Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî was one of the most prolific and most restless pens of the sixteenth-century Ottoman world. As historian, poet, chancery stylist and finance official he served for more than forty years in every corner of the empire, and in a life that stretched from Aleppo to Bosnia and from Baghdad to Cairo, Amasya was a very short but noteworthy stop. He arrived in the city as sanjak governor in the summer of 1595 and, depending on the source, spent anywhere from a few months to about a year there. The period hardly counts as a bright page in his administrative career; yet when Âlî's great history, the Künhü'l-ahbâr, turns to the poets and sheikhs of Amasya and to the events that unfolded around the princely court, it becomes the work of a writer who knew the city at first hand. Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, the great historian of Amasya, repeatedly cites the traditions Âlî heard in the city and the inquiries he made there.

Âlî's connection with Amasya can be traced on three levels. The first is the governorship he held in person, together with the treasurership of the province of Rûm that came with it. The second is what the Künhü'l-ahbâr records about Amasya: the ancient names of its river, the Halveti tradition attached to the building of Bayezid II's mosque, the sheikhs of the Pîr İlyas lodge and local stories about the princes. The third is the set of biographies that the work's biographical section devotes to poets who were born in Amasya or who rose in the princely households there. From Mihrî Hatun to Münîrî, from Tâcî Bey to Âfitâbî, a large part of the city's literary memory is still read today through Âlî's sentences.

Birth and Education in Gelibolu

Mustafa Âlî was born in Gelibolu (Gallipoli) on the night of 2 Muharram 948 (24/25 April 1541). His father was Hoca Ahmed, his mother Ümmühânî and his grandfather Abdullah. On the strength of his grandfather's name it has been suggested that the family may have been of devşirme origin; this is a conjecture and rests on no firm document. On his mother's side he was the grandson of Sheikh Muslihiddin Mustafa, a disciple and successor of the Naqshbandi sheikh Emîr Buhârî. In the preface to Sadef-i Sad-güher, prepared when he returned to Gelibolu many years later, Âlî speaks of his family in detail: he was the eldest of three brothers, his brother Mehmed knew Arabic and Persian well, and the other was called İbniyamin. Another source tells us that one of his brothers wrote poetry under the pen name Râzî. The family was well off, and by his own account Âlî had a happy childhood.

He started school at the age of five. Gelibolu was then one of the towns that produced the largest number of poets in the Ottoman lands, and this helped turn the boy towards literature early. At sixteen he went to Istanbul and attended the Rüstem Pasha, Haseki and Sahn madrasas. In Istanbul he received his literary training close to his fellow townsman and teacher, the madrasa professor and poet Sürûrî, and to Hayâlî, one of the leading poets of the day. In his first poems he used the pen name Çeşmî; he soon adopted the name Âlî, "the exalted", which suited the ambition that would mark his whole life.

The life of his teacher Sürûrî also reveals the first link between Gelibolu and Amasya. Sürûrî's father Şaban Efendi had served as treasurer in Amasya while Bayezid II was still a prince there. Sürûrî himself was summoned in 1548 to tutor Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa), the eldest son of Süleyman the Magnificent, and completed his Bahrü'l-maârif, regarded as the first comprehensive handbook of rhetoric in Turkish literature, on 11 Safar 956 (11 March 1549) in Amasya, while in the prince's service. Hüsameddin, for his part, places the arrival in Amasya of Gelibolulu Sürûrî Mustafa Efendi as the prince's tutor in the year 953 (1546). The teacher to whom the young Âlî owed his literary education was thus a scholar who had passed through the cultural circle of the princely court in Amasya.

In the Chancery of Prince Selim

Having completed his madrasa education, Âlî had two paths before him: to join the learned hierarchy as a professor or judge, or to rise in the bureaucracy through the scribal service. His first work, Mihr ü Mâh, presented to Prince Selim (later Selim II), who became sanjak governor of Konya in 1558, opened for him the door to a post as secretary in the prince's chancery. Written in 968 (1561), this masnavi of 1,164 couplets was inspired by a love affair Âlî had himself experienced. In the prince's service he lived in Konya and Kütahya, sharing a circle with intellectuals of the day such as Celâl Bey, Kara Fazlî and Durak Çelebi. In Tuhfetü'l-uşşâk, the masnavi he wrote in Kütahya in 969 (1562) and presented to the prince, it is striking that at only twenty-two he had already begun to complain that his worth went unrecognized. That complaint would never be absent from his works for the rest of his life.

Âlî's ambition brought him trouble at an early age. Neither Prince Selim nor Süleyman, to whom he appealed in person in Istanbul, granted his wish for a professorship or a judgeship. When he fell out with the prince's lala (tutor-guardian) Hüseyin Bey, he accepted an invitation from Mustafa Pasha, the prince's former lala whom he had come to know in Konya, and went first to Aleppo and then to Damascus, serving for six years as his chancery secretary in that province. The bond formed with Lala Mustafa Pasha would shape the next twenty years of Âlî's life.

His first historical work, Nâdirü'l-mehârib (1567-1569), written in these years, deals with an event that directly concerned Amasya: the Battle of Konya fought in 1559 between Süleyman's two sons Selim and Bayezid, and the events leading up to Selim's accession. On an order issued by his father in September 1558, Prince Bayezid had been transferred from Kütahya to Amasya; after losing the battle he returned to Amasya, and on 7 July 1559 he left the city with his sons and took refuge in Iran. Âlî wrote the work in an ornate style embellished with Persian verse in order to display his literary skill. Years later, in the biographical section of the Künhü'l-ahbâr, he would remember Prince Bayezid as a poet too, judging the ghazal the prince composed on his way to Iran after his defeat to be finer than the work of most poets of the time: "N'ideyin zâyi' idüp tûl-ı emelle nefesi / Kalmadı zerre kadar dilde bu dünyâ hevesi."

The Years with Lala Mustafa Pasha

When Lala Mustafa Pasha was appointed commander for Yemen, Âlî went with him to Egypt. When the pasha was dismissed and investigated, Âlî too found himself in difficulty, probably because of letters he had written, and he took refuge with Prince Murad (later Murad III), sanjak governor of Saruhan, through whose intercession he was pardoned. In Manisa he presented Mihr ü Vefâ and Nâdirü'l-mehârib to the prince and, at his command, translated and expanded Râhatü'n-nüfûs. He went to Istanbul and presented Heft Meclis to Sokullu Mehmed Pasha, but instead of the fief he had hoped for he was given the post of chancery secretary to Ferhad Pasha, beylerbey (governor-general) of Bosnia. When Murad III came to the throne in 1574 he went to Istanbul again and presented his Zübdetü't-tevârîh, but once more he failed to obtain an office and had to return to Bosnia. The eight years he spent in Bosnia and its surroundings made him one of the poets who gave the greatest space to warfare in divan poetry.

In 1578, when Lala Mustafa Pasha was appointed commander of the Georgian and Shirvan campaign, he had Âlî brought back as his chancery secretary through the good offices of Hoca Sâdeddin Efendi. During the campaign Âlî witnessed many events at close quarters; he gathered the letters he wrote on the commander's behalf and his descriptions of events in the Nusretnâme. An illuminated and illustrated copy of the work is now in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library, and Âlî's own figure appears in some of its miniatures. He was then appointed timar treasurer of Aleppo. In Zilkade 989 (December 1581) he wrote in Aleppo the Nushatü's-selâtîn, setting out the qualities required of rulers. In 1581 he was charged with guarding the Van frontier with the troops of Aleppo and its region. Removed from his post in Aleppo in 1583, he remained without office for two years.

In the spring of 1585 Özdemiroğlu Osman Pasha, setting out on the Tabriz campaign, made him treasurer of Erzurum. Six months later he was transferred to the treasury of Baghdad, but he was soon dismissed and returned to Istanbul. While in Baghdad he visited Karbala and wrote elegies there. He composed the Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân, a history of calligraphers, painters and bookbinders, in April 1587 while treasurer of Baghdad. The work is also used as one of the early sources on the great Amasya calligrapher Sheikh Hamdullah. In 1589 he was appointed treasurer of Sivas, but the post was soon given to someone else. In July 1592 he became secretary of the Janissaries, in October 1592 commissioner of the land registers, and in January 1595 secretary of the Janissaries once again. The pessimism that had settled into his poetry after the age of forty deepened markedly in these years.

The Writing of the Künhü'l-ahbâr

The Künhü'l-ahbâr, Âlî's most important and most voluminous work, was written between 1000 and 1008 (1591-1599). The author divided it into four parts which he called "pillars" (rükün). The first pillar deals with the creation of the universe, mountains, seas and climes; the second with the prophets and Islamic-Arab history; the third with the Turkish and Mongol dynasties. The fourth, larger than the other three, covers Ottoman history from its beginnings to Safar 1005 (October 1596) and contains the biographies of the statesmen, scholars, sheikhs and poets who flourished in each reign. These biographical sections, placed at the end of each reign, have been studied and published separately as the work's "biographical part" (tezkire kısmı).

At the beginning of the work Âlî lists 130 books he used. In the preface to the fourth pillar he names early Ottoman historians such as Âşıkpaşazâde, Rûhî and Neşrî, notes that İdrîs-i Bitlisî and Kemalpaşazâde had been commissioned to write Ottoman history, and declares that Hoca Sâdeddin had surpassed his predecessors in writing history in Turkish. Although he sometimes passes subjective and partisan judgments, his sound critical remarks add to the work's value. Âlî wrote the book without any official commission or patronage, out of his own intellectual concerns. The unease that the approach of the Islamic millennium caused among Ottoman intellectuals, and his conviction that the order of the state was decaying, can be felt throughout. One reason the author asked for the treasurership of Egypt was his hope of finding plenty of books in Cairo for this great history.

According to Jan Schmidt, the writing probably began in the winter of 1000 (1592). Âlî says that he worked on the book for eight years, and elsewhere ten; he kept revising it, wrote additions, and took copies with him to Cairo and then to Jeddah. In the fourth pillar he drew on state documents thanks to his position as an official, and he also used as oral sources the conversations he had held during his long career with grand viziers, viziers, governors and scholars. The way local traditions heard in Amasya entered the work is a natural result of this method. Hundreds of manuscript copies of the work are known, and later historians such as Peçevî, Solakzâde, Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi and Naîmâ drew on it.

Governor of the Sanjak of Amasya

When Murad III died in Cemaziyelevvel 1003 (January 1595), Mehmed III succeeded him. Âlî asked the new sultan for the treasurership of Egypt, where he hoped to find sources for the Künhü'l-ahbâr. The influential harem aghas of the palace blocked this, and Âlî had to accept the governorship of the sanjak of Amasya together with the treasurership of Rûm (Sivas). Hüsameddin, relying on Âlî's own words, tells the story of this appointment a little differently: when Koçi Bey, the bey of Amasya, fell in the battle of Esztergom, Âlî was appointed in his place, the post being granted as a reward for the accession ode he had presented to the new sultan. According to Hüsameddin, Âlî arrived in Amasya on 1 Şevval 1003 (early June 1595). Hüsameddin describes him at this time as recently dismissed from the treasurership of Erzurum, whereas studies that follow his career through documents record that he had been made secretary of the Janissaries in January 1595.

The Amasya to which Âlî came was passing through a troubled period. By an imperial order received in Ramazan of the same year, the Amasya mint, which had been working since 925, was abolished and the striking of coins in the city came to an end. Counterfeiting had been discovered at the mint; those responsible had been put in the citadel dungeon and had then broken out and escaped. The arbitrary rule of Deli İbrahim Pasha, beylerbey of Sivas, had caused deep discontent in the region, and armed bands had begun raiding villages around Amasya. At their head was a tax farmer from among the master tanners, known as "Yaramaz Ahmed Ağa". During Âlî's governorship this band attracted more and more attention, and Durak Ağa, the voyvoda of Köprü, was charged with dispersing it. In Ramazan 1004 (May 1596) Tâceddin Efendi, the mufti of Amasya, left his post, and Köse Ahmed Efendi of Malkara came to Amasya as mufti and professor of the Sultaniye madrasa. The appointment of Hüsrev Pasha, beylerbey of Diyarbekir, to Sivas at this time was a sign that brigandage was spreading on every side.

Âlî's administration in Amasya did not last long. Because one of the palace retainers in his household oppressed the people, he was removed from the treasurership of Rûm in September 1595. A little later he was transferred from the governorship of Amasya to Kayseri. The date of the transfer appears differently in the sources: studies that trace Âlî's life through his own works and archival documents place the Kayseri governorship in 1596, while Hüsameddin writes that he was sent to Kayseri at the beginning of the year 1005 (autumn 1596) and that his successor Bâlî Bey reached Amasya in Rebiülevvel 1005 (October-November 1596). Hüsameddin's verdict on Âlî is brief: the bey of Amasya, Âlî Bey, was a learned, virtuous man and a historian, but he had been helpless against the rebels who sprang up on every side. The governors who followed could not calm the disorder either; in Şevval 1005 Hüseyin Pasha, son of Budak Bey of Amasya, was appointed to Amasya with the authority of inspector of Anatolia, in view of the importance of the sanjak.

This short posting in Amasya can be seen as one more link in the chain of disappointments that ran through Âlî's life. A writer who believed himself worthy of the office of chancellor, of a governorship-general or of a great treasurership found himself governing a sanjak with limited means, in one of the most turbulent years of the provinces, inside a system whose decay he condemned in harsh terms in his works. These years fed his critical outlook, and it was at this very time that the Ottoman part of the Künhü'l-ahbâr was brought down to the autumn of 1596.

Amasya in Âlî's Writing

Âlî also used his time in Amasya as a historian. Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi contains several explicit records showing that Âlî put into the Künhü'l-ahbâr local traditions he heard and inquiries he made in the city. The best known concerns Gümüşlüzâde Pîr Celâleddin Abdurrahman Çelebi, sheikh of the Pîr İlyas Halveti lodge. According to the tradition, at the Ramazan feast of 841 (1437-38) the three sons of Murad II who were in Amasya, Ahmed, Alâeddin and Mehmed Çelebi, went to visit the sheikh. The sheikh showed favour to Mehmed Çelebi, the youngest, and laid his cloak over the boy's shoulders, while he merely showed the other princes the way. From this sign the people understood that Mehmed Çelebi would become sultan and the others would be travellers to the hereafter. According to Hüsameddin, Prince Ahmed died in Amasya some two and a half months later, Alâeddin Ali lost his life in 846, and the youngest prince came to the throne as Mehmed II, the Conqueror. Hüsameddin states that Âlî heard this local story while he was governor of Amasya and recorded it in his biography of Pîr Abdurrahman Çelebi.

The experiences of another sheikh of the same family also found their way into the Künhü'l-ahbâr. After Selim I came to the throne, a wide inquiry was opened in Amasya into the supporters of Prince Ahmed, and the prince's sheikh, Gümüşlüzâde Pîr Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi, was sent to Istanbul. As Âlî tells it, Şâdî Pasha's men came to the sheikh's house to arrest him and saw him through the window praying in his cell, but when they went in they could not find him. This happened twice; the third time they entered again, calling on him to obey those in authority, and this time they found the sheikh and took him to Şâdî Pasha. The sheikh was imprisoned in the Yedikule dungeon in Istanbul. Âlî also writes that when the sheikh was released years later by Selim's special order and set out for the Hijaz, he offered "heavy prayers" concerning Sultan Selim as he left. These records show how a memory still alive in Amasya eighty years after the events was set down in writing through Âlî.

Hüsameddin also passes on notes about people Âlî came to know in Amasya. Gümüşlüzâde Abdullah Çelebi, son of Mehmed Çelebizâde Halil Efendi, one of the sheikhs of Amasya, who served as judge in many towns, was met and praised by Âlî while he was bey of Amasya. In the biographies he devotes to the sheikhs of the Pîr İlyas lodge and to the scholars of Amasya, Hüsameddin again repeats the story of the three princes on the authority of the inquiry made by the author of the Künhü'l-ahbâr while governor of Amasya.

The work contains other information about Amasya too. Discussing the old forms of the city's name, Hüsameddin notes that Âlî recorded the river of Amasya in the Künhü'l-ahbâr under the names "Nehr-i Amîs" and "Nehr-i İrîs"; the second echoes Iris, the ancient name of the Yeşilırmak. The tradition attached to the building of Bayezid II's mosque complex in Amasya also appears, according to Hüsameddin, in the Künhü'l-ahbâr alongside Heşt Bihişt and Mir'ât-ı Kâinât. In this tradition, while Bayezid was prince in Amasya and his brother Cem in Karaman, news that Cem was attempting to win the throne troubled Bayezid; two Halveti sheikhs of Amasya, Gümüşlüzâde Pîr Hayreddin Hızır Çelebi and Cemâlîzâde Pîr Cemâleddin Mehmed Çelebi Halife, consoled him, foretold that the throne would be his, and asked him to build a mosque, a madrasa and a soup kitchen in Amasya. After his accession Bayezid kept his promise.

The Poets of Amasya in the Künhü'l-ahbâr

The biographical part of the Künhü'l-ahbâr contains hundreds of poets' biographies arranged by reign. In this section Âlî drew on earlier biographical dictionaries, above all those of Latîfî, Âşık Çelebi and Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, corrected them at times and added what he himself had seen and heard. Amasya stands out in these biographies chiefly because of the long governorships of Bayezid II and his son Prince Ahmed in the city. Âlî's notes of a few sentences make up a large part of what we know today about these poets.

On Mihrî Hatun Âlî gives a short and clear verdict: "She is from Amasya." He presents her as a woman of distinguished mind, of a talent bordering on the miraculous, and a master of love poetry. Mihrî had entered the gatherings of Prince Ahmed and exchanged witticisms with the poets of her time; although her name was coupled in suspicion with a young man called İskender, in Âlî's view no hand ever touched her honour. In this connection Âlî quotes a couplet Mihrî is said to have improvised: "Nice İskender'i la'lüm zülâli / Suya iletdi vü susuz getürdi." In Âlî's judgment Mihrî came and went "like a man of courage", without being taken in by the deceits of the world.

Âlî speaks just as plainly about Münîrî: "He is from Amasya." He presents him as one of the eulogists of Prince Ahmed and one of the close companions admitted to the prince's private gatherings, and records an opening couplet of his: "Dökdi cevâhirini su gibi çeşm-i eşk-bâr / Gülzâr-ı kûyuna getürince iki bıñar." Of Tâcî Bey he writes that he was the father of the chancellor Câfer Çelebi and that while Bayezid was a prince he served first as city intendant and then as treasurer and chancery secretary. The opening couplet he quotes from him is: "Göz yaşlu göñül zülf-i perîşanlar içinde / Kaldum karañu gicede bârânlar içinde."

The story of Âfitâbî shows the jealousies of the Amasya court. According to Âlî, Âfitâbî had won the closeness of Bayezid in Amasya through his poetry, but certain malicious men sowed discord and caused him to lose the prince's favour. Fallen from his high place in his old age, the poet wrote a qasida describing his situation, sent it to the prince and tried to appease his anger. Âlî quotes couplets from this qasida: "Müjeñ tîrine cân atmak hedef devlet nişânıdur / Velî benden gibi hâkinüñ ol devlet ne şânıdur." Seyfî, a judge from Sinop, is also linked with Amasya in Âlî's account: Bayezid befriended him while a prince in Amasya, and later, whenever petitions for judgeships were read out, he would ask whether Seyfî had another new poem.

There are other men of Amasya in Âlî's list. Edâyî Çelebi was a man of refinement who came from Amasya and rose through scribal service. In his youth he mixed with the scribes and poets at the court of Prince Mustafa, and later became secretary to the grand admiral Piyâle Pasha. The father of Mevlânâ Fikrî, known as Mâşîzâde, was Mâşî Şemseddin, a learned and virtuous man of the Prophet's lineage who served as mufti of Amasya; Fikrî's works include Behrâm u Zühre, Ebkâr u Efkâr, Hurşîd ü Nâhid and Şükûfezâr. Müslimî, the elder brother of Kınalızâde Ali Çelebi, was appointed judge of Amasya, but because his term coincided with the revolt of Prince Bayezid he suffered great hardship and long remained without a post.

Prince Korkud, son of Bayezid II, is also among those Âlî names as poets. According to Hüsameddin, Korkud was born in Amasya during his father's governorship there. Âlî records the couplets in which this prince, an author in the Arabic sciences and gifted in verse, voiced his resentment when his father wished to make Ahmed his heir: "Tâc u kabâyı terk idüp üryân olayın bir zamân / Gurbetde seyrân eyleyüp mihmân olayın bir zamân."

Âlî's records do not always agree with the Amasya sources. Following Latîfî, he makes Zeyneb Hatun a native of Kastamonu and writes that she presented her divan to Mehmed the Conqueror. Most sources, however, regard her as a native of Amasya; Hüsameddin too places Zeyneb Hatun in the circle of Prince Bayezid in Amasya and records that she went to Istanbul in 883 (1478). In the same way Âlî presents Hubbî Hatun as the wife of Şems Efendi, tutor of Selim II, and author of the masnavi Hurşîd ü Cemşîd, but says nothing of her birthplace; the source that calls Hubbî a native of Amasya is Kâtib Çelebi.

Last Years and Death

After Kayseri, Âlî was appointed beylerbey of Damascus but was unable to take up the post. Finally he was made sanjak governor of Jeddah. In the summer of 1599 he went to Cairo and stayed there for five months; during this time, in Rebiülevvel 1008 (September 1599), he wrote Hâlâtü'l-Kâhire mine'l-âdâti'z-zâhire, on the ancient and recent history of Egypt, the dynasties that had ruled there and its Ottoman governors. At the beginning of 1600 he went on to Jeddah. He completed his last work, Mevâidü'n-nefâis fî kavâidi'l-mecâlis, in Mecca, intending to ask the sultan for the governorship-general of Egypt. In it, with the bitterness of a man who had never reached the offices he hoped for, he criticizes in harsh terms the disorder of the state's institutions and the customs and ways of life of the various classes. He probably died in 1600 while sanjak governor of Jeddah; the site of his grave is unknown.

Works and Literary Character

By the age of forty Âlî had written seventeen works; in his list for 1001 (1593) the number rises to twenty-eight, and in 1006 (1598) to fifty. With the works he did not name or wrote later, the total approaches sixty. In a list for 1005 he himself states that thirty of his works were books and more than twenty were treatises. Most of them were presented to sultans and grandees in the hope of obtaining an office.

Among his historical works, besides the Künhü'l-ahbâr, are Heft Meclis, on the Szigetvár campaign and the accession of Selim II; the Nusretnâme, on the Georgian and Shirvan campaign, and its sequel the Fursatnâme; the Câmiu'l-buhûr der Mecâlis-i Sûr, describing in 2,772 couplets the fifty-two-day circumcision festival of Prince Mehmed in 1582; and the Fusûlü'l-hal ve'l-akd, which examines the causes of the rise and decline of states. He also rewrote in an ornate style, under the title Mirkātü'l-cihâd, the legendary book on the holy wars of Danişmend Gazi that came into his hands while he was in Niksar after his dismissal from the treasurership of Sivas. This work shows that Âlî was also interested in the Danishmendid memory of the region close to Amasya.

Âlî left five divans, four in Turkish and one in Persian. He compiled his first Turkish divan in 975 (1567). He arranged his second, Vâridâtü'l-enîka, on the accession of Murad III in 982 (1574) in Banja Luka; this is the divan with the most widely circulated copies. The third, Lâyihatü'l-hakîka, was compiled in Istanbul in Muharram 1000 (October-November 1591). His fourth divan, containing the poems from 1591 to his death, was arranged by the poet Hisâlî. The Persian divan has not survived. These divans have been published as a single divan by İ. Hakkı Aksoyak.

As a poet Âlî did not bind himself to the aesthetic discipline of divan poetry to the degree of its great masters. He followed a freer path, closer to naturalness and to lived experience. He brought into poetry the injustices he suffered, his being cast aside by dismissals and the offices denied him, and gave voice to the decay of his age in poems of strong social content. In a tercibend of 247 couplets thought to have been written around 989 (1581-82), he describes with bitter humour the corruption of every class from the monarchy down to the merchants. During his treasurership in Erzurum he influenced the formation of the young Nef'î, and it was Âlî who gave Nef'î his pen name. Because he wrote so much, some of his poems fall into the commonplace.

His character made it hard for those who knew him to like him. Because of his hunger for office and wealth, his pride and his contempt for others, his requests were often refused, and this made him resentful and aggressive towards those around him. He did not hesitate to attack in harsh language someone he had praised to the skies in hope of favour once that person failed to grant his wish. Even so, his historical works contain rich material on the sixteenth-century Ottoman state that is found nowhere else. The American historian Cornell H. Fleischer, in a comprehensive monograph treating Âlî as a figure in whom the bureaucrat and the intellectual meet, secured his place in modern scholarship.

His Place in the Historiography of Amasya

Âlî's administrative trace in Amasya is faint; his literary and historical trace is lasting. No building or endowment in his name is known in the city. Yet every scholar who writes about the poets and sheikhs of Amasya in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries turns sooner or later to his sentences. Hüsameddin Yasar lists the Künhü'l-ahbâr among the sources of his Amasya Tarihi and cites Âlî again and again as a witness to the city's traditions. What we know today about the lives of Mihrî Hatun, Münîrî, Âfitâbî and Tâcî Bey rests, alongside Latîfî and Âşık Çelebi, on Âlî's brief but dense notes.

Âlî's view of Amasya is full of the memory of the centuries when it was a princely sanjak. For him Amasya was the city where poets competed in the gatherings of Bayezid II and Prince Ahmed, where Halveti sheikhs foretold the future to princes, and where Mihrî became the talk of the town. By the time he himself arrived, that brilliant age had long since ended; the city's mint had been closed and Amasya had become a provincial centre threatened by brigandage. The contrast between Âlî's own grievances and Amasya's lost splendour lends a particular meaning to the pages the Künhü'l-ahbâr devotes to the people of Amasya.

Chronology

1541: Born in Gelibolu on the night of 2 Muharram 948 (24/25 April).

1549: His teacher Sürûrî completes Bahrü'l-maârif in Amasya in the service of Prince Mustafa.

1558: Enters the service of Prince Selim, sanjak governor of Konya; Prince Bayezid is transferred to Amasya.

1559: Battle of Konya between Selim and Bayezid; on 7 July Bayezid leaves Amasya for Iran.

1561: Writes his first work, Mihr ü Mâh, and presents it to Prince Selim.

1567-1569: Writes Nâdirü'l-mehârib, on the Battle of Konya.

1578: Joins the Georgian and Shirvan campaign as chancery secretary to Lala Mustafa Pasha.

1581: Writes the Nushatü's-selâtîn in Aleppo.

1585: Becomes treasurer of Erzurum, and six months later treasurer of Baghdad.

1587: Writes the Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân in Baghdad.

1591: Compiles his third divan, Lâyihatü'l-hakîka, in Istanbul.

1592: Probably begins the Künhü'l-ahbâr in the winter of this year; becomes secretary of the Janissaries in July and commissioner of the land registers in October.

1593: Visits Gelibolu and prepares Sadef-i Sad-güher.

1595: Becomes secretary of the Janissaries again in January; is appointed governor of the sanjak of Amasya and treasurer of Rûm, arriving in Amasya according to Hüsameddin on 1 Şevval 1003 (early June); is removed from the treasurership of Rûm in September.

1596: Is transferred from Amasya to the governorship of Kayseri; the Ottoman part of the Künhü'l-ahbâr is brought down to the events of October 1596.

1599: Writes Hâlâtü'l-Kâhire in Cairo.

1600: Completes Mevâidü'n-nefâis in Mecca; probably dies this year while sanjak governor of Jeddah.

Bibliography

The following sources were used in this article:

  • Bekir Kütükoğlu, "Âlî Mustafa Efendi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 2, Istanbul 1989, pp. 414-416. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Ömer Faruk Akün, "Âlî Mustafa Efendi (Edebî Yönü)", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 2, Istanbul 1989, pp. 416-421. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî, Künhü'l-Ahbâr'ın Tezkire Kısmı, ed. Mustafa İsen, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Ankara 2017 (first published by Atatürk Kültür Merkezi, 1994).
  • Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vols. 1-4 and 9-12, Amasya Municipality edition.
  • Jan Schmidt, "Künhü'l-ahbâr", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 26, Ankara 2002, pp. 555-556. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî'nin Künhü'l-Ahbâr'ında Medrese ve İlmiye, Turkish Academy of Sciences, Ankara 2020.
  • "Sürûrî, Muslihuddin Mustafa", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 38, Istanbul 2010, pp. 170-172.
  • "Bayezid, Şehzade", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.
  • "Zeyneb Hatun" and "Hubbî Hatun", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.
  • Cornell H. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Âli (1541-1600), Princeton 1986 (Turkish translation: Tarihçi Mustafa Âlî: Bir Osmanlı Aydın ve Bürokratı, trans. Ayla Ortaç, Istanbul 1996).
  • "Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali", English Wikipedia (auxiliary source). en.wikipedia.org

Online sources