Poet
(b. 1486, Ardebil / Iran – d. 1525, Ardebil / Iran). His real name was Şah
İsmail Safevi. In 1502, exploiting the struggle for sovereignty after the death
of his father, Şah Haydar, he killed Şirvan Sultan Feruh (the murderer of his
father), disarmed the Akkoyunlu Sultan Elhend and proclaimed himself as the
Shah in Tabriz with the support of his followers. Strengthening his position in
Iran, he seized most of Eastern Anatolia and Iraq. The Ottoman Emperor, Sultan
Yavuz Selim invited him to war with three instigative letters. His army was
defeated at the famous battle of Çaldıran in 1514. He lost his power after this
defeat. He died in Erdebil and was buried beside his father Shah Haydar.
Şah
İsmail Hataî, who accepted Turkish as the official language, was one of the
representatives of the Azeri dialect of Turkish literature with the Hasta
Hataî. He was deemed the most capable didactic poet of Bektaşi and Kızılbaş
literature with his hymns adherent to folk poetry, the purpose of which was to
spread the Shiite belief through Anatolia.
WORKS:
Divan (Divan*, including mostly Turkish and a few Persian
poems, by Sadettin Nüzhet Ergun, under the name The Divan* of Hatâyi, 1946), Nasihatnâme (The Advice
Book-Religion-Sufism, Turkish couplet poem of 68 couplets), Dehnâme (The Pleasant Book or Âşık
ile Maşuk (Lover and Beloved), a Sufi poem, deemed to be one of the first
couplet poems of the Azeri Literature).
