Şeyh Abdürrahîm-i Merzifonî was a Sufi and poet who lived in Merzifon in the first half of the fifteenth century. He was one of the first deputies (halife) to carry the Zeyniyye branch of the Suhrawardiyya order into Anatolia, and because he used the pen name (mahlas) "Rûmî" in his poems he is also known as Abdürrahîm-i Rûmî. Born in Merzifon, he was trained in Egypt and Khorasan under Zeynüddin el-Hâfî, returned home at his master's command and spent the rest of his life guiding disciples there. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar counts him in his Amasya Tarihi among the great sheikhs produced by the sanjak of Amasya. Of his Turkish hymns and poems a single couplet has come down to us: "Tövbe yâ rabbi hatâ râhına gittiklerime / Bilip ettiklerime bilmeyip ettiklerime". The sheikh's place in Merzifon and his circle are also described in the site's articles Notable figures of Merzifon and Education and learning in Merzifon.

Hüsameddin's Entry

In the eleventh volume of his Amasya Tarihi Hüsameddin gives the sheikh under the heading "Abdürrahîm Çelebi-Mevlânâ Nizâmeddîn":

Merzifon emîri "Sarı Dânîşmend" demekle meşhûr Abdülazîz Bey bin Halil Bey'in mahdûmudur. Buna "Sarı Emîr Aziz" denmişdi. Merzifon'da doğdu. Bir müddet Amasya ulemâsından tahsîl gördü. Ba'dehû Şeyh Zeynüddîn Hâfî Hazretleri'nin Arabistan'a hareket etdiğini işitip Mısır'a giderek müşârün-ileyhin sohbetiyle müşerref oldu. Şeyhiyle beraber Hicâz'a, ba'dehû Hâf'a gidip beş yıl kadar hizmetinde bulunarak iktisâb-ı füyûzât etdi. Her vecihle tekemmül ederek icâzet ve hilâfet alıp vatanına avdet etdi. Merzifon'da Devlet Hâtun zâviyesi şeyhi olup 835'de yevmî beş akçe vazîfe aldı. İkinci Sultân Murad Hân müşârün-ileyhin zühd ve kemâlini, fazl ve takvâsını işitip kendisine teveccüh ve hüsn-i i'tikâd eylediğinden vazîfe-i yevmîyesini artırmak istedi. Hazret bu fazladan ancak üç akçeyi kabûl edib 840'da vazîfesi sekiz akçeye çıkarıldı. İmâret-i sultânîyeden de senevî on müd buğday verildi. Bu mikdâr vazîfe ve galle ile kefâf-ı nefs ederek halkı irşâd ve ibâdete hasr-ı evkât edib 863 senesi muharreminin evâilinde vefât etdi. Merzifon'da Devlet Hâtun Zâviyesi bahçesinde medfûndur. Târih-i vefâtı "Şakâyık" ve "Sicil"de yoktur.

In English: The sheikh was the son of Abdülaziz Bey, emir of Merzifon, known as "Sarı Dânişmend"; his father was also called "Sarı Emîr Aziz". He was born in Merzifon and studied for a time with the scholars of Amasya. Then, hearing that Zeynüddin Hâfî had set out for the Arab lands, he went to Egypt and joined his company. With his master he went to the Hijaz and then to Hâf in Khorasan, and by serving him for about five years he acquired spiritual grace. Having matured in every respect, he received a licence (icazet) and deputyship and returned to his homeland. He became sheikh of the Devlet Hatun lodge (zaviye) in Merzifon, and in 835 (1431-32) a daily stipend of five akçe was assigned to him. Murad II, hearing of his asceticism and virtue, showed him favour and wished to raise his stipend; the sheikh accepted only three akçe of this increase, and in 840 (1436-37) his stipend was raised to eight akçe. Ten müd of wheat a year were also granted to him from the sultan's public kitchen (imaret). Living on this stipend and grain, he devoted his time to guiding the people and to worship, and died at the beginning of Muharram 863. He is buried in the garden of the Devlet Hatun lodge in Merzifon. The date of his death is not found in the Şakâyık or in the Sicill-i Osmânî.

Hüsameddin bases the date of death on two pieces of evidence. On the back of a book entitled Târih-i Sultân Süleyman, registered as no. 4221 in the Fatih Library, he saw an Arabic note stating that the sheikh died at the beginning of Muharram 863; he says the same words are written on the gravestone. Further on in the entry he writes that the sheikh was a learned and ascetic man believed to work miracles, that his tomb in Merzifon was a place of pilgrimage for the people, and that, being of a lover's temperament, he composed "poems and hymns under the pen name Rûmî". In the same volume Hüsameddin also gives a separate entry for his father, Abdülaziz Bey. According to it, Abdülaziz Bey was from Amasya and the son of Kutlu Beyzâde Hayreddin Halil Bey; at first a student (dânişmend), he became an emir during the governorship of Şâdgeldi Pasha, proved his loyalty in the wars against the Taşanoğulları, became emir of Merzifon, and died around 818 (1415-16). Hüsameddin closes this entry with the sentence "His son is Abdürrahîm Merzifonî."

Life

Abdürrahîm's date of birth is unknown. Hüsameddin's entry and Nihat Azamat's article in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi agree on the main line of his journey: first studies in Merzifon and Amasya, then initiation in Egypt with Zeynüddin el-Hâfî (d. 838/1435), the founder of the Zeyniyye, a journey with the master to Khorasan and a stay of several years there. The text of the Arabic licence that Hâfî gave him, dated 832 (1428-29), is preserved in Lâmiî Çelebi's translation of the Nefehâtü'l-üns. According to Ahmet Suphi Furat, this document lists the books the sheikh read and was authorised to teach; among them are Hâfî's Vesâyâ-yı Kudsiyye and Şehâbeddin es-Sühreverdî's İ'lâmü'l-hüdâ and Avârifü'l-meârif. Furat also notes that Kefevî, in his biographical dictionary of Hanafi jurists, calls him "eş-Şeyh el-Ârifbillâh b. el-Emîr el-Merzifonî".

The saying most often repeated in the sources is the sentence Hâfî spoke when sending his disciple to Anatolia. Azamat gives it as "We lit a log of love and threw it into the land of Rûm"; in Hüsameddin, who quotes Mecdî Mehmed Efendi's translation of the Şakâyık, Hâfî says on sending the sheikh to the land of Rûm, "I have set these lands on fire with that vessel of the fire of divine love." According to Reşat Öngören's article on the Zeyniyye, Abdürrahîm came from Khorasan to Merzifon in 832 and founded his lodge, received material support from Murad II during his activity there, and also travelled to cities such as Istanbul and Edirne. Among his disciples were Ottoman scholars such as Şemseddin Ahmed, known as Hayâlî, and Kutbüddinzâde İznikî. Öngören also relates a story told by Taşköprizâde: before the conquest the sheikh went to Istanbul with one of his deputies named Ali, held religious debates with the priests of Hagia Sophia, and of the forty priests who secretly became Muslims as a result, six were still alive at the time of the conquest. This should be read as a hagiographic tale.

Hüsameddin's figures show Murad II's interest in the sheikh in concrete terms: five akçe a day in 835, eight akçe in 840, and yearly wheat from the sultan's kitchen. The sheikh's acceptance of only part of the offered increase is related as part of the account of his asceticism. His relationship with Merzifon's other great dervish, Pîrî Baba, is also recorded by Hüsameddin. Pîrî Ahmed Baba, who came from Bukhara, settled in Merzifon in the reign of Murad II and served "eş-Şeyh Abdürrahîm Merzifonî"; when the sheikh died in 863 and his deputy Ali Çelebi succeeded him, Prince Bayezid, governor of Amasya and later Bayezid II, built a separate lodge for Pîrî Baba. On this relationship see the site's article Pîrî Baba Tomb.

Connection with Amasya

Abdürrahîm was born in Merzifon, studied for a time with the scholars of Amasya, and spent most of his life in Merzifon, today a district of the province of Amasya. According to Hüsameddin his father was an emir of Merzifon from an Amasya family. Hüsameddin not only counts him among the scholars and sheikhs of the sanjak of Amasya but also traces his descendants generation by generation. His sons Lutfullah and Abdullah Çelebi were also well-known scholars and sheikhs. Lutfullah Çelebi's son Şeyh Cemâleddin Mehmed Çelebi and his son Abdurrahman Efendi, preacher of Hagia Sophia, as well as Abdullah Çelebi's son Kutbüddin Mahmud Efendi, are also named among eminent scholars. According to an article by Nihad M. Çetin based on family memory, the seventeenth-century minstrel poet Gevherî and his son Ahmed Efendi are buried in the graveyard (hazîre) of the Abdürrahîm-i Rûmî Tomb in Merzifon; this has not been confirmed by any other source. The entry on Berin Taşan in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü states that Şeyh Abdürrahîm Rûmî was an ancestor, sixteen generations back, of the Merzifon-born poet and jurist Taşan. Taşan published a separate book on the sheikh in İzmir in 1975.

Poetry

According to the words of Mecdî quoted by Hüsameddin, at times when ecstasy, love and longing overcame him the sheikh would compose Turkish poems under the pen name Rûmî, would "burn and set ablaze" his listeners with these poignant verses, and would make the people of love weary of their lives "like a heart-burning candle". The coincidence of the pen name with Hâfî's phrase "the land of Rûm" is striking; the sources do not say whether there is a link between the two, and the observation is ours.

According to Azamat's article, the works attributed to the sheikh are İrşâdü'l-enâm, Vesâyâ, Dîvançe-i İlâhiyyât and Işknâme; of these only the Işknâme has survived and is registered in the Istanbul University Library, Turkish Manuscripts no. 1359. The Dîvançe, which evidently collected his hymns, is lost. No edition of the Işknâme or publication quoting its text could be found, and Berin Taşan's book could not be consulted. For this reason the only specimen of the sheikh's poetry that can be read today is the couplet for which, Azamat says, he became famous. The couplet is given on a separate page in this category with its original text, a modern Turkish rendering and commentary: "Tövbe yâ rabbi hatâ râhına gittiklerime". Hüsameddin does not quote it.

Date of Death and the State of the Sources

The sources give different dates for the sheikh's death. Azamat writes "probably 850 (1446)" and does not regard the date as certain. Hüsameddin gives the beginning of Muharram 863, that is November 1458, and supports it both with the note on the back of a manuscript and with the inscription on the gravestone. Hüsameddin's entry on Pîrî Baba also places the sheikh's death in 863 and relates that his deputy Ali Çelebi succeeded him, after which Prince Bayezid built a lodge for Pîrî Baba. This account, which says Bayezid came to Amasya in 860, is consistent with the date 863. The dates "1350-1458" in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü entry on Berin Taşan also agree with Hüsameddin on the year of death; but a birth year of 1350 is hard to reconcile with the age of a disciple who joined Hâfî in the 1420s, and its source is not given. The site's two Merzifon articles followed the date 850; on this page the two dates are given side by side, and the date 863, which rests on the gravestone, is regarded as the stronger.

The name of the lodge also differs in the sources. Hüsameddin makes the sheikh head of the Devlet Hatun lodge and buries him in its garden, while Öngören writes that on arriving in Merzifon the sheikh founded his own lodge. The two statements may describe the same building; no document that would settle the matter has been seen. Today a tomb bearing the sheikh's name stands in Merzifon.

Chronology

c. 818 (1415-16): His father, Abdülaziz Bey, emir of Merzifon, dies (Hüsameddin).

832 (1428-29): Zeynüddin el-Hâfî gives Abdürrahîm a licence (icazetname).

835 (1431-32): As sheikh of the Devlet Hatun lodge in Merzifon he receives five akçe a day (Hüsameddin).

838 (1435): Zeynüddin el-Hâfî dies.

840 (1436-37): His daily stipend is raised to eight akçe (Hüsameddin).

850 (1446): Probable year of death according to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.

Muharram 863 (November 1458): His death according to Hüsameddin and the gravestone.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Books

Online sources