Among those who won a place among the intimates of Prince Bayezid during his governorship of Amasya by presenting him with poems and odes (kasides) was Pîr Hasan Çelebi, a scholar of Amasya who wrote as Enverî. He was later sent to Tokat as a madrasa teacher, and died while serving as a judge some time after 890 (1485). Everything known about him rests on the five sentences Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar gives him in his seventh volume. Short as it is, the entry offers two concrete clues: his father's name was Abdülkerîm Çelebi, and his signature appears as a witness on the endowment deed of Hüsâmeddîn Temennâyî, who built a fountain and a school in Amasya's Temennâ quarter. Notes discussing Bayezid's years in Amasya and the "shock of 883" are in the study Enverî Pîr Hasan Çelebi-Şeyhîzâde.

Hüsameddin's Entry

Amasyalıdır. Abdülkerîm Çelebi mahdûmu olup ulemadan tahsîl-i ulûm ederek ders-i âm oldu. Amasya'da vâlî iken Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî'ye eş'âr ve kasâid takdîm ederek kurbiyyet kazandı. 883 sadmesinden bu da müteessir olup Tokat'a müderris olarak gönderildi. Ba'dehû kadı olup 890 sâlinden sonra vefât etdi. Fâzıl, şâir, müeddeb bir zât idi. Hüsâmeddîn Temennâyî Vakfiyesi'nde şâhid sıfatıyla imzâsı görüldü.

Rendered into modern English: a native of Amasya and son of Abdülkerîm Çelebi, he studied with the scholars and became a ders-i âm, a teacher licensed to hold public classes. While Bayezid II was governor of Amasya, he won his favour by presenting him with poems and odes. He too was affected by the shock of 883 (1478-79) and was sent to Tokat as a madrasa teacher. He later became a judge and died after 890. He was learned, a poet and a well-bred man. His signature has been seen as a witness on the endowment deed of Hüsâmeddîn Temennâyî.

In the Prince's Circle

Bayezid had been sent as a child by his father, Mehmed II (the Conqueror), to the sanjak of Amasya, and stayed there until 1481, when he left the city to take the throne. The prince's circle in Amasya and his later reign are the subject of the article Bayezid II; poets and scholars such as Mihrî Hatun and Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman also belonged to this circle. Pîr Hasan Çelebi's entry into it with an ode was the usual path by which young teachers of the time approached the prince. According to Hüsameddin, another of those who joined the prince's "bezm-i hâss", his private assembly, in the same years was Hâtemî Abdülkerîm Çelebi, teacher at the Halifet Gazi madrasa.

Hüsameddin does not explain which event the "shock of 883" in the entry refers to. In those same years Mehmed II, acting on complaints that they had accustomed the prince to wine and pleasure, ordered the execution of two of his intimates, Hızırpaşazâde Hacı Mahmud and Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman; Müeyyedzâde, with the prince's help, fled to Aleppo in 884 (1479) before the order reached Amasya. Pîr Hasan's removal from Amasya to Tokat may have been part of the same purge; the entry does not draw this connection explicitly. He later moved on to judgeships, but where he served as a judge is not known.

The Signature on the Endowment Deed

The endowment deed that Pîr Hasan Çelebi signed as a witness belonged to Hüsâmeddîn Hüseyin Ağa, freedman and steward of Atabegzâde Hızır Pasha of Amasya. According to Hüsameddin's entry in the eighth volume, Hüseyin Ağa settled in the Temennâ quarter, built a school and a large fountain there, brought the water of a spring he had found in quantities enough for the whole quarter, and in 878 (1473-74) endowed his properties for their upkeep. He too won the favour of the prince during Bayezid's governorship of Amasya, became collector of the poll tax for the province and died in 887 (1482). Pîr Hasan's role as witness to this deed shows that in the mid-870s he was in Amasya, involved in the same affairs as the people around the prince. Hüsameddin mentions the same deed with the date 872 (1467-68) in the entry on Hıfzı Ali Çelebi, one of Bayezid's companions; whether the deed existed in two dated records or one of the dates is wrong cannot be told from the book.

The State of the Sources: His Father

Hüsameddin introduces Pîr Hasan only as "the son of Abdülkerîm Çelebi" and puts the family name "Şeyhîzâde" in the heading. In the ninth volume of the book, however, there is an Abdülkerîm Çelebi known by the same family name: Abdülkerîm Çelebi-Şeyhîzâde, pen name Hâtemî. According to Hüsameddin, Hâtemî joined Bayezid's private assembly while teaching at the Halifet Gazi madrasa; in 878, when Mehmed II came to Amasya and Çandarlızâde İbrâhim Pasha was removed from the vizierate, he too was sent to Tokat, where he taught for a while before attaching himself to Sheikh İbrâhim Tennûrî and going with him to Kayseri; after his sheikh's death in 887 he returned to Amasya, and he died around 903 (1497-98). The entry also records that he wrote poems and hymns, that one of his hymns was once seen and copied, but that the copy was burned. The entry on Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi in the eleventh volume names him as "Şeyhî Çelebizâde Hâtemî Abdülkerîm Efendi", known as "Şeyh Kırık".

The close fit of the family name, the father's name and the story suggests that Pîr Hasan may have been the son of Hâtemî Abdülkerîm Çelebi. Father and son both entered the prince's assembly, and both were sent to Tokat in the years when Mehmed II broke up Bayezid's circle. The resemblance can be explained in two ways: either father and son were caught in the same purge together, or Hüsameddin wrote the same event into two separate entries with different dates (878 and 883). Hüsameddin himself draws no link between the two entries; the kinship proposed on this page is an inference. If it is correct, Pîr Hasan was the brother of the poet Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi, one of the intimates of Prince Ahmed, and the nephew of Âfitâbî Abdurrahman Çelebi, whom Hüsameddin counts as Hâtemî's brother. That Âfitâbî and Hâtemî were brothers is itself not certain.

The Pen Name Enverî

Pîr Hasan Çelebi was not the only man to use the pen name Enverî in the fifteenth century. In the same years there was another Enverî, who took part in the campaigns of Mehmed II and in 869 (1465) wrote the Düstûrnâme, a verse history, for the vizier Mahmud Pasha. What is known of his life comes from his own work, and his real name is unknown. No source connects the two Enverîs; the presence of the Düstûrnâme's author on campaigns in the Balkans in Mahmud Pasha's retinue does not fit Pîr Hasan's life in Amasya either.

His Poetry

His poems have not reached us. None of the odes he presented to Bayezid could be identified in any known anthology or biographical dictionary of poets.

Chronology

c. 1454-1481: Prince Bayezid's governorship of Amasya; in these years Pîr Hasan presents odes to the prince.

872 or 878 (1467-68 or 1473-74): Signs the endowment deed of Hüsâmeddîn Temennâyî as a witness.

883 (1478-79): After the event Hüsameddin calls the "shock of 883", is sent to Tokat as a madrasa teacher.

After 890 (1485): Dies while serving as a judge.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources