Ebûbekir Efendi — Çorumluzâde es-Seyyid el-Hâc

In Modern English

He is the son of es-Seyyid Mehmed Efendi, son of es-Seyyid Mehmed, son of es-Seyyid Abdülfettâh, the brother of Çorumlu es-Seyyid el-Hâc Ali Efendi, mufti of Amasya. He studied under his uncle and became a ders-i âm, and during his uncle's muftiship he wrote out his fatwa drafts. Later he became a member of the pilgrims' and ayan council; in Rebîülevvel 1197 [February 1783] he became nakîbüleşraf kaymakamı, in 1198 [1783-84] he was dismissed, and in 1200 [1785-86] he died. He was among the scholars and the leading figures of the seyyids.

Notes and Research

Old Words in the Text

• birâder: brother
• bin: son of
• zaman-ı iftâ: the time of issuing fatwas, that is, the period of the muftiship
• müsevvid: draftsman; the clerk who prepared the drafts of the mufti's fatwas
• ba'dehû: after this
• meclis-i hâcıyân ve a'yân: council made up of the city's pilgrims and notables
• nakîbü'l-eşrâf kâ'im-makâmı: the provincial deputy of the nakîbüleşraf, who looked after the affairs of the descendants of the Prophet
• ma'zûl: dismissed from office
• merhûm olmak: to die
• a'yân-ı sâdât: the leading figures of the seyyids

The Çorumlu Family

In this short entry Hüsameddin traces Ebûbekir Efendi's lineage back four generations: es-Seyyid Mehmed, his son es-Seyyid Abdülfettâh, his son es-Seyyid Mehmed Efendi and finally Ebûbekir Efendi. His uncle Çorumlu es-Seyyid el-Hâc Ali Efendi is the mufti of Amasya. In the entries Büyük Hocazâde and Küçük Hocazâde on the same page too, we meet a family with the nisba Çorumlu, the title seyyid, and names that circulate among Ali, Mehmed and Ebûbekir. It is very probable that all of them belong to the same broad family; but Hüsameddin does not state the link explicitly in every entry. A distinction can still be made: the Ali Efendi called "Büyük Hoca" is recorded as the son of Çorumlu es-Seyyid el-Hâc Mehmed Efendi; the mufti Ali Efendi in this entry, on the other hand, is the son of Abdülfettâh. In that case the two must be separate persons. Whether the mufti has any relation to the Ali Efendi known as "Küçük Hoca" cannot be understood from the text.

It is known that the muftis of Amasya for a period also took on the professorship of the Sultan Bayezid Madrasa. According to the list given by Aysun and Engin Kanbur, based largely on Hüsameddin's first volume, the madrasa's professorship was assigned to the muftiship of Amasya, and until 1673 the condition that the muftis be müderris was observed; in this list there is also a "Çorumlu Ahmed Efendi". No information was found in other sources on the dates when Çorumlu el-Hâc Ali Efendi served as mufti.

The Nakîbüleşraf Kaymakamlığı

The post Ebûbekir Efendi took on in 1197 [1783] is directly related to the title "es-Seyyid" at the head of his name. As Ş. Tufan Buzpınar explains, the nakîbüleşraflık was an office established to attend to the descendants of the Prophet. Its first traces in the Ottoman Empire go back to the time of Bayezid I (Yıldırım); it became an institution when Bayezid II in 900 [1494] appointed a salaried nakîbüleşraf to this duty. The nakîbüleşrafs lived in Istanbul; in other cities there were nakîbüleşraf kaymakams, chosen from among the seyyids for a set period. These kaymakams recorded the genealogies of the seyyids and sharifs, tried to prevent false claims to seyyid status, saw to the application of the exemptions from military service and customary taxes granted to seyyids, and intervened in cases concerning them. A point Buzpınar stresses is that this kaymakamship was an important source of influence and income and was therefore generally chosen from influential families. Hüsameddin's counting Ebûbekir Efendi among the "a'yân-ı sâdât", the leading figures of the seyyids, matches this picture. That the post was taken from him a year later also suits the pattern of turnover of this office, which was given for a set period.

The Ayan Council

The "council of pilgrims and ayan" of which Ebûbekir Efendi was a member reflects the class of local notables that gained increasing weight in eighteenth-century Ottoman cities. As Ensar Köse summarizes, the ayan were influential persons in the provinces who obtained social and economic privileges and carried out certain state tasks, and among them were people of ilmiye, seyfiye, merchant and tradesman origin. The ayan became an effective element of provincial administration from the end of the seventeenth century and gained their real power in the eighteenth. Tax collection, the enrolling of soldiers, logistical support for campaigns and the pursuit of brigands were the main services the center expected of the ayan. That Ebûbekir Efendi was both a member of the ilmiye raised beside a mufti and a member of the ayan council is an example showing that in Amasya the ilmiye families also took part in the city's administration. If one recalls that the state formally abolished the ayanlık in 1786 and returned to this system in 1790, it is understood that Ebûbekir Efendi's council membership belongs to the period before this interruption.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 6, p. 95–95. amasya.bel.tr

Academic studies

• Ş. Tufan Buzpınar, "Nakîbüleşraf", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/nakibulesraf

Official sources

• Ensar Köse, "Âyan", Sosyal Bilimler Ansiklopedisi, TÜBİTAK. https://ansiklopedi.tubitak.gov.tr/ansiklopedi/ayan
• Aysun Kanbur – Engin Kanbur, "Medreselerde Eğitim, Yönetim ve Organizasyon Faaliyetleri: Amasya Medreseleri Açısından Bir Değerlendirme", I. Amasya Araştırmaları (13-15 Haziran 2007), book 2, Amasya Valiliği. https://makale.isam.org.tr/server/api/core/bitstreams/f1192c50-92eb-4d10-8705-aa3f4b7cd0a3/content