Turâbî Şuayb Efendi spent the last seventeen years of his life as a preacher (vaiz) in the Fatih and Hagia Sophia mosques in Istanbul. Before that, in the reign of Bayezid II, he had taught in madrasas at Plovdiv (Filibe) and Edirne; he died in 927 (1521) at about the age of ninety. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar counts this scholar-poet a man of Amasya and gives his signature as follows: "Şu'ayb bin Muhsin es-Sâbıkî el-Amâsî eş-Şehîr bi-Turâbî", that is, Şuayb son of Muhsin, of the Sâbıkî family, of Amasya, known as Turâbî. The biographers of poets (tezkire writers) of the sixteenth century, for their part, speak of a "Mevlânâ Türâbî" who preached in Istanbul; Sehî Bey introduces him as the teacher of Cem Sultan, and Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi counts him as from the province of Kastamonu. It is very probable that these records describe the same person, but none of them mentions the others. The two fragments of verse attributed to him in the tezkires are given on separate pages together with the discussion of their attribution.

Hüsameddin's Entry

Of the three men of Amasya who bore the pen name Turâbî, Hüsameddin puts Şuayb first, in the eighth volume of Amasya Tarihi:

Turâbî Şu'ayb Efendi-Sâbıkî Amasyalıdır. Muhsin Çelebi bin Hüseyin Çelebi bin Abdulmuhsin Çelebi bin Sâbıkuddîn Ebûbekir'in mahdûmudur. Amasya fuzalâsından ve hâssaten Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî mu'allimi Hatîb Kâsım Efendi'den iktisâb-ı fezâ'il ü edebiyat edib İstanbul'a gitdi. Orada Mevlânâ Alâaddîn Alî Arabî, Yûsuf Kirmastî, Hüsâmzâde Musliheddîn Mustafa Efendilere mülâzemet ederek onların hizmetlerinden istifâdeler etdi. Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî dârü's-sa'âde ağası Hüseyin Ağa'ya mu'allim olarak sarây-ı hümâyûn gılmânı hocası oldu. Ba'dehû a'lâm-i ulemâya verilen Filibe medresesi sonra Edirne'de Çelebi medresesi müderrisi olup büyük ri'âyetler gördü. 910'da tedrîsden ferâgat edib İstanbul'a geldi. Yevmî kırk beş akçe vazîfe ile ibtidâ Fâtih, sonra Ayasofya câmileri vâ'izi oldu. Nakl-i tefsîr u hadîs ederek halkın ahlâkını tehzîbe çalışdı. On yedi yıl kadar halka va'z u nasîhat, Cenâb-ı Hakka niyâz u ibâdet ederek 927'de dâr-ı na'îme rihlet etdi. Gâyet fâzıl, müfessir, muhaddis, kâmil, müteşerri' bir zât-ı sütûde-simât idi. Şâ'ir, edîb olup va'zında eş'ârından makâma münâsib beyitler okurdu. Letâfet ü zarâfeti hâvî pek çok hikâyeler bilir, halkı ba'zen hikâyât-ı latîfe ile güldürür, ba'zen de celâl ü azamet-i ilâhiyyeyi tasvîr u ihtâr ederek ağlatırdı. Takrîri gâyet güzel, ifâdesi açıktı. Doksanlık bir pîr iken kuvvet-i bedeniyyesi tâm, hâfızası mükemmel idi. Şâyân-ı hayret bir sûrette ekûl idi. Fakat açlığa da o kadar mütehammildi. Bir kimsenin ellerini sıksa âdeta kemiklerini kıracak derecede kuvvet gösterir, at nalını iki parmağıyla ufadırdı. Bir kaç yerde görülen imzâsı şudur: "Şu'ayb bin Muhsin es-Sâbıkî el-Amâsî eş-Şehîr bi-Turâbî"

The entry in today's English: he was from Amasya, the son of Muhsin Çelebi, son of Hüseyin Çelebi, son of Abdülmuhsin Çelebi, son of Sâbıkuddîn Ebûbekir. He acquired learning and letters from the scholars of Amasya, especially from Hatîb Kâsım Efendi, tutor of Bayezid II, and went to Istanbul. There he served Mevlânâ Alâeddîn Ali Arabî, Yûsuf Kirmastî and Hüsâmzâde Muslihuddîn Mustafa Efendi and benefited from them. By acting as tutor to Hüseyin Ağa, chief of the palace eunuchs (darüssaade ağası) of Bayezid II, he became teacher of the palace pages. He then became müderris of the Plovdiv madrasa, which was given to eminent scholars, and later of the Çelebi madrasa in Edirne, and was held in great esteem. In 910 he gave up teaching and came to Istanbul; on a daily stipend of forty-five akçe he became preacher first of the Fatih and then of the Hagia Sophia mosque. He transmitted Qur'an commentary and hadith and strove to refine the people's morals. For some seventeen years he lived preaching and counselling the people, praying to God and worshipping, and he died in 927. He was a most virtuous man, a commentator of the Qur'an, a scholar of hadith, accomplished, devoted to the sacred law and of praiseworthy character. He was a poet and man of letters, and in his sermons he recited couplets from his own poems that suited the occasion. He knew a great many witty and elegant stories; sometimes he made the people laugh with amusing tales, sometimes he made them weep by depicting and recalling the majesty and grandeur of God. His delivery was very fine and his speech clear. As an old man of ninety his bodily strength was undiminished and his memory perfect. He ate astonishingly much, but could bear hunger just as well. If he squeezed someone's hands he showed strength enough almost to break their bones, and he could crumble a horseshoe with two fingers. His signature, seen in several places, is this: "Şu'ayb bin Muhsin es-Sâbıkî el-Amâsî eş-Şehîr bi-Turâbî".

Life

If the record that he died at ninety is correct, Şuayb Efendi must have been born in the late 830s (the mid-1430s). The family name comes from his great-great-grandfather Sâbıkuddîn Ebûbekir. His teacher in Amasya, Hatîb Kâsım Efendi, is the scholar who in Hüsameddin's third volume is appointed tutor (muallim) to Prince Bayezid in 884 (1479); when Şuayb studied with him and when he went to Istanbul are not recorded. Alâeddîn Ali Arabî and Yûsuf Kirmastî, whom he served in Istanbul, are well-known scholars of the reigns of Mehmed II and Bayezid II.

The first stop of his career is the palace. His post as tutor to Hüseyin Ağa, chief of the palace eunuchs, led him to the teaching of the palace pages, the young men trained in the inner palace (Enderun). He then taught in madrasas at Plovdiv and Edirne, and in 910 (1504-05) gave up teaching for preaching. That he preached in the two largest mosques of Istanbul, first in the Fatih and then in Hagia Sophia, shows that he ranked among the leading preachers of his time.

Hüsameddin's entry is one of the liveliest portraits in Amasya Tarihi. It draws an old man who recited his own couplets in his sermons, made the people now laugh and now weep, kept his memory and strength at ninety, ate a great deal yet bore hunger, and crumbled a horseshoe with two fingers. Some of these details have the air of legend; Hüsameddin does not say where he took them from.

Türâbî in the Tezkires

In Sehî Bey's Heşt Bihişt, completed in 1538, there is a short entry headed "Mevlânâ Türâbî". According to Sehî, Türâbî had been the teacher of Cem Sultan, a virtuous and accomplished man, able in Qur'an commentary and skilled in the exoteric sciences. He lived in Istanbul; he had a stipend assigned to him from the public treasury (beytülmal); he preached on Fridays; he was a man of dervish temperament. The entry ends with two of his couplets.

The "Türâbî" entry in the tezkire of Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi gives the same picture with somewhat different details: Türâbî is from the province of Kastamonu and is one of the poets possessed of learning and sanctity; he has a daily stipend of fifteen akçe from the public treasury; he has devoted his time to transmitting hadith and commentary, to preaching and counsel in the great mosques and crowded gatherings, and has dedicated his life to the service of the Muslims. Kınalızâde says that he had "meşâyihâne", sheikhly, poems, and gives two couplets.

The points the three records share are clear: a scholar who preached with commentary and hadith in the great mosques of Istanbul, drew a stipend from the public treasury, had a dervish temperament and also wrote verse. Hüsameddin's Şuayb is exactly this. Where they part is his homeland and the amount of the stipend: Hüsameddin says Amasya and forty-five akçe, Kınalızâde Kastamonu and fifteen akçe. Only Sehî mentions the tutorship of Cem Sultan. The reckoning of Şuayb's birth does not clash with this information; the teacher of Cem, born in 1459, could have been a scholar some twenty-five years older than he.

The State of the Sources: The Kastamonu and Amasya Records

Where Kınalızâde's Kastamonu record came from seems to become clear on looking at Latîfî's tezkire. Latîfî too gives a "Türâbî" entry, but the man he describes is quite another: a Kastamonu man, a contemporary of Şeyhî, who lived at the beginning of the reign of Mehmed II, a saint in the guise of one possessed (meczup); a dervish who wrote his poems with charcoal on the walls of lodges and soup kitchens, slept in graveyards and roamed the open country, fled from people and took care not to tread on the ants on the ground. Latîfî's entry says nothing of preaching, of a stipend from the treasury or of Qur'an commentary. Kınalızâde appears to have taken the Kastamonu detail from Latîfî and the preaching and stipend from a source resembling Sehî's description, and to have combined them in a single entry. The transmission of a poem described below supports this combination. This reading is ours, and the sources do not confirm it explicitly.

If so, "Türâbî of Kastamonu" and "Türâbî the preacher" are two different people, and for the preacher's homeland we are left with Hüsameddin's testimony alone. The basis of that testimony is strong: Hüsameddin writes that he saw Şuayb's signature in several places and that it bore the attribution "el-Amâsî". Modern studies, however, list separate names. In Yusuf Ziya Karaaslan's article enumerating the poets with the pen name Türâbî, "Kastamonulu Şuayb Türâbî Efendi (d. 1523)", "Vaiz Türâbî, who was also the teacher of Prince Cem (d. 1524)" and "Türâbî Şuayb Efendi (Sabıkî) (d. 1520)", based on Hüsameddin, are mentioned separately. That these three records belong to the same person agrees with the information Hüsameddin gives; the difference of a few years in the dates of death may also have arisen from the use of different sources. A firm identification would require comparison with biographies of scholars such as Taşköprizâde's al-Shaqa'iq al-Nu'maniyya; those sources could not be consulted for this page.

His Poetry

Hüsameddin says that Şuayb recited couplets from his own poems in his sermons, but quotes none. The two pieces that can be attributed to him are in the two tezkires above, and both are given on separate pages.

The two couplets quoted by Sehî are the opening couplet (matla) and one further couplet of a ghazal with the refrain (redif) "dir dir ditrer": the soul trembles over that coquettish beauty; when the curl of the beloved's hair is scattered over the cheek, it trembles like a shadow over running water. If Sehî's Türâbî and Hüsameddin's Şuayb are the same person, this is the only piece that has certainly come down from the poet: Ghazal Fragment 1, "Cânum ol şûḫ-ı cihân üstine dir dir ditrer".

The case of the couplets "Ey gönül eyleme gel dünye-i gaddâra heves" given by Kınalızâde is different. Latîfî gives the same ghazal in his Türâbî entry as "li-mü'ellifihi", that is, as the work of the author of the tezkire, and in its closing couplet (makta) the ghazal uses his own pen name: "Ey Latîfî". It is therefore clear that the ghazal belongs not to Türâbî but to Latîfî; it seems Kınalızâde credited Türâbî with a poem that merely stood in Latîfî's entry on him. Because it shows how the tezkires transmitted their material, the piece is given on a separate page with a note on its attribution: Ghazal Fragment 2, "Ey gönül eyleme gel dünye-i gaddâra heves".

Men of Amasya with the Same Pen Name

Two more Turâbîs follow Şuayb in the same volume: the müderris, judge and poet Turâbî Mustafa Efendi, who died in 1040 (1630), and the Naqshbandi sheikh Turâbî Ali Efendi, who died in 1245 (1830). Hüsameddin draws no family tie between the three.

Chronology

Late 830s (mid-1430s): Date of birth reckoned from the record that he died at ninety.

910 (1504-05): He gives up teaching, comes to Istanbul and becomes preacher first of the Fatih and then of the Hagia Sophia mosque.

927 (1521): He dies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Official sources

Online sources