A poet in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, "the three tongues" in Hüsameddin's phrase, Abdürrahîm Zeyneddîn el-Amâsî gave up his professorship in Amasya and moved to Aleppo and Damascus in the years when Mongol emirs governed Anatolia. He taught there and died some time after 710 (1310-11). As one of the earliest scholars trained in Amasya to move on to the cities of the Mamluks he deserves attention, yet all that is known of him comes from a single short entry, and not a line of his verse remains.

The Entry in the History of Amasya

Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's entry Abdürrahîm Zeyneddîn el-Amâsî consists of four sentences:

Amasya Kadısı Mevlânâ Mehmed Efendi'nin oğludur. Ulemâdan ikmâl-i tahsîl edib müderris iken Tatar beylerinin müz'îc hareketlerinden bizâr olarak Halep ve Şam'a gitdi. Orada tedrîs-i ulûm edib 710 sâlinden sonra vefât etdi. Kibâr-ı ulemâdan edîb, elsine-i selâsede şâir idi.

Its sense today: he was born to Mevlânâ Mehmed Efendi, judge of Amasya. He finished his education among the learned men of his day and, while a professor, grew weary of the vexing conduct of the Tatar lords and went to Aleppo and Damascus. There he taught, and he died after the year 710. He was a man of letters among the great scholars and a poet in three languages.

His Life and His Tie to Amasya

Abdürrahîm's link with Amasya is direct: his father was the town's judge, and he himself studied in Amasya and became a professor there. The source gives no year of birth, no madrasa and no teachers. The "Tatar lords" of Hüsameddin's phrase are the Mongol commanders and emirs who governed Anatolia for the Ilkhanids at the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth. Amasya was then under Ilkhanid rule; what the conduct Hüsameddin calls "müz'îc," vexing or oppressive, actually was is not explained in the entry.

Leaving Amasya for Mamluk lands was not unique in those years. The chief judge of Amasya Şemseddîn Mehmed Ebü'l-Fezâil er-Rûmî, whom Hüsameddin describes in the same volume, also went to Damascus in 727 (1326-27), at the time of the flight of Timurtaş Bey, governor of Sivas, to Egypt, and died there as a professor in Muharrem 729 (November-December 1328). Hüsameddin presents him too as a scholar of three languages and adds that he knew Mongolian. Abdürrahîm's departure falls some twenty years earlier and stands on its own; it is not tied to any political event.

The report that he taught in Aleppo and Damascus, the rounded death date "after the year 710," and the form of the heading, with the honorific "Zeyneddîn" and the nisba "el-Amâsî," suggest that Hüsameddin may have drawn on an Arabic biographical source. This is a guess; Hüsameddin does not name his source, and no record under this name has come to light in the sources of the Mamluk period.

His Poetry

One of the three tongues Hüsameddin names is Turkish, and so little Turkish verse survives from early fourteenth-century Anatolia that the texts behind the phrase "a poet in the three tongues" would be well worth seeing. None of Abdürrahîm Zeyneddîn's poems has been found. Hüsameddin names no work and gives not a single couplet. Since his last years were spent in Aleppo and Damascus, most of his poetry might be expected to have been in Arabic; the source says nothing on the point.

Chronology

After 710 (1310-11): He dies in Damascus or Aleppo.

727 (1326-27): Another scholar of Amasya, the chief judge Şemseddîn Mehmed Ebü'l-Fezâil, goes to Damascus.

Bibliography

Online sources