HAMZA NİGARİ (Ḥamza Negāri) Ḥāji Mir Ḥamza Efendi b. Mir Pāšā, Sufi and poet from Azerbaijan, who wrote in both Persian and Turkish (1220 or 1230-1304/1805 or 1815-1886). The sources differ concerning Negāri’s date and place of birth. After completing his education in the towns of Šaki and Šamāḵi in Širvān, Negāri set out for Harput in order to join the Ḵāledi branch of the Naqšbandi Sufi order, which was then spreading rapidly in the Caucasus. From Harput he proceeded to Sivās, then returned to Qarābāḡ with Esmāʿil Širvāni, a successor of Mawlānā Ḵāled Baḡdādi, eponym of the Naqšbandiya-Ḵālediya. When the Russians invaded Dāḡestān, Negāri returned to Sivās together with Esmāʿil Širvāni, and then accompanied him to Amasya. After visiting Rumi’s tomb in Konya and performing the pilgrimage to Mecca, he returned to Qarābāḡ to propagate Naqšbandiya-Ḵālediya Sufism on behalf of Esmāʿil Širvāni. At the outbreak of war between the Ottomans and the Russians, Negāri led his followers to Kars (Qārṣ) to fight on the side of the Ottomans. After the war, he lived in turn in Erzurum, Istanbul, and Amasya, teaching at Amasya, until a difference of opinion with the local mufti compelled him to leave for Harput, where he died. He was buried in Amasya next to the mosque that his followers had been building for him.
Negāri’s penname derives from an ideal beloved (negār) of whom he once dreamed, but it was only after his initiation into Sufism that he began to write poetry. His Persian poetry (Divān, Istanbul, 1301/1884 and 1329/1911), which is strongly influenced by the works of Rumi, Jāmi and Ḥāfeẓ, is of mediocre quality, while his Turkish verse is influenced by the poetry of Fożūli. He wrote two maṯnawisin Turkish, the Negār-nāma (Istanbul, 1305/1887), a didactic Sufi work, and the Čāy-nāma (Istanbul, n.d.), which is a celebration of the qualities of tea, modeled on Fożūli’s Bang-o bāda (Hashish and Wine).
Bibliography:
Mehmed Tahir Bursali, Osmanlı müelli-fleri, Istanbul, 1333/1914, I, p. 65.
Hüseyin Hüsameddin, Amasya tarihi, Istanbul, 1327/1909, I, pp. 112-13.
Ibnü’lemin Mahmud Kemal İnal, Son Asır Türk şairleri, Istanbul, 1969, pp. 1200-204.
Feridun Bek Köçerli, Azerbaycan edebiyatı tarihi materyalları, Baku, 1926, II, pp. 199-213.
Mehmed Aka Müctehidzade, Riyaz el-Aşikin, ed. M. Sadi Çögenli and Recep Topraklı, Erzurum, 1992, p. 282.
Türkiye’de basılmış Farsça eserler, çeviriler ve İranla ilgili yayınlar bibliyografyası, Ankara, 1971, p. 71.
(Tahsin Yazi)
Originally Published: December 15, 2003
Last Updated: March 6, 2012
This article is available in print.
Vol. XI, Fasc. 6, pp. 648-649
