Prolific Ottoman scholar, Sufi and poet, tutor of Prince Mustafa, who wrote a gloss on al-Kātī’s commentary on the Īsāghūjī.
Life
Sürûrî was born in Gallipoli in 897/1492. His father, the merchant Shaʿbān Efendi, had been treasurer to Bayezid II when the latter was a prince in Amasya. He studied with Kara Dāvud of İzmit, Nihālī, Tācīzāde Caʿfer Çelebi, Taşköprüzāde Muṣṭafā Efendi and others, began his career in 927/1521 as a deputy judge in Istanbul, turned to the Naqshbandī path, made the pilgrimage, and taught in several Istanbul madrasas, among them the Sarıca Paşa, Pīrī Meḥmed Paşa and Kasım Paşa madrasas.
In 955/1548 Süleyman the Magnificent called him to be tutor of his eldest son, Prince Mustafa, in Karaman and Amasya. After the prince was executed in 960/1553 he withdrew from public life, lost his official income and lived from copying his own books. According to TDV he died of cholera on 7 Jumādā I 969 (13 January 1562) in Istanbul. He never married and was regarded as a saint in his neighbourhood.
TDV calls him the best-known and most commentator of Süleyman’s reign. His Baḥr al-maʿārif is considered the first comprehensive Turkish handbook of and , and his Persian on Rūmī’s Mathnawī the first complete one written in Anatolia.
Uncertain or disputed
- Whether his Īsāghūjī work is a commentary on al-Abharī’s text (Ḥājjī Khalīfa; TDV, ‘ÎSÂGŪCÎ’) or a gloss on al-Kātī’s commentary (TDV, ‘SÜRÛRÎ’).
Works
- Ḥāshiya ʿalā Sharḥ Ḥusām al-Kātī ʿalā l-Īsāghūjī حَاشِيَةٌ عَلَى شَرْحِ حُسَامٍ الكَاتِيِّ عَلَى إِيسَاغُوجِي — on al-KātīSo described in TDV’s article on Sürûrî. Ḥājjī Khalīfa and TDV’s article on the Īsāghūjī list a ‘commentary’ (sharḥ) by Muṣliḥ al-Dīn Muṣṭafā b. Shaʿbān; these may be the same work.gloss
- Baḥr al-maʿārif بَحْرُ المَعَارِفTurkish handbook of prosody, rhyme and literary terms, finished in 956/1549.work
Sources (3)