Müeyyedzâde Abdülhay Efendi enters the company of Amasya's poets with a single couplet, spoken as he was sent, having incurred the anger of Süleyman the Magnificent, to a post he did not want, the judgeship of Diyarbekir: "Uğradım bir kazâ-yı mübreme âh / Oldu Amid bana belâ-yı siyâh." According to Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi he was born in Amasya, learned calligraphy from the famous calligrapher Şeyh Hamdullah, became one of the first judges of the region after the conquest of Diyarbekir, served as judge in Amasya and died in 950 (1543-44). Hüsameddin does not describe him as a poet; the poetry left from him consists of this couplet alone. The record also appears separately on the site under the title Abdülhay Efendi-Müeyyedzâde.

Hüsameddin's Record

In the eleventh volume there are two entries with the same heading. The second is another Abdülhay, son of Habib Çelebi, who lived in the eleventh century of the Hijra. The first entry, the one concerned here, reads as follows:

Amasyalıdır. Müeyyedzâde Abdülkerîm Efendi bin Ali Çelebi bin Müeyyed Çelebi mahdûmudur. Amasya'da ulemâdan ikmâl-i tahsîl ve Hamdullah Efendi'den hutût-ı mütenevviayı ahz ve temeşşuk etdikden sonra amcası Abdurrahman Efendi'den mülâzım ve müderris oldu. Amasya'da tedrîs-i ulûm etmekde iken 918'de İstanbul'a kaldırılıp Mustafa Paşa medresesi müderrisi oldu. 923'de Diyarbekir'in ve havâlîsinin fethinde Kürdistan Kazaskeri unvânıyla Diyarbekir Kadısı ve o havâlîye sevk edilen ordunun kadısı oldu. 928'de Diyarbekir fâtihi olan Mehmed Paşa'nın vefâtı üzerine istifa edib İstanbul'a avdet etdi. 931'de Amasya kadısı olup 937'de bundan da istifa edib İstanbul'a giderek amcası Şeyh Abdürrahîm Efendi'nin zâviyesinde inzivâ etdi. Kânûnî Sultân Süleyman, bu istifasına hiddet edib 840'da Diyarbekir kadısı nasb ederek i'zâm etdi. [...] diyerek gitdi. İkinci defa gönderdiği ricanâmesi Sultân Süleyman'ı rikkate getirdiğinden 943'de kazâdan afv edilerek Amasya'ya geldi. 950'de vefât etdi. Fâzıl, hattât, sahî, hânedân, târih ve muhâzarâta vâkıf, gâyet nezîh idi. Sultân Süleyman'ın nazar-ı dikkatini celb eder korkusuyla İstanbul'da yaşatmadılar. Mahdûmu Ahmed Efendi'dir.

In plain English: He was from Amasya. He was the son of Müeyyedzâde Abdülkerîm Efendi; Abdülkerîm was the son of Ali Çelebi, and he of Müeyyed Çelebi. He completed his education with the scholars of Amasya, learned and practised the various scripts under Hamdullah Efendi, and then became a candidate (mülâzım) under his uncle Abdurrahman Efendi and a professor. While teaching in Amasya, in 918 (1512) he was taken to Istanbul and became professor at the Mustafa Paşa Madrasa. In 923 (1517), when Diyarbekir and its surroundings were conquered, he became judge of Diyarbekir with the title "kazasker of Kurdistan" and judge of the army sent to that region. In 928 (1522), when Mehmed Pasha, the conqueror of Diyarbekir, died, he resigned and returned to Istanbul. In 931 (1524-25) he became judge of Amasya; in 937 (1530-31) he resigned this post too, went to Istanbul and withdrew into seclusion in the lodge of his uncle Sheikh Abdürrahîm Efendi. Sultan Süleyman, angered at this resignation, appointed him judge of Diyarbekir and sent him off; he left speaking the couplet below. When the second petition he sent moved the sultan to pity, in 943 (1536-37) he was released from the judgeship and came to Amasya. He died in 950. He was a virtuous man, a calligrapher, generous, of an old family, versed in history and the art of conversation, and of great purity. For fear that he would attract the attention of Sultan Süleyman, they did not let him live in Istanbul. His son was Ahmed Efendi.

Life

Abdülhay's life follows his family's comings and goings between Amasya and Istanbul. His father Abdülkerîm Efendi was a scholar and calligrapher who served several times as judge of Amasya and died in that post in 927 (1521); his uncle Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi was a kazasker (chief military judge) of the reign of Bayezid II, and his other uncle Sheikh Abdürrahîm Efendi was a Halveti sheikh with a lodge in Istanbul. Abdülhay's removal to Istanbul in 918 coincides with the year in which Selim I came to the throne and the struggle for the throne with Şehzade Ahmed (Prince Ahmed), governor of Amasya, began. Hüsameddin uses the word "kaldırılıp", taken away; this word suggests that he was moved by a decision. The source does not explain why.

The most notable post of his life was in Diyarbekir. According to Hüsameddin, when Diyarbekir and its surroundings passed under Ottoman rule, Abdülhay was one of the first judges sent to the region. The title "kazasker of Kurdistan" shows that the judicial affairs of a newly conquered country were left to him. On the death in 928 of Mehmed Pasha, whom Hüsameddin calls "the conqueror of Diyarbekir", he left the post and later returned to his home town as judge. His withdrawal into seclusion in his uncle's lodge after his second resignation in 937 speaks of a wish to keep away from worldly affairs. The seclusion did not last; the sultan's anger put him once more on the road to Diyarbekir.

One of the dates in the entry is plainly wrong. The appointment to Diyarbekir by Süleyman is placed in the year "840"; yet Süleyman came to the throne in 926 (1520), and the event must have taken place between 937 and 943. The correct year is most probably 940 (1533-34). A further difficulty comes from the entry on Ümm-i Veledzâde Abdülazîz Efendi in the same volume. There it is written that at the end of 940 the name of the Amasya judge Müeyyedzâde Abdülhay Efendi was mixed up in a great disturbance in Amasya, and that in Rebiülevvel 941 (September-October 1534) he was dismissed together with the mufti Abdülazîz Efendi and sent to Istanbul. Abdülhay's own entry, however, says he resigned the Amasya judgeship in 937. The two records show either that Abdülhay returned to the Amasya judgeship a second time or that Hüsameddin confused two different events. Süleyman's "anger at his resignation" may also be connected with this event of 941; the source does not make this connection, and it remains a possibility.

His Calligraphy

What set Abdülhay apart in the eyes of his contemporaries was his hand. In the entry on his father Abdülkerîm Efendi, Hüsameddin quotes this sentence from Mecdî Mehmed Efendi's translation of the Şakâyık: "Merhûm Abdülkerîm'in dahi oğlu Mevlâna Abdülhay gibi hüsn-i hatta yed-i beyzâsı var idi" (the late Abdülkerîm, like his son Mevlana Abdülhay, had a miraculous hand in fine calligraphy). According to Mecdî the writing of father and son was of such a level that the famous calligraphers of the age, Pâdişâh Ahmed and Şâh Mahmûd, were like pupils beside them. Having learned writing directly from Şeyh Hamdullah places Abdülhay among the direct pupils of this great calligrapher raised in Amasya. No specimen from his hand has turned up so far.

His Poetry

Hüsameddin does not separately say that Abdülhay was a poet; he quotes his only couplet as his answer to the sultan's appointment. The couplet draws its flavour from the word "kazâ", which carries the senses of both fate and judgeship: when Abdülhay says he has met an inescapable fate, he is also saying he has met a judgeship he did not want. "Amid" is the old name of Diyarbekir, and the phrase "belâ-yı siyâh", black calamity, alludes to the city being known as "Kara Amid", Black Amid. The sources mention neither other poems nor a divan; nor is it known whether he used a pen name (mahlas). The original text, translation and commentary of the couplet "Uğradım bir kazâ-yı mübreme âh" are on a page of their own.

Family

Abdülhay's father was the Amasya judge and calligrapher Abdülkerîm Efendi, and his brother the poet Abdî Abdullah Efendi, son-in-law of Grand Vizier Pîrî Mehmed Pasha. His uncles were Kazasker Abdurrahman Efendi and Sheikh Abdürrahîm Efendi; Şeyhülislam Abdülkâdir Şeyhî Efendi was his cousin, the son of his uncle. His son Ahmed Efendi, according to Hüsameddin, learned the ta'lik script from Ebü'l-Fazl Mehmed and served as deputy judge and judge of Amasya. All the branches of the line can be seen together in The Müeyyedzâdes.

Chronology

918 (1512): Taken from Amasya to Istanbul, becomes professor at the Mustafa Paşa Madrasa.

923 (1517): Becomes judge of Diyarbekir with the title "kazasker of Kurdistan".

928 (1522): Resigns on the death of Mehmed Pasha.

931 (1524-25): Becomes judge of Amasya.

937 (1530-31): Resigns and withdraws to his uncle's lodge in Istanbul.

Rebiülevvel 941 (1534): According to the Ümm-i Veledzâde entry, dismissed while judge of Amasya.

943 (1536-37): Released from the Diyarbekir judgeship, returns to Amasya.

950 (1543-44): Dies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources