Abdüllatîf Kudsî

Abdüllatîf Kudsî was born in Jerusalem in the Hijri year 786 (1384 CE) and died in Bursa in the Hijri year 856 (1452 CE). His full name is Abdüllatîf bin Abdurrahmân bin Ahmed bin Gânim el-Hazrecî el-Ensârî el-Kudsî; he belongs to a family known as İbn-i Gânim and İbn-i Benâne. After memorizing the Qur'an, he studied sciences such as morphology (sarf), syntax (nahiv), jurisprudence (fıkıh), inheritance law (ferâiz), semantics (meânî), and rhetoric (beyân) from his father and other scholars. On the path of Sufism he first attached himself to Sheikh Abdülazîz in Jerusalem, and then was trained under the discipline of his true spiritual guide Zeynüddîn-i Hâfî, who took him to Khorasan; his chain (silsile) reaches through this way to the Suhrawardî path. After being in Jerusalem, Khorasan, the city of Câm, Damascus, and Konya, he settled in Bursa. According to the sources, it is related that in the city of Câm he occupied himself for forty days with self-examination at the tomb of Ahmed Nâmık-ı Câmî and reached spiritual perfection; that in Konya, during his visit to the graves of Mevlânâ, Sadreddîn-i Konevî, and Şems-i Tebrîzî, he experienced spiritual states; and that in Bursa he was called to from the unseen (gayb). In Bursa he built a mosque and a dervish lodge and trained students; the lodge he established became famous under the name the Zeyniyye Lodge. The most renowned of his students are Sheikh Vefâ (Müslihiddîn Mustafa) and Âşıkpaşazâde. After his death a tomb was built over his grave; the district where his lodge and grave are located took the name Zeynîler neighborhood on account of the order to which he belonged.