ÜSaint
Üftâde
One of the saints of Bursa, the teacher of Azîz Mahmûd Hüdâyî
A Sufi and poet of Bursa, regarded as the pîr of the Celvetî way. His name was Mehmed, his cognomen Muhyiddin; he is known by the pen-name "Üftâde" used in his poems. "Üftâde" means "fallen, lovelorn", and the name stayed with him after a warning received in a dream. He was born in the Araplar quarter of Bursa. Although the sources give his date of birth as 895 (1490), a phrase in the Vâkıât of his disciple Azîz Mahmûd Hüdâyî indicates that he was born around 900 (1495). His father is recorded as having come from Manyas and settled in Bursa. In childhood he became a disciple of Muk'ad Hızır Dede, one of the Bayramî shaykhs, and at his encouragement began his studies; he served him for about eight years until his master's death in 918 (1512). With his beautiful voice he called the adhân at the Great Mosque of Bursa and at the Doğan Bey Mosque. Because he had accepted a salary of a few akçe he was warned in a dream, "You have fallen (become üftâde) from your rank," and THE VERY NEXT DAY he gave up calling the adhân. Thereafter he made his living by silk-making and button-making and by copying manuscripts, while continuing his duties as imam and muezzin without pay, as a volunteer. This choice is the key to his life: he drew his livelihood from the work of his hands and kept religious service separate from wages. Around the age of thirty-five he began to preach and guide. The people followed his sermons at the Doğan Bey Mosque, the Namazgâh Mosque and elsewhere with great interest. While continuing his guidance at the mosque and lodge he had built in the Pınarbaşı Kuzgunluk quarter on the slopes of Uludağ, he was appointed between 1529 and 1536 as preacher (hatip) of the Emîr Sultan Mosque. He said that he accepted this office upon a spiritual sign from Emîr Sultan, and he held it until his death. His mosque, completed in 985 (1577) in the Yerkapı district, and his lodge have survived to the present through successive repairs and alterations. He died on 12 Cemâziyelevvel 988 (25 June 1580). His two sons, Mehmed and Mustafa, succeeded him in turn as shaykhs of his lodge. His most famous deputy is Azîz Mahmûd Hüdâyî, who became his disciple in 984 (1576), in the last years of his life; the notes Hüdâyî kept over three years, known as the Vâkıât, have carried Üftâde's teaching down to our day. TEİS lists among his most famous deputies Üftâdezâde Şeyh Mehmed Efendi (994/1586), Muabbir Veli Dede (1010/1601), Üftâdezâde Şeyh Mustafa Efendi (1017/1608) and Hüdâyî; it is also among the narrations that he willed the succession to his son Mehmed Efendi although he was younger than his brothers. His Chain and the Celvetiyye His initiatic chain reaches Hacı Bayrâm-ı Velî through Hızır Dede and Akbıyık Sultan. Although the Celvetiyye order is attributed to Azîz Mahmûd Hüdâyî, it is Üftâde who made CELVET the basis of the method of wayfaring; for this reason the TDV author says "it may also be said that he is the pîr of the Celvetiyye". İsmâil Hakkı of Bursa, himself a Celvetî shaykh, describes this development with the metaphor of the moon: the Celvetiyye was a CRESCENT in the time of İbrâhim Zâhid-i Geylânî, a HALF MOON in Üftâde's day, and a FULL MOON in Hüdâyî's (Silsile-i Celvetiyye, p. 63). His Asceticism and His Meeting with Süleyman the Magnificent Among his most marked traits are asceticism and piety; besides avoiding what is forbidden he declined even some permitted things. It is related that Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, who at one time forbade him to speak of the Mesnevî and the Fusûsü'l-hikem in his sermons, later invited him to Istanbul and showed him honour; and when he saw that Üftâde would not accept a village or two that he wished to endow upon his lodge, he told his viziers that some shaykhs are seekers of the world (tâlib-i dünyâ) but Üftâde is one who has left the world (târik-i dünyâ). His Poetry He wrote gnostic poems in a plain language in the manner of Yûnus Emre; his poems drew great interest in lodge circles and some were set to music as hymns and sung. His divan was printed by Mehmed Tâhir of Bursa (Istanbul 1328), and there are three further editions in the Latin script (Mustafa Bahadıroğlu, "Celvetiyye'nin Pîri Hz. Üftâde ve Divanı", Bursa 1995; "Üftâde Divanı", Bursa 2000 and Istanbul 2011). His divan, containing fifty poems mostly in aruz and some in syllabic metre, was translated into French by Paul Ballanfat as "Le divan Hazret-i Pir Üftâde" (Paris 2002), and Angela Culme-Seymour rendered that French translation into English as "The Nightingale in the Garden of Lover" (Oxford 2005). Ali Örfî Efendi wrote a commentary titled "Şerh-i Nutk-ı Üftâde" on his poem beginning "Yine dûş oldu gönül yârin cemâl-i şem'ine". TEİS records that his poetry contains both a gnostic idiom rich in Arabic and Persian words and a plain speech accessible to ordinary people, and that its themes turn on loving God, becoming worthy of beholding His beauty, and devotion to the path. The Vâkiât Beginning on 1 Zilkade 984 (20 January 1577), Azîz Mahmûd Hüdâyî recorded his master's words in Arabic throughout the three years of his wayfaring, completing the work on Friday 9 Şevval 987 (29 November 1579), a month before receiving his licence and leaving Bursa. At the beginning of the book known as Vâkıât-ı Hüdâyî (Vâkıât-ı Üftâde) stands a phrase meaning "lofty words more precious than refined gold, which passed during the wayfaring between his eminence the shaykh and this poor one". İsmâil Hakkı of Bursa's words — "the sayings of Shaykh Üftâde which his eminence Hüdâyî compiled, famed under the name Vâkıât" — show that this title was given to the work later. The book, regarded as the PRIMARY SOURCE for Üftâde's views and for the Celvetiyye order, survives in the author's own copy in two volumes of one hundred (100) folios each in the Hacı Selim Ağa Library in Üsküdar (Hüdâî Efendi, nos. 249-250). Mehmed Muizzüddin Celvetî, thought to have been one of Hüdâyî's disciples, translated parts of the work into Turkish during the shaykh's lifetime (Süleymaniye Library, Mihrişah Sultan, no. 253/6). His Lodge Built on the slopes of Uludağ on a steeply sloping site running from south to north, over a total of 2,507 m², the lodge amounts to a complex comprising a mosque, a semâhâne, a harem, a selâmlık, a retreat cell (çilehâne) and a fountain. Üftâde's grandson, the fourth shaykh Kutub İbrâhim Efendi, renewed the lodge with additional buildings in 1081 (1670) and fortified its surroundings. Its present form bears the characteristics of the reigns of Selim III and Mahmud II. On the renewed portion of the fountain known as the "Hû Fountain" on the western wall of the mosque are inscribed the date 974 (1566) and the Qur'anic verse concerning water (al-Anbiyâ 21/30). In the retreat cell are displayed objects once used in the lodge and attributed to Üftâde and Azîz Mahmûd Hüdâyî. The selâmlık section has now been demolished and a road passes over it; extensive restorations have been carried out in recent years in the harem, the retreat cell and other sections.
