Üftade

 Üftade (1495-1580)

• He was born in the Araplar neighborhood of Bursa. • His name was Mehmed, and his nickname was Muhyiddin. He is known by the pen name "Üftâde" in his poetry. It is recorded that his father came from Manyas and settled in Bursa. • Üftâde began his education under the guidance of Muk'ad Hızır Dede, one of the Bayrami sheikhs, at a young age. He served him for about eight years until the sheikh's death in 918 (1512). • He recited the call to prayer (ezan) with his beautiful voice at the Bursa Grand Mosque and the Doğan Bey Mosque. However, he stopped reciting the call to prayer the day after he was warned in a dream, "You have fallen from your station" because he accepted a small salary.

Üftade

• After this incident, he made a living by engaging in silk weaving, button making, and transcribing books. He also continued his honorary imamate and muezzin duties. Around the age of thirty-five, he started giving sermons and lectures. • His sermons in Doğan Bey Mosque, Namazgâh Mosque, and other mosques were followed by the public with great interest. While continuing his preaching activities at the mosque and tekke he built in the Pınarbaşı Kuzgunluk neighborhood at the foothills of Uludağ, he was appointed as a preacher at the Emîr Sultan Mosque between 1529 and 1536.

Emîr Sultan said that he accepted this duty with the spiritual sign from Emîr Sultan, and he continued in this position until his death on 12 Jumada al-Awwal 988 (25 June 1580). • His most famous disciple, Aziz Mahmud Hüdâyî, joined him in his later years in 984 (1576). His two sons, Mehmed and Mustafa, became his successors in his tekke (Sufi lodge).

Üftade

• There are three editions of Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir's divan (published in Istanbul 1328) in Latin script (ed. Mustafa Bahadıroğlu, Celvetiyye'nin Piri Hz. Üftade ve Divanı, Bursa 1995; Üftâde Divanı, Bursa 2000, Istanbul 2011). • Paul Ballanfat translated Üftâde's work, which consists of fifty poems, most of which are in meter (aruz) and some in syllabic meter, into French under the title "Le divan Hazret­i Pir Üftâde" (Paris 2002). Angelo Culme-Seymour further translated this French version into English titled "The Nightingale in the Garden of Lover" (Oxford 2005). • Ali Örfî Efendi wrote a commentary on Üftâde's poem that starts with the lines "Yine dûş oldu gönül yârin cemâl­i şem'ine / Götürüp yüzden nikābı gark olup envârına" under the title "Şerh­i Nutk­ı Üftâde".