The Hatuniye Mosque stands on the northern bank of the Yeşilırmak in Amasya, in the Hatuniye quarter that takes its name from it. It was built by Bülbül Hatun, one of the wives of Sultan Bayezid II and the mother of Şehzade Ahmed (Prince Ahmed). Most sources give 1510 (AH 915) as the year of construction. The mosque was not founded as a place of worship alone: a primary school (sıbyan mektebi), a public kitchen (imaret) and rooms for guests were added beside it to form a mosque complex (külliye), and a wide endowment system reaching from Amasya to Tokat and from Turhal to Lâdik was set up to keep all these institutions alive. The building is one of the best-documented examples of a tradition in Amasya, where princes were trained at the provincial seat, of women of the dynasty also leaving lasting works in the city. Because its endowment deeds still survive in the archives, it is possible even five hundred years later to know in detail how many loaves the imaret baked each day, how many orphans studied at the school, and which dish came to the table during Ramadan.

Its Founder, Bülbül Hatun

There is no certain information about Bülbül Hatun's birthplace, date of birth or family. Because the consorts of Ottoman sultans were customarily concubines who reached the palace through the slave trade, it is accepted that she too entered the harem in this way. Hüseyin Hüsameddin presents her as a concubine of Georgian origin and writes that she entered the palace of Bayezid II by this route and later became his consort. Her father's name appears differently in the sources: some studies call her Bülbül bint Abdullah, Hüsameddin calls her Bülbül Hatun bint Abdülhay, while in her own endowment deeds she is recorded as Bülbül bint Abdülmennan. All these names belong to the symbolic patronymics used for converts to Islam and give no clue to her origin.

The sources do not fully agree on the children of Bülbül Hatun, who joined Bayezid's household during the years when he was still a prince and governor of Amasya. According to the common account she bore two daughters, Hatice Sultan and Hundi Sultan, and a son, Prince Ahmed. Hatice Sultan was born in Amasya in 1463 and married the müderris Kara Mustafa Pasha in 1479; when her husband was executed in 1483 on the charge of supporting Prince Cem's claim to the throne, she was widowed, married Faik Pasha the following year and died in Bursa in 1500. Hundi Sultan was born in Amasya around 1464, married Hersekzade Ahmed Pasha in 1484 and died in 1511. Ahmet Gündüz, who studied the endowment deeds, counts only Ahmed and Hundi Sultan as her children with certainty, while Çağatay Uluçay, relying on the Bursa court registers, argued that Prince Mahmud was also her son. From the years of Bayezid's governorship of Amasya to Ahmed's time as sanjak governor, this family formed one of the city's closest links with the dynasty.

In Hüsameddin's volume of biographies there is one more member of Bülbül Hatun's family who came to Amasya. Handan Bey, of Georgian origin, was her brother; he grew up in Amasya as a slave of Bayezid and took writing lessons from the calligrapher Şeyh Hamdullah. In 1481, when his nephew Prince Ahmed became governor of Amasya, he stayed with him, serving first as his sword-bearer (silahdar) and then as one of the beys of his retinue. In 1513, at the time of the prince's strangling, he too disappeared. Hüsameddin remembers him as a calligrapher and a learned bey. The record shows that Bülbül Hatun's circle in Amasya did not consist of her son alone, and that she had a place in the prince's palace together with her brother.

The sources describe Bülbül Hatun as a charitable person. She endowed all her property for the upkeep of the charitable institutions she built in Amasya and Lâdik. She is known to have built a mosque, an imaret, a fountain and a bath in Lâdik, and a mosque, a school, an imaret and a fountain in Amasya. It has been written that she also founded a madrasa in Bursa, but no record of such a madrasa has been found in her endowment deeds or in other documents. Some publications state that in 1505 she endowed part of her property to the Enderun Mosque in Amasya, that in 1512 she had another complex built and set aside considerable income for its expenses, and that she left the administration of this last endowment first to her son and, after his death, to Ahmed's eldest daughter and her daughters. Some researchers interpret this arrangement as a precaution against the possibility that Ahmed would not reach the throne; this interpretation, however, is not found written directly in the documents.

