İdris Çelebi (Mevlânâ Cemâleddîn)

In Modern English

He was the son of Yûsuf. He acquired learning from the scholars of Amasya and became a professor who taught publicly. In 804 [1401-02], in place of Şehabeddîn Ahmed Çelebi, one of the scholars of Amasya who fled to Aleppo, he became professor at the Atabeg Gâzi Madrasa, taught and spread learning for years, and died in the earthquake of 818 [1415], his gall bladder burst from terror (zehre-çâk). He was one of the famous scholars.

Notes and Research

Old Words in the Text

• ders-i âm: one who gives public lessons, a well-known scholar
• müderris: madrasa professor
• tedrîs ve ifâde: giving lessons and teaching
• firâr: flight
• zehre-çâk: one whose gall bladder has burst; one who has experienced great fear and terror
• zelzele: earthquake

The Atabeg Gâzi Madrasa

The building Hüsameddin calls the "Atabeg Gâzi Madrasa" appears to be related to the madrasa that appears in the sources under the name Atabey Madrasa. According to an article on the Atabeyzades, this family descends from Nasıreddin Ahmed Bey, the atabeg of the Seljuk Sultan II. Gıyâseddin Mesud and his son Gazi Çelebi Taceddin Altunbaş. Nasıreddin Ahmed Atabey served five years as governor of Amasya between 1322 and 1327, had the madrasa known as the Atabey Madrasa built in Amasya, and endowed all his lands and properties to the madrasa. The name "Atabeg Gâzi" may be an abbreviation of "the atabeg of Gazi Çelebi"; so it is probable that this is the same madrasa, but I could not find a record that settles it. Among the works surviving from the Seljuk age are the Burmalı Minare Mosque (1237-1247) and the Gökmedrese Mosque (1266-1267); it is also recorded that at the beginning of the sixteenth century the city had nine mosques, ten madrasas, four zawiyas, six soup kitchens, and fifteen baths. These figures suggest what a populous urban setting İdris Çelebi's madrasa milieu was in. The family also took on important duties in the Ottoman period, continuing in the branches of Yörgüç Pasha and Hızır Pasha, and in the fifteenth century serving as tutor to princes became a duty peculiar to the Atabeyzades.

The Earthquake of 818

The earthquake of 818 (1415) that Hüsameddin mentions also appears in another record. Regarding the inscriptions of the Bayezid Pasha Mosque (1414) on the Yeşilırmak, E. Hakkı Ayverdi says that the second inscription, dated 1419, may point to a repair made after the earthquake that occurred in 818 (1415), a few years after the mosque was built; but it is also noted that this view rests only on conjecture. So the date of the earthquake holds in two sources; the professor's death in the earthquake is seen only in Hüsameddin. "Zehre-çâk" is an old idiom and describes the terror of the earthquake rather than a medical diagnosis.

Şehabeddîn Ahmed Çelebi's Flight to Aleppo

I found no information in the sources on the scholars of Amasya who fled to Aleppo in 804 (1401-02). No record on Mevlânâ Cemâleddîn himself was found other than Hüsameddin's.

The Bayezid Pasha Mosque and the Time of Çelebi Mehmed

The end of İdris Çelebi's teaching years coincides with the years of Çelebi Mehmed's sanjak governorship of Amasya and then his reign. The Ottoman princes who served as sanjak governors in Amasya begin with Çelebi Mehmed. The Bayezid Pasha Mosque on the Yeşilırmak was built by Bayezid Pasha, one of Çelebi Mehmed's viziers, in Muharrem 817 (April 1414). According to the inscription over its door the building bears this date; a second plaque in the last-congregation porch records that the architect was Ya'kūb b. Abdullah, one of Bayezid Pasha's mamluks, with the date 822 (1419), and another plaque writes that the mosque is the work of Zeynüddin b. Zekeriyyâ, nicknamed "el-muallim." Bayezid Pasha was sent against Prince Mustafa in the time of Murad II, was captured when most of his soldiers went over to the other side, and was killed the next day (1421). When Evliya Çelebi came to Amasya around 1646, he described this mosque as "a garden like Irem." This mosque, thought to have been repaired after the earthquake of 818, is an example of the buildings of the city İdris Çelebi lived in during those years.

Bibliography

• Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 7, p. 273–274. amasya.bel.tr
• Gözde Birsel Varol – Selim Özcan, "Atabeyzadelerin Amasya'nın Siyasi ve Sosyal Tarihindeki Yeri ve Önemi", MANAS Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi, 8/4 (2019), p. 3775–3798.