Meyli and Kaimi in the Divan of Gurbi

Abstract

This essay about Gurbi is founded in original sources and diverse opus contained in several versions of his Divan. Dervish Ahmed Ali Gurbi Baba, sufi, mystique and sheikh of Bektashi and Naqshibandi orders is the most famous Novi Pazar writer and poet. As a sipahi he possessed a timar in the Edirne area where he temporarily lived under the name Mehmed Musli or a pseudonym Rahmi on the estate of certain Seid Ali. In the year 1744 (1157 Hijri) he finished his Divan which he had started writing at the age of 25 “in Bosnia” in 1135 Hijri (1722-23). According to the writings in the Divan, Novi Pazar, which was a part of Bosnia in those days, this city was the place where he was born in 1698-99 (1110 Hijri). As a sheikh in two Dervish orders, poet Ahmed Gurbi expressed his intense admiration and adherence towards a few Bosnian divan poets. The most famous among them where Hasan Kaimi and the Gurbis contemporary and, most probably, collaborator Mehmed Meyli Gurani and others. He wrote several songs in which he mentioned both of them.