Mehmed Bey, who wrote under the pen name Hızrî, was a poet, prose stylist and calligrapher from Amasya who served as a secretary of the imperial council (Divân-ı Hümâyûn) in Istanbul in the first half of the sixteenth century. He descended from Hızır Pasha, a governor of Amasya, and was the nephew of Keşfî Mehmed Çelebi, private secretary to Selim I. Latîfî lists him in his anthology of poets under the heading "Hızrî-i Amasyavî", among the men of the pen, and Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar gives a detailed account of his life in the ninth volume of his Amasya Tarihi. Today he is known mainly for Âb-ı Hayât (The Water of Life), a book of moral counsel in verse. The four couplets at the end of this mesnevi, in which he says the work was founded in Amasya and prays for the people of the city, are discussed separately in the article Hızrî's Amasya couplets from Âb-ı Hayât. Because other poets used the same pen name, the Hızrî of Amasya has to be distinguished from them; this question is taken up below.

Hüsameddin's Entry

Hüsameddin's entry is the fullest account of Hızrî's life. The original text of its biographical part reads:

Amasyalıdır. Amasya vâlîsi Kabulî Ağazâde Hızır Paşa ahfâdından Lütfullah Çelebi bin İbrâhim Bey bin Hızır Paşa'nın mahdûmu ve Sultân Selîm-i Evvel'in ser-kâtibi olan Keşfî Mehmed Çelebi'nin birâderzâdesidir. Evâil-i hâlinde tahsîl-i ilm ü kitâbet edib Amasyalı Abdullah Efendi'den hutût-ı mütenevvi'ayı aldı. 918'de Sultân Selîm-i Evvel taht-ı saltanâta cülûs etdikde İstanbul'a gelip Divân-ı Hümâyûn kalemine girdi. Amcasının sâye-i ikbâlinde kâtib-i Divân-ı Hümâyûn oldu. Sultân Selîm'in vefâtından sonra amcası da vefât ve Sadr-ı a'zam Amasyalı Pirî Mehmed Paşa da isti'fâ eylediğinden Makbûl İbrâhim Paşa'nın sadâretinde Divân-ı Hümâyûn'dan çıkarılıb Yahşi Beyzâde İskender Paşa'ya divân kâtibi oldu. Bir müddet sonra defterdâr-ı meşhûr Yenicelizâde İskender Çelebi'ye intisâb ederek İstanbul'a gelip sânîyen Divân-ı Hümâyûn kâtibi oldu. 940'da Sultân Süleyman Kanunî Bağdad seferine gidip 941'de Efendisi İskender Çelebi salben i'dâm edildikde pek ziyâde müteessir olup 942 senesi evâilinde İstanbul'a avdetini müteakib vefât etdi. Kâtib, münşî, şâir, hattât idi. Divân-ı eş'ârı, "Âb-ı hayat" adlı nesayih ü mevâiz-i edebîyeden bâis risâle-i manzûmesi vardır. Bu risâlesi kütübhâne-i hümâyûnda görüldü. 989'da Galata Sarayının hâne-i sagîrinde tâhsil ve terbiyede bulunan Amasyalı Bâlî bin Mehmed'in hattıyla yazılmış bulundu.

In English: He was from Amasya. He was the son of Lütfullah Çelebi, son of İbrâhim Bey, son of Hızır Pasha, the Amasya governor known as Kabulî Ağazâde, and the nephew of Keşfî Mehmed Çelebi, chief secretary of Selim I. In his youth he studied learning and the secretarial craft, and learned the various scripts from Abdullah Efendi of Amasya. When Selim I came to the throne in 918 (1512) he went to Istanbul, entered the chancery of the imperial council and, under his uncle's patronage, became a council secretary. After Selim's death his uncle also died, and when the Amasya-born grand vizier Pîrî Mehmed Pasha withdrew from office, he was removed from the council during the grand vizierate of İbrâhim Pasha and became divan secretary to Yahşi Beyzâde İskender Pasha. Some time later he attached himself to the famous treasurer Yenicelizâde İskender Çelebi, came to Istanbul and became a council secretary for the second time. In 940 (1533-34) Süleyman the Magnificent set out on the Baghdad campaign; when his master İskender Çelebi was executed by hanging in 941 (1534-35), he was deeply grieved, and he died after returning to Istanbul at the beginning of 942 (1535). He was a secretary, prose stylist, poet and calligrapher. He left a collection of poems and a treatise in verse called Âb-ı Hayât on literary counsel and admonition. This treatise was seen in the imperial library, in a copy written in 989 (1581) by Bâlî bin Mehmed of Amasya, who was then being educated in the small chamber of the Galata Palace. The whole entry is also available in the site's Hüsameddin encyclopedia section.

Life

Hızrî's life was that of a scribe whose fortunes rose and fell with those of his patrons. The young man grew up in Amasya, learned calligraphy from Abdullah Efendi of Amasya and took early to the work of the pen. The accession of Selim I in 1512 gave him his chance: when his uncle Keşfî Mehmed Çelebi became the sultan's private secretary, he too entered the chancery of the imperial council. These were the family's brightest years, with an Amasya-born grand vizier, Pîrî Mehmed Pasha, at the head of the state and his uncle in charge of one of the most trusted pens of the palace. The death of his uncle after Selim's own death, together with Pîrî Mehmed Pasha's withdrawal from the grand vizierate, upset this balance, and during İbrâhim Pasha's grand vizierate Hızrî was removed from the council.

After this first break Hızrî found his way by serving statesmen as their divan secretary. He entered the service first of Yahşi Beyzâde İskender Pasha and then of Yenicelizâde İskender Çelebi, whom Hüsameddin calls "the famous treasurer", and with his support he returned to the ranks of the council secretaries. This second rise also came to an end in the middle of a campaign. During Süleyman's Baghdad campaign, which began in 940 (1533-34), İskender Çelebi was hanged in 941 (1534-35). Hüsameddin writes that Hızrî was deeply affected by this event and died shortly after returning to Istanbul at the beginning of 942 (1535).

Latîfî's account differs on the place and time of death. According to the anthology, Hızrî died just as the sultan was heading for Baghdad: "the army went to conquer the land, and he went to the other world". The phrase suggests that he died during the campaign, while the army was on the march. Ahmet Pirinç, relying on Maksut Belen's thesis, also gives the date of death as 941 (1534). Two dates therefore stand side by side in the sources: 941 (1534) in Latîfî and in the research that follows him, and the beginning of 942 (1535) in Hüsameddin. Latîfî was a contemporary witness, while Hüsameddin builds a more detailed story that links the death to İskender Çelebi's execution; no document is known that settles the question.

Connection with Amasya

Hızrî's Amasya origin is stated plainly in two independent sources. Latîfî introduces him as "one of the men of the pen and of the scribal craft from Amasya", and Hüsameddin opens his entry with "He was from Amasya" and traces his lineage to Hızır Pasha, one of the city's governors. The pen name itself points to this family: the great-grandson of Hızır Pasha used in his poetry the name "Hızrî", derived from his ancestor's name; the sources do not state this link outright, and it is an inference. In the first volume of his work, listing the Amasya poets who became known in Süleyman's reign, Hüsameddin names Hızrî together with Ânî, Zamânî, Fikrî and Edâyî; in the third volume he also places him among the well-known poets of the city's first flowering of letters.

The strongest link with the city, however, lies in the poet's own words. In the four couplets of Âb-ı Hayât quoted by Hüsameddin, Hızrî says that his work was founded in "the city of Amasya" and asks God to protect the people of Amasya from mishap and calamity. These couplets show that the mesnevi was written or completed in Amasya, but it is not known in which years of a secretary's life spent in Istanbul and on campaign he was in the city. The fact that Bâlî bin Mehmed, who wrote the copy known today in 1581, was also from Amasya suggests that the book continued to be read among the people of the city. After these four couplets Hüsameddin adds a prayer of his own, praising the discerning men who raised Amasya up; the translation of these lines and the commentary on the couplets are in the Amasya Poems article linked above.

Poetry and Âb-ı Hayât

Latîfî does not count Hızrî a great poet. His verdict is: "Ammâ bu fende kâsırînden tabaka-i zîrîndendür. Mesnevî-gûy u sâde-makâl ve makâlâtında çendân hayâl yog idi." In English: in the art of poetry he belonged to the lower rank of those who fall short; he was a writer of mesnevis, plain in speech, and there was little imagination in his words. The anthologist gives a single opening couplet as his finest saying: "Eşküm içre rûy-ı zerdüm ey gül-i raʿnâ hemân / Ṣuya düşmiş bir ḫazân berkine beñzer bî-gümân." This couplet, which likens his yellowed face among his tears to an autumn leaf fallen into water, is examined in a separate article among Hızrî's poems. Hüsameddin mentions a collection of poems, but no surviving copy of it is referred to in the sources.

The poet's chief work is Âb-ı Hayât. Hüsameddin describes it as "a treatise in verse on literary counsel and admonition" and says he saw it in the palace library. Latîfî also mentions the work and quotes four couplets from its section on the virtue of keeping secrets; this passage is likewise given separately among the poet's poems. Maksut Belen prepared a master's thesis on the mesnevi at Celal Bayar University in 1997 and edited its text. In a 2018 paper based on this edition, Ahmet Pirinç treats the work as a didactic book of counsel and argues that the conception of God in its section on divine unity is close to Sunni theology, and particularly to the line of al-Ghazali, while its choice of concepts rests on the gnostic language of Sufism. The couplets Pirinç quotes also show the language of the work: "Ehadsin hem ebedsin hem ezelsin / Vücûd-ı vâcib ü hem lem-yezelsin."

One detail in Pirinç's paper shows in whose line Hızrî saw himself. The poet relates that in a dream he met and conversed with Câmî, Rûşenî, Ahmedî and Gülşenî: "Muhakkak Câmî'yi hem Rûşenî'yi / Dahi hem Ahmedî'yi Gülşenî'yi // Görürem hâb içinde sürerüz dem / Bularun ile olup yâr u hem-dem." Pirinç notes that such dreams played an encouraging part in the writing of the work. Of the names mentioned, Ahmedî is the poet of the İskendernâme who, according to Hüsameddin, was also from Amasya and spent the last years of his life in the city; Hızrî's counting him among the friends of his dream links two Amasya poets across a century. Whether this link carried a sense of shared birthplace for Hızrî the sources do not say.

Hüsameddin's transmission also contains a confusion. After the couplets on keeping secrets that he takes from Latîfî, the historian adds three more couplets beginning "Râz-dâr olur egerçi yâra yâr", introducing them with "Velehu" (this too is his). In Latîfî's text as edited by Rıdvan Canım, however, these couplets appear under the heading "Naẓm li-ġayrihî", that is, verse by someone else, and are followed immediately by passages from Hamdî's Yûsuf u Züleyhâ. For this reason these three couplets have not been included among Hızrî's poems.

Poets Who Shared the Pen Name

The pen name Hızrî was used by more than one poet in the sixteenth century, and the sources easily confuse them. Immediately before the entry on the Hızrî of Amasya, Latîfî describes Hızır Beg Çelebi, son of Ahmed Pasha, the mufti of Bursa; this poet also used the pen name Hızrî, attached himself to Sheikh Şemseddin Buhârî while teaching at the Kaplıca Madrasa, and wrote response poems to Hâfız. Mustafa Özkat, who edited Kara Fazlî's divan, identifies the author of the ghazal opening "İy ṣanem cevr-ile can almaḳ olupdur ḫū saña", to which Fazlî wrote a response poem, as this Bursa Hızrî and places his death in 1517-18. The "Hızrî" entry in the Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature belongs to Depegöz Hızır Çelebi of Edirne, who died in 970 (1562-63). Hüsameddin also records that Dâmâd Osmân Efendi of Amasya, who died at the beginning of the eighteenth century, wrote poetry under the pen name "Hızrî". The poet treated on this page is the council secretary Mehmed Bey whom Latîfî calls "Hızrî-i Amasyavî"; to which of these men the poems appearing simply as "Hızrî" in the anthologies of response poems belong requires further research.

Family and Circle

The lineage given by Hüsameddin connects Hızrî to an established ruling family of Amasya: Hızır Pasha, his son İbrâhim Bey, İbrâhim's son Lütfullah Çelebi, and Lütfullah Çelebi's son Mehmed Bey. His uncle Keşfî Mehmed Çelebi was a statesman, private secretary to Selim I and himself a poet; his patronage was Hızrî's first step in Istanbul. The other figures named in his career, the Amasya-born grand vizier Pîrî Mehmed Pasha, Yahşi Beyzâde İskender Pasha and the chief treasurer İskender Çelebi, show how closely Hızrî's life depended on the balance of power around the palace. Hüsameddin does not mention a son or any children of the poet.

Chronology

918 (1512): On the accession of Selim I he comes to Istanbul and enters the chancery of the imperial council.

940 (1533-34): Süleyman the Magnificent sets out on the Baghdad campaign.

941 (1534-35): His master, the chief treasurer İskender Çelebi, is executed by hanging. According to Latîfî and Pirinç, Hızrî dies during this campaign, in 941.

Beginning of 942 (1535): According to Hüsameddin, he dies after returning to Istanbul.

989 (1581-82): The copy of Âb-ı Hayât seen by Hüsameddin is written by Bâlî bin Mehmed of Amasya, then being educated in the Galata Palace.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Ahmet Pirinç, "Hızrî Amasyavî'nin Âb-ı Hayât Adlı Mesnevîsinde Tanrı Tasavvuruna İlişkin Felsefî Bir Mülâhaza", Uluslararası Amasya Şairleri Bilim Şöleni Bildiriler Kitabı, ed. M. Fatih Köksal, Sibel Murad, Mevlüt İlhan, Ankara: KIBATEK Yayınları, 2018, pp. 287-295. https://isamveri.org/pdfdrg/G00431/2018/2018_PIRINCA.pdf
  • Maksut Belen, Hızrî'nin Âb-ı Hayât Mesnevîsi (İnceleme-Metin), MA thesis, Celal Bayar Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Manisa 1997 (as quoted in Pirinç 2018).
  • Mustafa Özkat, Kara Fazlî'nin Hayatı, Eserleri, Edebî Kişiliği ve Dîvânı (İnceleme-Tenkitli Metin), MA thesis, Marmara Üniversitesi Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü, Istanbul 2005. https://katalog.marmara.edu.tr/veriler/yordambt/cokluortam/5E/T0051713.pdf

Books