Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa), the eldest son of Süleyman the Magnificent, lived for twelve years, from 1541 to 1553, as sanjak governor of Amasya. In October 1553 he was strangled in his father's imperial tent at the army camp near Konya Ereğlisi, where the army had halted on its way to the Persian campaign. His death found an echo in Ottoman poetry without parallel. Until then poets had usually chosen silence when princes lost their lives in struggles for the throne; after Mustafa's death, however, elegies were written by many, from soldier poets to the sheikh of a Sufi order, from a woman poet whose name never entered the biographical dictionaries to the prince's own divan secretary in Amasya. The most famous of these poems is the terkib-i bend of Taşlıcalı Yahya Bey, which passed from hand to hand through the army. Research published so far has identified nineteen elegies, and with this number Mustafa is regarded as the person in Ottoman literature for whom the most elegies were written.

The bond between these elegies and Amasya runs in two directions. Their subject is a sanjak governor who held the last great princely literary circle of Amasya, and some of the elegists came from within that circle. The prince's divan secretary Kara Fazlî wrote two elegies, and Hacı Beyzâde Edâyî of Amasya, in the elegies he composed for the prince, used words that offended Rüstem Pasha. What happened in Amasya after the death, the mourning in the city and the sultan's arrival there a year later also form the background of these poems. The prince's life is told in detail in his biography in the Princes section of our site; here the weight falls on the elegies and their poets.

The Elegy Tradition and Elegies for Princes

The mersiye, or elegy, is a poem that expresses the grief felt at someone's death, recounts the good qualities of the dead and voices the poet's attachment to him. Mustafa İsen notes that such poems usually contain five parts: the transience of the world and reproach of fate, mourning, praise, the description of the event, and prayer. In divan poetry the elegy was mostly written in strophic forms such as the terkib-i bend, the terci-i bend, or the murabba, muhammes and müseddes. The sixteenth century was the most fruitful age of the elegy in both quality and number; elegies written for sultans, princes and great statesmen increase markedly in this century.

Elegies for princes are the product of a short period. According to the available evidence, the first example of the genre is the terkib-i bend that Ahmed Pasha wrote for Prince Mustafa, son of Mehmed II (the Conqueror). When Süleyman's son Prince Mehmed died young at Manisa in 1543, Zâtî, Hayâlî Bey, Kara Fazlî, Taşlıcalı Yahya, Aşkî of Üsküdar and Sebzî wrote elegies, and Mehmed became the prince for whom the most elegies had been written up to that time. Mehmed, however, had died a natural death. The case of princes killed in the struggle for the throne was different. Maruf Çakır recalls that from the Law Code of Mehmed II to the reign of Ahmed I sixty-one princes were put to death, and that poets generally kept silent on a matter for which the ulema had issued fatwas and the sultan had given the order. Mehmed Çavuşoğlu likewise attributes the scarcity of elegies for executed princes to this reticence.

Prince Mustafa is the great exception to this silence. Scholars attribute it to the affection he enjoyed among the people and the army, to his generosity and to his patronage of men of learning and poetry. Mustafa was himself a poet: in some ghazals he used his own name, in others the pen name Muhlisî. Çakır notes that the great poets of the age, such as Bâkî and Hayâlî Bey, remained silent before this death, and that the sharpest reaction came from Taşlıcalı Yahya, one of the poets closest to the sultan. In the elegies the prince's innocence, the deception of the sultan by forged letters, the hand of Rüstem Pasha and Hürrem Sultan, and even reproach aimed at the sultan himself are openly expressed. Recep Hasar defines the feature that sets these poems apart from other elegies for princes as anger, the desire for revenge and curses.

The collective study of these elegies began with Mehmed Çavuşoğlu's article "Şehzade Mustafa Mersiyeleri", published in 1981-1982. Çavuşoğlu identified twelve elegies; Mustafa İsen published three new ones from a manuscript miscellany in the Millet Library in 1984; Ayhan Güldaş introduced unknown elegies in 1989; and Muvaffak Eflatun edited Hasbî's elegy in 2016. The count varies by source: Semra Güler, relying on İsen, speaks of fifteen elegies, Gencay Zavotçu, also relying on İsen, of sixteen, and Recep Hasar of eighteen. In 2021 Çakır added the three elegies in the divan of Sirâcî and raised the number to nineteen. These differences arise from newly found texts and from differing judgements as to whether certain poems belong to the same poet or to different ones.

From Amasya to Ereğli, and Amasya after the Death

Mustafa was sent from Manisa to Amasya in 948 (1541). According to Hüseyin Hüsameddin, the prince was very fond of literature; he gathered men of learning and letters around him and conversed with them. His chancellor Hamdî Hamdullah Çelebi, his treasurer Lutfî Bey and his divan secretary Kara Fazlî were poets, and Kâmî Mehmed Çelebi, Tayyibzâde Lutfî, Seyrekzâde Ânî Ahmed Çelebi, Hacı Beyzâde Edâyî, Zamânî Mahmud Çelebi and Emânî Mehmed Çelebi were among the prince's companions. His tutor Sürûrî of Gelibolu had completed his commentary on the Gulistan in Amasya in Mustafa's name in 958 (1551). Hüsameddin also writes that the prince built a summer residence at Karakaya, where poets such as Hamdî, Zamânî and Edâyî served as his boon companions.

According to Hüsameddin, Mustafa left Amasya at the beginning of Ramadan 960 with the army he had prepared, leaving his lala (tutor-guardian) Sun'ullah Bey as his deputy. He was killed at the camp near Karaman Ereğlisi as he entered his father's tent. His vizier Ahmed Pasha and his master of the horse Mahmud Ağa were executed afterwards, and in the face of the great outcry in the army Rüstem Pasha was removed from the grand vizierate. The chronogram for the prince's death, giving the date 960, was the phrase "Mekr-i Rüstem" (the guile of Rüstem). The day of his death is given differently in the sources: the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi gives 27 Şevval 960 (6 October 1553), while Hüsameddin records the twentieth of Şevval, a Friday.

When the news reached Amasya, deep mourning began in the city. Hüsameddin relates that the judge of Amasya, Alâeddin Ali Efendi, asked to retire on hearing it, and that Şeyhzâde Nûh Efendi of Amasya, whom the prince had greatly revered, and his brother Abdurrahîm Efendi grieved deeply for the prince and cursed Rüstem Pasha. According to the same source, Mustafa's young son Süleyman Çelebi was strangled in Amasya and buried in the Tomb of the Princes; the TDV and TEİS, however, give the name of the murdered son as Mehmed and place the event at Bursa. Hüsameddin also records that the prince's summer residence at Karakaya was divided up after his sudden death and that even its name changed.

On his return from the Persian campaign, Süleyman entered Amasya with great processions on the third of Zilhicce 961 and stayed in the city for more than six months. Describing this period, Hüsameddin writes that because of the prince's killing the sultan had fallen from favor in the eyes of the people, and especially of the ulema and people of Amasya. Süleyman sought to please the ulema and notables with gifts, remitted a year's taxes for the people, and took those attached to the prince under his protection by admitting them to the Imperial Council. Şeyhzâde Nûh Efendi, who was invited to join the campaign and sent a thousand gold pieces, excused himself and returned the gold. Hans Dernschwam, who came to Amasya with the Austrian embassy on 7 April 1555, also noted that the sultan was staying at the time in the prince's palace. When Süleyman left Amasya at the beginning of Şaban 962, he took with him to Istanbul the poets Edâyî and Çakal Kadızâde Sinan Bey. The elegies are the literary counterpart of this mourning, in which Amasya lost its own prince.

The Elegy of Taşlıcalı Yahya

Taşlıcalı Yahya Bey was a soldier poet of Albanian origin from the Dukakin family, taken in the devşirme, trained in the Corps of Novices, and a yaya officer and sipahi who took part in the Çaldıran and Egyptian campaigns. He is known for his divan and for his hamse of five mesnevis; he is accepted to have died in 990 (1582) at an age of over ninety. When Mustafa was killed he was with the army. Bayram Ali Kaya counts him among the soldier poets worthy of the title "master of sword and pen" and notes that he was bold enough to write a poem such as the Şehzade Mustafa elegy, which in the conditions of the time required courage. According to Hasar, although Yahya had written an elegy for Prince Mehmed, he never presented a kaside to Mustafa. From this one may conclude that the elegy was written less out of a patronage relationship than as the voice of the general mourning in the army; this inference is ours.

The date of the poem is disputed. Çavuşoğlu states that Yahya wrote the elegy at the time of the event, and Çakır also accepts that it was written on the day of the death. Çağatay Uluçay suggests that the poem inflamed the Janissaries' agitation and was written before Rüstem Pasha's dismissal. Ahmet Atilla Şentürk, on the other hand, is cautious, thinking that so dangerous a poem could not have been written in so short a time. The fullest account of how the poem spread comes from Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî. Âlî says that in 982 (1574) he conversed with Yahya and asked him why he had written this elegy and spread it so fearlessly. According to Yahya's answer, he had written the poem without a pen name and with no intention of making it public; a friend who came to his tent while he slept found the draft and copied it, and in a short time the poem was being read throughout the army.

When Rüstem Pasha became grand vizier again in 962, hard days began for Yahya. As Âlî relates, the pasha summoned the poet and rebuked him severely, reminding him that the sultan had killed his son for the order of the world and that the muftis had issued a fatwa for it. Some time later Yahya was dismissed from the trusteeships of the pious endowments he held and sent away from Istanbul with a zeamet in the sanjak of İzvornik; the value of the zeamet was twenty-seven thousand akçe according to Âşık Çelebi and thirty thousand according to Âlî. Çavuşoğlu notes that the sultan, who had dismissed Rüstem Pasha, did not touch Yahya, who had given voice to the people's feelings, and that, encouraged by this tolerance, Rahmî, Sâmî, Kara Fazlî, Fünûnî, Müdâmî and Nisâyî wrote elegies in the same vein, Sâmî and Nisâyî openly condemning the sultan.

The elegy is a terkib-i bend of seven stanzas in the meter mefâilün feilâtün mefâilün feilün. The body of each stanza consists of five couplets, followed by a linking couplet with a separate rhyme. Zavotçu lists the subjects of the stanzas as follows: in the first, the prince falling victim to a plot; in the second, his going to the sultan's tent to kiss his hand and never returning; in the third, the echoes of the death and the prince's sinlessness; in the fourth, the cruelty of Rüstem and the mourning of all creation; in the fifth, the untimeliness of the death and the sultan's believing a few forged letters; in the sixth, the prince's character; in the seventh, prayer. The couplets below follow the text that Hasar reproduces from Çavuşoğlu's edition.

First Stanza: "Meded meded bu cihânun yıkıldı bir yanı"

Meded meded bu cihânun yıkıldı bir yanı
Ecel celâlîleri aldı Mustafâ Hânı
Tolındı mihr-i cemâli bozıldı dîvânı
Vebâle koydılar âl ile Âl-i ‘Osmânı

"Help, help, one side of this world has fallen; the brigands of death have carried off Mustafa Han. The sun of his face is eclipsed, his council scattered; by guile they have led the House of Osman into sin." The word celâlî is used here in the sense of the highwaymen of death. Zavotçu stresses that saying at the very start of the poem that the prince was killed through a plot was an outburst without precedent until then. In the phrase "âl ile Âl-i ‘Osmân" there is a pun between "âl", meaning guile, and "Âl", meaning the dynasty.

Second Stanza: "Bir ejdehâ-yı dü-serdür bu hayme-i dünyâ"

Tutıldı gelmedi çünkim o mâh-pâre dönüp
Görenler ağladılar ebr-i nev-bahâra dönüp
Bir ejdehâ-yı dü-serdür bu hayme-i dünyâ
Dehânına düşen olur hemîşe nâ-peydâ

"That piece of the moon was eclipsed, and when it did not come back, those who saw wept like a spring cloud. This tent of the world is a two-headed dragon; whoever falls into its mouth always vanishes." The opening couplets of the stanza describe the prince walking to his father's tent in white garments, his heart at ease, before his servants. Güler notes that this picture agrees with the tradition that the prince wore white to show his innocence. The image of the tent in the linking couplet is a plain allusion to the death having taken place in a tent.

Third Stanza: "Hatâsı gayr-ı mu‘ayyen günâhı nâ-ma‘lûm"

Kara geyürdi Karamana gussa itdi hücûm
O mâhı ince hayâl ile kıldılar ma‘dûm
Tolandı gerdenine hâle gibi mâr-ı semûm
Rızâ-yı Hak ne ise râzî oldı ol merhûm
Hatâsı gayr-ı mu‘ayyen günâhı nâ-ma‘lûm
Zihî sa‘îd ü şehîd ü zihî şeh-i mazlûm

"Grief fell upon Karaman and clothed it in black; with subtle wiles they brought that moon to nothing. A poisonous snake coiled round his neck like the halo round the moon; the departed one consented to whatever was God's will. His fault unspecified, his sin unknown; how blessed a martyr, how wronged a king." Karaman names the region where the death took place. The snake coiled round the neck is an image of the bowstring that strangled the prince. It might be suggested that the word "hayâl" also recalls the pen name of Yahya's rival Hayâlî Bey; this is only our interpretation, and the sources record nothing of the kind.

Fourth Stanza: "Vücûdına sitem-i Rüstem ile irdi ziyân"

Getürdi arkasını yire Zâl-i devr ü zemân
Vücûdına sitem-i Rüstem ile irdi ziyân
…
Eyâ serîr-i sa‘âdetde pâdişâh-ı cihân
O cân-ı âdemiyân oldı hâk ile yeksân
Diri kala ne revâdur fesâd iden şeytân

"The Zâl of the age brought his back to the ground; through the cruelty of Rüstem harm came to his body. O sovereign of the world on the throne of felicity, he who was the soul of mankind has been levelled with the dust; is it right that the devil who stirred up the strife should remain alive?" The names of Zâl and Rüstem, the father and son heroes of the Shahnameh, are used here with a double meaning. According to Şentürk and Güler, Zâl stands for Zâl Mahmud Ağa, who threw the prince down and strangled him, and Rüstem for the grand vizier Rüstem Pasha. Zavotçu notes that with the phrase "sitem-i Rüstem" the poet openly names the one responsible for the death, and in the last line asks the sultan to punish those who stirred up the strife.

Fifth Stanza: "Bunun gibi işi kim gördi kim işitdi ‘aceb"

Bir iki egri fesâd ehli nitekim şemşîr
Bir iki nâme-i tezvîri kıldı katline tîr
…
Bunun gibi işi kim gördi kim işitdi ‘aceb
Ki oglına kıya bir server-i Ömer-meşreb

"One or two mischief-makers, crooked as a sword, made one or two forged letters into arrows for his death. Who has ever seen or heard of such a deed: that a ruler of Omar's temper should lay hands on his own son." The first couplet alludes to the forged letters said to have been written by Rüstem Pasha in the prince's name to Shah Tahmasp. In the second, the sultan, likened to the Caliph Omar famed for his justice, is severely criticized through the very same comparison. Şerafettin Turan, in his entry on Prince Mustafa, cites this couplet and a line by Sâmî as examples of criticism of the sultan's conduct.

Seventh Stanza: "Nizâm-ı ‘âlem olan pâdişâh sağ olsun"

Hayât-ı bâkîye irişdi rûhı ey Yahyâ
…
İlâhî cennet-i Firdevs ana turağ olsun
Nizâm-ı ‘âlem olan pâdişâh sağ olsun

"O Yahya, his soul has reached eternal life. My God, may the paradise of Firdevs be his dwelling; long live the sovereign who is the order of the world." That the sultan, harshly criticized throughout the poem, is remembered with a prayer at its end seems at odds with the poet's stance. As Güler relates, Şentürk reads this couplet as a wish that another sovereign, one who would bring order to the world, should come in place of the sultan who had broken the principle of succession by the eldest son. Güler also, relying on İsen, counts Yahya's elegy, together with those of Hayâlî, Sâmî and Kâdirî, among the elegies that lack a section of prayer for the sultan. The short prayer in the last line does not fully agree with this assessment; the discrepancy between the sources should be noted.

The Other Elegists

Hasar notes that information about most of the poets who wrote elegies for Mustafa is either very limited or entirely lacking. Below, what the sources say about each poet is briefly given, and where the published text of his or her elegy could be reached, a short passage is quoted. Most of the texts go back to the publications of Çavuşoğlu, İsen and Güldaş; since these could not be consulted directly, the texts are taken from the collection in Hasar's 2018 thesis and from Çakır's article.

Kara Fazlî: "İy çarh-ı bî-amân yine kıldun garîb kâr"

Kara Fazlî, the son of an Istanbul saddler, became Mustafa's divan secretary in Amasya after the death of Prince Mehmed and in 960 (1553) presented his mesnevi Gül ü Bülbül to him. After the prince's death he passed into the service of Prince Selim and died in 970 or 971. He is known to have written two elegies for Mustafa: a terkib-i bend of three stanzas in the divan compiled by Mustafa Özkat, and a murabba of eleven stanzas published by Güldaş. According to Güler, Fazlî gave voice to the feelings of those around the prince but did not refer to the guilty even by allusion. The line "Meded begler meded zulm oldı gâyet Mustafa Hân'a" in the refrain of the murabba shows that this caution had its limits. Fazlî's poems are also presented separately in the Literature section of our site.

İy çarh-ı bî-amân yine kıldun garîb kâr
Tîğ-ı sitemle sîneler eyledün figâr

"O merciless wheel of fate, once again you have done a strange deed; with the sword of cruelty you have wounded hearts." This is the opening couplet of the terkib-i bend; the poet turns his reproach toward fate rather than toward the sultan or the vizier (Özkat 2005, pp. 266-268; Hasar 2018, p. 464).

Edâyî: An Amasya Elegy Whose Text Has Not Been Reached

Hacı Beyzâde Edâyî is the elegist most closely bound to Amasya. Hüsameddin gives his name as Receb Bey, while TEİS, relying on Riyâzî, writes that his real name was Ahmed. According to Hüsameddin he was a descendant of Hacı Pervîz Bey, treasurer of Bayezid II at Amasya; in Amasya he learned calligraphy and literature from Topal Hattatzâde Fazlullah Fazlı Çelebi and music from Tanburî Baba Çelebi. Through his teacher Fazlı Çelebi he entered the prince's service, wrote ghazals for Gonca Keyvân Bey and kasides for the prince, joined his boon companions and became divan secretary. Hüsameddin writes that he was deeply affected by the prince's killing in Şevval 960 and that in the elegies he recited for him he used words that offended Rüstem Pasha. A sentence of Âşık Çelebi describing the situation after the prince's death has been preserved through Hüsameddin's quotation: when the kaside of his life passed its transition and reached its final couplet, the poets around him were scattered like draft papers. Edâyî later joined the Treasury scribes in Istanbul, was dismissed from the chancery of the Imperial Council because of Rüstem Pasha's hostility, rose under the patronage of Piyale Pasha to the post of timar treasurer, and according to Kınalızâde died in 982 (1574-75). The text of Edâyî's elegies for Prince Mustafa has not been reached; none of the collections of elegies examined contains an elegy bearing his name.

Sâmî: "Mustafâ n'oldı kanı n'eyledün â pâdişehüm"

Hasar, relying on the Safâyî Tezkiresi, states that Sâmî was a sipahi from Istanbul; no further information about his life has been found. The entry Şâmî in TEİS concerns a different poet who died in the reign of Bayezid II. Sâmî's muaşşer elegy of seven stanzas is, in Güler's assessment, as daring as Yahya's in aiming directly at the sultan. The poet asks the sultan whether he still has not understood the lies devised to make him kill his son and why he does not punish the liars; he also answers the rumor that the prince wished to seize the throne with the help of Shah Tahmasp.

Ceng ider geldi disen iki sipâhı yoğ idi
Hançer ursan da anun cismine âhı yoğ idi
Yoğ idi cürmi bu Sâmî dir İlâhî yoğ idi
Mustafâ n'oldı kanı n'eyledün â pâdişehüm

"If you say he came to make war, he had not two soldiers with him; had you struck his body with a dagger, he would not have sighed. This Sâmî says, God knows, he had no guilt at all. What became of Mustafa, where is he, what have you done, my sovereign." These lines from the last stanza stress that the prince came to the tent unarmed and with few men (Çavuşoğlu 1982, pp. 658-661; Hasar 2018, pp. 491-494).

