The road that led Hâtemî Abdülkerîm Çelebi from a prince's circle to a dervish retreat opened when Mehmed II (the Conqueror) came to Amasya in 878 (1473). As a young man he had become a teacher at the Halifet Gazi Madrasa in Amasya and entered the private circle of the city's governor, Prince Bayezid, the later Bayezid II. On the sultan's arrival he was removed from the prince's entourage and sent to Tokat; a few years later he gave up teaching and entered the dervish path in the lodge of Sheikh İbrâhim Tennûrî at Kayseri. After his sheikh's death he returned to Amasya as a preacher and lodge sheikh, and he died around 903 (1497-98). According to Hüsameddin he wrote poems and hymns; not a line of them has survived. His family, for its part, is described in different volumes of the Amasya Tarihi in ways that do not agree.

His Life

The entry Hâtemî Abdülkerîm Çelebi-Şeyhîzâde is the whole of what the ninth volume gives him:

Amasyalıdır. Mehmed Çelebi mahdûmu olup Mevlânâ Rükneddîn Ahmed Cendî Çelebi'den ikmâl-i tahsîl edib ders-i âm-ı meşhûr oldu. Tedrîs-i ulûm esnâsında fazîlet-i ilmiyyesi ve hüsn-i edebi şâyî olduğundan Halfet Gâzi müderrisi olup Amasya vâlîsi Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî'nin dâhil-i bezm-i hâssı oldu. 878'de Fâtih Sultân Mehmed Hân'ın Amasya'ya teşrîfinde Çandarlızâde İbrâhim Paşa'nın vezâretden azli esnasında bunu da Tokat'a gönderdi. Orada müderris olup sonra terk-i tedrîs ederek 882'de eş-Şeyh İbrâhim Tennûrî Hazretleri'ne peyrev olarak beraber Kayseri'ye gitdi. Orada Şeyh Efendi'nin riyâzet-hânesinde tekmîl-i sülûk edib hilâfet-nâme aldı. Şeyh Efendi'nin 887'de irtihâli üzerine vatanına avdet edib Enderûn Câmi-i Şerîfi kürsî şeyhi oldu. Bir müddet halkın tehzîb-ı ahlâkına mevâiz-i müessiresiyle hizmet edib sonra Torumtay buk'ası şeyhi olduğu hâlde 903 hudûdunda vefât etdi. Âlim, kâmil, vâiz, müteşerri', şâir, edîb, bir şeyh-i lebîb idi. Eş'âr ve ilâhiyatı var idi. İlahiyâtından bir parçası görülüb istinsâh edilmişdi. Hayfâ ki yandı. Birâderi meşâhîr-i fuzalâdan Mevlânâ Abdî Çelebi de meşhûr idi.

In English: He was from Amasya, the son of Mehmed Çelebi. He completed his studies under Mevlânâ Rükneddîn Ahmed Cendî Çelebi and became a well-known teacher of public lessons. As his learning and fine manners became known while he was teaching, he was made teacher at the Halifet Gazi Madrasa and entered the private circle of Sultan Bayezid II, then governor of Amasya. In 878, when Sultan Mehmed Han the Conqueror came to Amasya, at the time of Çandarlızâde İbrâhim Paşa's dismissal from the vizierate, he sent him too to Tokat. There he became a madrasa teacher; then, giving up teaching, he followed Sheikh İbrâhim Tennûrî and went with him to Kayseri in 882. In the sheikh's retreat house he completed the spiritual path and received a certificate of deputyship. On the sheikh's death in 887 he returned to his homeland and became pulpit sheikh of the Enderun Mosque. After serving for a while to improve the morals of the people with moving sermons, he died around 903 while sheikh of the Torumtay building. He was a learned, accomplished sheikh, a preacher, devoted to the sacred law, a poet, a man of letters and of sound mind. He had poems and hymns. A piece of his hymns had been seen and copied; alas, it burned. His brother Mevlânâ Abdî Çelebi, one of the famous scholars, was also renowned.

From the Prince's Circle to Tennûrî's Lodge

A purge aimed at Bayezid's court at Amasya cut Hâtemî's life in two. The circle that gathered at Amasya during the princely years of Bayezid II was made up of poets, madrasa teachers and companions. As Hüsameddin tells it, when Mehmed II visited the city in 878, Çandarlızâde İbrâhim Paşa was removed from the vizierate, and Hâtemî was sent to Tokat at the same time. The dispersal of the circle did not end there: from the same milieu Âfitâbî Abdurrahman Çelebi was sent to Ankara in the Halîmî affair of 883, and Enverî Pîr Hasan Çelebi to Tokat, also in 883.

After teaching for a time at Tokat, Hâtemî turned to Sufism. İbrâhim Tennûrî, to whom he attached himself, was one of the deputies of Akşemseddin and the sheikh who founded the Tennûriyye branch of the Bayramiyye-Şemsiyye path; his mother was from Amasya, and he himself had settled in Kayseri. The date 887 given by Hüsameddin is also found in other sources as the year of Tennûrî's death, in the autumn of 887 (1482). Hâtemî stayed at Kayseri for about five years, received his deputyship and returned to Amasya after his sheikh's death. He came back as a preacher to the city he had left as a madrasa teacher, first mounting the pulpit of the Enderun Mosque, then becoming sheikh of the place Hüsameddin calls the "Torumtay buk'ası", that is, the tomb of the Seljuk emir Seyfeddin Torumtay and the zaviye beside it. Bayezid was sultan in these years; whether Hâtemî renewed his ties with his former patron is not known.

His Family and the State of the Sources

In Hâtemî's own entry his father is named Mehmed Çelebi and his brother Mevlânâ Abdî Çelebi. The other volumes of the Amasya Tarihi construct this lineage differently:

  • The entry Âfitâbî Abdurrahman Çelebi-Şeyhîzâde in the sixth volume presents Âfitâbî as the son of "Şemseddîn Mehmed Çelebi bin Şeyhî Çelebi" and "brother of Hâtemî Abdulkerîm Efendi". As to the father's name, this record agrees with Hâtemî's own entry.
  • According to the entry Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi-Şeyh Kırık in the eleventh volume, the son of Şeyh Kırık, sheikh of the Mes'ûdiye hospice, who died in 846 (1442-43), was Mevlânâ Abdülganî, and "his sons are Abdülkerîm Hâtemî and the madrasa teacher Abdî Efendi". Here the father is Abdülganî and the grandfather Şeyh Kırık.
  • The entry Abdî Çelebi-Mevlânâ Abdullah in the twelfth volume likewise calls Abdî "son of Şeyhîzâde Abdülğanî Çelebi" and "brother of Abdülkerîm Hâtemî Çelebi", and adds that the two brothers studied together under Mevlânâ Cemâleddîn Yûsuf Tokâdî and Rükneddîn Ahmed Cendî.
  • The entry Hasan Çelebi-Hüsâmeddînzâde in the eighth volume, by contrast, counts "Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi, one of the poets" among the sons of the Mevlevî sheikh Hasan Çelebi (d. c. 855) and says that "his son is Abdülkerîm Hâtemî Çelebi".

What these records share is that the family took its name from an ancestor nicknamed "Şeyhî" and that Hâtemî was the brother of a madrasa teacher named Abdî. The father's name, however, wavers between Mehmed and Abdülganî. That the two brothers studied under the same teacher appears in both Hâtemî's and Abdî's entries, which makes the brotherhood secure; and the fact that the name "Abdülganî" in Abdî's entry and the Şeyh Kırık entry give the same lineage lends weight to the second scheme. In linking several generations bearing the nickname Şeyhî across different entries, Hüsameddin seems to have given the name "Şeyhî Mehmed" sometimes to the grandfather, sometimes to the father. Which scheme is correct cannot be settled with the sources available.

For Hâtemî's children there are also two records. The entry Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi-Şeyhîzâde in the eleventh volume introduces the poet Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi, who entered the intimate circle of Prince Ahmed and died in 918 (1512-13) grieving over the prince's death, as "the son of Şeyhî Çelebizâde Hâtemî Abdülkerîm Efendi, known as Şeyh Kırık". The same entry records that Şeyhî Mehmed exchanged verses with Münîrî. It is also possible that Enverî Pîr Hasan Çelebi, called "son of Abdülkerîm Çelebi" and "Şeyhîzâde" in the seventh volume, was Hâtemî's son; Hüsameddin does not draw this connection, and the possibility rests only on the similarity of name and nickname.

His brother Mevlânâ Abdî served three times as mufti of Amasya, was the first trustee of the endowments of Sultan Bayezid, taught Kemalpaşazâde and died in Ramadan 907 (March-April 1502). Âfitâbî too, according to Hüsameddin, died in 907, and he is presented as Hâtemî's brother. On this reckoning Hâtemî had two brothers, Abdî and Âfitâbî; yet the source never names the three together in a single sentence, and Hâtemî's own entry mentions only Abdî.

His Poetry

Hüsameddin writes that he had "poems and hymns", that a piece of his hymns had been seen and copied, but that this copy too burned; no poems by Hâtemî Abdülkerîm Çelebi have come down to us. Metin Hakverdioğlu counts him among the poets of both the ninth and the eleventh volumes. The hymns of a preacher who was deputy of a Bayramî-Şemsî sheikh were most probably written to be sung in the remembrance gatherings of his lodge. Of any lyrics he may have recited in the prince's circle nothing at all is known. No entry devoted to this Hâtemî is known in the sixteenth-century anthologies of poets; their Hâtemî entries belong to the other Hâtemî of the same circle, Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi. With two men of Amasya bearing the same pen name in the same prince's circle, any Hâtemî poem that might one day surface would bring with it the question of which of them wrote it.

Chronology

846 (1442-43): Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi (Şeyh Kırık), regarded as the ancestor of the family, dies.

878 (1473): On Mehmed II's arrival at Amasya, Çandarlızâde İbrâhim Paşa is dismissed; Hâtemî is sent to Tokat.

882 (1477-78): He gives up teaching and goes to Kayseri with Sheikh İbrâhim Tennûrî.

887 (1482): Tennûrî dies; Hâtemî returns to Amasya and becomes pulpit sheikh of the Enderun Mosque.

c. 903 (1497-98): He dies while sheikh of the Torumtay zaviye.

907 (1502): His brother Mevlânâ Abdî dies.

918 (1512-13): His son Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi dies after the death of Prince Ahmed.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources