Kara Müftîzâde Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi was a madrasa teacher in Amasya in the last quarter of the eighteenth century and the first three decades of the nineteenth, a mufti who was appointed three times and dismissed three times, the author of the earliest known history of the city, and a divan poet whose verse survives in a small collection, a dîvânçe. He was born in 1177 (1763-64) and died in Amasya in 1247 (1831). Sources know him mainly through his book of fatwas and city history, el-Belâbilü'r-Râsiye fî Riyâz-ı Mesâili'l-Amâsiyye; later works on Amasya, including Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi, quote him often and at times correct him. His poetry, by contrast, has stayed in the shadow of his scholarship, and his name does not appear in the biographical dictionaries of poets. His Dîvânçe, whose only copy, in his own hand, is in Ankara, was introduced by two separate researchers in 2021, and Giyasi Babaarslan published its full text in Latin transcription. The sources disagree about his birthplace: some count him as a native of Çorum, while he himself writes that he was born in Amasya. This page brings together his life, his turbulent years in office in Amasya, his works and the structure of the Dîvânçe.

Life

Vâzıh was the son of Kara İsmâil Hâtif Efendi, mufti of Amasya. His year of birth is known from a chronogram that his father composed on his birth and that the poet copied into his own Dîvânçe: "Sāl-i mīlādıñı itmek diler iseñ ma‘lūm / Naẓar it gel hele tārīḫiñe cānım oġlum." The couplet addresses a son who wants to know the year he was born, "look at your chronogram, my dear son," and by the abjad reckoning yields the year 1177. His mother was the daughter of Hâfız es-Seyyid Mehmed Ağa, administrator of the pious endowment (waqf) of Şâh Bula Hâtun. Because of the father's office the family came to be known as the "Kara Müftüzâdeler," the sons of the Dark Mufti.

In one passage of the Belâbilü'r-Râsiye Vâzıh describes his youth himself: when he left the primary school and reached adolescence, his father, then holding the office of mufti, put him in charge of the paperwork; while carrying out these duties he studied the books of legal theory and positive law and had the opportunity to debate with scholars. His father died on the night of 15 Şaban 1198 (4 July 1784), during his third term as mufti. Vâzıh wrote an elegy on this death, recorded the night of it in the line "On beşinci gecesi idi meh-i Şa‘bānıñ" and closed the poem with a chronogram line. By his own account he was appointed mufti for a short while after his father's death; but he found that the attitude of the people had changed and, saying that he could not give satisfying answers to their questions and feared the wrath of God, he resigned and withdrew to his house.

Having lost his father at about the age of twenty, Vâzıh then went to Istanbul for higher studies. The entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature) and accounts based on the work of Münir Atalar report that he received diplomas (icazet) from Ebubekir of Gümüşhane and Şeyhzâde Abdullah Vecîhî Efendi. During his years in Istanbul he also learned a European language, but the sources differ as to which. Atalar and those who follow him write that he learned French from a non-Muslim state interpreter living in Galata; Babaarslan, relying on the study by Ahmet Topal, reports that Vâzıh himself says he learned Latin from a man of Galata named İsa. After returning to Amasya he taught at the Sungurlu Madrasa, where his father had been the first professor.

The Years as Mufti

Vâzıh's tenure as mufti coincided with a troubled period when Amasya lay under the power of the Canikli family. According to Hüsameddin's chronicle, at the beginning of 1214 (1799) Tayyâr Mahmûd Bey, governor of Canik and tax farmer of Amasya, entered the city with great pomp; on the twentieth day of Safer the mufti Mehmed Efendi was dismissed and in his place was appointed Kara Müftüzâde Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi, "who was his favourite." Shortly afterwards Tayyâr Bey ordered that a third of the harvest be collected instead of the customary tenth. Hüsameddin describes the course Vâzıh took in this affair as follows:

Fakat öşür yerine sülüs alınması pek zâlimâne bir hareket olduğundan halk müftülere ve âlimlere koşdu. Fetvâlar ve yardımlar istendi. Müftü Vâzıh Efendi, bir taraftan halkın hücûmu, diğer tarafdan Tayyâr Bey'in teveccühü karşısında bir müddet şaşaladı. Sonra emr-i veliyyü'l-emre itâ'at lüzûmuyla fetvâ verdi. Dâru'l-Hadîs müderrisi Soruklu Hacı Alî Efendi dayanamadı. Onda bir yerine üçte bir alınması meşrû' değildir, dediğinden azl ile müderrisliği Şîrîn Alî Efendi'ye verildi. Cemâziyelevvelin yirmisinde ulemânın ittifâkıyla Vâzıh Efendi'nin müftülükten çıkarılıp yerine üstâdı olan fuzalâdan Âkif Efendizâde Abdurrahîm Efendi Amasya müftüsü oldu.

In modern English: Because taking a third instead of a tenth was a most oppressive measure, the people ran to the muftis and scholars, asking for fatwas and for help. The mufti Vâzıh Efendi, caught between the pressure of the people on one side and the favour Tayyâr Bey showed him on the other, wavered for a while. In the end, on the ground that obedience to the ruler was required, he issued a fatwa. Soruklu Hacı Ali Efendi, professor at the Dârülhadis, could not bear it and declared that taking a third instead of a tenth was not lawful; for this he was dismissed and his chair was given to Şirin Ali Efendi. On the twentieth of Cemaziyelevvel, by common decision of the ulema, Vâzıh Efendi was removed from the office of mufti, and in his place Âkif Efendizâde Abdurrahim Efendi, one of the learned men and his own teacher, became mufti of Amasya.

This dismissal falls in October 1799. Hüsameddin continues the story: Tayyâr Bey's men took the scholars who opposed the tax from their homes at night and exiled them to Samsun, and the mufti of Köprü, Hacı Mustafa Efendi, was strangled while performing the night prayer. When Hacı Mahmud Efendi of Maraş, chosen as mufti at the beginning of Ramazan 1214, went into hiding and refused the post, Vâzıh became mufti once more; at the beginning of Muharrem 1215 (1800) he was removed again and Âkifzâde Abdurrahim Efendi was once again appointed in his place. His third term began on 9 Receb 1218 (1803), in the days when Tayyâr Mahmûd Paşa came to Amasya and sought to heal the resentment among the ulema. According to Hüsameddin, "Vâzıh Efendi's tenure as mufti weighed heavily on the scholars"; at the beginning of Zilkade 1218 (1804) he was deposed from this office too by common agreement of the ulema. As Babaarslan summarises, Vâzıh was appointed mufti three times between 1799 and 1804 and could not stay in office for more than four or five months in any of them.

Having stepped aside after his last dismissal, Vâzıh was sentenced in 1232 (1817) to exile on the island of Lemnos (Limni) on the charge of involvement in the clash between Janissaries and madrasa students in Amasya. Hüsameddin, writing the life of the Merzifon-born Qur'an commentator İsmâil Efendi, records that he too was said to have been involved in the same affair and in 1233 "was sent to Lemnos together with Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi," returning at the beginning of 1234. Vâzıh himself told the story of his exile in a verse narrative of 760 couplets, Belâ-yı Vâzıh Safâ-yı Lâyıh. In this masnavi he satirises in harsh language, without naming them, two men who disturbed the peace of the city, says that they incited the people against Sultan Mahmud, and insists that he took no part in this mischief, having withdrawn from the office of mufti years earlier into a dervish-like solitude.

The sources do not agree in every detail of the journey into exile. According to the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, as Vâzıh was travelling via Çorum to his place of exile, he was turned back by a courier sent by the governor of Sivas, Zaralızâde Lutfullah Paşa, and brought to Sivas; his place of exile was changed to Tokat and he was pardoned a year later. Fatma Özçakmak, relying on Ahmet Topal's edition of the verse narrative, writes that he stayed six months in Sivas, met the Sufi Ahmed Sûzî there, learned there that the Lemnos sentence had been changed to Tokat, and was pardoned in 1235 (1819-20) through the intercession of Ahmed Nazîf, the judge of Amasya. Babaarslan says that he was sent to Tokat because of his age and illness and stayed there for about six months. Vâzıh celebrated his pardon with a chronogram: "Düşdi bir müjde sem'ime târih / Oldı ıtlâk Mustafâ Vâzıh."

After returning from exile he spent the rest of his life in Amasya. Some sources relate that Sultan Mahmud invited him to become Şeyhülislam and that Vâzıh declined with the lines "İdemem çarḫa müdārā bozamam ‘unvānım / Şimdi küskünlügümüz var felege sulṭānım." These lines do recur at the end of each stanza of a refrain sestet in the Dîvânçe; but no document has been found showing that the poem was written in answer to such an invitation. Vâzıh died in Amasya in 1247 (1831). The Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü notes that the last page of a copy in the Süleymaniye Library gives the date of death as 16 December 1831. According to Atalar he was buried near his father's grave in the Şamlar Cemetery; this cemetery was entirely cleared away in the 1980s.

Connection with Amasya

Vâzıh's life was spent in Amasya from beginning to end: he grew up at his father's side, taught at the city's madrasa, served as its mufti, wrote his works there and died there. His Dîvânçe, on whose flyleaf he signed himself "Mustafâ Vâzıh el-Amâsî," the couplets in which he names himself with the epithet "Amâsî," and his history devoted to Amasya are documents of this bond from his own hand. The fact that some sources count him as a native of Çorum stems from a confusion discussed separately below.

The historiography of Amasya begins with him. The Belâbilü'r-Râsiye consists of two parts: the first is a book of fatwas collecting questions on the social, economic and religious affairs of the city together with Vâzıh's answers; the second is a city history describing Amasya's site, its beauties, its conquest, its pre-Islamic buildings and its scholars. Fifteen complete or partial manuscript copies of the work have been identified. Its date of composition is given differently: Atalar says it was written on the occasion of the visit to Amasya of Köse Mehmed Paşa, governor of Sivas, and finished in 1235-36; Özçakmak gives the date 1239 (1823) on the basis of copy no. 813 in the Bayezid Provincial Public Library. Hüsameddin counts the work among his sources but says that it is not a work grounded in history, offering rather information on the conquest of Amasya, its scholars and the morals and character of its people. In many places of the Amasya Tarihi he cites Vâzıh's views; on questions such as Ferhad's Rock, the name of the Şamlar quarter or the name Ziyere at Ziyaret, however, he finds his explanations undocumented. He also mentions a commendation (takriz) written for Vâzıh's book.

Works

According to Babaarslan six works by Vâzıh survive today. Belâbilü'r-Râsiye fî Riyâz-ı Mesâili'l-Amâsiyye is the book of fatwas and city history described above. Güldeste-i Gülistân Hediyyeten li'l-İhvân is a prose translation of selected verse passages from Sa'dî's Gulistan, arranged under twenty-six "bouquets." Şerhu'l-Ezân ve Dellâlü'l-Cinân is a work in Arabic on jurisprudence. Tûtî-i Vâzıh is a grammar for teaching Persian, written in Turkish verse; according to the author's copy it was completed in 1242 (1826-27). Belâ-yı Vâzıh Safâ-yı Lâyıh is the masnavi recounting his exile. The sixth is the Dîvânçe. Vâzıh also reports that he translated the story of the Judge of Hamadan from the Gulistan and began, but did not finish, a translation of another section of the same work. The Hikâye-i Beşir Çelebi and Fütûhât-ı Şâh İsmâil, attributed to him in some sources, are not his. Topal writes that before this pen name Vâzıh used the pen names Kânî and Midhat; Babaarslan points out that neither appears in any of his surviving verse works.

Poetry and the Dîvânçe

The Dîvânçe is found within a miscellany held in the Manuscripts Department of Ankara University, in the Mustafa Con collection under number A 495/III, on folios 59b-77a. This eighteen-folio section is written in ta'lik script, with headings in red ink. It is an autograph, with crossings-out and corrections here and there. On the flyleaf are the poet's inscription "ene'l-fakîr Mustafâ Vâzıh el-Amâsî" and his seal bearing the words "Mustafâ Vâzıh." The work, catalogued in the library as Dîvân-ı Vâzıh, has been called a dîvânçe by researchers, since it has no section of kasides and its size does not fill a full divan. It was first introduced in 2021 by Fatma Özçakmak, and in the same year Babaarslan published its full text. Babaarslan also corrects a number of errors of verse form and dating found in the earlier descriptions.

The Dîvânçe consists of five sections. The largest is the Gazeliyyât, comprising sixty-one ghazals. They are arranged in the order of the Arabic alphabet according to the final letter of their rhyme, and there are poems ending in twenty different letters; most ghazals end in "ra" (fourteen), followed by "ya" (eleven), "ha" (seven) and "alif" (six). Fifty-seven of the ghazals have five couplets each; two have four, one six and one eight. The poet used ten different metres in them. Ghazals 4 and 51 are written in the metre of the quatrain (rubai); Babaarslan interprets this as a search for novelty in the face of a tradition that had begun to repeat itself. Ghazal 13 is in Persian. Ghazal 4, according to its heading, is a joint ghazal composed with "Hafîd Âkif el-Amâsî," inspector of the Two Holy Cities; with it Vâzıh also took part in the period's fashion for poems written in partnership.

The second section bears the heading "Mukatta'ât" and contains eighteen poems. Earlier studies described them either as kıt'as or as nazms; Babaarslan is of the view that nine are incomplete ghazals (nâ-tamâm gazel), six are nazms and three are kıt'as. One of the nazms is in Persian. Poem 15 of this section names the rivers of Amasya in its refrain. The third section, headed "Ebyât," consists of four single couplets; three are in Turkish and one in Arabic. The fourth section contains five stanzaic poems (musammat): a quintain (tahmis) on a ghazal by Bâkî, a quintain on a ghazal by Mikdâd Paşazâde Şehid Hasan Beg, a five-stanza terkib-bend and two refrain sestets.

The last section is the Tevârih: thirty poems ranging in length from one couplet to twenty-one. Babaarslan states that four of them are by other poets and not by Vâzıh. Among these are the chronograms sent by Şerîf Beg, who wrote under the pen name Mazhar, for the births of Vâzıh's sons, and the reply couplet Âkifzâde wrote to Vâzıh; the first chronogram of the Dîvânçe is also the couplet his father composed on the poet's birth. Vâzıh's own chronograms mirror the life of Amasya in those years: the dates of a fountain and of a charitable work, the repair of the Kocacık Mosque, Yegenzâde's bringing water to the city, the fountain of Hâfız Ağa of Bender, the two pavilions built by Yegenzâde Hacı İbrâhim; the vizierate of Mahmud Tayyar Paşa, the death of Alemdar Hüseyin Gâzî, Sultan Mahmud's abolition of the Janissary corps, the vizierate of Osman Paşa, the release of Hakkı Paşa; the births of his friends' children and weddings. Two poems are not chronograms: Vâzıh's couplet of apology saying that he could not visit Âkifzâde because the river had flooded, and Âkifzâde's reply.

Babaarslan regards Vâzıh on the whole as a poet following in the footsteps of Nedîm. In ghazals written in a playful, flirtatious manner, under the influence of the localising current (mahallîleşme), he reflects the social life of his time. A glance at the opening lines of the ghazals is enough to show it: dancing boys, the sons of boatmen and merchants, wine gatherings enter his poetry. He makes room for proverbs, idioms, popular beliefs and everyday speech. The researcher notes that, like many poets of the same century, he at times falls into a coarseness bordering on the obscene, adds that he cannot be called a very good poet, but describes him as a poet with a command of the imagery of divan poetry who did not remain indifferent to what went on around him. The first of the three "quatrains" quoted in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü from Abdullah Ercan coincides, with small differences, with the first two couplets of ghazal 20 of the Dîvânçe; the entry states that Vâzıh also wrote poems in Arabic and Persian.

Each of the poems in the Dîvânçe appears in this category as a separate page, with the transcription of Babaarslan's edition, a rendering in modern Turkish and English, and a short commentary.

Family and Circle

His father, Kara İsmâil Hâtif Efendi, was according to Hüsameddin a native of Çorum. He came to Amasya and completed his education with İdîzâde Âkif Mustafa Efendi, became the first professor of the Sungurlu Madrasa in 1163, and served three times as mufti of Amasya, in 1184, 1189 and 1198. Hüsameddin presents him as an expert in jurisprudence and theology and a poet versed in literature, and mentions his poems and his Persian paradigms. Vâzıh's brothers were Mehmed, Mes'ûd, Süleyman and es-Seyyid Ahmed Efendi. Of these, Süleyman Efendi became professor at the Sungurlu Madrasa after their father's death, served some of the muftis of Amasya as drafter and keeper of fatwas, and died of fright in the great earthquake in Muharrem 1240. When his maternal grandfather died in 1192 without leaving a male heir, the administration of the Şâh Bula endowment passed first to his brother Ahmed Efendi and, on Ahmed's death in 1212, to Vâzıh.

