Rızâî Ali Efendi died at thirty-eight while chief judge (molla) of Cairo. A seventeenth-century scholar and poet from the Hacı Bayramzâde family of Amasya, he was born and raised in Istanbul and rose rapidly under the protection of his maternal uncle Şeyhülislam Yahyâ Efendi. The word "Rızâ", which marks his year of birth, gave him his name, and his uncle bestowed his pen name (mahlas) on him in a short poem. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar says that he had "an ordered and complete" divan and that he made it his duty to write a na't, a poem in praise of the Prophet, every year; but the divan is unknown today and his poems have not come down to us. The greater part of Hüsameddin's entry is devoted to correcting errors he found concerning Rızâî's name and family in Nev'îzâde Atâyî's Zeyl-i Şakâyık and Mehmed Süreyyâ's Sicill-i Osmânî.

Hüsameddin's Record

Rızâî's entry stands in the tenth volume of Amasya Tarihi under the heading "Rızâ'î Ali Efendi-Hacı Bayramzâde":

Amasyalıdır. Mevâliden Konya Mollası olup 1005 senesi rebîülevvelinde vefât eden Amasyalı Pîr Mehmed Efendi bin Şa'bân Efendi bin Hacı Bayram Efendi'nin mahdûmu ve Şeyhülislâm Zekeriyyâ Efendi'nin kerîmezâdesidir. 1001 senesinde İstanbul'da doğdu. Târîh-i velâdeti Rızâ lafzı olduğundan "Rızâ'î Ali Efendi" dendi. Pederinin irtihâlinde yetîm kaldığından dayısı Şeyhülislâm Yahyâ Efendi'nin vesâyeti ve amcası kazasker Hasan Efendi'nin nezâreti altında büyüdü. Her ikisinden ikmâl-i tahsîl ederek 1017'de üstâdı Yahyâ Efendi'den mülâzım oldu. Akrabâsından ve kudât-ı Mısrıyye'den İsmâ'îl Efendiyle birkaç def'a Mısır'a gidip fuzalâ-yı Arab'ın musâhabât-ı ilmiyyesinden müstefîd olarak 1026 senesi rebîülâhirinde dedeleri Zekeriyyâ Efendi Medresesi müderrisi oldu. (…) 1038 senesi şevvâlinde Mısır mollası oldu. Hayfâ ki Mısır'a vusûlünde İsmâ'îl Efendi'nin hânesine hasta bir hâlde indi. 1039 senesi muharreminde dâr-ı bekâya rihlet etdi. Mısır ve İstanbul müverrihlerinin kayd etdiği üzere âlim, fâzıl, gâyet edîb, şâir, hâfızası metîn, serî'ü'l-intikâl, bedî'ü'l-irticâl, şekl ü ma'nâda cemîl, kerîm, arîk idi. Otuz sekiz yaşında vefât etmişdi. Bununla beraber on aded kütüb-i fetâvâ-yı kibârı tedkîk ve bunların mesâ'ilini cem' ü telfîk ederek gâyet münakkah, mühezzeb bir eser te'lîf etdi. "Harîde"yi intihâb u ihtisâr ederek "Avdü'ş-Şebâb" adlı bir eser-i edebî meydâna getirdi. Müretteb ü mükemmel "Dîvân-ı eş'âr"ı vardır. Her sene bir na't-ı şerîf nazmını iltizâm etmişdi.

Paraphrased, the entry says: he was from Amasya. He was the son of Pîr Mehmed Efendi of Amasya, one of the senior judges (mevali), who died as chief judge of Konya in Rebiülevvel 1005; his grandfather was Şa'bân Efendi, whose father was Hacı Bayram Efendi. His mother was a daughter of Şeyhülislam Zekeriyyâ Efendi. He was born in Istanbul in 1001; because his date of birth matched the numerical value of the word "Rızâ", he was called "Rızâî Ali Efendi". When his father died he was left an orphan and grew up under the guardianship of his maternal uncle Şeyhülislam Yahyâ Efendi and the supervision of his paternal uncle, the military judge (kazasker) Hasan Efendi. Completing his education with both, he became a candidate for office (mülazım) under his teacher Yahyâ Efendi in 1017. With İsmâil Efendi, a relative who was one of the judges of Egypt, he went to Egypt several times and profited from the learned conversation of Arab scholars, and in Rebiülahir 1026 he became teacher (müderris) at the madrasa founded by his grandfather Zekeriyyâ Efendi. In Şevval 1038 he became chief judge of Cairo. Alas, he arrived in Egypt sick and stayed at İsmâil Efendi's house; he died in Muharrem 1039. As the historians of Egypt and Istanbul record, he was learned, accomplished, highly cultured, a poet, of sound memory, quick of understanding, gifted at improvisation, fair in form and substance, generous and of a noble line. He was thirty-eight when he died. Even so, he examined ten of the great books of legal opinions (fetva) and, gathering their questions together, wrote a very orderly and well-edited work; making selections from the Harîde and abridging it, he produced a literary work called Avdü'ş-Şebâb. He had an ordered and complete divan of poems. He had made it his duty to compose a na't every year.

The posts that Hüsameddin lists in the part we have abridged show the swift rise that fitted into Rızâî's thirty-eight years: teaching posts at the Sinan Paşa madrasa in 1029, the Sahn-ı Seman in 1031, the Haseki and the Vâlide at Üsküdar in 1032 and the Süleymaniye in 1034; the judgeships of Salonica in 1035 and Galata in 1037; and finally the chief judgeship of Cairo in 1038. The work called Harîde is most probably the Arabic anthology of poets Harîdetü'l-kasr by İmâdüddin el-İsfahânî; Hüsameddin does not give its full title.

Name, Pen Name and Hüsameddin's Corrections

Rızâî's year of birth is hidden in a single word. The sum of the numerical (abjad) values of the letters of "Rızâ" is 1001 (ر 200, ض 800, ا 1), and this is the year of his birth. In the same entry Hüsameddin also writes that his uncle gave him the pen name, and he quotes the lines that Şeyhülislam Yahyâ composed on the occasion:

Medh eyle cenâb-ı Mustafâyı
Evlâdını âl-i Murtazâyı
Geldin çü bu tengnâ-yı dehre
Mahlas idegör Ali Rızâyı

"Praise his excellency Mustafa, his descendants and the line of Murtazâ, that is, of Ali; since you have come into this narrow world, let your pen name be 'Ali Rızâ'." The couplets belong to his uncle Yahyâ Efendi; the pen name also recalls the name of Imam Ali Rızâ, of the line of Ali. The first couplet of the little poem counsels the nephew to praise the Prophet and his family; Hüsameddin's statement that Rızâî wrote a na't every year accords with this counsel, but nothing more about Rızâî's own poetry can be drawn from the lines.

Hüsameddin then lists three errors he found in the entry on Rızâî in Atâyî's Zeyl-i Şakâyık. The first concerns the name: in the printed text of Atâyî the heading begins "Mehmed Ali eş-şehîr bi-Rızâî". According to Hüsameddin the correct form is "Ali bin Mehmed eş-şehîr bi-Rızâî"; in that period no one among the Turks was given the name "Mehmed Ali", Atâyî himself quotes Yahyâ's couplet that says "Ali Rızâ", and in the unprinted manuscripts of the Zeyl and in the Egyptian histories that describe the judges of Egypt the name is "Ali bin Mehmed". The second error concerns the father's nickname. According to Hüsameddin the father's nickname was "Biber", Pepper, and the reading "Pîr" is wrong; the words "Pîr Efendi" in Atâyî's entry on the father are likewise a typesetting error. As the origin of the nickname he points out that the father, being dark and swarthy, was called "Biber" by his teacher Ebüssuûdzâde Ahmed Efendi, and that in Şeyhî's Zeyl the uncle Hasan Efendi was known as "Biber's brother". The third error is that Atâyî presents İsmâil Efendi, one of the judges of Egypt, as Rızâî's elder brother; according to Hüsameddin İsmâil Efendi was the son of Rızâî's paternal uncle Mahmûd Efendi, that is, his cousin.

Hüsameddin is also astonished that Mehmed Süreyyâ in the Sicill-i Osmânî records Rızâî as "the son of Biber Hasan Efendi": the error in the name may have been taken from Atâyî, but the source for making the uncle his father is unclear. One detail in these corrections jars: Hüsameddin, in his own heading, still names the father "Pîr Mehmed Efendi"; the author who says that "Pîr" is wrong has kept this name in the heading. We were unable to see Atâyî's text and check Hüsameddin's corrections; they are given here as he relates them.

Connection with Amasya

Rızâî was born in Istanbul and spent his life in Istanbul, Egypt and his various posts; there is no record that he lived in Amasya. What links him to Amasya is his family. His father is Pîr or Biber Mehmed Efendi, whom Hüsameddin calls "of Amasya", and who, according to the lines quoted from Atâyî, grew up "zemîn-i Amasya'da", on the soil of Amasya. The family is known as the Hacı Bayramzâdes after Hacı Bayram Efendi, who appears in Hüsameddin's genealogy as Rızâî's great-grandfather. His cousin İsmâil Efendi is likewise recorded as a native of Amasya in Hüsameddin's seventh volume; he studied in Amasya, saw Rızâî become chief judge of Cairo while himself serving as military estate officer (kassam-ı askerî) in Egypt, held the judgeships of Giza and Damietta after Rızâî's death, and died in 1045.

Poetry

According to Hüsameddin, Rızâî had an ordered and complete divan and composed a na't every year. Hüsameddin does not quote a single couplet from this divan; the little poem in the entry belongs to his uncle Yahyâ Efendi. In the sources we searched we found no copy of the divan and no poem by Rızâî. The poems of Rızâî Ali Efendi have not come down to us.

Chronology

1001 (1592-93): Born in Istanbul.

Rebiülevvel 1005 (October-November 1596): His father dies as chief judge of Konya.

1017 (1608-09): Becomes a candidate for office under Yahyâ Efendi.

Rebiülahir 1026 (1617): Becomes teacher at the Zekeriyyâ Efendi madrasa.

1029-1034 (1620-1625): Teaches at the Sinan Paşa, Sahn-ı Seman, Haseki, Üsküdar Vâlide and Süleymaniye madrasas.

1035-1037 (1626-1628): Judgeships of Salonica and Galata.

Şevval 1038 (May-June 1629): Becomes chief judge of Cairo.

Muharrem 1039 (August-September 1629): Dies in Egypt, at the house of his cousin İsmâil Efendi.

Bibliography

Online sources