Among the men of the pen in Tulip Era Istanbul there was a poet whose divan circulated in more than thirty manuscript copies and who, as court historiographer, also wrote the official history of the state: Arpaeminizâde Mustafa Sâmi Bey. Known by this byname because his father Osman Efendi had held the post of barley commissioner (arpa emini), Sâmi was counted, when he died in Istanbul in 1146 (1734), among the leading followers of the reflective, aphoristic manner that Nâbî had opened. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar places him among the Amasyans and traces the family's roots to Amasya. The poet himself grew up in Istanbul and spent his life there; his tie to Amasya runs through his father and grandfather.

Hüsameddin's Entry

The entry in the tenth volume of Amasya Tarihi, among the names beginning with the letter "sin", gives the poet's life in a short but orderly sequence:

Sâmi Mustafa Bey-Arpa Emînizâde Amasyalıdır. Sadr-ı esbak Kara İbrâhim Paşa'nın dîvân-ı kitâbetinden tefeyyüz ederek Arpa emîni olan Amasyalı Osmân Efendi bin Dervîş Mehmed Ağa'nın mahdûmudur. Pek genç iken peder ü vâlidesiyle beraber İstanbul'a gidip orada meşâhîr-i hattâtînden "Kara Kız" demekle meşhûr Hâcezâde Mehmed Efendi'den hutût-ı mütenevvi'ayı ahz ü temeşşuk etdi. Ba'dehû tahsîl-i ilm ü irfân edib Amcazâde Hüseyin Paşa'nın sadâretinde Bâb-ı âlîye girdi. Orada tahsîlini ileri götürüp terakkî ederek Hâcegân-ı Dîvân-ı Hümâyûndan oldu. Amasyalı el-Hâc Ahmed Paşa'nın kâ'im-makâmlığında küçük rûz-nâmeci olup 1127'de azl edildi. Ba'dehû Nevşehirli İbrâhim Paşa'nın sadâretinde şehremîni olup 1138'de Piyâde mukâbelecisi ve 1143'de vak'a-nüvîs olup 1146'da vefât etdi. Ali Paşa-yı Cedîd Kabristânı'nda medfûndur. Fâzıl, şâir, hattât-ı mâhir idi. Üç senelik vekâyi'-nâmesi Subhî ve Şâkir Beylerin vekâyi'-nâmesiyle birlikte matbû'dur.

In English: He is from Amasya. His father, the Amasyan Osman Efendi, had been trained in the chancery of the former grand vizier Kara İbrâhim Paşa and became barley commissioner; Osman Efendi in turn was a son of Derviş Mehmed Ağa. While still very young the boy went to Istanbul with his parents, and there he learned the various scripts from the famous calligrapher Hâcezâde Mehmed Efendi, known as "Kara Kız". He then pursued learning and letters and entered the Sublime Porte during the grand vizierate of Amcazâde Hüseyin Paşa. Advancing his studies there, he rose into the senior clerks of the Imperial Council (hâcegân). During the deputyship of the Amasyan Hacı Ahmed Paşa he became junior daybook keeper (küçük ruznamçeci) and was dismissed in 1127. Later, in the grand vizierate of Nevşehirli İbrâhim Paşa, he became prefect of the city (şehremini), in 1138 controller of the infantry pay rolls (piyade mukabelecisi) and in 1143 court historiographer (vak'anüvis); he died in 1146. He is buried in the cemetery of Ali Paşa-yı Cedîd. He was a learned man, a poet and a masterly calligrapher. His chronicle of three years has been printed together with the chronicles of Subhî and Şâkir Beys.

The calligraphy teacher Hüsameddin names is identified in a footnote as an Amasyan too, whose own entry is promised under his letter. The detail suggests that Sâmi's first circle in Istanbul was made up largely of men from his home town.

His Father Osman Efendi and the Tie to Amasya

The family's passage from Amasya to Istanbul is clearer in the father's entry in the twelfth volume. Osman Efendi had been brought up in the palace; his good hand and manners won him the daughter of the Amasyan Müftüzâde Mustafa Efendi in marriage, and he attached himself to Yûsuf Ağa, chief black eunuch of the harem (Dârüssaâde ağası), as his secretary. When Yûsuf Ağa was dismissed in 1098 (1687) Osman lost his post as well; later he joined the senior clerks and became barley commissioner and second memorandum clerk (ikinci tezkireci). Dismissed under the grand vizier Arpacı Ali Paşa, he became controller of the cavalry pay rolls in 1106 (1694-95) and barley commissioner again in 1108 (1696-97), remaining about five years in that office until his death. At the end of this entry Hüsameddin calls his son "the poet, calligrapher and famous historiographer Mustafa Sâmî Bey".

Read together, the two entries make the nature of Sâmi's Amasyan identity plain. Father and grandfather were from Amasya, and it is highly likely that his mother came from an Amasyan family of muftis, though since we do not know whether Osman Efendi had a wife other than Müftüzâde's daughter, this remains a possibility only. The father was already in palace service in Istanbul by 1098; if the report that the poet was taken to Istanbul "very young" is correct, he may have been born in Amasya, but no source states his birthplace or year. The detailed article on Sâmi in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi does not mention Amasya at all.

His Rise in the Scribal Service

Thanks to research based on archival documents, Sâmi's career is known in far more detail than Hüsameddin gives. In the sequence set out by Fatma Sabiha Kutlar, drawing on the work of Erhan Afyoncu, his first official post was that of second clerk of the first storehouse of the imperial stables. After serving as deputy chief accountant in the imperial retinue, he entered the hâcegân on 20 Zilkade 1127 (17 November 1715) as junior accountant of endowments. He then served twice as prefect of the city, three times as junior daybook keeper and three times as controller of the infantry rolls, with a spell as secretary of the armourers' corps in between. On 15 Cemâziyelevvel 1143 (26 November 1730) he became barley commissioner like his father, and while in that office he was appointed court historiographer in place of Çelebizâde Âsım Efendi. His last post was that of finance memorandum clerk (maliye tezkirecisi), to which he was named on 15 Şevval 1146 (21 March 1734).

Hüsameddin's sequence does not match this chronology at every point. He places the dismissal from the daybook office in 1127, whereas the documents show Sâmi newly appointed to the endowment accounts that year, moving to the daybook office for the first time in 1130 (1718) and being dismissed two months later. For the city prefecture, the infantry rolls and the historiographer's post the two sources agree. So does the year of death: the word "mezâhir", recorded by Fatîn Efendi and Müstakimzâde, yields 1146 by the abjad reckoning. Kutlar notes that the poet probably died at the end of Şevval 1146 (March 1734) and rejects the dates 1136, 1145 and 1170 found in some sources. Hüsameddin and the TDV article agree that he lies in the graveyard of the Ali Paşa-yı Cedîd Mosque.

There is a small divergence over his name as well. His given name was Mustafa and his pen name Sâmi; İsmâil Belîğ, however, says in Nuhbetü'l-âsâr that his other name was Mehmed. Hüsameddin's "Kara Kız" Hâcezâde Mehmed Efendi appears in the TDV article as Hocazâde Mehmed Efendi; Sâmi learned sülüs and nesih from him and, once licensed, became known above all for his mastery of ta'lik and şikeste-ta'lik.

His Poetry and Works

Sâmi is remembered more as a poet than as a historiographer. Kutlar counts him among the foremost of those who wrote under the strong influence of Persian poetry and followed Nâbî: local colour is scarce in his verse, and reflective, aphoristic themes predominate. He was touched by the light-hearted urban poetry of his contemporary Nedîm only so far as to write a nazire or two; the colours of the Tulip Era hardly entered his divan. His language is difficult and his manner often obscure; his similes rest on remote associations, especially on the sense organs and their functions. His most noticeable habit is the joining of Persian idioms to Turkish words. By his own account he wrote part of his poetry in the "old" Iraqi style (sebk-i Irâkî) and then turned to the new, the Indian style (sebk-i Hindî). He was influenced by Bâkî, Nâilî-i Kadîm, Fehîm-i Kadîm and Nâbî, and by Örfî, Sâib and Şevket-i Buhârî; he in turn left his mark on Leskofçalı Galib, Yenişehirli Avni and Nâmık Kemal. Hence the view of him as a link between Nâilî and Şeyh Galib.

The musical terms in his poems and a mesnevi he wrote on the musical modes show that alongside calligraphy he also occupied himself with music. A gazel with the refrain "mevlevî" supports Müstakimzâde's report that he joined the Mevlevî order. A winter poem (şitâiyye) describing the cold of Edirne suggests that he was in Edirne for a time, probably in 1712, in the suite of Şehid Ali Paşa. From a kaside presented to Damad İbrâhim Paşa we learn that the house and belongings he had inherited from his father burned and that he fell into hardship. His best-known poem is the nazire he wrote on the terkibibend of Bağdatlı Rûhî; this terkibibend and his terciibend were printed separately in Istanbul in 1304 (1886-87), together with the nazires of Rûhî and Ziyâ Paşa.

Thirty-two manuscript copies of his divan have been identified. It was printed at Bulaq in Egypt in 1253 (1837-38), has been the subject of two doctoral theses and one master's thesis, and its transcribed text was published by Fatma Sabiha Kutlar in Ankara in 2004. The text, established by collating six copies, contains thirty-five kasides, forty-one chronogram kıt'as, one murabba, six şarkıs, two müseddes, two terkibibends, six mesnevis, 149 gazels, sixteen rubais, twelve kıt'as, nine nazms, 128 matlas and thirteen müfreds. His prose includes a commendation (takriz), a commentary on a kıt'a of Örfî, a petition and two letters.

The history he wrote as court historiographer continues Çelebizâde Âsım's work and covers the events of 1143-1146 (1730-1733). Subhî Mehmed Efendi took the sections written by Sâmi and Şâkir unchanged into the opening of his own work, and the book was printed in Istanbul in 1198 (1784) under the title Târîh-i Sâmî ve Şâkir ve Subhî. This is the part Hüsameddin calls "the chronicle of three years".

Odd as it may seem for a poet whose divan has been published, Sâmi's poems could not be reached. The text itself is not lost, for the transcribed edition is in print; what could not be found is an accessible digital copy of it. Hüsameddin, for his part, took no couplet of the poet into his entry. No specimen could therefore be given.

The State of the Sources

Unlike most Amasyan poets, Sâmi is well documented: there are the tezkires, Müstakimzâde's biographies of calligraphers, archival records and a critical edition of the divan. For the Amasya connection, however, Hüsameddin is the only witness. His account is consistent, since it gives the names of father and grandfather and the father's marriage into an Amasyan family of muftis, but nothing indicates that the poet himself lived in Amasya. Hüsameddin's dates conflict with the documents at some points; here the order of offices follows the archive-based studies and the family link follows Hüsameddin.

Chronology

1098 (1687): His father Osman Efendi loses his secretaryship with the dismissal of Yûsuf Ağa, chief of the harem eunuchs.

1108 (1696-97): Osman Efendi becomes barley commissioner again.

1127 (1715): Sâmi enters the hâcegân as junior accountant of endowments.

1128 (1716): Becomes prefect of the city for the first time.

1138 (1726): Becomes controller of the infantry rolls.

1143 (1730): Becomes barley commissioner; is appointed court historiographer in place of Çelebizâde Âsım.

1146 (1734): Is named finance memorandum clerk; dies in Istanbul the same year.

1198 (1784): His history is printed together with the works of Şâkir and Subhî.

1253 (1837-38): His divan is printed at Bulaq.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Fatma Sabiha Kutlar, "Mustafa Sâmi Bey", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 31, Ankara 2020, pp. 354-356. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/mustafa-sami-bey
  • Erhan Afyoncu, "Vekayi'nüvis Arpaemini-zâde Mustafâ Sâmî'nin Hayatı Hakkında Yeni Bilgiler", Türk Kültürü İncelemeleri Dergisi, no. 1, Istanbul 2000, pp. 235-242 (as cited in the TDV article).

Online sources