The 18th century was a period, when the Ottoman Empire beganto lose power and many social and cultural changes took place. Wewitness some differences and innovations in the art and literature of thisperiod, though not on a scale to change the trends in the previouscentury. In the 18th century, during which a higher number of poetscame to the fore and so the century is named as the “age of poets andpoetry”, a high number of the poets were seen to prefer walking in thevalley of miracles due to the problems in the social structure. In thisperiod, when more than a thousand poets’ names are mentioned inmemoirs, one of the poets struggling to exist in the literary and poeticworld was Safi. As his name is not mentioned in the memoirs, Safi hasremained obscure up to the present. Therefore, the secret curtain shedover Safi, deserving to be regarded as one of the important obscurevalues among those having remained unknown in our literary history,will partly be illuminated when his poetry collection titled “Eş’ar” (Poems),to be found in the National Library, is examined.In the above mentioned poetry collection, he can be calculated tohave lived between the last quarter of the 17th century and the first halfof the 18th century due to the fact that his probable close friend Hüseyinand his son Hasan are mentioned in the collection to have been killed in1711/1712 and that a special emphasis is made upon the year 1715,which marks the Martyr Ali Pasha’s (death: 1716) re-conquest of Mora.These findings serve only to consolidate the documentations in thelibrary and no further knowledge has been found regarding Safi’s life.However, as a result of our reasearch in the light of these findings, wehave concluded that Safi mihgt have been the writer of “Gülşen-i Pend”, awork on morality.In the copy of the collection found in the library, none of whichcould be found anywhere else, the poems are categorized as follows asregards their poetic structure; 7 kasides, one terci’ bend, 2 muhammes,one kıt’a (historic), 2 mesnevis, 243 gazelles, 287 rubais, 46 müsteazatrubais, 129 kıt’as and 330 müfreds. In his religious-transcendentalpoems composed in the valley of miracles, Safi focuses on concepts suchas not to be much expectant from the World, keeping away from passionand greed, staying away from avarice, cleansing of the heart from evilsand attaining true divine love by transcending humanly love; therefore,he can be regarded to have a wise personality. In his poems, where hisphilosophical ideas are conveyed, Sufi points out to the religious, moral,scientific and social degeneration witnessed in his age, and some tracesof local and classical styles can be found. In the same way, the innovativestyle Nedim created in the classical poetry can also be felt in the poemscomposed in minstrel/heroic air by Safi. He also sometimes prefers a waycomposition akin to that found in ordinary speech, enriched withproverbs, sayings, idioms and phrases with a philosophical andlocal/folkloric style.It is almost impossible to find original dreams/imagination or apowerful voice in Safi’s poetry, and there can be found some technical XVIII. Yüzyıl Şairlerinden Safî Mustafa ve Rubaileri 445Turkish StudiesInternational Periodical For the Languages, Literature and History of Turkish or TurkicVolume 10/4 Winter 2015faults. Those faults, which he himself mentions in his collection, arecompensated with the usage of letters without points/signs. In thecollection, 4 gazels, 5 kıt’as and 89 müfreds are composed with letterswitout any signs, and five of the müfreds are presented in uncombinedletters. The rubais and müstezads, which have a high proportion in Safi’spoetry in terms of numbers, have no high literary value, and so they canbe categorized in the same way.The 287 rubais in Safi’s collection, are the secong most frequenttype of structures after the müfreds. His over-emphasis on the rubais,which “are based on thought and ideas, where artistic considerationscannot precede meaning”, shows that he had a private interest inphilosophy and miracles. In his rubais, the “philosophical depth expectedin poetry” cannot be found. His rubais, therefore, are both lacking interms of literary value and technically at fault. However, despite hisqualitative shortcomings as a poet, the high number of rubais andmüstezats producad in the form of rubais makes him an importantfigure. Regarding the 46 müstezat he composed, he is the most prolificpoet to have produced this poetic form in the Divan literature. Thesemüstezats produced in the form of rubais are also remarkable in thatthey outnumber all the others in the same literary genre. In addition,although he composed rubais technically defected, he is also the fifthprolific poet in Divan literature.Upon the examination of the poetry collection, Safi can beregarded a powerful, significant poet among his contemporaries due tohis talent of composing rhymed and rythmical poetry with philosophicaland moral depth. His poems are based on giving advise in content, andthey are mostly defected technically, but his main attraction is the highnumber of poems he composed. In terms of literary evaluation, his highproductivity should be taken into account instead of his qualitativeaspect. In this regard, it is possible to say that Safi is an importantenough literary figure to be mentioned in the history of Turkishliterature.The 18th century was a period, when the Ottoman Empire beganto lose power and many social and cultural changes took place. Wewitness some differences and innovations in the art and literature of thisperiod, though not on a scale to change the trends in the previouscentury. In the 18th century, during which a higher number of poetscame to the fore and so the century is named as the “age of poets andpoetry”, a high number of the poets wer