The nineteenth century was one of the most difficult periods of the Ottoman Empire, in which both internal and external political crises and territorial losses were experienced. Military, local and national rebellions as well as religious and sectarian quarrels were much more than those in the previous century, both in number and in destructiveness. However, in this period when faces were completely turned to the west, sectarian differences were approached with a more unifying and universal perspective, new political steps were taken in this regard and progress was made in democracy. On top of multiple political issues, the language simplification movements, which were seen in the previous centuries, caused heated debates. In this tumultuous period, most of the poets sought moral support by taking shelter in dervish lodges, and multi-sectism emerged. As a result of this, it is observed that Classical Turkish literature in the late period approached Sufi literature and Sufi literature approached Classical Turkish literature. Nihânî lived between 1805-1890 and is one of the Sufi poets who witnessed the most problematic period of the empire. His lineage goes back to the Prophet. He was a ninth-generation grandson of Sheikh Hamid-i Veli (Somuncu Baba) and one of the Halvetiye and Bayramiye sheikhs who participated in his dervish lodge. He was from Darende. Both having received a good education from Büyük İzzet Hasan Efendi, to whom he was a grandson, and having taught in a madrasa enabled him to be close to the culture of Classical Turkish literature. Consequently, as a mudarris who has taught both Sufi culture and madrasah subjects, his scientific background is reflected in his poems and his artistic identity is manifested within this scope. As the reforms that had first started in the military field in the 19th century appeared in art and literature, the searches in divan poetry and the simplification movements in the language affected Nîhâni closely. Nihânî’s Dîvân has great importance in terms of showing the common aspects of these two disciplines, which resulted from the convergence of Classical Turkish literature and Sufi literature in the 19th century. In this study, it is aimed to introduce Nihânî, who was influenced by Yunus Emre and also who reflected the searches in divan poetry and the simplification movements in the language, and his Dîvân, which is the only copy.
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