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, Ibrāhīm Efendi (1826-71), Ottoman poet, journalist, playwright. A pioneer in the Westernisation of Ottoman Turkish literature, Ibrāhīm S̲h̲ināsī Efendi (in modern Turkish: Ibrāhīm Şinasi) is credited with many firsts—the first play for the legitimate stage, the first translations of French poetry, the first privately-owned Turkish newspaper and some of the earliest journalistic articles, the use of punctuation, incipient modern literary criticism in prose, as well as the introduction of the norms and concepts of French political theories, culture and literature. S̲h̲ināsī …

(Ömer Seyfeddin), late Ottoman and early modern Turkish writer (1884-1920). A major figure of Turkish fiction, ʿÖmer Seyf ül-Dīn (modem rendering Seyfeddin or Seyfettin) was a pioneer of realism and the use of the common idiom. A 1903 graduate of the Istanbul War College, he served as an officer, saw action, fell captive, and retired upon his release in 1913. Having published poems, short stories and essays since 1900, he joined his nationalist colleagues ʿAlī D̲j̲ānib and Ḍiyā (Ziyā) Gökalp in Salonica (1911) where they published the influential magazine Genč Ḳalemler …

, in modern Turkish, Şemseddi̇n Günaltay , 20th-century Turkish statesman and historian. A prolific historian and a professor, S̲h̲ems al-Dīn Günaltay (1883-1961) served as the Prime Minister of the Turkish Republic during its decisive transition to a multi-party system in the mid-century. After obtaining a degree in science at a teachers’ college, he graduated from the University of Lausanne, where he studied natural sciences. Privately, he mastered Arabic and Persian. After teaching and serving as principal at various high schools, he was in 1914 appointed müderris …

, orhan veli (1914-1950), Turkish poet who introduced major innovations to 20th century Turkish poetry. Kanık’s early poems, published under the pen name of Mehmet Ali Sel, were formal lyrics written in traditional metres. After 1936 he adopted free verse, which had first been introduced in the 1920s by Nazım Hikmet (1902-1963). Kanık’s first collection of poems, Garip (1941) also contained poems by his colleagues Oktay Rifat (b. 1914) and Melih Cevdet Anday (b. 1915). These three poets published a joint manifesto which called fo…

(1839-78), journalist, controversial pamphleteer and political activist, born in Istanbul. His father Ḥüseyin Efendi is said to have instilled in him a dedication to social justice. Suʿāwī’s early education was at a rüs̲h̲diyye (high school). He later studied the Islamic sciences at a madrasa . He held various administrative and teaching posts in Istanbul and Bursa. As a teacher in Plovdiv (now in Bulgaria), he was dismissed for allegedly fomenting civil disturbances. Returning to Istanbul in 1866, he published articles in the newspaper Muk̲h̲bir (“The Re…

, Sāmī Pas̲h̲a-zāde (modern Turkish Sami Paşazade Sezai), late Ottoman fiction writer and essayist ( ca. 1859-1936), noted for his synthesis of “art for art’s sake” and “art for society’s sake” and of romanticism and realism. Son of the statesmanauthor Sāmī Pas̲h̲a, Sezāʾī was born in Istanbul, tutored in the family mansion and encouraged by visiting prominent writers. He started publishing ¶ journalistic articles when aged 14, learned Arabic, Persian, French and German, and came under the influence of Nāmi̊ḳ Kemāl [ q.v.]. In 1879 he published S̲h̲īr (“The l…

(a.), poet. ¶ 1. In the Arab world. A. Pre-Islamic and Umayyad periods. Among those endowed with knowledge and with power in ancient Arabia stands the figure of the s̲h̲āʿir , whose role is often confused with that of the ʿarrāf ( s̲h̲aʿara and ʿarafa having the same semantic value: cf. I. Goldziher, Abhandlungen , i, 3 ff.) and of the kāhin [ q.v.]. They were credited with the same source of inspiration, the d̲j̲inns (Goldziher, Die Ǧinnen der Dichter , in ZDMG, xlv [1891], 685 ff.). However, the s̲h̲āʿir was, originally, the repository of magical rather than divinatory knowledge; …

(p.) or S̲h̲ahrās̲h̲ūb (“upsetting the town”), a genre of short love poems on young craftsmen, often related to the bazaars of specific towns. 1. In Persian In Persian literature, the genre is usually referred to under the latter name. E.J.W. Gibb’s contention that the genre was invented by the Turkish poet Mesīḥī [ q.v.] of Edirne ( HOP, ii, 232), was challenged already by E.G. Browne who, pointing to Persian specimens mentioned by the Ṣafawid anthologist Sām Mīrzā [ q.v.], concluded that “though they were probably written later than Masíḥí’s Turkish S̲h̲ahr-angíz …