The sources differ concerning his sons. Hüsameddin, in his entry on İsmâil Hâtif Efendi, writes that the administration of the endowment passed in 1237, when Vâzıh withdrew from it, to his elder son es-Seyyid Abdurrahman Efendi and, following a death in 1247, to his younger son es-Seyyid Nimetullah Efendi. The chronograms in the Dîvânçe, on the other hand, mention Seyyid Muhammed Nimetullah, born in 1237 (1821-22), and Seyyid Ahmed Tayyib, born in 1240 (1824-25), who died at a few years of age. Who Abdurrahman Efendi's mother was and when he was born cannot be determined from these sources.

The name met most often in Vâzıh's life is that of the Âkifzâde family: his teacher, who twice replaced him as mufti and with whom he exchanged verses in the Dîvânçe. Âkifzâde Abdurrahim Efendi was the author of el-Mecmû' mine'l-Meşhûd ve'l-Mesmû', a work on the scholars of Amasya and Anatolia, and Vâzıh's year of birth is recorded in it as well. For the circle of Amasya's ulema in this period see Amasya Scholars' School and the Ulema Tradition, and for the city's other divan poets Amasya Divan Poets and Their Literary Environment.

The State of the Sources

On the question of his birthplace, Abdullah Ercan, Münir Atalar, Mesut Aydın with Recep Dündar, and the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü count Vâzıh as born in Çorum or as a native of Çorum; Atalar argues that the family's origin was Çorum and that Amasya was the place where it settled because of office. Vâzıh, however, in his own short autobiography at the end of the Belâbilü'r-Râsiye, says that he was born in Amasya, and that his father was born in Çorum but was of Amasya origin. Babaarslan and Özçakmak hold that the confusion arises from the father's birth in Çorum. Hüsameddin, too, introduces the father as "of Çorum." This page follows the poet's own statement.

Erroneous records also circulate regarding his age and date of death. Ercan took his year of birth to be 1733 and wrote that Vâzıh died at the age of 98, and this information passed into the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü as well; Babaarslan and Özçakmak point out that this is wrong and that the poet died at 67 or 68. The same entry says that Hüsameddin gives the date 1783 for Vâzıh. No separate entry on Vâzıh could be found in the published volumes of Hüsameddin; since 1198 (1783-84) is the year of his father's death, we think the date may have arisen from confusing father and son. This is an inference. His burial place is also given differently: the entry places him in the garden of the Alagöz Baba Tomb, next to his father; Atalar says the Şamlar Cemetery. According to Özçakmak his father was buried in the graveyard of the Alagöz Baba Tomb in the Şamlar quarter; the two records may describe the same place.

There is a discrepancy in the dates of his tenure as mufti as well. By Vâzıh's own account his first term as mufti came after his father's death in 1198 and was given up of his own will. Hüsameddin's chronicle, however, gives in detail three appointments and three dismissals between 1214 and 1218 and does not mention a tenure by Vâzıh for the year 1198. Whether the two accounts refer to the same period or to different ones cannot be settled with these sources.

Chronology

1177 (1763-64): Born in Amasya; his father records the date in a chronogram couplet.

15 Şaban 1198 (4 July 1784): His father Kara İsmâil Hâtif Efendi dies during his third term as mufti.

1212 (1797-98): On the death of his brother Ahmed Efendi he becomes administrator of the Şâh Bula endowment.

20 Safer 1214 (1799): Becomes mufti of Amasya under Tayyâr Mahmûd Bey.

20 Cemaziyelevvel 1214 (October 1799): Dismissed by common agreement of the ulema for issuing a fatwa in favour of the one-third levy.

Ramazan 1214 (1800): Becomes mufti for the second time; removed again at the beginning of Muharrem 1215.

9 Receb 1218 (1803): Becomes mufti for the third time; deposed again in Zilkade 1218 (1804).

1232-1233 (1817-18): Exiled to Lemnos on the charge of involvement in the clash between Janissaries and students; the place of exile is changed to Tokat.

1235 (1819-20): Pardoned; returns to Amasya.

1237 (1821-22): His son Seyyid Muhammed Nimetullah is born.

1241 (1825-26): Completes his exile masnavi Belâ-yı Vâzıh Safâ-yı Lâyıh.

1242 (1826-27): Completes his Persian grammar Tûtî-i Vâzıh.

1247 (1831): Dies in Amasya.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Books

Online sources