There is some confusion in the scholarly literature regarding the
identification of Ḫoca
Mesʿūd. The sixteenth-century Ottoman biographer of poets, ʿĀşıḳ Çelebī, in his Meşāʿirü’ş-Şuʿarā refers to Ḫoca Mesʿūd, author of the work,
Süheyl ü Nev-Bahār, as a poet living
during Murad I’s reign. J. H. Mordtmann believed that
Ḫoca Mesʿūd was the same
individual as Ḳul Mesʿūd, author of Kelīle ve Dimne, based on linguistic
similarities between the two works Süheyl ü
Nev-Bahār and Kelīle ve Dimne,
and speculated that these works must have been produced for the Aydınid rulers of
Ayasuluk. In contradiction to
Mordtmann, M. F. Köprülü argued that
Ḫoca Mesʿūd was not the same as
Ḳul
Mesʿūd and posited that Ḫoca
Mesʿūd was a Germiyanid poet who must have been the famous Germiyanid
poet Şeyhoğlu’s teacher, as the
latter’s praise-filled references to Ḫoca
Mesʿūd in his works indicate. Subsequent scholars generally following
Köprülü in identifying Ḫoca
Mesʿūd as a Germiyanid scholar.
