He is viewed as a person who was moderate in his habits; in his writings, he states that he never indulged in the "calamitous" practice of wine-drinking in the morning.
[2] Keikavus' Qabus-nama, originally written in 1082 and belonging to the mirror for princes genre, held a prominent place in Ottoman akhlakh literature of the 14th and 15th centuries.
During this period, at least five separate prose version translations were produced of the Persian original, of which Mercimek's is the latest and best preserved.
Unlike his predecessors, Mercimek's writings attest to a writer who was neither imitatively literal nor would give in to offhand omission.
Numerous explanatory comments accompany his translation, as he vowed or decided to paraphrase when meticulousness might have concealed his purpose.
Although some writers continued to choose simple Turkish for writing during the following centuries, the bulk of Ottoman literature would become increasingly ornate and Persianised.