"Habîbî İsmâ'îl Efendi-Yamak Şeyhzâde" is an entry in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi whose heading was written but whose text never was. The heading shows that someone named İsmâil from the Yamak Şeyhzâde family of Amasya wrote poetry under the pen name (mahlas) "Habîbî". Who this person was, when he lived and which poems he wrote is unknown. Two sheikhs of the family bore this name: İsmâil Efendi, a Halveti sheikh who died at the end of the sixteenth century, and his descendant Seyyid İsmâil Efendi, who rose to the headship of the same lodge in the eighteenth century. Habîbî may be one of them; the sources do not say which. Beyond Hüsameddin's empty heading and these two candidates, nothing is in hand.

Hüsameddin's Record

The entry stands in the eighth volume of Amasya Tarihi, in the section that arranges people by the first letter of their names, between the entries "Habîb Mehmed Efendi-Şeyh Hâce" and "Habîbî Hasan Çelebi-Aydınoğlu". There is not a single line under the heading. The editors of the book state in footnote 244: "Mü'ellif bu şahsın biyografisini boş bırakmıştır" (the author left this person's biography blank). The book contains other entries that the author left empty or half-finished; this is one of them. The form of the heading follows the general arrangement of the book: first the pen name, then the name, then the family name. It appears that Hüsameddin had information giving this person's pen name and family, but either could not find the material to write his biography or did not find time to write it.

First Candidate: Sheikh İsmâil Efendi

In the seventh volume of Hüsameddin there is a full entry headed "İsmâil Efendi-Yamak Şeyhzâde eş-Şeyh". This İsmâil Efendi was the son of İbâd Çelebizâde Mehmed Efendi, known as "Yamak Şeyh", a preacher at the Sultan Bayezid Mosque in Amasya. In 958 (1551) he went to Istanbul with his father, attached himself to Seyyid Musliheddîn Efendi, sheikh of the Merkez Efendi lodge, became his son-in-law in 961 (1553-54), and died around 1000 (1591-92) while sheikh of the Mimar Acem Ali lodge, a post he held in 984 (1576-77). Hüsameddin describes him as "âlim, sâlih, vâiz, şâir", a scholar, a pious man, a preacher and a poet; this sheikh, said to be a poet but given no pen name, is the strongest candidate for the owner of the pen name Habîbî. His life is told on the site's page İsmâil Efendi (Yamak Şeyhzâde).

Second Candidate: Seyyid İsmâil Efendi

At the end of the same entry Hüsameddin lists how the headship of the lodge continued in the family. From İsmâil Efendi's line, Seyyid Ahmed Vecdi Efendi died in 1141 (1728-29) and his son Seyyid Mehmed Emîn Efendi in 1170 (1756-57), both while sheikhs of the lodge; after them Ahmed Vecdi's other son, Seyyid İsmâil Efendi, became sheikh. There is no record that this second İsmâil wrote poetry. But since he bore the same name and came from the same family, the possibility that the pen name Habîbî was his cannot be ruled out. On the other hand, it is also possible that the sheikh of the seventh volume, once his pen name had become known, was recorded a second time in the eighth volume under a separate heading, this time with his pen name.

State of the Sources

The sixteenth-century tezkires (biographical anthologies of poets) contain two poets with the pen name Habîbî, neither of them from this family: a Habîbî who came from Iran in the reign of Bayezid II and was known for his six-line stanza poem (müseddes), and a preacher from the town of Badra in the province of Aydın. In Amasya there is the clerk and poet Habîbî Hasan Çelebi, who died in the seventeenth century, and the entry that immediately follows Hüsameddin's blank one is his. No other source could be found giving the pen name Habîbî to İsmâil of the Yamak Şeyhzâde family. All the identity information on this page therefore rests on Hüsameddin's heading and on the family entry in the seventh volume; the choice between the two candidates remains an inference.

His Poetry

No poems of his have come down to us. Neither in Hüsameddin nor in the tezkires consulted could a couplet or ghazal under the pen name Habîbî be found attached to this person. Apart from the pen name, the only word testifying to his being a poet is the epithet "şâir" that Hüsameddin uses for the first candidate.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources