From the period of the Anatolian Seljuks onward, Iranian culture and civilization exerted a strong influence over Anatolia. As a result of this interaction, Persian gradually became the region’s administrative and literary language; it was spoken in major cities, taught as a subject in madrasahs, preferred in official correspondence, and played a central role in the production of literary works. The Anatolian Seljuk sultans and amirs of Anatolia, who possessed a profound mastery of Persian, supported this cultural exchange by patronizing Iranian poets, scholars, and intellectuals. The effort to preserve and promote Iranian culture, the Persian language, and its poetic tradition continued under the Ottomans as well. During this era, numerous poets and writers from Iran came to Istanbul, and the imperial courts became literary centers where Iranian artists gathered. In fact, those who arrived from Iran were often expected to possess poetic talent. Among the Ottoman rulers who encouraged Persian poetry were Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, Sultan Selim I, and Sultan Murad III—each of whom composed Persian divans (collected poems). Poets who flourished during both the Anatolian Seljuk and Ottoman periods composed Persian poetry to demonstrate their literary mastery and to prove that they knew Persian as proficiently as Iranian poets. Those with only a few Persian poems interspersed them within their Turkish divans, whereas those who produced many compiled them into independent divans. This study aims to identify the Persian divans written in Anatolia during the Anatolian Seljuk and Ottoman periods and to present detailed information about these works. By systematically classifying the Persian divans of these eras, this study serves as a fundamental bibliographic reference for researchers.
Çetin Kaska (Thu,) studied this question.