Prince Ahmed and the Amasya Years

According to Hüsameddin, Prince Ahmed was born in Amasya in AH 870 (1465-66); other sources likewise place his birth around 1466. Hüsameddin records in detail that in 1481, when his father left Amasya to take the throne, Ahmed was appointed to the sanjak of Amasya, with Halil Pashazade İbrahim Pasha as his lala (tutor-guardian) and Hatib Kasım Efendi as his teacher. Other sources write that he was sent first to Çorum in the early 1480s and then to Amasya. His mother settled in the city with him and remained at her son's side throughout his more than thirty years as sanjak governor. Hüsameddin says that when her son became governor Bülbül Hatun "attained rank as valide sultan"; she was now the highest-ranking woman in the princely palace at Amasya.

As Bayezid's second eldest son, Ahmed was regarded as the strongest candidate for the throne after Abdullah died in 1483, and although he held no official title he was seen as heir apparent in the final years. The support of Grand Vizier Hadım Ali Pasha contributed to this. Ahmed was also known as a poet and scholar, and poets such as Mihri Hatun belonged to his circle. The fact that the sanjak of Amasya was closer to Istanbul than those of his brothers Korkud and Selim was also seen as improving his prospects. Hüsameddin names Ahmed's daughters Gevherhan and Neslihan Sultan, and among his sons-in-law Yularkısdı Sinan Pashazade Mustafa Bey and Nasuh Beyzade Süleyman Bey. Mustafa Bey's marriage to Gevherhan Sultan in 1510-11 would become a tie that later determined the management of the Hatuniye endowment.

In 1511, while Bayezid was struggling against Selim, Ahmed was charged with suppressing the Şahkulu rebellion that had broken out in Anatolia. Instead of fighting, he tried to win the soldiers to his own cause, and his chief supporter, Hadım Ali Pasha, died during the rebellion. When he heard that Selim had been defeated by their father, Ahmed proclaimed himself sultan of Anatolia and took Konya, but when he tried to march on Istanbul he met with the resistance of the soldiers. Selim returned from Crimea, forced Bayezid to abdicate and took the throne. The forces of Ahmed and Selim met near Yenişehir on 24 April 1513; Ahmed was defeated, arrested and strangled soon afterwards. Of his sons, Osman was killed in the same way on 14 May 1513, Süleyman and Alaeddin fled to Egypt and died there of plague, and Murad took refuge in Iran.

After these events Bülbül Hatun went to Bursa and spent the rest of her life there. Selim I (Selim the Grim) left the greater part of Ahmed's estate to her, and she spent this income on her son's tomb (türbe) in the Muradiye Complex, endowing it with five candlesticks, a prayer rug, reading stands and five books, three in Turkish and two in Arabic. The sources differ on the date of her death. Studies of the tomb and of the endowment give 1515 (AH 921), while Hüsameddin writes that she was stricken with a throat ailment the moment she heard of her son's strangling, never recovered her peace and died in Bursa in AH 924 (1518). In both accounts she was buried in her son's tomb. The Hatuniye Complex is the tangible trace of this story that remains in Amasya.

The Founding of the Complex

The sources do not agree entirely on the date of the mosque. The encyclopedic entry dates it to the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, while most sources give 1510. Even within Hüsameddin's own work there are several dates. In the section on the quarters he writes that Bülbül Hatun built the mosque, the imaret and the school and had her endowment deed drawn up in AH 915 (1509-10). In the volume of biographies, however, he says that construction began in AH 912 (1506-07) and was completed in AH 917 (1511-12), and in another entry that the foundations were laid in AH 911 (1505-06). Placed side by side, these dates suggest that the complex rose over several years of building between 1505 and 1511, and that 1510 marks either the completion of the main structure or the first arrangement of the endowment. The tax register (tahrir defteri) of 1520 records the building as "İmâret-i Hâtun, vâlide-i merhûm Sultân Ahmed, der şehr-i enderûn", that is, the imaret in the inner city belonging to the mother of the late Prince Ahmed.

Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi, author of one of the first city histories of Amasya, writes that Bülbül Hatun built a masonry mosque with a minaret, together with an imaret, a school and a han, on a ruined site left from the Seljuks in the inner city. There is no original inscription above the entrance today. Hüsameddin records that the carved inscription stone bearing the date of construction had been removed from above the door, and that the date was learned from old documents. In its place one now sees the phrase "Yâ müfettiha'l-ebvâb iftah lenâ hayre'l-bâb", written in black oil paint on a yellow ground in 1980. The Arabic words mean "O Opener of doors, open for us the best of doors" and are a prayer said on entering the mosque.

In the encyclopedic sources the architect of the mosque appears as unknown, and there is no inscription on the building giving an architect's name. Hüsameddin, however, gives two names in his volume of biographies. The first is Süleyman bin İbrahim, known as "Emîn Mimar Amasyavî". According to Hüsameddin this master built the Sultan Bayezid Mosque in Amasya between 1483 and 1486, also built the Amasya Palace during Bayezid's time as prince, and the Hatuniye Mosque is likewise his work. He died in AH 916 (1510-11). The second name is Emîn Mehmed Çelebi, brother of the famous calligrapher Şeyh Hamdullah. Known as keeper of the registers (defter emini) during Bayezid's governorship of Amasya, Mehmed Çelebi became the building superintendent (bina emini), the official who directed the works and their expenses, of the Hatuniye Mosque, whose construction began in AH 911; he took the nickname "Emîn Çelebi" from this office and died a few years after the mosque was completed, in AH 918 (1512-13). This information has not been confirmed by other sources; still, it is noteworthy that a provincial building should be remembered by the names of both its architect and its building superintendent.

Some accounts say that the mosque was built by another wife of Bayezid II, Hundi Hatun. Official records and the endowment documents, however, name Bülbül Hatun as the founder. In the sources the name Hundi occurs for Bülbül Hatun's daughter. The fact that the building is also popularly called the Bülbül Hatun Mosque shows that this link is still remembered; the name "Bülbül Hâtun Câmii" also appears in the eighteenth-century records quoted by Hüsameddin.

The surroundings of the complex are meaningful in themselves. According to Hüsameddin, the Hatuniye quarter was bounded by the Enderun Mosque to the east, the Kurşunlu and Karatay quarters to the west and north, and the Yeşilırmak to the south. To the east of the mosque stands the Danishmendid Enderun Mosque, and to the west the Seljuk Yıldız Bath (Çukur Hamam). The building thus places three different ages of Amasya, the Danishmendid, the Seljuk and the Ottoman, side by side in one quarter. Hüsameddin writes that the east and north sides of the mosque were garden and the west side was the imaret. The sources differ on whether the bath was part of the complex. Some promotional texts describe the complex as a whole made up of the mosque, a bath and the primary school. The encyclopedia entry presents the Yıldız Bath as a neighboring building to the west and lists the mosque, the school and the imaret as the elements of the complex. The endowment deeds answer the question to some extent: the bath adjoining the imaret is among the properties of the endowment.

The Entrance and the Courtyard

The mosque is entered from the road to the north, Hazeranlar Street, through a round-arched gate, and steps lead down into a small courtyard. On the right of the courtyard, inside a fairly deep niche with a pointed arch, are a fountain with a basin and a latrine with a pointed vault. One side of the courtyard opens onto the mosque's last-congregation porch, the other onto a vaulted room containing four cupboards, adjoining the Yıldız Bath. Old photographs show that there was a well in the courtyard. The well and the empty area on the east side of the courtyard are thought to mark the site of the imaret, of which no trace remains today.

Its Architecture

In the endowment deeds the building is called a "mescid", a small mosque, and among the witnesses to the deed is Mevlânâ Bayezid Halife, "imam of the mescid and the zaviye". That the building later became a mosque where the Friday prayer was held is clear from the preachers (hatib) and sermon-givers serving there in the seventeenth century. The mosque has a rectangular plan and is built of rubble stone and plastered. The upper edge of the walls is finished with a hedgehog-pattern brick eave. The interior measures 15.70 by 12.20 meters. The walls are about one meter thick. As protection against floods of the Yeşilırmak they were reinforced up to the level of the upper row of windows, where the thickness reaches 2.50 meters. Because the qibla wall stands on the riverbank, it was built higher than the other walls. The building's position on the riverbank is thus reflected directly in its construction.

The prayer hall consists of two small domes resting on two rectangular masonry piers of different sizes placed one behind the other on the same axis, and of lower sections with two cross vaults on each side. The two central bays are wider and taller than those on the sides, and the piers, joined to the walls, divide the interior into six bays. The same plan scheme was used in the fifteenth century in centers such as Bursa, Alaşehir, Manisa and Dimetoka, and occasionally in Istanbul in the sixteenth. The Hatuniye Mosque brought a widespread plan type of its period to Amasya. The archive of the architectural historian Aptullah Kuran, who studied early Ottoman mosques, holds sixteen photographs showing the building's interior and exterior, its portico and its door, together with a drawing, which shows that the building was considered within this plan type.

