Two Faces of One Name

Âfitâbî was one of the poets and scholars who grew up in Amasya in the second half of the fifteenth century around Şehzade Bayezid (Prince Bayezid), the future Bayezid II. His given name was Abdurrahman Çelebi; Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar, listing him among the celebrated teachers of the Sultâniye Madrasa in Merzifon, also calls him "Nizâmeddîn Abdurrahmân Âfitâbî". The epithet "Şeyhîzâde" comes from his grandfather, Şeyhî Çelebi. His pen name derives from the Persian word âfitâb, "sun", and the biographers of poets usually spell it "Âftâbî". They liked to play on it: Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi builds his whole entry on the image, saying that the sun of his being rose over the horizon of Merzifon and that the sun of his life one day set and was gone.

Âfitâbî's life can be read from two distinct groups of sources, and each shows a different face of the same man. The sixteenth-century tezkires, the biographical dictionaries of poets, present him as a poet who shone in the prince's circle, fell from favour through the whispers of the envious, and spent his last years in Amasya preaching and in seclusion: a man drawn to Sufism, fond of jests and given to love. Hüsâmeddin's Amasya Tarihi, by contrast, sees him as a member of the learned establishment: a madrasa teacher, a judge in Ankara and Sivas, and in retirement the administrator of Sultan Bayezid's pious endowments (waqfs) in Amasya and a companion of Şehzade Ahmed. For the most part the two portraits complement each other, but in a few places they openly conflict. His birthplace, the date of his disgrace and the date of his death head the list.

Family and Education

According to Hüsâmeddin, Âfitâbî was a native of Amasya. His father was Şemseddîn Mehmed Çelebi, a member of the ulema, and his grandfather was Şeyhî Çelebi. The same author makes him the brother of Abdülkerîm Çelebi, who wrote under the pen name Hâtemî. Hâtemî Abdülkerîm was himself a well-known figure in Amasya: he studied with Rükneddîn Ahmed Cendî, taught at the Halifet Gazi Madrasa and entered the inner circle of Şehzade Bayezid, then governor of Amasya. When Mehmed II (the Conqueror) came to Amasya in 878 (1473) and dismissed the prince's lala (tutor-guardian), Çandarlızâde İbrahim Paşa, Hâtemî too was sent to Tokat; some time later he gave up teaching, attached himself to Şeyh İbrahim Tennûrî and received his licence as a deputy (hilafet) in Kayseri, and on his return served as a pulpit preacher in Amasya, dying around 903 (1497-98). Hâtemî's son, Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi, would later join the intimates of Şehzade Ahmed and die in 918 (1512-13), grieving over the prince's death. Âfitâbî thus came from a learned family that lived, over two generations, in close contact with the princely courts of Amasya.

In his entry on Hâtemî, Hüsâmeddin also names among his brothers Mevlânâ Abdî Çelebi, one of the renowned scholars of the day. It is highly likely that this Mevlânâ Abdî is the same person as "Allâme Abdî Efendi", the mufti of Amasya who died in 907, the same year as Âfitâbî; indeed, Hüsâmeddin writes that in 903 Abdî Efendi gave up the administration of Sultan Bayezid's endowments and that Âfitâbî succeeded him. Yet the author's text never explicitly joins the two, and elsewhere he calls Mevlânâ Abdî "Şeyhzâde Abdülkerîm Çelebi", which only confuses the names further. That Abdî Efendi was Âfitâbî's brother therefore cannot be taken as certain; it should be recorded as a strong possibility.

No source gives the date of Âfitâbî's birth. According to Hüsâmeddin he learned the religious sciences, the rational sciences and the literary arts from the scholars of Amasya, received his licence and began lecturing publicly as a "ders-i âm". The tezkires stress that this education also had a Sufi side. Âşık Çelebi introduces him as the "zûfünûn of his age", a man versed in many sciences, and says that after working for a time on the path of learning he turned to the Sufi path and served the masters of the order. Kınalızâde follows the same sequence: first formal learning, then entry onto the Sufi path and the completion of "ilm-i bâtın", the inner knowledge. The family's ties to Sufism, given his brother Hâtemî's deputyship under Tennûrî, make this account credible.

The Question of His Birthplace: Amasya, Tosya or Merzifon

The most striking contradiction concerning Âfitâbî arises over where he came from. The four great tezkires of the sixteenth century give three different answers. The first biographer of poets, Sehî Bey, in his Heşt Bihişt completed in 945 (1538), says briefly that he "is from Tosya", adding that he served Şehzade Ahmed and that Sehî never saw him, though he knew his poems. Latîfî, writing his tezkire in 953 (1546), plainly ties him to "the city of Amasya" and counts him among its famous poets. Latîfî repeats the same view in his entry on Mihrî Hatun, writing that Mihrî was a "fellow townsman" of Münîrî and Âftâbî.

In Âşık Çelebi's Meşâirü'ş-şuarâ, completed in 976 (1568), however, the first word of the entry is "Merzifonîdür", "he is from Merzifon". Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi adopts this view in the tezkire he finished in 994 (1586), saying that the poet's sun rose over the horizon of "the town of Merzifon". The later tezkire of Beyânî gives no birthplace and records only that he lived in Amasya in retreat and seclusion, counselling the people. The entry in Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî's Künhü'l-ahbâr likewise passes over his birthplace and tells how he won Sultan Bayezid's favour in Amasya.

This confusion has carried over into modern scholarship. Mehmet Fatih Köksal's entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature) states that Latîfî gives Amasya while the other biographers give Tosya. In the editions available to us, however, the Tosya attribution appears only in Sehî; Âşık Çelebi and Kınalızâde clearly say Merzifon. For this reason some literary historians have also called him "of Merzifon". Hüsâmeddin, for his part, gives his family and lineage and says he was from Amasya.

A plausible explanation for the Merzifon attribution may lie in the list of posts Hüsâmeddin provides. That Âfitâbî taught for a period at the Sultâniye Madrasa in Merzifon is established by Hüsâmeddin's accounts in two separate places. It is easy to see how a teacher who spent part of his life in this town of the Amasya region could be called "of Merzifon" by later writers who knew him from there. No source states this explicitly; the explanation is an interpretation drawn from the fit between his posts and the attributions. Why Sehî calls him "of Tosya" cannot be explained with the sources at hand. Combined with the information shared by Latîfî and Âşık Çelebi that "he spent his life in Amasya", the local historian's family details can be said to provide sufficient grounds for linking Âfitâbî to Amasya; which town was precisely his birthplace remains a matter of debate.

In the Circle of Şehzade Bayezid

Bayezid II had been sent to the sanjak of Amasya at the age of seven and remained in the city for some twenty-seven years, from 1454 until his accession in 1481. The prince's love of literature soon turned Amasya into a gathering place for poets and scholars. Hüsâmeddin writes that during the years when Bayezid, and after him his son Ahmed, were in Amasya, those who served Ottoman literature multiplied, and that poets such as "Tâcî, Âfitâbî, Figânî, Kutbî, Münîrî, Ca'ferî and Sa'dî" grew up in this period. Modern studies likewise count Âfitâbî among the poets of this circle, together with Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi, Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi, Mihrî Hatun, Zeyneb Hatun and Cezerî Kasım Paşa, who wrote as Sâfî.

According to Hüsâmeddin, Âfitâbî, at the time when he was lecturing publicly, drew close to the prince, then governor of Amasya, by presenting him with qasidas, and entered the ranks of his companions (musahib). Latîfî tells the same story: while Sultan Bayezid was "Çelebi Sultan" in Amasya, Âfitâbî won his closeness through his learning and accomplishment, became one of the select few admitted to his private gatherings, and through the prince's favour gained considerable standing. Âlî specifically notes that the means of this closeness was poetry. When Hüsâmeddin lists the dignitaries of the prince's court in Amasya in the years just before the inspection committee sent by Mehmed II, he includes, alongside the vizier and companion Hızır Paşazâde Mahmud Paşa, the lala Fenârîzâde Ahmed Bey, the chancellor (nişancı) Tâcî Bey and Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi, "the intimate and poet Âfitâbî Abdurrahman Çelebi". This is the clearest statement of his place in the circle: Âfitâbî was not there in any official capacity; he was there as a close companion and poet of the prince.

