The poet known by the pen names (mahlas) Ânî and Zeyrekî was a scholar and judge of the mid-sixteenth century. His identity is today divided between two separate accounts. According to Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar's Amasya Tarihi, the poet was Seyrekzâde Şemseddin Ahmed Çelebi, born in Amasya in 932 (1525-26) and died in Mecca in 975; his father was Seyrek Muhyiddin Mehmed Efendi of Kalecik, remembered as the tutor of Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa). The sixteenth-century biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire), and the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature) that draws on them, give the same pen names to Zeyrekzâde Mehmed Çelebi of Bursa, a grandson of Molla Zeyrek, the scholar of the reign of Mehmed II, and place his death in Bursa in 977 (1569-70). His poems are recorded in the tezkires under the name Zeyrekzâde. Hüsameddin attached these poems and the death date found in the tezkires to Seyrekzâde of Amasya. The poet's connection with Amasya therefore rests on a single source and is disputed. Below, the two accounts are given separately, and it is shown which piece of information comes from which source and what the likely cause of the confusion is.

Life

Seyrekzâde Ahmed Çelebi as Described by Hüsameddin

In the sixth volume of Amasya Tarihi Hüsameddin devotes an entry headed "Ânî Ahmed Çelebi-Mevlânâ Şemseddîn" to the poet. The original text of the entry reads:

Amasyalıdır. Amasya vâlisi Şehzâde Sultân Mustafa'nın mu'allimi iken Amasya'da vefât eden sâdât-ı Hüseynîyeden Kal'acıklı Mevlânâ Seyrek Muhyiddîn Mehmed Efendi'nin mahdûmudur. Pederi Amasya'da Mehmed Paşa Müderrisi iken 932 senesinde doğdu. Amasya'da mukaddemât-ı ulûmı Hakalalı es-Seyyid Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi'den okudu. Seyrekzâdelikle meşhûr oldu. 951'de İstanbul'a gidip Zeyrek Câmii ittisâlinde kâin hücrelerde ikâmetle Çelebi İbrâhim, Arab Şemseddîn Ahmed, Celâlzâde Sâlih, Taşköprülüzâde İsâmeddîn Ahmed Efendilerden ikmâl-i tahsîl ederek ders-i âm ve 963'de Bursa'da Veliyüddînzâde ve 970'de Kapluca Medreselerine müderris oldu. 974'de âzim-i Hicâz olup Nev'izâde Atâyî Efendi "Zeyl-i Şakâyık"da zabtına göre 975 senesi muharreminde Mekke-i Mükerreme'de vefât etdi. Cebel-i Mu'allâ kabristânında medfûndur. Kâfzâde Feyzî Mustafa Efendi tezkiresinde 977'de vefâtı kaydedilmiş, târîh-i irtihâli hakkında "Dükendi ömr-i Ânî merdüm içinde fenâ buldı" mısra'ı yazılmıştır ki Nev'izâde'nin zabtını te'yîd etmekdedir. Mahdûmu kudâtdan es-Seyyid Mehmed Efendi'dir. Merhûm âlim, fâzıl, zekî, şâir bir zât olup ibtidâ Ânî mahlasıyla iştihâr etmişdi. Sonra Zeyrek Câmii civârında ikâmeti hasebiyle Zeyrekî mahlasını kabûl etmişdir. Amasya'da tevellüd ve üstâdı kendi kalemiyle kaydeylediği kitabda görüldü. Birâderi Emrullah Efendi gibi âteşî zebân olduğu mervîdir. Kâfzâde tezkiresinde şu beytleri yazılıdır: (…)

In English: He is from Amasya. He is the son of Mevlânâ Seyrek Muhyiddin Mehmed Efendi of Kalecik, one of the sayyids descended from Hüseyin, who died in Amasya while serving as tutor to Şehzade Sultan Mustafa, governor of Amasya. He was born in 932, when his father was teacher (müderris) at the Mehmed Paşa madrasa in Amasya. He read the introductory sciences in Amasya with Seyyid Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi of Hakala and became known as Seyrekzâde. In 951 he went to Istanbul and, lodging in the madrasa cells adjoining the Zeyrek Mosque, completed his studies with Çelebi İbrahim, Arab Şemseddin Ahmed, Celâlzâde Sâlih and Taşköprülüzâde İsâmeddin Ahmed. He became müderris at the Veliyüddinzâde madrasa in Bursa in 963 and at the Kaplıca madrasa in 970. In 974 he set out for the Hejaz and, according to the record in Nev'îzâde Atâyî's Zeyl-i Şakâyık (supplement to the Şakâik), died in Mecca in Muharram of 975 and was buried in the Cebel-i Mu'allâ cemetery. The tezkire of Kâfzâde Fâizî records his death in 977 and gives a chronogram line for it beginning "Dükendi ömr-i Ânî"; according to Hüsameddin this confirms Nev'îzâde's record. His son was Seyyid Mehmed Efendi, one of the judges. He was a learned, accomplished, clever man and a poet; he first became known under the pen name Ânî, then, because he lived near the Zeyrek Mosque, adopted the pen name Zeyrekî. His birth in Amasya and the name of his teacher were seen in a book recorded in his own hand. It is related that, like his brother Emrullah Efendi, he had a fiery tongue.

In the third volume of his book, when listing the literary circle of Şehzade Mustafa in Amasya, Hüsameddin mentions the same person among the prince's companions as "Seyrekzâde Ânî Ahmed Çelebi". In another passage listing the famous poets of Amasya, the name "Ânî" appears together with Çeşmî, Mihrî and Kâmî. By Hüsameddin's own dates, Ahmed Çelebi left Amasya in 951 (1544). Since Şehzade Mustafa came to Amasya in 1541, it follows that the poet could have joined his circle only within these three years, while still in his early twenties. This is our inference.

Zeyrekzâde Mehmed Çelebi as Described by the Tezkires

The sixteenth-century tezkires link the poet with the pen name Ânî or Zeyrekî to a different family. In Âşık Çelebi's Meşâirü'ş-Şuarâ, completed in 1568, the poet appears under the heading "Zîrekî". According to Âşık Çelebi his name is Mehmed Çelebi and he is known as Zeyrekzâde. His father was Paşa Çelebi, who died while müderris at the Çifte Medrese in Edirne, and Paşa Çelebi's brother was the chief judge (kazasker) Mevlânâ Rükneddin Çelebi. From his student days the poet stood out among his peers for his intelligence and pleasant nature; he obtained his candidacy (mülazemet) from Kâdirî Efendi, a student of Ammî, taught at the Emîr Seyyid and Balıkesrî madrasas in Bursa, and then moved of his own choice into the judiciary. Âşık Çelebi praises at length his house as a gathering place of free spirits and wits, his famous table and the dishes he cooked. Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi and Beyânî treat the same poet under the heading "Ânî". Both say that he enjoyed fame and standing among the judges but was overcome by berş (an opium paste) and opium. Kınalızâde relates that this drove the poet to strange behaviour, that he would invite his friends to his house with a thousand entreaties and then, taking offence at some trifle, spoil the meal for them, and records that he died in 977 (1569-70).

İncinur Atik Gürbüz, author of the entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, combines these tezkires with Mehmed Süreyya's Sicill-i Osmânî and Mehmed Nâil Tuman's Tuhfe-i Nâilî. In her account the poet is from Bursa, his given name is Mehmed, and his grandfather is Mehmed Zeyrek Efendi, who gave his name to the slope near the madrasa where he taught in Istanbul; the poet was called Zeyrekzâde after this grandfather. He was dismissed while judge of Kütahya, spent his retirement in Bursa, where his father too had lived as a merchant after his dismissal, and died there in 977. His grave is in the cemetery of the Yıldırım Mosque, and the line "Dükendi ömrü Ânî bir dem içinde fenâ buldı" was composed as a chronogram for his death. In the dictionary Rükneddin Çelebi appears as the poet's brother, while in Âşık Çelebi he is his father's brother. The dictionary writes that the poet used first the pen name Zeyrekî and then Ânî, that he was a middling poet but a learned scholar, accomplished in riddles (muamma), prosody and rhyme, and master of Persian proverbs. There is no record that he left a divan or any other work.

Connection with Amasya

The only source linking the poet with Amasya is Hüsameddin. The link rests on two points: that the poet was born in Amasya, and that his father was mufti of Amasya and tutor of Şehzade Mustafa. Hüsameddin says he saw the birth information in a book written in Ahmed Çelebi's own hand, but gives neither the title nor the location of the book. By his own record, too, the poet received only his first schooling in Amasya, went to Istanbul before he was twenty, and spent the rest of his life in Istanbul, Bursa and the Hejaz. None of the tezkires associates the poet with Amasya. The Amasya link is thus valid only to the extent that Ahmed Çelebi is accepted as the same person as the poet Ânî.

The Seyrek family's connection with the Amasya region, however, can be seen from another source as well. According to the study by Mehmet Kalaycı and Muzaffer Tan on Zeyrekzâde Emrullah Mehmed Efendi, the younger son of Seyrek Muhyiddin, Muhyiddin Mehmed Efendi came originally from a district of Ankara. Kalecik, which Hüsameddin gives as "Kal'acık", fits this information. According to Taşköprülüzâde, after the Ankara madrasa Muhyiddin Efendi taught in turn at the madrasas of Merzifon and Tokat. Merzifon at that time belonged to the sanjak of Amasya. The family's presence in the Amasya region is thus documented, while Ahmed Çelebi's birth in Amasya continues to rest on Hüsameddin's word.

State of the Sources and Discussion

The divergence between the two accounts is clear in the details. Hüsameddin's poet bears the name Ahmed, was born in Amasya, taught at the Veliyüddinzâde and Kaplıca madrasas in Bursa and died in Mecca in 975. The poet of the tezkires bears the name Mehmed, is from Bursa, taught at the Emîr Seyyid and Balıkesrî madrasas in Bursa, then moved into the judiciary, was dismissed from the judgeship of Kütahya and died in Bursa in 977. Their fathers also differ: one is Seyrek Muhyiddin Mehmed Efendi, the other Zeyrekzâde Paşa Çelebi. Hüsameddin's order of the pen names is the reverse of the dictionary's. That Âşık Çelebi lists the poet under "Zîrekî" while the later tezkires of Kınalızâde and Beyânî list him under "Ânî" agrees with the dictionary's order, namely that the pen name Zeyrekî was used first and Ânî later. This last observation is ours.

Part of what Hüsameddin says about Ahmed Çelebi can be confirmed from an independent source. From Nev'îzâde Atâyî's supplement, Kalaycı and Tan introduce Muhyiddin Efendi's elder son Şemseddin Ahmed as follows: he studied with İbrahim Halebî, Arab Çelebi, Celâlzâde Sâlih and Taşköprülüzâde, became müderris at the Ahmed Paşa madrasa in Bursa in 960 (1552-53) and at the Kaplıca madrasa in 968 (1560-61), left Anatolia after the unexpected death of his wife and travelled by way of Cairo to the Hejaz, and died in 974 (1566-67) at only forty-two. The names of the teachers and the Kaplıca appointment match Hüsameddin's entry, while the dates differ by a year or two. The information that Şemseddin Ahmed was fifteen when his father died in 947 (1541) also agrees with the birth year 932 given by Hüsameddin. In the information reported by Kalaycı and Tan there is no record that Ahmed Çelebi was a poet or that he used the pen name Ânî or Zeyrekî.

The probable cause of the confusion is the similarity of the family names. Both families could be called "Zeyrekzâde". Kalaycı and Tan write that Emrullah Mehmed Efendi, the younger son of Seyrek Muhyiddin, always signed his marginal notes "Zeyrekzâde", perhaps because he did not wish to be known by the nickname "Seyrek" (sparse) with its slightly negative connotation, or perhaps because he had changed his father's nickname into the form "Zeyrek". The grandsons of Molla Zeyrek bore the same name. Add to this resemblance the fact that each of the two families had a member of the same generation, trained in the same madrasa circles and teaching in Bursa, and the biographies of the two men could easily become mixed. The confusion predates Hüsameddin: according to the dictionary, the Tuhfe-i Nâilî considers it an error that the Sicill-i Osmânî gives the poet's name as "Şemseddîn Ahmed bin Zeyrek Muhyiddîn" and his death as 974. This name and date are the same as those Nev'îzâde gives for Seyrekzâde Şemseddin Ahmed.

Hüsameddin's own text also contains an inconsistency. He says that Kâfzâde's record dated 977 "confirms" the death in 975 of a man who died in Mecca, whereas the two dates do not agree. The chronogram line recorded by Kâfzâde is assigned in the dictionary to Zeyrekzâde Mehmed, who died in Bursa. Âşık Çelebi's detailed portrait, written while the poet was alive, shows him as a judge and mentions no journey to the Hejaz. The conclusion we reach with the sources at hand is this: the poems in the tezkires very probably belong to Zeyrekzâde Mehmed Çelebi of Bursa. The poetic activity of Seyrekzâde Şemseddin Ahmed Çelebi, said to have been born in Amasya, rests solely on Hüsameddin's record. Until the book that Hüsameddin says he saw in the man's own hand is found and examined, this conclusion will remain an assessment.

His Poetry

No divan of Ânî is known. What survives of his poetry are the examples in the tezkires, all of them recorded under the name Zeyrekzâde. Ahdî's Gülşen-i Şuarâ, completed in 1563, gives a five-couplet ghazal (gazel), Âşık Çelebi two fragments of two couplets each, and Kınalızâde and Beyânî a shared two-couplet fragment and a single couplet. Hüsameddin quotes two of these couplets, with small differences, from Kâfzâde Fâizî's Zübdetü'l-Eş'âr. The address "Ânîyâ" in the closing couplet (makta) of the ghazal shows that this pen name was used in the poet's verse.

The tezkire writers value him more as a scholar than as a poet. Kınalızâde says "ma'ârif ü kemâlâtı bî-şümâr ve hûb-eş'ârı var idi", that is, his learning and virtues were countless and he had fine poems. According to the dictionary, however, the tezkire writers' phrasing suggests that he was a middling poet. The surviving examples are elegant couplets built on the beloved's waist, locks, facial down and lips, relying on play with conventional images (mazmun). Scenes taken from daily life, such as opening the Qur'an for an augury and coming upon the sura Duhân (Smoke), or a fortune-teller announcing that the letter "lâm" has come up, stand out alongside sound play such as "hor ile har, şûr ile şer, kûr ile ker". Every poem that has come down to us is given on a separate page in this category with its original text, English prose version and commentary. The question of attribution is noted separately on each page.

Family and Circle

According to Hüsameddin, Ahmed Çelebi's father was Seyrek Muhyiddin Mehmed Efendi and his brother was Zeyrekzâde Emrullah Mehmed Efendi, who would later serve as judge of Baghdad and Tripoli in Syria. According to the study based on Emrullah Efendi's marginal notes, when their father died in 947 (1541) Şemseddin Ahmed was fifteen and Emrullah two, and Emrullah's first teacher was Taşköprülüzâde, who had also been his elder brother's last teacher. In the supplement he wrote to Taşköprülüzâde's Şakâik, Emrullah Efendi presented his brother as a scholar on the level of Seyyid Şerif Cürcânî, and Nev'îzâde reported this praise in a mocking tone. According to Hüsameddin, Ahmed Çelebi's son was Seyyid Mehmed Efendi, one of the judges. The Zeyrekzâde Mehmed Çelebi of the tezkires, by contrast, descends from Molla Zeyrek; his father was Paşa Çelebi, and the chief judge Rükneddin Çelebi was his uncle or his brother. The question of who the poet was has brought the stories of two separate families side by side on this page.

The period of the poet and of both families coincides with the years when Amasya possessed a brilliant literary circle at the court of Şehzade Mustafa. This circle is described in detail in the site's article Prince Mustafa and the poems of Muhlisî.

Chronology

932 (1525-26): According to Hüsameddin, Seyrekzâde Şemseddin Ahmed Çelebi is born in Amasya.

945 (1539): His brother Emrullah Mehmed is born; by his own note his birthplace is Edirne, while Hüsameddin says Amasya.

947 (1541): His father Seyrek Muhyiddin Mehmed Efendi dies.

951 (1544-45): According to Hüsameddin, Ahmed Çelebi goes to Istanbul to study.

960 (1552-53): According to Nev'îzâde, Şemseddin Ahmed becomes müderris at the Ahmed Paşa madrasa in Bursa; Hüsameddin places the Veliyüddinzâde madrasa in 963 for this post.

968-970 (1560-63): Şemseddin Ahmed becomes müderris at the Kaplıca madrasa (the date differs between the two sources).

974 (1566-67): According to Nev'îzâde, Şemseddin Ahmed dies in the Hejaz; Hüsameddin places his death in Mecca in Muharram 975.

977 (1569-70): According to Kınalızâde and the dictionary, the poet Zeyrekzâde Mehmed Ânî Çelebi dies in Bursa.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Mehmet Kalaycı, Muzaffer Tan, "Bir 16. Yüzyıl Osmanlı Aliminin Peşinde: Zeyrekzāde Emrullāh Meḥmed Efendi ve Otobiyografik Anlatıları", Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 62(1), 2021, pp. 7-11, 49-53. https://doi.org/10.33227/auifd.865559

Books

  • İncinur Atik Gürbüz, "Ânî/Zeyrekî, Zeyrek-zâde Mehmed Ânî Çelebi", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, 16.06.2014 (updated 08.12.2020). https://teis.yesevi.edu.tr/madde-detay/ani-zeyreki-zeyrekzade-mehmed-ani
  • Ahdî, Gülşen-i Şu'arâ, ed. Süleyman Solmaz, Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Yayınları, 2005, p. 203 (as quoted in Atik Gürbüz 2014).

Online sources