Emânî Ahmed Çelebi died in 1058 (1648), about a month after his master Çolak Hüseyin Paşa was executed. The son of Dördüncü Hasan Ağa, serdar of Amasya, this secretary poet of the first half of the 1600s had been a pupil of the calligrapher Müeyyedzâde Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi and served the pasha of Amasya as divan secretary. The entry devoted to him in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi runs to fewer than forty words; his life comes a little more into view through what the other volumes of the book say about his teacher and his master.

Hüsameddin's Record

Amasya serdârı Dördüncü Hasan Ağa bin Ahmed mahdûmudur. Müeyyedzâde Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi'den hatt ve kitâbet tahsîl ederek Beylerbeyi Alîczâde Hüseyin Paşa'nın dîvân kâtibi olduğu halde 1058'de müşârün-ileyhin maktûlen vefâtından bir mâh kadar sonra vefât etdi. Kâtib, şâir, maârif-âşinâ idi.

In English: He is the son of Dördüncü Hasan Ağa son of Ahmed, serdar of Amasya. He learned calligraphy and the secretary's craft from Müeyyedzâde Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi, and while serving as divan secretary of Beylerbey Alîczâde Hüseyin Paşa he died in 1058, about a month after the pasha was killed. Secretary and poet, he had a taste for learning. The entry also appears on the site, with notes on its vocabulary, under the heading Emânî Ahmed Çelebi-Dördüncüzâde. That the poet was from Amasya is not written in the entry; his father, however, was serdar of Amasya, and his teacher and his master were both men of Amasya.

Family and Teacher

The family name "Dördüncüzâde" comes from the ordinal number in his father's name; "dördüncü" means "fourth". In his chronicle Hüsameddin now and then refers to the janissary serdars of Amasya by names of this kind: in 1038 (1629) "Altıncı Hüseyin Ağa" ("the sixth") becomes janissary serdar, and in 1040 (1630) he is replaced by "Üçüncü Hüseyin Ağa" ("the third"), who had held the post before; in the eighth volume, too, the son of "İkinci Ömer Ağa, serdar of the janissaries of Amasya" is called "İkincizâde". Dördüncü Hasan Ağa's title is likewise "serdar of Amasya". The book does not explain what these numbers indicate.

Emânî's teacher of calligraphy and the secretary's craft, Müeyyedzâde Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi, was according to Hüsameddin a scholar who taught for years in Amasya, took over the trusteeship of the Pervâne Bey endowment, retired from the Mehmed Paşa madrasa after serving as judge (kadı) of Trabzon and Erzurum, and died in Ramazan 1017 (December 1608-January 1609); Hüsameddin calls him a man of letters, poet, calligrapher and secretary. The teacher's date of death shows that Emânî must have completed his studies with him by Ramazan 1017 (December 1608-January 1609) at the latest. Pîrî Ahmed's family and pupils are described in The Müeyyedzâdes, where Emânî is counted among the men of Amasya who learned calligraphy and the secretary's craft from him.

His Master Çolak Hüseyin Paşa

The "Beylerbey Alîczâde Hüseyin Paşa" of the entry is the pasha of Amasya whom Hüsameddin elsewhere calls "Alıc Beyzâde Çolak Hüseyin Paşa". According to his entry in the ninth volume he was the son of Ulûc Bey, of the line of Hacı Şâdgeldi Paşa; he received the nickname "Çolak", the one-armed, because his left arm was maimed in the Baghdad campaign, and he was several times sanjak governor of Amasya. At the beginning of Muharrem 1058 (January-February 1648) he became governor of Amasya for the fifth time, together with the sanjak of Karahisar-ı Şarkî. That same year he was ordered to help İbşir Paşa against Vardar Ali Paşa, the rebellious governor of Sivas; together with Köprülü Mehmed Paşa, beylerbey of Konya, he was defeated near Çerkeş and taken prisoner. After İbşir Paşa freed them, Köprülü Mehmed Paşa blamed the defeat on Hüseyin Paşa's deliberate failure to help, and on the order that followed the pasha was executed at the end of Cemâziyelevvel 1058 (June 1648) together with his steward (kethüda) Hacı Efendizâde Sarı Mehmed Ağa, his treasurer Ali Ağa and his sword-bearer Hasan Ağa; his property was confiscated. Hüsameddin, in his own judgment, considers the execution unjust and ascribes it to Köprülü Mehmed Paşa's enmity.

Where Emânî was during these events, and whether he was at the pasha's side, is not recorded. Hüsameddin says only that he died about a month after his master; neither the cause nor the place of death is given. The pasha's own entry is on the site as Hüseyin Paşa-Çolak.

His Poetry

That the "Emânî" of the heading is a pen name is not written in the text; judging by Hüsameddin's practice of placing the pen name before the given name in his entries on poets, it must be one. As for his verse, Hüsameddin describes him only as "kâtib, şâir", secretary and poet, and gives neither a couplet nor a source; since no poem of his has turned up anywhere else either, Emânî Ahmed Çelebi's verse is lost. Metin Hakverdioğlu, who lists one by one the poets named in the seventh volume, has also included him in that list.

In the same volume, immediately before this entry, Hüsameddin gives another Emânî: Emânî Mehmed Çelebi of the Culğazâde, who served as a secretary in Prince Mustafa's Amasya divan and died around 958 (1551). Sharing both pen name and profession, the two secretary poets are separated by about a century, and Hüsameddin does not present them as kin.

Chronology

Ramazan 1017 (December 1608-January 1609): His teacher Müeyyedzâde Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi dies.

Early Muharrem 1058 (January-February 1648): Çolak Hüseyin Paşa becomes governor of Amasya and Karahisar-ı Şarkî.

End of Cemâziyelevvel 1058 (June 1648): Hüseyin Paşa is executed.

1058 (1648), about a month later: Emânî Ahmed Çelebi dies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources