Hulûsî Ali Efendi, who learned the ta'lik script from the clerk of the Amasya court, held the pen in that same court for many years and then served as judge in the small towns, was a member of the İğnecizâde family whose life fell in the early eighteenth century. He was a pupil of the mufti Sânî Abdullah Efendi; in 1141 (1728-29) he was judge of Köprü, and he died in 1147 (1734-35). Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar sums him up in three words: scholar, poet and calligrapher in the ta'lik hand. All that is known about him rests on a few lines in the ninth volume of Amasya Tarihi.

Hüsameddin's Entry

Amasyalıdır. Fâzıl-ı meşhûr İğnecizâde Ali Efendizâde Mehmed Efendi'nin mahdûmudur. Amasya'da fuzalâdan Sânî Abdullah Efendi'den ikmâl-i tahsîl edib mahkeme-i şer'iyye kâtibi Ali Efendi'den de hatt-ı ta'liki aldı. Hayli müddet mahkeme kâtibi ve Firûz Ağa müderrisi olup sonra kasâbâta kâdı oldu. 1141'de Köprü kâdısı görülüb 1147'de vefât etdi. Âlim, şâir, ta'lik-nüvîs idi.

In modern English: He came from Amasya. His father was Mehmed Efendi, and his grandfather the well-known scholar İğnecizâde Ali Efendi. In Amasya he completed his studies under Sânî Abdullah Efendi, one of the learned, and learned the ta'lik script from Ali Efendi, clerk of the Islamic court. For a long time he was clerk of the court and teacher at the Fîrûz Ağa Madrasa, and later served as judge in small towns. He is recorded as judge of Köprü in 1141 (1728-29) and died in 1147 (1734-35). He was a scholar, a poet and a calligrapher who wrote the ta'lik hand.

His Family

The İğnecizâdes are one of the oldest Khalwati sheikh families of Amasya. Hüsameddin traces the line to Şerefeddîn Hamza Çelebi, a deputy of Pîr İlyâs, to his son Seyyideddîn Ahmed Çelebi, and to Seyyideddîn's son Sheikh Safiyüddîn Mûsâ Çelebi, whom Bayezid II revered while governor of Amasya. Later generations of the family included judges, madrasa teachers, lodge sheikhs and educated women such as the poet Safiye Hatun, a pupil of Mihrî Hatun. The entry does not say to which branch of this family tree Hulûsî Ali Efendi's father Mehmed Efendi and grandfather Ali Efendi belonged. No entry of his own could be found for Mehmed Efendi, whom Hüsameddin praises as "a famous scholar". Another member of the family, Derviş Mehmed Efendi-İğnecizâde, who died in 1035 (1625-26) and whose sons were Mehmed and Mustafa, also had a father named Ali Çelebi; but that Derviş Mehmed can hardly, on chronological grounds, have been the father of a man who died in 1147. The similarity may simply show that the names Ali and Mehmed recurred in the family over the generations.

Pupil of Sânî Abdullah Efendi

Hulûsî Ali Efendi completed his studies in the largest teaching circle of late seventeenth-century Amasya. His teacher Sânî Abdullah Efendi became the city's most sought-after scholar after the death of Çillîzâde Ömer Efendi in 1095 (1683-84), rose to the post of mufti of Amasya and died in 1120 (1708). That date suggests that Hulûsî Ali was born in the last quarter of the seventeenth century and finished his studies before 1708; the entry gives no year of birth.

Besides his madrasa studies, Hulûsî also gained a master of the pen. Hüsameddin writes that he learned the ta'lik hand from Ali Efendi, clerk of the Amasya Islamic court. Ta'lik is a slanting, flowing script much used in the Ottoman world for judges' certificates and the correspondence of the learned establishment; mastery of it was part of a court clerk's craft. The pupil followed his writing master's path and served for many years as clerk of the court.

Madrasa Teacher and Judge

Alongside his clerkship he taught at the Fîrûz Ağa Madrasa. Another of Hüsameddin's entries mentions a teacher appointed to the Fîrûz Ağa Madrasa in Havza in 1091 (1680-81); the madrasa where Hulûsî Ali taught may have been this one in Havza, but the entry does not say where it stood. He then moved into the judicial career and served in a succession of small-town judgeships. Hüsameddin's phrase "he is recorded as judge of Köprü in 1141" suggests that the information came from a document, most likely a court register or an endowment deed. Köprü, today's Vezirköprü, is the town north of Amasya known as the home of the Köprülü family. Hulûsî Ali died in 1147; where he died and where he was buried are not recorded.

His Poetry

His poems are lost. The real difficulty lies in his pen name: Hulûsî was a name used by many in Amasya, and in the same volume Hüsameddin lists eight people bearing it one after another, İğnecizâde Ali Efendi being only one of them. Hüsameddin, who counts him among the poets, recorded not a single couplet of his, and no divan or poem preserved in a miscellany is known. To attach an anonymous poem signed Hulûsî to him would therefore need further evidence. The transcription of the record, with modern equivalents of its older words, bears the title Hulûsî Ali Efendi-İğnecizâde.

Chronology

1095-1120 (1683-1708): The years in which his teacher Sânî Abdullah Efendi drew the most pupils in Amasya; Hulûsî Ali completes his studies under him.

1141 (1728-29): Judge of Köprü.

1147 (1734-35): Dies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources