Habîbî Hasan Çelebi was an official who handled the paperwork of Amasya's administration, rising from clerk of the tax farms to town steward and keeper of the treasury chest. The first source to recognise him as a poet, however, is a book no longer in existence: the anthology in which Abdî Efendi, a professor of Amasya, collected the poets of the seventeenth century. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar gives Hasan Çelebi's life in a few lines in Amasya Tarihi and closes the entry with the words "he is mentioned in Abdî Efendi's 'Tezkire-i Şu'arâ'". Of the verse of this scribe, who died in 1078 (1667-68), nothing has reached us.

Life

Hüsameddin's eighth volume has the entry:

Amasyalıdır. Sipâhîler ağası Habîb Ağa’nın akrabâsından Alî Bey’in oğludur. Amasya’da küttâb ü ümenâ zümresinden olup bir müddet mukâta’alar kâtibi ba’dehû şehir kethüdâlığı, sandık emîni oldu. 1078’de vefât etdi. Şâ’ir, kâtib idi. Abdî Efendi “Tezkire-i Şu’arâ”sında mezkûrdur.

Translated: An Amasya man, son of Ali Bey, a relative of Habîb Ağa, commander of the sipahis. In Amasya he belonged to the class of scribes and trustees; for a time he was clerk of the tax farms, later town steward and keeper of the treasury chest. He died in 1078. He was a poet and a scribe. He is mentioned in Abdî Efendi's anthology of poets.

All three posts deal with the town's finances and administration: the clerk of the tax farms worked on the registers of state revenues farmed out to tax collectors, while the two later posts brought him closer to the running of the town and its money. Hüsameddin gives the order of these posts but not their years: Hasan Çelebi started at the clerk's desk and moved on to civic affairs. On his birth, his education and his teachers the entry is silent.

The Aydınoğulları and Habîb Ağa

The family name points to the line of Aydın Bey that Hüsameddin follows from the sixth volume onward. Its beys, an Amasya family of commanders, had held the estate of Saz since the fourteenth century and lost men at Varna and at Çaldıran. The "commander of the sipahis Habîb Ağa" named in the entry belongs to the same family: the father of Habîb Ağa-Şeyhî Beyzâde was the district governor Şeyhî Mehmed Bey, "one of the Aydın Beyzâdes". He became a sipahi through a timar, then served as kethüdayeri of Amasya, in 1053 (1643-44) as deputy governor of Sivas, in 1055 (1645-46) as voyvoda of Tokat and keeper of the public treasury of Amasya; in 1056 he went on the Cretan campaign, in 1057 (1647) was made commander of the sipahis for his feats of arms, and early in 1059 (1649) fell as a martyr while entering the fortress of İstinye.

Habîb Ağa's entry lists his sons as Ali, Hasan and Hüseyin Beys. Hasan Çelebi's father was also called Ali Bey. Whether this Ali Bey was Habîb Ağa's son is uncertain: Hüsameddin calls him only "one of his relatives". It is plausible that the pen name "Habîbî" was chosen as a mark of attachment to this best-known name in the family, but the source does not say where the pen name came from, and this remains only a possibility.

In Hüsameddin's eighth volume, immediately before Hasan Çelebi's entry, there is a second entry headed "Habîbî İsmâ'îl Efendi-Yamak Şeyhzâde"; the author set down the heading but never wrote the text. Any connection between this second bearer of the pen name and Hasan Çelebi of the Aydınoğlu family is unknown. What is known of him is gathered under İsmâil Efendi-Yamak Şeyhzâde.

Poetry

The anthology of Abdî Efendi, professor at the Abdullah Pasha Hadith School, which described the poets of Amasya who lived between 1000 and 1081, burned together with Hüsameddin's copy; no other copy is known, and Hüsameddin quoted no couplet of Hasan Çelebi's from it. No poems by Habîbî Hasan Çelebi have been found. All that is left is this: dying in 1078, he lived into the last years the anthology covered, and Abdî Efendi counted him among the poets of the town. Metin Hakverdioğlu, who compiled the people Hüsameddin counts as poets, has also placed Habîbî on his list. On the anthology itself and the other poets it named, see Abdî Efendi's Anthology of Amasya Poets.

Chronology

1057 (1647): His relative Habîb Ağa becomes commander of the sipahis.

Early 1059 (1649): Habîb Ağa falls in the assault on the fortress of İstinye.

1078 (1667-68): Habîbî Hasan Çelebi dies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources