The poems of Âhî İbrâhim Efendi of the Yeniçerizâde family became mixed in an anthology with those of at least two contemporaries who used the same pen name (mahlas), and could not be sorted out; this is how Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar explains why he quotes nothing of his. The son of the janissary Hasan Ağa, this man of the pen rose through the treasury and tax offices of Amasya in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, reached the post of divan secretary and died around 1026 (1617). Hüsameddin presents him as a secretary, a poet and an eloquent speaker, and records that he conversed and exchanged verses with the city's poets and scholars such as Kelâmî, Âzerî and Turâbî. The page that renders the entry into modern Turkish, with notes on its vocabulary, is titled Âhi İbrâhim Efendi-Yeniçerizâde.

The Entry in Amasya Tarihi

The record is a single-paragraph entry in the sixth volume, among the people of Amasya whose names begin with the letter "elif":

Amasyalıdır. Yeniçerilerden Hasan Ağa'nın oğludur. İlm ü kitâbet tahsîl ederek iştihâr etdi. Sonra Amasya'da beytül-mâl kâtibi, cizye tahsîldârı olup ibrâz-ı istikâmet eylediğinden Amasya beytül-mâl-i âmme ve hâssa emîni, ba'dehû dîvân kâtibi olduğu halde 1026 hudûdunda vefât etdi. Kâtib, şâir, natûk bir zât idi. Kelâmî, Âzerî, Turâbî gibi şu'arâ ve fuzalâ ile müsâhabât ve müşâ'arâtı vardır. Hattât olup hatt-ı nesihde mâhirdi. Riyâzî Efendi Tezkiresi'nde 1008'de vefâtı kaydedilen Kapıcızâde Âhî Ahmed Efendi ve bin hudûdunda vefât eden Edirneli Âhî Çelebi de şu'arâdandır. Eşbâh ü Nezâ'ir-i Edebiyye'de Âhî'ye nisbet edilen hayli eş'âre tesâdüf edilse de hangisine âid olduğu kestirilemediğinden nakledemedim.

In English: He is from Amasya, the son of Hasan Ağa, one of the janissaries. He became known after studying learning and the secretarial craft. Then he became clerk of the public treasury (beytülmal) and collector of the poll tax (cizye) in Amasya; because he proved his honesty he became superintendent (emin) of Amasya's general and private treasury, then divan secretary, and died around 1026. He was a secretary, a poet and an eloquent man. He had conversations and exchanges of verse with poets and scholars such as Kelâmî, Âzerî and Turâbî. He was a calligrapher, skilled in the naskh hand. Kapıcızâde Âhî Ahmed Efendi, whose death in 1008 is recorded in Riyâzî Efendi's biographical anthology of poets (tezkire), and Âhî Çelebi of Edirne, who died around the year 1000, were also poets. Although many poems attributed to Âhî are found in the Eşbâh ü Nezâ'ir-i Edebiyye, I could not quote them because it could not be determined to whom they belong.

Life

What the record really describes is a secretary's step-by-step rise; his date of birth, where he studied and who his teachers were remain unknown. The beytülmal was the treasury that collected ownerless property and the estates of those who died without heirs; the cizye was the poll tax levied on non-Muslim subjects. İbrâhim Efendi first worked on the writing and collecting side of these two services and, on the strength of the clean record that Hüsameddin calls "ibrâz-ı istikâmet", was appointed superintendent at the head of the treasury. His last known post is that of divan secretary. Nothing is written about his father beyond his being a janissary. The phrase "1026 hudûdunda" used for the year of his death is approximate and falls around 1617.

His Fellow Poets

The liveliest sentence of the entry places Âhî within a circle of friends. The Âzerî whom Hüsameddin mentions must be Âzerî İbrâhim Efendi, chief clerk of the Amasya court, who died in 1025; Muallimzâde İbrâhim Çelebi of Istanbul, who bore the same pen name, died in 993 (1585) and does not fit this circle. Turâbî is most probably the madrasa teacher and judge Turâbî Mustafa Efendi, who died in 1040. In another entry, quoting the tezkire of Abdî Efendi, Hüsameddin describes the conversations and banter of the treasury clerk Âbî Mehmed Çelebi with Âzerî, Türâbî and Hevâyî; these four were called "the four elements of letters", and "Kelâmî Mustafa Efendi bunlarla dem-güzâr olurdu", that is, Kelâmî Mustafa Efendi used to spend his time with them. The three names in Âhî's entry overlap with this gathering. Âbî was a clerk of the treasury and Âhî its superintendent, so the two worked in the same office; yet the source never mentions the two names side by side.

Poetry

Not one line can be assigned to Yeniçerizâde with certainty today. Hüsameddin had seen many poems under the pen name "Âhî" in the anthology called Eşbâh ü Nezâ'ir-i Edebiyye, but since at least two contemporary poets used the same pen name he ascribed none of them to him. These two poets are Kapıcızâde Âhî Ahmed Efendi, who according to Riyâzî's tezkire died in 1008 (1599-1600), and Âhî Çelebi of Edirne, who died around the year 1000 (1591-92). Where the anthology Hüsameddin saw is today could not be established.

In the third volume of the book, in the section describing Amasya's "second period", which closed with the Celâlî disturbances, the last name in the list of the city's renowned poets is also an Âhî: "Çeşmî, Mihrî, Kâmî, Celîlî, Mu'îdî, Fikrî, Hızrî, Remzî, Ânî, Hayâtî, Siyâbî, Âhî pek ma'rûf idiler." Whether the Âhî of this list is Yeniçerizâde İbrâhim Efendi or one of his namesakes, the author leaves unexplained.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources