Divan* Poet. (b. ?, Baghdad - d. 1605,
Damascus). He was also known as Ruhî-i Bağdadi but his real name was Osman. He
was the son of a military family that had settled in Baghdad. There is not much
information about his life. It is known that he had a good education and he was
a member of the Hurufi sect. He came to İstanbul for some time and he died when
he was working with the Governor of Damascus, Osman Paşa.
He is regarded as
having reached a resolute mastery in his poems in which he gave priority to
proverbs and idioms and took advantage of colloquial sayings. His most famous
work is Terkib-i Bend (Couplet Poem), which is made up of
seventeen bent (a couplet poem with recurrent rhymes). In
this poem, taking Sufism in to consideration, he emphasized the temporary state
of the world, criticizing prayers for ostentation and arrogant people. Among
his nazire* written after Terkib-i
Bend (Couplet Poem), the
most famous one is the Terkib-i
Bend (Couplet Poem) by Ziya Paşa.