Among the scholars of Amasya's last Ottoman generation, Abdurrahman Kâmil Efendi is known chiefly for his years as mufti, for the pulpit of the Beyazıt Mosque and for the Friday sermon he gave in the summer of 1919. He also had a poet's face, and it long went unnoticed. Studies of him were content to say that he left a divan and gave no room to the poems themselves. An article published by Avni Erdemir in 2019 filled this gap: in the autograph Divançe held by the National Library of Turkey, fourteen Turkish poems written under the pen name "Kâmil" were identified and published in transcription. This page introduces Kâmil Efendi as a poet, the manuscript that holds his poems and each of those fourteen poems.

Most of the poems show how easily a madrasa teacher who lived into the twentieth century could move within the forms and stock images of classical divan poetry. He wrote ghazals, kasides, mesnevis, a muhammes and a müsemmen, used seven different patterns of aruz (quantitative metre) and composed an elif-nâme that sets the letters of the Arabic alphabet in order. In almost every poem the subject is divine love; the words belonging to the beloved carry a mystical meaning. One of the poems is the fifty-five-couplet mesnevi written for Şeyh Şâdî, who lies buried in the village of Şeyhsadi near Amasya, and it has been published in the site's Poems on Amasya series.

His Life

Mecdîzâde Abdurrahman Kâmil Efendi was born in Amasya in 1850; Erdemir gives the hijri date as 15 Jumada al-akhira 1266 and converts it to 28 April 1850. He was a child of the Mecdîzâde family, which had migrated from the Crimea; his father was Ahmed Rif'at Efendi, who had served as a kadı, and his grandfather the Naqshbandi sheikh Mustafa Mecdî Efendi. He completed his memorisation of the Qur'an at the primary school, studied at the Rüşdiye school founded by Ziya Paşa and at the Mehmed Paşa Madrasa, took Qur'anic recitation, the law of inheritance and aruz from his elder brother Sâdık Efendi and exegesis, hadith and jurisprudence from Mîr Hasan Efendi of Shirvan, and received his licence (icâzet) in 1879. He taught at the Bekir Paşa Madrasa and was pulpit sheikh at the Sultan Bayezid Mosque; he became mufti of Amasya in May 1900, retired in 1915 and, reappointed in July 1922, remained mufti until his death. The sermon he gave on 13 June 1919 to a congregation that included Mustafa Kemal Paşa, and his place as second member of the Amasya Society for the Defence of Rights founded the next day, set him within the history of the Turkish War of Independence. The sources differ on the date of his death and his grave: accounts based on the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi give 31 December 1941 and the Tekirdede Cemetery, while Erdemir's record, based on Recep Orhan Özel, gives Thursday 18 December 1941 and the Şamlar Cemetery. His life is told in detail in the site's biography of Abdurrahman Kâmil Efendi.

His Ties to Amasya

Kâmil Efendi belonged to Amasya from birth to death, and his poems too came out of a life spent in the city's mosques and madrasas. In the preface explaining why the Divançe was written, he says he was teaching exegesis at the Gümüşlüzâde Ahmed Paşa Mosque and shared with his listeners the feelings that arose in him while he was teaching the sura al-Waqi'a from Kâdî Beyzâvî's commentary Envârü't-tenzîl ve esrârü't-te'vîl. He states that he wrote the work itself "at the insistence of friends and the wish of the people". Özel places these lessons in the Gümüşlü Mosque. According to Hüsameddin, the Gümüşlü Mosque was repaired by Gümüşlüzâde Ahmed Paşa after the earthquake of 818 (1415-16); it is therefore possible that the two names refer to the same mosque, but this is our inference.

The longest of the poems is also tied to Amasya. When Kâmil Efendi was charged with rebuilding the tomb of Şeyh Şâdî, he went on 8 August 1308 by the Rumi calendar (20 August 1892) to the village of Şeyhsadi, now attached to central Amasya, visited the tomb and two days later wrote a mesnevi of fifty-five couplets. The poem takes the form of a "sefer-nâme", a travel letter: the pen is asked to write a letter to a beloved, the lover wandering in separation reaches the village of Şeyh Şâdî, lays his face on the sheikh's grave and prays. The original text of this mesnevi, its English translation and the story of the tomb are given in the article in the Poems on Amasya series; they are not repeated here.

His Works

Most of Kâmil Efendi's works concern the religious sciences and the Arabic language. Combining the records of Erdemir, Kâmil Şahin and Özel, the following works are known: the treatise on ethics Nakdü'l-hâtır fî cilâi'n-nâzır, completed in 1938 (Amasya Manuscript Library 1708/1); Tebyînü'l-muğlakât ve'l-mühimmât min elfâzi'l-Makāmât (1920-21), which explains the difficult words of Harîrî's Maqamat; an unfinished Arabic commentary on Sa'dî of Shiraz's Bostan; Terâcim-i Ahvâl, which gives biographies of names beginning with the letter qaf; his sermons collected in three manuscripts at the National Library (Mevâiz); Mir'âtü'ş-şüûni'l-hakāik, a translation of Ahmed Hüsâmeddin Dâğıstânî's work on prognostication; the Hâtırât (memoirs) of 1903; a 1904 commentary on Büstî's Kasîde-i Nûniyye; an incomplete commentary on the sura Ya-Sin; his fatwas and the notes of his exegesis lessons at the Beyazıt Mosque.

The only work connected with his poetry is the notebook of poems known as the Dîvân-ı Kâmil. In the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi Kâmil Şahin writes that the divan, which also contains Arabic and Persian poems, was completed in 1884 and that the author's own biography stands at its end. Mustafa Murat Batman repeats the same information and adds that the work contains poems addressed to contemporaries of the learned class. The copy Erdemir studied, however, is in the National Library and does not agree with part of this information.

The Divançe: Its Copy and Composition

The manuscript is registered in the National Library's Manuscripts Collection under number Yz. A 8993 with the title Divançe. It is an autograph copy of ninety-eight pages; it is unbound, the pages are written in ta'lik script in nineteen lines, and some couplets and pauses are marked in red ink. On the outer cover is the phrase "Dîvân-ı Kâmil Mecdîzâde", evidently added later. On page ninety-eight there is a pencil note by Kâmil Şahin dated 9 July 2002: he writes that no one should work on the divan without seeing him first, because he holds other poems on loose sheets. Together with the entry "purchase: Şahin Kitabevi, 2002" on the cover, this note shows that the copy was sold to the National Library that year. Erdemir states that he met Şahin but could not obtain these separate sheets of poems.

The arrangement of the copy is confused. After page eighty-one, pages torn from another, revised copy of the work have been pasted in; these repeat the preface and the first pages. The first poem of the work, a mesnevi, therefore appears as seven couplets on page two and as seventeen couplets on page 86b, which was added later, while the pen-name couplet is on page eighty-one. Erdemir joined the pieces and published the mesnevi as nineteen couplets.

The date of composition is also disputed. Kâmil Şahin and those who follow him give 1884. According to Erdemir the phrase "Ramadan of three hundred and two" in the preface corresponds to June-July 1885; since the last poem of the work is the Şeyh Şâdî mesnevi, writing must have ended in August 1892. In one of Erdemir's footnotes the end date appears as 10 August 1890; the main text of his article gives 20 August 1892, and the Rumi year 1308 fits this second date.

The title of the work is not stated plainly in the text. In the preface Kâmil Efendi names the reason for writing as "sebeb-i tahrîr-i nemîka-i firâk ve mûcib-i tastîr-i vesîka-i iştiyâk", that is, the reason for writing the letter of separation and setting down in lines the document of longing, and introduces himself with this couplet:

Dil ü cânı riyâdan pâk u sâde
Muhabbet geştesi bu Mecdîzâde

His heart and soul cleansed of hypocrisy, plain; this Mecdîzâde, a wanderer on the path of love. On the basis of this phrase Erdemir thinks the work's real title may have been Nemîka-i Firâk ve Vesîka-i İştiyâk. Nor can the work be called a divan: its prose sections are longer than its verse, and mystical ideas written in rhymed, ornate prose are supported by poems in Turkish, Arabic and Persian. For this reason Özel calls the work a "divançe" and describes it as an account, in verse and prose, of the passage from figurative to divine love. The work also contains quotations from Nâbî, Fuzûlî and Cinânî of Bursa; Kâmil Efendi names the first two but does not mention Cinânî.

His Literary Character

So as not to attribute to Kâmil pieces without a pen name that might belong to other poets, Erdemir took as his basis only the poems that carry the pen name "Kâmil". By this measure there are fourteen Turkish poems: four mesnevis, two kasides, one muhammes, one müsemmen and six ghazals. On the pen name the TDV article gives different information: it says the family bore the pen name "Mecîdî" after Mecitözü. In all the Turkish poems of the Divançe, however, the pen name is Kâmil; the name "Mecdîzâde" appears only in the couplet of the preface.

