Rûhî Fâzıl Çelebi, son of the shaykh al-Islam Zenbilli Ali Efendi, was a poet who died in Istanbul early in the sixteenth century. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar records him as "Rûhî Ahmed Efendi-Fâzıl", a native of Amasya born while his father was a professor there, and credits him with an Ottoman history and a divan. The anthologies of Sehî, Latîfî and Kınalızâde draw a different portrait: a poet named Fâzıl, born in Istanbul, remembered for his beauty, who died while still a young madrasa student. The sources disagree on his name, his birthplace, his year of birth and his age at death. Nine pieces of his verse are given on separate pages.

Hüsameddin's Account

The entry in the tenth volume of the Amasya Tarihi reads:

Rûhî Ahmed Efendi-Fâzıl Amasyalıdır. Şeyhülislâm Cemâlîzâde Zenbîlî Ali Efendi bin Kemâleddîn Ahmed Çelebi mahdûmudur. Pederi Amasya'da müderris iken 891'de doğdu. Pederinden ve Mü'eyyedzâde Abdurrahmân Efendi'den ahz-ı ulûm u fezâ'il edib pederinin dânişmend ü mülâzımı iken müderris ü ders-i âm oldu. İstanbul ve Edirne'de medâris-i adîdeye müderris olup Sahn-ı Semâniyyeye kadar irtikâ etdiği hâlde 927'de vefât etdi. Âlim, fâzıl, şâir, müverrih, edîb, muhâzarâta vâkıf, tevârihe âşinâ, belîğ, gâyet zarîf bir zât idi. Devlet-i Osmâniyye Târîhini Sultân Osmân'dan Sultân Selîm Hân devrine kadar yazıp "Rûhî Târihi" demekle meşhûr oldu. Dîvân-ı eş'ârı vardır. "Fâzıl Rûhî Çelebi" demekle meşhûr olduğundan Âşık Çelebi Fâzıl kelimesini târih-i tevellüdü 911 olarak yazmışdır. Târîh-i tevellüdü "Feyyâz" 891'dir. Fâzıl kelimesi şöhretidir.

In English: Rûhî Ahmed Efendi, known as Fâzıl, is from Amasya. He is the son of the shaykh al-Islam Cemâlîzâde Zenbilli Ali Efendi; his grandfather was Kemâleddin Ahmed Çelebi. He was born in 891, while his father was a professor in Amasya. He studied with his father and with Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi; while a student and candidate (mülazım) of his father he became a professor and began to teach. He was professor at many madrasas in Istanbul and Edirne, rose as far as the Sahn-ı Seman, and died in 927. He was learned, accomplished, a poet, a historian, a man of letters, well versed in conversation, familiar with histories, eloquent and most refined. He wrote the history of the Ottoman state from Osman to the reign of Sultan Selim, and the work became known as the "History of Rûhî". He has a divan of poems. Because he was known as "Fâzıl Rûhî Çelebi", Âşık Çelebi took the word "Fâzıl" as his date of birth and wrote it as 911. His date of birth is 891, given by the word "Feyyâz"; "Fâzıl" is merely his byname.

Hüsameddin's last sentences rest on an abjad calculation. Written in Arabic letters, the numerical values of the word "Fâzıl" add up to 911 and those of "Feyyâz" to 891. Hüsameddin argues that Âşık Çelebi read the poet's byname as a chronogram of his birth, whereas the word giving the correct date is "Feyyâz". We could not find this note of Âşık Çelebi's in the edition available to us; it is given here only as Hüsameddin reports it.

The Young Poet of the Anthologies

Sehî begins his entry on Rûhî: "Müftî ʿAlî Çelebinüñ oġlıdur. İsmi Fâżıldur. Mevlidi İstanbuldur", He is the son of the mufti Ali Çelebi. His name is Fâzıl. His birthplace is Istanbul. He then praises his beauty at length: his face would brand the sun with envy, the crescent of his brow would make the new moon bite its finger. Before the spring of his life could bring his beauty to fullness a winter wind found its way to him, and he died in Istanbul. Sehî writes that when the poet studied and became a dânişmend he was still "nâ-resîde tâze cüvân", an unripe young man, that his nature and mind were upright beyond description and his manner sweet. He also quotes in this context the couplets he wrote for a faithful friend who left on pilgrimage.

Latîfî draws the same young portrait even more sharply. In his account Rûhî was the son of Ali Çelebi of Karaman, mufti in the reign of Selim; his moonlike face had become a full moon at fourteen, then the sun of his beauty set, and he died in the days when the fortress of Rhodes was conquered, that is, in 928 (1522), "the water of his ruby lips thirsting for the water of life". Latîfî adds that he had not yet reached maturity in the art of poetry, though he was pointed out like the crescent of the feast. Kınalızâde too names Rûhî as the son of the mufti Ali Çelebi and says that at the very moment his moon was full he fell into "mehâk", the darkening and vanishing of the moon, and died young.

The State of the Sources

The information about Rûhî carries two distinct voices, and the difference between them is not small. According to Hüsameddin the poet was born in Amasya in 891 (1486), taught in Istanbul and Edirne, rose to the Sahn-ı Seman, wrote an Ottoman history and died in 927 (1521) at about thirty-five. According to the anthologies he was born in Istanbul and was a youth who died while still a dânişmend, before reaching maturity in poetry. The birth date 911 (1505-06) attributed to Âşık Çelebi fits the anthologies' portrait; on that reckoning the poet would have been about seventeen when he died.

The entry "Rûhî Çelebi" by Yusuf Küçükdağ in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi stands closer to Hüsameddin between the two portraits. According to it the poet's real name must have been Fâzıl and his pen name Rûhî; he was one of the five sons of Zenbilli Ali Efendi and the younger brother of Muhyiddin Mehmed Şah. He completed his studies quickly and became a professor, made the pilgrimage, and later served as a secretary in the imperial council. According to the entry the history entitled Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osmân was written at the wish of Bayezid II and comes down to 917 (1511); its author went to Edirne with the sultan right after the Istanbul earthquake of 915 (1509). According to Latîfî the poet died in Istanbul during the conquest of Rhodes in 928 (1522) and was buried on the Zeyrek slope in the family cemetery where his father's tomb stands. The encyclopedia also states plainly that the authorship of this history is disputed: J. H. Mordtmann gives the work to a different man, Rûhî-i Edirnevî, while Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir gives it to Rûhî Fâzıl Çelebi, son of Zenbilli; Küçükdağ finds the second view stronger.

Within this picture, a man who was with the sultan in 1509 as a historian and secretary cannot have been born in 1505. If the history was written by Zenbilli's son, the birth date 891 seems more plausible; the young, beautiful poet who died early in the anthologies does not fit that age. It is also conceivable that two different people, perhaps two members of the same family, have merged under one name in the sources; no document shows this. Here each piece of information is given with the name of the source it belongs to. For the same reason the attribution to Rûhî of the bathhouse ghazal added in one copy of Sehî's anthology is also open to question.

Connection with Amasya

Two things link Rûhî to Amasya: his father and Hüsameddin's record of his birth. The path of the Cemâlî family passed through Amasya for generations; Zenbilli Ali Efendi taught and served as mufti in that city. Hüsameddin writes that his son was born while the father was a professor in Amasya. Sehî, however, plainly gives the birthplace as Istanbul. Rûhî's Amasya origin is therefore disputed: the family tie is certain, but the birthplace is a different city in each of the two sources.

His Poetry

Hüsameddin says Rûhî had a divan; no copy of it is known. The TDV entry notes that the language of his poems is plain compared with that of his contemporaries. The pieces preserved in the anthologies are on separate pages in this category: the couplets "Göz göñül sîne tehî", "Öldügümden soñra", "Bilmeyüp dâyîresin", "Mihr ile meh öykünse" and "Gün yüzüñden zülfüñi" quoted by Latîfî; the jesting kıt'a, also told by Latîfî, composed on his sickbed about a Jewish physician; the two couplets for the friend leaving on pilgrimage and the couplet "Her-câyî dil-rübânuñ" given by Sehî; and the ghazal "Hammâma girdi", added to Rûhî in a single copy of Sehî. The second of the two couplets Hüsameddin gives is a merger of a line by Rûhî with a line of the reply Latîfî wrote to it.

Chronology

891 (1486): According to Hüsameddin, born in Amasya. The date attributed to Âşık Çelebi is 911 (1505-06); according to Sehî the birthplace is Istanbul.

915 (1509): According to the TDV, goes to Edirne with Bayezid II after the Istanbul earthquake.

927 (1521): Dies, according to Hüsameddin.

928 (1522): According to Latîfî, dies in Istanbul during the conquest of Rhodes; buried in the family cemetery at Zeyrek.

Bibliography

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