The Çilehane Mosque, properly the Yâkub Pasha Tekke, stands in the Pirler quarter of Amasya, in the Mehmetpaşa neighbourhood across from Pirler Park. It is one of the oldest and best-preserved places of the city's Halvetî tradition. Known among locals also as the Çilehâne Tekke, the building is used today as a mosque, but at its foundation it was the seat of a Sufi order. Inside are a mescid (small prayer hall), the little cells where dervishes withdrew into seclusion, a tevhidhâne (hall for communal ritual), a sheikh's room and a tomb. Scholars of tekke architecture single it out among the few dervish lodges of the early Ottoman period that have come down to us with their original plan. Hasan Karataş, in a study published in 2020, goes a step further and describes the building as the earliest surviving Halvetî lodge; he regards its endowment deed, which came to light only recently, as the earliest record we have of the order's practices and organisation and of the networks that carried it from Iran into the Ottoman world.

Foundation and Endowment Deed

The tekke was built in the hijri year 815 (1412) by Pazarlıoğlu Yâkub Pasha, Beylerbey (governor-general) of Ankara. Its endowment deed (vakfiye) was registered in Zilkade 815, that is, February 1413, by the judge of Amasya, Mevlânâ Rükneddin Mahmud, known by the nickname Sarı Kadı. This is why some accounts date the building to 1412 and others to 1413: the first is the year of foundation, the second the year the endowment entered the legal record. Official descriptions name the founder as "Yakup Pasha, one of the commanders of Çelebi Mehmed" and give the date as 1413, while Karataş calls the pasha an Ottoman vizier. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin records the same event among the happenings of Zilkade 815: the great mosque, madrasa and zâviye that Ya'kûb Pasha, "former beylerbey of Ankara", had begun near the Beyler Sarayı (the palace of the princes) in Amasya were completed at that time, and the pasha endowed his properties to these charitable works. In the e-book edition of the work available to us the pasha's epithet reads "Yazarlıoğlu"; since every other source writes "Pazarlıoğlu", this is most likely a difference of reading or typesetting.

The days in which the endowment was founded coincide with one of the most shaken moments of the Interregnum. According to Hüsâmeddin, in the year 815 Çelebi Sultan Mehmed (Mehmed I) marched from Amasya against his brother Musa Çelebi, who had proclaimed himself sultan in Rumelia; in the battle fought near Istanbul at a place called İncügez his vizier Yâkût Pasha was killed, and the prince himself, having suffered heavy losses, was forced to return to Amasya. Yâkub Pasha's deed was registered in the months when the prince was regrouping in Amasya after this defeat. In the same passage Hüsâmeddin gives the full name of the judge who registered it: Mevlânâ Rükneddin Mahmûd bin Muhammed el-Buhârî el-Bûrânî. According to his genealogical records, this Sarı Kadı was the father of Sheikh Muslihuddin Mustafa Dede, and therefore the grandfather of Sheikh Hamdullah, the great master of Ottoman calligraphy. A similarity of names also calls for care here: Yâkût Pasha and Yâkub Pasha are different people. Hüsâmeddin notes that in 816 Yâkût Pasha built a separate zâviye, mescid and guest house to the south of the Darüşşifa (the old hospital).

The details Hüsâmeddin quotes from the deed are valuable for understanding the building's first form. According to him, Yâkub Pasha built, inside a masonry enclosure wall or "daire", a mosque, a minaret beside it, the çilehânes forming the Halvetî zâviye on the two sides of the mosque, a lecture hall in front of it and a separate sheikh's room. The deed mentions the death of Pîr İlyas and the name of Çelebi Sultan Mehmed, and states that the building was founded for Mevlânâ Pîr Celâleddin Abdurrahman Çelebi, a successor of Pîr İlyas, who is given the title "müfti's-sekaleyn". The trusteeship was left to Şemseddin Mehmed el-Buhârî, one of this sheikh's successors, and to his descendants. On this basis Hüsâmeddin says it is certain that the great enclosure was completed in 815. Elsewhere he writes that the tekke lies "within the Ya'kûb Pasha Dairesi, to the north of the Tomb of Pîr İlyas"; the statement that the tekke stood inside the Yâkub Pasha Mansion also derives from this word "daire".

Yâkub Pasha made the tekke conditional on the Halvetiyye order, that is, he wrote allegiance to this order into the terms of the endowment. The running of the tekke followed two separate lines. The trusteeship, the office that handled the financial and administrative affairs of the endowment, was given first to Şemseddin Mehmed Buhârî, passed after his death to his children, and when his line died out was transferred to Müeyyed Çelebi and his children. The meşihat, meaning spiritual leadership, followed a chain of its own. For a long time the deed remained out of researchers' sight. Karataş published its Arabic text, a translation and photographs in the journal Muqarnas, stressing that the document stands at a point where several processes of fifteenth-century Anatolia meet: the development of Ottoman architecture, the institutionalisation of Sufism, and the urban colonisation that went hand in hand with Ottoman expansion.

For Whom the Tekke Was Founded

The sources agree that the tekke was founded for a sheikh named Abdurrahman Çelebi of the Gümüşlüzâde family, but since more than one person bore that name they say different things about which one is meant. The entry in the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam states that the building was raised for the mufti Sheikh Gümüşlüzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi, who died in 903 (1497-98). Hüsâmeddin's records paint another picture. According to him, the tekke was founded for Gümüşlüzâde Pîr Abdurrahman Çelebi, the son-in-law of Pîr İlyas, and it was this son-in-law who first took Pîr İlyas's place in the tekke. The Abdurrahman Çelebi who died in 903 was another sheikh, two generations later, known by the pen name Hüsâmî and born in 840 (1436-37). Since an endowment founded in 1412 could not have been assigned to someone born twenty-four years later, Hüsâmeddin's distinction fits the chronology better; it is highly likely that the two namesakes have been merged in the TDV entry.

Karataş refers to the sheikh for whom the tekke was founded as "Gümüşlüoğlu Abdurrahman". A study of the Halvetî tekkes of Amasya, meanwhile, mentions an Abdurrahman Çelebi, sheikh of the Gümüşlüoğlu Tekke, who died in 827 (1424). It is plausible that this was the first Abdurrahman, the son-in-law of Pîr İlyas, but the sources do not explicitly match the two records. Because the name and epithet of the same family recur in several institutions, anyone reading on Amasya's Halvetî history has to tell apart the people named Abdurrahman, Muhyiddin Mehmed and Hüsâmeddin Hüseyin by looking at their dates of death.

A similar divergence surrounds the question of who lies in the tomb. Under the heading "Tomb of Pîr Abdurrahman Çelebi", Hüsâmeddin writes that in this chamber named in the deed is buried Pîr Celâleddin Abdurrahman the Second, that is, Hüsâmî, son of Pîr Hüsâmeddin Halvetî who lies at Kuba and a descendant of Pîr İlyas, and he adds that the place is called the "Aşağı Pîr Türbesi" or "Aşağı Pîrler" (the Lower Saints). Osman Fevzi Olcay, by contrast, attributes the tomb in his memoirs to Pîr Abdurrahman Çelebi, son-in-law and at the same time paternal cousin of Pîr İlyas; elsewhere he uses the phrase "the tomb of Sheikh Abdurrahman Gümüşlüzâde's son". The tomb is known as "Aşağı Pîrler" to distinguish it from the tomb of Pîr İlyas, and the present name of the quarter comes from these two tombs.

Aşağı Pîrler: Abdurrahman Çelebi Hüsâmî

In Hüsâmeddin's volume of biographies there is a lengthy entry on the Abdurrahman Çelebi he regards as the occupant of the tomb, and it gives the most vivid information we have on the life of the tekke at the end of the fifteenth century. Abdurrahman Çelebi was the son of Mevlânâ Hüsâmeddin Hüseyin Çelebi, one of the judges and seyyids (descendants of the Prophet), who is buried at Kuba and who built the Hüsâmiye Madrasa there. The family was originally known as the Seydî Hüsâmzâdes, but because his mother Âbide Hâtun was the daughter of Râbia Hâtun, daughter of Pîr İlyas, he became known by the name Gümüşlüzâde. He was born in 840 in the Gümüşlüzâde quarter, studied with the Amasya scholars İbrîzâde Mevlânâ Muhyiddin Mehmed and Cendîzâde Mevlânâ Şemseddin Ahmed Çelebi, and acquired Sufism in the company of Gümüşlüzâde Pîr Hayreddin Hızır Çelebi. After Hızır Çelebi's death he became sheikh of the Yâkub Pasha zâviye.

Abdurrahman Çelebi's years as sheikh coincide with the most brilliant period of Amasya as a princely sanjak. According to Hüsâmeddin, the governor of Amasya, Şehzade Ahmed (Prince Ahmed), became his disciple, whereupon the officers of state, the notables of the province and the common people too flocked to his company and service. Abdurrahman Çelebi was also the preacher of the Yâkub Pasha Mosque; it is said that the prince was sometimes present at his sermons and that his words moved his listeners to tears. After fourteen years devoted to guidance and remembrance of God he died in 903, at the age of sixty-three, and was buried in the chamber of the zâviye reserved for its sheikhs. Hüsâmeddin describes him as a sheikh known for his learning and asceticism, imposing and grave; he writes that no one dared to speak in his presence, that in questions disputed between scholars and sheikhs he convinced the ulema with fine points of learning and Sufi doctrine, and that for this reason even scholars became his followers. He wrote verse under the pen name Hüsâmî and left Sufi poems and hymns (ilâhi). His sons Muhyiddin Mehmed and Hüsâmeddin Hüseyin Efendi were also well-known sheikhs and high-ranking scholars, and his son-in-law Gümüşlüzâde Mevlânâ Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi is counted among the great sheikhs of the Halvetiyye.

In those same years two Halvetî sheikhs of the Gümüşlüzâde family were guiding disciples side by side in Amasya. Hüsâmeddin relates that Celâleddin Abdurrahman Efendi, who likewise descended from Pîr İlyas, became sheikh of the Gümüşlüzâde zâviye in 889 (1484) in place of Hayreddin Hızır Çelebi, that the Abdurrahman Çelebi called Aşağı Pîrler was at that time in the Yâkub Pasha zâviye, and that the two spread spiritual grace as "two Halvetî poles". Şehzade Ahmed is recorded as showing favour to both sheikhs, bestowing gifts on Celâleddin Abdurrahman Efendi whenever he came to the Gümüşlüzâde tekke. Celâleddin Abdurrahman died in 908 (1502-03).

The Fâtiha Window and Its Inscription

The tomb's prayer window opening onto the corridor, the window before which visitors stand to pray, is a later addition to the building. Hüsâmeddin notes that this fâtiha window on the qibla side was opened after the tomb was built and that a black marble slab bearing an inscription was set above it. Architectural studies likewise record a Persian inscription above the window concerning those who lie in the tomb. The couplets Hüsâmeddin quotes name Abdurrahman Çelebi as "Hüsâmî" and praise him as a guide to the truth descended from Pîr İlyas and, without doubt, a "pole of the world".

The lettering of the inscription is the work of a well-known calligrapher of the period. According to Hüsâmeddin, Celâleddin Mehmed Efendi of Tosya, nicknamed Kadı Çelebi, had studied the sciences in Amasya with Gökçezâde Muslihuddin Mustafa Efendi and the various scripts with Sheikh Hamdullah, receiving licences in both fields. He served as teacher, mufti and judge in Tosya, and after leaving the judgeship of Çorum he retired and lived for a long time in Amasya. In 934 (1527-28) he wrote the lettering above the fâtiha window of Aşağı Pîrler and signed it in the margin "Celâl bin Hasan". The following year, 935, he died in Amasya and was buried near Aşağı Pîrler. That the grandfather of the famous calligrapher-sheikh registered the tekke's endowment deed, and that his pupil wrote the tomb's inscription more than a century later, is a small but telling coincidence that shows how closely the building was bound up with the city's circles of learning and art.

The Halvetiyye and Pîr İlyas in Amasya

To understand the setting in which the Çilehane was founded, one has to look at how the Halvetiyye took root in Amasya. The order was brought to Anatolia by Pîr İlyas of Amasya, one of the successors of Sadreddîn-i Hiyâvî. Pîr Şücaaddin İlyas returned to Amasya in 1406 after the death of Timur and brought the order to the city. These years fall in the period when the social devastation of the Interregnum was felt most heavily. A relative of Pîr İlyas, Hâce Celal Çelebi, built the Gümüşlüoğlu Tekke a year after the sheikh's arrival and placed it at the order's disposal. This tekke is recorded as the first in Amasya reserved solely for the Halvetîs; in those years its public kitchen hosted many refugees and was a support for people struggling to make a living. In the following centuries some sixteen Halvetî tekkes were active in the city, and the Çilehane was among those both founded early and surviving to the present day.

The weight of the Çilehane in Amasya's Halvetî life can also be measured by the number of sheikhs trained there. Because so many Halvetî sheikhs were formed within its walls, studies call the tekke a "Dervish Factory". This is why it is regarded as an important place, both for its architecture and for the social and cultural mark it left on the city. In Hüsâmeddin's words the tekke was "reserved for the successors of the Halvetiyye", that is, for those of the order's sheikhs who had reached the rank of caliph (successor).

The Chain of Sheikhs

The meşihat of the tekke continued through a chain that the people of Amasya called the "silsiletü'z-zeheb", the golden chain. In Hüsâmeddin's ordering, Pîr İlyas was succeeded first by his son-in-law Gümüşlüzâde Pîr Abdurrahman Çelebi, then by Pîr Şemseddin Mehmed Buhârî, then by Pîr İlyas's son Pîr Celâleddin Abdurrahman Çelebi; the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam shows this Celâleddin Abdurrahman as the son of Abdurrahman Çelebi. In 843 (1439-40) came Pîr Sun'ullah Halvetî, sheikh of the Saddlers, followed by Pîr Zekeriyyâ Halvetî and İğnecizâde Pîr Safiyyüddin Mahmûd el-Halvetî. These were followed by Kubalı Çelebizâde Pîr Abdurrahman Hüsâmî Çelebi, after 903 by Gümüşlüzâde Pîr Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi, and in 921 (1515-16) by Buhârîzâde Pîr Mehmed el-Halvetî. The chain continues with Sheikh Ya'kûb el-Halvetî, Sheikh Abdurrahman el-Halvetî from among the successors, and his sons Sheikh İzzeddin Hasan el-Halvetî and Sheikh Hüsâmeddin Hüseyin el-Halvetî, one of the ulema.

The list in the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam largely matches this order, except that "Kubalı Çelebizâde Pîr Abdurrahman Hüsâmî Çelebi" and "Gümüşlüzâde Pîr Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi", who appear separately in Hüsâmeddin, appear there as a single person under the name "Kubâlı Çelebizâde Pîr Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi". The study of Amasya's Halvetî tekkes also states that this Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi served until 921 (1515) and that Buhârîzâde Pîr Mehmed Halvetî then took his place. Considering Hüsâmî's death in 903 and his son-in-law's succession, it appears that Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi was sheikh from about 1498 to 1515.

The chain does not end with these names. In a later period Sheikh Mehmed Efendi was sheikh of the tekke. Hüsâmeddin writes that he died during the troubles of 1099 (1687-88). That was a year of crisis in Amasya, in which some scholars and seyyids were exiled, some left for the Hejaz, and a fire broke out that burned a large part of the city; Hüsâmeddin says these events threw all the learned institutions of the city into disarray. Mehmed Efendi was succeeded by Seyyid İbrâhim Efendi, and when he died in 1116 (1704-05) his son Seyyid Mehmed Efendi became both sheikh and trustee. On the death of Seyyid Mehmed Efendi in 1168 (1754-55), Hâfız Seyyid Mahmud Efendi, one of the ulema, became sheikh, but he was removed in 1172 (1758-59) and Hâfız Seyyid Abdullah Efendi became sheikh and trustee in his place. When Abdullah Efendi died towards the end of 1214 (1800), the trusteeship was given to his daughter Şerîfe Hâtun, and the meşihat was attached to the teaching post, ceasing to be a separate office. The tekke's tradition of sheikhs can thus be followed step by step from its foundation to the year 1800.

Seclusion and the Seclusion Cells

The "çilehâne" that gives the building its name is the space of halvet, the practice of seclusion from which the Halvetiyye takes its name. Across the Islamic world seclusion cells are known as "halvet", "halvetgâh" or "çilehâne"; they are the rooms used first by ascetics and, from the eighth century onward, by the Sufis who inherited their tradition of renunciation and discipline, during the periods of seclusion or çile in which they withdrew into worship and contemplation to discipline the self. Tanman interprets the seclusion cells attached to the prayer space in Sufi buildings as the legacy of the Prophet's retreats (itikâf) in the haram of the Mosque of the Prophet, especially in the months of Ramadan, and the free-standing cells as the legacy, kept alive by the Sufis for centuries, of Moses' forty-day seclusion on Mount Sinai and the Prophet Muhammad's retreats on Mount Hira. At the Yâkub Pasha Tekke the cells open directly onto the mescid, a clear example of the first type, seclusion tied to the place of worship.

In his entry on seclusion cells, Tanman states that in this building in Amasya, one of the first centres of Halvetî activity in Anatolia, the phenomenon of seclusion, which held a very important place within the order, found concrete architectural expression. According to this account, the mescid, which lies on the qibla side of the corridor opposite the tevhidhâne, is flanked on either side by three seclusion cells. Of these, the two adjoining the mihrab wall were given a window each, while the remaining four were left windowless. The three dervish cells lined up on the far side of each side corridor, each opening outward through a window, are thought to have been usable as seclusion cells when needed. Tanman writes that the seclusion cells of the tekke built in the Abbasiya quarter of Cairo, in the reign of the Mamluk sultan Qaytbay (1468-1496), by Muhammad Demirtaş, founder of the Demirtaşiyye branch of the Halvetiyye, recall the Yâkub Pasha Tekke in Amasya both in their dimensions and in being ranged around the tevhidhâne. In his view this resemblance shows that the rule of seclusion and the design of seclusion cells, developed along the order's Turkestan, Khorasan, Azerbaijan and Anatolia axis, were carried as far as Egypt.

Olcay's memoirs show that these cells continued to be used for seclusion and retreat until the early twentieth century. Olcay describes the part he calls the "Çilehane Madrasa" as a dim space of three or four cells at the entrance and exit of the tomb. He says he read in Abdurrahim Merzifonî's work "Kitâbü'l-Mecmû' fi'l-Meşhûdi ve'l-Mesmû'" that one of these cells had once been the place of retreat and worship of Akdağlı Hoca. He recalls that in the years he attended the secondary school (idadi) a Sufi named Hasan Efendi always lived in one of these cells and would pray for the pupils, and that a man named Molla Mehmed Efendi from the village of Baraklı in Taşova was also there.

Use as a Madrasa

Hüsâmeddin also describes the building separately among the madrasas, under the name "Ya'kûb Pasha Madrasa". According to him the madrasa lies to the right and left of the mosque, and its rooms are small and of masonry; on the east side, to the north of the rooms, there is a spacious sheikh's room, and the deed states that the çilehâne is in this room and that it is the sheikh's room. Until 1031 (1621-22) the tekke was run by a single sheikh. In that year, to end a dispute over the meşihat that had lasted about ten years between Sheikh Hüsâmeddin Efendi, preacher of the Yâkub Pasha Mosque, and Sheikh Abdi Efendi, one of the ulema, the building was divided in two. The mescid and the seclusion cells attached to it were counted as a madrasa and its professorship given to Abdi Efendi, while the tekke function was kept in the room at the northeast corner and in the tevhidhâne and the meşihat left to Hüsâmeddin Efendi. In this way the building housed two institutions under one roof.

The madrasa was later incorporated into the graded system of Ottoman madrasas, counted among the forty-akçe madrasas and assigned to dersiams (licensed public lecturers). The list of professors recorded by Hüsâmeddin shows that this section functioned without interruption for two and a half centuries. In 1099 İsmâil Efendi, in 1107 his son Halil Efendi, in 1120 his son Hâfız Mehmed Efendi, in 1121 Ebûbekir Efendi and after him Müftîzâde Seyyid Ebûbekir Efendi became professors. In 1161 (1748) we find at the madrasa the famous hadith scholar Uzun Müderris Süleyman Efendi. After his death in 1193 the professorship was divided in two, half going to his son Seyyid Mustafa Efendi and half to Seyyid Ebûbekir Efendi of Gümüşhane. In the nineteenth century the post passed among the Uzun Müderriszâdes and families connected to them; among them were the renowned scholar Sarı Müderris Seyyid Mustafa Efendi, his brother Seyyid Mehmed Efendi and Mustafa Efendi's son Seyyid Mehmed Tâhir Efendi. When Mehmed Tâhir Efendi died in 1291 (1874-75) his sons Mehmed Sâlim, Hasan Tahsin and Ahmed Şevki Efendi took up the professorship, and in 1315 (1897-98) the post was given to Mecdîzâde Hâfız Mustafa Sâdık Efendi, one of the ulema.

A guest house in the building is also recorded. Hüsâmeddin lists eleven great guest houses in Amasya open to travellers, wayfarers and the poor, and names the "Ya'kûb Pasha Ziyâfethânesi" among them. Their food was plentiful, their cooks and bakers fixed, and their staff salaried. These records show that the tekke was not merely a place of retreat but functioned as an endowed institution where lessons were taught and meals served. In Amasya, Halvetî tekkes and madrasas were often founded together.

The Social Role of the Halvetiyye in Amasya

Studies treat Amasya's Halvetî tekkes, beyond being settings for worship and spiritual discipline, as institutions that shaped the city's educational and cultural life. That the Halvetiyye served as a balancing element in Ottoman-Safavid relations in the Ottomans' favour, that the order built a civil social structure and that it also contributed to the security of the eastern frontiers are views emphasised in research on the subject. Since the sheikhs are counted among the important representatives of tekke literature, they also had a share in Amasya's accumulated achievement in art, literature, poetry and music; the hymns of Abdurrahman Çelebi, who wrote under the pen name Hüsâmî, are an example of this at the Çilehane. The order's activity in the city over four centuries is linked to social solidarity as well as to cultural richness.

The educational institutions founded by members of the order give this influence concrete form. The Bayezid II Complex was built in 1485 at the request of the Halvetî sheikh Cemal Halife to the sultan; the first professor of the complex's Sultaniye Madrasa was Zembilli Ali Efendi, one of the renowned scholars of the age. The Mehmed Pasha Madrasa was founded together with the tekke of Habib-i Karamânî and run by Halvetî professors. The foundation of the Hüsâmiye Madrasa at Kuba, however, is attributed to different people in the sources: the study of Amasya's Halvetî tekkes connects it with the tekke of Hüsâmeddin Hüseyin el-Halvetî among the last links of the Çilehane chain, while Hüsâmeddin names as its founder Mevlânâ Hüsâmeddin Hüseyin Çelebi, the father of Abdurrahman Çelebi Hüsâmî. Whichever is correct, looking at the Çilehane's chain of sheikhs from this angle shows how closely the tekke was tied to the city's network of learning and endowments.

Architectural Layout

The tekke's two entrances lie at the ends of a barrel-vaulted corridor running east-west. The west entrance, evidently the main gate, is more imposing than the other and is set within an iwan that rises above the façade. South of the corridor, at the centre, is the mescid; on either side, connected to barrel-vaulted corridors running north-south, are twelve vaulted units with hearths, arranged in two rows of six. Six of these, opening onto the mescid, were designed as seclusion cells, and the other six, set against the outer wall and each lit by a window, as dervish cells. The seclusion cells are small square units of roughly 1.90 x 1.90 metres; each has two doors, one opening into the prayer space of the mescid and the other onto the side corridors that connect to the axial corridor. Each unit has a hearth and a cupboard niche.

The square mescid is covered by a dome carried on squinches. The mescid and the corridors onto which the groups of seclusion and dervish cells open are reached by stairs, because the main corridor forming the spine of the building lies lower. North of the main corridor is the tevhidhâne, which has the character of an iwan and opens through a wide pointed arch. To its east is the sheikh's room and to its west the tomb. The transition to the dome of the tevhidhâne is made with pendentives, while the domes of the sheikh's room and the tomb, which are of the same dimensions, rest inside on belts of prismatic triangles. The sheikh's room is entered from the corridor, the tomb from the tevhidhâne. Each of the two spaces has four windows.

The iron door of the tomb is one of the most striking details of the building. Made of wrought iron in a grille of intersecting polygons, it bears two signatures in the form "amel-i Ramazan el-Kastamonî" (work of Ramazan of Kastamonu) and is regarded as one of the rarely beautiful products of early Ottoman metalwork.

Because the ground slopes both east-west and north-south, the building sits on four terraces at four different levels. On the highest level are the mescid and the seclusion and dervish cells to its east. The seclusion cells and dervish cells to the west of the mescid are lower. The tevhidhâne, tomb and sheikh's room are on the third level, and the central corridor remains at the lowest. M. Baha Tanman writes that the design of the building took into account together the slope of the ground, the functional scheme of tekkes and especially the relationship between seclusion and prayer in Halvetî practice, and that this produced an extremely practical solution. The same author finds it surprising that this plan scheme was not continued in the Halvetî tekkes built across Ottoman lands in later centuries.

The building's plan also bears on a much-debated question of early Ottoman architecture. Whether the inverted T-plan buildings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with rooms beside the prayer hall, should be counted as zâviyes or as mosques, and whether they should be named by their form or by their function, has long been discussed. Karataş notes that the Çilehane's idiosyncratic layout contributes to this debate on form and function, while the deed, because it documents how the building was used, brings a new basis to it. The statement in the deed, as quoted by Hüsâmeddin, that there were çilehânes "on the two sides" of the mosque shows that in this building the mescid and the seclusion rooms were conceived from the outset as parts of a single idea.

The façades carry no decoration. Apart from the cut-stone façade of the west entrance, the walls are of alternating masonry: courses of rubble stone are steadied by bands of three brick courses. The base of the mescid dome is fitted with saw-tooth mouldings, and the lead-covered vaults, the domes and the chimneys are built of brick. In the lower parts of the façades are rectangular windows with iron grilles, and in the upper parts pointed-arched clerestory windows. The Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism describes the masonry as rubble stone with joints filled with red mortar, supported by horizontal brick bands of two courses each. The mosque is entered through a cut-stone door with a segmental arch and a large iwan; the windows have marble frames and brick arches. Entering through the west door, one finds on the right the mescid and the seclusion rooms reached by narrow passages, and on the left the tomb and the tekke. A separate structure, thought probably to be a tomb, is also recorded on the west side of the west entrance; its function is not certain. Which part of the present building corresponds to the minaret and the "lecture hall in front", which Hüsâmeddin mentions on the basis of the deed, cannot be determined from the sources.

Later Repairs

The building has suffered in earthquakes. One study writes that the tekke and the tomb were rebuilt in masonry by Bayezid II in 1485, and that after various repairs they were solidly renewed in 1894 through the efforts of the people and a share set aside from endowment revenues by Abdülhamid II, when a mescid each for women and men was added to the right and left of the tomb. This information does not sit easily with the architectural assessments that stress the tekke's preservation of its original early Ottoman plan; it is likely that repairs and additions rather than a rebuilding are meant, but the sources do not make the distinction clear. The building was badly damaged in the 1939 Erzincan earthquake. The TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam dates the repair to 1967, some descriptive sources to 1964, and the work is attributed to the General Directorate of Foundations; the difference between the two dates is a contradiction in the sources.

Surroundings and Living Traditions

According to Hüsâmeddin's records of the quarters, Ya'kûb Pasha Mahallesi was the name given to the quarter around Aşağı Pîrler. To its east lay Savakça, to its west Gümüşlüzâde, to its north the Mehmed Pasha quarter, and to its south the Pîr İlyas Cemetery. Because the tekke of Şemseddin Mehmed el-Kırtâsî, known as Çevikçi Baba, stood to the west of the Yâkub Pasha Dairesi, that side of the quarter was called "Çevikçe" and the Yâkub Pasha side "Çilehâne". The Çevikçe Tekke was built in 831 (1428) by Şemseddin Mehmed Kırtâsî, known as Çevikçe and skilled in paper work; its meşihat was assigned to the Halvetîs and its administration to the founder's sons, and this neighbouring tekke fell into ruin and was repaired many times. Hüsâmeddin also places the Kuşbâz Tekke, built in 961 (1553-54) by the Halvetî sheikh Şeyh Ya'kûb Efendi, right beside the Çilehane, but in one place in his book he sets it to the west of the Çilehane and in another to the east, at a spot overlooking the square. The Kuşbâz Tekke later fell into ruin, and its endowments were transferred to the Ministry of Education (Maarif) in 1315. The presence of several Halvetî institutions close together in the quarter means that the Çilehane should be read less as an isolated building than as part of a Sufi milieu.

Endowment customs attached to the Aşağı Pîrler tomb lived on until the early twentieth century. Olcay relates that the famous simit (sesame bread ring) shop in the Selağzı quarter was endowed to the Aşağı Pîrler tomb. The trustee of the shop was a man called Kayyumzâde. Every year on the eve of the Feast of the Sacrifice, Karcı İmam Tevfik Efendi had flour halva made; the halva was wrapped in flatbread, carried in large laundry baskets to the Aşağı Pîrler tomb and distributed there after the hafızes had recited a complete reading of the Qur'an and the prayer. Olcay stresses that this custom was observed without fail on the same day every year. That the income of a shop should be bound for centuries to visits to a tomb and the distribution of halva to the people is a lively detail showing how the tekke's endowment order was woven into the life of the city.

The Building Today

The Çilehane Mosque stands across from Pirler Park, within walking distance of the city centre. Being close to the Tomb of Pir Sücaeddin İlyas and the other Halvetî graves around it, Amasya's Halvetî milieu can be followed along a single line in this quarter. The building is open for worship today as the Çilehane Mosque and can be visited during the day. The small seclusion cells still standing beside the mescid, the tomb with its iron door and the sixteenth-century inscription above the fâtiha window together hold more than six hundred years of history within the same enclosure.

Chronology

1406: Pîr İlyas returns to Amasya after the death of Timur and brings the Halvetiyye to the city.

1412 (hijri 815): Pazarlıoğlu Yâkub Pasha, Beylerbey of Ankara, builds the tekke; in the same year Çelebi Mehmed is defeated by Musa Çelebi at İncügez and returns to Amasya.

February 1413 (Zilkade 815): The endowment deed is registered by the judge of Amasya, Sarı Kadı Mevlânâ Rükneddin Mahmud.

1436-37 (840): Abdurrahman Çelebi Hüsâmî, known as Aşağı Pîrler, is born in the Gümüşlüzâde quarter.

1439-40 (843): Pîr Sun'ullah Halvetî, sheikh of the Saddlers, succeeds to the meşihat of the tekke.

1484 (889): Death of Hayreddin Hızır Çelebi; Abdurrahman Çelebi Hüsâmî's tenure as sheikh of the Yâkub Pasha zâviye begins around this time.

1497-98 (903): Abdurrahman Çelebi Hüsâmî dies and is buried in the tekke; Gümüşlüzâde Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi succeeds him.

1515-16 (921): The meşihat passes to Buhârîzâde Pîr Mehmed el-Halvetî.

1527-28 (934): The calligrapher Celâleddin Mehmed Efendi writes the lettering above the tomb's fâtiha window.

1621-22 (1031): Following a dispute over the meşihat, a madrasa is established in the mescid and seclusion cells; the tekke function continues in the tevhidhâne and the northeast room.

1687-88 (1099): Sheikh Mehmed Efendi dies during the troubles in Amasya.

1758-59 (1172): Hâfız Seyyid Abdullah Efendi becomes sheikh and trustee.

1800 (1214): Hâfız Seyyid Abdullah Efendi dies; the trusteeship passes to his daughter Şerîfe Hâtun and the meşihat is attached to the professorship.

1894: The tekke and tomb are renewed through public effort and endowment revenues; a mescid each for women and men is added.

1897-98 (1315): The professorship of the madrasa is given to Mecdîzâde Hâfız Mustafa Sâdık Efendi.

1939: The building is damaged in the Erzincan earthquake.

1964/1967: The building is repaired (the date varies by source).

2020: Hasan Karataş publishes the Arabic text, a translation and photographs of the tekke's endowment deed.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Hasan Karataş, "An Idiosyncratic Building in Amasya? Early Ottoman Architecture and the Waqfiyya of the Yakub Pasha Çilehane-Mosque", Muqarnas, vol. 37, no. 1, 2020, pp. 291-313 (article abstract, Crossref record): https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-00371P11

Official sources

  • Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "Çilehane Camii", Kültür Portalı of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye. amasya.bel.tr
  • Abdülhamit Budak, Bir Şehir Bir Tarikat Amasya ve Halvetilik, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2015. amasya.bel.tr

Other sources

  • M. Baha Tanman, "Yâkub Paşa Tekkesi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 43, Istanbul 2013, pp. 285-286. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • M. Baha Tanman, "Halvethâne", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 15, Istanbul 1997, pp. 388-393. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin [Yasar], Amasya Târihi, Istanbul 1327-35 (facsimile ed. Ali Yılmaz - Mehmet Akkuş, Ankara 1986), I, 183-184.
  • Kadir Özköse, "Amasya'da Bulunan Halvetiyye Tekkeleri", Akademiar, no. 5, December 2018.
  • Göksu Demircan, "Çilehane Camii", Online Türkiye Turizm Ansiklopedisi, 2019.
  • A. Gabriel, Monuments Turcs d'Anatolie, Paris 1934, II, 51-53.

Online sources