DEDE YŪSOF SĪNAČĀK

 

DEDEYŪSOF SĪNAČĀK (b. Yenice on the Vardar in Ottoman Māqadūnīā [modern Macedonia] at an indeterminate date, d. Istanbul, 861/1546), Mawlawī Sufi shaikh, poet, and author. He was born to a family of scholars originally from Edirne and educated by his father. He became shaikh of the Mawlawī convent (mawlawī-ḵāna) at Yenice, but he moved to Istanbul when the governor expropriated the endowments of the convent (Ṯāqeb Dede, II, pp. 20-22). According to Qenālīzāda (p. 1085) and Āšeq Čelebī (fol. 98a), Dede Yūsof then gave up studyingthe religious sciences and went to Egypt, where he became a disciple of the mystic Ebrāhīm Golšanī (d. 940/1533), founder of the Golšanīya order. He seems to have continued his association with Golšanī for only a short time before making the pilgrimage to Mecca and traveling on to Jerusalem, where he remained for several years in the Mawlawī convent; he then went on to Iraq to visit the tombs of the Shiʿite imams, and thence to Konya, where he became shaikh of the Mawlawī order. He finally settled in Istanbul, where he died in the retreat of Sütlüce** in 953/1546.

Dede Yūsof is best known for his Jazīra-ye maṯnawī, a selection of 366 verses from Rūmī’s Maṯnawī. It enjoyed great popularity among the Mawlawīs and became the subject of commentaries by ʿElmī Dede (d. 1020/1611), ʿAbd-al-Majīd Sīvāsī, Ḡāleb Dede (d. 1213/1799) in his Lamaḥāt al-lamaʿāt baḥr al-Maṯnawī be šarḥ Jazīrat al-maṯnawī, the Turkish poet and calligrapher Ebrāhīm Jevrī (d. 1065/1654-55), and ʿAbd-Allāh Bosnavī (d. 1054/1644; Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Istanbul, Nafiz Paşa ms. no. 528). A similar selection from Solṭān Walad’s Rabāb-nāma is lost. Dede Yūsof’s own poetry, written in Persian, though considered to be of high quality, revealsḤorūfī(cf. ʿAšeq Čelebī, fol. 98b) and Shiʿite tendencies; it remains unpublished.

 

Bibliography:

Pīr Moḥammad ʿĀšeq Čelebī, Mašāʿer al-šoʿarāʾ, ed. G. M. Meredith-Owens, London, 1971.

ʿA Gölpinarli, Mevlânâʾdan sonra Mevlevîlîk, 2nd ed., Istanbul, 1983, pp. 124-27.

Qenālīzāda Ḥasan Čelebī, Taḏkerat al-šoʿarāʾ, ed. Ī. Kutluk, II, Ankara, 1981, pp. 1085-86.

B. M. Tahir, Osmanlı Müellifleri, Istanbul, 1915, I, pp. 117, 120; II, p. 351.

Šayḵī Moḥammad Efendī, Waqāyeʿ al-fożalāʾ, ed. A. Özcan, Istanbul, 1989, p. 663.

Ṯāqeb Dede, Safīna-ye nafīsa-ye Mawlawīān II, Cairo, 1283/1866-67, pp. 20-23.

(Tahsın Yazici)

Originally Published: December 15, 1994

Last Updated: November 18, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. VII, Fasc. 2, pp. 202-203