Şikârî is a pen name recorded among the poets who served Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa), the eldest son of Süleyman the Magnificent. The Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, relying on Halûk İpekten's study of literary circles, counts Şikârî together with Senâyî, Sürûrî, Kara Fazlî, Zârî and Zamânî among the poets of the prince's Amasya circle, but does not say who this Şikârî was. Since at least three poets bore the same pen name in the sixteenth century, the question of identity arises from the start. Read together, the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire) show that the Şikârî at the prince's side was Hazînedârzâde Mustafa Çelebi, whom Âşık Çelebi calls "Şikârî-i Sânî", the second Şikârî. His link with Amasya rests not on a direct record but on an inference from this entry, which says he never left the prince. For that reason this page treats the state of the sources separately, alongside his life and poetry.

His Life

The only source for Hazînedârzâde Mustafa Çelebi is the Meşâ'irü'ş-şu'arâ of Âşık Çelebi, completed in 976 (1568-69). The biographer presents him as a capable and well-liked man, valued and favoured by the great and the notable. Mustafa Çelebi served for a time as a clerk in the imperial treasury, and while he was expected to rise along that path, he went with Şehzade Mustafa when the prince first went out to a sanjak. At the prince's side he became head of the segbans (sekbanbaşı), chief of the çavuşes and his confidant, enjoyed great favour and was among those who worked for the prince's accession. Âşık Çelebi describes how that hope was extinguished in a brief figure: fortune turned against what he wished, and affairs went another way. The phrase alludes to the prince's strangling in 1553 at the army camp near Ereğli in Konya.

In the years when the tezkire was written, Mustafa Çelebi held a zeamet (a large military fief). Âşık Çelebi considers him worthy of every favour and care and prays that, with God's help, he may soon regain the attention of the great. The prayer shows one of the prince's former men left in the background after his master's death and waiting to rise again. His dates of birth and death, his family and the identity of the treasurer (hazinedar) who gave him the name "Hazînedârzâde" are unknown. That the pen name derives from "şikâr", hunting, may relate to a love of the chase, as Kınalızâde says of another Şikârî; for this man, however, the source gives no such explanation.

Şehzade Mustafa went out to his first sanjak, Saruhan, that is Manisa, in 940 (1534), was transferred to Amasya in 948 (1541) and remained there until his death. According to Âşık Çelebi, Mustafa Çelebi joined the prince in that first sanjak and became his confidant. He does not state outright that he moved with the prince from Manisa to Amasya. It was usual for a man holding inner household posts such as sekbanbaşı and çavuşbaşı to follow his master to a new sanjak, so it is highly likely that he was with the prince during the Amasya years as well. This conclusion is our own inference, and the name does not appear in the list Hüseyin Hüsameddin devotes to the prince's Amasya circle in his Amasya Tarihi.

The State of the Sources and the Debate

In Âşık Çelebi's tezkire two entries under the name Şikârî follow one another. The first is a poet who lived at İpsala in Rumelia, became a novice (mülazım) of the Rumelian chief judge Abdurrahman Çelebi, entered the judiciary, served as inspector of the sultan's properties and, when the tezkire was written, was judge of Ferecik. The second is Hazînedârzâde Mustafa Çelebi. According to a note by the editor, Filiz Kılıç, this second entry is a marginal addition in two of the manuscripts used (B and S) and is entirely absent from one (F). The "Şikârî" article of the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi likewise mentions this Şikârî as one added to the tezkire later. Even if the entry came from Âşık Çelebi's own pen, it evidently entered the work after its first text.

The third Şikârî is the only one in the tezkire of Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi. Kınalızâde writes that his name was Ahmed, that his grandfather was Acemî Kâsım Paşa and his father Hasan Bey, who rose from fiscal treasurer of Diyarbekir to sanjak governor, and that, a man of dervish temperament who had withdrawn from the world, he died in 992 (1584) before finishing his masnavi Yûsuf u Züleyhâ. The "Şikârî" article of the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü describes this Hasan Begzâde Ahmed. Kınalızâde mentions no link between him and Şehzade Mustafa. The Şikârî whom the İsimler Sözlüğü places in Mustafa's circle is therefore not the Ahmed of its own "Şikârî" article; the only candidate described in the sources for the Şikârî at the prince's side is Hazînedârzâde Mustafa Çelebi.

A further name that adds to the confusion is Şikârî, author of the Karamanoğulları Tarihi (History of the Karamanids). Who wrote this work is unknown. According to the TDV article, the only clue that its author used the pen name Şikârî is a couplet in the preface; some scholars have identified him with Hasan Begzâde Ahmed, but none of the three Şikârîs in the tezkires is said to have written such a work. Hüsameddin, too, when discussing the lineage of Karaman Bey, cites this historian as one of the "kudemâ-yı müverrihîn", the early chroniclers. No connection can be drawn between this Şikârî and the prince's poet.

Finally, the name "Hazînedârzâde" should not be confused with another family in the history of Amasya. The Hazînedârzâdes whom Hüsameddin often mentions were a dynasty descended from Hazinedar Süleyman Paşa that held posts as deputy governors and governors in Canik, Trabzon and Amasya in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; in Merzifon, too, there was a Hazînedârzâde family traced to the treasurer of Kara Mustafa Paşa. Both belong to two centuries after the poet. Because this epithet, meaning "son of the treasurer", was used in many families, there is no basis at all for looking for kinship among them.

His Poetry

Whether Şikârî had a divan is not known. Of his poetry only the three couplets Âşık Çelebi gives in his entry have come down to us. The first two share the same rhyme and refrain, and since the pen name appears in the second, they can be recognised as the opening couplet (matla) and closing couplet (makta) of a ghazal. The heart does not accept the ignorant and inclines not to the grain but to the learned; the poet, begging a kiss from the beloved with his hands full of couplets, resembles a mendicant out collecting alms with his begging bowl. In the third couplet the head of the street of faithfulness is preferred to the palace of paradise, and today's heart-stealer to the houris and youths of tomorrow. These limited examples show a poet inclined to wordplay, such as the pun on dâne (grain) and dânâ (learned), and to a libertine (rindane) manner. The couplets are given on separate pages in this category with the original text, a modern rendering and commentary.

Prince Mustafa's circle in Amasya and the other poets in it are described together in our article Prince Mustafa (Muhlisî): His Poems and the Poets of His Amasya Circle; for the prince's life see the article Şehzade Mustafa.

Chronology

940 (1534): Şehzade Mustafa went out to the sanjak of Saruhan (Manisa); according to Âşık Çelebi, Hazînedârzâde Mustafa Çelebi joined him in this first sanjak.

1541: Şehzade Mustafa was transferred to Amasya.

1553: Şehzade Mustafa was killed near Ereğli in Konya.

976 (1568-69): Âşık Çelebi completed his tezkire; Mustafa Çelebi then held a zeamet.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Official sources

  • Halûk İpekten et al., Divan Edebiyatında Edebî Muhitler, Istanbul: MEB Yay., 1996, pp. 191-192 (as cited in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü).

Books

Online sources