Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar · İKİNCİ BÂB · BİRİNCİ FASIL
Encyclopedia · History of Amasya, Volume 6, p. 142 • Edited by: Doç. Dr. Recep Orhan ÖZEL - Doç. Dr. Metin HAKVERDİOĞLU
Amasyalıdır. Şeyhülislam Zenbilli Ali Efendi’nin biraderi kibâr-ı kudâtdan Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi bin Kemaleddîn Ahmed Çelebi bin Mehmed Çelebi mahdûmudur. Amasya’da Koca Emîr İbrâhim Efendi’den ve İstanbul’da amcasından tahsîl-i ulûm edib ders-i âm oldu.
Amasya medreselerinden ba’zılarına müderris olduktan sonra Hâtuniyye-i Tokat Müderrisi iken Tokat, Sivas, Erzurum gibi bilâda kadı oldu. 938’de Ankara’dan ma’zûlen Amasya’da görülüp 941’de vefât etdi. Meşâhîr-i kudât ve ulemâdan idi.
He was a native of Amasya. He was the son of Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi, one of the great kadıs, son of Kemâleddîn Ahmed Çelebi, son of Mehmed Çelebi, and the brother of Şeyhülislam Zenbilli Ali Efendi. He pursued learning in Amasya with Koca Emîr İbrâhim Efendi and in Istanbul with his uncle, and became a ders-i âm (a candidate müderris holding an icazet and authorised to teach).
After serving as müderris in some of the Amasya madrasas, while müderris of the Hâtuniye Madrasa in Tokat, he served as kadı in cities such as Tokat, Sivas and Erzurum. In 938 [1531-32] he was in Amasya, dismissed from the kadılık of Ankara, and he died in 941 [1534-35]. He was among the well-known kadıs and scholars.
"Cemâlîzâde," the epithet of Ahmed Şemseddîn Çelebi, ties him to one of the most deeply rooted families of Ottoman scholarly life. This family takes its name from Cemâleddîn-i Aksarâyî, a scholar of the time of Bâyezîd I, and traces its lineage back to Fahreddîn-i Râzî. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the family produced statesmen and scholars such as the Khalwati shaykh Çelebi Halîfe (Şeyh Mehmed Cemâlî), Grand Vizier Pîrî Mehmed Pasha and Şeyhülislam Zenbilli Ali Cemâlî Efendi. One branch of the family came and settled in the city during Bâyezîd II's years as governor of Amasya. Yusuf Küçükdağ, who studied the family, notes that Zenbilli Ali Efendi's mother, father and brothers stayed in Amasya; this information agrees with the Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi of the entry being a kadı living in Amasya.
The genealogy Hüsameddin gives agrees with present-day sources: Zenbilli Ali Efendi is the son of Ahmed Çelebi, grandson of Cemâleddîn-i Aksarâyî; since the Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi of the entry is also given as "son of Kemâleddîn Ahmed Çelebi," he is Zenbilli's full brother. Küçükdağ also writes that Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi of the family answered the Safavid propagandists in Amasya with scholarly arguments. It is probable that this person is the same as the kadı Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi of the entry, but the source does not say so explicitly. The same researcher claims that in some places in Hüsameddin's book Çelebi Halîfe is confused with his nephew Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi; the frequent repetition of the same names within the family easily caused such confusions.
The person called "his uncle" in the entry, from whom Ahmed Şemseddîn Çelebi took lessons in Istanbul, is most probably Zenbilli Ali Efendi himself. Zenbilli was appointed mufti of Istanbul in 908 [1503] and stayed in this office nearly twenty-four years until his death; Ahmed Çelebi's years of training coincide with this period.
The Hâtuniye Madrasa in Tokat, where Ahmed Çelebi served as müderris, was part of the complex founded in 1485 in the Meydan neighbourhood in the name of Gülbahar Hatun, mother of Bâyezîd II. The mosque of this complex, made up of a mosque, an imaret (soup kitchen) and a madrasa, stands today and is open for worship. No information on Ahmed Şemseddîn Çelebi was found in other sources.
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