Abstract

Haji Mustafa Efendi, also known as Şeyh-i Şirani, is a Sufi and scholarly figure. He was born in 1254/1838 in Sarıca village of Şiran district of Gümüşhane province. His father's name was Ömer Efendi and his mother was Havva Hatun. After receiving madrasah education in his hometown for about fifteen years, he continued his education in Trabzon, Tokat and Uşak. While advancing on the path of knowledge, he was inclined towards Sufism and went to Mecca, where he became affiliated with Yahya Dagestani (d. 1319/1899), one of the sheikhs of the Naqshbandi sect. He served his sheikh for seven years and received Sufi training from him. Then, with the sign and permission of his sheikh, he returned to Anatolia and carried out guidance activities first in Niksar and then in Çorum. In Çorum, where he came in the 1870s, he built a lodge, trained dozens of khalifas and sent these students to various parts of Anatolia on a mission of guidance. Sultan II. Abdulhamit wanted to give him a gift, but since he did not accept this offer, he was exiled from Çorum to Afyon. Haji Mustafa Efendi from Şiran, who died in Medina in 1317/1899 as a result of his sixth pilgrimage, was buried in the Cennetü’l-Baki cemetery. In addition to his qualities as a scholar, murshid and guardian, Haji Mustafa Efendi was also interested in literature. There are ghazals, rubai and some couplets attributed to him. However, there is a lineage belonging to the Naqshbandi sect. Silsile, whose dictionary meaning is "succession, continuation of each other, genealogy", is a concept in Sufism that refers to the list of sheikhs of an order who continue by taking the icazet from each other. The document in which the nâmes that make up the lineage are recorded is called silsile-nâme. The tradition of writing silsile-nâme first appeared in Arab culture, and then passed on to Turkish culture. The first known example of this type in the history of Sufism is the silsila linking Ja'far al-Huldī (d. 348/959) to the Prophet (pbuh). In our culture, verse and prose series of orders belonging to various sects have been written. One of these is the verse series listing the genealogy of the Nakşibendî sect belonging to Haji Mustafa Efendi from Şiran. In the paper, after giving information about the life of Haji Mustafa Efendi from Şiran and his spiritual activities in Çorum, his lineage will be examined in terms of form and content.