- Giritli Sırrı Pasha
Giritli Sırrı Pasha (Sırrı Pasha the Cretan) was a 19th century Ottoman administrator and man of letters of
Turkish Cretan origin.He was born in 1844 in
Kandiye , as the son of Helvacızade Salih Tosun Efendi. He started out as a clerk in the local Ottoman bureaucracy inCrete and later came toİstanbul , pursuing an education with a particular religious emphasis. Climbing through the hierarchy, he served as governor ofTrabzon ,Kastamonu ,Ankara ,Sivas andBaghdad , and was noted as a successful administrator.He published his writings of a personal and political nature under the title "Letters of Sırrı Paşa" ("Mektubat-ı Sırrı Paşa"). Yet another collection is his commentaries (
tefsir ) of various verses of theKoran , united under the titles "Sırr-ı Kur'an" (the secret of Koran), "Sırr-ı insan", "Sırr-ı Tenzil", "Sırr-ı Meryem" and "Ahsenü'l-Kasas". The last one in particular, on the theme of the stories of Joseph andJacob , remains a reference inTurkish literature .Sırrı Pasha married the poetess/composer
Leyla Saz , and is the father ofVedat Tek , a groundbreaking figure ofTurkish architecture .He died at a relatively early age in 1895.
Sources
* [http://www.osmanli.org.tr/yazi.php?bolum=4&id=317 Ottoman Researches Foundation] tr
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
