Revani

İlyas Şüca Çelebi ( Ottoman الياس شجاع چلبی İlyas Şüca Çelebi , İA Ilyās Şücāʿ Çelebī ; * around 1475 in Edirne ; † 1524 in Istanbul ) was an Ottoman poet. His stage name was Revani ( Ottoman روانی İA Revānī ).

Life

Revani was the son of ʿAbdullāh  /عبد الله. He completed his training in his hometown of Edirne.

Shortly after taking up his post with Sultan Bayezid II , he was sent to the holy cities of Islam Mecca and Medina to carry out the annual distribution of funds for the poor. In Mecca, however, he was accused of distributing the money unfairly and embezzling some of the money. He was expelled from Mecca and went to the court of Prince Selim , the later sultan, who was then governor of the Vilayet Trabzon . At about the same time, Revani's eyes became sick. A poet who was hostile to him wrote that it was God's just punishment. Revani also fell into disrepute in the service of Prince Selim, after which his property was confiscated. Selim forgave him, however. Revani served Selim all the more conscientiously from then on.

Revani followed Selim to Istanbul in 1512 when Selim took the throne as the successor to his father Bayezid II. Under Sultan Selim I , Revani was first supervisor of the kitchen ( maṭbaḫ emīni  /مطبخ امينی). Later he was given the administration of the Aya Ṣofya  /آيا صوفيا( Hagia Sophia ) and the ḳablıca  /قبلجه(the thermal springs) in Bursa .

After achieving prosperity, Revani built a mosque in Istanbul's Ḳırḳ Çeşme  /قرق چشمه. The mosque was later named after him. Since this mosque was later destroyed, it no longer exists today. Revani died in 1524 during the reign of Sultan Kanuni and was buried in the garden of his mosque.

Works

Revani left for posterity a collection of poems ( Dīwān ) for Sultan Selim and the Mesnevi ʿİşret-nāme  /عشرت نامه(the book of the wine festival ). The İşretname deals in detail with the drinking culture in the Ottoman Empire (Bacchante culture). Bacchic elements can be found in Turkish literature as early as the 14th and 15th centuries. Revanis İşretname is the first detailed work of its kind in Turkish literature . Revani is therefore considered to be the inventor of this type of literature. It was not until a century later that the Sakiname ("book of giving ") genre would celebrate its popularity.

Dīwān for Selim I.

His Dīwān for Sultan Selim is particularly important because of the Ġazel (a form of song) it contains . His azels are about human and esoteric love. Music was composed for many of these songs, which made them very popular in the coffee houses and wine houses of the Ottoman Empire in a short time.

İşretname

The İşretname is a Mesnevi and consists of 694 beyt . It is about legends about the origin of viticulture and the discovery of wine . Revani reports in detail about the course of typical drinking rounds of this time, the previously served dish, the wine, the wine glasses, the wine jug, the candles, the musical instruments, the cupbearers , etc.

At the end of the İşretname, Revani explains that the work should be “mystically interpreted”. However, this is seen as a tactic to protect against attacks from strictly religious circles. According to historians, the work also proves his own preference for drinking. To this day, Revani has a reputation for being dishonest and dissolute. The İşretname is praised for its esprit and its delicate and elegant, yet simple and clear language.

literature

• Rıdvan Çanım: Sâkî-nâmeler ve Edirneli Revânî'nin İşretnâmesi . Ataturk Üniversitesi, Erzurum 1987

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Walther Björkman, Kathleen Burrill: Rewānī . In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition
2. ^ EJ Brill's first encyclopaedia of Islam . 1913-1936, Volume 1, p. 1241
3. ↑ Paul Losensky: Saqi Nama . In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica (English, including references)