Ottoman Inşa and the Art Of Letter-Writing Influences Upon The Career Of The Nişancı And Prose Stylist Okçuzade (d. 1630)

OS MA NL1 ARAŞT 1RM ALAR 1 VII-VIII l~DITORS İSMAİL OF ~'HIS E . ERONSAL - SPECI AL JSSUE Ca::RISTOPHER FERRARD Ca::RISTINE WOODHEAD :. THE JOURNAL OF OTTOMAN STUDIES VII-VIU ı ı ı ir · İstanbul - 1988 OTTOMAN INŞA AND THE ART OF LETTER-WRITING · INFLUENCES UPON THE CAREER OF THE .NİŞANCI AND PROSE STYLIST OKÇUZADE (d. 1630) Okristine Woodkead Numerous skilful poets_capable of origin~_lity in rare and ·beautiful expressions may always be found in every country, if not in every major city. But true prose stylists, those with natural talent, appear ·perha:ps once in every generation. Hence there is a dearth of eloquent _writers: Okçuzade Mehnl~d Şah Beg, 1620s' The use of _rhetoricai prose · for the enunciation of a great theme is· a fea:ture of all major cultural traditions, serving such va.ried ends as the civic pride of ancient qreece, the rivalries of medieval Italian city-states, the humanism of Erasmus, m ~he patriotism of . Churchill. In the Islamic tradition, demonstrative rhetoric, in Arabic, Persian or Turkish, played -a significant part in creating tbİough the written .word th.ose images most appropriate to sovereignty. For the status-coiı.scious Ottoman ruler, promotion of ilmü'l-in§a- the science of . epistolo~aphy and, by extension, of elegant prose coıriposition - was .a necessary adjunct to political power, symbolizing attainment of the hi·g h level of intellectual and aesthetic refinement expected in a successful empire. In this sense, the theory and practice of Ottoma:n in§a was qeveloped not merely as a requisite vehicle for portraying the power and magnificence of ıthe state per se : it was designed also as a conscious expression of Islamic cultural synthesis; and by implication of M-qslim ·political leadership unde:ı: the Ottom-an banner. wıiilst both 1 Milnşe'öt-ii 'l-~a, Istanbul University Llbrary TY 3105, . ._.;.. --- . - ~ 5b. 144 historiography and epistolog-.caphy were equally important vehicles for its use, the term inşa in an Ottoman context was often taken as synonymous with the latter, and will be so used, for the most part, in this essay. • o • • syntactica:ı elements f!o~ the Arabic, Persiaiı and Turkish languages, embellished with a daunting range of alllısions and word-play, arid with the distinctive cadences of rhymed plırasing, Ottoman inşa was neither ·a n easy nor a spontaneous style of composition, and could not be learnt without effort. From this stems the main reason for its close identification with epistolography : that its study was systematically pursued as part of the profeşsional training of a chancery scribe, for whose use variou,s_ in§a · haİıdbooJrs \~e~e produ,ced. Tlie 'aşpiring mün§i had access to manu;ı.ls of style which adapted and expounded the principles of Arabic and Persian .epistologra:phy for· Ottoman use, and to complementary mün§eat collections of exemplary compositions2. Together, these t\vo types ·o f in§a haıidbook '(with or without ·the admonitions of. a teacher) provided the basic epistolary training of a divan scribe, esta:blishing the fundam~ntal principles of protocol; format ·and expressian appropriate to the theme and to recipiı~nt. _ · · ·· · · · .-. For ;m~~h of the 16th -~entury, the· Ottoman in§a tradition was dominated'by the imperial letters aridother compilations of leading ch~c~ry offic_ials. ~acizade · Cafeı:· Çel~bi (d. 921/1515) , nişa'f!