Makâmî was a preacher (hatip), musician and poet from Siroz (Serres) who lived from the late fifteenth century into the first third of the sixteenth. He took his pen name from his mastery of the musical modes (makam). According to Âşık Çelebi, he served for a time as imam to Sultan Ahmed, that is, Şehzade Ahmed (Prince Ahmed), who governed Amasya from 1481 to 1512; he was a contemporary of Mihrî Hatun, and the two exchanged verses at Sultan Ahmed's court. He later moved to Istanbul, taught the pages of the palace and died during the Baghdad campaign of 1534. His link with Amasya is therefore established through Prince Ahmed's court and through Mihrî Hatun. The sources do not name "Amasya" directly; the link is inferred from the fact that Prince Ahmed's court was in Amasya. Three examples of his poetry survive in the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire); the attribution of a poem added to one manuscript of Mihrî Hatun's divan and bearing his name is disputed.

His Life

The two biographers who describe Makâmî, Sehî Bey and Âşık Çelebi, agree that he was from Siroz. Sehî presents him as unrivalled in music, a lord ruling over the science of musical theory (edvar), and says that his pen name Makâmî came from this. He served for a long time as a preacher, became so skilled in the modes as to put all the musicians of his time to shame, made fine compositions and composed new songs (savt). Because of his learning the statesmen brought him to Istanbul, assigned him a salary from the treasury and released him from preaching. Âşık Çelebi, too, ties the pen name Makâmî to his being "makam-şinas ve elhan-istinas", well versed in modes and melodies, and writes that he preached in various places, was imam to Sultan Ahmed, then taught the pages (içoğlan) of the palace, and became known for teaching the Qur'an, song and melody to the sons of the late İbrâhim Paşa and İskender Çelebi.

According to Âşık Çelebi, Makâmî was well known in his own time for musical theory, but among the works he left there were a few compositions and a small number of pieces from the "Hasanoğlu türküleri". The biographer describes his death with a musical play on words: death, which knows neither small nor great, plays the şehnaz with its fingernail on those who flee to Irak, Isfahan and Hicaz and shelter in iron fortresses; it also "took Makâmî's rast gerdaniye", that is, seized him suddenly. Irak, Isfahan, Hicaz, Şehnaz, Rast and Gerdaniye are also the names of musical modes. Makâmî died on Süleyman the Magnificent's campaign of the Two Iraqs, during the conquest of Baghdad; Sehî, too, records that he died in Baghdad on the imperial campaign and that his grave is there. Sehî describes him as a man of pleasant nature, with fine libertine (rindane) poems and graceful ghazals.

Makâmî's link with Amasya rests on two records. The first is Âşık Çelebi's phrase "Sultan Aḥmed-i merhûma imâm olmış", he became imam to the late Sultan Ahmed. In fifteenth- and sixteenth-century sources princes are styled "Sultan"; since no sultan named Ahmed had come to the throne by 1568-69, when Âşık Çelebi completed his tezkire, the "late" Sultan Ahmed he means is Şehzade Ahmed, son of Bayezid II. According to Mehmet Arslan, Prince Ahmed governed Amasya for some thirty-one years, from 1481, when his father Bayezid II came to the throne and left Amasya, until 1512. The second record is again Âşık Çelebi's sentence saying that Makâmî was a contemporary of Mihrî and that the two kept company with each other "Sultan Ahmed âstânında", at the court of Prince Ahmed. Mihrî Hatun was from Amasya and belonged to Prince Ahmed's circle in Amasya. Mehmet Arslan, editor of Mihrî Hatun's divan, likewise counts the poet and composer Makâmî, together with Âfitâbî, Münîrî and Zeyneb Hatun, among the poets at Prince Ahmed's court.

These records tie Makâmî firmly to Amasya, but the name "Amasya" does not appear in the sources, and when and for how long Makâmî was at the prince's side is not known. In our article on the divan poets of Amasya, Makâmî is mentioned among the poets at court during the princehood of Bayezid II; the Mihrî Hatun article of the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, too, describing the circle of Bayezid and his son Ahmed in Amasya together, counts Makâmî among its poets. The information in the tezkires places Makâmî in the period of Prince Ahmed rather than that of Bayezid.

The State of the Sources and the Debate

Makâmî's identity is clearly documented in the tezkires; what is disputed is the authorship of a poem in which his name appears. At the end of Mehmet Arslan's edition of Mihrî Hatun's divan there is a poem of twenty-one couplets, found only in manuscript Ü and given under the title "Divan Dışı Manzume", a poem outside the divan. The poem praises Mihrî's sweet words and her "book", then describes a lover who died for love of her, and mocks the beloved whose beauty has faded. The name "Makâmî" appears twice in the poem, and the name "Makâlî" once. Arslan states that the poem is not Mihrî's, that it was written by a poet called Makâlî and added to the end of the divan, and that it shows the relationship between Mihrî and Makâmî.

The pen name Makâlî does indeed exist in the tezkires: immediately before the Makâmî entry Âşık Çelebi mentions a Makâlî from Anatolia whose name was Bustân, while Kınalızâde, Beyânî and Gelibolulu Âlî mention two Makâlîs from the Aydın region who were novices of Arabzâde and served as judges. There is no information that these poets were contemporaries of Mihrî Hatun. On the other hand, the fifteenth couplet of the poem says that "Makâlî" played melodies; this trait fits the musician Makâmî rather than the judges named Makâlî in the tezkires. In the Arabic script "Makâlî" and "Makâmî" differ by a single letter, and copyists could easily confuse the two names. It is therefore possible that the name in the fifteenth couplet is a corrupt spelling of Makâmî and that the poem came from Makâmî himself or from his circle. In divan poetry it is usual for a poet to speak of himself in the third person by his pen name and to "die" of love. All this is our inference; Arslan's reading and identification differ, and the author of the poem is not known for certain. The poem is given in this category, with this debate noted on the poem's page as well.

His Poetry and His Exchange with Mihrî Hatun

No divan of Makâmî is known. Âşık Çelebi writes that he sent Mihrî, in a manner he describes as "üzilmek üslûbında", a ghazal of five couplets beginning "Ḥüsnüñdür āftāb anuñ māh gencidür", and immediately afterwards quotes three couplets of Mihrî's reply in the same metre, rhyme and refrain. In his ghazal Makâmî likens the beloved's beauty to the sun, her eyebrow to the crescent and her lock to a nişancı, the official who draws the sultan's monogram, and in the last couplet vows to give his life for a kiss. Mihrî, in her reply, turns these compliments down one by one and teases Makâmî, saying that she has grown old and that her kiss would be "a heartache lasting years". Mihrî's reply appears as ghazal 51 in the edition of her divan and is given on a separate page in the Mihrî Hatun category of our site.

Âşık Çelebi gives another ghazal of Makâmî, of three couplets, beginning "Dürişdüm dil-berā ʿışḳuñda yavlaḳ"; in manuscript F of the tezkire this ghazal is headed "Cevâb-ı Makâmî", Makâmî's reply, so it too is recorded as a response poem. Sehî quotes three couplets from a libertine ghazal of Makâmî's: the poet says he will not be ashamed to buy wine from the taverns for the fair ones, even though he is a preacher in the mosque. These four poems are given on separate pages in this category with the original text, a modern rendering and commentary. For the life of Mihrî Hatun, see our article Mihrî Hatun, and for Prince Ahmed's circle in Amasya the article Prince Ahmed's circle.

Chronology

1481-1512: Prince Ahmed governed Amasya; in this period Makâmî became his imam and exchanged verses with Mihrî Hatun at his court.

941 (1534): Makâmî died during the conquest of Baghdad on the campaign of the Two Iraqs and was buried in Baghdad.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Official sources

Books

Online sources