Şeyhî, a protégé of Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, came from the Tayyibzâde family of judges and teachers of Amasya; he was a madrasa teacher and poet of the second half of the sixteenth century. His father was Tayyib Efendi, one of the intimates of Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa) in Amasya, and his elder brother the poet Ehlî Mehmed Efendi, who died as judge (molla) of Rhodes. He studied in İstanbul, became a candidate for office (mülazım), and some time after being dismissed from a madrasa of forty akçe he died young, around 1000 (1591-92). His name appears in two forms in the sources: Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar calls him Abdullah, while Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi calls him Mehmed. Kınalızâde's biographical anthology of poets (tezkire) preserves all of his poetry known today, in couplets the poet himself chose and sent. Hüsameddin's brief entry is published separately under the title Şeyhî Abdullah Efendi-Tayyibzâde.

Hüsameddin's Record

Hüsameddin's short entry stands among the names beginning with the letter "şın" in the eleventh volume of Amasya Tarihi; the entries of his brothers fall under other letters:

Amasyalıdır. Tercemesi aşağıda yazılan Tayyib Efendi'nin oğludur. Amasya'da mukaddimât-ı ulûmu görüp İstanbul'a gitdi. Kınalızâde Hüseyin Çelebi Dârü'l-ifâdesinde tahsîl-i ulûm ile iştigâl ve Muallimzâde Ahmed Efendi'den tahsîlini ikmâl ederek nâil-i mülâzemet oldu. Ba'dehû tedrîs-i ulûm edib ba'zı medârise müderris ve Kırk'dan ma'zûl iken 1000 senesi hudûdunda vefât etdi. Âlim, zekî, şâir olup genç iken dünyadan gitdi. "Zeyl-i Şakâyık"da birâderi Abdürrahîm Efendi'nin tercemesi zeylinde tercemesi ve şu eş'ârı yazılıdır.

In English: He is from Amasya. He is the son of Tayyib Efendi, whose biography is given below. He received the elementary sciences in Amasya and went to İstanbul. He studied at the madrasa of Kınalızâde Hüseyin Çelebi, completed his education with Muallimzâde Ahmed Efendi and became a candidate for office. Then he taught, was madrasa teacher (müderris) at some madrasas, and died around the year 1000, dismissed from a forty-akçe madrasa. He was learned, intelligent and a poet, and departed this world young. In the Zeyl-i Şakâyık his biography and the following poems are written at the end of the biography of his brother Abdürrahîm Efendi.

After these words Hüsameddin quotes one couplet and a ghazal of four couplets. The Zeyl-i Şakâyık he names is the continuation of Taşköprülüzâde's work written by Nev'îzâde Atâyî. In the entry of the brother Abdürrahîm Efendi, Hüsameddin quotes one more sentence from Atâyî: there Atâyî mentions Ehlî Çelebi and Şeyhî Çelebi as Abdürrahîm's elder brothers.

Kınalızâde's Testimony

The source that knew Şeyhî most closely is Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, who completed his anthology around 1586. His entry begins: "Nâmı Mehemmeddür. Tayyibzâde dimekle müte'ârifdür. Ehlînün birâder-i kihteridür. Merhûm Mu'allimzâdeden mülâzım olmışdur. Hâlâ kırk akçe medreseden ma'zûl ve tahsîl ü tekmîl-i ma'ârif ü kemâlâta meş'ûf u meşgûldur." That is: his name is Mehmed, he is known as Tayyibzâde, he is Ehlî's younger brother; he became a candidate for office under the late Muallimzâde, and at the time the anthology was being written, dismissed from a forty-akçe madrasa, he was passionately occupied with increasing his learning and perfecting himself.

Kınalızâde's next sentences depart somewhat from the ornate praise common in anthologies. After saying that by God's grace everything that might hinder the poet's progress in learning and poetry has been removed from him, and that his poetry has put on the robe of eloquence, he speaks of himself: "Râkımü'l-hurûf", the writer of these lines, has done all he could to train and look after him, and feels an attachment to his fine qualities beyond words. He explains that this is why he does not prolong his praise. These words show Kınalızâde acting as a patron, perhaps as a teacher, to the poet. The madrasa of "Kınalızâde Hüseyin Çelebi" named by Hüsameddin also links the poet to the same family; but neither source explains the kinship between Hüseyin Çelebi and the anthologist Hasan Çelebi.

Another detail of the anthology concerns the choice of poems. Kınalızâde introduces the poems in the entry as "bu Tezkireye tahrîr olınmagiçün ihtiyâr itdügi eş'âr", that is, poems the poet himself selected to be written into this anthology. The ghazal at the end of the entry is also the product of a poetic game: Kınalızâde proposed one of his ghazals with the refrain word (redif) "altında" to his friends, each of them wrote a response poem (nazire) to it, and Şeyhî too sent the ghazal he had written so that it would enter the anthology.

Name and Family

The clearest divergence between the two sources is the poet's name. Hüsameddin records him as Abdullah; Kınalızâde says plainly "Nâmı Mehemmeddür". Since Kınalızâde also gives the elder brother Ehlî's name as Mehmed, it is odd for two brothers to bear the same name. Whether this is an error of the anthologist, whether there really were two Mehmeds in the family, or whether Hüsameddin took the name Abdullah from another record could not be determined. There is a gap in Hüsameddin's entry "Tayyib Efendi" as well: there the sons of Tayyib Efendi are listed as Ehlî Mehmed, Abdürrahîm and Lütfullah Efendis, and Şeyhî's name does not occur. On the other hand, the order among the brothers is consistent in the sources: Kınalızâde counts Şeyhî as Ehlî's younger brother, and Atâyî names both as Abdürrahîm's elder brothers.

The family is one of the old scholarly lines of Amasya. According to Hüsameddin the lineage goes back to Tayyib Çelebi, who taught the palace pages of Bayezid II while that prince was governor of Amasya and later became a judge. The poet's father Tayyib Efendi, as one of Prince Mustafa's intimates, fell from favour for a time after the prince was put to death in 960 (1553), was pardoned the following year and made judge of Sivas, and died around 975 (1567-68). The poems and life of the elder brother Ehlî Mehmed Efendi have their own category on the site, and the family's link with Prince Mustafa's circle is described on the page Tayyibzâde Lutfî Efendi.

Poetry

There is no record that Şeyhî had a divan. Six pieces of his remain in Kınalızâde's anthology: a couplet taken from a kaside (qasida), a couplet and the opening couplet of a kaside rhyming in "-âyı", two opening couplets of ghazals, and finally the five-couplet response poem written to Kınalızâde's ghazal. Relying on Atâyî, Hüsameddin gives only the opening couplet "Yine sâkî" and four couplets of the response poem; the fourth couplet of the response poem is missing from his text, and a few words differ. The pieces range from a voice addressing a patron in the kasides to the motifs of the tavern and the beloved. To whom the kaside couplets were presented is unknown. Each of the six pieces is treated on a separate page in this category, and the differences between the two sources are shown on the relevant pages.

In the first volume of Amasya Tarihi there is also a passage in which Hüsameddin lists the poets of Amasya; there, among the poets who came after the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, the names "müteaddid Abdî, Şevkî, Şeyhî ve Sıdkî" occur together. Which Şeyhî is meant in this list is not clear, since Hüsameddin records several more men of Amasya with the same pen name.

Chronology

Around 975 (1567-68): His father Tayyib Efendi dies.

Around 1586: Kınalızâde, writing his anthology, knows him as dismissed from a forty-akçe madrasa.

Around 1000 (1591-92): He dies young.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources