Refîkî Ali Çelebi was a sixteenth-century poet from Amasya who served as a secretary of the imperial council (Divan-ı Hümayun) under Bayezid II and Selim I (Selim the Grim), and who was known for his handwriting, his prose style and a tercî'-bend complaining of the times. Sehî, Latîfî, Beyânî and Kınalızâde all call him "Amasiyyadandur", from Amasya; Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar too records him in his Amasya Tarihi as a secretary of the İbrîzâde family and a pupil of Sheikh Hamdullah. When his sight failed in old age he gave up the pen for the administration of pious endowments, formed a close friendship with Kemalpaşazâde in Edirne, and died in 939 (1532-33). His divan is unknown today; the poems that survive in the anthologies, in an exchange recorded by Âşık Çelebi and Âlî, and in Nazmî of Edirne's anthology of response poems have their own pages in this category.

Hüsameddin's Account

Hüsameddin describes the poet in the tenth volume of the Amasya Tarihi under the heading "Refîkî Ali Çelebi-İbrîzâde":

Refîkî Ali Çelebi-İbrîzâde Amasyalıdır. Meşâhîr-i fuzalâdan Mevlânâ Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi mahdûmudur. Kibâr-ı fuzalâdan Mevlânâ Abdî ve Mevlânâ Hatîb Kâsım Çelebilerden ulûm-ı edebiyye ve şer'iyyeyi ve hattât-ı meşhûr eş-Şeyh Hamdullâh Çelebi'den hutût-ı mütenevvi'ayı ahz u ta'allüm ederek Amasya'da ders-i âm oldu. 896'da üstâdı Hamdullâh Efendiyle beraber İstanbul'a gidip "Refîkî" lakâbıyla iştihâr etdi. Bir müddet İstanbul'da ders-i âm ve Mü'eyyedzâde Abdurrahmân Efendi'den mülâzım olup sonra Edirne'de Darü'l-hadîs, ba'dehû Sultân Bâyezîd ve buradan Sahn-ı Semâniyye müderrisi olarak İstanbul'a geldi. 918'de Sultân Selîm Hân'ın cülûsunda dekâyık-ı tahrîr u imlâ ve letâ'if-i şi'r u inşâda fazîleti ma'lûm-ı pâdişâhî olduğundan dîvân-ı hümâyûn ser-kâtibi oldu. Mu'ahharan akl ü tedbîri Sultân-ı müşârün-ileyhin nazar-ı dikkatini celb edib müsteşâr-ı saltanat olarak erkân-ı Selîmiyye'den oldu. 926'da Sultân Süleyman'ın cülûsunda makâmını muhâfaza etdiyse de 927'de Edirne'de Sultân Bâyezîd evkâfı mütevellîsi olup Edirne'ye gönderildi. Bu esnâda Kemâl Paşazâde Ahmed Şâh Çelebi Edirne'de müderris olduğu münâsebetle yek-diğeriyle musâhabât-ı ilmiyye ve edebiyye etdi. Ba'dehû Kemâl Paşazâde İstanbul'a celb edilip Şeyhülislâm oldukta 935'de İstanbul'a gelip Fâtih Sultân evkâfı tevliyetiyle mütekâ'id oldu. Fakat 937'de illet-i seylden gözlerine amâ târî olduğundan tevliyetten afv edilip 939'da vefât etdi. Fâzıl, edîb, gâyet münşî, şâir-i belîğ, ulûm-ı Arabiyye ve edebiyyede yektâ, kaviyü'l-münâzara, bahhâs, hattât-ı bî-hem-tâ idi. Kemâl Paşazâde ile pek ziyâde sevişirlerdi. Elsine-i selâsede kasâ'id ü gazeliyyâtını hâvî dîvânı vardır.

In English: Refîkî Ali Çelebi, of the İbrîzâde family, is from Amasya. He is the son of Mevlânâ Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi, a well-known scholar. He learned the literary and religious sciences from the eminent scholars Mevlânâ Abdî and Mevlânâ Hatib Kâsım Çelebi, and the various styles of script from the famous calligrapher Sheikh Hamdullah Çelebi, and began to teach in Amasya. In 896 he went to Istanbul with his master Hamdullah Efendi and became known by the nickname "Refîkî", travelling companion. For a time he taught in Istanbul and became a candidate (mülazım) of Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi; then he came to Istanbul as professor successively at the Darülhadis in Edirne, at the Sultan Bayezid madrasa and at the Sahn-ı Seman. When Sultan Selim came to the throne in 918, his mastery of writing, orthography, poetry and prose being known to the sultan, he became chief secretary of the imperial council. Later his intelligence and judgement drew the sultan's attention, and he joined the dignitaries of Selim's reign as an adviser to the throne. When Sultan Süleyman came to the throne in 926 he kept his post, but in 927 he was sent to Edirne as administrator of the endowments of Sultan Bayezid there. Kemalpaşazâde Ahmed Şah Çelebi was then a professor in Edirne, and the two held learned and literary conversations. When Kemalpaşazâde was summoned to Istanbul and became shaykh al-Islam, he too came to Istanbul in 935 and retired with the administration of the endowments of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. But in 937 he went blind from an eye disease, was released from the administration, and died in 939. He was learned, cultivated, a master of prose, an eloquent poet, unrivalled in Arabic and literature, strong in disputation, a searching mind and a calligrapher without equal. He and Kemalpaşazâde loved each other dearly. He has a divan containing kasides and ghazals in three languages.

At the end of the entry Hüsameddin says that he combined this information from the anthologies and histories of Latîfî, Âşık Çelebi, Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi and Âlî with his own research.

Refîkî in the Anthologies

The earliest writer to mention Refîkî is his contemporary Sehî. According to Sehî the poet abandoned his studies, served as a secretary of the imperial council in the reigns of Sultan Bayezid and Sultan Selim, and was esteemed by the dignitaries of state. When he grew old, the pupils of his eyes clouded from much writing and the house of his mind began to darken, and he was therefore moved to the administration of an endowment. Sehî records that the poet died while administrator of the Darülhadis in Edirne and that his grave is in Edirne; he adds that he was an eloquent poet with sweet words, and that his tercî'-bend complaining of the times was full of astonishing meanings.

Latîfî is more detailed and more critical. In his account Refîkî was a dânişmend, an advanced madrasa student, at the Sahn-ı Seman when his fine hand and admired prose led him to give up his studies, and he served for a long time as a secretary of the council. When the disease called "sebel" came upon his eyes he became administrator of a sultan's charitable complex, and in the time of İskender Çelebi's tenure as treasurer he won fame and standing in the company of notables. He had a treatise and a divan, but the divan was not well known. Latîfî finds the poet's verse "middling"; in his view none of the kasides and poems in Refîkî's divan comes up to his tercî'-bend on the times. Beyânî, in his short entry, says that he was a man of the pen with a fine hand, that there was a great intimacy between him and Kemalpaşazâde in Edirne, and that his tercî'-bend was "in the mouths of all the world".

Kınalızâde repeats the same information in ornate prose and adds two details. The first concerns Kemalpaşazâde: while Kemalpaşazâde was professor at the Darülhadis and the Sultan Bayezid madrasa in Edirne, Refîkî was the administrator of these institutions, and the two men had become "hem-tarîk ü hem-refîk", fellow travellers and companions, on the road of poetry. The second is a kaside of the poet's with the refrain "berş", on an opium paste. We could not find a separate entry on Refîkî in Âşık Çelebi's anthology, but the poet is mentioned in two places. In the entry on Kemalpaşazâde the company ask why Refîkî, who is not a man of learning but collects every book he finds, "imprisons" so many books. Kemalpaşazâde replies that the other friends take books and "torture" them, while he only imprisons them, and prison is better than torture. "İşkence", torture, is also the name of the press in which bookbinders clamp a book; the jest, in our reading, contrasts the friends who pass books from hand to hand and wear them out with Refîkî, who keeps them waiting on the shelf. The second mention is the satire he wrote on the mud of Edirne and the reply Sâgarî of Edirne made to it.

The State of the Sources

Hüsameddin's account departs from the anthologies at several points. The most marked difference is the poet's profession. Hüsameddin presents Refîkî as a professor rising from the Darülhadis in Edirne to the Sultan Bayezid madrasa and the Sahn-ı Seman; the anthologies say that he left the learned career while a student at the Sahn, spent his life as a secretary, and was administrator, not professor, of the Edirne institutions. In Kınalızâde's text these professorships belong to Kemalpaşazâde. It is very likely that Hüsameddin confused the careers of the two friends.

There is also a difference over the place of death. Hüsameddin writes that the poet returned to Istanbul in 935, was released from the administration of the Conqueror's endowments because he had gone blind, and died in 939; he does not name the place of death, but his narrative points to Istanbul. Sehî states that he died while administrator of the Darülhadis in Edirne and was buried in Edirne. The entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü likewise gives the date of death as 939 (1533-34) and the place as Edirne, and regards the date 930 in the anthology of Riyâzî as an error. The disease Hüsameddin calls "illet-i seyl" is the "sebel" of the anthologies, a film forming over the eye. That Kâfzâde Fâizî counts Refîkî a native of Edirne is another divergence; the same entry notes that the poet's satire complaining of Edirne's mud weakens this view.

Connection with Amasya

Refîkî's Amasya origin is not a piece of information resting on a single source in this collection; the anthologists repeat it independently of one another. Sehî says "Amasiyyelidür", Latîfî "Şehr-i Amasyadan", Beyânî and Kınalızâde "Amasiyyadandur". Hüsameddin adds his family and teachers: his father Mevlânâ Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi belonged to the İbrîzâde family; he learned calligraphy from Sheikh Hamdullah, regarded as the patriarch of the calligraphers of Amasya, and went to Istanbul with him in 896 (1490-91). That he took the nickname "Refîkî" on this journey, as his master's travelling companion, is Hüsameddin's explanation; the anthologies do not say where the pen name came from. The poet's place among the men of the pen under Selim I also fits the picture Hüsameddin draws of the Amasyans who entered state service in Selim's reign; the private secretary Keşfî Mehmed Çelebi, of the same generation, belongs to that picture too.

His Poetry

According to Hüsameddin, Refîkî had a divan containing kasides and ghazals in Turkish, Arabic and Persian. Latîfî confirms that the divan existed but says it was not well known. No copy of it is known today. What survives of his verse is the couplets chosen by the anthologists and the poems preserved in Nazmî of Edirne's anthology of response poems, Mecma'u'n-Nezâ'ir. According to the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, that anthology contains 58 poems by Refîkî and the anthology of Pervâne Bey 48; these numbers show that the poet Latîfî called "not well known" was in fact widely read in his own day.

Nine pieces have their own pages in this category: the opening couplets "Âl idüp ol lâle-rûh", "Tâ seyre çıkdı" and "İncelüp kaşuñ" chosen by Latîfî; a Persian opening couplet written as a response to Emîr Hüsrev-i Dihlevî; the surviving couplet of the satire on the mud of Edirne; the ghazal with the refrain "benden yana" quoted by Kınalızâde; the ghazal "Ey kıya bakışlu dil-ber", known in full with its pen-name couplet from the anthology of response poems; nine couplets from the tercî'-bend on the times; and five couplets from the kaside with the refrain berş. The other poems in Mecma'u'n-Nezâ'ir and the Pervâne Bey anthology could not be examined when these pages were prepared.

Chronology

896 (1490-91): According to Hüsameddin, goes to Istanbul with his master Sheikh Hamdullah.

918 (1512): According to Hüsameddin, becomes chief secretary of the imperial council on the accession of Selim I.

927 (1521): According to Hüsameddin, becomes administrator of the endowments of Sultan Bayezid in Edirne.

935 (1528-29): According to Hüsameddin, returns to Istanbul and becomes administrator of the Conqueror's endowments.

937 (1530-31): According to Hüsameddin, loses his sight.

939 (1532-33): Dies. According to Sehî, he dies while administrator of the Darülhadis in Edirne and is buried in Edirne.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Official sources

Books

Online sources