From Saddler's Son to Prince's Secretary

Kara Fazlî was one of the poets of the age of Süleyman the Magnificent, and today his name is remembered above all for a single work, the mesnevi (narrative poem) Gül ü Bülbül (The Rose and the Nightingale). He completed it in 960 (1553) in the name of Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa), the sanjak governor of Amasya, whom he had served as divan secretary for nearly ten years. In the autumn of that same year the prince was strangled in the camp of his father, who was marching on the Nakhchivan campaign. The most productive period of Fazlî's life thus began in the prince's palace at Amasya and closed with a work written there. Raised in a saddler's shop in Istanbul and trained in poetry at Zâtî's fortune-telling booth in the courtyard of the Bayezid Mosque, this poet spent his life in the chanceries of three of Süleyman's sons: first with Prince Mehmed in Manisa, then with Prince Mustafa in Amasya, and finally with Prince Selim in Konya and Kütahya. He saw two of the three princes die, and he wrote elegies for both.

Fazlî was not a native of Amasya; he came to the city because of his post in the prince's chancery. Yet nearly half of his surviving kasides (odes), all of his chronogram poems and his best-known work were written during these years of service, in the prince's divan at Amasya. Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, listing the circle of Prince Mustafa at Amasya in the third volume of his Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya), names "Fazlî Çelebi, the secretary of the divan" among the poets, alongside the prince's chancellor Hamdî Hamdullah Çelebi and his treasurer Lutfî Bey. This record agrees with what the sixteenth-century tezkires (biographical dictionaries of poets) say, and it is the clearest document linking Fazlî to the literary history of Amasya.

Name, Nickname and Birth

Most of the tezkires give the poet's name as Mehmed. Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî introduces him as "the son of a saddler" and says that he was born and raised in Istanbul and became known as "Kara Fazlî". Âşık Çelebi records the same information in the words "He is the son of a saddler, his name is Mehemmed, his birthplace was Istanbul." Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, Beyânî and Riyâzî likewise agree that he was from Istanbul and was known by the nickname Kara Fazlî. Kâtib Çelebi in the Keşfü'z-zunûn and Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir in the Osmanlı Müellifleri, however, give his name as Ali. Mustafa Özkat, who compiled the poet's divan from poetry anthologies, suggests on the basis of the phrase "Murtazâ hakkı Alî olmasun adum Fazliyâ" in the signature couplet of one ghazal that his real name may have been Mehmed Ali. In one manuscript of Kınalızâde's tezkire the name appears as Mahmud. Faced with these discrepancies, Mehmed Nâil Tuman discussed whether "Serrâc-zâde Fazlî" and "Kara Fazlî" were the same person and, since the sources agree on their date of death, the princes they served and their works, concluded that they were one and the same.

The epithet "Kara" (black) comes from the poet's dark, swarthy face. Fazlî himself plays on it in a na't (ode to the Prophet), where he says he has come to the Prophet's door as a sinner "with a black face." Gelibolulu Âlî, who knew him closely in his Kütahya years, describes him as "abûsü'l-veche bir cesîm ü zahîm-i hîre-celîs": a sour-faced, heavily built and withdrawn man. Latîfî paints a different picture: within this man of simple-hearted, dervish-like and even slightly eccentric appearance there lay, in his view, a refinement and intelligence that could only be counted as a grace of God. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, following Latîfî, likewise presents him as an introverted, sensitive, dervish-natured and intelligent man.

His date of birth does not appear in the tezkires. An anonymous note in an anthology in the Süleymaniye Library says that the pen name Fazlî came from the chronogram "Bedâ Fazlî" composed for his birth, which gives the year 927 (1521). The same note adds that Zâtî composed a chronogram for 941 (1534-35) when he began writing poetry. Özkat does not find this note convincing, since it is hardly possible for a youth born in 1521 to have presented a kaside to the sultan at the circumcision festival of 1530. In his view the error lies in the birth date. A definite year of birth is therefore unknown; since the poet was old enough to present a kaside in 1530, he was presumably born in the first years of the sixteenth century.

Training in Zâtî's Shop

Fazlî first studied Arabic morphology and syntax, then read "a great deal of Persian" with Riyâzî of Skopje, one of the poets of the day renowned for his Persian. Fuad Köprülü thinks Riyâzî was the first master in the development of Fazlî's literary taste and in his turn towards Sufism. His real training in poetry, however, took place with Zâtî. Zâtî was an elderly poet who made his living casting geomantic figures and telling fortunes in a small shop in the courtyard of the Bayezid Mosque, and for nearly half a century this shop served as an informal school for the young poets of Istanbul. The young men would first come on the pretext of having their fortunes told, read their poems and receive the master's corrections. According to Haluk İpekten, Kara Fazlî, Bâkî and Kudsî were among the pupils of this shop, and Âşık Çelebi among its regulars.

The tezkires present Fazlî as Zâtî's "very closest pupil." According to Âşık Çelebi, Zâtî used to say of him "he is my special pupil, the one I have reared in poetry"; Fazlî, for his part, had abandoned all his other occupations to devote his time to the shop. Kınalızâde says that he gave all his words and ways to poetry, attached himself entirely to Zâtî and was regarded as his particular disciple. Fazlî himself acknowledges this bond in a ghazal, saying that what allowed him to surpass the poets of the age on this path was the favour of Zâtî. According to Özkat, Fazlî's Turkish, rich in idioms and leaning on the spoken language, also owes much to Zâtî and to the period's "plain Turkish" (Türkî-i basit) tendency.

In these years Fazlî also turned to Sufism. According to Ahdî's account in the Gülşen-i Şu'arâ, while occupied with the outward sciences he left them to enter retreat in the lodge of Şeyh Zarîfî Hasan Efendi of the Gülşenî branch of the Halveti order, completed many retreats and finished his training on the path. Zarîfî Hasan Efendi was one of the deputies of İbrahim Gülşenî and taught at the lodge in the Lonca quarter of Istanbul. Özkat thinks that the panegyric in Fazlî's divan addressed to "Hâce-i Şân Efendi" may have been presented to this sheikh. The poet's first mesnevi, Hümâ vü Hümâyûn, also belongs to this period. When Âşık Çelebi says that until then his poetry was mixed and middling, he is referring to these early works.

The Circumcision Festival of 1530 and the Manisa Years

The event that changed Fazlî's life was the great circumcision festival that began at the Hippodrome (At Meydanı) in Istanbul on 29 Şevval 936 (27 June 1530) and lasted three weeks. At this festival Süleyman had his sons Mehmed, Mustafa and Selim circumcised. The poets of the day presented their kasides to the sultan. Kınalızâde and Beyânî tell the story in the same way: Zâtî, as the great poet of the age, read his kaside before everyone else, and when he had finished he asked leave with the words "I have a pupil of repute named Fazlî; grant him permission to come forward," and had his pupil's kaside read immediately after his own. Süleyman liked the young poet. Özkat thinks that the festival kaside in Fazlî's divan, which describes the "imperial feast" at the Hippodrome and opens with the line "Demidür hurrem ol ey dil ki irdi sûr-ı sultânî," may have been the poem read that day.

According to the TDV, this event was a turning point for a poet who had until then lived in hardship. When Prince Mehmed went out to Manisa as sanjak governor, Fazlî was appointed his divan secretary. Prince Mehmed had been appointed in 949 (1542) to Manisa, left vacant when his elder brother Mustafa was sent to Amasya, and a year later, on 8 Şaban 950 (6 November 1543), he died of smallpox at the age of twenty-one. The death of this prince, known as Süleyman's favourite son, shook Fazlî deeply. Âşık Çelebi records that he composed "many elegies" on this death. Fazlî's seven-stanza terkib-bend (stanzaic poem), which has survived, is one of these elegies. Opening with an allusion to the verse of the Sura al-Rahman that declares everything on earth to be mortal, the poem calls on all that is on earth and in heaven to mourn the prince, and ends with a reproach to fate followed by a prayer.

Divan Secretary to Prince Mustafa in Amasya

With Prince Mehmed's death Fazlî was left for a time without a post. Âşık Çelebi describes this in his own ornate language: when the prince's book of life was rolled up, Fazlî remained outside "like a half of a surplus," surrounded by sorrow. Gelibolulu Âlî says that the prince's servants were dispersed and Kara Fazlî was sent to the door of Sultan Mustafa. Kınalızâde also writes that after Mehmed's death Fazlî attached himself to Prince Mustafa's "threshold" and "for a long time was a singing nightingale in that rose garden full of delight." Prince Mustafa was at that time in Amasya. He had been transferred from Manisa to the sanjak of Amasya in 1541 and remained there until his death in 1553. Fazlî's secretaryship thus took place in Amasya, from late 1543 to the autumn of 1553, for roughly ten years.

Fazlî greeted this appointment with a kaside. In the thirty-seven-couplet poem beginning "Müyesser oldı yine iltifât-ı sultânî," he says that his name has been entered in the register of state and that attachment to the prince's divan is for him the highest degree of honour. In the same kaside he praises Mustafa as "Sirâc-ı millet ü dîn Şâh Mustafâ" (lamp of the community and the faith, Shah Mustafa). The divan compiled by Özkat contains thirteen kasides written for Prince Mustafa; among them are a nevruziye (poem for the spring festival of Nevruz), two festival odes, an ode on the pilgrimage season, an ode with the refrain "adl" (justice) on the prince's fairness, and an ode comparing the sword and the pen. To these is added a muaşşer (ten-line stanzaic poem) praising the prince, every stanza of which ends with the line "Âferîn ey iftihâr-ı Âl-i Osmân âferîn" (Bravo, O pride of the House of Osman, bravo).

Two of the kasides open a small window onto the daily life of a divan secretary. In one, Fazlî describes his grief at the death of a horse the prince had given him and asks for a new one. In the other, in a playful tone reminiscent of Şeyhî's Harnâme (Book of the Donkey), he describes the feeble horse he owns and asks the prince for a sturdier mount. In another kaside the poet says he could compose not a hundred but a thousand couplets in praise of the prince, but the rhyme will not stretch so far, and he apologises with the words "Pâdişâhum hele ma'zûr buyur kâfiye az" (My sovereign, pray excuse me, the rhymes are few). The kaside he wrote for the birth of Prince Mustafa's son, Prince Mehmed, also belongs to this period; Özkat counts it among the poet's richest kasides in its use of proverbs and artful expression.

All eight of Fazlî's chronogram poems date from the years 954-958 (1547-1551) and offer glimpses of life in the prince's divan at Amasya. In 957 (1550) he composed a chronogram with the line "İclâl ü ömr bâkî ilm ü edeb müyesser" on the appointment of a tutor for Prince Mustafa's son. In the same year he wrote a chronogram, "Şehe Behrâm-ı meh oldı silihdâr," on the appointment of a certain Behram of the prince's retinue as sword-bearer. In 958 (1551) he dated with the line "Zihî atâ vü ni'met bârekallah" a banquet given on Mount Taşan by a certain Mîr Yahyâ in honour of Prince Mustafa. He wrote a panegyric for Sun'ullah Bey, one of the prince's viziers, and when this man's son Mahmud died in 955 (1548) he composed three chronograms, one of them in Persian, and a nine-stanza elegy. Özkat also draws attention to a ghazal praising Ladik in a prayer-book in mixed verse and prose written on the occasion of Prince Mehmed's death. From the praise of this town near Amasya and the mention of Prince Mustafa, he concludes that the work was written in Amasya shortly after Fazlî entered Mustafa's divan.

The prince's palace at Amasya was a lively literary milieu in these years. Hüsameddin relates that Prince Mustafa was much inclined to literature and gathered men of learning and letters around him to converse with them. According to the list Özkat gives on the authority of İpekten, Prince Mustafa's circle at Amasya included, besides Fazlî, the prince's tutor Gelibolulu Sürûrî, Zârî, Zemânî of Edirne and Edâyî of Amasya. Hüsameddin records that Sürûrî completed his commentary on the Gülistan in Amasya while serving as the prince's tutor. Fazlî's place in this milieu is best shown by his murabba (quatrain poem) in which every stanza ends with the refrain "Sâkiyâ sun câmı Sultan Mustafâlılardanuz" (Cupbearer, pass the cup, we are of Sultan Mustafa's men). In the poem he describes himself and his companions as a fellowship that has learned the art of speech in the prince's company, prays for its shah every night and praises him every morning, and he says "Bize Fazlî gibi medh itmek o şâhı kârdur" (to praise that shah, like Fazlî, is our trade).

According to Âşık Çelebi, Fazlî's maturing as a poet and prose stylist also fell in these Amasya years. After becoming secretary in Prince Mustafa's divan he worked hard at prose composition and poetry, wrote "exquisite letters and fine kasides," and perfected the arts of verse and prose. He reports that Fazlî wrote Gül ü Bülbül and a collection of a thousand quatrains in this period of maturity. Gelibolulu Âlî also records that after he had "truly acquired mastery in poetry and prose" he composed Gül ü Bülbül, his own invention.

Gül ü Bülbül

Gül ü Bülbül is the only major work of Fazlî to have come down to us complete. It is written in the "feilâtün mefâilün feilün" pattern of the hafif metre. The TDV gives the number of couplets as 2450, while Nezahat Öztekin, who prepared the critical text, gives 2444. According to E. J. W. Gibb, the chronogram in the last couplet shows that the work was completed in 960 (1553). It is dedicated to Prince Mustafa. Although the theme of the love between the rose and the nightingale had long been treated in Persian literature, Fazlî's mesnevi is regarded as original in its plot. Gibb says that he knows of no Persian poem in which the rose-and-nightingale legend is thus extended into a complete allegorical romance. The TDV likewise considers it the longest and most successful of the rose-and-nightingale mesnevis in Turkish literature.

In keeping with classical convention, the mesnevi opens with sections of basmala, praise of God's unity, supplication, praise of the Prophet and the Prophet's ascension. In the section on the reason for its composition, the poet tells how, as he sat withdrawn in a corner during the days of spring, an old friend invited him into the garden. The friend asks why he has not written a new work. Fazlî complains of the struggle to make a living and of the age's failure to value merit. The friend tells him that it would be worthwhile to write a work in the name of the learned and witty Prince Mustafa, so that the names of both prince and poet would live until the Day of Judgement, and he suggests the nightingale's love for the rose as the subject. In the fifty or so couplets that follow, Fazlî presents his work to Prince Mustafa, whom he calls "the son of the sovereign of the world," and praises him.

The story begins by telling of a just king named Bahar Şah (King Spring) who reigned in the land of Rum. The opening couplets in Öztekin's edition run: "Ki meger rûzgâr-ı mâzîde / Eltef ü eşref-i arâzîde / Ya'nî Rûm içre var idi bir şâh / Lutf-ı tab' ile hurrem ü dil-hâh" (In days long past, in the gentlest and noblest of lands, that is, in Rum, there was a king, cheerful and beloved for his gracious nature). Bahar Şah's son Gül Şah (Prince Rose) is made governor of the city of Gülşen (Rose Garden) by his father. Gül sees his reflection in the water, falls in love with his own beauty and sends Nesim (the Breeze) to find out whether there is anyone like him in the world. On the way Nesim meets Bülbül (the Nightingale), dressed as a dervish and singing in a plaintive voice. This prince, who has left his father's kingdom in search of the kingdom of love, falls in love with Gül the moment he hears of him. Bülbül's arrival at Gülşen, his banishment at the hand of Nergis (the Narcissus), the intrigues of Sünbül (the Hyacinth), his wounding by the dagger of Diken (the Thorn), and his capture by hunters who shut him in an iron cage make up the first half of the story.

In the second half the story turns into a war narrative in which the seasons are personified as hostile rulers. In the east Temmuz Şah (King July) appears, sends a summons to surrender to Bahar Şah by way of the scorching wind, then makes the Sun his commander and burns Gülşen. Next Hazan Şah (King Autumn) arrives from the north and paints everything in golden colours, only to be driven out in turn by the cold-breathed Sultan of Winter coming from the west. In the end Bahar Şah asks for help from his kinsman Nevruz Şah (King New Year) in the south. When Nevruz Şah defeats the Sultan of Winter, Bahar Şah returns to his throne and Gül to Gülşen. During a feast Gül remembers Bülbül, visits him in his cage and asks his father to pardon him. The story ends with the two lovers united at a morning gathering. Gibb points out that the personification of the seasons as hostile kings is the same as the central idea of Lâmiî's work on the contest of spring and winter.

At the end of the work Fazlî asks that the story not be read as a mere fable and supplies the key to the allegory himself. Bahar Şah is reason, Gül the spirit, Gülşen the human body, Bülbül the heart. Nesim is breath, Nergis insight, Lâle (the Tulip) love, Servi (the Cypress) uprightness, the River the purity of the heart, Jâle (the Dew) longing, Süsen (the Lily) courage, Menekşe (the Violet) humility, Sünbül envy, Diken pride and rancour. Temmuz Şah stands for lust and wrath, Hazan Şah for the yellowing and decay of the body, the Sultan of Winter for the body's growing cold, and Nevruz Şah for the light of certainty. When the desires of the self take hold of the body, reason flees; when the light of certainty prevails, lust and wrath are defeated, and the heart escapes the cage of the body and is united with the spirit. According to Öztekin, the work shows the harm done by greed, rancour, envy and pride while praising humility, moderation and the discipline of the self. Gencay Zavotçu, author of the entry in the Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature (TEİS), notes that the mesnevi treats the idea of the unity of being (vahdet-i vücud).

Whether the work reached Prince Mustafa's hands is not known. The mesnevi was completed in 960. Prince Mustafa was executed on 26 Şevval 960 (6 October 1553) in the camp of Süleyman, who had set out on the Nakhchivan campaign, near Ereğli in the province of Konya. According to Özkat, two of the manuscripts of the work, Süleymaniye Library Âşir Efendi 314/1 and Yapı Kredi Sermet Çifter Research Library 951, were copied in the year 960. No definite record has been found, however, showing that the dedication copy was or was not presented to the prince in person. The patron of the work that Fazlî finished in Mustafa's lifetime lost his life within the year in which the book was written.

The sources also contain a small problem of dating. Latîfî's tezkire was completed in 953 (1546), and Gibb writes that for this reason Latîfî does not mention Gül ü Bülbül. In the text edited by Rıdvan Canım, however, there is a passage in which Latîfî mentions the work as Fazlî's finest, written in the manner of Hâcû of Kirman's Ravzatü'l-envâr and Hocendî's Bedâyiü'l-ashâr. Özkat thinks this information may have been added after the tezkire was completed. Kınalızâde, for his part, records that the mesnevi was the most famous of all Fazlî's works and was much loved by the public.

Gül ü Bülbül is among the first Ottoman mesnevis to become known in the West. Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall published the Turkish text with his German translation in Pest and Leipzig in 1834. Hammer considered it, for its originality and its irreproachable decorum, the Turkish mesnevi best suited to European taste. Gibb did not agree; in his view the poem, though graceful and pleasant to read, is too fantastic and far-fetched, and the human interest of Khusrev and Shirin or Leyla and Mejnun is absent from it. The TDV notes that the work was also translated into English. One of the first studies of the work in Turkey was Sülün Özkut's graduation thesis of 1949. Nezahat Öztekin prepared the critical text of the work as a doctoral dissertation at Dokuz Eylül University in 1987, and the text was published as a book in İzmir in 2002. Gencay Zavotçu has also studied the rose-and-nightingale mesnevis of Turkish literature comparatively.

The Death of Prince Mustafa and the Elegies

The execution of Prince Mustafa was the second great rupture in Fazlî's life. Âşık Çelebi describes it in the words "the time of the late Sultan Mustafa also came to an end, and there too the cruelty of the vengeful heavens became manifest." Gelibolulu Âlî likewise says that in the poet's "ill-starred fortune" the divan of this prince too was rolled up. Many poets wrote elegies on Mustafa's death, and Fazlî was among them. The divan compiled by Özkat contains two elegies for Prince Mustafa.

One of them is an eleven-stanza murabba, a form unusual for an elegy. Every stanza ends with the refrain "Meded begler meded zulm oldı gâyet Mustafâ Hân'a" (Help, my lords, help, a great wrong has been done to Mustafa Khan). In this poem, published in Mustafa İsen's anthology of elegies Acıyı Bal Eylemek and in Ayhan Güldaş's article "Bilinmeyen Şehzade Mustafa Mersiyeleri" (Unknown Elegies for Prince Mustafa), Fazlî says that although the prince was loyal to his father, he was left under the charge of rebellion through the slanders of his enemies. In the second stanza he says "Yolında pâdişâhun sâdık iken ol şeh-i a'lâ / Dirîgâ itdi isyân töhmetin bühtân idüp a'dâ" (Though that exalted prince was faithful in the sovereign's path, alas, his enemies slandered him and charged him with rebellion). In another stanza he likens the prince to a falcon hunting in the plain of sovereignty and tells how it finally fell into the snare. In the tenth stanza he says that the prince stood like the wall of Alexander against sedition in the land of Rum. In the last stanza, naming himself, he bids the prince's servants weep until the Day of Judgement like the afflicted Fazlî.

The second elegy is a three-stanza terkib-bend. In the first stanza the poet laments the faithlessness of fate, in the second he praises the prince, and in the third he reproaches those who destroyed him and weeps. Özkat thinks that the small number of stanzas may reflect the caution created by the fact that the prince had been put to death on the sultan's order. That this caution was not misplaced is shown by what befell Edâyî of Amasya, who came from the same circle. According to Hüsameddin, Edâyî was later dismissed from his post as a secretary of the Imperial Council because he had used words offensive to Rüstem Paşa in his elegies for Mustafa.

In the Service of Prince Selim

After Mustafa's death Fazlî entered the service of Prince Selim, who remained among the heirs to the throne. The sources do not agree on when this move took place. Âşık Çelebi says that he attached himself to Selim's household "after a long time." Gelibolulu Âlî states that, thanks to the good offices and effective intercession of certain grandees, he became an "imperial secretary" with Selim as well. The TDV writes that he was appointed Selim's divan secretary in 969 (1562). Gibb, on the other hand, says that in 970 (1562) Selim made him his divan secretary with a fief worth 60,000 aspers a year. Özkat, for his part, thinks that Fazlî joined Selim in Manisa after 1553 and did not leave his side during his governorships in Konya and Kütahya.

The years spent with Selim coincide with the fiercest phase of the struggle for the throne between Süleyman's two sons. When Prince Bayezid was defeated by Selim on the plain of Konya in 1559, he fled with his sons to Iran, to Shah Tahmasp. According to what Özkat reports on the basis of an anthology in the Mevlana Museum Library, it was Fazlî who wrote the prose account of the battle of Konya that Selim sent to Süleyman. Gelibolulu Âlî also says that the letter written to the Shah of Iran concerning Bayezid came from Fazlî's pen and that this letter was proof, clear as the sun, of his skill in prose composition. The TDV records that in his last years Fazlî conducted the correspondence concerning the demand for Bayezid's surrender by Iran.

Gelibolulu Âlî worked alongside Fazlî in Selim's divan at Kütahya and is a witness to the last years of his life: "While this humble one was chief secretary at that threshold, the said Fazlî was the head (re'îs)." According to Âlî, after long service Fazlî became chief of the secretaries (reisülküttap) around 970 (1562-63) with a fief of sixty thousand aspers, but lived only two years after his affairs were put in order. Âlî also relates that towards the end of his life Fazlî took up the study of Arabic morphology and syntax again, remedying with great effort his shortcomings in Arabic constructions and completing his learning.

His Death

The sources differ by one year on the date of Fazlî's death. Âşık Çelebi and Kınalızâde write that he died in the Ramadan of 970 (May 1563). Kınalızâde describes this as setting out "to celebrate the festival with the houris of paradise," that is, to spend the feast at the end of Ramadan in heaven. Âşık Çelebi also gives the place of death: Kütahya. Ahdî, Riyâzî and Kâtib Çelebi, on the other hand, record the year of death as 971 (1564). According to Riyâzî, Gelibolulu Âlî composed a chronogram on this death with the words "Fazlî öldi" (Fazlî has died), whose numerical value is 971. The TDV and TEİS accept 971 as the year of death. Özkat too finds more reliable the date given by Âlî, who worked under him, and by Ahdî, who lived for a time in Kütahya, and by combining it with the month of Ramadan recorded by the two tezkire writers he fixes the death in Ramadan 971 (May 1564). Hammer and Gibb give the same date.

His Works

The tezkires attribute many works to Fazlî, but most of them are not extant today. Latîfî says that he wrote a mesnevi of five thousand couplets, Hümâ vü Hümâyûn, in the manner of Khusrev and Shirin, and quotes ten couplets from it. The work was inspired by the Persian mesnevi of the same name by Hâcû of Kirman. Âşık Çelebi and Gelibolulu Âlî mention a Lüccetü'l-esrâr written as a response to a work of Nizâmî, a Nahlistân (Palm Grove) in mixed verse and prose in the manner of Sa'dî's Gülistan, and a work of a thousand quatrains. Özkat points out that Nizâmî had no work called Matla'u'l-envâr and that the mesnevi in question must have been a response to the Mahzenü'l-esrâr. Ahdî presents Fazlî as a poet who wrote a quintet (hamse) of mesnevis. No copy of any of these works has been found to date.

Latîfî and Kafzâde Fâizî report that Fazlî had an arranged divan. No complete copy of this divan has come to light. In an anthology in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library there is an incomplete copy made in 1149 (1736) and marked "left unfinished." In his doctoral dissertation prepared at Marmara University in 2005, Mustafa Özkat assembled a divan of about three thousand couplets by searching this copy and the poetry anthologies of the period. This compilation contains 34 kasides, 38 stanzaic poems, 8 chronograms, 153 ghazals, 20 kıtas (short poems) and 2 single couplets. Four of the kasides are addressed to Süleyman, thirteen to Prince Mustafa, four to Prince Selim, and four to statesmen and scholars such as Treasurer Ahmed Paşa, Vizier Sun'ullah, Chancellor Celâlzâde Mustafa Çelebi and Hâce-i Şân Efendi. Özkat also presents among Fazlî's prose works a letter of congratulation written for Ahmed Çelebi, who was appointed treasurer of the Rumelian timars in 954 (1547), and a prayer-book written on the occasion of Prince Mehmed's death. Fazlî wrote a great many letters during his years as divan secretary and, according to the TDV, ranked among the leading prose stylists of his time.

His Literary Personality

The sixteenth-century tezkire writers pass judgements on Fazlî that do not agree with one another. Latîfî praises his poetic talent highly: he is quick in composing verse and successful in the end, he has found the soul of words, and in the mesnevi his contemporaries could not match him. Kınalızâde says that his couplets spread through the heart like the scent of aloeswood. Ahdî mentions his kasides as artful, his prose as rhymed, his ghazals as fine and his quatrains as admired. Gelibolulu Âlî says two different things. On the one hand he acknowledges that Fazlî truly acquired mastery in poetry and prose and wrote Gül ü Bülbül, his own invention. On the other he writes that most of his poems were "şütür-gürbe," that is, ill-matched, that his prose was as disordered as his verse, and that if he composed seven or nine couplets only one of them would be found pleasing. Özkat thinks that jealousy may have played a part in this harsh assessment by Âlî, who had worked under Fazlî.

Fazlî's own poems show a poet who was not at all modest about his worth. In one ghazal he calls himself "nazm bâzârının sarrâfı" (the money-changer of the market of verse). In a kaside written for Prince Mustafa he likens the art of speech to a bride who has put on the robe of metre, adorned herself with the ornaments of art, slipped onto her silver ankle the golden anklet of rhyme and set on her head the jewelled crown of a fine opening line. In another kaside, in a dervish's manner, he says "Mezheb ü câh istemez sultâna baş indürmezüz / Ne vezîrinde bu dünyânun ne pâşâsındayuz" (We seek neither creed nor rank, we bow our heads to no sultan; we are neither among the viziers nor among the pashas of this world). According to Özkat, this couplet, coming from a secretary whose entire official career was spent in princely courts, is the voice of a man weary of the quarrels between princes and of the sorrows he had lived through. The TDV notes that Fazlî used a Turkish based on the spoken language and adorned with idioms, in which Arabic and Persian words took their place naturally, and says that, remaining in the shadow of Zâtî and Bâkî, he was known only for Gül ü Bülbül.

In his own time Fazlî was also confused with other poets who used the same pen name. Fazlullah of Edirne, called in the tezkires Fazlî-i Leng (Fazlî the Lame) because he was lame, and Kara Fazlî were different people. In one kıta Kara Fazlî says that of these two Fazlîs one was from Istanbul and the other from Edirne, and with a reference to his rival's lameness he hints that his poetry limped. In the seventh volume of Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi, another poet named "Topal Hattâtzâde Fazlullah Fazlı Çelebi" is mentioned as the teacher of Edâyî of Amasya. Hüsameddin also counts him among Prince Mustafa's poets and writes that Edâyî entered the prince's service through him. Since the tezkires contain no record that Kara Fazlî was lame or the son of a calligrapher, there is no sufficient basis for regarding this Fazlı Çelebi of Amasya as the same person as Kara Fazlî.

His Legacy in Amasya

Kara Fazlî has no known tomb, endowment or building in Amasya. His bond with the city rests on his ten years as divan secretary and on the poems he wrote during those years. The thirteen kasides presented to Prince Mustafa, the poems written for the birth of the prince's son and for his tutor, the chronogram on the banquet on Mount Taşan, and the elegy and chronograms on the death of the son of the vizier Sun'ullah Bey are among the most vivid records surviving today of daily life in the prince's divan at Amasya. Gül ü Bülbül was likewise completed in the last year of this divan and dedicated to the sanjak governor of Amasya. Fazlî's name thus has its place in the literary history of Amasya as one of the most productive members of the company of poets and secretaries gathered around Prince Mustafa in the middle of the sixteenth century.

Chronology

1530: At the princes' circumcision festival beginning on 29 Şevval 936 (27 June 1530), he is presented to Süleyman by Zâtî and recites his kaside.

1542: Prince Mehmed is appointed to the sanjak of Manisa. Fazlî becomes his divan secretary.

1543: Prince Mehmed dies on 6 November 1543. Fazlî writes elegies and moves to the post of divan secretary to Prince Mustafa in Amasya.

1547: He writes a letter of congratulation and a chronogram for Ahmed Çelebi, appointed treasurer of the Rumelian timars (954).

1548: He composes an elegy and chronograms on the death of Mahmud, son of the vizier Sun'ullah Bey (955).

1550: He composes chronograms on the appointment of a tutor for Prince Mustafa's son and on Behram's appointment as sword-bearer (957).

1551: He composes a chronogram on the banquet given by Mîr Yahyâ on Mount Taşan in honour of Prince Mustafa (958).

1553: He completes Gül ü Bülbül and dedicates it to Prince Mustafa (960). Prince Mustafa is executed near Ereğli on 6 October 1553. Fazlî writes elegies.

1559: He writes the prose account of the battle Prince Selim won against Bayezid at Konya.

1562: According to the TDV he becomes Prince Selim's divan secretary (969); according to Gelibolulu Âlî he rises to chief of the secretaries around 970.

1563: According to Âşık Çelebi and Kınalızâde, he dies in Kütahya in the Ramadan of 970.

1564: According to Ahdî, Riyâzî, Kâtib Çelebi and the TDV, the date of death is Ramadan 971 (May 1564).

1834: Hammer-Purgstall publishes Gül ü Bülbül with his German translation in Pest and Leipzig.

Bibliography

The following sources were used in this article:

  • Hasan Aksoy, "Kara Fazlî", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (TDV Encyclopedia of Islam), vol. 24, Istanbul 2001, pp. 360-361 (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Mustafa Özkan, "Gül ü Bülbül", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (TDV Encyclopedia of Islam), vol. 14, Istanbul 1996, pp. 222-223 (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Gencay Zavotçu, "Fazlî", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature), Ahmet Yesevi University (teis.yesevi.edu.tr), 2013, updated 2020. teis.yesevi.edu.tr
  • Mustafa Özkat, Kara Fazlî'nin Hayatı, Eserleri, Edebî Kişiliği ve Divanı (İnceleme-Tenkitli Metin), doctoral dissertation, Marmara University Institute of Turkic Studies, Istanbul 2005. katalog.marmara.edu.tr
  • Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 3 (section on Prince Mustafa's governorship of Amasya) and vol. 7 (entry on Edâyî Receb Bey), modern Turkish script edition.
  • Âşık Çelebi, Meşâ'irü'ş-şu'arâ (ed. Filiz Kılıç), Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Ankara 2018 (e-book), entry "Fazlî-i Kâtib".
  • Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, Tezkiretü'ş-şu'arâ (ed. Aysun Sungurhan), Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Ankara 2017 (e-book), entry "Fazlî-i Diger".
  • Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî, Künhü'l-Ahbâr'ın Tezkire Kısmı (ed. Mustafa İsen), Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Ankara 2017 (e-book), entry "Fazlî".
  • Beyânî Mustafa, Tezkiretü'ş-şu'arâ (ed. Aysun Sungurhan), Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Ankara 2017 (e-book), entry "Fazlî-i Sânî".
  • E. J. W. Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. III, London 1904, pp. 108-112.
  • Joseph von Hammer (trans.), Gül u Bülbül, das ist: Rose und Nachtigall, von Fasli. Ein romantisches Gedicht, Pest and Leipzig 1834.
  • Works cited through these sources: Latîfî, Tezkiretü'ş-Şu'arâ ve Tabsıratü'n-Nuzamâ (ed. Rıdvan Canım, Ankara 2000); Ahdî, Gülşen-i Şu'arâ; Riyâzî, Riyâzü'ş-şu'arâ; Nezahat Öztekin (ed.), Fazlî, Gül ü Bülbül, Akademi Kitabevi, İzmir 2002; Nezahat Öztekin, "Fazlî'nin Gül ü Bülbül'ü Üzerine Bir İnceleme", MÜTAD, no. 4 (1988); Haluk İpekten, Divan Edebiyatında Edebî Muhitler, Istanbul 1996; Mustafa İsen, Acıyı Bal Eylemek: Türk Edebiyatında Mersiye, Ankara 1994; Ayhan Güldaş, "Bilinmeyen Şehzade Mustafa Mersiyeleri", Kubbealtı Akademi Mecmuası, 1989; M. Fuad Köprülü, "Fazlî", İslâm Ansiklopedisi (Ministry of National Education), vol. IV.

Online sources