Gülşehrī's
identity has been much disputed. The pen name Gülşehrī indicates that he was a poet from the
northwestern Cappadocian town of Gülşehir (Zoropassos, Arapsun), which lay in
the Selçuk province of Kırşehir in between the towns of Hacıbektaş to the north and Nevşehir
to the south. According to Köprülü,
based on İstanbul Arkeoloji Müzesi, no. 1360, he was named eş-Şeyḫ Aḥmed el-Gülşehrī(الشيخ احمد الكلشهري).
Some Turkish scholars speculate that he was sent to the region of Kırşehir at the end of
the thirteenth century [1200-1299 CE] as a disciple of Sulṭān Walad (سلطان ولد),
although there is no firm evidence to support this supposition. There have also been attempts to connect him to the Mawlawī shaykh by the name of
Süleyman. Internal evidence from his work indicates that he was Sufi
shaykh and zāwiya leader from with strong akhī ties.
Gülšehrī, Šeyḫ Aḥmed, active 13th century-14th century
Güls̲h̲ehrī, active 13th century-14th century
Šeyḫ Aḥmed Gülšehrī, active 13th century-14th century
Manuscripts by this author
Falaknāmah
Completed in 701 and dedicated to
Ghāzān Khān(غازان خان),
the Persian Falaknāmah is Gülşehrī's first known work. It presents a
Sufi interpretation to the Islamic philosophical topic of al-mabdaʾ wa’l-maʿād
(المبداء والمعاد) (the origin of this world and its destination).
The work exists in a unique manuscript copied in 842.
The work place of composition is Gülşehir,
town in north-western Cappadocia.
The Manṭıku’ṭ-ṭayr is a very loose adaptation of Farīd al-Dīn Muḥammad al-ʿAṭṭār (فريد الدين محمد العطار)’s
Persian mystical mathnawī, Manṭiq al-Ṭayr (منطق الطير) (“Speech of the Birds”
or “Conference of the Birds”) with much original material. As with ʿAṭṭār’s original
work, Gülşehrī’s Turkish adaptation
tells the story of the soul’s journey to its origins in an effort to unite with its Creator, with the soul represented by birds of various species, and the Creator
by the mythical bird, Sīmurgh. Framed around an allegorical tale of the quest of the mythical Sīmurgh (phoenix), the work consists mainly of didactic anecdotes and stories, as well as discussions in a question-and-answer format on Sufism,
futūwwa, and miscellaneous religious and ethical topics. Composed in 717
(dated by a chronogram), there are six known manuscripts of this work. Depending on the manuscript, the number of couplets in the work range from 4931 to 5029.
The work place of composition is Gülşehir
town in north-western Cappadocia. Show more
Together with the work of el-Esrārü’l-‘ārifīn(اسرارالعرفين)
