“May Your Life Reach One Hundred and Twenty Years”: 120 Years as the Maximum Lifespan

Abstract

This article examines the religious, historical, and cultural background of the 120-year lifespan wish expressed in nine ḳaṣīdes composed by Şeyḫu’l-İslām and poet Ḫocazāde Meḥmed Efendi (d. 1615) and presented to Sultan Aḥmed I (r. 1603-1617). While extending wishes for a long life to the sultan was a common convention in Ottoman poetry, Ḫocazāde Meḥmed Efendi’s specific reference to the number 120 was not arbitrary. Rather, it reflects the limit set for human life in Genesis 6:3, which was transmitted into Islamic literature. To demonstrate how the notion of a 120-year lifespan came to be regarded as an ideal in Islamic tradition, the article draws upon a variety of sources from fields such as medicine, astrology, and Sufism. Certain medical and astrological texts identify 120 years as the natural duration of human life, and a special prayer text aimed at reaching this age has been identified. This prayer, seen as the Islamic counterpart to the well-established Jewish and Iranian tradition of wishing someone a 120-year life, was transcribed by renowned Ottoman calligraphers in the art of ḥüsnüḫaṭ, as attested by several extant examples. The article also addresses traditions concerning historical figures such as Aḥmed Yesevī (d. 1166) and Şeyḫ Edebali (d. 1326), who are reputed to have lived 120 years, noting that those believed to have reached this age were often regarded as spiritual and intellectual leaders. Within this broader framework, the study argues that the 120-year lifespan was understood not merely as a biological limit but as a divine favor and an ideal human age. In the final section, the article investigates how this symbolic age and the wish to attain it are reflected in Ḫocazāde Meḥmed Efendi’s odes to Sultan Aḥmed I, and identifies the particular contexts in which this prayer is poetically articulated.