An En'âm-ı Şerîf written out in his own hand shows the command of thuluth that Şehrî İsmail Efendi, a calligrapher who spent many years teaching pupils in Amasya in the first half of the seventeenth century, had reached. He earned his living as secretary of the Sultan Bayezid endowments and spent his leisure exchanging verses with the city's men of letters. He died around 1049 (1639-40). His standing as a poet is known from an Amasya tezkire that no longer survives, and not a single line of his verse has come down to us.

Life

Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi sums up his life in a handful of sentences:

Amasyalıdır. Balcı İsmailoğlu Ali'nin mahdûmu olduğu künyesinden anlaşıldı. Amasya'da Hattât-ı meşhûr Hüseyin Efendi'den hutût-ı mütenevviayı ahz ü temeşşük etdi. Bir miktar da tahsîl-i ilim ve irfân edib edebiyâta intisâb eyledi. Yıllarca şâkirdâna ta'lîm-i hat ve Amasya udebâsı ile müşâare ederek iştihâr edib Sultân Bâyezîd evkâfı kâtibi olduğu halde 1049 hudûdunda vefât etdi. Edîb, kâtib, şâir bir hattât-ı meşhûr olduğu Abdullah Efendi "Tezkîresi"nde görüldü. Yazdığı bir en'âm-ı şerîfinden sülüs kırmasında mâhir olduğu anlaşıldı. Kendisine "Şehrî" lakabını veren üstâd-ı irfânı, Küçük Hâce Mehmed İlmî Efendi idi. Eş'ârını bulamadım.

Translation: A native of Amasya. His name and lineage show that his father was Ali, son of Balcı İsmail. In Amasya he learned the various scripts by copying the models of the famous calligrapher Hüseyin Efendi. He also acquired some learning and turned to literature. For years he became known for teaching calligraphy to pupils and exchanging verses with the literati of Amasya, and he died around 1049 while secretary of the Sultan Bayezid endowments. That he was a man of letters, a secretary, a poet and a famous calligrapher was seen in the Tezkire of Abdullah Efendi. An En'âm-ı Şerîf he wrote shows that he was skilled in the broken thuluth. The master who gave him the name "Şehrî" was Küçük Hâce Mehmed İlmî Efendi. I could not find his poems.

The family name comes from a nickname. His grandfather was İsmail, known as "Balcı" (the honey-seller); his father was Ali, and he himself was again İsmail. Hüsameddin does not guess at this lineage but says he read it in a name record. Elsewhere in the book he explains that the Acem Ali school, where he himself memorised the Qur'an as a child, was called the "Balcı school" after a teacher, Seyyid İsmâil Efendi, nicknamed "Balcı Hoca", who taught there for many years. That teacher lived in the nineteenth century and no link to Şehrî's family is drawn; the same nickname reappearing in the city two centuries apart may be no more than coincidence.

Calligrapher and Secretary

Şehrî's first profession was the pen. The phrase "hutût-ı mütenevvia" shows that he did not stop at one script but learned thuluth, naskh and the other hands together. The entry says nothing more about Hüseyin Efendi, the "famous calligrapher" named as his teacher. The most concrete detail is that Hüsameddin had seen an En'âm-ı Şerîf from Şehrî's hand: these small volumes, made up of the sura of al-An'âm with other suras and prayers, were works in which calligraphers displayed their skill. The author notes that the "sülüs kırması", a freer, broken-stroke form of thuluth, was written well in this copy.

He spent most of his life training pupils. In the end he became secretary of the Sultan Bayezid endowments and died in that post. The large endowments of the Bayezid II complex in Amasya supported one of the city's most numerous bodies of clerks, and it is no surprise that a calligrapher with a fine hand found work in that office.

The Name Şehrî

His pen name was a gift from his teacher, Küçük Hâce Mehmed İlmî Efendi. In other entries Hüsameddin also calls İlmî Efendi "Kadızâde Küçük Hâce" and names him as the teacher of two scholars of the Şeyh Ya'kûbzâde family, Ahmed Efendi and Sinâneddîn Yûsuf Efendi, who both died in 1068 (1657-58); he was evidently a well-known madrasa teacher training pupils in Amasya early in the seventeenth century. Why the name "Şehrî" was chosen is not recorded. In another entry of the same section Hüsameddin relates that Hamza Beyzâde Mehmed Efendi signed himself "Şehrî" because he was known as the "townsman"; that is what the word means, but the reason it was given to İsmail Efendi is unknown.

He was not the only Amasya poet to sign himself Şehrî. The earliest is the Şehrî mentioned in the time of Prince Ahmed, who should not be confused with Balcızâde; more than a century separates them.

Poetry

Hüsameddin learned that Şehrî was a poet from the "Tezkire of Abdullah Efendi", yet he could not quote a single couplet by him and wrote plainly, "I could not find his poems"; his poems have not been found to this day. The tezkire named here is most probably the work of Abdî Efendi, which gathered the poets raised in Amasya between 1000 and 1081 (1591-1671) and was later lost to fire; Şehrî's death falls within that span. Because Hüsameddin gives the compiler's name here as "Abdullah", the identification is not certain.

The müşâare among men of letters, the exchange of verses, suggests that Şehrî's poetry was largely spoken, occasional verse of the gathering. Such poems survived only if they entered an anthology or a tezkire. With the burning of the tezkire, all that remains of his poetry is a name, a nickname and the pen name his teacher gave him.

Chronology

c. 1049 (1639-40): Dies in Amasya while secretary of the Sultan Bayezid endowments.

1068 (1657-58): Ahmed Efendi and Sinâneddîn Yûsuf Efendi, pupils of his teacher Mehmed İlmî Efendi, die.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources