Anyone who sets out to write about the history of Amasya sooner or later has to return to the same book: Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya). The scholar, who took the surname Yasar after the Republic's surname reform and is known as Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, gathered the city's mosques, tombs, dervish lodges, neighbourhoods and men of learning from inscriptions, gravestones, endowment deeds and court registers, and planned a work of twelve volumes. Only part of it could be printed, one volume was lost, and the rest reached readers in modern letters only about a century later. The author's own life can be reconstructed only from scattered sources, just as his work can. What follows brings that information together and shows plainly where the sources part ways.

From Çeribaşı to the Rüşdiye

According to the entry in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopaedia of Islam of the Turkish Religious Foundation), Hüseyin Hüsameddin was born in November 1869 in the Çeribaşı neighbourhood of Amasya. His father was Abdîzâde Hacı Mehmed Ağa, and the "Abdîzâde" family name comes from this household. He began his schooling in 1879 at the Balcı Mektebi in his neighbourhood, where he memorised the Qur'an; he entered the rüşdiye (secondary school) in 1883 and completed it in 1887. The short Biyografya entry adds that he graduated first in his class.

The most detailed information on these years comes from the author's own autobiography, included in the first volume of Amasya Tarihi (pp. 334-340). Drawing on that text, the TDV entry reports that while at the rüşdiye Hüseyin Hüsameddin took private lessons in Persian language and literature, had the chance to study many books in the Abdüllatif Efendi Library, and began collecting his first information on the history of Amasya at that time. The same entry notes that his scholarly life began, while he was still a child, with research into the lives of Amasya's notables and with poems written under the pen name "Asrî". His interest in the city's history was thus less an occupational curiosity acquired later than a pursuit that grew out of his early youth. Biographical sources contain no anecdotes or recollections of his childhood, so none are included here.

Istanbul Years and Library Journeys

To advance his studies, Hüseyin Hüsameddin went to Istanbul in 1889 and settled in the Kalenderhâne Madrasa; according to the TDV, he became a mülâzım (candidate scholar) under Tokadîzâde Ahmed Nûreddin Efendi at this time. The Biyografya entry gives 1890 as the year of his move to Istanbul. This one-year difference shows that the limited biographical sources do not agree on every detail. Biyografya also records that he read the Zübdetü'l-Buhârî with the Naqshbandi-Khalidi shaykh Ömer Ziyaeddin-i Dağıstanî and took lessons in ferâiz (inheritance law) from Ahmed Remzi Efendi.

His madrasa education did not keep him away from libraries. By his own account, he spent his holidays touring all the libraries of Istanbul to gather information. In 1894 he went to Crete, and in 1895 to Damascus and from there to the Hejaz; he worked in the libraries of Chania and Damascus. After returning to Istanbul he continued to collect material in Amasya, Vezirköprü, Ladik, Çorum, Merzifon, Bursa and Salonica. In the TDV entry's assessment, his recourse to primary sources he sought out, such as manuscripts, court registers, endowment deeds, inscriptions and gravestones, is the quality that gives his works their real value.

After studying for about ten years with the teachers he names in his autobiography, he received his icâzetnâme (teaching licence) in 1899 from Ahmed Nûreddin Efendi. Biyografya likewise states that the licence came from Tokadîzâde Ahmed Nureddin Efendi.

From Judgeship to the Evkaf Ministry

His official career follows the usual path of members of the ilmiye (learned-religious) class of the period. According to the TDV, in 1898 he was appointed deputy to Perşembeli Ahmed Remzi Efendi, his teacher in ferâiz and registrar of the Kısmet-i Askeriyye Court. He used this post as an opportunity to examine the sharia court registers in and around Istanbul, and collected from those records information on the notables of Amasya. Turning a duty into a research opportunity in this way is important for understanding his method.

In 1901, having won the esteem of Şeyhülislâm Mehmed Cemâleddin Efendi, he was appointed to the surre-i hümâyun niyâbet-i şer'iyyesi, the judicial post connected with sending the sultan's gifts to Damascus and the Hejaz; through this office he was able to see those two regions a second time. On his return he was appointed deputy judge (nâib) of Vezirköprü and took up the post in practice in March 1903. In October 1905 he was sent to Osmancık, then to Niksar, and in 1911 to Refahiye. His last official post was that of translator in the kuyûd-ı kadîme (old records) office of the Evkaf Ministry; Biyografya describes it as Arabic translator at the Ministry of Foundations. According to the list of related entries in the TDV, he worked with Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir and Kilisli Rıfat Bilge on the Commission for the Examination of Libraries. He was also a member of the Târîh-i Osmânî Encümeni (Ottoman History Society), founded in 1909, from its establishment.

His Intellectual World

The TDV entry describes Hüseyin Hüsameddin's most distinctive trait as being, despite the solid Islamic education and upbringing he received, a "fervent Turkist." It lists as the grounds for this judgement his declaring the aim of his life to be "researching Turkish history and language," his very harsh verdicts on the devshirmes, and his place within the current of "Turkism in language." That a scholar of madrasa background turned so strongly to Turkish language and history should be considered together with the changing intellectual climate of the period. The orientation is evident in his own works: his Temel aims to establish the positions and meanings of letters in the Turkish language and the structure and roots of words, while his Paşa Armağanı (Gift of the Pasha) was written to show that the word "paşa" is Turkish.

Amasya Tarihi

His principal work, Amasya Tarihi, is regarded in the TDV as the pioneering work of city historiography in Turkey. According to the entry, the book is not merely a history of a city and region but a study that also covers general Turkish history. The work was prepared in twelve volumes, but only the first four volumes and the "remainder" of the fourth could be printed. Babinger says that the published part alone runs to about 1,800 pages.

The printing dates of the volumes at first appear to be a contradiction between sources. Some catalogue records date the first volume to 1911, and some bibliographic records to 1927. The TDV's bibliographic details, however, show that the first two volumes are given with both Rumi and Hijri dates: the first volume is dated 1327 Rumi (1330 Hijri), the second 1329 Rumi (1332 Hijri), which correspond roughly to 1911-1912 and 1913-1914 in the Gregorian calendar. The third volume was printed in Istanbul in 1927, the fourth in 1928, and the remainder of the fourth in 1935. The widely used range "1912-1928" therefore roughly covers the first four volumes; the remainder volume falls outside that range, appearing in 1935.

According to the TDV, the contents of the volumes are as follows:

  • Volume I (428 pages): devoted to the religious and cultural institutions of the city of Amasya. It describes the city's founding, its quarters, castles, caves, neighbourhoods, mosques and tombs, its writers and calligraphers, its Sufi shaykhs and lodges, its scholars and madrasas, and also its districts, counties and towns.
  • Volume II (492 pages): general Turkish history in character. After subjects such as the qualities and lineages of the Turks, their ancient religions, the Turkmens' acceptance of Islam, the Cumans, the Armenians and the Greeks, it moves on to the history of Amasya under the Hittites, Dânişmend Gazi, the Seljuks and the Ottomans. The end of Ilkhanid rule with the death of the governor of Amasya, Şehabeddin Şâdi Bey, in 1335 is also treated in this volume.
  • Volume III (392 pages): beginning with the notables of Amasya and the Âzerîs in 1306, it covers the period of the beyliks, the emirate of Yıldırım Bayezid at Amasya and the Ottoman era, ending with the clearing of Amasya and its surroundings of bandits by the Serdârıekrem Kuyucu Murad Pasha in 1608.
  • Volume IV (240 pages) and its remainder (199 pages): devoted to the scholars and shaykhs raised in Amasya, and the governors who came to the city, from 1608 to 1688, that is, to the lives and activities of persons connected with Amasya.

The unpublished volumes are reported to deal likewise with the historical and cultural questions of the city after the seventeenth century. On this part the sources give somewhat different information. According to the TDV entry on Amasya Tarihi, the fifth volume is lost, and the seven volumes from the sixth to the twelfth were purchased by the Municipality of Amasya for publication. In the entry on the author himself, it is written that the work was purchased by the Municipality in 1979, that Volume V is lost, and that the manuscript Volumes VI-XII are held on deposit in the Süleymaniye Library. A copy of Volume VIII in the author's own hand is also in the Amasya Beyazıt Library. No definite document has been cited for how the lost volume went missing; the subject has also been taken up in a conference paper (M. F. Köksal, "Hüseyin Hüsameddin'in Amasya Tarihi'nin Kayıp Ciltleri," 2017). Some errors in the printed volumes were corrected by the mufti of Amasya, Sabri Yetkin, and this corrected copy is in the private library of Kâmil Şahin in Ankara.

The Debate over the Work's Value

The scholarly value of the work is not judged with one voice. Hüseyin Hüsameddin did not cite most of the sources he used; a few works are exceptions, such as the Tezkire-i Abdî, Abdurrahman Eşref's Tezkire-i İlmiyye, the Amasya Meşâhiri, Osman Fevzi Olcay's Amasya Tarihi and İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı's Kitâbeler. His resort in some subjects to excessive etymological analogies has also raised doubts about the scholarly value of his writings. On the other hand, many Turkish and foreign historians have appreciated the work; Franz Babinger said that the book is "a real treasure" on some subjects and recommended that it be translated, at least in part, into a Western language. The TDV too regards Amasya Tarihi as a highly noteworthy work for city historiography.

These two assessments do not exclude each other. The book of an author who does not cite his sources is ill suited to checking by present academic standards; yet the same author may have seen and recorded some of the inscriptions, endowment deeds and court records that are lost today or difficult to reach. That information found nowhere else on many subjects appears only in him is the main reason the work keeps its place as a reference source.

Poetry and Verse

Amasya Tarihi also has a verse side. The "Amasya Güzellemesi" (Ode to Amasya), which Hüseyin Hüsameddin wrote in aruz metre, is scattered through the first two volumes of the work. According to Metin Hakverdioğlu's article published in Kesit Akademi Dergisi in 2021, this poem, following the tradition of Âşık Paşazâde, aims as it were to round off each section the author recounts. The article treats the poem as an interesting example of a genre we might call "city poems." The historian first told his subject in prose and then gathered it up in verse. Considering also his youthful poems under the pen name "Asrî," it appears that the habit of writing verse stayed with him all his life. The same article also records that, for the sake of writing Amasya Tarihi, Hüsameddin toured all the important libraries of the Ottoman Empire and devoted his life to searching for material to document historical facts.

His Method

The author's method comes down to one point common to all the sources: not being content with manuscripts, but turning to inscriptions, gravestones, endowment deeds and court records. In this way he was able to record who had built a mosque and when, which family a scholar came from, and where a neighbourhood's name came from. Some buildings and inscriptions may have disappeared today, but the record of them remains in his book. That is why those who write about the history of Amasya's neighbourhoods and endowments, the biographies of its scholars or the founding stories of its mosques so often turn to Amasya Tarihi. Such use must be made with the work's failure to cite sources taken into account.

His Other Works

The TDV entry also lists his works other than Amasya Tarihi. Evkāf-ı Hümâyun Nezâretinin Târihçe-i Teşkîlâtı ve Nüzzârın Terâcim-i Ahvâli (Istanbul 1335) was written together with İbnülemin Mahmud Kemal, and its historical section is by Hüseyin Hüsameddin; the work was later published in simplified form by Nazif Öztürk. Of Temel, on the Turkish language, only the first part could be printed, in Istanbul in 1926. The author's own manuscript copy of Paşa Armağanı, dedicated to Mustafa Kemal Pasha, is in the private library of Hüseyin Menç in Amasya.

His Nişancılar Durağı ve Osmanlı Meşâhiri, a study of the lives of the nişancıs (chancellors), Türk Takvimi, Dîvân-ı Vezâret, Türk Fiilleri, Türk İsimleri, a study on Kitâbü't-tasrîf, and Türk Sıfatları: Türk Çavları, together with his translation of et-Tuhfetü'z-zekiyye fi'l-lugati't-Türkiyye, a dictionary of Mamluk Kipchak Turkish, have not been published. His work Türk Emniyet Teşkilâtı Tarihi has been lost. His articles on language and history appeared in the Târîh-i Osmânî Encümeni Mecmuası and the Türk Tarihi Encümeni Mecmuası, and in newspapers and journals such as İkdam and Türk Yurdu; "Koca Mehmed Paşa," "Alâeddin Bey," "Sultan Altunbaş," "Molla Fenârî" and "Orhan Bey'in Vakfiyesi" are among those especially mentioned.

His Last Years and Death

Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar died on 10 February 1939 at his home in Şişli, Istanbul, and was buried in Feriköy Cemetery. The scholar who wrote Amasya lies far from the city. No verified source could be found on whether a street, school or monument bearing his name exists in Amasya, so nothing is said on the matter here.

The Transfer of the Work into Modern Letters

The first volume of the work was published in partly simplified form, prepared by Ali Yılmaz and Mehmet Akkuş, in Ankara in 1986; the Biyografya entry calls this edition the "introductory volume." The undertaking that brought the whole work to readers came much later: Amasya Municipality Cultural Publications, in cooperation with Amasya University, presented the new edition at a launch held on Saturday, 29 October 2022, in the Şehzade Hall of the Amasya Municipality Service Building. Many members of the official delegation, academics and students attended, led by the Governor of Amasya, the Mayor of Amasya and the Rector of Amasya University. After the official speeches, videos on the themes of "the Republic" and "Amasya Tarihi" were shown, and the work's editors gave an introductory panel. Metin Hakverdioğlu served as moderator; Recep Orhan Özel and Songül Keçeci Kurt took part as speakers. The announcement by the Faculty of Theology of Amasya University states that the work's reaching present-day readers had until then been frustrated, and the headline of the news item says the book "met its readers after 83 years." Digital copies of the volumes are also open to access in the internet archive.

His Place in Amasya's Memory

Hüseyin Hüsameddin's position in the scholarly world does not fit under a single title. He was a judge trained in the madrasa who could read court registers and endowment deeds, a translator who worked at the Evkaf Ministry, a member of the Târîh-i Osmânî Encümeni, a language enthusiast who devised ambitious theories on the Turkish language and, above all, a researcher who spent his life writing the history of his city. Even with his shortcomings, such as the failure to cite sources and forced etymology, acknowledged, his work continues to be one of the first reference sources that confronts every researcher writing about Amasya.

Chronology

1869 (November): Born in the Çeribaşı neighbourhood of Amasya.

1879: Begins schooling at the Balcı Mektebi; memorises the Qur'an.

1883: Enters the rüşdiye.

1887: Completes the rüşdiye.

1889: Goes to Istanbul and settles in the Kalenderhâne Madrasa (1890 in Biyografya).

1894: Goes to Crete.

1895: Goes to Damascus and the Hejaz; works in the libraries of Chania and Damascus.

1898: Appointed deputy to Perşembeli Ahmed Remzi Efendi.

1899: Receives his icâzetnâme from Ahmed Nûreddin Efendi.

1901: Appointed to the surre-i hümâyun niyâbet-i şer'iyyesi.

1903 (March): Takes up the deputy judgeship of Vezirköprü.

1905 (October): Sent to Osmancık; then serves at Niksar.

1909: The Târîh-i Osmânî Encümeni is founded; Hüseyin Hüsameddin is a member from its establishment.

1911: Sent to Refahiye.

1911-1914: The first and second volumes of Amasya Tarihi are printed in Istanbul (1327 and 1329 Rumi / 1330 and 1332 Hijri).

1927-1928: The third and fourth volumes are printed.

1935: The remainder of the fourth volume is printed.

1939 (10 February): Dies at his home in Şişli, Istanbul; buried in Feriköy Cemetery.

1979: The work is purchased by Amasya Municipality (TDV).

1986: The partly simplified edition of the first volume is published.

2022 (29 October): The new edition by Amasya Municipality Cultural Publications is presented at the Amasya Municipality Service Building.

Sources

Primary sources

  • Turgut Akpınar, "Amasya Tarihi," TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 3, Istanbul 1991, islamansiklopedisi.org.tr. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • "Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsameddin," Biyografya, biyografya.com. biyografya.com
  • "Hüseyin Hüsameddin'in Amasya Tarihi 83 Yıl Sonra Okuyucusuyla Buluştu," news item of the Faculty of Theology, Amasya University, 2022. ilahiyat.amasya.edu.tr
  • Hüseyin Hüsameddin, Amasya Tarihi, vol. I, Internet Archive digital copy.

Academic studies

  • Turgut Akpınar, "Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar," TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 18, Istanbul 1998, islamansiklopedisi.org.tr. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Metin Hakverdioğlu, "Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar'ın Amasya Şiiri," Kesit Akademi Dergisi, 7/27 (2021), pp. 401-417. dergipark.org.tr
  • M. F. Köksal, "Hüseyin Hüsameddin'in Amasya Tarihi'nin Kayıp Ciltleri," Uluslararası Amasya Âlimleri Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı II, Amasya 2017, pp. 175-185.