Amasya Tarihi ile ilgili merakı tahsil hayatında başlayan müellif, Vâzıh Efendi’nin “Amasya Tarihi” adlı eserinde geçen bilgileri yeterli görmemiş fakat Amasyalıların ahlak ve tabîatına, Amasya’nın fütûhâtına dair malumatından etkilenmiştir. Özellikle Amasya fütûhâtını araştırmak ve var olan bilgileri daha da genişletmek için H. 1307 (1889-1890)’de İstanbul’a gidip Kalenderhâne Medresesi’nde kalıp Tokâdîzâde el-Hâc Ahmed Nûreddîn Efendi’nin dersine devam etmiş ve tatil günlerinde de Sultân Fâtih, Sultân Bâyezîd, Sultân Süleymân, Şehzâde, Ayasofya, Köprülü, Râgıb Paşa, Nûr-ı Osmâniye, Molla Murâd, Âşir Efendi, Hamîdiye, Es'ad Efendi kütüphânelerinde mevcûd olan tarih kitaplarını ve mecmua ve risaleleri okuyup 1312’de Girit ve 1313’de Sûriye vilâyetlerine gittiğinde Hanya’da Kâdiriyye ve Şâm-ı Şerîf’de Zâhiriyye kütüphanelerinde araştırmaya devam etmiştir. Daha sonra Hicâz’ı dolaşıp İstanbul’a ve müteâkiben Amasya’ya döndüğünde, pek çok kişiye mürâcaat ederek evlerindeki eski kitâpları, defterleri, berâtları, vakfiye sûretlerini, icâzetnâmeleri, evrâk ve risaleleri incelemiştir. Aynı zamanda bu dönemde gördüğü bir rüya onu fazlasıyla etkilemiştir. Bu rüyayı şu şekilde anlatmaktadır:
“Kuş Köprü başında Dersi Tamâm Efendi ile Burma Minâre karşısındaki mezârlık içinde ağacın dibinde medfûn olan zâtın mezâr taşları olduğu hâlde kitâbeleri bulunmadığından isimleri ne olduğu anlaşılamamış idi. Bunların kim olduklarını taharrî ve istiknâh ve ihtiyârlardan istifsâr etdiğim esnâda ibtidâ Dersi Tamâm Efendi’yi, ba'dehû Hıfzîzâde Osmân Fâ'ik Efendi olduğunu ve ağacın dibinde medfûn bulunduğunu anladığım zâtı rü'yâda görüp kendilerini bana ta'rîf ve şöhret ve ensâblarını i'lâm ve tahkîk için Amasya mahkemesi sicillâtını taharrî ve Osmân Fâ'ik Efendi de kendisinin kütüphânesinde bir eseri olduğunu ve bulup mütâla'a etmekliğimi ihtâr etmeleri üzerine her ikisini de mütâla'a ederek söylediklerini ayniyle buldum.”
Müellif daha sonra Amasya mahkemesi sicillerini iki defa el kadar kağıtlara kadar tedkîk etmiş ve farklı yıllarda Köprü, Lâdik, Mecidözü, Çorum, Merzifon, Hacıköyü, Bursa, Selânik şehirlerini ziyâret ederek bu yerlerden pek çok kaynak toplayarak eserini yazmaya başlamıştır.⁶⁵Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsameddîn Nîksâr’da görev süresinin bitiminde mukaddime ve birinci bölümü tamamlamıştır. İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi Atatürk Kitaplığı’nda Amasya Tarihi’nin müellif tarafından yazılmış bir nüshası bulunmaktadır. Bu nüshada eserin ismi “es-Sefînetü’r Râsiye fî Târih-i Amasya” şeklinde yazılmıştır. Bir müsvedde nüsha olduğu anlaşılan bu yazmada “Amasyalı Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsameddîn Efendi’nin eseridir” notu düşülmüştür. Toplam 428 sayfadan sonra bir de fihrist bölümü eklenmiş olup fihrist bölümünün başında “es-Sefînetü’r Râsiye fî Târih-i Amasya cüz-i evvelin defter fihristidir” yazılmış olduğu görülmektedir. Bu nüshada sayfa kenarlarında ve kapakta pek çok not, soy ağacı çizildiği görülmekte olup elimizdeki nüsha ile karşılaştırınca müellifin eserine pek çok bilgi ekleyip daha sonra son şeklini verdiği düşünülmektedir.⁶⁶
In Modern English
The author, whose curiosity about Amasya Tarihi began during his student years, did not find the information in Vâzıh Efendi's work called "Amasya Tarihi" sufficient, but was impressed by the information it gave on the morals and nature of the people of Amasya and on the conquests of Amasya. In particular, in order to research the conquests of Amasya and to widen the existing information still further, he went to Istanbul in 1307 Hijri (1889-1890), stayed at the Kalenderhâne Madrasa and continued the lessons of Tokadîzâde el-Hâc Ahmed Nûreddin Efendi. On holidays he read the history books, journals and treatises found in the libraries of Sultan Fatih, Sultan Bayezid, Sultan Süleyman, Şehzade, Hagia Sophia, Köprülü, Râgıb Pasha, Nûr-ı Osmâniye, Molla Murâd, Âşir Efendi, Hamîdiye and Es'ad Efendi. When he went to Crete in 1312 and to the provinces of Syria in 1313, he continued his research in the Kâdiriyye Library in Chania and the Zâhiriyye Library in Damascus. Later, when he toured the Hejaz and returned to Istanbul and then to Amasya, he applied to many people and examined the old books, notebooks, berats, copies of waqf deeds, icazetnames, papers and treatises in their homes. A dream that he had in the same period also affected him greatly. He tells this dream as follows:
"At the head of the Kuş Köprüsü there were the gravestones of Dersi Tamâm Efendi and of the person lying at the foot of the tree in the cemetery opposite the Burmalı Minare; but because they had no inscriptions, it could not be understood what their names were. While I was researching who these were and asking the elders, I learned first of Dersi Tamâm Efendi, and then understood that the person lying at the foot of the tree was Hıfzîzâde Osman Fâik Efendi, and I saw him in a dream. When they introduced themselves to me and told me of their fame and lineage, told me to research the registers of the Amasya court to verify it, and Osman Fâik Efendi reminded me that there was a work in his own library and that I should find and read it, I read both and found what they had said exactly."
The author later examined the registers of the Amasya court twice, down to scraps of paper the size of a hand; in different years he visited the cities of Köprü, Ladik, Mecidözü, Çorum, Merzifon, Hacıköy, Bursa and Salonica, collected many sources from them, and began writing his work. At the end of his term of service in Niksar, Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin completed the preface and the first section. In the Atatürk Library of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality there is a copy of Amasya Tarihi written in the author's own hand. In this copy the name of the work is written as "es-Sefînetü'r-Râsiye fî Târîh-i Amasya." In this manuscript, which is understood to be a draft copy, the note "It is the work of Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Efendi of Amasya" is placed. After a total of 428 pages an index section is also added, and at the head of the index it is written "This is the register index of the first part (cüz) of the es-Sefînetü'r-Râsiye fî Târîh-i Amasya." In this copy many notes are seen in the margins and on the cover, and a family tree is drawn; when compared with the copy we have, it is thought that the author added much information to the work and later gave it its final form.
Notes and Research
Old Words in the Text
- fütûhât: conquests; here, the taking of Amasya by the Turks
- mülâzım: a madrasa student who is trained with a müderris and awaits his icazet
- berat: a document of appointment or privilege issued by the sultan
- vakfiye sûreti: a copy of a waqf deed
- icâzetnâme: a teacher's document granting his student authority to give lessons
- sicil: the register in which the sharia court recorded its decisions and proceedings
- kitâbe: an inscription on a building or a grave
- taharrî, istiknâh, istifsâr: to research, to get to the bottom of, to ask
- ensâb: lineages, genealogical registers
- müsvedde: a draft text that has not been fair-copied
- fihrist: a list of contents, an index
- es-Sefînetü'r-Râsiye: a name meaning "the firm ship that stays in place"; the first name of the work
Hüsâmeddin's Journeys
The journeys listed in the text acquire an order when read together with the author's life story. According to the autobiography he himself gave, he finished the rüşdiye in 1887, went to Istanbul in 1889 and stayed at the Kalenderhâne Madrasa; he received an icazet from his teacher Tokadîzâde Ahmed Nûreddin Efendi in 1899. The journeys to Chania, Damascus and the Hejaz fall in 1894-1895, and after this he continued collecting sources in Amasya, Vezirköprü, Ladik, Çorum, Merzifon, Bursa and Salonica. It is also recorded that he used his clerkship at the Kısmet-i Askeriyye Court, in which he took a post for a time, as an opportunity to examine the sharia registers around Istanbul, and gathered from them information on the notables of Amasya. "Niksar" in the text is one of the places where he served as kadı: he began as nâib of Vezirköprü in 1903, was sent to Osmancık in 1905, then to Niksar, and to Refahiye in 1911.
Vâzıh Efendi's Work
The work that Hüsâmeddin found insufficient is most probably the book called el-Belâbilü'r-Râsiye fî Riyâzi Mesâili'l-Amâsiyye by Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi (1763-1831). Vâzıh is regarded as the pioneer of city historiography in Amasya. He is from the family known as the Kara Müftizâdes; like his father he became mufti of Amasya. The work was published among the Amasya Municipality Cultural Publications under the title Amasya Fetvaları ve İlk Amasya Şehir Tarihi (2011). Vâzıh describes the people of Amasya in his time as a people made up of men of learning, Sufis, hafizes and students who lived and slept in madrasas, who did not know farming or trade and drew their livelihood from state revenues. From the sources read it is not possible to say with certainty whether these are the passages that impressed Hüsâmeddin when he speaks of "morals and nature."
The Manuscript Copy and the Lost Volumes
The 428 pages of the copy in the Atatürk Library of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality are the same as the page count (428) of the printed first volume. In the record on the first page and at the end of the same copy the name of the work appears as "es-Sefînetü'r-Râsiye fî Târîhi Amâsiyye"; the date of copying is 26 Muharrem 1328 (7 February 1910), and the printed first volume was published two years after this, in 1330 Hijri. In the preface the author says that he planned his work as two bâbs, that the first bâb, which takes up five volumes, is history, and the rest biographies.
The published part is only four volumes and the supplement to the fourth volume, about 1800 pages in total. The fifth volume was burned at the printing house when the author delivered it there to be printed. The volumes from six to twelve in the author's hand were bought from the heirs by the Municipality of Amasya. A researcher notes that the work did not leave the author's hand as "twelve volumes," and that the number of volumes we have is twelve: the author says, in a note at the beginning of the 11th volume, that everything after the letter "şın" was entirely burned, and that he could rewrite only one third of the burned part. In this case the biographies remained at the letter "ayn," and the work could not be completed.
The Problem of Not Citing Sources
A frequent criticism of Amasya Tarihi is that the author did not cite most of the sources he consulted. It is also written in the encyclopedia entries that this gave rise to hesitation about its scholarly value. There is also a defence against the same criticism: in some places the author mentions source names collectively; moreover, in the volumes where the biographies are given in alphabetical order he followed the tradition of the old tabakât books, which did not cite sources. Franz Babinger said that on some subjects the work is "a real treasure" and proposed that it be translated, even if in part, into one of the Western languages.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, Introduction, p. 36–38. amasya.bel.tr
- Turgut Akpınar, "Amasya Tarihi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 3, 1991, p. 6-7. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/amasya-tarihi
Academic studies
- Turgut Akpınar, "Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 18, 1998, p. 551-552. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/huseyin-husameddin-yasar
- Mehmet Fatih Köksal, "Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn'in Amasya Tarihi'nin Kayıp Ciltleri", Uluslararası Amasya Âlimleri Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı, II, Amasya, 21-23 April 2017. https://isamveri.org/pdfdrg/G00226/2017/2017_KOKSALF.pdf
- "Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi ve Dîvânçe'si", Kesit Akademi journal. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/kesitakademi/issue/62240/932754
Official sources
Books
- Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin, es-Sefînetü'r-Râsiye fî Târîh-i Amasya, İBB Atatürk Kitaplığı, K.1584 (according to the footnote in the book).