"Fâzıl, şâir, edîb, kerîm idi": he was virtuous, a poet, a man of letters and generous. This sentence, which closes the entry on Abdülkâdir Şeyhî Efendi in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi, is the only reason the şeyhülislam's name appears among the literature pages. Raised in the Müeyyedzâde family of Amasya, Şeyhî served as şeyhülislam (chief jurist of the empire) between 995 and 997 (1587-1589) and died in 1002 (1594). This sentence comes immediately after the one reporting the death of his son Abdürrahîm Niyâzî Efendi, and grammatically it can be attached either to the son or to the father. No other source was found saying that Şeyhî wrote poetry, and no couplet of his is in hand. Beyânî's biographical anthology of poets (tezkire), on the other hand, separately documents that his son was a poet. The whole entry is on the page Abdülkâdir Şeyhî Efendi-Müeyyedzâde; the family as a whole is gathered in The Müeyyedzâdes.

Hüsameddin's Record

In the eleventh volume the son's entry follows that of his father, Sheikh Abdürrahîm Efendi. Hüsameddin first lists his posts one by one, then quotes Nev'îzâde Atâyî's praise from the Zeyl-i Şakâyık:

Abdülkâdir Şeyhî Efendi-Müeyyedzâde Amasyalıdır. Meşâyih-i kirâmın fuzalâsından tercemesi yukarıda yazılan Hacı Abdürrahîm Efendi'nin sulb-i kerîminden 920 senesi evâilinde Amasya'da doğdu. 921 senesi recebinde pederiyle beraber İstanbul'a getirildi. Mukaddimât-ı ulûmu gördükden sonra dayısı Şeyhülislâm Ebüssuûd Efendi'nin halka-i tedrîsinde ikmâl-i tahsîl ederek ondan mülâzım oldu. İbtidâ otuz akça ile Gelibolu'da Sarıca Paşa Medresesi müderrisi olduğu esnâda üstâdına dâmâd olup sonra Bursa'da Yıldırım Bâyezîd Hân, 958 şevvâlinde Çorlu'da Ahmed Paşa, 962 saferinde Haseki Hürrem Sultân medreselerine müderris olarak 964 şevvâlinde Fatih Sultân'ın sekiz medreselerinden biri (Sahn) müderrisi oldu. [...] 995 senesi cumâdelûlâsında Çivizâde Mehmed Efendi'nin irtihâline binâen Şeyhülislâm ve müftî'l-enâm oldu. Tam iki yıl makam-ı fetvâda ibrâz-ı mekânet etdiği halde 997 senesi cumâdelûlâsında Seke ve Beylerbeyi Mehmed Paşa vak'asında istifa ederek iki yüz elli akçe tekâüd vazîfesiyle kûşe-güzîn-i inzivâ olup beş yıl münzevîyâne yaşadı. 1002 senesi şevvâlinin evâhirinde dâr-ı naîme irtihâl edib Hazret-i Ebû Eyyüb-i Ensârî türbesi civârında peder ve amcaları yanında defnedildi. [...] Eyüp'de bir mescid-i şerîf yaptırıp emlâkını buraya vakfederek tevliyetini Eyüp kadılarına şart eyledi. Mahdûmu Abdürrahîm Niyazî Efendi Süleymaniye müderrisi iken 1002 ramazanında otuz iki yaşında vefât etdi. Fâzıl, şâir, edîb, kerîm idi.

In English: He was born in Amasya at the beginning of the year 920 (1514), the son of Hacı Abdürrahîm Efendi, one of the learned sheikhs, whose life is written above. In Receb 921 (August 1515) he was brought to İstanbul with his father. After acquiring the elements of learning he completed his studies in the lessons of his maternal uncle, Şeyhülislam Ebüssuûd Efendi, and became his candidate for office (mülâzım). While he was first professor at the Sarıca Paşa Madrasa in Gelibolu with thirty akçe, he became his teacher's son-in-law; then he taught at the madrasas of Yıldırım Bayezid in Bursa, of Ahmed Paşa in Çorlu in Şevval 958, and of Haseki Hürrem Sultan in Safer 962, and in Şevval 964 moved to one of the Sahn madrasas of Mehmed the Conqueror. [...] In Cemâziyelevvel 995, on the death of Çivizâde Mehmed Efendi, he became şeyhülislam. After holding the office of fetva for two full years, he resigned in Cemâziyelevvel 997 because of the affair of Beylerbeyi Mehmed Paşa; he retired to his corner with a pension of two hundred and fifty akçe and lived five years in seclusion. He died at the end of Şevval 1002 (July 1594) and was buried at Eyüp near the tomb of Abû Ayyûb al-Ansârî, beside his father and uncles. [...] He built a mosque at Eyüp, endowed his properties to it and left its trusteeship to the kadıs of Eyüp. His son Abdürrahîm Niyâzî Efendi died in Ramazan 1002, aged thirty-two, while professor at the Süleymaniye. He was virtuous, a poet, a man of letters and generous.

The passages omitted in square brackets contain his professorships at the Ayasofya and Süleymaniye, his judgeships in Damascus, Cairo, Bursa and İstanbul, his posts as kazasker of Anatolia in 978 and of Rumeli in 979, his retirement in 981, his appointment to the Süleymaniye Dârülhadis in 991, and Atâyî's long rhymed-prose praise. Atâyî calls him "dûdmân-ı bülend-i eyvân-ı Müeyyediyye'nin imâdı", the pillar of the Müeyyedzâde house; he speaks of his learning, his piety and his lineage, but not of his poetry.

Life

Mehmet İpşirli, author of his article in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, gives the main outline of his life in the same way as Hüsameddin, but differs on three points. In İpşirli his birthplace is İstanbul; Hüsameddin, by contrast, writes that he was born in Amasya and brought to İstanbul with his father a year later. His father had been dispatched to Amasya in 918 (1512) and returned to İstanbul in 921; Hüsameddin's dates fit these years of exile. His date of death is 27 Receb 1002 (18 April 1594) in İpşirli, the end of Şevval 1002 in Hüsameddin. According to İpşirli his grave is at Eyüp, in the burial ground of the mosque he himself had built. İpşirli states that the name "Şeyhî" came from his father Abdürrahîm Efendi, known as Şeyh Hacı Efendi; by this explanation the name is not a pen name (mahlas) but a reference to his father.

The end of his tenure as şeyhülislam is tied to the event known in Ottoman history as the Beylerbeyi Affair. As İpşirli tells it, when debased coin was to be distributed to the soldiers as pay, a group of sipahis asked whether goods and food taken by force from the craftsmen with this coin were lawful, and Abdülkâdir Efendi gave the fetva "it is forbidden". In the bloody events that followed, Mehmed Paşa, governor-general of Rumeli, and the chief treasurer Mahmud Efendi were executed, and on 2 April 1589 the şeyhülislam was dismissed together with the grand vizier Kanijeli Siyavuş Paşa and other statesmen. Hüsameddin describes the same event as a "resignation". The TDV's list of related articles names the tezkire author Riyâzî as his student.

His Connection with Amasya

Abdülkâdir Efendi spent his life in İstanbul and at his posts, yet his link with Amasya was not limited to his birthplace. In Amasya Tarihi the paths of many scholars of Amasya pass through him. Karakadızâde İbrâhim Efendi and Bayramzâde Ramazân Efendi became his mülâzıms and then professors and kadıs; Ramazân Efendi went to Kefe in 993 as its mufti and molla and stayed there fifteen years. Şâmluzâde Tâceddîn İbrâhim Efendi first became his mülâzım, and in Muharrem 996, with the şeyhülislam's support, became mufti of Amasya and professor at the Sultan Bayezid madrasa. Müeyyedzâde Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi's move from the Hüseyin Ağa professorship to the judgeship of Trabzon was also owed to his "patronage". The Gülşenî sheikh Hasan Efendi and Gümüşlüzâde Şemseddîn Ahmed Paşa, who rose from court clerk to kadı, are also among those who went from Amasya to İstanbul and attached themselves to him. Hüsameddin also records his appointment as şeyhülislam among the events of Amasya, and in the introduction to the book counts him among the great scholars Amasya produced.

State of the Sources

The only basis for counting Şeyhî a poet is the last sentence of the entry. Hüsameddin writes it immediately after reporting the death of his son Abdürrahîm Niyâzî; judging by the word order, the subject of the sentence is the person last mentioned, that is, the son. Beyânî's tezkire supports this reading. In his work, completed in 1597-98, Beyânî introduces under the heading "Niyâzî-i diğer" (the other Niyâzî) a young poet who was "the beloved son of Şeyhî Efendi, kazasker of Rumeli and later mufti", praises him as a youth of good character and spiritual understanding, and quotes an opening couplet (matla) and two couplets of his poetry. The son's poetry is thus documented by another source. As for the father, neither that tezkire nor Kınalızâde's has an entry for Abdülkâdir Şeyhî; the Şeyhî entries in the two works belong to Şeyhî of Germiyan, to Hüseyin son of Sinan Efendi, and to Tayyibzâde Mehmed. The TDV article does not mention any poetry either, and the praise Hüsameddin quotes from Atâyî contains no word about verse. It therefore cannot be shown that Abdülkâdir Şeyhî was a poet; it is far more likely that the description "virtuous, a poet, a man of letters and generous" belongs to his son.

There is one more source of confusion. In the entries of many people of Amasya who died in the eleventh and twelfth Hijri centuries, Hüsameddin quotes "Şeyhî Efendi says in the Zeyl-i Zeyl-i Şakâyık". The author of these quotations is a writer of a later period, named explicitly in some places as "Mehmed Şeyhî Efendi", who also describes people who died in 1103 and 1112; he has nothing to do with the şeyhülislam who died in 1002.

His Poetry

Not a single line by Abdülkâdir Şeyhî has been found. The entry contains neither a couplet nor the name of a divan, and the tezkires consulted quote no verse of his. The opening couplet and couplets given by Beyânî belong to his son Niyâzî, who should be given a page of his own.

Family

His father, Sheikh Abdürrahîm Efendi, was a sheikh who guided disciples in the Halveti and Bayrami manner; his uncle, Kazasker Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi, was a well-known scholar of the reign of Bayezid II. Since his mother was Ebüssuûd Efendi's sister, Ebüssuûd was both his maternal uncle and his teacher, and, as he married Ebüssuûd's daughter, also his father-in-law. His son Abdürrahîm Niyâzî Efendi died in the same year as his father, in Ramazan 1002, aged thirty-two, while professor at the Süleymaniye; he is the poet Beyânî calls "the other Niyâzî". The life of his uncle Abdülkerîm Efendi is told on the page Abdülkerîm Efendi.

Chronology

Beginning of 920 (1514): According to Hüsameddin, he is born in Amasya.

Receb 921 (August 1515): He is brought to İstanbul with his father.

978-979 (1570-1572): He becomes kazasker of Anatolia, then of Rumeli.

Cemâziyelevvel 995 (April 1587): He succeeds Çivizâde Mehmed Efendi as şeyhülislam.

997 (1589): He leaves office after the Beylerbeyi Affair.

1002 (1594): He dies and is buried at Eyüp.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources