Köprülüdür. Amasya‘da meşâhir-i ulemâdan tahsîl-i ulûm edib mücâz ve ders-i âm oldu. Muallim-i Sultânî Amasyalı Hâce Ömer Efendi’nin ulüvv-i himmetinden istifâde emeliyle İstanbul’a gidip Sultân Bâyezîd Câmiinde tedrîs ve ifâdeye başladı.
Bu esnâda 1031 receb hâilesi zuhûr ve Hâce Ömer Efendi ihtifâ eylediğinden sene-i mezbûre şevvâlinde Köprü kasabasında Taşanzâde Ahmed Bey’in medresesi müderrisliğine ta’yin ve i’zâm edildi. Orada tedrîs-i ulûm ederek iştihâr edib 1045’de Köprü (Kedağra) Müftüsü görüldü. Ba’dehû vefât etdi. Meşâhir-i ulemâdan idi.
In Modern English
He was from Köprü. He studied the sciences under renowned scholars in Amasya, received the ijaza and became a müderris (madrasa professor) giving public lectures. In the hope of benefiting from the lofty support of Hâce Ömer Efendi of Amasya, the sultan's teacher, he went to Istanbul and began teaching and instructing at the Sultan Bayezid Mosque.
In the meantime, since the calamity of the month of Receb 1031 [1622] broke out and Hâce Ömer Efendi went into hiding, in Şevval of the same year he was appointed müderris of the madrasa of Taşanzâde Ahmed Bey in the town of Köprü and was sent there. Teaching there, he became famous; in 1045 [1635-36] he was recorded as mufti of Köprü (Kedağra). He died afterwards. He was one of the renowned scholars.
Notes and Research
Old Words in the Text
- mücâz: one who has received the ijaza, authorized to teach
- ders-i âm: a professor who gives public lectures
- muallim-i sultânî: the sultan's teacher
- ulüvv-i himmet: lofty effort and support
- tedrîs ve ifâde: teaching and instructing
- hâile: terrible event, calamity
- zuhûr: coming into view, breaking out
- ihtifâ: going into hiding
- sene-i mezbûre: the aforementioned year
- ta'yin ve i'zâm: appointment and dispatch
- müftü: the religious official of a town who issues fatwas
The Receb 1031 Event
The "calamity of Receb 1031" in the text is the uprising in which Osman II (Genç Osman, "Osman the Young") was deposed and killed. According to the sources, the revolt began on 8 Receb 1031 [19 May 1622]; the next day the sultan was seized and taken to Yedikule, where he was strangled. The rebelling janissaries and ulema demanded the execution of Süleyman Ağa, the Chief Black Eunuch (Darüssaade ağası), and Hoca Ömer Efendi, on the ground that they had urged the sultan on in all these matters. Hoca Ömer Efendi had been the teacher of Osman and his brother Mehmed in their princely years; after Osman ascended the throne he gave him authority over the appointment of ulema and other affairs, and for this reason he had become a target of the ulema and the janissaries. Hüsameddin's phrase "since he went into hiding" reports that Hâce Ömer Efendi hid in the face of this danger. İdris Efendi's hope in Istanbul came to an end with it.
We could not find any record in the sources that Hoca Ömer Efendi was from Amasya; Hüsameddin introduces him as "of Amasya." Ömer Efendi's later fate does not appear in the pages read. It would be useful to compare this with the text of the next entry (entry 25), İdris Efendi-Cüzhân, which says that he was sent to Bursa together with his teacher.
Köprü and Kedağra
Köprü is today's Vezirköprü district of Samsun. In the Ottoman period the settlement was known by names such as Gedikara or Gedegra; Hüsameddin's "Kedağra" is one spelling of this name. After Köprülü Mehmed Pasha became grand vizier, and after the contributions his family made to the region, the name "Vezirköprü" took hold in the seventeenth century. Among the buildings the Köprülüs gave the district are the Taşhan, the Taş Madrasa and the Kale Mosque. The "madrasa of Taşanzâde Ahmed Bey" to which İdris Efendi was sent in 1622, however, cannot be one of these buildings, because the Köprülüs contributed to the region only in later years. No information was found in other sources on the madrasa of Taşanzâde Ahmed Bey.
Köprü's rise at the end of the fifteenth century is tied to the sanjak of Amasya. Tâcî Bey, the chief secretary of Prince Ahmed in Amasya, after being appointed in 896 [1491], had a mosque, a soup kitchen and a bath built in the village of Köprü, and set up a palace for Prince Ahmed on the bank of the İstavlaz stream. As the prince came to this palace in the spring months, some emirs also began to stay in the village, and it soon became a town. The Sultan Pınarı fountain is also regarded as a work of this period; statesmen who came from Köprü were given the epithet "Köprülü." The region covering Kedağra and the village of Köprü was called Vezirköprü during the vizierate of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha. This information is consistent with Hüsameddin's calling Köprü a town: the Köprü to which İdris Efendi was sent in 1622 had a history of more than a hundred years as a town.
The Place of the Text
The short text shows the path of a provincial scholar. A man raised in Amasya hopes to draw close to a great teacher in Istanbul and rise; the fall of his patron turns him back to the town where he was born. He becomes müderris in Köprü, then is recorded as mufti of the town. Being mufti and müderris were duties that in a small town were often combined in one person; Hüsameddin's calling him "Mufti of Kedağra" draws attention for this reason.
Bibliography
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 7, p. 274–274. amasya.bel.tr
- İnan Demirtaş, "Şehzade Ahmed'in Amasya Sancak Beyliği", Sosyal Bilimler Araştırmaları 13, ed. Hasan Yerkazan - Önder Eryılmaz, Amasya Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2024, p. 133–159.