While still a madrasa teacher in Amasya, Rahîmî Abdurrahîm Efendi went with his father to Bursa in 940 (1533-34); there he became the deputy (halife) of a Sufi sheikh and ended his life in that sheikh's lodge. He belongs among the calligrapher-poets of the sixteenth century. Two sources tell his story: the biographical anthology of poets (tezkire) of Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi and the Amasya Tarihi of Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar. Both introduce him through his fine nesih and talik script; Kınalızâde says of his poems that "they are not very brilliant, but some carry feeling", and quotes two ghazal fragments and a single couplet. Hüsameddin gives these poems in longer form, but some of the information he attributes to Âşık Çelebi seems to belong to the life of another poet. What the two sources say must therefore be weighed separately.

Hüsameddin's Record

Hüsameddin records the poet in the tenth volume of Amasya Tarihi under the heading "Rahîmî Abdurrahîm Efendi-Tayyibzâde":

Amasyalıdır. Pîr Mehmed Çelebi bin Abdurrahîm Çelebi mahdûmudur. Pederi ulemâdan olup 940'da Amasya vak'asında Bursa'ya gönderilmiş ve orada Yıldırım Sultân Bâyezîd imâreti şeyhi olmuşdu. Rahîmî Efendi Amasya'da ulûm-ı edebiyyeyi ve şer'iyyeyi Karabağî Muhyiddîn Mehmed Efendi'den ve hutût-ı mütenevvi'ayı da Ebû'l-fazl A'rec Mehmed Efendi'den ahz ü tahsîl edib ders-i âm ve müderris-i be-nâm iken 940'da pederiyle beraber Bursa'ya gitdi. Orada ibtidâ sarây-ı gılmân-ı hâssasına mu'allim olup sonra Şeyh Abdülmü'min Efendi sohbet-i şerîfesine mülâzemet ederek terk-i ta'lîm edib ondan inâbe etdi. Riyâzet-hânesinde tekmîl-i sülûk ederek hilâfet-nâme aldı. Ba'dehû şeyh-i müşârün-ileyhin zâviyesi şeyhi olup 970 hudûdunda vefât etdi. Fâzıl, şâir, hattât idi.

Rendered into modern English, the entry runs: he was from Amasya, the son of Pîr Mehmed Çelebi son of Abdurrahîm Çelebi. His father was a scholar; at the time of the Amasya incident of 940 he was sent to Bursa and there became sheikh of the soup kitchen (imaret) of Sultan Bayezid I (Yıldırım). Rahîmî Efendi studied the literary and religious sciences in Amasya with Karabağî Muhyiddin Mehmed Efendi and the various scripts with Ebü'l-fazl A'rec Mehmed Efendi. While a public lecturer and a well-known madrasa teacher (müderris), he went to Bursa with his father in 940. There he first taught the pages of the palace; then, attending the conversations of Sheikh Abdülmü'min Efendi, he gave up teaching, repented at his hands and became his follower. He completed the Sufi path in his retreat house and received a deputy's diploma (hilafetname). Later he became sheikh of that sheikh's lodge, and he died around 970. He was a learned man, a poet and a calligrapher. What Hüsameddin calls "the Amasya incident of 940" is not explained in the entry; the fact that the father was "sent" to Bursa because of it suggests that the move was not voluntary.

What Kınalızâde Relates

The entry in Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi's tezkire largely agrees with Hüsameddin's record and looks like its main source. Kınalızâde says that the poet's name was Abdurrahîm and that he chose his pen name (mahlas) for that reason. His father was a man called "Mehemmed Çelebi from Amasya", who had a share in the sciences and was a man of spiritual state and discernment; he settled in Bursa and chose the service of sheikh in the sultans' charitable foundations. When Rahîmî came of age he took the vow of repentance from Abdülmü'min Efendi and joined the Mağribiyye chain of the order, thus changing his path. He earned his living by his fine nesih and talik script, "kedd-i yemîn ve arak-ı cebîn ile", in Kınalızâde's words, by the labour of his hand and the sweat of his brow.

Kınalızâde records the death with the words "hudûd-ı seb'înde". The phrase means "around seventy", and given the century in which the tezkire was written it can be read as the year 970 (1562-63) or understood as the age of seventy. Hüsameddin places the death around 970. At the end of the entry Kınalızâde adds a couplet of his own on the poet's death: "Dîdeden sanmanuz nihân oldı / 'Âzim-i mülket-i cinân oldı" (Do not think he has vanished from sight; he has set out for the land of paradise). The couplet is introduced with the note "li-münşihi" (by the author) and is the tezkirist's own. His judgement on the poetry is measured: the pearls of Rahîmî's verse do not shine very brightly with the light of fame, but some of his works are not without hâl, a feeling that comes from within.

The State of the Sources

After the lines he quotes from Kınalızâde, Hüsameddin adds the following information, which he says he took from Âşık Çelebi's tezkire:

Keyvânzâde'ye âşık ve şi'rinde Celîlî'ye mukallid bir zât idi. Bursa'da yedi dilber hakkında "Seb'a-i Seyyâre" nâmıyla bir risâle ve "Keyvân ü Behrâm" nâmıyla diğer bir risâle-i edebiyye yazmışdır. Fasîh, belîğ idi.

According to this, the poet was in love with Keyvânzâde, imitated Celîlî of Bursa in his poetry, and wrote two literary treatises, Seb'a-i Seyyâre and Keyvân ü Behrâm, about seven beauties of Bursa. Hüsameddin adds that the Keyvânzâde meant here is the Amasya beauty Gonca Keyvân Bey, who captivated even Prince Mustafa, and that Behrâm Bey was his companion, and he ends the entry with the sentence "Âşık Çelebi records that Rahmî Efendi died at the age of seventy".

This last part is problematic. In the digital text of Filiz Kılıç's edition of Meşâ'irü'ş-şu'arâ we could find no entry under the name Rahîmî; among the entries under the same letter there is only Rahmî Pîr Mehmed Çelebi, son of the painter Bâlî of Bursa. In Hüsameddin's own sentence too the name appears as "Rahmî". Kınalızâde, for his part, tells how Rahîmî attached himself to a spiritual guide and entered the Sufi path, and says nothing of his falling in love with a beauty or writing treatises. For this reason it is not certain that the love for Keyvânzâde, the two treatises and the age of seventy belong to Rahîmî. It is possible that at this point Hüsameddin confused two poets with similar names, Rahîmî and Rahmî. On the other hand, it cannot be ruled out that Hüsameddin used another manuscript of Âşık Çelebi; the sources available to us do not answer this question.

Connection with Amasya

Both sources together confirm that Rahîmî was from Amasya: Kınalızâde calls his father "from Amasya", and Hüsameddin writes that the poet himself studied and taught in Amasya. His teachers too are well-known Amasya names. Ebü'l-fazl A'rec Mehmed Efendi is a calligrapher also remembered as the teacher of script to other secretary-poets of Amasya. The family name "Tayyibzâde" given by Hüsameddin recalls the Amasya family of judges and madrasa teachers known as the Tayyibzâdes; but Hüsameddin does not explain how the poet was connected to that family. The second half of Rahîmî's life was spent in Bursa, and it is not known in which city his surviving poems were written.

Poetry

There is no record that Rahîmî had a divan. The poems that remain are the three pieces quoted by Kınalızâde and Hüsameddin: three couplets of a ghazal beginning "Safâ gitdi gönül âyînesinden jeng-i gam kaldı", the couplet "Sıma mir'ât-ı kalbüm tâ ki kılmayam nazar gayra", and four couplets of a ghazal beginning "Uzatdı şem'-i şeb-i gam zebâna bencileyin". Kınalızâde gives two couplets of the first ghazal and three of the second; Hüsameddin quotes each with one couplet more. Hüsameddin does not say where these extra couplets came from. The differences between the two sources are set out one by one on the page this category gives to each piece.

The shared mood of the poems is grief and melâmet, the acceptance of blame. Joy wiped from the mirror of the heart and the rust of grief left in its place, the candle stretching out its tongue to tell its pain as it burns, the mirror of the heart kept from looking at another: all of them carry an inward-turned voice that has let go of worldly pleasures. This voice fits the life story of a calligrapher who gave up teaching and attached himself to a sheikh, but we do not know whether the poems were written before or after this change.

Chronology

940 (1533-34): According to Hüsameddin, his father is sent to Bursa after an incident in Amasya; Rahîmî gives up his teaching post and goes with him.

Around 970 (1562-63): Rahîmî dies in Bursa, in the lodge of which he was sheikh.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources