Şükûfe-nâme

Ali Çelebi of Üsküdar’s Şükûfe-nâme is the oldest known dated and illustrated şükûfe-nâme. Şükûfe-nâme, written in 1667/8, is the only work by Çelebi (who passed away in 1679) that has survived to the present day. Eight copies of the work have been identified, and it consists of two main sections: In the first section, Çelebi explains the importance of flowers; he notes that although gardeners in his time had a tradition of naming the flowers they cultivated and recording them in their ledgers, they did not write descriptions of them, and he explains that his reason for writing the work was to save the flowers and their cultivators from being forgotten. In this section, the author of Şükûfe-nâme also draws attention to the mystical dimension of flowers through the narratives he shares about Necmeddin Hasan Efendi and Aziz Mahmud Hüdayî. The second main section, which contains descriptions of flowers, is organized by Ali Çelebi into four sections titled “articles.” In the first “article,” the author provides information on cup-shaped flowers; in the second, on tulips; in the third, on hyacinths; and in the fourth, on varieties of roses. In this section, the characteristics of 29 flowers—primarily zerrîn-kadeh varieties, as well as tulips, hyacinths, and roses—are described using various horticultural terms, and poetic passages about the flowers are also included. The work appears to place greater emphasis on the cultivation of zerrîn-kadeh than on that of tulips.