What is known about the life of Bağdatlı Es’ad, one of the poets of the 18th century classical Turkish literature who is said to have written poems in the vein of Nedim, is based primarily on the rather limited information in the collections of biographies and biography books called Silâhdâr-zâde Tezkiresi, Şefkat Tezkiresi, Tezkire-i Şu’arâ-yı Bağdad, Sicill-i Osmânî and Tuhfe-i Nâ’ilî, which generally repeat each other, and on inferences reached from the expressions in some verses in the poet’s Divan. In this article, Arabic sources providing information on the life of Baghdadli Es’ad have been examined, and information that we believe will provide new contributions to the poet’s biography has been discussed. This information, which fills some gaps in the biographies of Es’ad in existing Turkish sources, confirms some information, and corrects some errors, will enrich the poet’s biography. In addition, this study has an indirect purpose of indicating that while trying to reach data on the life of a poet like Baghdadli Es’ad who lived in a distant geography, examining sources in different languages written in the region where the poet lived, as well as basic Turkish sources, can yield important results.
As’ad of Baghdad, history of old Turkish literatüre, biography, 18th century, Baghdad.