Prince and poet (b.
1459, Edirne – d. 25 February 1495, Naples). He was the younger son of Fatih
Sultan Mehmet. After receiving education at the palace, he was appointed as the
provincial governor of Kastamonu and as the governor of the Karaman province
(1474). On hearing that his father died and Sultan Bayezid II took the throne,
he moved to Bursa with the forces he recruited in Konya. By defeating the army
of his elder brother, he seized Bursa. Although he got read sermons and printed
money for the name of himself, his sultanate lasted only 18 days. Since some of
his supporters passed to the side of Sultan Bayezid, he was defeated at the
second war against his elder brother, and retreated to Konya. Then, he fled to
Egypt via Antakya and Aleppo, and stayed at the palace of Sultan Kayıtbay for a
while (1481). Although he moved to Anatolia and fought against his elder
brother once again in Konya, he was defeated again and he had to take asylum
from the knights in the Rhodes. The knights transferred him to Paris and he was
used as a political card against the Ottomans. There have been various
speculations about the death of Cem Sultan. Some claim that he died of an
illness, while others claim that he was poisoned by the request of the Pope.
However in any case, it is a fact that he lived his last years in grief and
agony and died in Naples. Even his corpse was used as a material for conspiracy
and political deal; eventually the corpse of Cem Sultan was brought to Bursa
and buried there at the end of 1499.
Cem Sultan, who
learned Persian as he was the provincial governor of Kastamonu, wrote odes
which reflected his keenness on pleasure and entertainment; and he also wrote
odes and kaside’s* that reflected his years full of grief and his yearning for
the homeland. He has two Divans* in Turkish and Persian, a mesnevi* titled Cemşid-i
Hurşit and a book on fortune telling. His life has been a theme for the
historic novels of Turhan Tan (1935), Feridun Fazıl Tülbençi (1959), Turan
Oflazoğlu and Lamia Balı (1969).
