Sirâcî was a sixteenth-century poet known to have written more elegies for Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa) than anyone else: his divan contains three elegies and a eulogy written for the prince. These poems were introduced by Maruf Çakır in 2021, and the number of known elegies for Prince Mustafa rose to nineteen. The poet's identity has not been established with certainty; the only Sirâcî in the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire) who lived in the sixteenth century is Sirâcî of Germiyan, mentioned by Âşık Çelebi, and Çakır regards it as a strong possibility that the two poets are the same person.

Sirâcî's known connection with Amasya rests on his deep devotion to Prince Mustafa, sanjak governor (sanjak-bey) of Amasya. The prince governed Amasya from 1541 to 1553. His eulogy, in Çakır's interpretation, was written shortly before the prince's death and shows that the poet regarded the prince as the most worthy heir to the throne. There is, however, no information that Sirâcî was ever in Amasya.

His Divan

Sirâcî's only known work is his divan, registered in the Turkish Manuscripts section of the Rare Works Library of Istanbul University under the number NCTY09503. According to Çakır's description, the divan of 102 folios contains 492 poems, fifty-five of them verse translations of hadith. The copy's colophon bears the date 1055 (1645-46). The words "Hâzâ kitâb-ı dîvân-ı Sirâcî rahmetullâhi ‘aleyh" (this is the book of the divan of Sirâcî, God's mercy upon him) on the first folio show that the copy was made after the poet's death. The divan contains a eulogy (fols. 39a-39b) and three elegies (fols. 14a-14b, 26a-26b, 29a-29b) written for Prince Mustafa, as well as a fourth elegy written for a certain Turhan Bey. The poems in the divan show that the poet belonged to the sixteenth century. Çakır notes that the divan also contains couplets praising the justice of Sultan Süleyman.

Identity and the State of the Sources

According to Çakır, nothing is known of the identity of Sirâcî, the author of the divan, apart from his pen name. Of the poets with the pen name Sirâcî identified in the anthologies, only Sirâcî of Germiyan lived in the sixteenth century. Âşık Çelebi's Meşâirü'ş-şuarâ introduces him as "Germiyânîdür" (he is from Germiyan); it writes that among the poets he was a hair-splitter and a wit, that he took his light from the masters in the science of rhetoric, and that he worked as was due on aruz, rhyme and the genres of poetry. Âşık Çelebi also says that the poet walked "tek ü tâz" in outward appearance, but had firm steps on the path of learning. In the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, Mehmet Fatih Köksal notes that from this description it can be concluded that Sirâcî had a madrasa education. According to Âşık Çelebi, Sirâcî composed a chronogram with the line "Sened-i rûh-ı seyyid-i sânî" for Saçlı Emîr Efendi, who died in 1556. Köksal writes that because of this chronogram the Sicill-i Osmanî's placing Sirâcî among the poets of the reign of Ahmed I cannot be correct, and records that he has a nazire (response poem) to Kıvâmî in Edirneli Nazmî's Mecma‘u'n-nezâ'ir and one to Enverî in the Pervâne Bey Mecmuası.

Çakır notes that the poems Âşık Çelebi quotes from Sirâcî of Germiyan, two pieces including a festival poem (ıydiyye) presented to Süleyman, are not found in the divan; the available information is therefore not enough to join the two poets with certainty. However, the fact that both lived in the sixteenth century and that both have poems addressed to Süleyman strengthens the possibility that they are the same person. Çakır also thinks, on the basis of a stanza of the eulogy, that Sirâcî was a timar-holding bey; this too is an interpretation.

His Poems for Prince Mustafa

Sirâcî's eulogy is a mütekerrir müseddes, and each stanza ends with the couplet "Eyâ şehzâde-i tâc-ı civân-baḫt / Ḫudâ erzânî ḳıla tâc ile taḫt" (O prince of youthful fortune and the crown, may God deem crown and throne worthy of you). According to Çakır, the prince is not named directly in the poem, but the prince praised is the one most worthy of the throne, and the devotion in the poet's elegies suggests that the eulogy was not written for another prince. The fifth stanza of the eulogy speaks of a betrayal; Çakır interprets the sixth and seventh stanzas as the annulment by Rüstem Pasha of a command ordering the beys of Anatolia to protect the prince.

Of the three elegies, the first is a mütekerrir muhammes with the redif (refrain word) "yansun" (let it burn), the second a terkib-i bend of five stanzas, and the third a murabba of seven stanzas with the refrain "Riḥlet itdi ʻâlem-i ʻuḳbâya Sulṭân Muṣṭafâ". According to Çakır, in these poems Sirâcî says that the prince was loyal and upright towards his father, that he was slandered, and that his death was not an ordinary struggle for the throne but an unjust execution. The poet points to Hürrem Sultan with the phrase "çarḫ-ı pîre-zen" (old-hag heaven), likens the envy of the prince's brothers to that of Joseph's brothers, compares the event to Karbala and openly accuses the sultan of heedlessness: "Uydı aʻdâ sözlerine ġaflet ile pâdişâh". In the second elegy Sirâcî says that the poets have voiced this calamity and that he too will tell of it with lament and moaning; Çakır regards this as an expression of his being influenced by the attitude of the other poets.

The three elegies and the published fragments of the eulogy are given as separate articles in this category. The other poems of the divan, the ghazal in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü and the couplets quoted by Âşık Çelebi have been left outside the scope of this work, as they have no connection with Amasya or Prince Mustafa. The other elegies are described in our article Elegies for Prince Mustafa, and the prince's life in the biography Şehzade Mustafa.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Sirâcî, Dîvân, Istanbul University Rare Works Library, Turkish Manuscripts, NCTY09503 (as described by Çakır).
  • Âşık Çelebi, Meşâirü'ş-şuarâ, ed. Filiz Kılıç, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 2018 (e-book), pp. 416-417, entry "Sirâcî".

Academic studies

Books

Online sources