Tâceddin İbrâhim, known by his pen name Ahmedî, is one of the greatest names of fourteenth-century Anatolian Turkish poetry. He wrote the first İskendernâme in Turkish literature, added at its end a section recounting the history of the Ottoman dynasty, and through the ghazals of his divan served as a model for the poets who came after him for a century. The sources on his life are scattered and contradictory: the anthologies call him a native of Germiyan or of Sivas. The Amasya historian Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, however, relying on a note in the poet's own hand that he saw in a miscellany in the libraries of Istanbul, maintains that Ahmedî was from Amasya. Even if his birthplace is disputed, it has been recorded since the sixteenth century that he spent the last years of his life in Amasya at the side of Çelebi Mehmed and died in this city. Ahmedî is a key figure in Amasya's becoming, for a short time during the years of the Interregnum, one of the centres of Ottoman literature as well.

Hüsameddin's Entry

In the sixth volume of his Amasya Tarihi Hüsameddin devotes a long entry to Ahmedî. The original text of the part concerning his life reads:

Amasyalıdır. İstanbul kütüphânelerinde âsâr-ı nefîse tahrîrine me'mûr olduğum esnâda ele geçen mecmû'alardan birinde kendi el yazısıyla bulunduğu üzere Amasya fuzalâsından Mevlânâ Hayreddîn Hızır Çelebi bin el-Hâc Şâhabeddîn Ahmed bin Sunkur el-Amâsî mahdûmudur. Adının İbrâhim olduğu, divânında muharrer ve aşağıda menkûl olan "İşidin dir inne İbrâhim evvâhün münîb" mısraından da anlaşıldı. Ceddi el-Hâc Ahmed bin Sunkur Sultân Ebû Sa'id Bahadır Hân'ın Mısır'a gönderdiği süferâdan idi. Kendisine "Hacı Ahmedoğlu" dendiğinden buna nispetle "Ahmedî" lakâbı ile meşhûr oldu. Amasya'da takriben 735'de doğdu. Aksarayîzâde Mevlânâ Fahreddîn İlyas, Mevlanâ Şemseddîn Ahmed bin Osmân ez-Ziyârî, Mevlanâ Musliheddîn Mûsâ bin Mahmûd es-Sivasî gibi meşâhîr-i ulemâdan, sonra Mısır'a gidip eş-Şeyh Ekmeleddîn Muhammed bin Mahmûd el-Bâbertî'den ulûm-ı edebiyye, şer'iyye ve akliyyeyi, usûl-i fıkıh ve kelâmı ahz ü ikmâl ederek avdet etdi. Bir müddet Amasya'da ders okutdu. Sonra Amasya emîr-i kebîri Şâdgeldi Paşa'ya intisâb ederek müşârün-ileyhin mu'allimi, kâtib-i dîvânı ve nişâncısı oldu. Fevkalâde nüfûz ve faziletle iştihâr etdi. 783 senesi rebîülevvelinde emîr-i müşârün-ileyhin Kadı Burhan harbinde maktûlen vefâtı üzerine Amasya'dan kaçıp, Germiyânzâde Süleyman Bey'in nezdine gitdi. Buna da mu'allim olup pek ziyâde hürmetler gördü. Kütahya'da hayli müddet oturdu. Yıldırım Sultân Bâyezîd Han Germiyânoğullarını inkıyâd altına aldıkda Bursa'ya gidip Bâyezîd Hân'ın nâ'il-i iltifâtı oldu. 'İlm ü kemâli ile ve şi'ir ü inşâsı ile kendisini fevkalâde sevdirdi. 804'de Yıldırım Bâyezîd'in esâreti zamanında yine Kütahya'ya avdet etdi. Timurlenk sene-i mezbûrede Kütahya'ya geldikte fazl ü kemâline binâ'en büyük iltifâtlar, hürmetler gördü. 805'de vatanı olan Amasya'ya gelip Çelebi Sultân Mehmed Hân'ın erkân-ı saltanatından oldu. On yıl kadar Amasya'da pek muhterem bir halde yaşadı. 815 senesi evâhirinde seksen yaşında vefât etdi.

In English: He was from Amasya. As he himself wrote in his own hand in one of the miscellanies that came into my hands while I was charged with recording the precious works in the libraries of Istanbul, he was the son of Mevlânâ Hayreddîn Hızır Çelebi, one of the learned men of Amasya; Hızır Çelebi was the son of Hacı Şehâbeddîn Ahmed, son of Sunkur. That his name was İbrâhim is also clear from the line written in his divan and quoted below, "Hear, he says: truly İbrâhim is tender-hearted and turns to God in repentance". His grandfather Hacı Ahmed, son of Sunkur, was one of the envoys whom the Ilkhanid ruler Abû Saʿîd Bahadur Khan sent to Egypt; because he was called "Hacı Ahmedoğlu" (son of Hacı Ahmed), he became known by the byname "Ahmedî". He was born in Amasya around 735 (1334-35). He studied with famous scholars such as Aksarayîzâde Fahreddîn İlyas, Şemseddîn Ahmed ez-Ziyârî and Musliheddîn Mûsâ es-Sivasî, then went to Egypt and completed the literary, religious and rational sciences, the principles of jurisprudence and theology under Sheikh Ekmeleddîn al-Bâbertî before returning. For a time he taught in Amasya. Then he attached himself to Şâdgeldi Pasha, the great emir of Amasya, becoming his tutor, divan secretary and chancellor (nişancı), and gained great influence and esteem. When the emir was killed in his battle with Kadı Burhaneddin in Rebiülevvel 783 (1381), he fled Amasya and went to Süleyman Bey of Germiyan, tutored him too, was greatly honoured and lived for a long time in Kütahya. When Bayezid I brought the Germiyanids under his rule, he went to Bursa and won Bayezid's favour, making himself greatly loved for his learning, his poetry and his prose. At the time of Bayezid's captivity in 804 (1402) he returned to Kütahya again, and in the same year he received great favour and honour for his learning from Timur, who had come to Kütahya. In 805 (1402-03) he came to Amasya, his homeland, and joined the dignitaries of Sultan Çelebi Mehmed. He lived for about ten years in Amasya, greatly respected, and died at the age of eighty at the end of the year 815 (early 1413). The full entry with its glossary is in the site's Hüsameddin encyclopedia section.

Life

The conclusions of present-day research on Ahmedî's life are more cautious than the unbroken story told by Hüsameddin. According to Günay Kut's entry in the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam, the poet was probably born in 735 (1334-35); his given name was İbrâhim, his honorific Tâceddin and his father's name Hızır. The information supplied by Sehî, Latîfî, Kınalızâde and Âlî is taken from Ibn Arabshah, Taşköprizâde and Mecdî and is fragmentary. Where he received his early education is unknown; the one point on which the sources agree is that he went to Egypt to further his learning and studied under Sheikh Ekmeleddin al-Bâbertî. On his return he attached himself for a while to the Aydınids, writing for Hamza, son of Îsâ Bey, the Arabic-Persian verse dictionary Mirkâtü'l-edeb and two Persian teaching poems on Arabic grammar. The dates at which he entered the service of the Germiyanids and of the Ottomans are not certain.

Ahmedî's longest and most productive relationship of patronage was with Emîr Süleyman, son of Bayezid I. He dedicated most of his works to him and wrote the Mevlid section of the İskendernâme in Bursa in 810 (1407), in Süleyman's time. According to what Hüsameddin quotes from Mecdî, after Süleyman Bey of Germiyan Ahmedî entered the service of Prince Süleyman, went with him to Sivas before the Battle of Ankara and came to Edirne after the battle. After Emîr Süleyman's death in 813 (1411) the poet, looking for a new patron, entered the circle of Çelebi Mehmed. Mecdî records that he died in Amasya at over eighty years of age. The Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature likewise writes that he finally attached himself to Çelebi Mehmed and probably died in Amasya, aged about eighty, shortly after 812 (1410).

Hüsameddin's account makes two important additions to this framework. The first is that in his youth Ahmedî was tutor, divan secretary and chancellor to Hacı Şâdgeldi Pasha, emir of Amasya, and left the city when the emir died fighting Kadı Burhaneddin in 783 (1381). The second is that after Timur's withdrawal from Anatolia he returned to Amasya in 805 (1402-03) and lived there for about ten years at the side of Çelebi Mehmed. These two pieces of information do not appear in the TDV and TEİS entries; Mustafa Çağhan Keskin also writes that the poet moved to Amasya at about eighty years of age, after Emîr Süleyman's death in 1411. Depending on the source, then, the length of Ahmedî's last years in Amasya varies from a few years to a decade. The famous anecdote that Hüsameddin quotes from Ramazanzâde Mehmed Bey and Kınalızâde, in which Ahmedî, going to the bath with Timur in Kütahya, put a value of "eighty akçe" on the world-conqueror, also belongs to these years; it should be read as a tradition grown up around the poet's quick wit rather than as a historical event. Keskin notes that Gelibolulu Âlî reports that after the Battle of Ankara Ahmedî was received with respect even by Timur.

Connection with Amasya

Ahmedî's birthplace is the most disputed of the facts linking him to Amasya. According to the TDV entry the sources repeat two traditions: Taşköprizâde and Mecdî consider him a native of Germiyan, Latîfî and Âlî a native of Sivas. Hüsameddin, after recalling that Mecdî calls him a man of Germiyan and Mehmed Süreyya a man of Sivas, states that Ahmedî wrote plainly "in his own hand" that he was in Amasya in 782 (1380-81) and that he was the son of Hızır, son of Hacı Ahmed, son of Sunkur, of Amasya. In his view the poet was taken for a native of Germiyan because he stayed for years with Süleyman Bey of Germiyan, and for a native of Sivas because he was in Sivas as chancellor to Prince Süleyman. Hüsameddin does not say in which miscellany he saw this note; as long as the document itself remains unpublished, the claim therefore rests on his testimony. The TEİS entry records that Tunca Kortantamer, who wrote a doctoral thesis on Ahmedî's life, also finds birth in Amasya the more plausible.

The place of his death, on the other hand, is undisputed. According to Hüsameddin's quotations, Mecdî, Ramazanzâde Mehmed Bey and the Hanafi biographer Takıyyüddin al-Temîmî all write that the poet died in Amasya at the end of the year 815. Among the annual events in the third volume of Hüsameddin's own work, however, Ahmedî's death is mentioned among the events of the year 814: "In this same year Mevlânâ Ahmedî, one of the famous poets, died in Amasya. He was secretary of the imperial council. In his place Mahmûd Gubârî Çelebi, one of the poets of Amasya, became council secretary." A difference between 814 and 815 thus arises within Hüsameddin's own work; this entry also reports that Ahmedî served as a secretary in Çelebi Mehmed's council in Amasya.

Ahmedî's last years in Amasya are part of the city's literary life during the Interregnum. According to the account in Abdülvâsi Çelebi's Halîlnâme, Çelebi Mehmed's tutor Bayezid Pasha of Amasya entrusted "the poet Ahmedî" with translating the Persian mesnevi Veys ü Râmîn into Turkish, promising him a gold piece for every couplet. Ahmedî died a few months later without finishing the translation; the task fell to Abdülvâsi Çelebi, who found Ahmedî's illegible draft insufficient and wrote the Halîlnâme instead. Halil İnalcık has suggested that the anonymous Ahvâl-i Sultan Mehemmed, which recounts Çelebi Mehmed's struggle from Ankara to the end of the Interregnum, may be the work of Ahmedî, who was then in Amasya; this view is not settled. For Amasya in the years of the Interregnum see the site's article Amasya in the Ottoman Interregnum.

Hüsameddin also links Ahmedî to an established family of Amasya. In his view the poet, being of the Sunkur line, was a cousin of the former grand vizier Bayezid Pasha of Amasya; in the Sunkur entry in the tenth volume of his work he likewise names "the learned and famous poet Ahmedî İbrâhim Çelebi" as the son of Hacı Ahmed Beyzâde Hızır Çelebi. This kinship and the genealogical table Hüsameddin gives could not be confirmed in other sources. In another entry the historian also says of Sheikh Sa'dî Çelebi, who opened the first Halveti lodge in Amasya in the middle of the fourteenth century and did more than anyone to spread Persian letters in the city, that "the famous poet Ahmedî was trained by him". This information too rests on Hüsameddin alone.

Works

Ahmedî's best-known work is the İskendernâme. According to the TDV entry it was written in 792 (1390), and, as the differences between the manuscripts show, the poet continued to add to it until 813 (1410); it was presented to Emîr Süleyman. Some thirty-two manuscripts of it are known in Turkey, and the work is in effect a book of general culture that, taking the life of Alexander the Great as its frame, takes in a great deal of knowledge from geometry to medicine and from philosophy to history. Its closing section, "Dâstân-ı Tevârîh-i Mülûk-i Âl-i Osmân", recounts the history of the Ottoman rulers and, according to the TDV entry, was decisive for the poet's fame. A facsimile of the Istanbul University Library copy was published by İsmail Ünver in 1983.

According to the TEİS entry, his divan of about nine thousand couplets contains 74 kasides, 764 ghazals, terkîb-i bends and terciî-bends; it is counted among the oldest surviving works of Ottoman literature, and several studies have been devoted to it, including Yaşar Akdoğan's critical edition and Emrah Gülüm's doctoral thesis of 2021. Cemşîd ü Hurşîd, expanded from Selmân-ı Sâvecî and rendered into Turkish, was completed in 806 (1403), and Tervîhu'l-ervâh, on medicine, was written between 1403 and 1410. The Persian Bedâyi'u's-sihr on the figures of speech, together with the teaching works Mirkâtü'l-edeb, Mîzânü'l-edeb and Mi'yârü'l-edeb, show the poet's command of language and rhetoric. Of the works listed by Hüsameddin, the Süleymannâme is now known not to be Ahmedî's, and the Kasîde-i Sarsarî Şerhi is known only from Kâtib Çelebi's record and has not come to light. The Veys ü Râmîn translation, as related above, remained unfinished.

Poetry and Influence

Ahmedî's contemporaries and near successors considered him the greatest poet of his age. According to al-Temîmî, as quoted by Hüsameddin, Ibn Arabshah said of Ahmedî that "he is the only Turkish poet in Anatolia"; al-Temîmî himself ranks his words with those of Arab men of letters such as Ibn Nubata. Hüsameddin presents him as a master poet in three languages and a refined, quick-witted man of letters. The TEİS entry states that for about a century most of the poets writing in Turkish were formed by writing response poems (nazire) to the poems of Ahmedî's divan: in Edirneli Nazmî's Mecma'u'n-nezâ'ir some 134 poets wrote 249 response poems to 23 of Ahmedî's poems, and in the Pervâne Bey Mecmuası 371 response poems were written to 16 of them. The TDV entry also counts Münîrî of Amasya among the poets influenced by Ahmedî.

The poems Hüsameddin included in his book bear the marks of this tradition of response poetry. The historian quotes a couplet and a two-couplet mesnevi passage that Mecdî cites from the İskendernâme, and three ghazals he saw in the copy of the Mecma'ü'n-Nezâ'ir in the Nuruosmaniye Library. In a footnote he writes that this anthology belonged to Sipahi Nazmî Çelebi, who died in 955, that it mostly collected the response poems of Amasya poets, and that it also contained many poems by Münîrî. One of Ahmedî's ghazals addressed to the beloved names the poet's real name in its last couplet by combining it with a verse of the Qur'an: "İşidin dir inne İbrâhime evvâhün münîb". Hüsameddin also deduces from this line that Ahmedî's name was İbrâhim. These poems, together with the müveşşah kaside passage mentioned in the TDV entry, from which a hidden couplet and a quatrain emerge, are given as separate articles among the poet's poems. A century later the Amasya poet Hızrî, in his mesnevi Âb-ı Hayât, names Ahmedî alongside Câmî and Gülşenî among the poets with whom he conversed in a dream; it is a small sign that the poet's memory lived on in Amasya.

Family

According to Hüsameddin, Ahmedî's father was Mevlânâ Hayreddîn Hızır Çelebi, one of the learned men of Amasya, and his grandfather Hacı Şehâbeddîn Ahmed, son of Sunkur. The poet's son Ekmeleddîn Mehmed Çelebi studied in Bursa and became a madrasa teacher there, came to Amasya with his father in 804 (1401-02), taught there, served as a judge, then became registrar and treasurer of the province of Amasya, and died around 835 (1431-32). Hüsameddin also counts Ekmeleddîn's son Tâceddîn İbrâhim Bey and his son Şehâbeddîn Ahmed Çelebi among well-known scholars and notables. The date 804 given in the son's entry is one year earlier than the 805 in Ahmedî's own entry; the source does not explain the difference.

Chronology

735 (1334-35): Probable year of birth; according to Hüsameddin he is born in Amasya.

783 (1381): According to Hüsameddin he leaves Amasya after the death in battle against Kadı Burhaneddin of Hacı Şâdgeldi Pasha, whose tutor and secretary he had been.

792 (1390): He writes the İskendernâme.

804 (1402): Battle of Ankara and captivity of Bayezid I; according to Hüsameddin he receives Timur's favour in Kütahya.

805 (1402-03): According to Hüsameddin he comes to Amasya and joins the dignitaries of Çelebi Mehmed.

806 (1403): He completes Cemşîd ü Hurşîd.

810 (1407): He writes the Mevlid section of the İskendernâme in Bursa, in the time of Emîr Süleyman.

813 (1411): Emîr Süleyman dies; Ahmedî enters the circle of Çelebi Mehmed.

814-815 (1411-1413): He dies in Amasya; the third volume of Hüsameddin gives 814, the sixth volume, together with Mecdî and al-Temîmî, the end of 815.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Books