The notebook also contains a muhammes that might be taken for Kâmil's. Erdemir established that the first, third and sixth stanzas of this muhammes, which ends with the refrain "Görmemek yegdür görüp dîvâne olmakdan seni", are the first three stanzas of a five-stanza muhammes by Cinânî of Bursa. The other three stanzas may be Kâmil's, but because the pen-name stanza is missing from the copy, Erdemir gave them only in a footnote and did not count them among the fourteen poems. On this page too that muhammes is not counted among Kâmil's poems.

In metre Kâmil Efendi stays within the bounds of divan poetry. Six poems use the pattern "fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün", two use "feilâtün feilâtün feilâtün feilün", and two mesnevis use "müfteilün fâilün müfteilün fâilün"; the first mesnevi is written in "fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün", the Şeyh Şâdî mesnevi in "mefâîlün mefâîlün feûlün", and one ghazal in four repetitions of "mefâîlün". The two kasides, however, step outside the tradition and are written in two separate patterns. In the first kaside the first two couplets and the second lines of the following couplets use four repetitions of "feilâtün", while the other first lines are built on "feilâtün feilâtün feilâtün feilün". In the elif-nâme kaside only the first line is in the "mefâîlün" pattern, and the rest runs in "fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün". Erdemir notes that a poem written in two separate metres is rarely seen in classical poetry.

Another feature Erdemir draws attention to is a number of faults of syllable. Words with long vowels such as "bîh", "hîç", "yâr" and "tîz" are at times counted as one syllable instead of one and a half, closed syllables are read as open (zihaf), and the Arabic letter ‘ayn is ignored in keeping with Turkish pronunciation. Erdemir explains these largely as the reflection in Kâmil's poetry of Turkish aruz as it changed over time. He gives his examples from the second mesnevi; one example he labels "G1/7", but the quoted couplet "İşte ‘inân-ı ḫıyâr çıḳdı elimden bu dem" is, in the text section of his article, the seventh couplet of the second mesnevi. The poet also uses expressions close to spoken language such as "sen biliñ" and "bunca ḥuḳûḳ".

The subject of the poems is divine love, and Erdemir says a fervent lyricism prevails in them. The stock images that divan poets used for an idealised beauty, the brow, the hair, the cheek, the cypress stature, the ruby lips, are spoken here in the language of mystical love. The first mesnevi opens with the basmala, praise of God and blessings on the Prophet, and ends with the couplet in which the poet tells himself, "walk in the footsteps of the Companions, be a traveller on the Sunni path". The second ghazal says that love is a tughra written on the brow at the feast of pre-eternity and that the love of God cannot be reached "without crossing the bridge of the figurative". The muhammes contains a social criticism that mocks the beloved's surrender to gold and silver. In the refrain of the müsemmen the lover is ready to send his soul to the beloved by a messenger. The ghazal with the refrain "of" builds the pain of separation from the repetition of a sigh.

These poems are not the whole of Kâmil Efendi's verse. His son Ahmed Emrî Yetkin related that his father destroyed some of his poems himself and that others were lost. Why he destroyed them is not known. The Arabic and Persian poems mentioned by the TDV and by Batman, the poems addressed to members of the learned class and the sheets of poems in Kâmil Şahin's hands have not been published either. Erdemir writes that if the lost poems are found, Kâmil's poetry could be assessed more soundly. The fourteen poems we have nonetheless give a clear enough picture of a poetic world written between sermons and lessons by a madrasa teacher who knew the tradition well and at times departed from it.

His Poems

Erdemir arranged the poems not in their manuscript order but by verse form. The numbers below are his; the page numbers are those of the Divançe. Each poem except the Şeyh Şâdî mesnevi appears in a separate article in this category with its original text, an English translation and commentary.

  • Mesnevi 1 (19 couplets, pp. 2, 86b, 81): "Maṭla‘-ı envâr-ı Ḳur'ân-ı Kerîm"; the basmala, praise, blessings on the Prophet and loyalty to the Sunni path.
  • Mesnevi 2 (7 couplets, pp. 4-5): "Pend ile meşġûl iken ḳapdı göñül ṭıflını"; the portrait of a beauty who seized the heart while the poet was giving counsel.
  • Mesnevi 3 (9 couplets, pp. 50-51): "Aldım ele nâmeñi"; a reply to the lover's letter in the beloved's voice.
  • Mesnevi 4 (55 couplets, pp. 93-98): "Sefer-nâme yaz ey ḫâme o şâha"; the mesnevi written in the village of Şeyh Şâdî, in the Poems on Amasya series.
  • Kaside 1 (15 couplets, pp. 7-9): "Yine medḥ eyleyeyim bir güzeliñ ḥüsn-i cemâlin"; a eulogy of a beauty written in two metres.
  • Kaside 2, Elif-nâme (15 couplets, pp. 47-49): "(Elif) âmâl-i dünyâ riştesin ḳaṭ‘ eyledim cânâ"; each line begins with a letter of the Arabic alphabet.
  • Muhammes (6 stanzas, pp. 20-22): with the refrain "Bir mü'es̱s̱ir nüsḫadır kim nâmı anıñ sîm ü zer", on gold and silver.
  • Müsemmen (5 stanzas, pp. 87-88): with the refrain "Çekeyim tîġımı ben kendime kendim urayım"; its first stanza lacks two lines.
  • Ghazal 1 (7 couplets, pp. 6-7): "Dil yine bir şeh-levendiñ ‘aşḳına sevdâlıdır".
  • Ghazal 2 (13 couplets, pp. 10-12): with the refrain "ey göñül ... ‘aşḳ", definitions of love.
  • Ghazal 3 (5 couplets, p. 61): with the refrain "görmüş", a complaint of faithlessness.
  • Ghazal 4 (5 couplets, pp. 65-66): a ghazal of separation with the refrain "of".
  • Ghazal 5 (13 couplets, pp. 66-68): "Bu ḳadar ḥasrete ṣabr idemezem sulṭânım".
  • Ghazal 6 (3 couplets, p. 90): "Çeşm-i lüṭfuñla kime itdiñse cânânım naẓar"; according to Erdemir an incomplete ghazal.

Chronology

1850: Born in Amasya on 28 April (15 Jumada al-akhira 1266).

1879: Received his licence from Mîr Hasan Efendi and became teacher at the Bekir Paşa Madrasa.

1884: According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, completed his divan.

1885: In Ramadan 1302 (June-July 1885), according to Erdemir, began writing the Divançe.

1892: On 20 August went to the village of Şeyhsadi to rebuild the tomb of Şeyh Şâdî; two days later wrote the mesnevi that is the last poem of the Divançe.

1900: Became mufti of Amasya in May.

1919: On 13 June gave his National Struggle sermon at the Beyazıt Mosque.

1922: Reappointed mufti of Amasya in July.

1941: Died in Amasya in December (18 or 31 December).

2002: The copy of the Divançe was sold to the National Library on 9 July.

2019: Avni Erdemir published the fourteen Turkish poems in transcription.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Avni Erdemir, "Amasyalı Abdurrahman Kâmil (Yetkin) Efendi'nin Şairliği ve Türkçe Şiirleri", Amasya İlahiyat Dergisi, 12, June 2019, pp. 153-194, doi:10.18498/amailad.579964. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/amailad/article/579964
  • Kâmil Şahin, "Yetkin, Abdurrahman Kâmil", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 43, İstanbul 2013, pp. 504-505. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/yetkin-abdurrahman-kamil
  • Recep Orhan Özel, "Amasya'da Bir Âlim Yuvası: Mecdîzâde Abdurrahman Kâmil Yetkin (Ö.1941) ve Oğulları Mehmet Sabri Yetkin (Ö.1963), Ahmet Emrî Yetkin (Ö.1974), Mustafa Niyazi Yetkin (Ö.1959)", Amasya Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 6(10), 2018, pp. 39-72 (via Erdemir 2019). amasya.bel.tr
  • Mustafa Murat Batman, "Osmanlı'nın Son Döneminden Cumhuriyete Uzanan Bir Âlim: Amasyalı Abdurrahman Kâmil (Yetkin) Efendi", Uluslararası Amasya Âlimleri Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı, vol. 2, Ankara: KIBATEK, 2017, pp. 509-515 (via Erdemir 2019).

Books

  • Mecdîzâde Abdurrahman Kâmil, Divançe, National Library of Turkey, Manuscripts Collection, Yz. A 8993, 98 pp. (author's autograph).

Online sources