There is no thick file on the life of Zeyneb Hatun; what survives is a few notes in biographical anthologies, three pieces of verse and the title of a lost divan. Even so, whenever Ottoman literary history is told, her name is almost always placed first. The woman known as Zeynep Hatun in some sources, Zeyneb Hatun in others, and by her original name Zeynünnisâ, is the first woman poet of divan literature whose name and verse are known. She lived in the fifteenth century, under Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, and in all likelihood in Amasya. That a woman could speak in her own name and under her own pen name in a literary tradition crowded with male voices gives this record a weight greater than that of her few surviving lines.

Every piece of information about her life rests on the tezkires (biographical anthologies of poets) written at least half a century after her time, and on later compilations fed by them. We have no birth record, no endowment deed and not a single letter from her own pen. For this reason the account below will state openly the points on which the sources disagree, and uncertain information will not be presented as certain.

Name, Origin and Birthplace

Her original name appears in most sources as Zeynünnisâ, "the ornament of women"; some compilations give the name "Zübeyde". The spellings Zeyneb and Zeynep are simply different renderings of the same name. The entry written by Hasan Aksoy in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (the Encyclopaedia of Islam published by the Turkish Religious Foundation) states that according to most sources the poet was from Amasya. The same entry also records that Pervâne Bey and Latîfî mention her as the daughter of a learned man ("mârifet sahibi") from Kastamonu. The Dictionary of Turkish Literary Names (TEİS) makes the same distinction: according to Latîfî she was from Kastamonu, according to the other sources from Amasya. Âşık Çelebi regards her as a native of Amasya, while Murat Uraz finds the Amasya possibility stronger. Both Latîfî and Âşık Çelebi wrote in the middle of the sixteenth century, so both describe the poet at least a generation after her death, drawing on oral memory and written notes.

Her birthplace is not certain. Most sources and local memory say Amasya, Latîfî says Kastamonu. The claim circulating in secondary compilations that she spent part of her life in Istanbul could not be verified from the primary tezkires. Her tie to Amasya is strong regardless of the birthplace dispute; most sources write that she lived in this city, died there and was buried there. Since her contemporary Mihrî Hatun was also from Amasya, fifteenth-century Amasya appears to have gathered the first two names of women's poetry in one city.

The Education of a Judge's Daughter

One of the points on which the sources agree is that Zeyneb Hatun was the daughter of a kadi, an Islamic judge. On the name of her father, however, opinions differ. The TDV entry gives the father as the kadi Mehmed Çelebi and adds that Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin mentions the same person as the kadi Belâî Çelebi. The TEİS entry finds this information plainly wrong: the kadi who wrote poetry under the pen name Belâyî was the father of Mihrî Hatun, the other woman poet from Amasya of the same period. The record "Kara Belâ'î Mehemmed Çelebi" in Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir's Osmanlı Müellifleri also belongs to Mihrî's father. In another compilation the name Kadı Karabelâî Ahmed Çelebi appears. Faced with these conflicting names, the most cautious judgment is this: her father was a kadi, and his name is uncertain.

On her education the sources are more consistent. Latîfî writes that her father noticed her talent early, taught her various sciences and arts, had her read Persian divans and Arabic odes, and that she later began to compose poetry in Turkish and Persian. Zeyneb Hatun learned Arabic and Persian and came to know Persian well enough to compose verse in it. She was also interested in music; according to the TDV entry she wrote songs and composed melodies. The judgment in Sehî Bey's tezkire says that she had studied the sciences in due order, excelled in the science of music, was matchless in the arts of poetry and was a lady of wide learning. The sources see her father's support behind this education; a kadi who recognised his daughter's talent and did not hesitate to train it was, perhaps, the first and most important condition of her poetry.

While praising the poet as one of the rarest women of the age, Latîfî also stresses her chastity and describes her as a sinless girl and a model of virtue. These expressions show the habit of the tezkire tradition, when describing women poets, of first recording their moral standing. Considering that no such assurance was sought for male poets, this compliment also reveals how delicate the social position of a woman poet was.

The Divan Presented to Mehmed the Conqueror

The work that carried Zeyneb Hatun into literary history is the divan she compiled in the name of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. According to Latîfî, the poet arranged a divan of her Turkish and Persian poems and presented it to the sultan. Gelibolulu Âlî says that she was given a reward for the divan. The fact that Kâtip Çelebi mentions the title of the work in Keşfü'z-zünûn suggests, according to TEİS, that he may have seen the divan. The article by Yasemin Ertek Morkoç reports that in Pervâne Bey's collection of nazires (poems written in response to other poems) this divan is described as "perfect and charming". According to the same article, this presentation took place before her marriage.

The divan is no longer extant. Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir wrote in Osmanlı Müellifleri that a copy was in the Ayasofya section of the Süleymaniye Library; yet the TDV entry reports that research has not found any copy of the divan. TEİS draws attention to the entry in the library's old inventory register and to the catalogue printed in the reign of Abdülhamid II; in both, the work is described as "kadîmen zâyidir", that is, "lost long ago". Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir also records that he ranked Zeyneb Hatun equal to Fıtnat Hanım as a poet. Since Fıtnat Hanım was one of the well-known women poets of the nineteenth century, this comparison shows that Zeyneb Hatun's name could still serve as a yardstick four centuries later.

The Poems We Have

According to the TEİS entry, the poems of the poet found in tezkires and manuscript collections consist of three pieces: a ghazal, a quatrain and a Persian couplet. The article by Mustafa Sarper Alap, by contrast, speaks of only two poems. TEİS says the ghazal has seven couplets, yet the text published in the same entry contains eleven; the number and order of couplets also vary across publications. This shows that the poems changed form as they were passed from one manuscript collection to another after the poet.

The ghazal, which appears in nearly all the tezkires, begins with the opening couplet "Keşf et nikābını yeri göğü münevver et / Bu âlem-i anâsırı firdevs-i enver et" and carries the refrain "et". According to TEİS, this ghazal is a nazire written in answer to Şeyhî's ghazal beginning "Aç alnunı yüzini cihânun münevver it". Latîfî also reports that in his youth he wrote a nazire to this ghazal, and he included the poem in his own tezkire. In the middle of the ghazal stands this couplet:

Depret lebüni cûşa getür havz-ı Kevseri
Anber saçunı çöz bu cihânı mu'attar it

The poem asks the beloved to lift the veil from her face so that earth and sky will be lit, the pool of Kevser will surge, and her loosened amber locks will drench the world in fragrance. In another couplet the first down on the beloved's cheek is likened to a decree that tells the breeze, "go quickly, take Hıtâ and China"; beauty's command becomes a sovereignty that passes all borders. A prose rendering of the ghazal is given in Ersöz's article. The last couplet of the ghazal is transmitted in two different forms. In Latîfî's text, as TEİS gives it, it reads:

Zeyneb ko meyli zînet-i dünyâya zen gibi
Merdâne vâr sâde-dil ol terk-i zîver it

Roughly, these lines counsel not to incline toward worldly adornment as women do, but to be manly and plain of heart, and to give up ornament. In the form recorded in Eğridirli Hâcı Kemâl's Câmi'ü'n-nezâ'ir, by contrast, the last couplet ends "Zeyneb çü dost zülfi bigi târmârsın / Dîvâne olma şi'rüni dîvân u defter it"; that is, you are dishevelled like the beloved's tresses, do not fall into madness, turn your poetry into a divan and a notebook. The closing couplet of Latîfî's nazire is very close to this second form: "Gel ey Latîfî defterini dürmedin felek / Dîvâne olma şi'rüni dîvân u defter it". TEİS draws attention to this resemblance. The quatrain is transmitted from Sehî Bey's tezkire:

Şehâ bu sûret-i zîbâ sana Hak'dan inâyetdür
Sanasın sûre-i Yûsuf cemâlünden bir âyetdür
Senün hüsnün benüm aşkum senün cevrün benüm sabrum
Demâdem artar eksilmez tükenmez bî-nihâyetdür

Nihad Sami Banarlı, as TEİS relays, states that this quatrain was composed in a "raksân" manner, that is, in a dancing manner, and that it earned the poet an lasting place in our literature. The allusion to the Sura of Joseph ties the poem to Qur'anic and Sufi culture. In some popular publications this quatrain is presented as a direct declaration of love for the Conqueror; yet the sultan's name does not appear in the poem, and this interpretation rests not on the tezkire sources but on later retellings. According to Ersöz's article, Zeyneb Hatun's language is clear and plain; although she had learned Arabic and Persian, she composed her poems mostly in Turkish.

The call to be "merdâne" (manly) in the last couplet of the ghazal has been interpreted in different ways. Alap's article reads it as the attitude of a woman who, in order to be accepted as a poet, wishes to express her feelings not with womanly delicacy but in a manly manner. Ertek Morkoç recalls that the shared aesthetic moulds of divan poetry were built by male poets, and that women too were obliged to enter these moulds when speaking of love. An English-language compilation hears in the line beginning "cast off your veil" a voice demanding that the limits drawn around women be lifted. All of these are readings of a later age and are not records documenting the poet's own intention.

In the Eyes of the Tezkire Writers

What carried Zeyneb Hatun's fame to the present are the records of the sixteenth-century tezkire writers. Sehî Bey (1471-1548), one of the first tezkire authors, set aside a separate section of his work for women poets and mentioned Zeyneb and Mihrî together there. According to Sehî, there are two women poets in this age; because their poems are beautiful, their couplets matchless, their ghazals famous and their reputation wide, they were included in the tezkire. Beyânî, as TEİS relays, describes the two poets as contemporaries and companions in conversation, between whom there were many debates, poetic exchanges and friendly intimacy, and adds: "Her verse is that of a knower. It is not a girl's embroidery, it is manly." Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi makes a barbed remark: she has poems as perfect as men's, her only fault is being a woman. Mehmed Zihnî's judgment follows the same line: she was herself a woman, but in her words and verse she described the beauties of every face, and men admired her.

What these sentences share is that praise almost always comes together with an emphasis on gender. Ertek Morkoç's article explains that in the tezkires women poets were inevitably evaluated through a male gaze, with their gender especially underlined, and that being chaste was in itself a reason for praise for these poets. The same article notes that there were close to fifty women poets in the divan poetry tradition, but that the divans of only a few of them could be studied and brought to the present. Zeyneb Hatun's name stands at the head of this short list.

Marriage and Withdrawal from Poetry

The matter of marriage is not clear in the sources. Latîfî says that Zeyneb Hatun never married. TEİS thinks that this information may have been confused with Mihrî Hatun, and writes that the other sources agree about her marriage. According to these sources her husband was the kadi İshâk Fehmî Çelebi; the TDV entry records that this information appears in Osmanlı Müellifleri and in the work of Didem Havlioğlu. Alap's article states that İshak Efendi was among the kadis of Amasya.

On what followed the marriage, too, the sources split in two. According to Âşık Çelebi, after her marriage Zeyneb Hatun withdrew from poetry and from poetry gatherings; he compares this with the phrase "Mihrî izdivâcdan âr idüp" and writes that Mihrî, who never married, continued to attend the assemblies. TEİS and TDV relay this information. Ertek Morkoç's article, relying on Mehmet Arslan's 2007 study of the Divan of Mihrî Hatun, claims that her husband did not allow her to write poetry or to attend gatherings, and says that Zeyneb gave up poetry under her husband's pressure while Mihrî chose not to marry. By contrast, Alap's article, relying on other studies, writes that İshak Efendi was a lover of the arts and, unlike the husbands of other women poets, did not obstruct her poetic work; Ersöz likewise presents İshak Efendi as a kadi who looked on her poetic work with understanding. The two readings contradict each other directly, and neither is based on a primary document.

Some compilations relate that in the last period of her life the poet gave up poetry and withdrew into seclusion. This information appears more in popular publications than in the sources cited by TDV, and should be treated with caution. Ertek Morkoç writes that many women divan poets met with obstruction from their families or husbands, and at times with the contempt of male poets, so that some never married or their marriages did not last; in this framework Zeyneb Hatun's story, though contested, is one of the frequently cited examples.

Her Tie to Amasya

Zeyneb Hatun's tie to Amasya is built from several directions. The claim of birthplace is the first of them. Âşık Çelebi regards her as a native of Amasya, and TDV also notes that most sources say Amasya; Latîfî's Kastamonu record stands in the middle, and a firm judgment is not possible. The second tie concerns family: her father was a kadi, and her husband is mentioned as one of the kadis of Amasya.

The third tie is the circle of Prince Bayezid and Prince Ahmed. TEİS writes that in Amasya she was in the service and assemblies of Şehzade Bayezid (the later Bayezid II) and his son Şehzade Ahmed, and that with her contemporary Mihrî Hatun she presented odes to the prince. Âşık Çelebi's information also points this way. However, the TDV entry makes a clear warning at this point: considering that Mihrî Hatun lived until after 1512 while Zeyneb Hatun died in 1474, this information should be approached with doubt. TDV offers a more cautious frame: during the governorship of Şehzade Ahmed in Amasya, after Bayezid II, a circle of poetry is thought to have formed in the region, and Zeyneb Hatun is presumed to have been part of it. That the poet Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi lived in Amasya in this period strengthens the idea that such a circle existed. Zeyneb Hatun's presence in the court of Şehzade Ahmed is therefore not a certainty but a presumption. It is known that Amasya as a princely sanjak formed a literary milieu, with poets and artists gathering under the patronage of the princes; Zeyneb Hatun's place in this setting rests on the indirect records of the tezkires.

The last tie concerns her death and grave. TDV and TEİS write that Zeyneb Hatun died in Amasya; TEİS adds that she was buried there. Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir states that her grave is in the district of Amasya called "Selâmet Hatun". But TEİS records that no remains of a grave exist there today, and TDV that the location of the grave is unknown. No tomb, monument or documented building bearing her name has been identified in Amasya either. The only trace in the city is her name in the tezkire records.

Being Mentioned Together with Mihrî Hatun

Zeyneb and Mihrî Hatun are mostly named side by side in literary history. Sehî Bey praises the two women poets together in his tezkire; Beyânî writes that there were debates, poetic exchanges and intimacy between them. Alap's article and Ersöz's study also relay that the two poets wrote witty verses to each other and exchanged poems. Ertek Morkoç's article counts this relationship among the first examples of solidarity between women and says that both took part in the literary circle at the court of Şehzade Ahmed in Amasya. The same article also records that Zeyneb was older than Mihrî; Ersöz writes that Mihrî was born in 1460 or 1461.

The chronological problem becomes sharp at this point. By TDV's reckoning Zeyneb Hatun died in 1474, while Mihrî Hatun lived until after 1512. Since Mihrî would have been about thirteen in the year Zeyneb died, it is difficult for the two poets to have presented odes together or exchanged poems. An English-language compilation considers that Zeyneb's giving up poetry after marriage may have come before Mihrî entered the literary circle of Amasya. In that case whether the two poets truly exchanged verses remains a story handed down by the tezkire tradition and cannot be confirmed by documents.

The Date of Her Death

On the date of her death, too, the sources differ. TDV and TEİS give the date 879 (1474-75), which appears mostly in late sources. TDV says that this date was taken from Osmanlı Müellifleri, but that its basis there is unknown. Ersöz's article uses the date 1563, which is about eighty years later than the other. The knowledge that the poet lived in the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror (d. 1481) and presented a divan to him makes 1474-75 more consistent. Still, since no document exists, it would not be right to name a definite year.

Legacy

What remains of Zeyneb Hatun is little: a ghazal, a quatrain, a Persian couplet, the title of a lost divan and a few sentences in the tezkires. Nevertheless, the TDV entry states that she pioneered the spread of divan poetry in Amasya, and that after her poets such as Mihrî Hatun and Ayşe Hatun emerged in the same region. According to an English-language compilation, Ayşe Hubbî Hatun was a poet known in court circles, born in Amasya and died in Istanbul in 1589. That the three names are mentioned together in the tezkires shows that besides its identity as the "city of princes", Amasya also hosted a circle of women poets; at the head of this sequence stands the name of Zeyneb Hatun.

Latîfî's writing a nazire to her ghazal in his youth shows that the poem found a response among her contemporaries. That nearly all the tezkires relay the same ghazal also suggests that the poet's place in the poetic world was built on this single poem. A ghazal and a quatrain remain the first texts to which every source narrating the women's voices of Ottoman literary history turns.

Chronology

15th century (reign of Mehmed the Conqueror): The period in which Zeyneb Hatun lived; she is said to have presented to the sultan the divan she compiled in his name (Latîfî; TEİS).

1460-1461: Birth year of Mihrî Hatun given in some sources; shows that she was younger than Zeyneb Hatun.

879 / 1474-75: Date of death given by TDV and TEİS; the origin of the date is uncertain.

Mid-16th century: The period in which the tezkires of Latîfî and Âşık Çelebi were written; the differing information on the poet's birthplace comes from these works.

1563: Date of death given in some sources; conflicts with the date given by TDV and TEİS.

Sources

Primary sources

  • Latîfî, Tezkiretü'ş-şu'arâ ve Tabsıratü'n-nuzamâ (ed. Rıdvan Canım), Ankara 2000, pp. 288-290.

Academic studies

  • Yasemin Ertek Morkoç, "Klasik Türk Edebiyatında Kadın Şairlere Bir Bakış", CBÜ Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 9/2, 2011.
  • Mustafa Sarper Alap, "Klasik Türk Edebiyatının Bilinen İlk Kadın Şairi: Zeynep Hatun", International Academic Social Resources Journal, 6/22, 2021, pp. 198-202.

Other sources

  • Hasan Aksoy, "Zeyneb Hatun", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 44, Istanbul 2013, pp. 360-361. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Mehmet Arslan, "Zeyneb, Zeyneb Hatun, Zeynünnisâ", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (TEİS), Yesevi University. teis.yesevi.edu.tr
  • Emine Ersöz, "XV.-XVI. Yüzyıl Osmanlı Döneminde Kadın Şairler", Dört Öge.
  • "Educated Ottoman Diwan Poetesses in the Early Modern Period", Memorients. memorients.com
  • Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir, Osmanlı Müellifleri, vol. 2, Istanbul 1333.

Online sources