Edip Ahmet Yükneki was a poet who lived in the 12th century.
His work titled Atabetü'l Hakayık (The Threshold of Truths), which has the character of a book of counsel (nasihatname) or a mirror for princes (siyasetname) and is one of the important works of Karakhanid Turkish, has survived to the present day.
There is no definite, document-based information about his birthplace or his dates of birth and death. There is no consensus among researchers as to in which of the villages bearing the same name—in Samarkand, Fergana, and Otrar, three different regions of Central Asia in the Middle Ages—he was born.
Ahmet Yükneki presented his work to Muhammed Dad Sipehsalar Bek, who is thought to have been an administrator belonging to the Karakhanid dynasty. The oldest surviving copy of the work is the Samarkand copy dating from the early 15th century. In the appendix that Arslan Hoca Tarhan wrote at the end of this copy—which was arranged by Emir Arslan Hoca Tarhan, one of the important statesmen who took an interest in literary activities in the Timurid period—it is stated that Edip Ahmet was blind from birth and that his father's name was Mahmud.
His frequent reference to hadiths and verses in his works, his explanation of them, and his giving of counsel show that Edip Ahmet Yükneki was a person who knew Arabic and had studied the Islamic sciences such as tafsir and hadith. The work speaks of the virtues of piety, of knowledge being the road that leads to happiness, of generosity being a nature that washes away all faults and impurities and even increases honor, fame, and beauty, of the goodness of humility, and of the evil of arrogance and ambition. It is thought that he wrote his work under the influence of the Kutadgu Bilig.
In Ali Şir Nevai's (Ali-Shir Nava'i's) work titled Nesayimü'l Mahabbe, it is mentioned that Edib Ahmet was a student of Imam-ı Azam (Abu Hanifa); this account, which has no basis in fact, may be related to the fact that Edip Ahmet's religious identity and knowledge were regarded among the people as high enough for him to be a student of Abu Hanifa.
Nor is there any information about the poet's death.
Sources
- Turkish Wikipedia: tr.wikipedia.org