The north facade is closed by a five-bay last-congregation porch. Six columns are joined by pointed brick arches, and five small domes rise above them. Only the central dome rests on an octagonal drum; the side domes have none. The transition is made with squinches to the central dome and with pendentives to the side domes. The columns are baseless marble, their capitals are plain and the tie beams of the arches are of wood. The side walls of the porch are extended, and its walls are higher than those of the prayer hall. The area above the arches is decorated with a meander motif. The face wall is built of stone with three courses of upright bricks between, and is decorated with a geometric brick motif.

The door, with its massive jambs and flattened arch, is framed by a marble molding. In some descriptions the door is a Bursa-arched niche bounded by moldings, with a mihrab-like niche on either side. The interior is lit by two windows each in the lower and upper rows of the side walls, by two lower windows narrowing like loopholes on either side of the mihrab in the qibla wall together with five upper windows, and by four windows in each dome. The two windows in the north wall facing the porch have been walled up and turned into cupboards. The mihrab is a plain round niche. The wooden minbar is new. The hand-painted decoration seen on the dome surfaces and around the windows is the work of a later period.

According to the encyclopedia entry, the minaret stands on the right of the mosque, attached to the building. Its shaft is of brick, the underside of its single balcony, built in corbelled fashion, is of brick, its parapet is of stone, and its entrance is inside the mosque. Another description places the minaret at the northwest corner; the two accounts may be describing nearby positions.

The Primary School

Hüsameddin places the school to the east of the mosque, while a more recent study describes the building as standing to the north of the mosque, on Hazeranlar Street. Its entrance is on this street, onto which the mosque also opens. The rubble-stone walls contain horizontal bands of three courses of brick. The entrance facade has three pointed-arch windows, and geometric decoration has been achieved above the arches by laying bricks in different patterns. In the west facade a low-arched door opens inward, and two windows are set near the top of the wall. The interior of the single-storey building is one large room. It is said to have been covered originally with two domes, which were later destroyed and replaced by a wooden roof. The floor and ceiling are of wood. In recent times the building has been used as a place where handicrafts typical of the region are made and sold.

The endowment deeds set out day by day how the school was to run. The teacher was to come to the school at sunrise, teach the Qur'an to ten orphans and bring them up properly. He had the authority to replace a pupil who lacked ability with a new one, and the deed specifically stipulates that no one should interfere in this. The teacher stayed at the school until the afternoon prayer; when its time came he had the children recite a passage or two, and after the prayer he had them pray for the founder and sent them home. He was free only on Fridays; if he had an excuse on another day he was obliged to leave a righteous person in his place. The teacher was allotted 2 akçe a day and two meals. His assistant, the halife, received 1 akçe a day and was charged every year at the beginning of the month of Rajab with buying each of the ten orphans a set of clothes consisting of a kaftan, a shirt, a sash, a cap and two pairs of slippers. The ten orphans at the school also ate at the imaret, receiving at each meal three pairs of loaves, two ladles of soup and forty dirhams of meat.

Hüsameddin counts the school among the eight schools in Amasya whose endowments were complete and whose income was ample enough to support a teaching staff, and says that it was a masonry building of great solidity. The well-known Kavaklı İbrahim Efendi taught here until AH 1210 (1795-96). Because of the school's reputation, in AH 1300 (1882-83) it was turned into a new-style primary school, a "Mekteb-i İbtidâî", so that the building served the education of children for close to four centuries. The encyclopedia entry considers it possible that the plain building east of the mosque is this school.

The Imaret and the Guest Rooms

At the time it was built, the imaret was the leading building of the complex. It is the institution named most often in the endowment deeds, which describe at length the people who worked there, their wages, when and how much food was to be cooked, and to whom it was to be distributed. Hüsameddin lists five great imarets founded in Amasya to feed the poor and travelers, those of Bayezid Pasha, Yörgüç Pasha, Sultan Bayezid, Mehmed Pasha and Hatuniye, and notes that each had a tabhane, a guest house, beside it. The endowment deed also shows that the complex had a tabhane for guests, or two rooms set aside for this purpose; among the duties of the attendant (ferraş) was to lift and clean the mats of "the two tabhanes of the mescid" once a week. In Ottoman complexes the tabhane was the section beside the imaret where travelers and guests were lodged. The tabhanes of the Hatuniye imaret show that the complex served not only the people of the quarter but also those passing through the city. The imaret building collapsed over time and has not survived, so its plan is unknown.

According to the endowment deed, the staff of the foundation, the ten orphans at the school, destitute elderly women and the guests staying in the tabhane all ate at the imaret. Forty bowls were set aside for forty poor people, and it was stipulated that each bowl should receive 24 dirhams of meat, a ladle of soup and three loaves. Any soup and bread left over went to the elderly women and to orphans without father or mother. Every day the baker took seven batman of flour from the storekeeper and baked from it 180 pairs of loaves weighing 140 dirhams a pair. Of these, 51 pairs went to the staff, 120 pairs to the poor and 9 pairs to the elderly women and orphans. Three and a half porter-loads of firewood were bought daily for the kitchen and the oven. Rice, wheat, chickpeas, meat, clarified butter, salt, onions and vegetables were used in the meals, and honey, grape molasses, starch, walnuts, almonds, black plums, figs and apricots were bought for sweets.

The imaret served two meals a day. Rice soup was handed out in the mid-morning and wheat soup after the afternoon prayer, towards evening. Holy days and nights had their own table. On the Thursday afternoon before the first Friday of Rajab, three batman of helva were cooked, and on the Night of Berat rice pilaf with meat and saffron pudding (zerde) were served. Throughout Ramadan herise, that is keşkek, was cooked every evening, for which a kile and a quarter of wheat, one and a half batman of meat, six nügi of fat and four batman of flour were allotted. On the eve of the feast tutmaç was served, and on the feast day pilaf together with a sweet called zırva made with honey, raisins, apricots, black plums, figs, almonds, saffron and starch; the same dish was served at the Feast of the Sacrifice. On the tenth of Muharram aşure was cooked with two kile of wheat, honey, molasses, meat, raisins, plums, figs, apricots, almonds, broad beans and chickpeas, and on the nights of Regaib and Berat the feast dishes were repeated.

The Endowment Deeds and the Working of the Foundation

Two of Bülbül Hatun's endowment deeds (waqfiyyes) have come down to us. The first is dated 20 June 1511 (23 Rebiülevvel 917), and the original is in the Ottoman Archive. Drawn up after the complex was completed, this document was prepared under the supervision of the kadı of Amasya, Muhammed bin Safiyüddin, and confirmed by the kazasker of Rumelia, Ahmed bin Mahmud. Of the six pages of the document the last three are blank, and the left margins of the first pages are worn and partly illegible. A copy of the same deed was made on 4 December 1722 by the then kadı of Amasya, Mustafa, without any change from the original, and entered in register no. 734 in the Archive of the General Directorate of Foundations. The second deed is dated 29 May 1513 (23 Rebiülevvel 919) and was again written under the supervision of the same kadı. This second document was drawn up only a month and a half after Prince Ahmed was strangled. Hüsameddin places the deed in AH 915 in one place, but in the volume of biographies writes that it was drawn up in AH 917; the second date agrees with the document in the archive.

The deeds open with praise of God and blessings on the Prophet, explain the importance of the endowment with verses and hadith, and then list the endowed properties, by whom and how they are to be managed, and where the income is to be spent. The opening sections are in Arabic, while the parts on the collection of income, the staff and their wages are in Ottoman Turkish. The first deed has eleven witnesses and the second thirteen, nine of whom are the same in both. Among them are men of the princely palace such as the chief stirrup-holder Cafer Ağa, the sword-bearer Mahmud Bey, Firuz Ağa and Rüstem Bey, as well as the imam of the mescid, Bayezid Halife, and, in the first deed, the school's teacher Mevlânâ Bedreddin, and in the second the teacher Mevlânâ Budak and the storekeeper Derviş İbrahim. These names show that the complex had begun to operate with its staff in 1511.

The only significant difference between the two deeds concerns the management of the endowment. Under the first deed the trusteeship (tevliyet) was to pass first to Prince Ahmed, then to Ahmed's eldest daughter and her descendants, and on the extinction of the line to the state. The second deed, written after Ahmed's death, left the management after Ahmed to his eldest son and, on the extinction of the line, gave the office to the kadı of Amasya. Yet by that time Ahmed's sons had either been killed or had fled abroad. To judge from Hüsameddin's records, the endowment was in practice managed by the female line: Sinan Pashazade Mustafa Bey, husband of Ahmed's daughter Gevherhan Sultan, became deputy trustee of "the Bülbül Hatun endowment of his wife's mother".

The Properties of the Endowment

To her endowment Bülbül Hatun attached all the divânî revenues of the town of Lâdik, the village of Yassıviran in the district of Argoma, the village of Akpınar, the divânî share of the village of Çakal near Merzifon, the village of Kılavuz in the district of Hüseyinabad near Zile, most of the village of Kökser near Turhal, and the villages of Viranpınarı and Vezaniye. A han in Tokat, an ice-house there with the shops adjoining it, the Cemal Mill near Havza and two baths in Amasya were also among the properties of the endowment. The revenues of Lâdik were of particular importance. The mâlikâne share of the town's revenue belonged to the descendants of Seyyid Ahmed-i Kebir, and the divânî share to Bülbül Hatun, and the sixteenth-century tax registers note that she held a confirming document from the sultan. Evliya Çelebi writes that Lâdik was exempt from all taxes because it was the endowment of Bülbül Hatun, mother of Sultan Ahmed.

Staff and Wages

The deed lists one by one all the staff, from the trustee to the water-channel keeper, together with their duties and wages. The trustee had the endowment's revenues collected, examined the accounts at the beginning of each new year together with the head of the imaret, the inspector, the clerk and the storekeeper, entered the goods in the storehouse into the record and was present in person at purchases. If the clerk did not write down the quantity and price of the goods bought and the name of the seller, no payment was made. The trustee's share was fixed at one fifth of the income in the first deed and one tenth in the second. Two collectors were appointed to gather the produce of the endowment villages, one in charge of the revenues in Turhal, Hüseyinabad and Tokat, the other of those in Lâdik, Havza and the Merzifon plain. The imaret was run by its şeyh; the nakib weighed and counted the bread and shared out the food, the inspector supervised the order of the kitchen, and the storekeeper kept the provisions. Beside them there were a cook, two bakers, a wheat-pounder, two sifters, a bowl-washer, an attendant, a water-wheel keeper who maintained the wheel, and a water-channel keeper who repaired the conduits. The imam was allotted 2 akçe a day and 2 müd of wheat a year, the muezzin one and a half akçe a day, and the şeyh 3 akçe a day. According to the figures in the deed, the annual expenditure of the imaret, the mescid and the school came to about 37,000 akçe, of which 22,403 akçe went to the imaret.

The deeds also show prices in and around Amasya at the beginning of the sixteenth century. A müd of wheat cost 100 akçe, a batman of meat 10, rice 12, and honey and clarified butter 36 akçe. The kaftan bought for the orphans cost 30 akçe, a shirt 15, a sash 10, a cap 3, and two pairs of slippers 10 akçe.

Income and Expenditure

The state of the endowment in later centuries can be followed in its account books. The register for 1669-1670 was drawn up by the trustee Ebubekir Bey together with the Chief Black Eunuch (Darüssaade ağası) Abbas Ağa, which suggests that by this time the endowment had come under the supervision of the Chief Black Eunuch. In that year the endowment's income was 76,000 akçe, drawn from village produce, stamp and market dues, baths, dye-houses and the shop in Tokat. The two baths in Amasya were in ruins at the time and brought in no income. Expenditure amounted to 17,320 akçe, of which 6,840 akçe went to the five staff of the mosque and 3,600 akçe to the trustee, leaving 58,680 akçe in the endowment's treasury. In the register of 1715 income had fallen to 1,005 kuruş and expenditure had risen to 1,081 kuruş. For the staff of the mosque and imaret in Amasya, consisting of the imam, preacher, muezzin, head of the imaret, teacher, school assistant, attendant, lamplighter, water-wheel keeper, cook and clerk, 153 kuruş a year were spent, and while the Lower Bath in Amasya brought in no income, 204 kuruş were spent on it.

The Baths

According to the endowment deed, the foundation owned two baths in Amasya. One was the "new bath" immediately adjoining the imaret, known as the Bülbül Hatun Bath, and the other the "old bath" known as the Çelebiler Bath; the latter passed to Bülbül Hatun through legal documents by way of exchange. The sources refer to these baths by different names. Hüsameddin writes that the Çukur Hamam to the west of the mosque was built by Rıdvan Bey, one of the emirs of the Seljuk Sultan Mesud, probably in AH 550 (1155), and that it was the property of the Amasya emir Şadgeldi Pasha before passing to Bülbül Hatun and being endowed. Elsewhere he says that the Çelebiler Bath, called the "upper bath", was bought from the descendants of Devatdar Ahmed Pasha and added to the endowment. Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi, for his part, relates that Bülbül Hatun bought and repaired two ruined baths called the Çelebiler Baths, of which the "Lower Bath" adjoined the mosque and the "Upper Bath" stood at the head of the Madenüs Bridge, next to the Seljuk palace. Gündüz, who studied the endowment deeds, identifies the Lower Bath with the new bath of the deed and the Upper Bath with the old Çelebiler Bath.

The bath adjoining the mosque has a square plan. From the changing room, covered by a lantern dome resting on squinches, a small door leads into the cool room, east of which are latrines. A door on the west opens into the hot room, where the transition to the central dome is made with stepped muqarnas. As it is not a double bath, it was used by women and men on different days and at different hours, and it continued to function until recent times.

The Works in Lâdik

Bülbül Hatun's Amasya foundation was administered as a single whole together with her works in Lâdik. Hüsameddin writes that in AH 915 (1509-10) she built a mosque and a bath in the Bahşi quarter of Lâdik. This mosque was largely destroyed in the earthquake of 1668; in 1670-1671 a third of the endowment's income was set aside for its repair, between 1681 and 1685 more than seventy percent of five years' income was again spent on the same work, and the repair could be completed only in 1688. In other words, a considerable part of the income that was meant to support the imaret and the school in Amasya went in the last quarter of the seventeenth century to raising up the mosque in Lâdik. The Lâdik mosque was damaged in the earthquakes of 1902 and 1917 and completely destroyed in the earthquake of 1943; the present building was rebuilt on the old foundations between 1962 and 1966.

The Trustees of the Endowment and the Staff of the Mosque

Hüsameddin's Amasya records make it possible to follow in whose hands the endowment remained over the centuries. Because the deed stipulated the trusteeship for the line of Ahmed's daughters, the management passed first to the children of Yularkısdı Sinan Pashazade Mustafa Pasha and, when their line died out, to the Yeğenzade family, in whose hands it still was in Hüsameddin's time. When İskender Bey of this line, alaybey of Amasya, died in AH 1020 (1611), the trusteeship of the Bülbül Hatun and Sinan Pasha endowments was given to his brother, the palace official (müteferrika) Mustafa Bey. In AH 1119 (1708), when the governor of Egypt Küçük Alizade Hüseyin Pasha died, his nephew Mehmed Bey became trustee of the Bülbül Hatun endowment. Seyyid Said Mehmed Pasha of the Yeğenzade family was a statesman who defended Medina against the Wahhabis for about four years; that he died in Ramadan of AH 1227 (1812) while sanjak governor of Gönye and warden of Faş (Poti) is written beside the trusteeship entry in the account book of the Bülbül Hatun endowment. The endowment's clerks were also among the city's well-known men of the pen; Hüsameddin records that Kâtib Sâdık Hasan Çelebi, known for his fine hand and good character, was first clerk of the Bülbül Hatun endowment, then clerk of the poll tax, and in AH 1047 (1637-38) divan secretary to Köse Ali Pasha, and that he died in AH 1061 (1651). The endowment also paid stipends to some people outside its own institutions; in AH 1081 (1670-71), when the şeyh of the Mahmud Çelebi Lodge died, the daily stipend of ten akçe he had received from the Bülbül Hatun endowment was given to another scholar.

Among the staff of the mosque are well-known names of Amasya. The famous calligrapher Fazlullah Efendi bin Mustafa was preacher and sermon-giver of the mosque and died in AH 1081 (1670-71); Selimzade Emnî Süleyman Çelebi of Amasya, who rose to be a divan secretary, received his first lessons in writing from him. In the eighteenth century the office of preacher passed to the Çavuşlu family. When the preacher Çavuşlu Hacı Mehmed Efendi bin Receb died in AH 1172 (1758), his son Ahmed Efendi became preacher, later also took on the office of kürsü şeyhi of the mosque, and died in AH 1229 (1814). The office passed to his son İsmail Efendi, to İsmail's son Seyyid Ahmed Efendi and to his grandson Seyyid İsmail Efendi, and when Seyyid İsmail Efendi died around AH 1323 (1905), the family had given the mosque its preachers for about a century and a half. Among the kürsü şeyhs of the mosque, the scholars who preached to the public, were Ali Efendi, who died in AH 1106 (1695), İvaz Efendi, who succeeded him, and Hacı Vehhabzade Abdülvehhab Efendi, author of a book of sermons entitled "Zübdetü'n-Nesâyih", who died around AH 1211 (1796-97).

There was once also a library beside the mosque. Hüsameddin writes that in AH 1017 (1608-09) Müeyyedzade Pîrî Çelebi founded a library next to the Hatuniye Mosque and arranged its endowment, but that by his own time this library had been dispersed and lost. The quarter, too, was one of the places where the city's leading families lived. Hüsameddin relates that on the Night of the Ascension (Miraç) in 1688 a great fire that broke out in the Eski Kethüda quarter grew towards dawn with a second fire in the Hatuniye quarter and burned two thirds of Amasya, and that both quarters were then counted among the "quarters of the notables". The scholar İcâdî Hızır Efendi, who turned to Sufism, was born in this quarter in AH 910 (1504-05) as the son of Ahmed Efendi, imam of Hatuniye.

Present State

Floods of the Yeşilırmak have affected the building from time to time, and the mosque has reached the present day through repairs. The imaret and the guest rooms have vanished, while the school and the bath remain standing. Still open for worship today, the mosque stands on the riverbank between Amasya's waterfront Yalıboyu houses and its bridges. Since it lies in the city center it can be reached on foot, and it can be seen on the same walking route as the nearby Hazeranlar Mansion. It can be visited during the day outside prayer times.

Chronology

1465-66: Prince Ahmed is born in Amasya (AH 870 according to Hüsameddin; around 1466 in other sources).

1481: Bayezid II takes the throne and Prince Ahmed becomes sanjak governor of Amasya; Bülbül Hatun stays in Amasya with her son.

1505: According to some publications, Bülbül Hatun endows part of her property to the Enderun Mosque.

1505-1507 (AH 911-912): According to Hüsameddin, construction of the mosque begins; the building superintendent is Emîn Mehmed Çelebi.

1510 (AH 915): The date of construction given by most sources.

1510-11 (AH 916): Emîn Mimar Süleyman bin İbrahim, whom Hüsameddin names as the architect of the mosque, dies.

20 June 1511: The first endowment deed is drawn up.

1513: Prince Ahmed is defeated at Yenişehir and strangled.

29 May 1513: The second endowment deed is drawn up.

1515 (AH 921): According to studies of the endowment and the tomb, Bülbül Hatun dies in Bursa and is buried in her son's tomb; Hüsameddin gives the date of her death as 1518 (AH 924).

1520: The building is recorded in the tax register as "İmâret-i Hâtun".

1608-09: Müeyyedzade Pîrî Çelebi founds a library next to the mosque.

1611: The trusteeship of the endowment is given to the müteferrika Mustafa Bey.

1669-1670: The annual income of the endowment is 76,000 akçe; the two baths in Amasya are in ruins.

1670-71: The calligrapher Fazlullah Efendi, preacher of the mosque, dies.

1688: A fire spreading from the Hatuniye quarter burns much of the city; the repair of the mosque in Lâdik is completed.

1715: The endowment's income is 1,005 kuruş and its expenditure 1,081 kuruş.

1722: A copy of the first endowment deed is made by the kadı of Amasya.

1758: The office of preacher passes to Ahmed Efendi of the Çavuşlu family.

1795-96: Kavaklı İbrahim Efendi, teacher at the school, leaves his post.

1882-83 (AH 1300): The primary school is converted into a new-style elementary school (ibtidâî).

Around 1905: Seyyid İsmail Efendi, the last preacher of the Çavuşlu family, dies.

1980: The inscription above the door is written in oil paint.

Sources

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Ahmet Gündüz, "Vakfiyeleri Işığında II. Bayezid'in Eşi Bülbül Hatun Vakıfları", Vakıflar Dergisi, no. 55, June 2021, pp. 25-53 (DOI: 10.16971/vakiflar.738054). dergipark.org.tr

Official sources

  • Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "Hatuniye Camii", Kültür Portalı. amasya.bel.tr

Other sources

  • İ. Aydın Yüksel, "Hatuniye Camii", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 16, Istanbul 1997, pp. 500-501. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • "Hatuniye Camii, Amasya", Kültür Envanteri, KE No 10279. kulturenvanteri.com
  • "Bülbül Hatun" and "Şehzade Ahmed (son of Bayezid II)", Wikipedia (English).
  • Abdülkadir Gündoğdu, "Amasya'nın tarihi dokusuna zarif bir dokunuş: Hatuniye Camii ve Külliyesi", 28 August 2025.
  • Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi, Amasya Fetvâları ve İlk Amasya Şehir Tarihi, ed. Ali Rıza Ayar, Recep Orhan Özel, Amasya 2011, p. 75 (cited from Gündüz's article).
  • M. Fatih Müderrisoğlu, "Şehzade Kenti Amasya'da Bir Kadın Bani: Bülbül Hatun ve Külliyesi", Tarihi Değiştiren Toplumu Dönüştüren Kadınlar, Ankara 2016, pp. 161-163 (cited from Gündüz's article).

Online sources