The defeat of the Anatolian Seljuk State by the Mongols at Köse Dağ in 1243 changed the political map of Anatolia, and Amasya was not exempt from that change. The city passed under the administration of Mongol governors, then of the Ilkhanids, and some time later of the Eretnid principality and of local emirs, and it changed hands many times before it was joined to Ottoman territory in 1398. Yet however scattered the political picture, those same centuries were the period in which Amasya acquired its madrasas, a hospital, its khanqahs and dervish lodges, its chains of sheikhs, and a scholarly tradition that later ages would honor with titles such as "the Baghdad of Anatolia." While governors came and went, professors kept teaching, sheikhs kept their circles of conversation, and endowments went on meeting the cost of both. The political events belong to a separate article; the subject here is the intellectual and mystical life of roughly the century and a half after Köse Dağ.

The Seljuk Inheritance and Continuity After Köse Dağ

After Köse Dağ no new order of institutions was built in Amasya from scratch. The ground for the city's scholarly and mystical life had been laid in the Seljuk age, and Mongol rule did not tear it up. One of the oldest written documents of the Turkish period is the endowment deed attached to the Halifet Gazi Madrasa of 1209-1210. The building that appears in this document under the name "khanqah" is regarded as the city's first dervish lodge, and in later Ottoman survey registers it is recorded as the "Şeyh Kırık Tekkesi." The khanqah tradition had developed in Khorasan and Western Turkestan in the Great Seljuk age and had been carried from there to Anatolia. Dervishes who came from Central Asia gave talks to the people in these buildings and taught their orders' ways to their disciples, so that these in turn could become guides.

The Anatolian Seljuk sultans had taken particular care over Amasya. The sources relate that Mesud I founded a settlement called Simre near the city, built there a madrasa and a lodge called the Hankâh-ı Mesudiye, and appointed Siraceddin Mahmud b. Ali el-Hocendî as its sheikh. Alâeddin Keykubad I likewise installed Taceddin Ebü'l-Vefa el-Harezmî as sheikh of the same lodge. Hüseyin Hüsameddin, relying on the Behcetü't-Tevârîh, writes that the khanqah was built around 545 (1150), and says he established from documents that Sheikh Sirâceddîn Mahmud b. Ali was its sheikh in 571 (1175-1176) and Alâeddîn Mehmed, thought to be his son, in 607 (1210-1211). According to the same author, in the order Sultan Mesud set up the madrasa was devoted to spreading learning and the khanqah to the training of morals, and two governors of Amasya, Mübârizeddîn Halîfe Alp and Seyfeddin Torumtay, each built a higher madrasa and settled stipends on its professors. For this reason Amasya came to be called "the land of the zawiyas." The Mongol and Ilkhanid governors who came to the city after Köse Dağ, together with the local lords, mostly continued this inheritance rather than abolishing it. Madrasas, lodges and endowments went on functioning, and the new buildings were erected by emirs left over from the Seljuk age, by officials appointed by the Mongol administration, and by the city's long-established families.

The Scholars of the City Under the Mongol Governors

In the account Hüsameddin built by comparing İbn Bîbî, the Câmiu't-Tevârîh and the Arabic chronicles, the land east of the Kızılırmak came to be treated after 647 (1249-1250) as a separate district of supervision called the "Eyâlet-i Rûmiyye." While its Mongol overseer, Samuk Noyan, ran affairs from his estate near Vezirköprü, Seyfeddin Torumtay was made governor of Amasya. Torumtay was an emir who had risen from among the household slaves of Alâeddin Keykubad I, had served as master of the horse in the sultan's last years and had held the emirate of Malatya; in Amasya he lived in the Güdül quarter. Hüsameddin also records that Samuk Noyan, on coming to Anatolia, brought with him Takiyyeddîn Esen eş-Şirvânî, one of the deputies of Şihâbeddîn Sühreverdî, and that this man, known as "Esen Şeyh," became the scholars' chief point of reference in the region. Torumtay's good relations with the overseer are presented as the main reason he could protect the city's institutions in the years when Mongol pressure was heaviest.

These years were not calm. Hüsameddin relates that in 655 (1257) Torumtay set out to take Prince Alâeddin Keykubad II, who lived in Amasya, before Möngke Khan, that the prince died suddenly at Erzincan, and that in the governor's absence the Tatars in the city, egged on by the overseer's steward Zokay, plundered the houses of the rich. On his return Torumtay dismissed the castle warden and put in his place İzzeddin Gül Bey, who had calmed the people during the looting. In 658 (1260), when Kılıç Arslan IV became ruler of the lands east of the Kızılırmak and took up residence at Simre, Torumtay became regent, Alâeddîn Ali el-Erzenî chief judge, and Sadreddîn Muhammed b. Hızır et-Tiflîsî was appointed professor of the Halîfe Madrasa. That Erzenî had been professor of the same madrasa before becoming judge shows the close tie between madrasa and judgeship in the city.

Hüsameddin's most striking judgment on this period is that, thanks to Torumtay's generosity, scholars who came from every side spread learning in Amasya, and the city became "a university of the second rank" in Anatolia. Among the scholars he names are Gıyâseddîn Mahmud el-Garmînî, Safiyyeddîn Mustafa el-Amâsî, Ziyâeddîn Îsâ el-Hakkârî, Emîneddîn Muhammed et-Tebrîzî, Necîbeddîn Mûsâ el-Hallâtî, Sa'deddîn İsmâil er-Rûmî and Mecdeddîn Muhammed er-Rûmî; the chief judge Sadreddîn et-Tiflîsî he places above them all as a scholar of rigorous learning. The origins carried in these names point to a wide geography stretching from Khwarazm to Tabriz and from Hakkari to Ahlat, and they fit the known picture of eastern scholars taking refuge in Anatolian towns from the Mongol invasion. Although Hüsameddin says he gathered this information from "old papers" such as endowment deeds and court records, most of the documents he used have never been published; part of the detail therefore rests on a single source.

The Baba İlyas Khanqah and Its Chain of Sheikhs

The Babai movement, the most shattering event before Köse Dağ, occupies a place of its own in Amasya's mystical history. In the common view summarized by Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, Baba İlyas-ı Horasânî settled in the time of Alâeddin Keykubad I in the village of Çat (today İlyas) near Amasya, became known among the Turkmens as a Vefâî sheikh in the zawiya he founded there, and during the revolt that broke out in 637 (1240) was besieged in Amasya by Seljuk forces, captured and executed. The account in the Menâkıbü'l-kudsiyye of Elvan Çelebi, son of his grandson Âşık Paşa, is different: Baba İlyas was shut up in Amasya Castle, and on his fortieth day in the dungeon the wall of his cell split open, his gray horse came and carried him off, and he vanished. Hüsameddin paints an altogether different picture. In his account Baba İlyas had been sheikh of the city's Hankâh-ı Mesudî since 628 (1230-1231); when his name became entangled in the Baba İshak affair he was sent to his estate near Amasya and the khanqah was closed, to be reopened around 646 (1248) through the efforts of his sons. Hüsameddin claims that court documents mention him as living until 656, while those dated 658 call him "the late," and so he places his death in 657 (1259). Ocak regards the idea of a "Babai order" supposedly founded by Baba İlyas as a construction of later writers, and counts Hüsameddin among them. The two accounts have not been reconciled; the date of the execution rests on contemporary sources, while the details about the khanqah rest only on documents Hüsameddin says he saw.

According to the chain of sheikhs reported by Hüseyin Hüsameddin, Baba İlyas was followed at the head of the khanqah by his nephew and deputy Behlül Baba. When Behlül Baba was sent off to Suşehri, his disciple İbik Baba took his place. Hüsameddin describes İbik Baba as a sheikh who spoke Arabic and Persian with eloquence, had won the trust of the Tatar lords and was a support for the common people; but he writes that the way İbik Baba expounded in his gatherings was judged by the city's scholars to be contrary to asceticism and piety, and that when the chief judge Sadreddîn et-Tiflîsî opened an inquiry he fled to Egypt in 670 (1271-1272). İbik Baba was already on bad terms with the ruler of the day, Pervâne. It is related that in Egypt, because of his sayings on incarnation and union, he was questioned before Sultan Baybars in a council of scholars and punished, and that he then moved on to Tabriz and entered the circle of Abaka Khan. After his flight Pervâne for a time gave the zawiya, as a madrasa, to the professor Mecdeddîn Muhammed er-Rûmî. It is recorded that Baba İlyas's son Muhlis Baba took İbik Baba's place.

After that the sheikhdom passed in turn to İbik Baba (for a second time), Ahmed Baba, Sheikh Mecdüddin İsa and again Ahmed Baba. Ahmed Baba, according to Hüsameddin, was a scholar versed in Arabic and Persian literature and a fine speaker; in 701 (1301-1302) he was dismissed and forced into hiding because of the suspicion Ghazan Khan harbored toward the family, returned to office through the efforts of Burak Baba of Tokat, and died in 711 (1312). The same work records that Mecdeddîn Îsâ, who held the sheikhdom in between, went with his family to Osman Bey at Söğüt in 705 (1305-1306), like some other Sunni scholars weary of Ilkhanid pressure. The record that in 713 (1313) the Rifâî sheikh Şemseddîn Ahmed el-Ubeydî er-Rufâî, called "Sâhibü'l-Hâl," came from the Hejaz and lodged at the khanqah also shows that the building was a resting place open to different Sufi circles.

A record dated 1311 shows Baba İlyas's grandson Ali Âşık Paşa as sheikh. Hüsameddin describes him as a sheikh who revived the days of his grandfather, won the favor of Emir Chupan and became vizier and counselor to Chupan's son Timurtaş at Sivas. Âşık Paşa's biography points elsewhere, however: according to Günay Kut he was born at Kırşehir in 1272, wrote the Garibnâme in 1330, went to Egypt because of certain political events after serving as Timurtaş's vizier, and died at Kırşehir in 1332 while returning to Amasya. His sheikhdom of the Amasya khanqah therefore rests only on Hüsameddin's records. The family's tie with the Amasya region, on the other hand, is certain; according to Ocak, Âşık Paşa's son Elvan Çelebi left Kırşehir and settled in the Mecitözü area between Çorum and Amasya, the home of the family's founder Baba İlyas, and his descendants grew up in Amasya as sheikhs, judges and calligraphers.

Zeyneddin Yakub ez-Ziyârî and Cemâleddin İbrahim-i Aksarâyî follow. Hüsameddin writes that this Cemâleddîn, a native of Aksaray near Konya, settled in Amasya after studying in Konya, Damascus and Egypt, served as sheikh of the khanqah and professor of the Halifet Gazi Madrasa, went for a time to Egypt and Malatya because of the oppression of İşboğa Noyan, and after his return headed the khanqah a second time. On the date of his death the work contradicts itself: in the entry on the Şeyh Kırık Lodge it is said that the lodge stayed closed for a time when Cemâleddîn died in 1338, whereas his biography states that he died in 727 (1327) at Sivas, where he had gone at Timurtaş's invitation, and was buried there. The same biography records that the Şeyhülislam Zenbilli Ali Efendi and the Halveti sheikh Çelebi Halife descended from his son Fahreddîn İlyâs; one of the khanqah sheikhs of the post-Köse Dağ period thus becomes the ancestor of one of the best-known scholarly families of Ottoman Amasya. The lodge was reopened in the days of Şadgeldi Paşa.

This list rests largely on a single work, and some of its dates do not appear in the same form in other studies. Even so, the picture the chain gives is important: the oldest lodge in Amasya lived on for more than a century, passing from sheikh to sheikh despite political turmoil. That Baba İlyas's sons Şemseddin Mahmud-ı Tuğrâî and Fahreddin Ali had risen to the Seljuk vizierate seems to have helped the family keep its standing in the city after the Seljuks as well; Hüsameddin also writes that Şemseddîn Mahmud, after retiring from the vizierate, lived in Amasya at his father's khanqah. That another member of the same family, Muhlisüddin Musa Baba, served as sheikh of the khanqah made the building a place to which the people turned. In Şadgeldi Paşa's time the lodge passed to Hüsâmeddin Hüseyin et-Türkmânî, then to Saîdüddin Mevhûb, to his son İzzeddin Hasan Çelebi, and to Şemseddin Ahmed-i Rûmî (Sarı Şeyh). Hüsameddin notes that in this period the khanqah sheikhs were also authorized to issue fatwas. When Çelebi Mehmed returned to Amasya he made one of Sarı Şeyh's students, Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi, sheikh, and from then on the lodge was known as Şeyh Kırık.

The Gökmedrese and Seyfeddin Torumtay

The most important scholarly building added to Amasya in the Mongol age is the Gökmedrese. Its founder, Seyfeddin Torumtay, is said by some sources to have been appointed governor of Amasya in the reign of Gıyâseddin Keyhüsrev II, while others describe him as a governor appointed by the Mongol administration. On his tombstone his name is written "Toruntay"; Hüsameddin accepts both readings as correct. Because its inscription was removed, the date of construction is not certain. The endowment deed that Torumtay himself drew up is dated 1266-1267, and the building is taken to have been completed by that year at the latest. Hüsameddin too writes that in 665 (1266-1267) Torumtay finished his mosque and madrasa in the Güdül quarter and drew up its endowment deed. In the deed the building appears under the name "Gökmedrese." The name is usually explained by the use of its entrance as a madrasa and by the tomb beside it, which is decorated with purple and turquoise tiles and glazed bricks. Hüsameddin, relying on the deed, offers another explanation: the hexagonal, open-topped lecture hall on the east side of the madrasa was adorned with green stones like pale emeralds, so the building was called the "Gök Medrese" (the Blue-Green Madrasa), and the name passed to the quarter as well. In honor of its founder it is also called the Torumtay Mosque.

The structure served as both madrasa and mosque and, together with the tomb on its northeast side, forms a complex. With its closed, thick cut-stone walls and corner towers it carries all the characteristics of Seljuk architecture. Its stonework is considered finer than that of the Burmalı Minare Mosque, another Seljuk work in Amasya. Inside is a three-aisled space covered with domes and vaults. Hüsameddin writes that the madrasa cells were the small stone rooms lined up along the north and west sides of the space entered through the mosque's great door, and that the lecture hall was later used as a tomb for the founder's descendants. The door leaves in the kündekâri technique are today in the Amasya Museum.

The tomb gives the impression of two storeys, with its cube-shaped body on a square stone base and its octagonal brick drum. A Kufic inscription frieze built of turquoise glazed bricks, together with rosettes and stars of purple and turquoise tile, decorates this drum. The date of the tomb that Torumtay had built is given as 1278-1279 in one source and as 1287 in another. The inscription Hüsameddin read is above the window on the qibla-facing front, and it states that the building was made in 677 (1278-1279), in the reign of Keyhüsrev b. Kılıç Arslan, by "the weak servant in need of God's mercy, Torumtay b. Abdullah." The door, which faces east, is reached by a stone stair. Inside stands Torumtay's large black marble cenotaph, with the Throne Verse inscribed around it. Hüsameddin places his death in 679 (1280-1281). Beside the cenotaph lie his son Yakub Çelebi and three generations of his line, and at its foot some princes of Seljuk blood; because Kılıç Arslan, ruler of Sivas, was later buried here, the building is also called the "Kılıç Arslan Türbesi."

Documents show that the Gökmedrese was more than a place for lessons. The Ottoman survey register records the mosque and the madrasa separately, while Evliya Çelebi mentions the building among the mosques, madrasas and lodges of Amasya. That the first professor appointed to the madrasa was a physician, Gıyâsüddin Mahmud-i Gatmînî, suggests that medicine may also have been taught here. Hüsameddin reads this name as Garmînî, writes that the name refers to Garmîn, a village of Khwarazm, and that the same man later became chief judge of Simre. According to him, after Garmînî the madrasa was taught until 800 (1397-1398) by Ziyâeddîn Îsâ el-Hakkârî, Şemseddîn Ahmed-i Verdî, Garmînî's son Nasreddîn Mehmed, Şemseddîn Mehmed el-Hallâtî, Zeyneddîn Yakub ez-Ziyârî, Şerefeddîn Mehmed-i Erzincânî, Bedreddîn Doğan-ı Türkmânî and Muhyiddîn Yahyâ. Known among scholars also as the "Medrese-i Seyfiyye," the building was ranked at the hamsîn grade in the later Ottoman hierarchy of madrasas. Instruction, worship and spiritual training were thus gathered under a single roof. This is why researchers see the building as an early example of the multi-purpose building concept that would spread in the early Ottoman period.

Torumtay's line also lived on for a long time in the city's memory. Hüsameddin writes that his son Sinâneddîn Mûsâ was among the emirs of Amasya taken captive to Egypt after the battle of Elbistan in 1277, that his descendant Şerefeddîn Yakub Şah was emir of Amasya in the middle of the fourteenth century, and that later generations of the family were known as the "Keşizâde" and the "Kaya Paşazâde." An old water channel that brought water to the city was first called the "Torumtay Water," but after his descendant Kaya Paşa had its source cleaned in 805 (1402-1403) the name changed to the "Kaya Paşa Water." The trusteeship of the Torumtay endowment stayed in the same family for centuries, and the professorship of the madrasa remained an ordinary rung in the careers of Amasya's scholars until the end of the Ottoman period.

The Amasya Hospital (Dârüşşifâ)

Another great work that the Ilkhanid age left to Amasya is the hospital standing beside the street that runs parallel to the Yeşilırmak. From the Arabic inscription that runs around three sides of its portal we learn that the building was erected in 708 (1308-1309) by Anber b. Abdullah, a slave of İlduş (Yıldız) Hatun, wife of the Ilkhanid ruler Olcaytu Khan, together with the Emir of Anatolia, Ahmed Bey. The reading of the phrase "emir of Anatolia Ahmed" is disputed: according to a note by the editors of the work, İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı stated in his 1927 study that Hüsameddin had misread the cramped script of the inscription, and that he had not found some of the names Hüsameddin gave in the building inscription. The name of the architect is unknown. Its endowment deed, which has not survived, is known to have been drawn up in 1312. The building follows a madrasa plan, with two rows of arcades around a rectangular courtyard and long halls behind them, so that it has a courtyard scheme with two iwans. Its west facade, with cylindrical corner towers and a projecting portal, continues the Anatolian Seljuk tradition.

Hüsameddin describes the building as he himself saw it: it is of stone and extremely solid; the carved flowers on the facade resemble Seljuk work, and the decoration is concentrated only above and beside the door. The interior is square and spacious; on the north, south and east sides there are three large cells each, and one cell on either side of the door; in front of the cells, roofed arcades on stone columns surround the courtyard, and the whole recalls an old madrasa. On rectangular stones on either side of the door there are inscriptions that cannot be fully read but resemble the phrases "Alâü'd-devle ve'd-dîn Ali" and "İbnü'l-merhûm Mehmed." In old records the building appears as the "Dârüşşifâ-i merhûm Alâeddîn Ali" and the "Dârüşşifâ-i Pervâne." Hüsameddin explains this by supposing that the builders died before drawing up the endowment deed and that it was drawn up by Alâeddîn Ali Pervâne Bey of the Pervâne family. He rejects Mehmed Rif'at Efendi's view that the building had first been a pagan temple, and Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi's view that it was built by Muînüddin Süleyman Pervâne, attributing both to their not having read the inscription over the door.

As the inscription states, the building served in a general sense as a hospital. Its popular reputation as a "bimarhane" and later as a "tımarhane" (madhouse) comes from the idea that only the mentally ill were treated here. The hospital worked as a medical institution for a long time afterwards, as it had at the start. According to Hüsameddin its first physician was Reşîdeddîn Lokmân b. Hasan el-Harezmî, and Bedreddîn Mahmud Çelebi and Nefîseddîn Mehmed Çelebi were also among the physicians who became famous here. In time medicine passed from generation to generation within families: Hüsâmeddîn Ebû Nasr el-Muhtârî, a great-grandson of Reşîdeddîn Lokmân, learned medicine from the hospital's physician Hacı Şücâ' İlyâs, succeeded him, and became personal physician to Prince Alâeddin Bey. Hüsameddin himself saw Ebû Nasr's signature at the end of the Şerh-i Mûcez, which Ebû Nasr copied in his own hand in 841 (1437-1438). The staff of the endowment was known until recent times: trustee, clerks, rent collectors, chain keepers, doorkeepers, physician, apprentices, pharmacist, laundryman, cook and noktacı. The existence of a post such as "chain keeper" suggests that the mentally ill were also kept in the institution. In the years Hüsameddin was writing, however, the building had become a timber merchants' depot.

From his own work, the Mücerrebnâme, we learn that Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin, the author of the Cerrâhiyye-i İlhâniyye, practiced medicine and surgery in this hospital. According to Nuran Yıldırım, Şerefeddin, born in 1386, was the grandson of Sabuncuoğlu Hacı İlyas Çelebi, chief physician to Sultan Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed); he probably trained at the hospital under Burhâneddin Ahmed en-Nahcuvânî and practiced there for fourteen years. His statement that he wrote his last work, the Mücerrebnâme, in 1468 at the request of the physicians' circle of Amasya shows that a lively medical milieu still surrounded the hospital a century and a half later. The likeness of names between Hacı Şücâ' İlyâs, whom Hüsameddin mentions as a physician of the hospital, and Sabuncuoğlu's grandfather Hacı İlyas Çelebi is striking, but no document shows that the two were the same person. Thus the hospital founded in 1308 became, in the following century, part of the milieu in which important books of Ottoman medical history were written. It is one of the concrete bases for the epithet "medînetü'l-hükemâ" (city of physicians and sages) attached to Amasya. Popular memory also went astray over the building's age; Osman Fevzi Olcay, who grew up in this neighborhood at the beginning of the twentieth century, writes in his memoirs that according to its inscription the building was made in 606 (1209), whereas the date on the inscription is 708.

The Mevlevi Lodge and Other Zawiyas

One of the important institutions of the Mongol and Ilkhanid age is the Amasya Mevlevi Lodge. Hüseyin Hüsameddin writes that the lodge was built in 1314 in the Saraçhane quarter, near the Hükümet (Helkis) Bridge on the bank of the Yeşilırmak; another study names the building the Alâeddin Pervâne Mevlevi Lodge. In old records it appears as the "Mevlevîhâne-i Pervâne der-Amasya" and in the Islamic court registers as the "Mevlevîhâne-i merhûm Alâeddîn Pervâne Bey"; its original endowment deed was lost in 1071 (1660-1661), and its contents were re-established through the testimony of witnesses. Hüsameddin's work also gives an earlier date for the coming of the Mevlevis to the city: it relates that in 665 (1266-1267), at the time Torumtay completed the Gökmedrese, Muînüddin Süleyman Pervâne had a wooden Mevlevi lodge built in Amasya and installed as its sheikh Veliyyeddîn Ahmed b. Yûsuf el-Mevlevî, one of Rumi's deputies. That documents show Veliyyeddîn Ahmed Dede as Mevlevi sheikh in 675 (1276-1277) and Alâeddîn Ali Dede in 683 (1284-1285) indicates that the Mevlevis were in the city before the stone building as well.

Hüsameddin interprets Pervâne's step as an attempt to counterbalance the influence of İbik Baba, sheikh of the Baba İlyas khanqah and trusted by the Tatars, and he believes the coolness between the Babais and the Mevlevis dates from these years. This is the author's own judgment and is not supported by any other source. Veliyyeddîn Ahmed's son Cemâleddîn Yûsuf Çelebi seems to have been the real founder of the city's Mevlevi tradition. It is related that he saw Rumi in his youth, received spiritual instruction from Rumi's deputy Hüsâmeddin Çelebi and from Sultan Veled, returned to Amasya and taught for a time before becoming sheikh of the lodge, and for years recited and taught the Masnavi, spreading Arabic and Persian literature. Being a man of imposing presence and fine looks, he was called "Yavuz Dede" and "Buğra Şeyh," and he died in 722 (1322), a contemporary of Âşık Paşa. Hüsameddin also writes that he was appointed sheikh of the lodge newly built by Alâeddîn Ali Pervâne Bey.

The succession of sheikhs can be followed into later centuries as well. In Şadgeldi Paşa's time the lodge was headed by Nusretzâde Cemâleddîn Ahmed Dede of Zile, and then by his deputy Mehmed Cû'î Dede. When Cû'î Dede built a separate Mevlevi lodge in 817 (1414) in the village that bears his name and withdrew there, he was succeeded by Mecdeddîn Küpeli Dede and, in 840 (1436-1437), by Müstencid Dede; this village lodge, known as Şeyh Cuy, became the second center of Amasya's Mevlevis. The lodge in the city also had a "Pervâne Bey Guesthouse" open to travelers and the poor. The building burned in 1011 (1602-1603) during a bandit raid and its sheikh disappeared; in 1047 (1637-1638) it was rebuilt by Bayram Paşa and its endowments were enlarged. Hüsameddin writes that with this revival the Mevlevi order regained strength in the city. Evliya Çelebi, too, says that of all the lodges in Amasya the most perfect was the Mevlevi lodge in the city. The building has not survived.

Another trace of the other orders of the period is found at Taşova. The endowment deed of the Seyid Nûreddin Alparslan Zawiya, which belonged to the Rifâî order, is dated Ramadan 655 (September 1257). This date shows that the Rifâî order had settled in the Amasya region only fourteen years after Köse Dağ. The Gümüşlü-zâdes, descendants of the Seljuk emir Gümüşlü Muînüddin Yûnus-ı Müstevfî (d. 1272), meanwhile became a long-established family of the city. Tâceddin Mahmud Çelebi, a member of this family, had the Gümüşlü Mosque built in 1325 (in some records 1326), and the Gümüşlüoğlu Lodge beside it is also the work of the same line. Hüsameddin records that Tâceddîn Mahmud Çelebi was finance officer to Altunbaş, the last Seljuk prince, who reigned at Simre in 712 (1312), and that he later served for a time as emir of Amasya. Pir İlyas too is recorded as belonging to this family.

On the madrasa side, Nasırüddin Ahmed Ata Bey had the Atabey Madrasa built in 1327 in the Sığır Pazarı. According to Hüsameddin, Ahmed Bey was the son of Ömer Bey, chief of the Atallu Turkmen clan living around Amasya; because he served as atabeg to Sultan Mesud and his son Altunbaş he was known as "Atabeg," and in 722 (1322) he became governor of Amasya. The madrasa's endowment deed is dated Rabi al-Awwal 727 (February 1327); elsewhere Hüsameddin writes that the building was completed in 725. A solid structure of cut stone, the madrasa had fifteen large cells, a lecture hall and a garden in the middle. Its first professor was the Cemâleddîn İbrâhim el-Aksarâyî mentioned above. Repeatedly ruined by earthquakes and repaired from its endowment revenues, the building had according to Hüsameddin been an empty plot since 1294 (1877); its surroundings had been taken into private ownership and blacksmiths' shops built there. The last known archival record of the madrasa is likewise dated 1877. Ahmed Bey's descendants were known in Amasya as the "Atabeyoğulları," and the famous Ottoman vizier Yörgüç Paşa came from this family.

The Eretnid and Şadgeldi Period

After the Ilkhanid authority dissolved, Amasya was attached to the Eretnid principality around 1341. This period did not pass quietly in terms of learning and mysticism. Emir Hacı Şadgeldi, who ruled the city after the Eretnids, was the governor who had the most buildings erected in the city in the second half of the fourteenth century. Hüsameddin writes that he came from the Akçakoyunlu tribe settled in the city and that he died in 783 (1381) as ruler of Amasya. He had the Saraçhane Mosque built in 1372 and the madrasa immediately east of it in 1373. Hüsameddin states, on the basis of old documents, that Şadgeldi, who built this madrasa around 775 (1373-1374), appointed Sadreddîn Artuk et-Türkmânî as its professor. Because it was rebuilt in 875 (1470-1471) by Alaca Yahyâ Bey, tutor-guardian to Prince Bayezid, the madrasa later took the name "Alaca Yahyâ Madrasa"; in 1281 (1864-1865) the district governor Ziya Paşa had the old building pulled down and a secondary school put up in its place. The Saraçhane Madrasa, which Osman Fevzi Olcay counted among the working madrasas at the beginning of the twentieth century, continued this tradition. The Tomb of Şadgeldi Paşa is also counted among the works of the period.

Writing and translation were also carried on around Şadgeldi's court. Cemâleddîn Mehmed b. Aksarâyî translated the Ravzatü'l-Ulemâ, a work of counsel and Islamic wisdom, into Turkish and presented it to Şadgeldi Paşa under the title Teferrücü'l-ümerâ, praising the emir in its preface as a warrior for the faith and a builder of mosques. Hüsameddin used the copy of this work registered under number 2347 in the Nuruosmaniye Library. Eastern scholars such as Rükneddîn Nu'mân b. Hasan er-Râzî also came and settled in Amasya in Şadgeldi's time. It is known that on his death his son Ahmed took over the government and asked the Ottomans for support against Kadı Burhâneddin. In Ahmed Bey's time Hüsâmeddîn Hüseyin el-Kâtî, Hüsâmeddîn Hasan el-Hoyî, Sadreddîn Artuk, Fahreddîn Osman et-Türkmânî and the master of Quran readers Hâfızeddîn Muhammed el-Habbâzî were the city's well-known scholars; Kâtî had written his Şerh-i Miftâh in Ahmed Bey's name and presented it to his library. The sheikh of the Mevlevi lodge, Hüsâm Dedezâde Celâleddîn Muhammed Çelebi, was also a respected figure. Although these political details lie outside the subject of this article, it is striking that in such tangled years the city continued to add new buildings for its centers of learning and to produce books.

The reopening of the khanqah in Şadgeldi's time, and the appointment of such names as Türkmânî, Mevhûb and İzzeddin Hasan Çelebi to the sheikhdom, show the weight the lodge carried in the eyes of the government. The relationship between lodge and government was not always harmonious, however. It is related that when Timur appointed Kara Devletşah governor of Amasya in 1402, the people who opposed him were led by Sarı Şeyh, that Timur therefore sent Kara Sultan Mehmed to the city, and that Sarı Şeyh first hid and then went to Aleppo. In listing the leaders of this resistance, Hüsameddin names together the mufti Gümüşlüzâde Şücâeddîn İlyâs, the khanqah sheikh Sarı Şeyh, the professor Şemseddîn Ahmed, called "Şeker Çelebi" (Sugar Çelebi) for his sweet tongue, and Tâceddîn İsrâfil Çelebi of Lâdik. The episode shows that the influence of sheikhs and scholars over the people could also have political consequences.

Pir İlyas and the Beginning of the Halveti Tradition in Amasya

At the end of the centuries after Köse Dağ, the most important name in Amasya's mystical history is Pir Şücâeddin İlyas. Born in Amasya and educated there, he is a leading figure in the entry of the Halveti order into Ottoman lands. That the Halveti order was brought to Anatolia by Pîr İlyas of Amasya, one of the deputies of Sadreddîn-i Hiyâvî, is accepted in general histories of the order as well. Kadir Özköse does not accept the view that the Halveti order entered Amasya during the governorship of Bayezid II; he states that the order spread to the city through Pîr İlyas, and that Amasya was therefore the place where the Halveti order first took root in Ottoman territory. Hüsameddin's records show that even before entering the Sufi path he was one of the city's leading scholars: in Ahmed Bey's time, when the mufti Hüsâmeddîn Hasan el-Hoyî died, he became mufti of Amasya in his place.

According to one narrative, after establishing his rule in Anatolia Timur wished to enter Amasya, and on hearing that the city was famous for its saints he sent a delegation of scholars headed by Abdülcebbar. Thanks to Pîr İlyas, who won praise through his answers to the delegation's questions, the city was saved from plunder. Hüsameddin tells the event in more detail: in Rabi al-Awwal 805 (October 1402) Kara Mehmed Sultan and his teacher Nu'mâneddîn Abdülcebbâr el-Mu'tezilî came to the city, the scholars were asked ten difficult questions from the rational and transmitted sciences, and the mufti Pîr İlyas saved the city by answering them without hesitation. The author bases this on the biography of Pîr İlyas in Kâtib Çelebi's Süllemü'l-Vusûl, and adds that Timur's custom of testing the scholars of the cities he reached is also described in the work of İbn Şıhne. Going to Shirvan on Timur's orders, Pîr İlyas received spiritual training there from Sheikh Sadreddin-i Şirvânî, completed his course and returned to Amasya with a license. According to Hüsameddin, Timur's decree sent Pîr İlyas to Shirvan together with his nephew Şemseddîn Ahmed, and the vacant post of mufti passed to another nephew, Gümüşlüzâde Celâleddîn Abdurrahmân Çelebi. Although the core of the account rests on an Ottoman biography, its details cannot be confirmed by a contemporary document and it carries legendary elements.

The sources also differ on the date of Pîr İlyas's death. Özköse writes that Pîr İlyas died in 833 (1429) and that after him Zekeriyâ Halvetî became the order's representative in Amasya. According to Hüsameddin, however, Yakub Paşa's endowment deed of 815 (1412) mentions the death of Pîr İlyas; if this record is correct, his death falls much earlier. Pîr İlyas is buried on the western slope of the Saraydüzü Barracks. His tomb was built on the order of Bayezid II in 1481 and, according to its inscription, was completed in 1482; among the people it is known as "Yukarı Pîrler." Hüsameddin writes that the tomb was first built as a single cell by Gümüşlüzâde Ahmed Paşa, that Bayezid II had it rebuilt in masonry with three domes in 890 (1485) (a date differing from the inscription), that within it lie Pîr İlyas together with his son-in-law Pîr Celâleddîn Abdurrahmân Çelebi and his grandson Pîr Hayreddîn Hızır Çelebi, that it was repaired in 1100 (1688-1689), and that in 1312 (1894-1895), weakened by earthquakes, it was pulled down and rebuilt keeping its old arrangement. The "Aşağı Pîrler" tomb, where Gümüşlüoğlu Pir Abdurrahman Çelebi of Pîr İlyas's line lies, was still a living place of visitation at the beginning of the twentieth century; Olcay relates that every year on the eve of the Feast of Sacrifice flour halva was carried there and distributed after the prayer for the completed recitation of the Quran.

The path that Pîr İlyas opened continued in Amasya for centuries. The Çilehâne (Yakub Paşa), Çevikçe, Sadeddin, Şehre Küştü, Kutub, Gümüşlüoğlu, Mehmed Paşa, Mahmud Çelebi and Meydan lodges are the principal Halveti lodges that remained in existence for four centuries. The Çilehâne Lodge is associated with the branch of Pîr İlyas, and its endowment deed was drawn up by the kadi of Amasya, Mevlânâ Rükneddin Mahmud, nicknamed Sarı Kadı. According to Hüsameddin the Ottoman emir Yakub Paşa built this retreat house in 815 (1412), with a mosque, a lecture hall and a sheikh's room, for Gümüşlüzâde Abdurrahmân Çelebi, the son-in-law of Pîr İlyas, and left its trusteeship to the Pîr's deputy Şemseddîn Mehmed Buhârî. The Halvetis of Amasya called the chain of sheikhs who served here, beginning with Abdurrahmân Çelebi, Buhârî and the Pîr's son Celâleddîn Abdurrahmân and continuing in 843 (1439-1440) with Sunullah-ı Halvetî and then Zekeriyyâ el-Halvetî, the "Silsiletü'z-Zeheb," the golden chain. Hüsameddin believes that the Halveti order spread quickly because, unlike the Babai and Mevlevi circles, it encouraged its followers toward learning and kept them away from meddling in the emirs' affairs. In Hüsameddin's work Abdurrahmân Çelebi appears in some places as the Pîr's son-in-law and in others as his nephew or son; these names within the family have probably become confused. Most of these lodges are buildings of the Ottoman age, but the root of Sufism in the city had taken shape in the fourteenth century.

The Legacy Passed to Later Centuries

In the Ottoman age Amasya became a cultural center around the princes' palace, producing names such as the historian Şükrullah, the calligrapher Şeyh Hamdullah, Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi, Zenbilli Ali Efendi and Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin. This flowering cannot be imagined without the legacy of the post-Köse Dağ period. That Zenbilli Ali Efendi descended from Cemâleddîn Aksarâyî, a khanqah sheikh of the Mongol period, and that Sabuncuoğlu trained in the hospital founded in the Ilkhanid age, are concrete examples of this continuity. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the city had nine mosques, ten madrasas, four zawiyas, six soup kitchens and fifteen baths, and a considerable part of these rose on foundations laid in the Seljuk, Mongol and Eretnid ages. Hüsameddin writes that in the Ottoman period the madrasas of Amasya were divided into three grades called erbaîn, hamsîn and sittîn, that a professor could rise from one grade to the next only after teaching at least five years in each, and that this order was maintained until about 1100 (1688-1689). G. Perrot, who visited the city in 1861, describes Amasya as "the Oxford of Anatolia," noting that nearly two thousand students studied in its madrasas. Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi, who wrote a work on the city at the beginning of the nineteenth century, likewise describes Amasya as a city of students. Names such as "Bağdâdü'r-Rûm," "city of madrasas" and "Dârü'l-İzz" reflect the accumulation of different periods; the last of them dates from the Seljuk age.

The presence in the city of madrasa, hospital, khanqah, Mevlevi lodge and zawiya side by side in the Mongol and Eretnid ages allowed both the outward sciences and Sufism to continue in the same town. The madrasas taught subjects such as jurisprudence, Quranic exegesis and hadith, while the lodges kept alive the training of the heart and the tradition of spiritual conversation. Some buildings, such as the Gökmedrese, combined these two functions within a single structure; that a scholar such as Cemâleddîn Aksarâyî could serve both as khanqah sheikh and as professor shows how permeable the boundary between the two worlds was at that time. That Amasya is called by such phrases as "Kubbetü'l-Ulemâ" (dome of the scholars) and "Türbetü'l-Evliyâ" (tomb of the saints) shows how this continuity was perceived in later periods.

Chronology

1209-1210: Date of the Halifet Gazi Madrasa and its khanqah; its endowment deed is among the oldest documents of the Turkish period in Amasya.

1240: The Babai revolt; in the common view Baba İlyas is captured in Amasya and executed (Hüsameddin places his death in 1259).

1243: Battle of Köse Dağ; Amasya comes under Mongol influence.

1257: The endowment deed of the Rifâî Seyid Nûreddin Alparslan Zawiya at Taşova is drawn up.

1260: Kılıç Arslan IV becomes ruler at Simre; Torumtay becomes regent and Sadreddîn et-Tiflîsî professor of the Halîfe Madrasa (according to Hüsameddin).

1266-1267: Seyfeddin Torumtay's endowment deed for the Gökmedrese (the latest date for completion of the building); according to Hüsameddin, Pervâne's wooden Mevlevi lodge is also built in these years.

1271-1272: İbik Baba flees to Egypt.

1278-1279: Date on the inscription of the Torumtay Tomb (677).

1308-1309: Date on the inscription of the Amasya Hospital; its endowment deed was drawn up in 1312.

1312: Death of Ahmed Baba; Âşık Paşa succeeds to the sheikhdom of the khanqah (according to Hüsameddin).

1314: The date Hüseyin Hüsameddin gives for the Amasya Mevlevi Lodge.

1322: Death of Yavuz Dede (Cemâleddîn Yûsuf Çelebi), sheikh of the Mevlevi lodge.

1325-1326: Gümüşlü Mosque.

1327: Endowment deed of the Atabey Madrasa (Rabi al-Awwal 727).

1372-1373: Şadgeldi Paşa's Saraçhane Mosque and madrasa.

1402: A delegation sent by Timur tests the scholars of Amasya; Sarı Şeyh goes to Aleppo and Pîr İlyas is sent to Shirvan.

1412: Yakub Paşa's endowment deed for the Çilehâne (815).

1414: Mehmed Cû'î Dede's Mevlevi lodge in the village of Şeyh Cuy.

1429: Death of Pir İlyas (the date reported by Özköse); his tomb was built in 1481-1482.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Books

Online sources