Zihnî is a poet of unknown identity whose name appears only in the Merzifon Cönkü. A single koşma in syllabic metre under the pen name Zihnî is recorded in this manuscript poetry notebook introduced by Metin Hakverdioğlu in 2019; the article gives only the first quatrain of the koşma. Nothing is known of the poet's name, home, period or occupation.

His link with Amasya consists in his poem having entered a cönk compiled in Merzifon. This page has been opened on the principle that poets whose identity cannot be established are not to be passed over; below, what the sources say and do not say is shown separately.

Record in the Merzifon Cönkü

The Merzifon Cönkü is a manuscript poetry notebook that Metin Hakverdioğlu obtained from Merzifon for his own library and introduced in the journal idil in 2019. The cönk, in the long narrow "calf's tongue" format and written in ta'lik script, has 112 pages and contains 161 poems by 32 poets. Hakverdioğlu estimates that it is about a hundred years old and thinks that it was compiled by a Merzifon poet from the literary circle of Eyüp Sabrî, most probably Fethî. According to the article, the cönk contains, beside well-known poets, local poets whose names are entirely unknown, and the authors of its poems in aruz are mostly folk poets. This poet's poem is on page 35 of the cönk.

Poetry

According to Hakverdioğlu's count, Zihnî has one koşma in syllabic metre in the cönk. The koşma opens with the line "Kâtip sen yaz sabâ sen de kerem kıl" and is spoken in the manner of a letter: to carry his state to the beloved as soon as possible, the lover tells the scribe to write and the morning breeze to bear it. The original text of the poem, an English rendering and a commentary are published as a separate article in this category.

State of the Sources

The pen name Zihnî was used by many poets. The best known of them, according to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi article, is Bayburtlu Zihnî (1797-1859), whose real name was Mehmed Emin. Although an aruz poet, he took his place among the notable artists of his time through his poems in syllabic metre and tried to unite in syllabic verse a taste drawn from both aruz and syllabic metre. Although the period and form of the koşma in the cönk bring him to mind, we found no source showing that the poem belongs to Bayburtlu Zihnî; this identification is only a possibility and is ours. The Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü also records a Zihnî of Kayseri who lived in the mid-nineteenth century and is known only from a chronogram poem.

There are also natives of Amasya with the pen name Zihnî in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn's Amasya Tarihi. Of these, Zihnî Mehmed Efendi, son of the imam of the Çeribaşı quarter, served as judge and deputy judge in the districts of Köprü, İskilip, Lâdik and Merzifon and died in 1148 (1735-36); Hüsâmeddîn describes him as "a scholar and poet". Tamgacızâde Zihnî İsmail Efendi, a senior clerk of the Imperial Council, died in 1253 (1837-38), and Uzun Müftüzâde Zihnî Mustafa Efendi is mentioned as a madrasa teacher. All of them came from the world of the madrasa and the chancery; there is no record suggesting that a koşma in syllabic metre belongs to any of them. That Zihnî Mehmed Efendi served as deputy judge in Merzifon is a striking coincidence, but it cannot count as proof of identity; this assessment is ours.

Bibliography

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Online sources