Aba, Vakfiyesi ve Hayatı’; Leiser, ‘The Madrasah’,
pp. 176–82.
138 This is an area which has still not attracted the attention of Turkish historians. Future
detailed research on the various scholarly works on different subjects which were written
in Anatolia will therefore advance our knowledge of the subject and shed further light
on the intellectual and scholarly life of the period. Research has been, and is being,
conducted to compare the Sufi scholarly environment with the scholarly environment
in general in this period.
139
˙
Ismail Durmus¸, ‘Hat
ˆ
ıb Kazvin
ˆ
ı’, in T
¨
urk Diyanet Vakfı
˙
Islam Anseklopedisi [hereafter
TDV
˙
IA], xxv,pp.156–7.
140 Abd
¨
ulkudd
ˆ
us Bing
¨
ol, ‘Es
ˆ
ır
¨
udd
ˆ
ın Ebher
ˆ
ı’, TDV
˙
IA, x,pp.75–6.
141 Azmi S¸erbetc¸i, ‘Kutb
¨
udd
ˆ
ın-i S¸
ˆ
ır
ˆ
az
ˆ
ı’, TDV
˙
IA, xxvi,pp.487–9.
413
ahmet yas¸ar ocak
Mesud I (1116–56) and was sent as ambassador to Nureddin Mahmud b.
Zengi.
142
To these we can add, among others, Yusuf b. Said el-Sicistani (d.
639/1241–2), author of works on fıkıh entitled Munyat al-Mufti and Ghunyat
al-Fuqaha,
143
Ali b. Muhammed b. Hibetullah el-Buhari (d. 1169) who lived in
Konya,
144
and Muhammed Talakani(d. 1217), a well-known experton fıkıh in his
time.
145
Apart from scholars in religious knowledge and learning, we can also list
other men active in the fields of science and philosophy who, coming from
outside and settling in Anatolia, taught and wrote there. A good example of
such scholarsis ‘Abd
¨
ullatif el-Ba
˘
gdadi (d. 1231) who was a highly talented Islamic
scholar and philosopher. We know that he wrote two famous books, al-Hikmat
al-’Ala’iyya and Bulgat al-Hikma, in Erzincan.
146
We must also mention here
another of these scholars who came into Anatolia, Ebu Abdullah Efdaleddin
el-Huneci (d. 1248) who was a member of the Fahr al-din al-Razi school and
who, as well as being an expert on Shafi’i fıkıh, was a judge and a scholar of
logic,
147
and one of his students, the famous Siraceddin el-Urmevi (d. 1283).
Siraceddin el-Urmevi, too, just like his master el-Huneci, was a scholar of
theology and fıkıh, was a kadı in Konya, and was also at the same time an
important philosopher and logician. His work entitled Matali‘ al-Anwar on
logic was for a long time read as a textbook in the Ottoman medreses.
148
As a
final example we must note in particular Nasir al-din Tusi (d. 1274), one of the
famous scholars who was for a time kadı ın Malatya. It is known that he made
various innovations to the theorem of Pythagoras and that he researched into
trigonometry.
149
These men were by no means the only scholars of the time, and the life of
teaching, education and learning in medieval Turkey was much more extensive
than our brief surveymight indicate. Withnew researchwe shall probablylearn
more and be better able to assess the contributions of the intellectual life of this
period to religious knowledge, science and philosophy in the classic Islamic
Middle Ages.
142 K Ferhat Koca, ‘K
ˆ
as¸
ˆ
an
ˆ
ı’, TDV
˙
IA, xxiv,p.531.
143 Murteza Bedir, ‘Osmanlı
¨
Oncesi T
¨
urk Hukuk Tarihi Yazıcılı
˘
gı’, T
¨
urkiye Aras¸tırmaları
Literat
¨
ur Dergisi 3, 5 (2005), 82.
144 R. S¸es¸en, ‘Selc¸uklular Devrindeki
˙
Ilme Genel Bir Bakıs¸’, in III. Uluslararası Mevl
ˆ
ana
Kongresi 5 –6 Mayıs 2003, Bildiriler (Konya, 2004), pp. 233–44.
145 A. Y. Ocak, ‘Anadolu’, TDV
˙
IA, iii,p.111. 146 S¸es¸en, ‘Selc¸uklular’, p. 242.
147 Mustafa C¸a
˘
gırıcı, ‘H
ˆ
unec
ˆ
ı’, TDV
˙
IA, xviii,p.375.
148 See S¸es¸
en, ‘Selc¸uklular’, p. 243.
149 For details see E. Kahya, ‘Anadolu Selc¸ukluları ve Beylikler D
¨
oneminde Bilim’, in
Anadolu Selc¸ukluları ve Beylikler D
¨
onemi Uygarlı
˘
gı I, ed. Ocak, p. 404.
414
Social, cultural and intellectual life, 1071–1453
Literary activity
Writers, poetry and poets in medieval Turkey
The poetic arts of Turkey in the thirteenth to fifteen centuries, as was the
case in the Islamic world in general in that period, were strongly supported
by the spiritual and material encouragement of the sultans and high-level
men of state. There is no doubt that their encouragement played a major
role in the development of this type of universal literature in the artistic and
intellectual life in their own regions. But to say that this encouragement was
given only with the aim of developing poetry would be to see only one side
of the question. The fundamental motivation of such encouragement was to
ensure that the qualities of these leaders – such as heroism, justice and bravery,
epithets which the leaders wished to hear applied to themselves – were praised,
and thus to maintain and increase their prestige in public opinion, to ensure
that their names were not forgotten and to leave their mark among the people,
both while they were alive and after their deaths. This, however, was by no
means the end of the matter. They appreciated beautifully written poems
which appealed to aesthetic and artistic feelings, took pleasure in rewarding
such poems and encouraged poets. In this context we have many examples of
considerable material and financial gifts and donations made to famous poets,
and to some of these poets being appointed to important offices.
This tradition continued among the Anatolian Seljuk sultans and the Turko-
man beys. Ibn Bibi explained why the Seljuk sultans rewarded poets whom they
liked, quoting the wordsof Fahreddin Behrams¸ah from the house of Meng
¨
ucek
and son-in-law of Sultan R
¨
ukneddin S
¨
uleymans¸ah: ‘If a poem is successful, I
shall donate treasuries and treasures, because with this rhymed work my name
shall remain immortal in this transitory world. To remain unforgotten in this
transitory world and temporary realm and for a name to be remembered
forever is a very great honour and to attain it is a difficult achievement.’
150
It was this mentality which led
˙
Izzeddin Keykavus I to bestow on Sahib
S¸emseddin Muhammed-i
˙
Isfahani the office both of es¸raf-i matbah (the head
of the palace kitchen) and of ins¸a-yı has (his private secretary) upon receiving
from him a quatrain which he very much liked.
151
As well as such titles, ranks
and positions, the sultans and beys also granted highly esteemed honorary titles
which had long been known in Islamic countries, such as malik al-shu’ara,on
poets whom they liked and admired. Among literary men who were officially
150 Ibn Bibi, El Evamir
¨
u’l-Ala’iyye,p.72, Selc¸uk Name, i,p.92.
151 Ibn Bibi, El Evamir
¨
u’l-Ala’iyye,p.202–3, Selc¸uk Name, i,p.221.
415
ahmet yas¸ar ocak
appointed to this rank were prominent poets of their times such as Abu al-
Fada’il Muhi al-din, Nizameddin Ahmed-i Erzincani and Bahaeddin Kani’i.
Seljuk sultans did not restrict themselves to encouraging poets, but were
also from time to time successful poets themselves, as were, for example,
R
¨
ukneddin S
¨
uleymans¸ah (1196–1204), Gıyaseddin Keyh
¨
usrev I (1192–6, 1204–
10),
˙
Izzeddin Keykavus I (1210–20) and Alaeddin Keykubad I (1220–37). The sul-
tans were not alone in this for there were good poets also among the statesmen,
such as Muhammed b. Gazi-i Malatyavi, the vezir of R
¨
ukneddin S
¨
uleymans¸ah;
Nizameddin Ahmed-i Erzincani and Mecdeddin Ebubekr, scribes of the period
of
˙
Izzeddin Keykavus I and Alaeddin Keykubad I; the vezir of
˙
Izzeddin Keykavus
II, S¸emseddin Muhammed
˙
Isfahani; Nizameddin Hurs¸id, the Pervane of Greek
origin of Sultan
˙
Izzeddin Keykavus II; and Emir Kemaleddin Kamyar.
Some poems written in the Anatolian Seljuk period in Persian, Arabic and
Turkish in the style of mesnevi (poems in rhymed couplets), kaside and rubai
(quatrain), an important number of them on Sufi subjects, have come down
to us today.
152
The best known among the Persian mesnevis is without doubt
the six-volume Mesnevi-i Ma’nevi (Masnavi-i Ma’navi) of Mevlana. Read at the
time, in later centuries and in our own day with great admiration and esteem,
and by the Mevlevis themselves today with a feeling of great reverence, it was
a work about which very many commentaries were written. We must also
not forget his Divan-ı Kebir (Divan-i Kabir) which was created from gazels (lyric
poems) and quatrains (rubai) which were uttered extemporaneously during
the sema (the whirling dance during the Mevlevi ceremony). Among this type
important examples are the
˙
Ibtidaname of Mevlana’s son Sultan Veled, the
oldest source for his father’s life and for Mevlevi beliefs, the Rebabname and
the
˙
Intihaname in which certain characteristics of the tarikat were discussed.
We must also include Sultan Veled’s Persian Divan (Collection) which was
made up of various forms of poetry, such as kaside, gazel, kıt’a, terci-i bend,
terkib-i bend, musammat and rubai.
Later in the fourteenth century in the time of the beyliks the most famous
Persian mesnevis which were written in Anatolia were the Anis al-Kulub of Kadı
Burhaneddin, which was a work of religio-moral character composed of seven
sections and which is counted as one of the oldest local sources of Anatolian
Seljuk history, the Munis al-Awarif of Naseddin-i Sicistani, and the Us¸s¸akname
of the great Iranian Sufi poet Fahreddin-i Iraki.
Turning to the poets who composed in Turkish and to their poetry, it
is known that Mevlana and his son Sultan Veled also wrote poems in this
152 For detailed information, see the citations in note 129.
416
Social, cultural and intellectual life, 1071–1453
language. But we must stress that Yunus Emre, who is thought to have lived
from the middle of the thirteenth century to the beginning of the fourteenth,
and who wrote a Turkish Divan and a mesnevi called Risalet
¨
u’n-Nushiyye, has
an exceptional place among the poets who wrote in Turkish in this period.
His importance lies in his works which explained his beliefs – although they
were not original from the point of view of Sufi thought – and his artistic
use of Turkish. Yunus Emre played an important role in the establishment of
Anatolian Turkish of the period as an independent written language and he
even created a Sufi Turkish terminology.
Another poet whose Turkish poems written in this period attract our atten-
tion is Dehhani. Some of his poems are found in the important collections of
nazire (imitative poetry) such as the Mecmu’at el-Neza’ir of
¨
Omer b. Mezid in
the fifteenth century, the Cami’ el-Neza’ir of E
˘
gridirli Hacı Kemaleddin in the
sixteenth, and the Kenz el-K
¨
ubera of S¸eyho
˘
glu Mustafa. Fuad K
¨
opr
¨
ul
¨
u regards
Dehhani as representing the beginning of secular classical Turkish poetry in
Anatolia. In contrast to the leanings of almost all the poets of the period
towards religious-Sufi subjects, the poems of Dehhani, to judge from the few
examples we have in our hands, almost in their entirety resonate with a world-
liness and a lively style almost in the manner of Omar Khayyam. Although
we know from the Karamano
˘
gulları S¸ahnamesi of Yarıcani, one of the poets of
fourteenth-century Anatolia, that Dehhani wrote a Persian Seljuk s¸ehname of
20,000 couplets in the style of Firdowsi’s Shahname on the order of Sultan Alaed-
din Keykubad I, this work has not come down to us. Other poets who should
be mentioned as the last of the poets of the Seljuk period are Kemaleddin
Hubeys¸b.
˙
Ibrahim Tiflisi, and Nasıri, son of R
¨
ukneddin el-Urmevi, dervishes
of Sultan Veled.
According to the information we have today the earliest recorded poet of
the fourteenth century was G
¨
uls¸ehri. G
¨
uls¸ehri, a Sufi poet who lived at the
end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth, is known for having
made various changes to the famous mesnevi, Mantiq al-Tayr of Farid al-din
‘Attar, and to have translated it into Turkish under the same title. From his
works it is very clear that he remained under the influence of the classical
Iranian poets such as Sa’di-i Shirazi, Farid ed-din ‘Attar, Hakim Senayi and
Nizami-i Genjevi, and in particular Mevlana. He wrote his poetic works with
the aim of proving that more beautiful works could be written in Turkish than
in Persian. Another Turkish work, again in the style of a mesnevi, is the little
treatise called Keramat-i Ahi Evren which gave an account of Turkish miracles
of the famous Ahi Evren and the rules of ahilik. Apart from this, there are also
some poems in the form of kaside, gazel or single couplets.
417
ahmet yas¸ar ocak
One of the fundamentally important poets of the period who was briefly
mentioned above was As¸ık Ali Pas¸a. As¸ık Pas¸a, who was the grandson of
Baba
˙
Ilyas-i Horasani, apart from the famous Garibname, was the author of
a Sufi mesnevi called Fakrname and other smaller volumes of mesnevis. Other
important poets of the period whom we must mention were S¸eyyad Hamza,
who was most probably an unconventional type of dervish who composed Sufi
poems written both in the aruz metre and in the syllabic metre, and works
called Yusuf u Zeliha, Dasitan-i Sultan Mahmud and Ahval-i Kıyamet; Ahmed
Fakih, whose works C¸arhname and Kitabu Evsaf-ı Mesacidi’s¸-S¸erife have survived
to today; and Mesud b. Ahmed (Hoca Mesud), who was most probably from
Germiyan and has a mesnevi called S
¨
uheyl
¨
u Nev-Bahar written in a meticulous
and lively Turkish.
Ahmedi, another of this period’s most important poets, received a good
theological education in Egypt, then returned to Anatolia where he first joined
Ayas Bey from the Aydıno
˘
gulları and later became a teacher and adviser to
Germiyano
˘
glu S
¨
uleymans¸ah. He then entered the service first of the Ottoman
sultan Yıldırım Bayezid, then of his son Emir S
¨
uleyman and finally of C¸ elebi
Mehmed. He died in Amasya. Ahmedi, who wrote his works in fourteenth–
fifteenth-century Anatolia, is best known for his
˙
Iskendername.TheMevlid and
Dasitan-i Tevarih-i M
¨
uluk-i Al-i Osman sections in this work are important, first
because they are the earliest Turkish examples of this type of work before the
composition of the famous S
¨
uleyman C¸ elebi, and second, because they are
the harbinger of the Ottoman history-writing tradition. Ahmedi also wrote
another Divan, and he rewrote under the same title and with some changes the
mesnevi called Cems¸id
¨
u Hurs¸id of the Iranian poet Salman Savaji, which took
as its subject one of his classic love stories. Apart from these works in Turkish,
Ahmedi wrote other works in Persian. It is accepted that with his verse works,
written on various subjects, Ahmedi made a considerable contribution both
to the development of Turkish and to the establishment of classical Turkish
literature.
Another significant poet was Ahmed-i Dai, from Germiyan, who lived from
the end of the fourteenth century to the beginning of the fifteenth and wrote
important works in Turkish. Ahmed-i Dai, a thorough master of Turkish and
of literary arts, or more correctly poetry, lived through the successive reigns of
the Germiyan Yakub Bey II, and the Ottoman sultans Murad I, Emir S
¨
uleyman,
Mehmed I and Murad II, and dedicated his work to these sultans. Although
his contribution to the creation of classical Anatolian Turkish literature was
considerable, from the point of view of his literary power, fame and later
influence, he lagged behind his contemporary Ahmedi.
418
Social, cultural and intellectual life, 1071–1453
Ahmed-i Dai, a highly cultured poet, was the author of as many as fifteen
works on various subjects. Of these, two copies of his Turkish Divan are extant.
His Persian Divan dated 1413 was dedicated to the vezir Hacı Halil Pas¸a on the
occasion of C¸ elebi Mehmed’s ascending the throne. His C¸ engname, which he
is said to have written under the inspiration of Emir S
¨
uleyman’s drinking
gatherings and in which Sufi motifs appear from time to time, is one of the
first examples composed on this subject. The work was created in twenty-four
sections suitable for a single-stringed eastern musical instrument called c¸eng
and for the twenty-four makams (modes) of eastern music. Another of his
works, the Camasbname, is an extended translation of the thirty-three-couplet
mesnevi of Nasir al-din Tusi (d. 1274) of the same title in the style of Yıldızname
(astrological book for predicting the future) which discusses the occult.
A further important poet of the era was the famous scholar, poet, man of
letters and statesman Kadı Burhaneddin (one of whose works in Persian, the
Anis al-Kulub, was discussed above). A Harezm Turk, he was the ruler of a state
named after him which he founded after the collapse of the Eretna state in
Sivas in the second half of the fourteenth century. The famous Turkish Divan
of Kadı Burhaneddin,
153
one of the most important and typical of the poets
of Anatolian classical Turkish poetry, shows a natural refinement, despite the
author having passed his life in political struggle. Only a single copy of this
Divan has survived.
S¸eyhi, whose real name was Yusuf Sinan, was another major poet of the
period. A doctor as well as a poet, S¸eyhi, who was raised in the fifteenth century
in the region of Germiyan, was said to have taken his pseudonym because of
his adherence to Hacı Bayram-ı Veli. At first in the service of Germiyano
˘
glu
Yakub Bey II, he then entered the service of C¸ elebi Mehmed when Germiyan
passed under the control of the Ottoman beylik, and then went on to serve
Murad II. His importance as a poet was such that he received the title S¸eyh
el-s¸u’ara (s¸eyh of the poets). He was the author of the second H
¨
usrev
¨
uS¸irin
story written in Anatolia. His famous Harname, written in clear Turkish, is an
example of an elegent and subtle social satire. Harname’s subtle witty humour
and satire placed it at the forefront of Turkish humour and satirical literature.
S¸eyhi was one of the major figures who contributed to the development of
classical Anatolian Turkish literature, and his Turkish Divan can be counted
among the fundamental works of Turkish literature.
154
153 This Divan can be found in the British Library, or. 4126.
154 For more detailed information on the poets and poetry of the Seljuk and beylik periods,
see Kartal, ‘Anadolu Selc¸ukluları D
¨
oneminde S¸iir ve S¸
ˆ
airler’, pp. 493–520.
419