Mısrî is the poet represented by a ghazal in a manuscript verse notebook compiled in Merzifon, the Merzifon Cönkü introduced by Metin Hakverdioğlu in 2019. The cönk contains one poem by him, and only its first couplet has been published in the article. Hakverdioğlu offers no comment on the poet; who Mısrî was, and where and in which century he lived, are unknown. The pen name was used by more than one poet in Turkish literature, and the most famous of them is the great seventeenth-century Sufi poet Niyâzî-i Mısrî. Although the mystical diction of the ghazal brings this possibility to mind, it has not been confirmed that the couplet is found in his divan. This page sets out what is known and what is merely possible, keeping the two apart.

Life

There is no information about the life of the Mısrî of the cönk. The pen name means "Egyptian, belonging to Egypt". It may indicate a birthplace, but it may equally describe someone who had been in Egypt, been educated there or had some tie with Egypt; in Sufi circles it was also used in reference to Dhu'l-Nun al-Misri (Zünnûn-i Mısrî), one of the early masters of Sufism. Even around Amasya the name Mısrî is not unfamiliar: Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar mentions the tomb of Zünnûn Baba near Mecitözü, known among the people as Zünnûn-ı Mısrî. Such namings show that the pen name alone is not enough to establish an identity.

The Merzifon Cönkü and the Connection with Amasya

The Merzifon Cönkü is a 112-page verse notebook in ta'lik script, which Hakverdioğlu acquired from a second-hand bookseller with the information that it came from Merzifon. It contains 161 poems by thirty-two poets; 98 of them are in aruz and 63 in syllabic metre. Hakverdioğlu thinks the notebook is about a hundred years old and was compiled within the literary circle of Eyüb Sabrî of Merzifon, probably by a poet named Fethî, and he notes that most of the aruz poems in the cönk belong to folk poets. Mısrî's ghazal is on page 57 of the cönk. This is the poet's only known connection with Amasya: his verse was read in this milieu widely enough to enter a collection kept in Merzifon. There is no record that Mısrî was from Merzifon or Amasya.

The State of the Sources and the Question of Identity

The Niyâzî-i Mısrî Possibility

The first name that comes to mind with the pen name Mısrî is Niyâzî-i Mısrî (1618-1694). The hymns of this poet, founder of the Mısriyye branch of the Halveti order, were recited for centuries in dervish lodges and among the people, and they entered cönks and miscellanies in great numbers. The first couplet of the ghazal in the cönk is also built on a mystical discourse of the self: the poet presents himself as the pearl in the shell of the sea of existence, and as the ruin in which the treasure of gnosis lies hidden. This diction is close to Niyâzî's poetic world. Yet Hakverdioğlu does not link the poem to Niyâzî, nor does he cite an edition of a divan as its source, whereas the article does refer to known editions for poems by other poets. In the searches made for this page the couplet could not be found in Niyâzî-i Mısrî's divan, and it could not be checked against an available text of the divan. The possibility has therefore been left open; the poem has not been attributed to him.

Other Poets of the Same Pen Name

The Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature) includes a seventeenth-century divan poet with the pen name Mısrî, whose life is unknown. This poet has three chronogram poems in Vekâyi'-i Ali Paşa, written by Kelâmî-i Rûmî for Yavuz Ali Pasha, governor of Egypt in 1601-1603. No link with the ghazal in the cönk has been established for him either. The cönk's emphasis on nineteenth-century minstrels also suggests that the ghazal might belong to a folk poet of that milieu; this too is unproven. In the end, the identity of the Mısrî of the cönk cannot be determined with present knowledge.

Poetry

The only poem recorded under Mısrî's name in the cönk is a ghazal. The first couplet given in the article is written in the aruz pattern "mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün" and is a couplet of mystical self-praise in which the poet describes himself with the refrain "-esiyim ben" (I am the ... of). The rest of the poem exists only in the cönk and has not been published. The couplet is given with its original text, an English rendering and a commentary on the separate page "Ghazal 1: ‘İlim baḥri vücûd esdâfınıň dür dânesiyim ben" in this category.

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