-cı in the ·reigns of Bayezid II and Se~ I, was of ea,rly Ottoİnan s'fYTists the one most·· revered by both contemporaries and later ge'nerations. His ndmes and feth/nanies' served for ·a t least a century as ·· the critic~l stand~d against which _scribal successor~ wo~d be · judgedl. The profe·ssionaı reputati~n of s~ch. aş . Çater .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . An ,amalgam of lexical and Cf. Meniihicii 'l~inŞ'ii : the ~cirliest Otto1~an clıancery manuaı, by Yahya bin' 'Mehmed: el-Katib frO?n the 15th centur-y, ed: Şinasi Tekin, 'Ro~burg, Mass., . ·· . 2 ' 1971. . . .. ·. For:-- a · gene.ral d!scusslon of . in§a eplstolography, see J. :Matuz, 'Über d!e Epistolographle. und İnsa~Literatur der .Osmanen~ ~ Deutsclıer Orienta~fstentag 19B8 . (ZDMG. Supplement, Wlesbaden 1970), 574-94. · · .. · '3 tSrnail E~ 'ıiırüıisaı, The .-life and ıvorks of Tacı-zade Ca'fer Çelebi; ıvith a crit-ical edition ot his divan (Istanbul 1983), esp. lxvii-lxlx, for assessment as a prose styliSt. · ' · · .. · .. ·. · · · 145 Çelebi and Süleyman's long-serving nişancı Celalzade (d. 975/1567), together with the monumental compilation of imperial letters, Münşe'iitü Js-selii!inJ of the reiSülküttab (later also nişancı) Feridun Beg (d. 991/1583) , serve to indicate the predominance of chancery, or public, inşa during this period. However, the standards and conventions followed in the divan4 hümayun found from an early date a gradation ~f echoes in the less formal epistolography of educated men~. By c. 1630, writers in this second, largely non-chancery, sphere had become recognized as the major stylists both in epistolography proper and in other genres of rhetorical pr~se ·composition. Their reputations superseded and long outlasted those of cop.temporary professional scribes0 • Nergisi (d. 1044/1635) 0 , Veysi (d. 1037/lE)28)7, and tiıeir correspondents were not chancery officia]s, bu·t members of the ulema; their münşeat collections contain not imperial names and beratsJ but mostly private letters exchanged within their own rather restricted circle. Expressing sentiments similar to those in Mesi'hi's Gül-i şad-berg - separation from friends, career frustration, injustice, complaint, hope, recommendation, compliments and congratulations- the collected letters of the 'private' mürışi focus the skills of refine_d expressian on pıore perso~al matters. The official exemplars of ~ early 16th-cent~ry nişancı utilized style for the furtherance of a great public theme - a military victory, or the splendour of the sultanate; their significance arises from the importance attached in that -period to political and institutional de4 As shown in Professor Menage's essay on Mesihi's Giil-i §rul-berg elsewliere in this volwne, and in his 'An Ottoman iinanual of provincial correspondence', WZKM 68 (1976), 31-45. · 5 Seventeentıh-century compilations, .though (or because of the fact that they are?) numerous, do not have the significance of earlier collectıons. The rei..siilkii.ttab Sarı 'Abdullah's Dii..stfirıt 'l-in§ii (mid 17·th century) is perhaps the best known of the later collections. 6 Nergis [Nel'giSizade] Mehmed (mahlas Nergisi), d. 1044/1635. For his biography see ömer Faruk Akim, 'Nergisi'i lA. ix, 194-97; and for an edition of his mürt§eat, see John R. Walsh, "The Esalibü '1-mekattb (Münşe'iit) of Mel)med NergisT Efendi', .t1rchi'l>ı~m Ottomanicum I (1969), 213-302. 7 Uveys ibn Mehmed (mahlas Veysi), 'd. 1037/1628; Nevizade Ata'i, ZeyZ-i Şel$ii'ifs.-i Nu'miinJye (Istanbul 1268/1852), II, 713-16; Katib Çelebi, Fezleke (Istanbul 1267/1851), II, 99. ı46 v (...truncated)