Naw'i Efendi

Yahya b. Ali b. Nasuh al-Rumi (1533–1599), known by his pen name Nev'î (Naw'i Efendi), was an Ottoman divan poet and scholar. Born at Malkara in 940 AH (1533–34), he was educated at Istanbul, taught in medreses at Gelibolu, Edirne and Istanbul, and ended his career as tutor to the sons of Sultan Murad III. ¹ The English article calls him one of the most important Ottoman poets of his century and reports the title given him, "the scholar of his century". ²

His father Pîr Ali, son of Nasuh Halife — an Ankara man who had settled at Malkara — was a Halveti şeyh who served as imam of the Turhan Bey mosque and teacher of its primary school, and died in 952 (1545); his mother was descended from Yazıcıoğlu Mehmed, author of the Muhammediyye. Nev'î took his first education from his father, and in 957 (1550) went to Istanbul, where he attended the lessons of the two brothers known as the "Ahaveyn": Karamanî Ahîzâde Ahmed Efendi at the Dâvud Paşa medrese and Mehmed Efendi at the Sahn, alongside future notables such as Hoca Sâdeddin and the poet Bâkî. He followed his teacher Ahîzâde Mehmed Efendi to Edirne in 962 (1555) and back to the Süleymaniye in Istanbul, becoming a mülâzım (candidate for office) in 970 (1563). ¹

He was sent as müderris to the Balaban Paşa and Mesih Paşa medreses at Gelibolu in 973 (1566), and from 980 (1572) taught at the Şahkulu, Murad Paşa, Câfer Ağa and Mihrimah Sultan medreses in Istanbul; his longest later post was the Çınarlı medrese (1587–1590). Appointed qadi of Baghdad in 1590, he did not wish to go, and Murad III instead made him tutor to Şehzade Mustafa, whose lessons the princes Bayezid, Osman and Abdullah also joined; the tutorship lasted until the princes were killed in 1003 (1595), after which he lived on a kazasker-grade pension. ¹ He married in 993 (1585), and his son Nev'îzâde Atâyî himself became a divan poet and biographer. ³

Brought up by a şeyh father, he began dhikr at ten at his father's direction, became a disciple first of Sarhoş Bâlî Efendi, then a mürid of Kurd Mehmed Efendi, and later received training from Şeyh Şâban Efendi; the marks of this Sufi upbringing run through his poetry. ¹ The English article places his theology in the Akbari tradition, the school of Ibn Arabi, whose Fusûs al-hikam he translated. ^{2 1}

His Divan, critically edited from the Istanbul manuscripts, holds fifty-eight kasides, 559 gazels and many shorter forms. ¹ Among his verse works are the Tercüme-i Hadîs-i Erbaîn, a verse translation of forty hadiths written at Gelibolu in 977 (1569), and the Hasb-i Hâl, a mesnevi of some 800 couplets expounding Sufism, written at the indication of his şeyh Bâlî Efendi and presented to Murad III. ¹ In prose he is best known for the Netâyicü'l-fünûn ve mehâsinü'l-mutûn, a compact encyclopedia of twelve sciences presented to Murad III, and for Keşfü'l-hicâb min vechi'l-kitâb, his translation of Ibn Arabi's Fusûs al-hikam, completed in 1002 (1593) with the aid of the commentaries of al-Jandi, Dâvûd al-Kayserî and Molla Câmî. ¹ The English article further lists an epistle setting out the differences between the Ash'ari and Maturidi schools of creed. ² His son recorded more than thirty works by him in tafsir, kalam, tasavvuf, doctrine and logic, most of them not yet recovered. ¹

The English article, citing Gibril Haddad's The Maturidi School (2021), p. 132, describes Nev'î as a Sunni Hanafi-Maturidi jurist and theologian. ² The TDV encyclopedia, read in full, names no legal school or creed for him, and Wikidata records only Islam. ^{1 3} The museum therefore preserves the Hanafi-Maturidi attestation without adopting it; what stands documented is his scholarly career and his Sufi discipleship as the encyclopedia records them. ¹

He died at Istanbul on 30 Zilkade 1007 (24 June 1599) and was buried in the hazire of the Şeyh Vefâ mosque beside his şeyh Şâban Efendi. He had given away to the needy whatever wealth reached him, and died owning nothing, so the sultan bore his funeral costs. ¹