Âbî Mehmed Çelebi was a secretary and poet who lived in Amasya in the first half of the seventeenth century. His father was a water-channel keeper who looked after the city's water conduits, and for this reason the family was known as "Çekemzâde". What we know of him rests on the short entry in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya) and on a few lines quoted in that entry from the now lost tezkire (biographical anthology of poets) of Abdî Efendi. These lines present Âbî as one of the four poets known in Amasya as "the four elements of letters": Âbî, whose pen name means "of water", together with Âzerî, standing for fire, Türâbî, standing for earth, and Hevâyî, standing for air.

Two poems by Âbî have come down to us. One is a four-line kıt'a (quatrain) surviving from the exchange of verses he made with his friend Âzerî İbrâhim Efendi on the basis of their pen names. The other is a three-couplet fahriye (poem of self-praise) given after the quotation from Abdî Efendi in Hüsameddin's entry. It is very probable that this second poem is Âbî's, but because of the way the text is arranged this is not certain; the point is discussed separately below in the section "The State of the Sources". Both poems are given in this category in separate articles with their original text, an English rendering and a commentary.

Hüsameddin's Entry

The entry appears in the sixth volume of Amasya Tarihi, in the section where persons are arranged in the order of their names, under the heading "Âbî Mehmed Çelebi-Çekemzâde". The original text reads:

Âbî Mehmed Çelebi-Çekemzâde Amasyalıdır. Suyolcululardan Çekem Osmân'ın oğludur. "Çekem", Amasya'da "su yolcu" demektir. Fuzalâ ve üdebâ-yı mevâlîden Mü'eyyedzâde Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi'den ilm, edebiyat, kitâbet tahsîl ederek beytü'l-mâl kâtibi oldu. Uzun müddet bu kitâbetle kana'at edib 1039 senesi hilâlinde vefât etdi. Abdî Efendi Tezkiresinde diyor ki: Bu zamanın üdebâsından Âzerî, Türâbî, Hevâyî ile musâhabât ve mutâyebâtı vardır. Bunlara "anâsır-ı erbaa'-ı edeb" denirdi. Kelâmî Mustafa Efendi bunlarla dem-güzâr olurdu. Kâtip, şâir, edîp, yazısı güzeldi. Şu fahrîyesi şâyân-ı dikkatdir.

In English: Âbî Mehmed Çelebi is from Amasya. He is the son of Çekem Osman, one of the water-channel keepers; in Amasya "çekem" means a keeper of water channels. Having studied learning, letters and the secretarial art under Mü'eyyedzâde Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi, one of the learned and literary men of the scholarly class, he became secretary of the beytülmal (public treasury). He contented himself with this post for a long time and died in the course of the year 1039 (1629-30). Abdî Efendi says in his tezkire: He had conversations and jesting exchanges with Âzerî, Türâbî and Hevâyî, men of letters of this time; they were called "the four elements of letters". Kelâmî Mustafa Efendi used to spend his time with them. He was a secretary, a poet and a man of letters, and his handwriting was beautiful. The following fahriye of his deserves attention.

Life

Âbî's date of birth is unknown. His father Çekem Osman was one of the water-channel keepers who looked after Amasya's water conduits. Hüsameddin's specific explanation that the word "çekem" meant a water-channel keeper in Amasya shows that the family's byname came from this occupation; this meaning of the word could not be confirmed in any other source. The pen name Âbî, meaning "of water", also fits the family name. That the pen name may have been chosen deliberately for this reason is our inference; the source gives no such explanation.

His teacher Mü'eyyedzâde Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi belonged to one of Amasya's well-known scholarly families. According to Hüsameddin's entry in the seventh volume, he taught in Amasya for many years, became administrator of the Pervâne Bey endowment, served as judge in Trabzon, in various sanjaks and in Erzurum, retired in 1014 with the Mehmed Paşa madrasa and died in Ramadan 1017 (December 1608-January 1609). Hüsameddin presents him as a scholar who was a man of letters, a poet, a calligrapher and a secretary. That Âbî learned the secretarial art from him alongside learning and letters explains why he is remembered for his fine handwriting. The same entry records that Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi endowed his books to the library of Sultan Bayezid.

Âbî became secretary of the beytülmal and contented himself with this post for a long time. The beytülmal was the treasury office that kept the records of heirless estates and of property falling to the public purse; its secretary wrote these records and kept their accounts. Hüsameddin's phrase "kana'at edib" (contenting himself) implies that he did not seek a higher post. Âbî died in the course of the year 1039, that is, between the summer of 1629 and the summer of 1630. Nothing is known of the place of his death or of his grave.

His Connection with Amasya and His Literary Circle

Âbî was from Amasya, and according to the records his whole life was spent in this city. His literary circle, too, was the circle of Amasya. Abdî Efendi, who introduces this circle to us, wrote a tezkire collecting the poets of Amasya and their poems, and died in 1087 (1677). Hüsameddin writes that he had obtained a copy of the tezkire but that this copy was burned. Today only the passages that Hüsameddin incorporated into his own entries are known; these passages are brought together on the site in the article on Abdî Efendi's tezkire.

The phrase "anâsır-ı erbaa-i edeb" reported by Abdî Efendi arose because the pen names of the four poets correspond to the four elements of the old natural philosophy: "âb" means water, "âzer" fire, "türâb" earth and "hevâ" air. The conversations and jests of these four poets must have created a recognised gathering in Amasya. Âzerî İbrâhim Efendi was chief scribe of the court, a madrasa teacher and deputy judge; the exchange with him is the source of Âbî's surviving quatrain. Since Âzerî died around 1025 (1616), this exchange must have taken place before that date, in Âbî's youth or middle years. Hüsameddin separately calls Türâbî Mustafa Efendi "one of Amasya's elements of letters"; he died in 1040 (1630), about a year after Âbî. The identity of Hevâyî, however, is uncertain. Amasya Tarihi contains an entry on a woman named Âhû Hatun with the byname Hevâyî, but it speaks only of an endowment for her tomb; there is no record that she was the Hevâyî of this quartet. Kelâmî Mustafa Efendi, too, was among the friends of the four elements.

His Poetry

No divan or other work by Âbî is known. The two pieces quoted by Hüsameddin are all that has reached us of his poetry. The first is a four-line kıt'a, which Hüsameddin gives in the entry on Âzerî İbrâhim Efendi, taking it from Abdî Efendi's tezkire. Âzerî boasts of the power of fire, saying "the foundation of the world is my essence". Âbî answers that fire, however sharp, is put out by water, and that even a thunderbolt no longer strikes once it falls into water. According to the editors' note, Âbî's quatrain stands on the fourteenth page of Hüsameddin's manuscript; because the author later added another entry in the margin, it is printed immediately after Âzerî's quatrain in the edition.

The second is a three-couplet fahriye, that is, a poem in which the poet praises his own words. His heart receives the grace of mystical knowledge morning and evening from the beloved's rose-like face; for this reason his words offer the thirsty "âb-ı zülâl-i ‘irfân", the limpid water of gnosis. The image of water in the last couplet matches the pen name Âbî, and the whole claim of the poem is tied to this play on words.

The two pieces we have are not enough for a judgement on the poet's general character. Yet in both we see a secretary-poet who makes his pen name the material of his verse, who is inclined to the jests of the gathering and who knows the worth of his own words. In the course of this study no other record of Âbî Mehmed Çelebi has been found in the tezkires or in reference works.

The State of the Sources

All the information about Âbî depends on a single source, Hüsameddin, and part of it in turn on Abdî Efendi's lost tezkire. Neither his life nor his poems can therefore be checked against another witness. The main uncertainty concerns the attribution of the fahriye. In Hüsameddin's entry the quotation from Abdî Efendi continues, after the sentence naming the four elements, with the sentence "Kelâmî Mustafa Efendi bunlarla dem-güzâr olurdu" (Kelâmî Mustafa Efendi used to spend his time with them), and immediately afterwards come the words "Kâtip, şâir, edîp, yazısı güzeldi. Şu fahrîyesi şâyân-ı dikkatdir" (He was a secretary, a poet and a man of letters, his handwriting was beautiful. The following fahriye of his deserves attention). Grammatically these last two sentences can be referred either to Kelâmî, the nearest subject, or to Âbî, the subject of the entry.

There are three reasons for assigning the poem to Âbî here: the entry is Âbî's entry, and when Hüsameddin quotes a poem by someone else he usually names that person; the epithet "secretary" fits Âbî, who was secretary of the treasury; and the "âb-ı zülâl" of the last couplet is a clear allusion to the pen name Âbî. These are strong indications but not conclusive proof, and the possibility that the fahriye belongs to Kelâmî Mustafa Efendi remains open. This is an inference, and it is stated in the same way on the poem's page.

Chronology

1017 (1608-09): Death of his teacher Mü'eyyedzâde Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi.

Around 1025 (1616): Death of his friend and sparring partner in verse Âzerî İbrâhim Efendi.

1039 (1629-30): Death of Âbî Mehmed Çelebi.

1040 (1630): Death of Türâbî Mustafa Efendi, one of the four elements.

1087 (1677): Death of Abdî Efendi, who included Âbî in his tezkire.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources