Hicâbî Abdülbâki Efendi, known around Amasya and Ziyaret as "Gül Baba", was a Naqshbandi sheikh of Crimean origin, a teacher (müderris) and a tekke (dervish lodge) poet who lived from the second half of the eighteenth century into the first quarter of the nineteenth. He spent most of his life at Ziyâre, today the town of Ziyaret near Amasya, in his lodge beside the Keçioğlu Mosque, and wrote treatises in Turkish and Arabic. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar describes him as a "şâir" (poet) and "natûk", that is, an eloquent speaker, and quotes from him a seven-couplet chronogram kıt'a. This is the only poem of Hicâbî's that has come down to us.

Hicâbî's life, his lodge, his tomb and the legends about him are described in detail in the Historical Figures section of our site, in the article Hicâbî Baba and Halkalı Evliya: Two Places of Pilgrimage in Amasya. This page is devoted to him as a writer and poet, to his works, and to Hüsameddin's entry, which that article did not use. His only surviving poem is given in a separate page of this category with the original text, a modern rendering and commentary.

Life

Hicâbî was born in Bahçesaray in the Crimea. His family descended from Dede Cöngî, a sixteenth-century scholar born in the village of Sonusa near Amasya who served as mufti of Kefe and died in Bursa; his ancestors held the office of mufti of Kefe for generations. He came to Amasya at a young age, studied under Ürgüplü Hacı Ahmed Efendi, and then attached himself to Turhallı Şeyh Mustafa Efendi, receiving authorisation (hilafet) in the Mujaddidi branch of the Naqshbandiyya. After teaching and guiding disciples in Amasya for a while, he settled at Ziyâre at the invitation of its people; he founded his lodge beside the Keçioğlu Mosque and preached in the mosque. He died at Ziyâre in 1238 (1823) and was buried in the tomb beside the mosque. His tomb is still visited today.

Hüsameddin's Entry

Hüsameddin devotes a long entry to Hicâbî in the eighth volume of the Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya), in the section listing natives of Amasya whose names begin with the letter "he". The parts of the entry describing the sheikh's birth, education and literary side read as follows:

Sâhib-i terceme, kendi kaydı üzere 1165 senesi recebinde Bahçesarây'da doğdu. 1181'de Amasya'ya gelip Ürgüblü Hacı Ahmed Efendi'nin halka-i tedrîsinde bir müddet tahsîl-i ulûm etdi. Ba'dehû Fenercîzâde el-Hâc Evliyâ Halîl Efendi'den ikmâl-i tahsîl ederek icâzet-nâme aldı. (…) Âlim, fâzıl, hadîs ve tefsîre vâkıf, vâ'iz, mütekellim, natûk, şâir, ma'ârif-i sûfiyyede mâhir, zâhid, müttakî, kerîm, sofrası küşâde, fukarâsı bol, güler yüzlü, uzunca boylu, tenû-mend, mehîb bir şeyh-i Nakşibendî idi. Ta'assub u tesallüfden hoşlanmazdı. Müskit cevâbları çoktu. (…) Şeyh-i müşârün-ileyh emsileyi lisân-ı tasavvufla şerh edib insan, ihtilâf-ı e'imme, tasavvuf, tevhîd, Sivas, fakr, kevser, hediyye ve hilâl hakkında risâleler te'lîf ederek ulûm-ı şer'iyye ve sûfiyyede rüsûhunu gösterdi. Bunlardan bir haylisi de görüldü.

In English the entry reads: The subject of this biography was born, according to his own note, in Receb of the year 1165 in Bahçesaray. In 1181 he came to Amasya and studied for some time in the teaching circle of Ürgüplü Hacı Ahmed Efendi. Afterwards he completed his studies with Fenercîzâde Hacı Evliyâ Halîl Efendi and received a diploma (icazetname). (…) He was a Naqshbandi sheikh who was learned, virtuous, versed in hadith and Qur'anic exegesis, a preacher, a theologian, eloquent, a poet, skilled in Sufi knowledge, ascetic, God-fearing, generous, with an open table and many poor around him, cheerful, rather tall, stout and imposing. He disliked bigotry and self-importance. He had many retorts that silenced his hearers. (…) The said sheikh commented on the Emsile in the language of Sufism and showed his depth in the religious and Sufi sciences by writing treatises on man, the differences between the imams of the legal schools, Sufism, the unity of God, Sivas, spiritual poverty, Kevser, gifts and the new moon. A good number of these have been seen.

Hüsameddin's entry provides several pieces of information not found in other sources. He gives Hicâbî's date of birth, on the authority of the sheikh's own note, as Receb 1165 (May-June 1752). He writes that one of the reasons for Hicâbî's move to Ziyâre was that Ürgüplü Hacı Ahmed Efendi objected, in his sermons and lessons, to some of the sheikh's Sufi sayings. He relates that when Ürgüplü teased him, "With so many scholars and sheikhs in Amasya, why are you going to Turhal", Hicâbî replied, "I am going to forget what I learned from you"; Hüsameddin's words "he had many silencing retorts" describe ready answers of this kind. It is also Hüsameddin who reports that in 1224 (1809-10) Hicâbî joined the Russian war with several thousand students and disciples and was therefore known among statesmen as the "Gâzi Şeyh" (the warrior sheikh). The full entry and the site's transcription can be read in the Hüsameddin encyclopedia.

Works

Hicâbî's works are treatises (risale), religious and Sufi texts in prose. According to Mehmet Uyar, four of his works survive today, and all four are in the Hasan Paşa Manuscript Library in Çorum:

  • Risâle-i Zübdeti'l-İslâm (Turkish): on the articles of faith, its kinds and its preservation, the creation of the universe and the worlds of melekût, ceberût and mülk.
  • Risâle-i Hicâbî (Turkish): treats, in a heavier and more ornate style, God as the absolute agent (fâil-i mutlak), the true doer of every act.
  • Risâle fi't-Takvâ (Arabic): divides piety into three degrees, guarding against the forbidden, the doubtful and the permitted, and ends with a prayer.
  • el-Ebkiretü'l-Mü'telife fî Şerhi Emsileti'l-Muhtelife (Arabic): a commentary written in a literary style on the Emsile-i Muhtelife, the morphology textbook taught in madrasas.

Bursalı Mehmed Tahir, on the other hand, lists eight works by Hicâbî: el-Ebkiretü'l-Mü'telife, Bâde-i Kevser, Hediyye-i Hilâl, Înâs ve'l-İstînâs, Nükât-ı Tevhîdiyye, Bâde-i Fakr ve Fenâ, Îkâzü'n-Nâim and Ta'rîfü'l-İnsân. Of these only the first is known today. The subjects Hüsameddin lists match this list strikingly: the commentary on the Emsile, man (Ta'rîfü'l-İnsân), the unity of God (Nükât-ı Tevhîdiyye), spiritual poverty (Bâde-i Fakr ve Fenâ), Kevser (Bâde-i Kevser), gifts and the new moon (Hediyye-i Hilâl). This correspondence suggests that the treatises of which Hüsameddin "saw a good number" were the works Bursalı names; this is an inference. The treatises on the differences between the imams, on Sufism and on Sivas that Hüsameddin also mentions appear in no other list and are unknown today.

Literary Character

The Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature) classes Hicâbî as a "tekke poet", but the examples given in the entry are only prose passages taken from his treatises. Uyar says that a literary flavour and power of expression are immediately apparent in his works and that his ideas are worked out in an orderly fashion. The language of the Risâle-i Zübdeti'l-İslâm is fluent and didactic; in the Risâle-i Hicâbî the language grows heavier and the compounds multiply. In addressing the people Hicâbî turns to comparisons from daily life: the physician's bitter medicine, the Karagöz shadow-play screen, and man as a "great city" with three inhabitants are the chief of these.

Hicâbî's texts are also of interest for the link they make with the older poets of Amasya. In the Risâle-i Zübdeti'l-İslâm, explaining that one may come to know one's Lord by knowing oneself, he writes: "nefsini … heykel-i mahsus bilip halk olduğu tertibini Âşık Paşa buyurduğu marifet üzerine bilsin yahut Ahmedî'nin teşbih ettiği ulu şehir gibi Rabbisin dahi ona münasip kemal ile bilsin, ikisi dahi mezheptir" (let him know himself as a particular body and the order of his creation according to the knowledge Âşık Paşa taught, or let him know his Lord with a perfection befitting Him, like the great city to which Ahmedî compared it; both are valid paths). Âşık Paşa and Ahmedî, named here, are two great fourteenth-century poets connected with Amasya. That a Naqshbandi sheikh teaching at Ziyâre at the end of the eighteenth century should cite the views of these two poets as two equally valid paths when explaining the creation of man shows that their works were still read in the lodge and madrasa circles of Amasya.

Hüsameddin's words "natûk" and "he had many silencing retorts" suggest that Hicâbî's literary gift showed itself in speech, in the pulpit and in conversation, rather than in writing. That he wrote poetry is attested both by Hüsameddin's description of him as a "şâir" and by the chronogram kıt'a he quotes. This kıt'a is a carefully wrought poem that combines the Sufi imagery of tekke poetry, allusions to the Qur'an, word-play on terms of Arabic grammar and the abjad reckoning. There is, however, no record that Hicâbî left a divan or a collection of poems.

Poetry

Hicâbî's only surviving poem is the seven-couplet chronogram kıt'a quoted in Hüsameddin's entry. According to Hüsameddin, when es-Seyyid Gâlib Mehmed Pasha came to Amasya as governor of Sivas in 1230 (1814-15) and visited the lodge, Hicâbî presented this kıt'a to him and received many favours from the pasha. Opening with the line "Müsemmâ perdesin çün sâlib oldu", the kıt'a ties the Sufi distinction between the name and the Named, the ascent to heaven of Hallâc-ı Mansûr and of Jesus, and the senses of rising and appointment in the phrase "ref' ü nasb" to the pasha's appointment as governor. The words "es-Seyyid Muhammed Gâlib" in its last line add up to 1230 by the abjad reckoning. The kıt'a is given on a separate page in this category.

There is also a poem written about Hicâbî. A long ghazal written for Gül Baba by Mustafa Sabri Efendi, the Amasya poet and calligrapher with the pen name Türâbî, was published in Osman Fevzi Olcay's Amasya Ünlüleri and quoted by Uyar. This ghazal is Türâbî's work; it is mentioned here as a document of how Hicâbî was remembered in the region.

Family and Circle

According to Hüsameddin, Hicâbî's father was Seyyid Abdullah Efendi, one of the scholars of the Crimea, and his grandfather was Şeyh Ebussuûd Mehmed Efendi, who while mufti of Kefe wrote a treatise on tobacco titled Hediyyetü'z-Zemân fî İbâhati'd-Duhân. Kemâleddîn İbrâhim Efendi, that is, Dede Cöngî, at the head of the line, was a native of Amasya. According to Ahmet Akgündüz's article in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Dede Cöngî was born at the beginning of the sixteenth century in the village of Sonusa (Uluköy) near Amasya, became mufti of Kefe in Rebîülâhir 965 (February 1558), left his post in 972 (1565), withdrew to Bursa and died there. According to Hüsameddin, the men of the family served in turn as muftis of Kefe from Dede Cöngî down to Hicâbî's father. This Amasya origin is seen as the strongest explanation of why Hicâbî turned towards Amasya when he left the Crimea. His brother Seyyid Kemâleddîn İbrâhim Efendi, whom Hüsameddin counts among the scholars, was also known as Tatar Hoca; in his entry Hüsameddin refers the reader to the biography under the name Kemâlî (İbrâhim Kemâleddîn Efendi).

Hüsameddin writes that three of Hicâbî's deputies (halife) were well known in Amasya: his son-in-law Şeyh İbrâhim Efendi of Ziyâre, who succeeded to the headship of the lodge, Hacı İsmâil Efendi, sheikh of the Amasya guilds, and Şehir Kethüdâsızâde Şeyh Mehmed Ârif Efendi. His son-in-law İbrâhim Efendi became sheikh of the lodge and preacher of the Keçioğlu Mosque after the sheikh's death and died at the beginning of 1253 (1837) (İbrâhim Efendi, Hicâbî's son-in-law). Hüsameddin names the sheikh's son as Seyyid Mehmed Kâmil Efendi, one of the high-ranking judges (mevâli), and says he died in 1248 (1832-33); his grandson through his daughter, Seyyid Abdülbâki Efendi, died in 1303 (1885-86). According to another entry of Hüsameddin's, İbrâhim Efendi, son of the sheikh's son Hâfız Seyyid Mehmed Efendi, taught at the Hızır Paşa Madrasa in Lâdik and died around 1270 (1853-54) (Hicâbîzâde İbrâhim Efendi).

The State of the Sources

The sources disagree on Hicâbî's date of birth. The text of the entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü says he was born in the middle of the seventeenth century, whereas the heading of the same entry gives the estimate "mid-1700s?". Uyar, in his article published by Sinop University, points to the second half of the eighteenth century on the authority of Osman Fevzi Olcay. Hüsameddin, however, gives a precise date based on the sheikh's own note: Receb 1165, that is, May-June 1752. This date agrees with Uyar's estimate and is the only precise date whose source is stated.

The date of his arrival in Amasya is also given differently. Sources based on Bursalı Mehmed Tahir write that Hicâbî migrated to Amasya in 1774 after the Russian occupation of the Crimea; a local text quoted in the site's biography gives the year 1198 (1783-84). According to Hüsameddin, however, Hicâbî came to Amasya to study in 1181 (1767-68), when he was about fifteen. This date is earlier than the Russian entry into the Crimea (1771), and Hüsameddin connects the arrival with study and says nothing of a migration. The two pieces of information do not exclude each other: the young Abdülbâki may have come to study, and the rest of his family may have migrated to Amasya after the occupation of the Crimea. This is an inference and has not been confirmed by documents.

On the date of death Hüsameddin agrees with Bursalı: the sheikh died at the beginning of Receb 1238, that is, in March 1823. As noted in the site's biography, the date 1231 (1815-16) given by Olcay conflicts with these two sources; most researchers accept 1238. The sources also differ on his deputies: the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü names İbrâhim Zühdî Efendi and Dağıstânî Yâsin Efendi, whereas Hüsameddin lists Hacı İsmâil Efendi and Mehmed Ârif Efendi beside his son-in-law İbrâhim Efendi. It appears that the son-in-law İbrâhim Efendi and İbrâhim Zühdî are the same person.

Chronology

Rebîülâhir 965 (February 1558): Dede Cöngî, the family's Amasya ancestor, becomes mufti of Kefe.

Receb 1165 (May-June 1752): Hicâbî is born in Bahçesaray, according to his own note.

1181 (1767-68): According to Hüsameddin, he comes to Amasya to study.

1774: According to sources based on Bursalı Mehmed Tahir, he migrates to Amasya after the occupation of the Crimea.

1797: His lodge beside the Keçioğlu Mosque at Ziyâre is founded.

1224 (1809-10): He joins the Russian war with several thousand students and disciples and earns the title "Gâzi Şeyh".

1230 (1814-15): He presents his chronogram kıt'a to the governor of Sivas, es-Seyyid Gâlib Mehmed Pasha, who visits his lodge.

Receb 1238 (March 1823): He dies at Ziyâre and is buried in the tomb beside the mosque.

1253 (1837): His son-in-law İbrâhim Efendi, who succeeded to the headship of the lodge, dies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Books

Online sources