Lâmiî Çelebi

This personage, whose real name was Mahmûd and who became famous under the name 'Lâmiî Çelebi', was born in the year 1472 (AH 877) in Bursa. He is known as a scholar, saint, and poet; on account of his proficiency in learning and literature he was called 'Câmî-i Rûm'. His father was Osman Çelebi, treasury defterdar of Sultan Bayezid II, and his mother was Dilşâd Hâtun. His grandfather was the famous artist Nakkâş Ali Paşa, who made the interior ornamentation of the Yeşil Câmi (Green Mosque) and the Yeşil Türbe (Green Tomb). He learned Quranic exegesis (tefsir), hadith, and jurisprudence (fıkıh) from Molla Ehâveyn and Molla Muhammed bin Hasanzâde; in sufism he became affiliated with Seyyid Emîr Ahmed Çelebi in Istanbul. He translated into Turkish Mevlânâ Câmî's works entitled 'Nefehât-ül-Üns' and 'Şevâhid-ün-Nübüvve'; he translated Fettâh Nişâbûrî's 'Hüsn-i Dil' and presented it to Yavuz Sultan Selim. Among his other works are Şeref-ül-İnsan, Resâil, Risâle-i Tasavvuf, Münâzarât-i Behâr ü Şitâ, Şerh-i Dibâce-i Gülistan, Münşeât-i Mekâtip, İbretnâme, Mevlid-ir-Resûl, Maktel-i İmâm Hüseyin, Şem'u Pervâne, Gûy ü Çevgân, Ferhatnâme, Lügât-ı Manzûme, and Dîvân-ı Eş'ar. In 1512 he established an endowment (vakıf) of four thousand akçe. According to the sources, Sheikh Rüstem Halîfe, when his eye was aching, found healing through the advice of a person he met on the road (whom he regarded as Hızır) to recite the Mu'avvizeteyn in the last rak'ahs of the emphasized sunnah prayers; and Lâmiî Çelebi, acting in the same way, healed his own eye. He died in the year 1531 (AH 938) in Bursa. He was buried in the courtyard of the masjid that his grandfather Nakkâş Ali had built; on his grave, of which today only the headstone remains, there is the inscription in intricate thuluth script 'El-merhûm Şeyh Lâmiî bin Osman' (The late Sheikh Lâmiî son of Osman).