Nisâyî: "İy şeh-i bî-şefka n'itdi sana Sultân Mustafâ"

There is no information about Nisâyî's life in the biographical dictionaries or other biographical sources. A nazire ghazal she wrote in response to Şeyhî, recorded in the Pervâne Bey miscellany, and her two elegies for Mustafa show that she was a poet of the sixteenth century. Her pen name and the feeling of her elegies suggest a woman poet. Çavuşoğlu, noting that one of these elegies dwells on the feelings of Mahidevran Sultan and recalls the sultan's youthful days, thinks the poet may have belonged to the circle of the prince or of his mother and may have been elderly. The same scholar concludes from the linguistic errors in the poems that Nisâyî was not formally educated. Each stanza of the first elegy, of nine stanzas, ends with the same refrain.

Hâsıl-ı ‘ömrün iken ol hâna çün kıldun cefâ
Da‘vet itdi hân peder diyü umup geldi safâ
Bir iş itdün ana kim söylendi tâ Kâfdan Kâfa
İy şeh-i bî-şefka n'itdi sana Sultân Mustafâ

"You wronged that khan, who was the fruit of your life; hoping for joy, he came because 'my father the khan has summoned me'. You did such a thing to him that it was told from Kaf to Kaf, from one end of the world to the other. O pitiless king, what did Sultan Mustafa do to you?" In a stanza of the second elegy, with the refrain "Bî-terahhum şâh-ı ‘âlem n'itdi Sultân Mustafâ", the poet calls Hürrem Sultan "the Russian witch" and curses also the mufti who issued the fatwa (Çavuşoğlu 1982, pp. 673-677; Güler 2011, pp. 59-63; Hasar 2018, pp. 505-510). The text is given in Hasar's reading.

Fünûnî: "İy Felek ya‘nî cihânda sen de bir san eyledün"

Ahdî and Gelibolulu Âlî describe Fünûnî as being from Kastamonu; his name does not appear in Latîfî's biographical dictionary. Nothing further about his life could be established. His elegy of five stanzas opens with an address to fate and is among those that narrate the event from beginning to end: the prince setting out for Karaman with thousands of soldiers and the royal standard raised, the viziers receiving him and kissing his hand, his entering his father's tent, and his death struggling with a man unworthy even to guard his door. In the last stanza the poet addresses the sultan and says that no one found it reasonable that the prince's killers should remain alive.

Kimse ma‘kûl görmedi ‘âlemde şâhâ bu işi
Gide ol sultân-ı ‘âlem kala ol ebter diri

"O king, no one in the world found this deed reasonable: that sovereign of the world should go, and that worthless wretch remain alive." According to the text published by Çavuşoğlu, the elegy is found on folios 173-174 of manuscript Nuruosmaniye 4962 in the Süleymaniye Library (Çavuşoğlu 1982, pp. 662-664; Hasar 2018, pp. 459-463). From the manuscript details given by Hasar it appears that Rahmî's elegy follows immediately on folios 175-176 of the same manuscript; this observation is ours.

Rahmî: "Oldı şehîd Hazret-i Sultân Mustafa"

Born in Bursa, Rahmî presented his poems to Süleyman as a young man at the princes' circumcision festival of 936 (1529-30), through the treasurer İskender Çelebi and the grand vizier İbrahim Pasha. Toward the end of his life he became a madrasa teacher at Yenişehir, and he died in 975 (1567-68); his grave is at Yenişehir near Bursa. His divan and the mesnevis Gül-i Sad-berg and Şâh u Gedâ are known. According to Güler, Rahmî in his elegy expressed only his grief and avoided words that might bring him trouble. The first linking couplet of his terkib-i bend of five stanzas places the prince beside the martyrs of Karbala.

Oldı şehîd Hazret-i Sultân Mustafa
Yâr oldı ana şâh-ı şehîdân-ı Kerbelâ

"His Highness Sultan Mustafa has become a martyr; the king of martyrs, the martyr of Karbala, has become his companion." In the last stanza the poet wishes leprosy in both worlds upon whoever separated the prince from the sultan, and ends the poem with a prayer for the sultan (Rahmî's Divan, Nuruosmaniye 4962, fols. 175-176; Hasar 2018, pp. 449-453).

Edirneli Nazmî: "Nazmiyâ budur du‘âmuz ana her dem subh u şâm"

Edirneli Nazmî, known for his great anthology of parallel poems, the Mecmau'n-nezâir, came from a family of kuloğlu, sons of the sultan's servants. He first took part as a Janissary in the Persian and Egyptian campaigns of Selim I (Selim the Grim), then fought as a sipahi in Süleyman's reign, and because he was lame he was made a company commander of the silahdars. For his death the sources give the years 955, 962, 966 and 970; according to the dates in the Tevârih-i Antakiyye brought to light by Fatih Köksal, however, he must have died after 993 (1585). Hasar notes that Nazmî's divan contains two kasides and a petition addressed to Mustafa, and that in this petition the poet says he had previously served the prince and asks to be taken back. Ziya Avşar thinks this service most probably took place in the sanjak of Manisa. Nazmî's patron, the Nakşibendî sheikh Baba Efendi, was also Rüstem Pasha's spiritual guide, and the poet's close relationship with the pasha is evident from his own poems. Fatih Köksal attributes to this the absence in the elegy of any direct or indirect accusation against Rüstem Pasha. Nazmî also composed chronograms for the prince and for his murdered son.

Ana Hak bagışlayup hem ol iki şehzâdesin
Anlarunla bula ‘âlem hoş nizâm u intizâm
Devlet ü ikbâl-ile Şeh Bâyezîd ü Hân Selîm
Süreler ‘ömr-i tavîl ü olalar sag u selâm

"May God grant him those two princes as well; may the world find through them good order and harmony. May Shah Bayezid and Han Selim live long lives in power and fortune, and be safe and sound." These lines from the prayer stanza of the five-stanza elegy are noteworthy for wishing long life to Hürrem Sultan's sons in an elegy written for Mustafa (İstanbul University Rare Works T920; Hasar 2018, pp. 454-458).

Müdâmî: "Şâh-ı iklîm-i şehâdet ya‘ni Sultân Mustafâ"

According to the information Hasar gives on the basis of the biographical dictionaries of Ahdî and Beyânî, Müdâmî was from Istanbul and a soldier of the sipahi oğlanları regiment; he soon attracted notice by the quality of his poetry, took part in great gatherings, and died while serving as trustee of the treasury of escheats. Part of Müdâmî's muaşşer elegy appears in Çavuşoğlu's article, the rest in Güldaş's publication. Güler notes that the poem does not go beyond expressing the poet's own feelings.

Eyledi şaha itâ‘at kıldı baş ü cân fedâ
Şâh-ı iklîm-i şehâdet ya‘ni Sultân Mustafâ

"He obeyed the king and sacrificed his head and life; the king of the realm of martyrdom, that is, Sultan Mustafa." Repeated at the end of each stanza, this couplet carries the idea that the prince did not rebel against his father but died in obedience to him (Güldaş 1989, pp. 38-39; Hasar 2018, pp. 487-490).

Hasbî: "Âh Sultân Mustafâ eyvâh Sultân Mustafâ"

Hasbî, from Gediz, was the younger brother of the poet Keşfî. During İbrahim Pasha's vizierate he was imprisoned because of a murder committed at a gathering he attended; Âşık Çelebi and Âlî relate that he lost an eye during interrogation and that during his ten-year imprisonment he used the pen name Habsî. Mehmet Fatih Köksal notes that the poet, who had attached himself to Mustafa, lived on after the prince's death, and that the record claiming he was killed in the Mustafa affair cannot be correct. Hasbî's long elegy was published by Muvaffak Eflatun in 2016; the poet also composed a chronogram poem for the prince's death ending with the words "nine hundred and sixty".

Şol sa‘âdet milketinde şâh Sultân Mustafâ
Şol sipihr-i saltanatda mâh Sultân Mustafâ

"King in that realm of felicity, Sultan Mustafa; moon in that sky of sovereignty, Sultan Mustafa." Every line of the elegy ends with the prince's name, and the stanzas close with the refrain "Âh Sultân Mustafâ eyvâh Sultân Mustafâ" (Eflatun 2016, pp. 164-166; Hasar 2018, pp. 495-498).

Mu'înî: "Bir iki nâme-i tezvîri pâdişâha okur"

Mu'înî's elegy was published by Güldaş in 1989. Since more than one poet bore this pen name in the biographical dictionaries, the identity of the Mu'înî who wrote the elegy has not been established. Hasar counts Mu'înî, together with Fünûnî and Yahya, among the poets who narrate the event from beginning to end, and notes that his elegy contains heavy reproaches and curses. The elegy ends with a chronogram of the death expressing the wish that Mustafa be joined with the Prophet Muhammad.

Hıyânetine nişân olmağa yazup yanılup
Bir iki nâme-i tezvîri pâdişâha okur

"Writing them misleadingly so as to be proof of his treason, he reads one or two forged letters to the sultan." The appearance here too of the phrase "nâme-i tezvîr" found in Yahya's fifth stanza shows that the tale of the forged letters was a common motif of the elegies (Güldaş 1989, pp. 40-44; Hasar 2018, pp. 470-477).

Selîmî and Kâdirî: Soldier Poets in the Army

Two of the elegies that Mustafa İsen published in 1984 from a miscellany among the Ali Emîrî manuscripts of the Millet Library bear the pen names Selîmî and Kâdirî; both were copied by the same scribe. According to Güler, the names of these poets occur in the biographical dictionaries of the period, but nothing more is known about them. İsen, judging from their style, thinks they were soldier poets who, like Yahya, were with the army and put the event into verse while it was still fresh. Selîmî's murabba of seven stanzas mentions that the death took place in Karaman and presents the prince as one who sacrificed his life on the sultan's path. Kâdirî's elegy begins as a müsemmen and continues as a murabba. Although some accounts give the name as Selâmî, İsen, Hasar and TEİS write Selîmî.

Şehzâde-i nev-civân-u zübde-i Osmân idi
Şah Süleyman oğlı idi şâh-ı âlî-şân idi

"He was a young prince, the choicest of the House of Osman; he was the son of Shah Süleyman, a king of lofty glory." This is the opening of Kâdirî's elegy. The refrain repeated at the ends of the stanzas, "Âh şâh Sultân Mustafâ âh Sultân Mustafâ", recalls the address of the lament tradition (İsen 1984, pp. 105-107; Hasar 2018, pp. 511-516).

