Yavus Sultan’s Great Work: Selimname

In the Ottoman literature the Ottoman Sultans has a own part about their life kind a biyography.For example the text which one explains II.Beyazıd’s life is “Süleymannâme”. Yavuz Sultan Selim is the first person who made a biyography like that and his one’s name is “Selimnâme”.

Some of the Selimnâme’s ,which includes I.Selim’s reign, were written during his reign, while most of them were written during reign of Kanuni and in the following centuries.He does not have a lot selimnâme because of his reign time was nearly 9 year but nevertheless he achieved more than most kings and sultans.Most of Selimnâme has written Turkish but some of them was Persian and Arabic.

Some of the popular Selimnâmes:

İdrîs-i Bitlisî, he wrote his persian Selimşahname on the order of Yavuz Sultan Selim and he wrote the era from I.Selim’s born to 1518.The work unfinished but with order of Kanuni, the work has completed from Ebülfazl Mehmed Efendi in 1567.It is known that there have been eight copies of Selimşahname until today.Five of them are in the country, and three are abroad.Two of the copies within the country are too incomplete to be considered.The headings and verses are written in red ink. The cover is made of cherrywood leather. The first page bears the signature of Sheikh-ul-Islam Ebu’s-Su’ud Efendi.

Ali b. Muhammed el-Lahmî el-Mağribî, has wrote ed-Dürrü’l-meṣân fî sîreti’l-muẓaffer Selîm Ḫân in 923 (1517) but this selimnâme has a different from other ones in this selimnâme our author gave extensive coverage to dreams.

In addition to these Selimnâmes were written by poets and authors such as, Senâî, Hayâtî, Şühûdî, Ârifî, İznikî Seyyid Mehmed and Cârullah b. Fahdı’l-Mekkî and there are other works of unknown authorship.