A shared name calls for care here. One of the best-known figures of the same circle was Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi, who also bore the name Abdurrahman and wrote poetry under the pen name Hâtemî. The "Abdurrahman Efendi" who appears in Hüsâmeddin's texts and flees to Iran after the imperial decree is Müeyyedzâde; Âfitâbî is everywhere mentioned together with his pen name. Moreover, the pen name of Âfitâbî's brother was also Hâtemî. Two Abdurrahmans and two Hâtemîs in the same circle are names easily confused in historical writing, and what is told here belongs solely to Âfitâbî Abdurrahman Çelebi.

The Halîmî Affair and the Fall from Favour

In the second half of the 1470s, Şehzade Bayezid's court in Amasya was shaken by an investigation from Istanbul. As Hüsâmeddin tells it, the affair began with Halîmî Lütfullah Çelebi, a scholar from Amasya. Halîmî, then judge of Sivas, was dismissed in 879 (1474-75) through the intervention of the prince's dignitaries in Amasya, imprisoned and interrogated in Tokat for about three months, and finally released when his innocence became clear. Deeply aggrieved by this treatment, Halîmî went to Istanbul and in 881 (1476) presented Mehmed II with an Arabic qasida recounting his misfortunes in veiled allusions, together with a commentary on it. In the commentary he pointed one by one to those surrounding the prince, saying that it was they who had accustomed him to drinking.

Mehmed II thereupon sent Hamza Beyzâde Mustafa Paşa, one of the viziers of the imperial council, to investigate in Amasya. According to Hüsâmeddin, when the committee arrived in 882 (1477) the prince and his intimates were at a gathering in Lâdik. During the long investigation complaints followed one upon another and the dignitaries turned against each other. The imperial decree that followed ordered the execution of Hızır Paşazâde Mahmud Paşa, Tâcî Bey and Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi, and the dismissal and reassignment of the others. Mahmud Paşa was executed; Tâcî Bey fled to Baghdad, and Müeyyedzâde first to Aleppo and from there to Iran. Hüsâmeddin's historical narrative devotes a single sentence to Âfitâbî in all this: "Âfitâbî Abdurrahman Çelebi was sent to Merzifon."

The sources date these events differently. The historical section of Hüsâmeddin's Amasya Tarihi places the decree in 883 (1478-79); another entry in the biographical volumes of the same work says that the decree was issued in 881 and that Âfitâbî too was sent away. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry on Müeyyedzâde places his flight in 884 (1479). The date of Âfitâbî's removal from Amasya should therefore be sought somewhere between 1476 and 1479.

Hüsâmeddin's own texts also disagree about where Âfitâbî went next. The historical section says he was sent to Merzifon. The biographical entry, however, says that "in 883 he too was struck by the Halîmî affair and was sent to Ankara"; it adds that he taught there and was appointed to the Sultâniye professorship in Merzifon only in 886, at Bayezid's accession. What the two accounts share is that Âfitâbî was not among those threatened with execution, but was removed from the prince's side and given a madrasa in the provinces.

The tezkires tell of the same fall in more personal terms. According to Latîfî, it is an old custom that men of merit who are close to sultans and viziers should be envied by their peers; spiteful and envious people closed off, through discord and intrigue, Âfitâbî's path to the prince's company, drove him far from his presence and broke his delicate heart "in the days of his old age". The prince, too, heeded what was said and avoided his company, and Âfitâbî was left "rejected and forsaken". Âlî's account is similar: men with grudges deprived him of the sovereign's favour and turned him upside down, like an aged sheikh fallen from a lofty rank. The tezkires' emphasis on "old age" does not fit well with Hüsâmeddin's chronology, which places the affair at the end of the 1470s. The discrepancy suggests either that Âfitâbî was already advanced in years at that time, or that the biographers were describing a different estrangement; the sources offer nothing that would settle the point.

The Accession Qasida

The qasida Âfitâbî wrote to regain the prince's goodwill is the literary document of his life story. Latîfî says that, in order to lay what had happened before the ruler, Âfitâbî poured his situation and the grief in his heart into a qasida, crafting many artful images in it, and quotes two couplets from its opening. Âlî also mentions the same qasida as a petition the poet sent to appease the sovereign's anger. Hüsâmeddin pins down the moment of its composition: Âfitâbî sent this poem from Ankara on the occasion of Sultan Bayezid's accession in 886 (1481). The couplets of the qasida most often quoted in the tezkires are these:
Müjeñ tîrine cân itmek hedef devlet nişânıdur
Velî benüm gibi hâkînüñ ol devlet ne şânıdur
Yeter düşdüm ırâġ oḳ gibi ḳurbân olduġum raḥm it
Ḫam-ı ebrûlaruñdan kim yed-i ḳudret kemânıdur

In these couplets, written in the language of the ghazal, to make one's soul the target of the beloved's eyelash-arrows is counted a "mark of fortune", while the poet, saying that he has fallen as lowly as dust and been flung far like an arrow, begs for mercy. The third couplet, which Latîfî describes as "showing the poet's resentment and distress", asks the heavens to withdraw their meddling hand in the time of this shah. A reproach voiced in the language of love carries at once a courtier's disgrace and his longing to be received again.

Teacher, Judge and Retirement

The sequence of posts given by Hüsâmeddin is as follows: a teaching post in Ankara; in 886 (1481), at Bayezid's accession, the professorship of the Sultâniye Madrasa in Merzifon; then the judgeship of Ankara and later that of Sivas. This madrasa in Merzifon had been built by Çelebi Sultan Mehmed, Mehmed I; Hüsâmeddin counts "Nizâmeddîn Abdurrahmân Âfitâbî" among the teachers who made the madrasa famous until the nineteenth century, together with Ferîdeddîn Mehmed Devvânî, Seydî Şemseddîn Ahmed Kırımî and Rükneddîn Abdülkerîm Amâsî. The sources offer no further detail about his years as a judge.

According to Hüsâmeddin, Âfitâbî retired at his own request in 903 (1497-98) and returned to Amasya. In the same year the mufti of Amasya, Abdî Efendi, gave up the administration of Sultan Bayezid's endowments, which he had held, and "the famous Âfitâbî Abdurrahman Çelebi" became their administrator (mütevelli) in his place. The Sultan Bayezid mosque complex (külliye) and the endowments attached to it were the greatest work the sultan left to the city where he had spent his years as a prince. That the poet once removed from the prince's circle should, in his old age, be placed in charge of these endowments suggests that the rift with the sultan had healed over time.

During these years the governor of Amasya was Bayezid II's son, Şehzade Ahmed. Hüsâmeddin writes that Âfitâbî remained Şehzade Ahmed's companion until his death. The tezkires confirm this. Sehî says that he was in Şehzade Ahmed's service. According to Âşık Çelebi, Âfitâbî finally attached himself to Sultan Ahmed, through whose favour a few akçes were assigned to him as a pension, and until his death he lived in Amasya and its surroundings, preaching and counselling, in seclusion apart from the people. Âşık Çelebi adds that while preaching Âfitâbî was sometimes overcome by a mystical "state", showed signs of ecstasy and stirred the gathering by giving vent to his rapture. Kınalızâde writes that while preaching to the people he also cut himself off from their company and withdrew into seclusion. These last years, spent between the administration of endowments, the prince's company and the preacher's pulpit at the end of a life passed in madrasa and courtroom, are where the tezkires' portrait of a Sufi poet meets Hüsâmeddin's portrait of a man of the learned establishment.

Death and Family

The sources also differ on the date of Âfitâbî's death. Hüsâmeddin writes that he died in Amasya at the beginning of the year 907 (the summer or autumn of 1501). In the same year the mufti of Amasya, Abdî Efendi, also died, and Sinan Bey, an emir nicknamed "Yular Kısdı", was appointed administrator of Sultan Bayezid's endowments. This record of succession is worth noting because it ties the date Hüsâmeddin gives to the administrative events of the city. The tezkires, by contrast, give no date of death, stating only that he lived a long life and died in Amasya. Sadettin Nüzhet Ergun, in his Türk Şairleri published in 1936, proposed that he must have lived until 1494. Ergun's estimate cannot be reconciled with Hüsâmeddin's information on his retirement and administration of the endowments. No information on the location of his grave has been found in the sources.

Hüsâmeddin records that Âfitâbî's son, Abdülhayy Efendi, was one of the senior judges and gives him a separate entry under the epithet "Âfitâbîzâde". According to Hüsâmeddin's biographical entry, Âfitâbî was a scholar, a man of letters and a poet; skilled in chancery writing and prose composition, sweet of tongue, fond of jests and a master of conversation. These characterisations also agree with the tezkire anecdotes told below.

Literary Personality

Latîfî counts Âfitâbî "among the famous poets and the notables of the eloquent", that is, among the celebrated poets and finest masters of language of his day, and says that he had a divan of colourful poems and a sweet manner of expression. No copy of this divan is known today. What survives of his poetry consists of the couplets in the tezkires and a few poems in the nazire anthologies, collections of parallel poems: according to Köksal, four of his poems appear in Pervâne Bey's nazire anthology and two in Edirneli Nazmî's Mecma'u'n-nezâ'ir. His inclusion in these anthologies shows that his contemporaries took his poems as models and wrote parallels to them.

The matla, the opening couplet, beginning with the line "Yine diş yarası var sîb-i zenahdânunda", which nearly all the biographers quote, is described by Latîfî as "famous" and by Kınalızâde as "famed throughout the age". The ghazal beginning "Ka'be-i kûyuna yol vir aña kim yol varamaz" is also among the couplets cited by Sehî, Âşık Çelebi and Beyânî. Latîfî further records a couplet of his saying that a heart with fire within is known, like the reed flute, by its breath. The texts of his poems and their detailed assessment are the subject of a separate article in the Literature section.

A good part of the lines the tezkires devote to Âfitâbî goes to a story showing his playful and amorous side. Sehî relates that he struck up a friendship with a beauty named Çerâğ. One day Çerâğ invited him to his room; Âfitâbî went, saying "to accept an invitation is the Prophet's custom", but on finding that a drinking party had been set up in the room, he wished, as a pious Sufi, to turn back. Those present would not let him go, sat him down by force and made him drink wine. When sleep overcame him, the muslin turban on his head fell into the cup and the flame of the lamp caught his cloak and set it alight. Coming to his senses and seeing his plight, Âfitâbî spoke this couplet:
Sûfîsin Âfitâbî bezm-i Çerâġa varma
Kim ḫırḳañ oda yanar düşer şarâba tâcın

The play in the couplet rests on the fact that "çerâğ", the beloved's name, also means "lamp": the Sufi who goes to "the lamp's gathering" sees his cloak fall into the fire and his cap into the wine. Âşık Çelebi mentions the same person under the name "Çerâğ" and says that Âfitâbî gave his heart to this young man. A detail Âşık Çelebi adds lends the story a reality of its own: the biographer knew Çerâğ personally in the last years of his life. Çerâğ was by then a bookseller in the bedesten, the covered market of Istanbul, and went about reciting the ghazals Âfitâbî had written for him, acting as the herald of his praises. Hüsâmeddin, relying on Âşık Çelebi, also writes that Âfitâbî was infatuated with a young man named "Çırak Çelebi". That Sehî relates the story as a latife, a witty anecdote, shows that Âfitâbî was also known among his contemporaries for his quick wit and humour.

The sources also mention other poets bearing the pen name Âfitâbî, and these must not be confused with the poet from Amasya. Immediately after their entries on him, Âşık Çelebi and Kınalızâde include a second Âftâbî, "a son of Istanbul". According to Kınalızâde this poet, named Hasan, was a scribe of the imperial council who had grown up in Istanbul and died in 981 (1573-74). The "scribe of the council named Âftâbî" whose death Beyânî mentions in another entry, noting a chronogram composed for it, is this second poet.

His Trace in Amasya

No building, tomb or endowment bearing Âfitâbî's name is known in Amasya. His link with the city runs rather through institutions: the circle of Şehzade Bayezid, the Sultâniye Madrasa in Merzifon, the administration of Sultan Bayezid's endowments and his companionship with Şehzade Ahmed. Through Hâtemî Abdülkerîm, Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi and Abdülhayy Efendi, the same family took part in the learned and literary life of Amasya for more than half a century. Âfitâbî's story also shows that in the last quarter of the fifteenth century Amasya was more than a provincial capital, carrying a lively literary milieu that grew up around the prince's court, with its own poets, its jealousies and its grievances. Though his divan is lost, the fact that the tezkires went on remembering him throughout the following century is a sign of the place this milieu left in the memory of Ottoman literature.

Chronology

1454: Şehzade Bayezid is sent to the sanjak of Amasya; the prince's circle that Âfitâbî would later join takes shape in these years.

879 (1474-75): Halîmî Lütfullah Çelebi, judge of Sivas, is dismissed through the intervention of the prince's dignitaries and imprisoned in Tokat.

881 (1476): Halîmî presents his Arabic qasida and its commentary to Mehmed II.

882 (1477): The inspection committee headed by Hamza Beyzâde Mustafa Paşa arrives in Amasya.

883 (1478-79): According to Hüsâmeddin the decree is issued; Âfitâbî is removed from the prince's side (the historical section says he was sent to Merzifon, the biographical entry to Ankara). Another entry dates the decree to 881, while the TDV places Müeyyedzâde's flight in 884 (1479).

886 (1481): Bayezid II ascends the throne; Âfitâbî sends his accession qasida from Ankara and becomes professor at the Sultâniye Madrasa in Merzifon. He then serves as judge of Ankara and of Sivas.

903 (1497-98): He retires at his own request; succeeding Abdî Efendi, he becomes administrator of Sultan Bayezid's endowments in Amasya and joins the companions of Şehzade Ahmed.

907 (1501): According to Hüsâmeddin he dies in Amasya at the beginning of the year. Sadettin Nüzhet Ergun estimated that he lived until 1494.

945 (1538): Sehî Bey's Heşt Bihişt records him as "from Tosya".

953 (1546): Latîfî's tezkire names him among the famous poets of Amasya.

976 (1568): Âşık Çelebi's Meşâirü'ş-şuarâ introduces him as "from Merzifon".

994 (1586): Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi's tezkire repeats the Merzifon attribution.

Bibliography

The following sources were used in this article:

  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 3 (the periods of Bayezid II and Şehzade Ahmed, the section on Merzifon) and vols. 6-12 (biographical volumes: the entries on Âfitâbî Abdurrahman Çelebi, Hâtemî Abdülkerîm Çelebi, Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi, Abdülhay Efendi-Âfitâbîzâde and Hayretî İbrahim Efendi), edition in modern Turkish script.
  • Sehî Beg, Heşt Bihişt (ed. Halûk İpekten, Günay Kut, Mustafa İsen, Hüseyin Ayan, Turgut Karabey), Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Ankara 2017 (e-book).
  • Latîfî, Tezkiretü'ş-Şu'arâ ve Tabsıratü'n-Nuzamâ (ed. Rıdvan Canım), Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Ankara 2018 (e-book).
  • Âşık Çelebi, Meşâ'irü'ş-şu'arâ (ed. Filiz Kılıç), Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Ankara 2018 (e-book).
  • Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, Tezkiretü'ş-şu'arâ (ed. Aysun Sungurhan), Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Ankara 2017 (e-book).
  • Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî, Künhü'l-Ahbâr'ın Tezkire Kısmı (ed. Mustafa İsen), Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Ankara 2017 (e-book).
  • Beyânî Mustafa, Tezkiretü'ş-şu'arâ (ed. Aysun Sungurhan), Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Ankara 2017 (e-book).
  • Köksal, M. Fatih, "Âfitâbî", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, Ahmet Yesevi University (teis.yesevi.edu.tr), 2013, updated 2020. teis.yesevi.edu.tr
  • Köksal, M. Fatih, "Adlî, Sultân Bâyezîd-i Velî bin Fâtih", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, Ahmet Yesevi University (teis.yesevi.edu.tr). teis.yesevi.edu.tr
  • "Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Bayram, Yavuz (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Ankara 2018 (e-book), introduction.
  • Works cited through these sources: Sadettin Nüzhet Ergun, Türk Şairleri, vol. 1, Istanbul 1936; Edirneli Nazmî, Mecma'u'n-Nezâ'ir (ed. M. Fatih Köksal, 2012); Pervâne Bey, Mecmû'a-i Nezâ'ir, Topkapı Palace Library, Bağdat 406.

Online sources