Abstract:

A chief figure in Melâmi society of the 17th century, Sarı Abdullah Effendi d. 1660 was a politician and an intellectual taking great delight in poetry. Known with the title of “commentator of Mesnevî” after writing a commentary named Cevâhir-i Bevâhir-i Mesnevî on the first volume of Mesnevî-i Manevî, Abdullah Effendi wrote his poems under the pseudonym “Abdî” and borrowed from Arabic, Persian and Turkish works of several intellectuals so as to include them in his own writings. One of those intellectuals was Feridüddin-i Attar d. 1221 . Abdullah Efendi had a substantial number of borrowings from a poet whom he called “Attar” in his work Cevâhir-i Bevâhir-i Mesnevî. Nevertheless, recent studies provide evidence that there was more than one “Attar” at the time and that these people somehow distorted the works of Attar, the author of Mantıku’t-tayr. This article firstly touches upon Sarı Abdullah Effendi and Cevâhir-i Bevâhir-i Mesnevî, then gives a brief account of the life and works of Feridüddin-i Attar, the author of Mantıku’t-tayr, and offers explanations on other Attars, and finally discusses from which Attar’s works from that Sarı Abdullah Effendi heavily borrowed -sometimes citing a name and sometimes not- in his Cevâhir-i Bevâhir-i Mesnevî.