Shaykh Hamdullâh

Shaykh Hamdullâh (Ḥamd Allāh) is considered the founder of the Ottoman school of calligraphy. Although there were Ottoman calligraphers before him, they wrote in the style of Yāqūt al-Musta‘ṣimī (d. 1298). Hamdullâh redefined the shapes and proportions of the letters, and was the Ottoman standard until Hâfız Osman (d. 1698) reworked Hamdullâh's style of calligraphy, much in the same way that Hamdullâh transformed the style of Yāqūt. Hamdullâh was born in 1436 in Amasya, then the training ground for Ottoman crown princes, where the future Sultan Bâyezîd II (r. 1481–1512) entertained a circle of artists and litterateurs of which Hamdullâh became a cherished member. Bâyezîd commissioned a number of manuscripts for the library of his father, Sultan Mehmed II “the Conqueror" (r. 1451–1481), and when he acceeded to the throne, he brought Hamdullâh to Istanbul. According to Ottoman sources, in the 1490s, Bâyezîd showed Hamdullâh a selection of calligraphic works by Yāqūt and encouraged him to design a new and better form of Arabic script. Within one or two generations, nearly all Ottoman calligraphers had adopted this new style. Known simply as “the Shaykh” and sometimes as “the cynosure of scribes” (qibla al-kuttāb), Hamdullâh is considered the originator of Ottoman calligraphy in the Six Scripts (al-aqlām al-sitta), and all artistic genealogies invariably lead back to him. He was also an archer, and although he did belong to a sufi order, the term “shaykh” refers to his being “head of the archers.” He withdrew from public life after Sultan Selim I deposed his father Bâyezîd II in 1512. When Sultan Süleyman I acceeded to the throne in 1520, he greatly honored Hamdullâh, who, however, died shortly thereafter. Although his style has long been considered passé, it is impossible to overstate his importance to the historical development of Ottoman calligraphy.