Edirne’de nişâncı iken Yıldırım Sultân Bâyezîd Hân tarafından Mısır’a sefâretle gönderilip orada 798’de vefât eden Mevlânâ Cemâleddîn Safer Şâh bin Hoca Ahmed bin el-Hâc Abdullah et-Tebrîzî mahdûmudur. Merzifonlu olup orada doğdu pederiyle Edirne’ye gidip Bursa’da Mevlânâ Şemseddîn Mehmed Fenârî’den tahsîl-i ulûm ederken 804’de kaçıp Amasya’ya geldi.
Amasya müftüsü Şeyhülislâm Gümüşlüzâde Mevlânâ Pîr Abdurrahman Çelebi’den ikmâl-i tahsîl edib ders-i âm ve Merzifon’da müderris oldu. Bu da 848 hudûdunda vefât [377] etdi. Bu da meşâhîr-i ulemâdandır. Mahdûmu Safer Şâh Çelebi ve birâderi Ali Paşa’dır.
In Modern English
He was the son of Mevlânâ Cemâleddîn Safer Şah, who, while nişancı in Edirne, was sent as envoy to Egypt by Sultan Bâyezîd Han the Thunderbolt and died there in 798 [1395-96]; Safer Şah was the son of Hoca Ahmed, and Hoca Ahmed the son of Hacı Abdullah et-Tebrîzî. He was from Merzifon and was born there. He went to Edirne with his father; while learning from Mevlânâ Şemseddîn Mehmed Fenârî in Bursa, he fled from there in 804 [1401-02] and came to Amasya.
Completing his studies with the mufti of Amasya, Şeyhülislâm Gümüşlüzâde Mevlânâ Pîr Abdurrahman Çelebi, he became a dersiâm and served as müderris in Merzifon. He too died around 848 [1444-45]. He too is one of the well-known scholars. His son was Safer Şah Çelebi, and his brother Ali Pasha.
Notes and Research
Old Words in the Text
- nişâncı: the senior official who drew the tughra on the sultan's decrees and was responsible for Divan correspondence
- sefâret: embassy
- tahsîl-i ulûm: learning the sciences
- ikmâl-i tahsîl: completing one's studies
- ders-i âm: a scholar authorised to give public lectures in a mosque, dersiâm
- meşâhîr-i ulemâ: famous scholars
- mahdûm: son
His Father Safer Şah
According to Hüsameddin, Kemâleddîn Ahmed Çelebi's father Cemâleddîn Safer Şah came from a family of Tabriz, served as nişancı in Yıldırım Bayezid's Divan in Edirne and was sent to Egypt as envoy. No information about Safer Şah's embassy or his office as nişancı was found in another source. In this respect Hüsameddin's record is valuable: it follows the trace of a little-known nişancı who served in the early Ottoman Divan. That his grandson too bears the name "Safer Şah Çelebi" shows that the name was kept alive in the family.
A Student of Molla Fenârî
Mevlânâ Şemseddîn Mehmed Fenârî, from whom Ahmed Çelebi took lessons in Bursa, is Molla Fenârî, regarded as the first şeyhülislam of the Ottomans. According to İbrahim Hakkı Aydın, Molla Fenârî was born in Safar 751 [April 1350]; after attending the lessons of Alâeddin Ali Esved in İznik he went to Amasya, where as a student of Cemâleddîn Aksarâyî he received his licence (icazet) from him in 778 [1376]. He then studied in Cairo, and on returning to Bursa was appointed by Yıldırım Bayezid to the müderrisship of the Manastır Madrasa and in 795 [1393] to the kadılık of Bursa, a post he held for about ten years. The years in which Ahmed Çelebi attended his lessons fall precisely in this Bursa period.
Hüsameddin's record "he fled in 804 and came to Amasya" also marks the end of this period. The Battle of Ankara between Yıldırım Bayezid and Timur most probably took place on Friday, 28 July 1402, that is, in the last days of the hijri year 804. After the battle Timur's soldiers took Bursa and Karamanoğlu II. Mehmed Bey, whom Yıldırım had kept prisoner, was freed; Molla Fenârî went with him to Karaman and taught there for more than ten years. He was able to return to Bursa in 817 [1414]. In these days when his teacher and the city were dispersed, the young student's taking refuge in Amasya, near his home town, is an understandable choice. Amasya was then the sanjak of Çelebi Mehmed, son of Yıldırım.
Gümüşlüzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi
Ahmed Çelebi's teacher in Amasya, Gümüşlüzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi, is one of the most respected scholars and sheikhs of Amasya at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Pazarlıoğlu Yâkub Pasha, beylerbeyi of Ankara, in 815 [1412] had a tekke dedicated to the Halvetiyye order built in the Pîrler district of Amasya and endowed it for "Mufti Sheikh Gümüşlüzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi". This building, also known among the people as the Çilehâne Tekke, is one of the rare dervish buildings to have reached the present day in its original form from the early Ottoman period.
In the information Baha Tanman gives there are two striking points. The first is that a death date of 903 [1497-98] is given for Gümüşlüzâde; considering that the tekke was built for him in 1412 and that according to Hüsameddin he was teaching in 804, this date does not agree with the chronology and most probably belongs to another person. The second is that in the tekke's succession of sheikhs, after Gümüşlüzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi his "son-in-law Pîr Abdurrahman Çelebi" is counted. Hüsameddin, however, gives the teacher's name as "Gümüşlüzâde Mevlânâ Pîr Abdurrahman Çelebi". In this case it is also possible that Hüsameddin merged two namesakes, father-in-law and son-in-law, into a single person. Which of them taught Ahmed Çelebi cannot be said with certainty.
Return to Merzifon
After completing his studies Ahmed Çelebi returned to Merzifon, where he was born, and became müderris. In the town was the madrasa, begun in 817 [1414] by order of Çelebi Sultan Mehmed and called "Merzifon Sultâniyesi" among the people; but Hüsameddin does not state in which madrasa Ahmed Çelebi taught. Together with Mahbûbzâde Cemâleddîn Ahmed Çelebi, mentioned on the same page, this article shows that in the first half of the fifteenth century Merzifon was a lively scholarly town fed by scholars trained in Amasya. No information about his brother Ali Pasha was found in another source.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 6, p. 120–120. amasya.bel.tr
Academic studies
- İbrahim Hakkı Aydın, "Molla Fenârî", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 30, Ankara 2020. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/molla-fenari
- Yusuf Halaçoğlu, "Ankara Savaşı", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 3, İstanbul 1991. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/ankara-savasi
- M. Baha Tanman, "Yâkub Paşa Tekkesi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 43, İstanbul 2013. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/yakub-pasa-tekkesi
- M. Baha Tanman, "Mehmed I Medresesi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 28, Ankara 2003. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/mehmed-i-medresesi
Books