Ahmed Çelebi — Mevlânâ eş-Şeyh Şemseddîn

In Modern English

He was the son of Aksarâyîzâde Mevlânâ Alâeddîn Ali of Amasya, who died in 796 [1393-94] after having been dismissed as kadı of Bursa; Alâeddîn Ali was the son of Mevlânâ Fahreddîn İlyas, who was the son of Mevlânâ Cemâleddîn İbrâhim Aksarâyî. In 783 [1381-82] he fled from Amasya to Bursa with his father and became müderris (madrasa professor) there. In 832 [1428-29] he is seen as mufti of Bursa and sheikh of the Kâzerûnî Zaviye. He died around 835 [1431-32]. He was a virtuous and mature man.

Notes and Research

Old Words in the Text

• ma'zûlen: having been dismissed from office
• mahdûm: son
• peder: father
• firâr: fleeing
• müderris: madrasa teacher
• zâviye: a small tekke where the dervishes of an order lodge and travellers are given food
• hudûdunda: around, in the vicinity of
• fâzıl, kâmil: virtuous, mature

A Scholarly Family of Amasya

The chain of descent given in the article points to a family that held an important place in the scholarly life of fourteenth-century Amasya. The elder of the family is Cemâleddîn İbrâhim Aksarâyî; his son Fahreddîn İlyas Rûmî is a well-known teacher who taught in Amasya. This name should not be confused with the more famous Cemâleddîn Muhammed Aksarâyî, who bore the same epithet. Studies of the life of Cemâleddîn Muhammed Aksarâyî relate that when he came to Amasya he took lessons from his fellow townsman Fahrüddîn İlyas Rûmî, son of Cemâleddîn İbrâhim, and that he was a student of the same teacher as Hacı Şadgeldi Pasha, who would later become emir of Amasya. That is, Ahmed Çelebi's grandfather was also Şadgeldi Pasha's teacher.

The Flight in 783

The background of the event that Hüsameddin passes over briefly as "he fled from Amasya to Bursa with his father in 783" is seen more clearly in other sources. When the emir of Amasya, Hacı Şadgeldi Pasha, decided to make war on Kadı Burhâneddin, he gathered the notables of the city to announce his decision. The kadıasker Cemâleddîn Aksarâyî, the mufti İzzeddin Muhammed, Alâeddin Ali, one of the well-known scholars of Amasya, and Emir Cemâleddin Fîrûzî took part in this meeting, and none of them approved the decision for war. Şadgeldi Pasha did not turn back from his decision and lost his life in the battle of 1381. When his son and successor Fahreddin Ahmed Bey set about punishing those who had opposed his father's decision, these men, fearing for their lives, left Amasya. Cemâleddîn Aksarâyî went to Konya.

It is highly probable that the "Alâeddin Ali, one of the well-known scholars of Amasya" named in the meeting is the same person as Aksarâyîzâde Alâeddîn Ali, father of Ahmed Çelebi: the name, title, city and date of flight all match. The year 1381 corresponds to hijri 782-783. This identification is an inference, but it ties Hüsameddin's brief record to a meaningful story. The father's going to Bursa and rising there as far as the office of kadı also shows that scholars who fled Amasya could find a place in Ottoman lands.

The Kâzerûnî Zaviye in Bursa

The Kâzerûnî Zaviye, of which Ahmed Çelebi was sheikh, is a tekke of the Kâzerûniyye order, also known in Anatolia as İshâkıyye or Mürşidiyye. According to Hamid Algar, Yıldırım Bayezid founded a Kâzerûnî tekke in Bursa in 802 [1400], left its administration to Seyyid Muhammed en-Nattâ' of Baghdad, who had come to Bursa with Emîr Sultan, and made him at the same time the first Ottoman nakîbüleşrâf (marshal of the descendants of the Prophet). Two years later Seyyid Muhammed was taken prisoner by Timur and carried to Samarkand, escaped from there and returned to Bursa, and when he died was buried beside the zaviye. The zaviye was repaired in 884 [1479] by Mehmed the Conqueror; it had forty cells for dervishes and an imaret that distributed soup to travellers and the poor.

Hüsameddin's record shows that in the period after Seyyid Muhammed the sheikhship of the zaviye was given, together with the muftiship of Bursa, to a madrasa scholar. This indicates that the Kâzerûnî zaviye was administered as a waqf institution tied to the city's official scholarly circle as much as a dervish lodge. No information about Ahmed Çelebi's sheikhship was found in another source.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 6, p. 119–119. amasya.bel.tr

Academic studies

• Hamid Algar, "Kâzerûniyye", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 25, Ankara 2022. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/kazeruniyye

Official sources

• Ulu Şeyh Cemâleddîn Aksarâyî: Hayatı ve Eserleri, publication of the Aksaray Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism. https://aksaray.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/62572,ulu-seyh-cemaleddin-aksarayi-hayati-ve-eserleripdf.pdf