Muslihuddin Mustafa Sürûrî was one of the most prolific scholars of the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent. Born in Gelibolu (Gallipoli), he taught at madrasas in Istanbul, wrote commentaries on Mevlânâ's Mesnevî, on the divan of Hâfız and on Sa'dî's Gülistan and Bostan, and composed the Bahrü'l-maârif, regarded as the first comprehensive book of rhetoric in Turkish literature. He was also a poet who wrote ghazals, fragments and kasides, and is reported to have had three Turkish divans. His tie to Amasya comes from the last and most eventful period of his life: in 955 (1548) he was called to be tutor to Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa), Süleyman's eldest son and sanjak governor (sanjak-bey) of Amasya, and remained at his side until the prince was killed in 1553.

Sürûrî was not a native of Amasya, and in this section only the side of his poetry whose link to Amasya can be established from the sources is brought to the fore. The clearest witnesses to this link are the quatrain of praise in the preface of the Bahrü'l-maârif, which he completed in Amasya in the prince's name, and the reply in verse he wrote to the poet Gubârî, who had reproached him for accepting the post of tutor. His other couplets preserved in the biographical anthologies are given alongside them to show the character of his poetry before and after Amasya. The details of his life are told in his biography in the Historical Figures section of our site.

Life and Years in Amasya

Sürûrî was born in Gelibolu in 897 (1492). His father was Hoca Şa‘bân, a wealthy merchant who kept a shop in the town's market. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi and İsmail Güleç record that Hoca Şa‘bân served for a time as defterdar (treasurer) to Bayezid II during his years as prince in Amasya; the first tie between the family and Amasya was thus formed in the father, half a century before the son. Sürûrî studied under the noted teachers of the day, served Fenârîzâde Muhyiddin Çelebi as court deputy and secretary, and taught at the Pîrî Mehmed Paşa and Kasım Paşa madrasas in Istanbul. He entered the Nakşibendî path, and after his teacher's death in 954 sold his property, had a small mosque built near his house and withdrew from worldly affairs.

This retirement ended with the invitation to become tutor to Prince Mustafa. Âşık Çelebi relates that the invitation came at the time the sultan set out on the Van campaign; the TDV and Güleç place it in 955 (1548). According to Güleç, Sürûrî was called to replace the tutor Hayreddin Hızır Efendi, who had died in 953; Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar's Amasya Tarihi, by contrast, places the transfer of the tutorship in 953. Mustafa had been sanjak governor of Amasya since 1541. Hüsâmeddin names "the famous Sürûrî Efendi" among the teachers who taught at the prince's summer pavilion at Karakaya and writes that he was "hem muallimi hem de mahrem-i esrârı", both the prince's teacher and the keeper of his secrets. The TDV and Güleç, however, say that on receiving the invitation Sürûrî went "to Karaman"; this note does not agree with the other evidence that the prince was in Amasya in those years and that Sürûrî completed his works in Amasya.

The Amasya years were Sürûrî's most productive period. He completed the Bahrü'l-maârif in Amasya on 11 Safer 956 (11 March 1549). He wrote his Arabic commentary on the Gülistan in Amasya in the prince's name and finished it in 958. According to Güleç he also translated Seyyid Ali Hemedânî's Persian Zahîretü'l-mülûk into Turkish in two months in Amasya, at the prince's wish. Hüsâmeddin records that the letter of complaint dated 19 Muharrem 958, which Prince Mustafa sent to the grand vizier Rüstem Paşa over the disturbances on the Iranian border, came from Sürûrî's pen. Güleç notes that in Amasya Sürûrî, together with Senâyî, Kara Fazlî, Zârî, Zamânî of Edirne and Edâyî, formed the prince's circle of poets.

Prince Mustafa was killed in Şevval 960 (October 1553) in the camp near Karaman Ereğlisi by his father's order. According to the biographers, Sürûrî then lived for nine years without office and in poverty, yet did not close his mosque and never sat at table without a guest. He died of cholera on 7 Cemâziyelevvel 969 (13 January 1562) and was buried in the graveyard of the mosque he had built at Kasımpaşa. The line "Gitti cihan sürûru" (the world's joy is gone) was composed as a chronogram on his death.

Works

Âşık Çelebi writes that his teacher had thirty-six works, half the number of his seventy-two years, and lists them by language. Among the Arabic ones are works on the Qur'an commentary of Kadı Beyzâvî and on Buhârî, together with the commentary on the Gülistan; in the Persian group, the commentaries on the Bostan, the divan of Hâfız, the Mesnevî and riddles (muamma); and among the Turkish ones the Bahrü'l-maârif, the Ravzatü'r-reyâhîn, a book on astronomy and three divans. The sources explicitly tie several of these works to the Amasya years and to Prince Mustafa:

  • Bahrü'l-maârif: A book of rhetoric on aruz, rhyme, the art of poetry and literary terms; completed in Amasya on 11 Safer 956 (11 March 1549). Its preface contains the quatrain praising Prince Mustafa. The autograph manuscript is in the Manisa Provincial Public Library.
  • Şerh-i Gülistân: In Arabic; written in Amasya in the prince's name and for students, and completed in 958.
  • Şerh-i Bostân: In Turkish; according to the TDV, written while he was the prince's tutor.
  • Şerh-i Muammeyât: A commentary on the riddles of Seyyid Hüseyin Ahlatî, composed for Prince Mustafa.
  • Tercüme-i Zahîretü'l-mülûk: According to Güleç, a translation made in Amasya in two months at the prince's wish.
  • An Arabic gloss on Beyzâvî's Qur'an commentary: according to the TDV, dedicated to "Sultan Mustafa".

For his poetry the most important question is that of his divans. Âşık Çelebi and Kınalızâde speak of his three Turkish divans. In the Bahrü'l-maârif Sürûrî writes that he did not count poetry a virtue, but that in his youth he composed five hundred ghazals out of love and longing and arranged them in a divan so that they would not be lost. The TDV speaks of a small divan written mostly in a mystical vein and of two divans that have not been found. This Turkish divan has been published from its single manuscript in the National Library of Egypt by Niyazi Ünver, first as a doctoral thesis (2010) and then as a publication of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (2020); in 2023 Serpil Gürdap wrote an MA thesis on this edition. Since Ünver's edition could not be accessed during this work, the poems below have been taken from the biographical anthologies and from Güleç's article. Çağatay Uluçay and Feridun Emecen attribute to Sürûrî a long kaside written in sorrow at Prince Mustafa's removal from Manisa to Amasya in 1541; Güleç, however, recalling that Sürûrî was then a professor in Istanbul, says that the kaside was very probably written by Küçük Mustafa Çelebi, whom the prince had taken with him when he went from Istanbul to Manisa.

Literary Persona

The biographers praise Sürûrî as a great scholar but find his poetry middling. Latîfî, in the biographical anthology (tezkire) he completed in 953 while Sürûrî was still alive, presents him as one of the leading Qur'an commentators and hadith scholars and a scholar without equal in the Persian sciences and the Mesnevî; but he explains that Sürûrî did not give much effort to the art of poetry with the saying "yek-fen ġâlibdür zü-fünûna", the man of one art prevails over the man of many. Âşık Çelebi writes that his teacher composed ghazals, solved riddles and corrected the poems of poets. Kınalızâde says that his Turkish poems were beyond count, but adds that he fell short in the subtleties of Persian and in lexical commentary, and that this was known to those who knew Persian. Beyânî records that his works were greatly popular among the common people but not much esteemed among men of learning.

The harshest verdict comes from his pupil Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî. Âlî finds his teacher's knowledge as deep as the sea, but says that his power of thought in composition and writing was not subtle and that he was unsuccessful in verse and prose; he writes that not even three ghazals from his three divans became famous, and that having gone through one of his divans he could not find a single ghazal sound in all five couplets. Yet all the biographers choose a few couplets from Sürûrî, and a common taste stands out in these choices: examples of hüsn-i talil (poetic aetiology) that put the moon's halo down to flight from the beloved's eye and a cloud's covering the sun down to the beloved's jealousy, a jest of trade between a kiss and a life, a lover who makes his eye squint to see the beloved double. Sürûrî's poetry has been remembered less for its wholeness than for these conceits in individual couplets.

Sürûrî's liveliest literary relationship was his exchange with the poet Gubârî, his fellow on the Nakşibendî path. When in 941 Gubârî claimed in a ghazal that no response could be found to his poem, Sürûrî wrote a nazire (response poem) and answered in its makta (final couplet), "Is it fitting to grow proud over one or two Turkish couplets?" Years later, when Gubârî heard that Sürûrî had accepted the post of prince's tutor, he sent him a reproachful letter in verse; Sürûrî replied with a kıt‘a of twenty-six couplets defending his tutorship. This kıt‘a is his only poem that tells of his post in Amasya in his own words.

Selections from His Poems

The examples below are taken from the biographical anthologies and from İsmail Güleç's article. The original text, English prose rendering and commentary of twelve texts appear as separate articles in this section.

Rubâ‘î: "Ol ki vasfında dinilmiş sâhib-i sıdk u safâ"

Ol ki vasfında dinilmiş sâhib-i sıdk u safâ
Fahr-ı ashâb-ı Hüdâ, hem-nâm-ı Fahr-ı Enbiyâ
Ol Ebûbekr-kerem, Fâruk-hak, Osmân-hayâ
Ol Alî-sîret, velâyet ehli Sultan Mustafâ

"He of whom it is said in his praise 'possessor of sincerity and purity of heart', the pride of those on God's path, the namesake of the Pride of the Prophets; he who has the generosity of Ebûbekir, the justice of Ömer, the modesty of Osman and the character of Ali, that man of sainthood, Sultan Mustafa." This is the quatrain of praise in the preface of the Bahrü'l-maârif. Sürûrî gathers the virtues of the four caliphs in the prince who bears the Prophet's name. The quatrain is the only piece of verse the poet wrote in Amasya whose date is known (Güleç 2001, p. 217).

Kıt‘a: "Ey yār-ı faṣīḥ u nuṣḥ-güftār"

Şeh-zāde-i a‘ẓam u mu‘aẓẓam
Nev-bāve-i efḫam u müfaḫḫam
Evṣāfumı çünki gūş ḳılmış
Deryā gibi ḳalbi cūş ḳılmış

"The greatest and most exalted prince, the most glorious and honoured fresh fruit, on hearing of my qualities, his heart surged like the sea." These are the couplets of his reply to Gubârî that tell how the prince asked for him. The poet likens himself to an ant that cannot refuse the sultan's command, and in the end asks Gubârî to pray for the prince (Âşık Çelebi, Kılıç edition pp. 421-423).

Ghazal: "Yād ider misin göñül kūyında mihmān olduġuñ"

Didiler te’s̱īr ider ismi müsemmāda velī
Ey Sürūrī görmedüm ‘ālemde ḫandān olduġuñ

"They said that a name works its influence on the one who bears it; yet, O Sürûrî, I never saw you smiling in this world." This is the couplet of Sürûrî most often cited in the biographical anthologies. Âşık Çelebi regards this makta as an augury his teacher drew for his joyless life of unfulfilled hopes (Âşık Çelebi, p. 420).

Chronology

897 (1492): Born in Gelibolu.

927 (1521): Became deputy at the Istanbul court under Fenârîzâde Muhyiddin Çelebi.

941 (1534-35): Wrote a response poem to Gubârî's ghazal during the campaign of the Two Iraqs.

944 (1537-38): Became professor at the Kasım Paşa madrasa.

955 (1548): Called to be tutor to Prince Mustafa, sanjak governor of Amasya (953 according to Hüsâmeddin).

11 Safer 956 (11 March 1549): Completed the Bahrü'l-maârif in Amasya.

19 Muharrem 958 (27 January 1551): Drafted the letter of complaint Prince Mustafa sent to Rüstem Paşa.

958 (1551): Completed his commentary on the Gülistan in Amasya and presented it to the prince.

Şevval 960 (October 1553): Prince Mustafa was killed; Sürûrî withdrew into retirement.

7 Cemâziyelevvel 969 (13 January 1562): Died of cholera in Istanbul and was buried in the graveyard of his mosque at Kasımpaşa.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources