Mevlânâ Hüsâmeddîn Hasan Çelebi, who came from the town of Hoy in Azerbaijan and settled in Amasya, is in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's account one of the most respected scholars of the age of Hacı Şâdgeldi Pasha: professor at the college the emir had founded, later mufti of Amasya, and a poet versed in Arabic, Persian and Turkish letters, he died in 793 (1390-91). His descendants were known in Amasya as the "Hoyluzâdes", and his great-grandson Pîr Ahmed Çelebi became chief scribe to Mehmed II (the Conqueror). Yet the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam records a chancery writer and poet with the same name, the same father's name and the same son's name who lived in Kastamonu at the end of the thirteenth century. A century separates the two records, and Hüsameddin does not discuss the gap. Of the verse of this poet, held to be at home in the literatures of three languages, not one couplet remains.

Hüsameddin's Entry

The eighth volume of Amasya Tarihi introduces him in these words:

Azerbaycân’ın şimâlinde kâ’in Hoy kasabasından Abdülmü’min bin Alî mahdûmudur. Îrân ulemâsından tahsîl-i ulûm edib Amasya’ya geldi. Neşr-i ma’ârife himmet ederek ders-i âm ve müderris-i be-nâm oldu. İlm ü ulemânın hâmîsi olan Amasya hükümdârı Şâdgeldi Paşa’nın hüsn-i nazar u teveccühünü celb edecek derecede ibrâz-ı fazîlet ve takdîm-i kasâ’id ederek müşârün-ileyhin yaptırdığı dârü’l-ilm müderrisi oldu. Yıllarca tedrîs-i ulûm edib pek çok şâkirdân-ı ma’rifet yetiştirdi. Mevlânâ Sa’îdeddîn Mevhûb bin ez-Zîyârî’nin irtihâlinde Amasya’nın şeyhülislâmı, müftî-i be-nâmı olup 793’de vefât etdi. Gâyet fâzıl, ulûm-ı akliyye ve nakliyyede mâhir, elsine-i selâse edebiyâtına vâkıf, şâir, edîb, asrında ferîd idi. Mahdûmları Nasrullâh, Abdülmü’min, Hayreddîn Hızır Çelebilerdir. Bunlara “Hoyluzâdeler” dendi. Ahfâdından Mevlânâ Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi bin Kutbeddîn Mûsa Çelebi bin Hayreddîn Hızır Çelebi meşhûr idi. Hüsâmeddîn Kâtî budur. Âsâr-ı ilmiyyesi vardır.

In plain English: His father was Abdülmü'min bin Ali, of the town of Hoy in northern Azerbaijan. Having studied with the scholars of Iran, he came to Amasya. Devoting himself to spreading learning, he rose to be a ders-i âm and a renowned professor. He displayed his learning and presented kasides to Şâdgeldi Pasha, ruler of Amasya and patron of learning and scholars, in such measure as to win his favour, and became professor at the college the emir had built. For years he taught and trained many pupils. On the death of Mevlânâ Sa'îdeddîn Mevhûb ez-Ziyârî he became şeyhülislam and celebrated mufti of Amasya, and died in 793. He was most learned, a master of the rational and transmitted sciences, versed in the literatures of three languages, poet and writer, unrivalled in his age. His sons are Nasrullah, Abdülmü'min and Hayreddin Hızır Çelebi; they were called the "Hoyluzâdes". Among his descendants, Mevlânâ Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi, son of Kutbeddin Musa Çelebi, son of Hayreddin Hızır Çelebi, was well known. This is Hüsâmeddîn Kâtî. He has scholarly works.

Hüsameddin completes the entry with two footnotes. According to the first, the college stood on the east side of the mosque Şâdgeldi Pasha had built at Saraçhane and was later called the "Medrese-i Şâdiyye"; when it was ruined by successive earthquakes, Yahyâ Bey, one of the emir's descendants, built a wooden madrasa in its place. The second footnote identifies the source of the praise in the entry: these epithets are taken from a text written by İmâdzâde Mevlânâ Müeyyideddîn Mehmed Çelebi, chief kadi of Amasya. Hüsameddin's phrase "unrivalled in his age" is thus the verdict of a contemporary, not his own.

His Place in Amasya

Hasan Çelebi's life in Amasya coincided with the most turbulent years of the emirate. His patron Hacı Şâdgeldi Pasha had died fighting Kadı Burhâneddin in the autumn of 1381; the college where Hasan taught stood on the east side of the mosque the emir had built at Saraçhane. For the mosque itself, see The Saraçhane Şâdgeldi Pasha Mosque. The date of his move to the office of mufti can be inferred from the entry on his predecessor, Sa'îdeddîn Mevhûb Çelebi-Ziyârîzâde: Mevhûb Çelebi appears as mufti of Amasya with the title "şeyhülislam" in 785 (1383-84), served as adviser to Şâdgeldi's son Ahmed Pasha, and died in Zilhicce 788 (December 1386-January 1387). Hasan Çelebi's tenure as mufti therefore fits into the four or five years between the end of 788 and 793.

The book's third volume offers a scene from these years. In 791 (1389) Ahmed Pasha, beylerbey of Amasya, had Kadı Burhâneddin's envoy arrested, dismissed the kadi İmâdeddîn Yûsuf Çelebi who objected to this, and appointed Muslihzâde Celâleddîn Abdurrahmân Çelebi in his place. Here Hüsameddin notes: "At this time Hoylu Hüsâmeddîn Hasan Çelebi was mufti of Amasya." Kadı Burhâneddin then began raiding the surroundings of Amasya, and Ahmed Pasha drove him back in battle. What part the mufti played in this crisis is not recorded; we know only that he held his office.

The name of one of his pupils is also recorded. Hasan Çelebi (Mevlânâ İzzeddîn), son of Alâeddîn Ali Bey, emir-i kebîr of Amasya and a descendant of Halfet Gâzi, studied "with Mevlânâ Hoylu Hüsâmeddîn Hasan and Mevlânâ Sa'îdeddîn Mevhûb Çelebi", qualified as a ders-i âm and was made professor at the Atabeg Madrasa, in 814 (1411-12) tutor to Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed), and in 821 (1418) kazasker. This pupil, who studied with two successive muftis of Amasya, is the only one of Hoylu's "pupils of learning" whose name has reached us.

The Hoyluzâdes

In the entry Hüsameddin lists three sons: Nasrullah, Abdülmü'min and Hayreddin Hızır. The family's most distinguished name, however, comes from another branch. In the seventh volume the lineage of Pîr Ahmed Çelebi-Kâtib-i Sultânî is given as follows: "He is the son of Hoyluoğlu Ahî Alî bin Fazlullâh bin Mevlânâ Hüsâmeddîn el-Hasan bin Abdülmü'min bin Alî el-Hoyî." Accordingly Hasan Çelebi also had a son named Fazlullah, who is missing from the list in the entry. Pîr Ahmed learned the scribal and epistolary arts in Amasya, caught the attention of Mehmed II with his fine hand and joined the palace scribes, became reisülküttab, chief of the scribes of the Imperial Council, in 875 (1470-71), and was kept in office on the accession of Bayezid II. At the end of copies of the Şerh-i Çağmînî dated 882 (1477-78) and the Şerh-i Mevâkıf dated 884 (1479) he wrote in his own hand "Pîr Ahmed, son of Ahî Alî of Amasya". This lineage agrees with the death date of 793 given by Hüsameddin: the great-grandfather of a scribe in office in the 1470s must have lived in the second half of the fourteenth century.

The State of the Sources

The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam entry "Hûî, Hasan b. Abdülmü'min" describes a chancery writer, poet and lexicographer with exactly the same name and father's name. According to the entry by Tahsin Yazıcı, this Hasan came from the city of Hoy, was also known by the pen name "Hüsâmî", and lived under Muzafferüddin Yavlak Arslan (1280-1291) of the Çobanoğulları of Kastamonu and his son Emîr Mahmud. He wrote the Nüzhetü'l-küttâb ve tuhfetü'l-ahbâb for Yavlak Arslan (684/1285 according to the colophon of one copy) and, in Receb 690 (July 1291), the Gunyetü'l-kâtib ve münyetü't-tâlib to teach the rules of letter-writing to his son Nasrullah; the Kavâ'idü'r-resâ'il, the Rüsûmü'r-resâ'il and two versified dictionaries are also his. He is said to have had a divan, but its whereabouts are unknown, and when and where he died is not known either. This cultural milieu around Kastamonu is also touched on under the Çobanoğulları and Pervâneoğulları.

The resemblance goes beyond the name: both men are from Hoy, both had a father named Abdülmü'min and a son named Nasrullah, both were poets writing in more than one language; the title "Hüsâmeddîn" used by Hüsameddin also recalls the pen name "Hüsâmî" in the TDV entry. The difference lies in the dates. The last known work of the TDV's Hasan is dated 1291; Hasan Çelebi of Amasya presented kasides to Şâdgeldi Pasha (d. 1381) and died in 1390-91. It hardly seems possible for one man to write a book in 1285 and live until 1391. Either Hüsameddin merged two different people, or Hasan Çelebi of Amasya was a grandson of the Kastamonu writer bearing the same names, or one of the dates is wrong. Since Pîr Ahmed's lineage supports a mufti of Amasya living at the end of the fourteenth century, the least strained explanation is a confusion of two generations of the same family; the sources at hand are not enough to settle the question.

The phrase "This is Hüsâmeddîn Kâtî" in the last sentence of the entry ties a second knot. Hüsâmeddîn Hasan el-Kâtî, whose name is linked with the commentaries and glosses on Ebherî's logic manual Îsâgûcî, appears in manuscript records as having died in 760 (1358-59); nothing is known of his life except that he was an Anatolian. It is not clear from the sentence whether by "this" Hüsameddin means the subject of the entry or the descendant Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi he has just named. If the subject of the entry is meant, the gap between 760 and 793 also awaits an explanation.

Poetry

Not a single couplet has been quoted from the kasides that, according to Hüsameddin, he presented to Şâdgeldi Pasha; the author is content to say that Hasan Çelebi knew the literatures of three languages. The divan attributed to Hûî of Kastamonu is not recorded in any known library either, so that even if the two men are taken to be one, no text of a poem is at hand. No poems by Hasan Çelebi have been found. The survey of the poets of Amasya Tarihi by Metin Hakverdioğlu counts him, as "Hüsâmeddîn Hasan Çelebi-Mevlânâ Hoylu", among the poets of the eighth volume.

Chronology

684 (1285): Hasan b. Abdülmü'min el-Hûî of Kastamonu completes the Nüzhetü'l-küttâb for Yavlak Arslan.

Receb 690 (July 1291): Hûî writes the Gunyetü'l-kâtib for his son Nasrullah.

785 (1383-84): Sa'îdeddîn Mevhûb Çelebi appears as mufti of Amasya.

Zilhicce 788 (December 1386-January 1387): Mevhûb Çelebi dies; Hoylu Hasan Çelebi succeeds him as mufti.

791 (1389): During the Kadı Burhâneddin crisis Hoylu Hasan Çelebi is mufti of Amasya.

793 (1390-91): Hoylu Hüsâmeddîn Hasan Çelebi dies.

875 (1470-71): His great-grandson Pîr Ahmed Çelebi becomes reisülküttab.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Books

Online sources