Hayâlî-i Gülşenî (Şeyh Ahmed Efendi): "N'eyleyem kıydun bana devletlü sultânum menüm"

Hayâlî-i Gülşenî, also called Şeyh Ahmed Efendi in the sources, was born in Tabriz in 890 (1485). He was the son of İbrahim Gülşenî, founder of the Gülşenî branch of the Halvetiyye order. After his father's death he guided disciples for thirty-seven years at the Gülşenî lodge in Cairo and died in 977 (1570). Türkan Alvan notes that Hayâlî's divan contains an elegy for Prince Mustafa and two chronograms on the death of Rüstem Pasha that hint the pasha was suffering torment for his sins. He should not be confused with the court poet Hayâlî Bey. The elegy of twenty stanzas is written entirely in the prince's own voice, an example of the lament tradition in which the dead are made to speak. Güler and Zavotçu note that a second elegy in the same meter and form, whose poet has not been identified, is a parallel poem to this one.

Dogrı idüm âsitânunda elif kimi ‘ayân
Egridür dinse bana inanma iy şâh-ı cihân
Gadr kıldı dehr (bana) virmedi bir dem emân
N'eyleyem kıydun bana devletlü sultânum menüm

"At your threshold I was plainly straight as the letter alif; if they call me crooked, do not believe them, O king of the world. Time wronged me and gave me not a moment's mercy. What can I do, you have slain me, my mighty sultan." The contrast between the straightness of the letter alif and crookedness expresses the prince's loyalty (Çavuşoğlu 1982, pp. 683-686; Hayâlî's Divan, Süleymaniye Yozgat 427, fols. 12-14; Hasar 2018, pp. 517-521).

Sirâcî: "Rihlet itdi ‘âlem-i ‘ukbâya Sultân Mustafâ"

Sirâcî's divan is in the Rare Works Library of Istanbul University (NCTY09503) and was copied in 1055 (1645-46). Çakır identified in this divan a eulogy and three elegies addressed to Mustafa. The only Sirâcî of the sixteenth century in the biographical dictionaries is Sirâcî of Germiyan, mentioned by Âşık Çelebi; Çakır considers it quite possible that the two poets are the same person but cannot establish a definite link. From a stanza of the eulogy it appears that the poet was a timar-holding bey and that an order asking the beys of Anatolia to protect the prince was cancelled by Rüstem Pasha. This interpretation is Çakır's.

Bu musîbetden göge agsa ‘aceb mi dûd-i âh
Nâle itdi ihtiyârı kalmayup mîr ü sipâh
Uydı a‘dâ sözlerine gaflet ile pâdişâh
Rihlet itdi ‘âlem-i ‘ukbâya Sultân Mustafâ

"Is it any wonder if the smoke of sighs rises to the sky from this calamity; beys and soldiers moaned helplessly. In heedlessness the sultan followed the words of enemies; Sultan Mustafa has departed for the world beyond." This stanza from the third elegy, of seven stanzas, accuses the sultan of heedlessness (Çakır 2021, pp. 21-22).

Elegies without a Pen Name, and Those Whose Texts Have Not Been Reached

Hasar's collection contains three more elegies by unknown poets: a muaşşer published by Çavuşoğlu, an elegy published by Güldaş, and one published by Ahmet Bellibaş from a poetry miscellany in the National Library. The text published by Bellibaş and Çavuşoğlu's muaşşer open with almost the same line ("Çünkim alur uşbu tâc u tahtı devr-i rûzgâr"); whether the two are different copies of the same poem is not discussed in the sources we examined, and this observation is ours. Zavotçu's list also mentions a poem with the pen name "Mustafa", thought possibly to have been written in the prince's own voice; the text of this poem has not been reached. As with Edâyî's elegies, it is also unknown whether the poets of the Amasya circle other than Kara Fazlî wrote anything for the prince.

Literary Features

The Şehzade Mustafa elegies are varied in form. Yahya, Kara Fazlî and Rahmî used the terkib-i bend; Nisâyî, Selîmî and Kara Fazlî in his second elegy the murabba; Sâmî and Müdâmî the muaşşer. Hasar establishes that among elegies for sultans and princes, all those in the murabba and muaşşer forms were written for Mustafa, and that these two forms appear in the elegy only in the sixteenth century. According to the same scholar, Müdâmî's poem, although titled "muaşşer", is in fact a terci-i bend because of the couplet repeated at the end of each stanza. The frequency of refrains is striking: repetitions such as "İy şeh-i bî-şefka n'itdi sana Sultân Mustafâ", "Mustafâ n'oldı kanı n'eyledün â pâdişehüm" and "N'eyleyem kıydun bana devletlü sultânum menüm" leave an effect close to the address of folk laments.

In content, common motifs are easily distinguished. All the poets consider the prince worthy of the throne and portray him as pious, just, generous, at home among scholars and brave. The death scene is narrated from beginning to end in Fünûnî, Mu'înî and Yahya: the march to Karaman, the viziers' reception, the entry into the tent, the noose or the bowstring. The prince's innocence is treated through the motifs of forged letters and slander, and his death is interpreted as martyrdom. The target of reproach varies with the poet. Rahmî and Nazmî blame no one; Kara Fazlî turns to fate; Yahya names Rüstem; Sâmî and Nisâyî address the sultan directly; Nisâyî also curses Hürrem Sultan and the mufti. Güler regards the fact that poets from very different sections of society, soldier poets, a woman poet and the sheikh of a Sufi order, wrote elegies as a sign that the prince was loved by wide circles, and notes that these poems can also be read as historical documents carrying details about the inner side of the event.

Chronology

921 (1515): Prince Mustafa was born in Manisa.

948 (1541): Mustafa was sent from Manisa to the governorship of the sanjak of Amasya.

950 (1543): Prince Mehmed died in Manisa; Kara Fazlî became Mustafa's divan secretary in Amasya.

958 (1551): Sürûrî completed his commentary on the Gulistan in Amasya in Mustafa's name.

960 (1553): Kara Fazlî presented Gül ü Bülbül to Mustafa.

Beginning of Ramadan 960 (August 1553): Mustafa left Amasya with his army.

27 Şevval 960 (6 October 1553): Mustafa was killed at the army camp near Konya Ereğlisi (according to Hüsameddin, on Friday the twentieth of Şevval); Rüstem Pasha was dismissed from the grand vizierate. Taşlıcalı Yahya's elegy spread through the army.

Third of Zilhicce 961 (1554): Süleyman entered Amasya on his return from the Persian campaign and stayed in the city for more than six months.

7 April 1555: Hans Dernschwam came to Amasya with the Austrian embassy.

Beginning of Şaban 962 (1555): Süleyman left Amasya and took Edâyî with him to Istanbul.

962 (1555): Rüstem Pasha became grand vizier again; some time later Taşlıcalı Yahya was sent to the sanjak of İzvornik.

975 (1567-68): Rahmî of Bursa died.

977 (1570): Hayâlî-i Gülşenî died in Cairo.

982 (1574): Gelibolulu Âlî spoke with Yahya about the writing of the elegy. Edâyî died in this year according to Kınalızâde.

990 (1582): Taşlıcalı Yahya died.

1981-1982: Mehmed Çavuşoğlu published his article "Şehzade Mustafa Mersiyeleri".

1984: Mustafa İsen published the elegies of Selîmî, Kâdirî and one other poet.

2021: Maruf Çakır introduced Sirâcî's three elegies; the number of known elegies reached nineteen.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Mehmed Çavuşoğlu, "Şehzade Mustafa Mersiyeleri", İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi, 12, 1981-1982, pp. 641-686 (as quoted by Zavotçu, Güler and Hasar).
  • Mehmed Çavuşoğlu, "16. Yüzyılda Yaşamış Bir Kadın Şair: Nisâyî", İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi, 9, 1978, pp. 407-408 (as quoted by Güler and TEİS).
  • Mustafa İsen, "Şehzade Mustafa İçin Yazılmış Üç Yeni Mersiye", Türk Kültürü Araştırmaları, 22(1-2), 1984, pp. 104-107 (as quoted by Güler and Hasar).
  • Ayhan Güldaş, "Bilinmeyen Şehzade Mustafa Mersiyeleri", Kubbealtı Akademi Mecmuası, 18(3), 1989, pp. 37-49 (as quoted by Hasar).
  • Gencay Zavotçu, "Bir Ölümün Yankıları ve Yahyâ Bey Mersiyesi", Atatürk Üniversitesi Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü Dergisi, 33, 2007, pp. 69-80.
  • Semra Güler, Şehzade Mustafa'nın Hayatı (1515-1553) ve Türbesi, Master's Thesis, Uludağ University Institute of Social Sciences, 2011, pp. 39-63. https://acikerisim.uludag.edu.tr/server/api/core/bitstreams/9a869e7a-300f-4995-9140-e0fdf233f8db/content
  • Recep Hasar, Türk Edebiyatı'nda Padişah ve Şehzade Mersiyeleri, Master's Thesis, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf University Institute of Social Sciences, 2018, pp. 84-86, 117-121, 449-521. https://hdl.handle.net/11352/2746
  • Maruf Çakır, "Sirâcî'nin Şehzade Mustafa Mersiyeleri", Kocatepe İslami İlimler Dergisi, 4(1), 2021, pp. 9-22. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/kiid/article/892994
  • Muvaffak Eflatun, "Hasbî'nin Şehzade Mustafa Mersiyesi", 21. Yüzyılda Eğitim ve Toplum, 5(15), 2016, pp. 159-178 (as quoted by Hasar and Çakır).
  • Mustafa Özkat, Kara Fazlî'nin Hayatı, Eserleri, Edebî Kişiliği ve Dîvânı (İnceleme-Tenkitli Metin), Master's Thesis, Marmara University Institute of Turkic Studies, 2005, pp. 253-254, 266-268. https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf
  • Bayram Ali Kaya, "Taşlıcalı Yahyâ", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 2011. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/taslicali-yahya
  • Türkan Alvan, "Hayâlî-i Gülşenî", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 2020. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/hayali-i-gulseni
  • Fatih Tığlı, "Rahmî", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 34, 2007. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/rahmi
  • Şerafettin Turan, "Mustafa Çelebi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 31, Istanbul 2006, pp. 290-292. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/mustafa-celebi
  • İlhan Şahin, Feridun Emecen, "Amasya", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 3, Istanbul 1991. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/amasya

Books

Online sources