Taşlıcalı Yahya’nın Yûsuf ve Zelîhâ Adlı Mesnevisinin British Museum Nüshası Üzerine

The story of Prophet Joseph (Hz. Yusuf), described in Surah Yusuf as “the most beautiful of stories,” has served as inspiration for many Muslim and non-Muslim poets and authors, who have written numerous poetic and prose works about this narrative across various regions. This story was also elaborated upon by Dukaginzade Taşlıcalı Yahya Bey, one of the significant poets of 16th-century classical Turkish literature. Taşlıcalı Yahya poetically recounted this tale in his masnavi titled Yusuf and Zuleikha, which is part of his hamse (set of five poems), using a relatively plain language and fluent style suitable for his period. Many studies have been conducted on this masnavi, which exists in dozens of manuscript and printed copies found in both local and international libraries. One of these studies is an unpublished doctoral thesis conducted by us. This article focuses on the introduction and analysis of the British Museum manuscript of Yusuf and Zulaikha by Taşlıcalı Yahya Bey, which served as the primary source for this doctoral thesis Although this masnavi was produced during the Ottoman Turkish period, it is noteworthy that it also contains orthographic features characteristic of Old Anatolian Turkish. Keywords: Taşlıcalı Yahya Bey, Yusuf and Zuleikha, British Museum manuscript.