Hekimî Mehmed Çelebi, personal physician to Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa) while the prince governed the sanjak of Amasya, was the sixteenth-century representative of the Sabuncuoğulları, the best-known family of physicians in Amasya. He practised at the hospital (darüşşifa), entered the prince's inner circle and died in 959 (1552), about a year before his master was put to death near Ereğli. His pen name comes from his profession: "Hekimî" means "of the physician". For Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, author of Amasya Tarihi, he is a scholar, a poet and a skilled physician. More can be learned about his family and his times from other volumes of the book, above all from the entry on his father, Hoca İbrâhim Çelebi.

Hüsameddin's Entry

Amasyalıdır. Sabuncuzâde hekim-i meşhûr el-Hâc İlyas Çelebi ahfâdından Hâce el-Hâc İbrâhim Çelebi bin el-Hâc Lütfullah Çelebi mahdûmudur. Amasya'da fuzalâdan tahsîl-i ulûm ve tabâbet edib ders-i âm ve sonra Dârü'ş-şifâ tabibi oldu. 945'de Amasya'ya vâlî gelen Şehzâde Sultân Mustafa'ya takarrüb ederek tabîb-i hâssı olduğu halde 959'da vefât etdi. Âlim, şâir, hekîm-i hâzık idi.

In English: He was from Amasya. He was the son of Hoca Hacı İbrâhim Çelebi, son of Hacı Lütfullah Çelebi, of the descendants of the famous physician Hacı İlyas Çelebi known as Sabuncuzâde. He studied the sciences and medicine with the learned men of Amasya, became a ders-i âm and later physician of the hospital. He drew close to Şehzade Sultan Mustafa, who came to Amasya as governor in 945, and died in 959 while serving as his personal physician. He was a scholar, a poet and a skilled physician.

In the Line of the Sabuncuoğulları

The family's fame begins with Sabuncuoğlu Mevlânâ el-Hâc İlyas Çelebi, chief physician to Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed). One of his grandsons was Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin, known for his book on surgery. According to Hüsameddin, Hekimî's grandfather Lütfullah Çelebi was Şerefeddin's brother, which makes Hekimî the grandson of Şerefeddin's brother. The book itself is slightly inconsistent on this line: the entry on Şerefeddin in the eleventh volume names Lütfullah Efendi as Şerefeddin's son. The ninth volume keeps the descent general, saying only "of the descendants of İlyas Çelebi".

The life of his father, Hoca İbrâhim Çelebi, is a story in itself. He had won wealth and standing as a physician and pharmacist and had joined the circle of Şehzade Ahmed, governor of Amasya. For that reason, when Selim I (Selim the Grim) came to the throne, he spent a year under investigation and pressure. In 923 (1517) a rumour that Şehzade Ahmed's son Şehzade Murad had come from Iran and was hiding in his house reached the sultan himself. In 924 (1518) he was taken as far as Üsküdar to testify that the man captured and beheaded near Karahisar-ı Şarkî was Murad, and he died in Amasya around 930 (1523-24). Hüsameddin closes that entry with the sentence "His son is Mevlânâ Hekîmî Mehmed Çelebi". Hekimî's youth, then, passed in the shadow of the troubles his father endured for his closeness to a prince.

Physician to Prince Mustafa

Hüsameddin dates Mustafa's arrival in Amasya to 945. According to Şerafettin Turan's article in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, however, the prince was sent from Manisa to Amasya on 21 Safer 948 (16 June 1541). Hekimî's service as personal physician falls within the eleven years after that date. Like his father's attachment to Şehzade Ahmed, his entry into a prince's service shows the family's standing in Amasya: for generations the health of the princes who came to govern the town had mostly been entrusted to physicians of this family. Mustafa had other men of the pen and of letters from Amasya around him; his nişancı (chancellor) Hamdî Hamdullah Çelebi was one of them. The prince's years in Amasya are told separately in Şehzade Mustafa.

Hekimî died in 959 (1552). A year later, on 27 Şevval 960 (6 October 1553), Mustafa was strangled at the Aktepe camp near Konya Ereğlisi on the orders of his father, Süleyman the Magnificent. Since Hekimî's death falls before that event, he did not live to see his master's end.

Poetry

No verse of his has reached us. Metin Hakverdioğlu, listing the poets in the ninth volume of Amasya Tarihi, adds the note "physician-poet" beside his name; Hüsameddin, too, counts him a poet, but shows no couplet. Nor has the pen name Hekimî been found in the elegies of Prince Mustafa's circle or in the other poems that survive from it. The original text of the entry is found under the title Hekimî Mehmed Çelebi-Sabuncuzâde Mevlânâ.

Chronology

923 (1517): The rumour spreads that Şehzade Murad is hiding in the house of his father, Hoca İbrâhim Çelebi.

924 (1518): İbrâhim Çelebi is taken to Üsküdar to testify that the beheaded man is Şehzade Murad.

Around 930 (1523-24): His father dies in Amasya.

21 Safer 948 (16 June 1541): Şehzade Mustafa is sent to Amasya (945 according to Hüsameddin).

959 (1552): Hekimî Mehmed Çelebi dies while personal physician to Şehzade Mustafa.

27 Şevval 960 (6 October 1553): Şehzade Mustafa is killed near Ereğli.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources