The Issue of Denigration of Poets in Sinan Pasha's Ma‘ārifnāme as an Example of the Ulema's Anti-Poet Attitude

Yıl 2024, Cilt: 7 Sayı: 2, 164 - 176, 31.12.2024

Bünyamin Taş

https://doi.org/10.48174/buaad.1575387

Öz

Scientific publications aiming to determine the poetic thoughts of Ottoman period poets have, naturally, mostly focused on the prefaces of dīvān, various verses mentioning poetry and the thoughts on the subject in the tadhkirahs of the poets. Thanks to such publications, as of today, a literature sufficient to form generally valid opinions about the poetics of the poets of classical Turkish literature has been formed. However, when the boundary of the problem is defined in the general sense of grasping the understanding(s) of art or poetry of the period, that is, when one goes beyond what is said about poetry by the poet himself and looks at what others say, it is seen that it is not enough to rely only on the texts produced by the poets. In fact, as can be seen from the texts of some elites belonging to the Muslim scholarly class in the form of advice and sermons, poetry was not a legitimate and acceptable occupation for everyone in the Ottoman period. Therefore, generalisations about the artistic understanding of the period will always be incomplete without determining the place and influence of this line of thought and its proponents in society, who considered writing poetry and being a poet, to put it mildly, as a mischievous endeavour. In this article, based on the aforementioned attention, the anti-poetry and anti-poet discourses of Sinan Pasha (d. 1486), one of the viziers of Mehmet the Conqueror and also one of the leading Muslim scholars of the period, in his advice book Ma‘ārifnāme are discussed.

Sinan Pasha, the son of Hızır Bey (d. 1459), the first qadi of Istanbul, and the grandson of Molla Yegân (d. 1461) on his mother's side, belonged to the leading families of the Muslim scholarly class of his time. With the advantage of his family, Sinan Pasha had the opportunity to meet the leading Muslim scholars of the time and attend their lectures. He attracted the attention of Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror (d. 1481) thanks to the wide scholarly acquisitions he acquired at a young age, and after working as a muderris and sultan's teacher, he soon rose to the position of viziriazam. In addition to his statesmanship, and perhaps more than that, Sinan Pasha is remembered for his works. In particular, his Tazarru‘nāme , which is considered one of the most successful examples of Turkish prose, was much admired and imitated. His Ma‘ārifnāme, which was presented by him as “a book on ethics in the form of a nasīhatnāma”, was considered as “one of the most remarkable works of his time in terms of its language and subject matter”, although it was overshadowed by his first work in terms of fame.

As one of the pioneering works of Ottoman ethical literature and the identity of its author, it is certain that Ma‘ārifnāme will be considered as one of the most remarkable examples of its kind in the effort to understand the culture and mentality of the period. The work has a wide range of subjects, as is the case with most of the books of advice. In this respect, the book also deals with poets and poetry as a special topic. In a work written by one of the most important Muslim scholars and political figures of the period and considered one of the leading ethical books of the context to which it belongs, there is no doubt that the explanations made or ideas put forward about poets and poetry will help efforts to understand the relevant time and the texts of that period. As a result of the examination of the text in question, the following conclusions were obtained in summary.

In the work, the poet is briefly defined as “a person who sees himself as a poet and is engaged in poetry”. Most of the poets were accused of being shameless and impudent, and were characterised as “shu‘arā-ye gāvīn [misguided poets]” with reference to the Qur'an. The fact that they wrote ghazals and qasīdah/ode in the genre of praise was counted among the grounds for vilifying poets. The ghazals are included in the category of evil because of their content that mentions the beloved and the features/limbs of the beloved that are the elements of beauty. Instead of engaging in poetry, it is recommended to read the works of murshids/religious masters. Thus, poetry and religious knowledge, and the poet and the religious master are positioned as opposites of each other. It has been argued that Sufi leaders should not be called poets and that, although they said similar things to other poets, the words of love in their ghazals actually meant different things. The love, wine and praise poems in classical Turkish literature were mostly not interpreted as metaphors by the Muslim scholars of the period. On the contrary, these contents, if the identity of the author was not seen as an obstacle, were generally understood as they were read and caused the poets to be considered evil by the Muslim scholars.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Sinan Pasha, Ma‘ārifnāme, classical Turkish poetry, poetics

Ulemanın Şuara Karşıtı Tutumunun Bir Örneği Olarak Sinan Paşa'nın Ma‘ârifnâme'sinde Şairlerin Kötülenmesi Meselesi

Öz

Osmanlı dönemi şairlerinin sanat anlayışlarını belirleme amacıyla yapılan bilimsel yayımlarda, doğal olarak, daha ziyade divan dibaceleri, şiirden söz eden muhtelif dizeler ve konu hakkında şuara tezkirelerinde yer verilen düşünceler üzerinde durulmuştur. Bu tür yayımlar sayesinde, günümüz itibarıyla, divan şairlerinin poetikası hakkında genel geçer kanaatler edinmeye yetecek bir literatür oluşmuştur. Ancak problemin sınırı genel anlamıyla dönemin sanat veya şiir anlayışını/anlayışlarını kavramak şeklinde belirlenince, yani şiir hakkında sanatkârın bizzat kendisi tarafından söylenenlerin ötesine geçip başkalarının ne dediğine de bakıldığı takdirde, yalnızca şairler tarafından üretilen metinlere istinat etmenin bütüncül bir değerlendirme için yeterli olmadığı görülmektedir. Zira ilmiye sınıfına mensup bazı seçkinlerin nasihat ve mevize türünden metinlerinden anlaşıldığı üzere, Osmanlı döneminde, şairlik herkesçe meşru ve makbul addedilen bir uğraş olmamıştır. Dolayısıyla şiiri ve şairliği, en hafif tabirle, muzır bir uğraş olarak gören söz konusu düşünce silsilesi ve bu fikri savunanların toplumdaki yeri ve etkisi belirlenmeden dönemin sanat anlayışı hakkında yapılan genellemeler daima eksik kalacaktır. Bu yazıda, söz konusu dikkatten hareketle, Fatih Sultan Mehmet’in vezirlerinden ve aynı zamanda dönemin önde gelen âlimlerinden biri olan Sinan Paşa’nın Ma‘ârifnâme adlı nasihatnamesinde yer alan şiir ve şair aleyhtarı söylemleri konu edilmiştir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Sinan Paşa, Ma‘ârifnâme, divan şiiri, poetika

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