Amasya eşrâfından Mustafa Hüsnü Bey bin Ahmed Bey bin es-Seyyid el-Hâc İbrâhim Âsım Bey’in mahdûmudur. Evâ’il-i hâlinde peder ve mâderinden kalan serveti sefahatla hebâ etdikten sonra eniştesi ricâlden Çerkes İsmâil Bey’in sâyesinde 1316’da Çeltek nahiyesi müdürü, 1319’da Gümüş madeni emini, 1324’de Amasya sancağı orman müdürü oldu.
Bu esnâda tedrîcen rütbesi terakkî ederek sânîye rütbesini de aldı. Ancak sefihâne harekâtı yüzünden 1326’da ilân-ı meşrûtiyyeti müte’âkib ma’zûl ve menkûb olup İstanbul’a gitdi. 1327’de yokluk içinde vefât etdi.
In Modern English
He is the son of Mustafa Hüsnü Bey, one of the notables of Amasya; Mustafa Hüsnü Bey was the son of Ahmed Bey, and Ahmed Bey the son of Seyyid Hacı İbrahim Âsım Bey. In his early youth, after he had squandered in dissipation the fortune left by his father and mother, he became, through his brother-in-law, the notable Çerkes İsmail Bey, director of the nahiye of Çeltek in 1316 [1898-99], superintendent of the Gümüş mine in 1319 [1901-02] and forest director of the sanjak of Amasya in 1324 [1906-07].
In the meantime his rank gradually rose, and he received the rank of sânîye as well. But because of his reckless behavior, in 1326 [1908], in the days following the proclamation of the constitution, he was dismissed and exiled, and went to Istanbul. He died in poverty in 1327 [1909].
Notes and Research
Old Words in the Text
- eşrâf: notables
- mahdûm: son
- evâ'il-i hâl: early youth, the beginning of one's affairs
- sefâhat: immoderate, wasteful revelry and spending
- hebâ etmek: to waste
- enişte: husband of one's sister or of one's wife's sister
- nâhiye müdürü: administrator at the head of a nahiye
- madeni emini: state official at the head of a mining operation
- orman müdürü: official responsible for forest affairs in a sanjak
- rütbe-i sânîye: one of the Ottoman civil ranks
- sefîhâne harekât: foolish, spendthrift conduct
- ma'zûl: dismissed from office
- menkûb: sent into exile
The Gümüş Mine
The entry reports that in 1319 Ahmed Bey became "superintendent of the Gümüş mine." Gümüşhacıköy arose from the merging of Gümüş, named after the silver mines worked since the Early Bronze Age, with Hacıköy. The Seljuks minted coins at Gümüş; in the sixteenth century the area remained under the administration of the imperial mint (darphâne-yi âmire) of the province of Sivas. Gümüş, which became the centre of a kaza in 1831, was included until 1856 in an administrative unit named "Gümüş with Kabakoz"; in 1842 Edhem Bey was appointed to the directorate of the Imperial Mines (Maden-i Hümâyûn); in 1882-1883 it was moved to Hacıköy as the kaza of "Maden-i Sîm" and from 1883 was called Gümüşhacıköy. The year 1319, in which Ahmed Bey served at the mine, falls after 1882-1883, when the mine's kaza moved to Hacıköy. What Hüsameddin means by the title "emin," whether the operator of the mine or a supervisor on behalf of the state, cannot be understood from the text.
The Forest Directorate
A forest directorate established in the Ottoman state in 1839 was closed after eleven months; in 1869 the forest directorate was re-established, and with the Forest Regulation of 1870 the institutional foundations were laid on questions such as ownership, rights of use, production and sale. That Ahmed Bey became "forest director of the sanjak of Amasya" in 1324 shows that he was an official of this system at sanjak level. No detail on the workings of forest administration in Amasya was found in the sources examined.
The Nahiye of Çeltek
Ahmed Bey's first post was "director of the nahiye of Çeltek." Today there is a place called the Çeltek coal mines in the Suluova district of Amasya; whether it is the same as Hüsameddin's nahiye could not be determined. No information was found in other sources about which kaza the nahiye of Çeltek belonged to in the Ottoman period, or about its boundaries and centre.
Rank and Dismissal
According to Hüsameddin's account, Ahmed Bey's first post was obtained through his brother-in-law Çerkes İsmail Bey. His dismissal and exile after the proclamation of the constitution is a fate also described for Ahmed Kâmil Efendi on the same page. The proclamation of the constitution was on 23 July 1908, recorded as 10 July 1324 rûmî; Hüsameddin's 1326 matches this date by the hijri count. No information was found in other sources about Çerkes İsmail Bey, the Yeğenzâde family, or the source of the fortune Ahmed Bey consumed in his early youth.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 6, p. 239–240. amasya.bel.tr
Academic studies
- Erhan Kılıç - Kenan Ok, "Kazım Karabekir Paşa: Kurtuluş Savaşı'nı ormanlar sayesinde kazandık", Ormancılık Araştırma Dergisi, 5/2 (2018), p. 123-134. https://doi.org/10.17568/ogmoad.424009
- Mehmet Faruk İlkhan, Mustafa Azmi Ömer Akalın'ın Hayatı ve Eserleri (1858-1940), master's thesis, Bilecik Şeyh Edebali Üniversitesi, 2025.
Other sources