Âşık Çelebi remembers Abdî for his Persian-style manners, his elegant dress and his fine ta'lik script. Known by his own name as Müeyyedzâde Abdullah Efendi, he was a sixteenth-century poet from the Müeyyedzâde family of scholars and judges of Amasya; he became the son-in-law of Grand Vizier Pîrî Mehmed Pasha and died in 961 (1553-54) while serving as judge (kadı) of Sofia. The same biographical anthology of poets (tezkire) also preserves a three-couplet fragment of one of his ghazals. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, for his part, gives him two separate entries in Amasya Tarihi, and in the second he corrects the lineage he gave in the first. Whose son the poet was therefore depends on which source one consults. Both entries have been published separately on this site as Abdullah Efendi-Müeyyedzâde and Abdî Çelebi-Müeyyedzâde; the family at large is the subject of The Müeyyedzâdes.

Hüsameddin's Record

The main entry is in the twelfth volume:

Amasyalıdır. Müeyyed Çelebizâde Alî Çelebi'nin mahdûmu ve Kazasker Abdurrahmân Efendi'nin küçük kardeşi olup müşârun ileyhden tahsîl-i ulûm ederek tedrîse mülâzım ve müderris oldu. Sadr-ı a'zam Amasyalı Pîrî Mehmed Paşa bunun fazl u kemâlini beğenip kendisine dâmâd etdi. Yetiştirmek istedi. Sultân Selîm-i Evvel fazl u kemâlini takdîr ederek kendisine yevmî yüz elli akçelik kazâ verdi. Pîrî Paşa bunu ya nişâncı yahud defterdâr etmek istedi. Hayfâ ki makâmını İbrâhim Paşa'ya terk ve sadâretten istifâ eylediğinden kazâya rızâ verdi. Sofya, Üsküp, Bosna, Siroz vilâyetlerine mükerreren kadı oldu. Sonunda Sofya kadısı olduğu hâlde 961 senesinde dâr-ı bekâya rihlet etdi.

In English: He is from Amasya. He is the son of Ali Çelebi, son of Müeyyed Çelebi, and the younger brother of the military judge (kazasker) Abdurrahman Efendi; he studied under him, became a candidate for teaching posts and then a professor (müderris). The Amasya-born Grand Vizier Pîrî Mehmed Pasha admired his learning and accomplishment, made him his son-in-law and wished to advance him. Sultan Selim I also valued his merit and gave him a judgeship worth one hundred and fifty akçe a day. Pîrî Pasha wanted to make him either chancellor (nişancı) or treasurer (defterdar); unfortunately, when the pasha left his office to İbrahim Pasha and withdrew from the grand vizierate, Abdullah Efendi had to content himself with a judgeship. He served several times as judge in Sofia, Skopje (Üsküp), Bosnia and Serres (Siroz). In the end he died in 961 while judge of Sofia.

At the end of the entry Hüsameddin adds a sentence of praise and a ghazal from Âşık Çelebi, and spells the pen name "Adbî". In Âşık Çelebi's edition the name and pen name are "ʿAbdî"; the form in Hüsameddin must be a printing error.

Life

The event that changed the course of his life was his marriage into the household of Pîrî Mehmed Pasha. When he was born is not recorded; according to Hüsameddin his first teacher was the most famous member of the family, the military judge Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi. Pîrî Pasha was a statesman who began his madrasa education in Amasya, where his father was a sheikh of the Halveti order, and who for a while served as a clerk at the Amasya court; Hüsameddin's calling him "of Amasya" comes from this connection. The pasha's grand vizierate ended on 13 Şaban 929 (27 June 1523), when İbrahim Pasha was appointed in his place. Abdî's hopes of becoming chancellor or treasurer seem to have closed on that date.

Âşık Çelebi tells the same story with somewhat different details. According to him, Selim I (Selim the Grim) saw that the poet was worth training and first granted him a judgeship of fifty akçe; after that he caught the eye of the notables and began to expect high office. When Pîrî Pasha gave him his daughter and took him as son-in-law, he intended to make him either chancellor or treasurer. But "when the times turned", the mirror of fortune of well-born men was, in Âşık Çelebi's words, clouded with the rust of the rule of base men; Abdî, having lost hope of every post, resigned himself to a judgeship. The places the tezkire writer lists are Sofia, Skopje and Serres; Hüsameddin adds Bosnia. The date of death appears in Âşık Çelebi as "sene ihdâ ve sittîn ve tis'amie", that is, 961.

The two accounts also differ on the first rank of his judgeship: Âşık Çelebi says fifty akçe, Hüsameddin one hundred and fifty. It could not be determined why the figure changed, although Hüsameddin's text relies on the tezkire.

Âşık Çelebi's portrait shows Abdî as a man of refinement more than a judge. According to the tezkire he was "Acem-reviş", that is, one who behaved like the Persians, devoted to elegance, a judge of men, full of learning, noble and pure. His manner and style followed the Persian fashion; his dress and belongings were a byword in the provinces. He wrote a fine ta'lik hand; on campaign and at home he was a friend of books and a companion of cultivated men. He had a hand in every art and every branch of knowledge, especially poetry, prose composition and the riddle poem (muamma).

Identity and the State of the Sources

Hüsameddin contradicts himself about Abdî's father. In the main entry he counts him as the son of Ali Çelebi and the younger brother of the military judge Abdurrahman Efendi. Âşık Çelebi also introduces Abdî as "the brother of Abdurrahman Çelebi, who was military judge"; in this respect Hüsameddin's first information agrees with the tezkire. But Hüsameddin adds a footnote to the same entry and sets out his own research in a separate entry titled "Abdî Çelebi-Müeyyedzâde". According to him, the person seen in 898 (1492-93) as judge of Sarajevo with the signature "Abdullah bin Alî el-Müeyyedî" is Abdullah, the elder brother of Abdurrahman Efendi. The poet Abdî, on the other hand, is the son of Abdülkerîm Çelebi bin Ali Çelebi and the brother of Abdülhay Efendi; he is therefore not the brother but the nephew of the military judge Abdurrahman. Hüsameddin also notes that the wording in his main text is the wording of his sources.

This correction fits the chronology better. Abdurrahman Efendi died in 922 (1516); it is not impossible that a brother who died in 961 outlived him by some forty years, but the gap in generations strengthens the case for a nephew. There is no conclusive document; the state of the sources rests between the tezkire's "brother" and the "nephew" Hüsameddin reached later. Âşık Çelebi's edition also shows that some manuscripts give the name and pen name as "ʿUbeydî". The same tezkire contains another Abdî, from Bursa and nicknamed İsli Sırık; the two are different people.

His Connection with Amasya

What links Abdî to Amasya is his family. The Müeyyedzâdes descend from Müeyyed Çelebi, one of the Kâzerûnî sheikhs of Amasya; Hüsameddin plainly counts the poet as a native of Amasya and names his teacher as Abdurrahman Efendi of Amasya. His career as a judge was spent in the Balkans (Rumeli), and he died in Sofia. No record shows how long he lived in Amasya.

His Poetry

He is not known to have left a divan. His only surviving poem is the three-couplet ghazal fragment that Âşık Çelebi gives under the heading "Şi'r-i û" (his poem): it begins with the line "Şerh ider derdin dehân açmış dil-i sad-pârenüñ" and is built on the open-mouthed wound of a heart broken into a hundred pieces, the strength of Ferhad and the beauty spots on the beloved's face. Hüsameddin quotes these three couplets from the tezkire but reads some words differently. The ghazal is given on its own page with its text, translation and variant readings. The couplet containing the pen name is not part of this fragment; the rest of the ghazal is unknown.

Chronology

13 Şaban 929 (27 June 1523): His father-in-law Pîrî Mehmed Pasha is removed from the grand vizierate and replaced by İbrahim Pasha.

961 (1553-54): Abdî dies while judge of Sofia.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources