Emir Ahmed was the son of Hacı Şadgeldi Pasha, who ruled Amasya in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, and he was the last powerful lord of the city before Ottoman rule. When his father was killed in the autumn of 1381 while fighting Kadı Burhaneddin, he took over the emirate and held out for more than a decade against this rival, who had proclaimed himself sultan in Sivas. He looked for help first to his father-in-law, the Kastamonu ruler Candaroğlu Kötürüm Bayezid, and then to the Ottomans. Amasya's incorporation into Ottoman territory was the outcome of that search. The sources disagree on the year in which the city passed to Bayezid I (Yıldırım Bayezid) and on how it happened, but all of them tell the story with Emir Ahmed's name attached to it.

His life is known from two main sources. One is Bezm ü Rezm, written in Persian by Azîz b. Erdeşîr-i Esterâbâdî, the chancery secretary of Kadı Burhaneddin. The work treats Emir Ahmed as its master's enemy and often speaks of him with open hostility. The other is the Amasya Tarihi of the Amasya historian Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, who found that chronicle in the Es'ad Efendi Library in Istanbul and rendered it into Turkish in abridged form. Hüsameddin made it his task to reintroduce the Şadgeldi family as the forgotten rulers of Amasya, and he gathered a great many details about them from endowment deeds and manuscript notes. His account, however, is plainly partisan against Kadı Burhaneddin. Modern scholars, above all Yaşar Yücel and the authors of the relevant entries in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, tell the story more briefly and rely chiefly on Bezm ü Rezm; they frequently part company with Hüsameddin over dates and over the outcome of battles.

Name and Family

The sources call him by different names. In Bezm ü Rezm he is "Emîr Ahmed Bey", in official records "Devâtdâr Ahmed Pasha", and in the hand of his contemporary, the scholar Hüsâmeddîn el-Kâtî, "Emîr-i Mu'azzam Fahreddîn Ahmed Çelebi". Hüsameddin also writes of him as "Fahreddîn Ahmed Bey" and "Ahmed Şâh Çelebi". The epithet "Devâtdâr" comes from the office of devâtdâr he held during his father's rule, which Hüsameddin glosses as "letter writer and chief secretary". The epithet stuck: his descendants were known in Amasya for centuries as the "Devâtdârlı" or the "Devâtdâr Paşazâdes".

According to Hüsameddin, Emir Ahmed was the second son of Hacı Şadgeldi Pasha. His elder brother Seyyideddîn Muhammed Bey had died before their father; his younger brother Musliheddîn Mustafa Bey would later succeed him. His mother was the daughter of Hâce Ali Şah, vizier to the Eretnid rulers. His grandfather Hacı Kutluşah is regarded as the founder of the independent emirate that broke away from Eretnid rule in Amasya. Emir Ahmed's marriages mirror the family's web of alliances in the region. From the information Hüsameddin drew out of endowment deeds, one of his wives was Canıbek Hatun, daughter of the Eretnid Mehmed Bey, and another was Dilşad Hatun, daughter of Babukşahoğlu Ali Pasha. Ali Pasha had been his father's chief commander. Emir Ahmed was, in addition, the son-in-law of Candaroğlu Kötürüm Bayezid, ruler of Kastamonu. This tie is confirmed both by the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry on the Candarids and by Yaşar Yücel, drawing on Bezm ü Rezm. Emir Ahmed was thus related at once to the Eretnid house in Sivas, to the military aristocracy of Amasya and to the Candarids on the Black Sea coast.

At His Father's Side

Emir Ahmed's name first appears in the years when his father was in conflict with the Eretnid Alâeddin Ali Bey. In an episode Hüsameddin takes from Bezm ü Rezm, Ali Bey came to Amasya on the pretext of a condolence visit, together with his vizier Kadı Burhaneddin, his adviser Kılıcarslan and his boon companion Seydî Hüsam, and became Şadgeldi Pasha's guest. Seydî Hüsam, invited into the citadel, picked a quarrel with Ahmed Çelebi at a drinking party and hurled insults at him; Ahmed had his men seize him and put him in prison. Hüsameddin writes that the quarrel had been staged by Kadı Burhaneddin and that Ali Bey used it as a pretext to besiege Amasya Castle. Zerrin Günal Öden's study, also based on Bezm ü Rezm, likewise relates that in 1378 Ali Bey marched against Şadgeldi Pasha and that the fighting was ended through an intermediary.

In his father's last battle Emir Ahmed commanded the bulk of the army. According to Hüsameddin, in a clash at Kazova near Tokat during the first ten days of Ramadan 783 (late November 1381), Kadı Burhaneddin feigned retreat and drew Şadgeldi Pasha into an ambush. Şadgeldi had only his household troops with him; the main force of the army had stayed behind under his son Emir Ahmed and was being held off by part of the enemy army. Şadgeldi Pasha was killed in this fight, and his commander Ali Pasha and several other lords were taken prisoner. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi places his death in the autumn of 1381. The short note in Hüsameddin's biographical section, by contrast, dates the death to Rabi' al-Awwal 783 and links it to a "battle of Kayseri"; the two passages of the same work do not agree on this point.

Accession

According to Hüsameddin, after his father's death Emir Ahmed was raised to the emirate of Amasya at Turhal in Ramadan 783 by common decision of the notables of the state. Kadı Burhaneddin magnified his victory, sent out proclamations of triumph in every direction and dispatched Şadgeldi Pasha's severed head to Sivas and Erzincan. In a further claim reported by Hüsameddin, Kadı Burhaneddin had a letter of thanks written to those scholars and lords in Amasya who had opposed the war, and sent it in such a way that it would fall into Emir Ahmed's hands. The aim was to sow suspicion between the new emir and the city's leading men. Hüsameddin writes that after this letter the military judge Cemâleddin Aksarâyî left for Konya, the mufti for the Hejaz, and other scholars for Egypt and Bursa. That claim rests on Hüsameddin's interpretation alone; the scholars' departure itself is also recorded in the same author's biographical entries. In place of those who left, Cemâleddin Yûsuf of Niğde became military judge and İmâdeddin Yûsuf of Malatya became qadi of Amasya.

The danger to the new emir did not come from Sivas alone. In a passage of Bezm ü Rezm quoted by Hüsameddin, Seydî Hüsam tells the lords who wished to unite against Kadı Burhaneddin: Şadgeldi was an old man and he has died, but praise be to God he has left a young and vigorous son who is many times his superior in valour; the lords of Ulus, Kayseri and Erzincan and Tâceddin Bey of Canik ought to join with him. The remark shows that even Kadı Burhaneddin's own circle regarded Emir Ahmed as the strongest lord in the region. Hüsameddin notes that Seydî Hüsam's real aim was to set a member of the Eretnid line on the throne under the protection of the captive Ali Pasha and to become vizier himself, and that this plan depended on an alliance with Emir Ahmed. Ali Pasha was Emir Ahmed's father-in-law.

The First Wars with Kadı Burhaneddin

According to Hüsameddin's detailed account, after being surprised by a raid outside Tokat, Kadı Burhaneddin withdrew to Artukabad and sent Hâce Yâkût Bey as envoy to Emir Ahmed at Turhal. He asked him to give up avenging his father, to content himself with Amasya and to return to his city. Emir Ahmed refused. Kadı Burhaneddin brought fresh troops from Sivas and marched against him; the two armies clashed, both sides suffered losses, but neither gained a decisive advantage. Kadı Burhaneddin renewed his offer of peace. Emir Ahmed had come from Turhal as far as a place called Çengel when the Kastamonu relief force he had earlier requested arrived under his brother-in-law İsfendiyar Bey. At İsfendiyar's urging he turned back and came to Turhal by way of Komenat. In a second clash near Turhal, İsfendiyar Bey's troops stood by almost as spectators; it was the Amasya soldiers who did the fighting. In the end the two sides came to terms once more. Kadı Burhaneddin stayed ten days at Zile and went back to Sivas, while Emir Ahmed entered Amasya with İsfendiyar Bey at the end of the year 783 and lodged his guest in the Kızlar Sarayı.

Modern sources tell the same years more briefly and with a harsher outcome. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry on Kadı Burhaneddin, when Kadı Burhaneddin besieged Tokat a second time in the summer of 1382, the castle commander came to terms with the Mongols and left him in a difficult position; when the emir of Amasya also broke his word and attacked, Kadı Burhaneddin's army was routed and scattered. The following year Kadı Burhaneddin, having escaped a conspiracy in Sivas, defeated Ahmed Bey, who had set out to avenge his father with the support of his father-in-law Kötürüm Bayezid (785/1383-84). Yaşar Yücel, drawing on Bezm ü Rezm, also writes that this war ended with Kadı Burhaneddin defeating both the Amasya and the Kastamonu forces. What Hüsameddin presents as a clash after which "the two sides came to terms" is, in the language of the contemporary source, a defeat.

Partnership and Friction with Kastamonu

The Candarid alliance did not give Emir Ahmed what he had hoped for. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry on İsfendiyar Bey, İsfendiyar did not return to Kastamonu after the defeat of 785 and stayed in Amasya for a long time. Hüsameddin interprets this long stay as a threat: the Sinop region had passed under Kötürüm Bayezid's control, the Osmancık lord Beyleroğlu Mahmud Bey had stopped recognising Amasya and attached himself to Kastamonu, and Tâceddin Bey, lord of Canik and Samsun, had begun to act on his own. As Yaşar Yücel reports from Bezm ü Rezm, after the defeat Kötürüm Bayezid sent envoys to Kadı Burhaneddin to apologise for the hostile acts he had undertaken together with his son-in-law, promised to oppose Emir Ahmed from then on, and, to prove his word, announced that he had ordered his troops to plunder Merzifon, which belonged to Emir Ahmed.

The situation changed with the Candarids' own civil war. When Kötürüm Bayezid sought to leave his throne to his younger son İskender, his elder son Süleyman killed his brother and took refuge with Murad I. Faced with Süleyman, who took Kastamonu with Ottoman support, Kötürüm Bayezid withdrew to Sinop. On hearing this, İsfendiyar, who was in Amasya, went back to his father. Hüsameddin dates this departure to 785 and believes that the Ottoman intervention rid Amasya of İsfendiyar's presence. In his account Kötürüm Bayezid sent İsfendiyar to Amasya a second time early in 787 to ask that the emirate attach itself to Kastamonu; Emir Ahmed again lodged his guest in the Kızlar Sarayı, but this time did not accept the proposal. With Kötürüm Bayezid's death soon afterwards, İsfendiyar left once more. Hüsameddin does not accept Kâtib Çelebi's explanation that the old palace of Amasya came to be called the "İsfendiyar Sarayı" in later centuries because of these two visits; he finds it odd that a building which housed Ottoman princes and their ladies for a century and a half should bear the name of a guest who stayed a few months.

Governing the Emirate

After İsfendiyar's first departure Emir Ahmed set about restoring order at home. According to Hüsameddin he marched against the Çonkaroğulları, who were threatening Amasya, dispersed them and drove off their leader, Bahtiyaroğlu Kara Devletşah. He made Timurhanoğlu Koç Hüseyin Bey emir of Çorumlu. At Osmancık he removed Beyleroğlu Mahmud Bey and sent him to Tokat, putting his brother Abdullah Bey in his place. Against Tâceddin Bey, who was acting freely in Canik, he sent the Lâdik lord Kubadoğlu Ali Bey and gave him the emirate of Samsun. Hüsameddin writes that at this time the emirate consisted of the provinces of Amasya, Tokat, Çorum and Samsun. That Merzifon also belonged to Emir Ahmed is clear from the plunder order reported by Yücel.

His officials were largely inherited from his father. Hüsameddin writes that Şadgeldi Pasha's vizier Torumtayzâde Sirâceddin Muhammed Çelebi came back wounded from the battle and that Emir Ahmed kept him in office, and that he took the oldest of the Amasya lords, Halifetzâde Alâeddin Ali Bey, as his counsellor. The secretary of the council was Muslihzâde Celâleddin Abdurrahman Çelebi, remembered among the calligraphers and scholars of Amasya, who would later become qadi of the city. Among the scholars around Emir Ahmed Hüsameddin lists Hüsâmeddîn Hüseyin el-Kâtî, Hüsâmeddîn Hasan el-Hoyî, Fahreddîn Osman et-Türkmânî, Şücâeddîn İlyas and Bedreddîn Mahmud of Niksar, and he says that "books were composed in his name". He offers evidence for this as well: an Arabic note on the first leaf of the Miftâh commentary that el-Kâtî wrote for Emir Ahmed states that the book was made for the library of the "learned, just, God-aided, victorious, warrior and frontier-guardian" emir "Fahreddîn Ahmed Çelebi". In his biographical section Hüsameddin quotes the same note in a longer form that includes the title "king of the emirs of the Turks and the Armenians".

The picture Hüsameddin draws of these years is of a well-run and respected emirate. His overall verdict on Emir Ahmed is equally full of praise: a learned, wise, prudent, just and gentle great emir, a friend of scholars and sheikhs, and generous. These are Hüsameddin's own judgements; Bezm ü Rezm, for its part, presents the same man as an opportunistic enemy who breaks his word. Each author wrote as a partisan of one court.

Turning to Ottoman Protection

As long as Kadı Burhaneddin's pressure continued, the real question for Emir Ahmed was whose protection to seek. According to Hüsameddin, his counsellor Halifetzâde Ali Bey, who had once lived in Ankara for eight years and had seen the power of the Ottomans at close range, advised Ottoman protection. Emir Ahmed judged this preferable to appealing to the Mamluk sultan in Egypt. Eretnid Câfer Bey of Kayseri and his administrator Cüneyd Bey, for their part, sought the protection of the Mamluk Sultan Barquq in the same years. Hüsameddin writes that the Amasya scholars who had gone to Bursa in 783, especially Aksarâyîzâde Alâeddin Ali and Cemâleddin Saferşah of Merzifon, explained Amasya's situation to Murad I and his vizier Çandarlı Hayreddin Halil Pasha and received a favourable answer. The vizier Torumtayzâde Sirâceddin Muhammed Çelebi also went to Bursa in person and met Murad I; on his return he concluded a peace with Kadı Burhaneddin and so gained time until the Ottoman force arrived.

According to Hüsameddin, in 788 (1386), after defeating the Karamanids, Murad I sent his son Prince Bayezid with a military detachment from Kastamonu to Amasya. Emir Ahmed and the notables of Amasya received the prince with ceremony at Osmancık. From Osmancık Prince Bayezid sent an envoy to Kadı Burhaneddin demanding that he withdraw from Amasya's lands; according to Bezm ü Rezm, Kadı Burhaneddin replied, "Osmancık is a country that belongs to us; he must leave it." After a day at Gümüş, the prince entered Amasya, by Hüsameddin's estimate on the first day of Shawwal 788, that is, the festival at the end of Ramadan in 1386, and took up quarters in Emir Ahmed's palace. Hadîdî, a poet of the reign of Bayezid II, also relates in his verse chronicle that the lord of Amasya received Yıldırım Han together with the city's notables and surrendered the land to him:

İledip şâhı tahtın itdi teslîm
Dedi ben kulunam senindir iklîm

Hüsameddin defends this date on two grounds. One is the statement of Kemalpaşazâde that Amasya was conquered in the time of Murad I and that its governorship was given to his eldest son Bayezid. The other is the joint endowment deed of Seydî Murad and Hacı Sencer of Osmancık, dated 9 Sha'ban 789 (1387): the Osmancık court records that Murad I's permission was obtained for this endowment. Since Osmancık then belonged to the emirate of Amasya, Hüsameddin concludes that the emirate had recognised Ottoman sovereignty by that date. Bezm ü Rezm likewise writes that the castles of Osmancık and Maden were handed over to the Ottoman ruler, and that Ahmed Bey, emir of Amasya, "breaking his covenant as had long been his habit", drew close to the Ottoman and joined with him.

Halil İnalcık, in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry on Bayezid I, treats this account with caution. In his view, the belief that Bayezid was the first governor of Amasya arose from the relations, during 1384-1388, with Ahmed, emir of Amasya, and with Çandarlı Süleyman Bey, who accepted Ottoman sovereignty against Kadı Burhaneddin, and from the passing of certain districts under Ottoman administration at that time. In other words, it is accepted that Emir Ahmed recognised Ottoman overlordship in these years, but it cannot be shown from documents that Bayezid actually settled in Amasya as its governor.

Beylerbey of Amasya

In Hüsameddin's narrative Ottoman protection does not abolish the emirate; Emir Ahmed stays at the head of the city under a new title. When Prince Bayezid left Amasya to join the Kosovo campaign, he left the province to its "former owner", Devâtdâr Ahmed Bey, with the title "Beylerbey of Amasya". Hüsameddin writes that Murad I confirmed him in this post in 789. An Ottoman detachment was also left with him. At the same time some young lords of Amasya went to Rumelia in the prince's retinue; among them were Emir Ahmed's son Şadgeldi, İsa the son of his brother Mustafa Bey, his cousin Kutlu, and Kaya Bey, son of his vizier Muhammed Çelebi. According to Hüsameddin, Emir Ahmed took part in the Battle of Kosovo (1389) by sending troops and provisions from Amasya, held out against Kadı Burhaneddin with the forces left to him, and was rewarded with the rank of vizier when Bayezid I came to the throne. This last item appears only in Hüsameddin.

In these years Kadı Burhaneddin steadily tightened his grip around Amasya. According to Ahmet Şimşirgil's study of Turhal, the town was besieged after Kadı Burhaneddin had defeated Emir Ahmed in several pitched battles; a fort was built outside it to press the blockade, and in 1388 it was taken by Devletşah, one of Kadı Burhaneddin's commanders. The fall of Turhal opened the road to Amasya for Kadı Burhaneddin. Hüsameddin, too, relates that Bahtiyaroğlu Devletşah, who had grown up on Ahmed's bounty, went over to Kadı Burhaneddin and seized Turhal, and that Kadı Burhaneddin took Tokat and drove out Sheikh Necib.

An episode reported by Hüsameddin shows Emir Ahmed's attitude in these years. Kadı Burhaneddin sent the Tokat lord Sheikh Necib, who was Ahmed Pasha's brother-in-law, as envoy to Amasya to ask for one of Ahmed Pasha's daughters in marriage. Hüsameddin reads this as a plan to take Amasya through kinship. Ahmed Pasha had the envoy bound and imprisoned, seized the gifts he had brought and made ready to send him to Sultan Bayezid (791/1389). When İmâdeddin Yûsuf Çelebi, the qadi of Amasya, objected that this was harsh treatment of an envoy, he was dismissed and Muslihzâde Celâleddin Abdurrahman Çelebi was appointed in his place. Kadı Burhaneddin then marched on Tokat and began to plunder the surroundings of Amasya; Ahmed Pasha came out of the city with his troops and drove him back.

The Siege of Amasya and the City's Passage to the Ottomans

For the years 1391-1392, when events came to a head, the accounts in the sources draw closer to one another without fully coinciding. According to Yaşar Yücel's study, based on Bezm ü Rezm, in 1391 Kadı Burhaneddin captured the castle of Simalu, which belonged to the emir of Amasya. He did so because he had learned that Emir Ahmed intended to hand this castle to Bayezid I, so as to bring the Ottomans into the Yeşilırmak region and set a powerful opponent against his rival. Bayezid I sent an envoy to Kadı Burhaneddin to say that there was no question of Simalu being given to the Ottomans, and asked him to keep on good terms with Emir Ahmed.

The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry on İsfendiyar Bey adds another detail for the following year. After Bayezid I's defeat by Kadı Burhaneddin on the plain of Çorumlu, İsfendiyar Bey, like the other Anatolian lords, wished to send his vizier with gifts to Kadı Burhaneddin to declare his allegiance. Emir Ahmed, lord of Amasya, seized this embassy and meant to hand it over to the Ottomans. On hearing of this, Kadı Burhaneddin went to Amasya and took the city (1392-1393). According to Halil İnalcık's entry on Bayezid I, on the other hand, the emir of Amasya, besieged by Kadı Burhaneddin, surrendered the city to the Ottomans in 1392; the following year Bayezid came to the region, entered Amasya and took possession of the city, and local lords such as the Tâceddinoğulları of the Çarşamba valley and the Taşanoğulları of the Merzifon district also recognised his rule. Şimşirgil likewise writes that in 1392 Kadı Burhaneddin made himself master of Amasya and its surroundings with ease, that Emir Ahmed, realising he could not withstand him, appealed to Bayezid I and declared his submission, and that Ottoman forces arriving in 1393 took Amasya and the surrounding castles.

Hüsameddin's account gives more detail about what went on behind these events, but its chronology differs. According to him, when Kadı Burhaneddin came against Amasya a second time and encamped on the plain of Merzifon, Ahmed Pasha and Alp Arslan Bey, lord of Canik, asked Bayezid I for help. Kadı Burhaneddin passed the Amasya gorge and forced his way into the city; Ahmed Pasha shut himself up in the citadel and continued the defence. Kadı Burhaneddin boasted of killing a few Ottoman soldiers who made sorties from the citadel and insisted that the citadel be surrendered to him, but he could not achieve it. On hearing that Bayezid I had reached the plain of Merzifon, he withdrew from the city. Bezm ü Rezm tells this withdrawal from its own point of view: the Tâceddinoğulları and the emir of Amasya, while appearing to seek peace with the sultan, had secretly informed the Ottoman ruler that the sultan had been sitting in Amasya for a long time, that his troops were scattered and his provisions exhausted, and had stirred him into action "with tricks and intrigues"; the sultan had therefore withdrawn to Turhal to gather his army. Hüsameddin places this second arrival of Bayezid I in Amasya at the beginning of the year 793 and writes that the sultan rewarded Ahmed Pasha, who had taken Tokat and shown him loyalty, and gave the emirate of Tokat to Ahmed Pasha's cousin Süleyman Şahzâde Kutlu Bey.

On one point, then, the sources converge: Amasya passed to the Ottomans because Emir Ahmed, under pressure from Kadı Burhaneddin, appealed to the Ottoman sultan; the city was handed over, not conquered. On the date, however, opinions are scattered. Hüsameddin puts the first submission in 788 (1386); İnalcık puts the surrender in 1392 and the sultan's entry into the city in 1393; Şimşirgil puts the arrival of Ottoman forces in 1393; and the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry on Amasya places the city's definitive incorporation into Ottoman territory in 1398. Hüsameddin is aware of this disagreement and writes that none of the Ottoman historians has produced "strong evidence".

Last Years and Death

The only detailed record of Emir Ahmed's death is Hüsameddin's. According to him, in 794, after having the Kayseri lord Sheikh Müeyyed, whom he himself had appointed, put to death, Kadı Burhaneddin was preparing to take Tokat. On learning this, Ahmed Pasha, beylerbey of Amasya, went with his troops from Amasya to Tokat and from there to Artukabad. He had also joined forces with Sheikh Necib, lord of Tokat. On reaching Artukabad he fell ill, and he died there in Dhu al-Hijja 795 (October 1393). On leaving for Tokat he had appointed his brother Mustafa Bey as his deputy in Amasya; when news of his death was reported to Sultan Bayezid, Mustafa Bey became beylerbey of Amasya in his place, which, according to Hüsameddin, had been Ahmed Pasha's own wish.

This date does not fully agree with the modern sources. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry on Kadı Burhaneddin writes that after the Timurid threat receded for a time at the beginning of 1394, Kadı Burhaneddin marched against "Ahmed Bey, emir of Amasya, who had attacked his lands" and laid everything waste. According to Hüsameddin, by then his brother Mustafa Bey was at the head of Amasya, and in 796 it was he who defended the province against Kadı Burhaneddin, who was plundering the Tokat area. Either the death date given by Hüsameddin is too early, or the contemporary source refers to the emir of Amasya by an old name; the available material is not enough to settle the question.

His grave is unknown. Hüsameddin relates that Emir Ahmed's body was most probably buried at Artukabad, that he searched long for his tomb in Amasya and had several suspected places dug up, but did not find it. In his own estimate, the person buried beneath the dome resting on four columns north of the Narlı Bahçe Cemetery, which is popularly shown as the tomb of Prince Ahmed, governor of Amasya, might be Devâtdâr Ahmed Pasha. This is no more than a guess and has not been confirmed. Hüsameddin attributes the loss of the family's inscriptions, graves and endowment deeds to the political anxieties of the first years of Ottoman rule; this, too, is his own interpretation.

Sons and Descendants

Hüsameddin lists Emir Ahmed's children somewhat differently in two places. In the history of the emirate he names his sons Şadgeldi, Keygeldi, Ali and Mustafa and his daughters Kadem, Şehzade and Ehlî Hatun; in the biographical section he names his sons Şadgeldi, Keygeldi, Mehmed, Mustafa and Burak Çelebi and his daughter Ehlî Hatun. The later lives of some of them can be traced.

His son Şemseddin Şadgeldi Bey also stood, briefly, at the head of Amasya. After the Battle of Ankara (1402) Timur had given the emirate of Amasya to Bahtiyaroğlu Kara Devletşah. According to Hüsameddin, the notables of Amasya united to keep this man out of the city; when Timur's son Kara Mehmed Sultan and his tutor Nu'mâneddin Abdülcebbar came to Amasya and examined the city's scholars, the answers of the mufti Gümüşlüzâde Pîr İlyas Çelebi and the words of the other scholars persuaded Kara Mehmed Sultan to appoint Devâtdâr Ahmed Paşazâde Şadgeldi Bey as emir (end of Rabi' al-Awwal 805, October 1402). Şadgeldi Bey was the son-in-law of Bayezid Pasha. When Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed) returned to Amasya he was removed and, according to Hüsameddin, sent with his family to İznik in 816 (1413-14). Ibn Arabshah lists a lord named "Mustafa b. Devâtdâr" in the retinue of Bayezid I's son Süleyman, who was sent to Sivas; Hüsameddin notes that Keygeldi Bey also went to Sivas with the same retinue and that he appears in that work as "Ceygeldi". Because the Kızılca estate near Amasya belonged to Keygeldi Bey, the village later took the name "Keygel".

His daughter Ehlî Hatun left a charitable foundation whose name survives in Amasya. According to Hüsameddin, in 871 (1466-67) she built the Meydan Tekkesi, also called the "Ehlî Hatun Tekkesi", in the Sabıkeddin quarter at the head of the Meydan Bridge, set up its endowment and assigned its administration to the sons of her brother Burak Bey. Her grave lay inside this lodge and in Hüsameddin's time was known as a place of pilgrimage for women. When the cell enclosing it was demolished, the grave was left in the open. This date, more than seventy years after her father's death, suggests either that Ehlî Hatun lived a very long life or that the endowment deed was drawn up late; the source offers no explanation.

Hüsameddin describes Burak Bey as an emir very loyal to the Ottoman state. According to him, five branches sprang from Devâtdâr Ahmed Pasha's line under the names Şâdî Beyzâde, Burak Beyzâde, Şâdî Paşazâde, Sinan Paşazâde and Kadızâde, and some of them survived in Amasya into the nineteenth century. He also identifies "Alacaatlı" Ahmed Bey, who became sanjak governor of Amasya in 997 (1588), as the son of Yahya Bey of the Devâtdâr Paşazâdes living in the Üçler quarter.

His Traces in Amasya

No standing building, inscription or coin belonging to Emir Ahmed is known. Hüsameddin notes that his father Şadgeldi Pasha struck coins, but that no coin of either father or son has been found. His traces in the city are indirect. According to Hüsameddin, the Upper Bath, known as the "Çelebiler Hamamı", passed as the property of Çelebi Ahmed Pasha to his descendants, and Bülbül Hatun, wife of Bayezid II and mother of Prince Ahmed, bought the bath from his descendants and endowed it to her foundations. The old palace that Hüsameddin calls the Kızlar Sarayı also entered the sources through Emir Ahmed's two receptions there of his brother-in-law İsfendiyar Bey. The Çeribaşı quarter, too, takes its name from Çeribaşı Emîneddin Mehmed Çelebi, one of the commanders of the time of Şadgeldi Pasha and Devâtdâr Ahmed Pasha; Hüsameddin established from the witnesses of an endowment deed that this commander was alive in 793.

The more lasting trace is political. The century and a half that Amasya would spend as an Ottoman sanjak where princes were trained began with Emir Ahmed's decision to lean on the Ottomans against Kadı Burhaneddin. Hüsameddin praises this decision in nationalist terms, as the people of Amasya being the first to join "Turkish unity"; Bezm ü Rezm records the same step as a breach of faith. What the two readings share is that Amasya was not taken by force, but passed to the Ottomans from the hands of its own emir.

Chronology

c. 1378: During the Eretnid Ali Bey's visit to Amasya, he had Seydî Hüsam imprisoned (Hüsameddin; according to Öden, Ali Bey's Amasya campaign took place in 1378).

Ramadan 783 (November-December 1381): His father Hacı Şadgeldi Pasha was killed at Kazova; Emir Ahmed was proclaimed emir at Turhal (Hüsameddin). The TDV places the death in the autumn of 1381.

End of 783 (early 1382): After the clashes with Kadı Burhaneddin around Turhal, he returned to Amasya with İsfendiyar Bey (Hüsameddin).

1382: He attacked during Kadı Burhaneddin's siege of Tokat; Kadı Burhaneddin's army was scattered (TDV).

785 (1383-84): He was defeated by Kadı Burhaneddin in a campaign of revenge undertaken with Kötürüm Bayezid's support (TDV, Yücel).

1384: Kadı Burhaneddin defeated the emir of Amasya repeatedly (TDV).

787 (1385): İsfendiyar Bey came to Amasya a second time and left on Kötürüm Bayezid's death (Hüsameddin).

Shawwal 788 (October-November 1386): According to Hüsameddin, Prince Bayezid came to Amasya and the emirate passed under Ottoman protection.

789 (1387): According to Hüsameddin, he was confirmed by Murad I as beylerbey of Amasya.

1388: Turhal was taken by Devletşah, a commander of Kadı Burhaneddin (Şimşirgil).

791 (1389): He had Kadı Burhaneddin's envoy Sheikh Necib imprisoned (Hüsameddin).

1391: Kadı Burhaneddin took the castle of Simalu, which belonged to the emir of Amasya (Yücel).

1392: Amasya, besieged by Kadı Burhaneddin, was surrendered to the Ottomans (İnalcık); the TDV entry on İsfendiyar Bey writes that the city fell into Kadı Burhaneddin's hands at this time (1392-1393).

1393: Bayezid I entered Amasya (İnalcık, Şimşirgil).

Dhu al-Hijja 795 (October 1393): According to Hüsameddin, he fell ill and died at Artukabad; his brother Mustafa Bey succeeded him.

1394: According to the TDV, Kadı Burhaneddin marched against "Ahmed Bey, emir of Amasya".

1398: According to the TDV entry on Amasya, the city was definitively incorporated into Ottoman territory.

Bibliography

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Online sources