FAŻLĪ, MEḤMED (Moḥammad; or ʿAlī; see Kašf al-ẓonūn II, p. 1506) ÇAĞDAŞLAN Turkish poet, known also as Qara Fażlī (b. ? in Istanbul; d. 971/1563 in Kütahya). His father was a saddler. Fażlī, who does not seem to have received a systematic education, developed his poetic talent by associating himself with poets and the learned of the time. His first such mentor was the poet Rīāżī (d. 953/1546) of Üsküp (Skopje), from whom Fażlī received instructions in Persian literature, and, at the same time, began to write Turkish and Persian poetry. Some time later, he became a disciple of Ẓarīfī Ḥasan Efendī (d. 1572), a shaikh of the Ḵalwatī order of dervishes, who made him familiar with Sufi literature. His real mentor in poetry, however, was the then famous poet Ḏātī (d. 959/1546), whose geomancy shop was frequented by young poets who benefited from his patronage as well as his discourses on poetry. Fażlī’s talent attracted Ḏātī, at whose suggestion Fażlī wrote a qaṣīda on the occasion of the circumcision of three princes and recited it in the presence of Sultan Solaymān the Magnificent (summer 936/1530). Impressed by Fażlī’s talent, Sultan Solaymān appointed him the secretary of Prince Moḥammad when the latter became the governor of Magnesia (Manisa). After Moḥammad’s death, he entered the services of Prince Moṣṭafā, and, upon the execution of the latter in 660/1552, he joined Prince Salīm (Selim), the future Sultan Salīm II. In 970/1562, Salīm appointed him the dīvān secretary with substantial benefits. Fażlī died the following year. It was Fażlī who wrote the letter to the Shah Ṭahmāsb, requesting the return of Prince Bāyazīd (d. 969/1562; ʿĀlī).
Works: Fażlī did not collect his poetry in a dīvān. His ḡazals and qasáīdas are scattered in taḏkeras; his robāʿīs, estimated at about one thousand, are not known to be extant. Fażlī is, however, best known for his maṯnawīs. They are: Homā wa Homāyūn, a poem emulating Ḵᵛājū Kermānī’s work of the same title; Gol o bolbol, also under the influence of Ḵᵛājū Kermānī’s Gol o Nowrūz (ed. and tr. J. V. Hammer as Gül u Bülbül, das ist Rose und Nachtigall, von Fasli, Pest and Leipzig, 1834); Lahjat al-asrār, apparently a naẓīra to Neẓāmī’s Maḵzan al-asrār. Fażlī is also the author of Naḵlestān, which is an imitation of Saʿdī’s Golestān (q.v.).
Bibliography:
ʿAhdī Baḡdādī, Taḏkera, MS Istanbul, Istanbul University library, TY 2604, fols. 98 ff.
ʿĀlī, Konh al-aḵbār, MS Istanbul, Istanbul University library, TY 5959, fols. 467b ff.; ed. M. İsen in Tezkirekismi, Ankara, 1994, p. 320.
Pīr Moḥammad ʿĀšeq Čelebī, Mašāʾīr al-šoʿarāʾ, facs. ed. G. M. Meredith-Owens, London, 1971, fols. 197b-98b.
M.-Ṭ. Bors-ʿAlī (Borsali), ʿOṯmānlī moʾalleflerī (Osmanlı Müelliflerı), Istanbul 1324/1906, II, p. 359.
E. J. W. Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry, 6 vols., repr. London, 1958-67, III, pp. 108-16.
M. F. Köprülü, “Fazlî,” in İA IV, pp. 533-34.
ʿAbd-al-Laṭīf Čelebī (Laṭīfī), Taḏkerat al-šoʿarāʾ, ed. A. Jawdat, Istanbul, 1314/1896, p. 264.
Qenālīzāda Ḥasan Čelebī, Taḏkerat al-šoʿarā, ed. İ. Kutluk, Ankara, 1981, II, pp. 754-58.
(Tahsın Yazici)
Originally Published: December 15, 1999
Last Updated: January 24, 2012
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Vol. IX, Fasc. 5, p. 466
