Jelāl now took as his assistant his own favourite pupil, Hasan
Husāmu-’d-Dīn, surnamed the son of Akhī-Turk, through his being
descended from some man of celebrity of the name or designation
of Akhī-Turk. There appears to have been a large family of very
influential men residing at Qonya and other towns of Asia Minor, all
calling themselves Akhī, and distinguished as Akhī Ahmed, Akhī Eshref,
&c. The word “Akhī” is Arabic, and signifies “my brother.” It may also
mean “one related to a brother,” as a servant, slave, client, &c., of
some prince, &c.; or of some dervish “brother” of some religious order.
Indeed, these very numerous individuals named Akhī, may have been each
a “brother” of such a fraternity or fraternities, or even of some
industrial guild.
Ten years after Husām was taken as his assistant by Jelāl, this latter
was called to his rest in December A.D. 1273; and was buried in his
father’s mausoleum, leaving Husām as his successor. But meanwhile, at
Husām’s suggestion, and with himself as the first amanuensis thereof,
the Mesnevī had been composed, in six volumes, books, or parts, by
Jelāl. The second volume was commenced in A.D. 1263. There had been an
interval of two years between the completion of the first and this,
caused by Husām’s grief at the death of his wife. The whole work is
stated to contain twenty-six thousand six hundred and sixty couplets. A
seventh volume or book has been also attributed to the Mesnevī, to make
up the number to that of the “seven planets;” some say it was composed
or collected by Sultān Veled. The anecdotes of Eflākī make mention of
many hundreds of odes composed also by Jelāl.
He is said to have instituted his peculiar order of dervishes, with
their special dress, the Indian garb of mourning, in memory of his
murdered friend, Shemsu-’d-Dīn of Tebrīz; and to have adopted the
use of instrumental music, the flute, the rebeck, the drum, and the
tambourine, with singing or chanting, as an accompaniment to the holy
dance, on account of the lethargic nature of the “Romans.” As a child
is tempted to take a salutary medicine by the exhibition of a little
jam or honey, so Jelāl judged that the “Romans” might be tempted to
a devotional love for God through the bait of sweet sounds addressed
to their outward senses. Dancing or twirling by dervishes was of much
older date, as will be recollected in one of the tales of the Arabian
Nights.
Husām died in A.D. 1284, just ten years after his teacher Jelāl; whose
son, Bahā’u-’d-Dīn, Sultān Veled, succeeded Husām as chief of the
order, and died in A.D. 1312. His son, Chelebī Emīr ‘Ārif, succeeded
him, and passed away in A.D. 1320; two of his half-brothers becoming
chiefs of the order after him in succession.