Rahmî Mehmed Efendi's poems were once in the hands of Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar: the historian writes that he had obtained them with difficulty, but that they were burnt. Since that fire not a single line remains from the pen of a man he calls "şâir-i meşhûr", a famous poet, in the Amasya of the later seventeenth century. Hüsameddin also counts him among the poets included in the lost work of the anthologist Abdî Efendi. From a family of scholars from Yağmur village, Rahmî was known as a calligrapher as well, moved from court clerkship to judgeships in small towns and died in 1091 (1680).

Hüsameddin's Entry

The "Rahmî Mehmed Efendi-Hâcezâde" entry of volume ten also holds the historian's own note on the poems:

Amasyalıdır. Yağmurköylü Hâce İsmâ'îl Efendizâde Abdurrahmân Efendi'nin mahdûmudur. Pederinden ve Dervîş Ali Efendi'den tahsîl-i ulûm ve ahz-ı hutût ederek ders-i âm ve ba'dehû mahkeme kâtibi oldu. Ba'dehû kasabâta kadı olup 1091'de vefât etdi. Âlim, kâmil hattât, şâir-i meşhûr idi. Mahdûmu, ricâlden el-Hâc Lütfullâh Efendi pek meşhûr olup evlâdına "Hacı Lutoğulları" dendi. Müşkilât ile elde etdiğim eş'ârı yandı. Tezkire-i Abdî ricâlindendir.

The entry in English: He was from Amasya, born to Abdurrahman Efendi, himself a son of Hâce İsmâil Efendi of Yağmur village. He studied the sciences and learned calligraphy from his father and from Derviş Ali Efendi; after working for a time as a ders-i âm teaching students, he became a court clerk. Then he served as judge in small towns and died in 1091. He was a learned man, an accomplished calligrapher and a famous poet. His son el-Hâc Lütfullah Efendi, one of the statesmen, was very well known; his children were called the "Hacı Lutoğulları". His poems, which I obtained with difficulty, were burnt. He is one of the people included in Abdî Efendi's anthology.

His Family

Rahmî's grandfather was el-Hâc İsmâil Efendi of Yağmur village, who has his own entry in the seventh volume of the book. This scholar from the village of Yağmur, west of Amasya, taught for many years in the town's madrasas, retired with the rank of teacher of the Hızır Paşa Madrasa and died in 1038 (1629). Hüsameddin names Abdurrahman and Mehmed Efendi as his sons. Rahmî's father Abdurrahman Efendi appears in another entry of the same book as "kudâtdan", one of the judges.

That entry describes another son of Abdurrahman Efendi: İsmâil Efendi-Yağmûrîzâde. A pupil of his grandfather and of Kadızâde Küçük Mehmed Efendi, this İsmâil Efendi became mufti of Amasya in 1071 (1661), rose as far as the judgeship of Sivas and died in 1083 (1672-73). Since his father's name and lineage are the same as Rahmî's, the mufti İsmâil Efendi was Rahmî's brother; because Hüsameddin does not connect the two entries, this is a conclusion drawn from the source.

Hüsameddin counts his son el-Hâc Lütfullah Efendi among the "ricâl", men prominent in state service, and writes that his descendants were called the "Hacı Lutoğulları". On the offices Lütfullah Efendi held, the entry is silent.

Confusion with Rahmî Ahmed Efendi

The Amasya Tarihi contains another poet bearing the pen name Rahmî: the judge Rahmî Ahmed Efendi, son of Küçük Hâce Mehmed İlmî Efendi, who died in 1058 (1648). The resemblance between the two records is striking. Both family names go back to a "hâce", both men served as judges, and both had a well-known son named Lütfullah. There is a further point: in Hüsameddin's words, Ahmed Efendi's pen name Rahmî "came to light later". These similarities raise the possibility that a piece of information was attached by mistake to one of the two men. On the other hand, the fathers' names (Abdurrahman and Mehmed İlmî), their own names (Mehmed and Ahmed) and their years of death (1091 and 1058) differ, and Hüsameddin records them as two separate persons. Mehmed Efendi's pen name Rahmî, for its part, is written plainly in the heading of his entry. Nor is there any record linking the Yağmur family to the Hâcezâdes descended from Küçük Hâce; the name "Hâcezâde" goes back to a different "hâce" in each family. On present evidence there is nothing sufficient to merge the two Rahmîs.

Abdî Efendi's Anthology and the Lost Poems

The sentence "Tezkire-i Abdî ricâlindendir" shows that Rahmî's standing as a poet was recognised by his contemporaries as well. Abdî Efendi, teacher at the Abdullah Paşa Madrasa, gathered the poets of seventeenth-century Amasya into a biographical anthology (tezkire) and died in 1087 (1677), only four years before Rahmî. The poet belonged to the anthologist's own generation. The work is lost today. Hüsameddin saw the anthology and quoted the lives and poems of many poets from it; among the anthology poems preserved through his quotations there is no couplet by Rahmî.

Behind the sentence "müşkilât ile elde etdiğim eş'ârı yandı" lies a labour of collecting: the historian had tracked down and gathered Rahmî's poems with great effort, and the collection was then destroyed in a fire. The book voices the same regret for the texts of other Amasya poets that were lost while in Hüsameddin's hands. That is why Rahmî Mehmed Efendi's poems could not be traced. Nothing of his calligraphy survives either; no panel or Qur'an copy in his hand is known.

Chronology

1038 (1629): His grandfather el-Hâc İsmâil Efendi of Yağmur village dies.

1087 (1677): Abdî Efendi, who included Rahmî in his anthology, dies.

1091 (1680): Rahmî Mehmed Efendi, who had served as judge in small towns, dies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources