Mîr Sirâcî, who could recite Fuzûlî's divan by heart and died young while trying to quiet a passion with verse, had for his father Mîr Hamza Nigârî, the Nakşibendî-Hâlidî sheikh who migrated from Karabakh to Amasya. His given name was Sirâceddîn İsmâil. He is said to have left a small divan and a Sâkînâme that passed from mouth to mouth, yet none of it has come down to us. His death in 1291 (1874) brought a day of mourning to the Shirvanis gathered around his father.

Hüsameddin's Entry

Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, on the pages where he lists several men named Sirâceddîn one after another, describes him as follows:

Sirâceddîn İsmâ'îl Efendi-Mîr Sirâcî Karabağlıdır. Eş-Şeyh el-Hâc Mîr Hamza Nigârî Efendi'nin mahdûmudur. Karabâğ dâhilinde Berküşâd kasabasında 1271'de doğdu. 1281'de pederiyle beraber Amasya'ya hicret edib Rüşdiyye mektebinde tahsîl-i fünûn etdikten sonra pederinden ikmâl-i tahsîle çalışdı. Bu esnâda Amasya muhâsebecisinin mahdûmu Fahrî Bey'e fevka'l-âde ta'aşşuk edib aşk u harâretini edebiyât ü eş'âr ile teskîne gayret etdiyse de galebe-i sevdâ ile fenâ hastalandı. Sonunda bî-şu'ûr olup 1291 senesi saferinin evâ'ilinde "Fahrî, Fahrî" diyerek terk-i dağdağa-i hayât etdi. Gâyet zekî, serî'ü'l-intikâl, hâfızası kuvvetli, hâfız-ı dîvân-ı Fuzûlî, şâir, şûh-meşreb, esmer gözlü, mürîdânın ricâl ü nisvânı arasında gâyet mergûb u muhterem bir genc idi. Vefâtı günü Şirvânîler için bir yevm-i mâtem olup herkesi ağlattı. Şâmlılar Mezârlığında medfûn iken 1314'de kemikleri pederinin türbesine nakl edildi. Dîvânçe-i eş'ârı vardı. "Sâkî-nâme"si meşhûr olup "Sirâcî" tahallus etmişdi. Eş'ârı kalbi gibi yanıktır. Bâdesi çay olup her yerde bununla dem-güzâr olmuşdu.

In plain English: A native of Karabakh, he was the son of Sheikh Hacı Mîr Hamza Nigârî Efendi. He was born in 1271 (1854-55) in the town of Bergüşad in Karabakh. In 1281 (1864-65) he migrated to Amasya with his father; after studying the modern subjects at the rüşdiye school, he set about completing his education under his father. Meanwhile he fell passionately in love with Fahrî Bey, son of the Amasya accountant, and although he tried to calm the heat of his love with literature and poetry, the passion overcame him and he fell gravely ill. At last he lost his senses and, early in Safer 1291 (March 1874), left the turmoil of life crying "Fahrî, Fahrî". He was very clever, quick to understand, with a strong memory; he knew Fuzûlî's divan by heart; he was a poet, of merry temper and dark-eyed, and greatly loved and esteemed among the disciples, men and women alike. The day of his death was a day of mourning for the Shirvanis and made everyone weep. He was buried in the Şamlılar Cemetery, and in 1314 (1896-97) his bones were moved to his father's tomb. He had a small divan of poems. His Sâkînâme was famous, and he used the pen name "Sirâcî". His poems burn like his heart. His wine was tea, and he took his fill of it wherever he went.

Hüsameddin's closing sentence is a joke: the sâkînâme genre praises wine and the cupbearer, while Sirâcî filled his cup with tea. The editor of the book adds a further note on this page: Hüsameddin left half of the manuscript page bearing the entry, and the whole of the following page, blank. One may guess that the author meant to add Sirâcî's poems there later, but the gap was never filled.

From Karabakh to Amasya

Sirâcî's life is part of his father's, a life of exile and migration. Driven out by Russian pressure, Nigârî crossed from Karabakh into Anatolia; after Erzurum, Istanbul and Bayburt he settled in Amasya in the mid-1860s with his family and disciples. Sirâcî was a boy of about ten at the time of this move. That he studied at the rüşdiye, one of the Tanzimat schools of Amasya, shows that the son of a sheikh's family from Karabakh also entered the new educational order of the Ottoman provinces. His real education, however, came from his father.

The records say nothing about the origin of his name. Nigârî's spiritual master was İsmâil Sirâceddîn Şirvânî, a deputy of Hâlid-i Bağdâdî who died in Amasya. It is plausible that Nigârî gave his son his master's name and title, but this is a guess. Nor should the poet be confused with two namesakes: one is that sheikh himself, the other Şirvânî's grandson, the judge Sirâceddîn İsmâil Bey, born in Amasya in 1276 (1859-60). The sixteenth-century poet Sirâcî, who wrote elegies for Prince Mustafa, belongs to another age altogether.

Sirâcî's body was first laid in the town's Şamlılar Cemetery. When Nigârî died in exile at Harput in 1886, he was brought back to Amasya and buried there in accordance with his will; in 1314 the son's bones were moved to the father's tomb. The mosque built on the site of the grave in 1895 still stands as the Şirvanlı (Azerbaijanis') Mosque.

The State of the Sources

The sources differ on Sirâcî's dates of birth and death. According to Hüsameddin he was born in 1271 (1854-55) and died early in 1291 (1874), which would make him nineteen or twenty at his death. The article on Nigârî in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi likewise speaks of "his son Sirâceddin, a gifted poet whom he loved dearly and lost at the age of twenty"; on his age, then, the two records are at one. The TDV article, however, has the son born during Nigârî's years in Karabakh, which lasted until 1852; against Hüsameddin's 1271 this leaves a gap of a year or two.

The attribution of his works is also open to question. Nigârî's printed Turkish divan contains a Sâkînâme of twenty-eight stanzas and a Çaynâme of 521 couplets that speaks of the samovar and of tea with mystical interpretations. The "famous Sâkînâme" Hüsameddin credits to the son, and his joke about tea as wine, coincide strikingly with these works of the father. The son may have written in the same genres in his father's footsteps; it is also possible that in the Amasya circle the father's works came to be ascribed to the son. Until Sirâcî's small divan is found, the question cannot be settled.

His Poetry

Hüsameddin records the small divan and the fame of the Sâkînâme yet quotes not one couplet, and the blank pages he set aside were never filled; Mîr Sirâcî's poems could not be found. Neither Nigârî's divan nor the studies devoted to it give any specimen of the son's verse. The small divan may have remained in the hands of the Shirvani disciples.

Chronology

1271 (1854-55): Born in the town of Bergüşad in Karabakh (before 1852 according to the TDV article).

1281 (1864-65): Migrates with his father to Amasya; studies at the rüşdiye.

Early Safer 1291 (March 1874): Dies in Amasya and is buried in the Şamlılar Cemetery.

1886: His father Nigârî dies at Harput; the body is brought to Amasya.

1314 (1896-97): His bones are moved to his father's tomb.

Bibliography

Online sources