On the Treatise on the Hadiyyat al-Mu?min?n Attributed to Jal?lz?de Mu??af? Çelebi: An Introduction to Sel?mn?ma

Abstract

Nish?nci Jal?lz?de Mu??af? (d. 975/1567) was one of the most important diplomats of the Suleiman the Magnificent period, and was a writer who wrote many works, made translations, and was prominent with his prose. It is seen that Jal?lz?de's literary production increased after he retired from his duty as tughra? (imperial scribe) in 964/1556-57. The text, thought to have been written during this period and referred to as Hadiyyat al-Mu?min?n in secondary sources, is registered at number NEKTY07204 in the Istanbul University Library. Since there is no introduction, it is not clear to which genre the text belongs. In secondary sources, it is stated that the subject of the text is a religious-moral treatise. It is noteworthy that the text can be considered as an introduction, as it contains praise, eulogy and exaltation towards Islamic important figures. In this article, we thought of examining Hadiyyat al-Mu’min?n, which we saw had not been examined before, in terms of form and content and presenting its text. When we examined Jal?lz?de's other works, we determined that the copy was actually the introduction of Sel?mn?ma. There have been two studies on the introduction of Sel?mn?ma so far. In one of these studies, transcription was used in the article but the introduction was not completed, and in the second study, transcription was not used in the publication of the Sel?mn?ma’s text. In this article, we will first give brief information about the author's life and works. We will examine the formal elements of both the prose and verse sections of the introduction in question. We will give information about Jal?lz?de's prose and verse style and the content of the work. Therefore, we will present something different from these two studies. We will show the steps we followed to determine that the text in question was actually another work and make inferences about which genre it would be considered if it were an independent work. We will compare the book of Sel?mn?ma with the copy we have and list the places we found to be wrong in the book in a table. © 2025 Ankara University, Journal of the Faculty of Divinity. All rights reserved.