The madrasa building of the Sultan Bayezid II Complex on the bank of the Yeşilırmak has served three different functions over a life of more than five centuries. It began as a madrasa in Amasya whose professorship was attached to the city's muftis, became the city's provincial public library in the early years of the Republic, and in the summer of 2023, after a comprehensive restoration, reopened as the Amasya Bayezid Manuscript Library, affiliated with the Turkish Manuscripts Institution. The building has remained the same, while the nature of the books placed within it and the identity of its readers have changed over time. The bond with books, however, is far older than the madrasa's conversion into a library. Over the centuries one book collection after another was founded inside the complex and in its courtyard, Amasya's scholars endowed their books to this setting, and the surroundings of the Bayezid Mosque became something like the city's quarter of books.

Founding of the Complex

The complex was begun after Bayezid II, who had himself served as sanjak governor of Amasya, ascended the throne, as an expression of gratitude for having been granted the sultanate. Citing Idris-i Bitlisi (d. 1520), the author of the Heşt Bihişt, Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Bey reports that the sultan entrusted the construction to his son Şehzade Ahmed (Prince Ahmed), then sanjak governor of the city. The same information is repeated by later historians, in Âlî's Künhü'l-ahbâr and in Nişancızâde Mehmed's Mir'âtü'l-kâinât. Given that Amasya was a sanjak seat where princes gained administrative experience, it is an understandable choice for the sultan to have presented a great complex to a city bound up with his own past.

The sources do not fully agree on the dating of the building group. According to the three-part construction inscription above the main portal and on the two side walls of the mosque, the mosque was completed in Rajab 891, that is, in July 1486. These inscriptions, in thuluth script, were written by a calligrapher named Ali b. Mezîd. Hüsâmeddin Bey, however, claims that construction began immediately after Bayezid's accession, in Rajab 886, that is, in September 1481. On this reading the complex took shape over a period between 1481 and 1486. No separate inscription date is known for the madrasa. In Semavi Eyice's assessment it must have been built in the same years as the mosque. Hüsâmeddin likewise writes that the madrasa was built and completed in 891 by the sultan's order. Osman Fevzi Olcay recalls the phrase "Ami feyz, Ami Feyyaz" that gives the mosque's date, and says that since the madrasa has no inscription of its own, the same date must be accepted for both.

The foundation deed of the complex was written in mid-Jumada al-Awwal 901, that is, in January 1496. The deed lists the complex as consisting of a mosque, a soup kitchen (imaret), a madrasa and a children's school (sıbyan mektebi). According to research based on an archival document, the courtyard, walled on all four sides, had six gates. There were two each on the north and south and one each on the east and west. Inside the courtyard, besides the mosque, the imaret, the great ablution fountain and the madrasa, stood a refectory, a kitchen, a pantry, an oven, a stable with a fountain in front of it, another ablution fountain in front of the refectory, the guest rooms of the teachers' house, two houses behind the kitchen, two granaries and a latrine with four cells. Not all of these buildings have survived.

The complex spreads over a wide area. The mosque rises in the middle of an outer courtyard measuring roughly 160 by 120 metres. The courtyard was once enclosed by a stone wall, and in this tree-shaded space stand two ablution fountains (şadırvan) and a timekeeper's house (muvakkithane). At the centre of the group stands the mosque, with the madrasa to its west and the soup kitchen, imaret and guesthouse (tabhane) to its east. Some accounts say the complex was built on the site of the Church of the Virgin Mary by the river. Eyice notes that there is no clue to support this claim, and that nothing is known about the church beyond its location on the riverbank. As at the Bayezid Complex in Edirne, the buildings were placed beside a watercourse, and this location has caused the complex to suffer damage from floods from time to time.

Architecture of the Madrasa Building

The madrasa, also known as the Sultaniye, stands west of the mosque as a section set apart by its own walls. Hüsâmeddin writes that because it was built by the sultan's order it became known as the "Medrese-i Sultâniyye". It is an orderly example of the classical Ottoman madrasa. Directly opposite the entrance stands a square-plan lecture hall with a prayer space (dershane-mescit), covered by a dome. A courtyard with a fountain at its centre is enclosed on three sides by colonnaded porticoes covered with vaults. Behind the porticoes are lined up cells, each domed and equipped with a hearth. The hearths show that students could lodge and work in their rooms in winter as well. Present-day inventory records describe the building as a U-plan madrasa. The student cells on the east and west wings are domed, while the southern section used as a reading hall is covered by a shallow dome on an octagonal drum.

The number of cells is given differently in the sources. Eyice speaks of eighteen cells and thinks that at least one of them must have served as a latrine. Hüsâmeddin's description from the early twentieth century differs slightly. According to him the madrasa's north-facing gate and its four sides are of stone, and its cells are spacious and solid. To the south, in line with the gate, is a fine lecture hall, in the middle a fountain, on two sides a garden, on three sides fourteen cells, and on the north side three rooms for junior candidates (mülâzım). Fourteen cells and three candidates' rooms make seventeen. It may be thought that the difference arises from whether a latrine or a room put to some other use is counted, but this is an inference.

Osman Fevzi Olcay remembers the madrasa as it was before the tremor he calls the 1943 earthquake. He relates that on entering through the great gate one noticed at once that its architecture had been executed in an elegant style, and that the division of the domes and the symmetrical placing of the facing cells caught the eye. The great lecture hall in the middle, the open-topped fountain and the garden were, in his eyes, what completed the whole character of the madrasa. In front of the madrasa, across the river, is the Mağdinus Bridge, known among the people as Mâdenüs. According to Hüsâmeddin, this old wooden bridge was repaired in 890 when the mosque was built, and later renewed in 1031 by Sa'dî Çelebi, in 1063 by Helvâcı Mehmed Agha, in 1130 by Emîr Hacı Abdullatîf Çelebi, in 1241 by Rahtuvan Paşazâde Hacı Ali Bey and in 1281 by the district governor Ziyâ Pasha. In the street west of the madrasa, in the Hacı İlyas quarter that people called İmaret Arkası ("behind the imaret"), stood the Kutub dervish lodge, founded in 1018.

Eyice records that the madrasa was saved by a good repair and has been used for years as the provincial public library. According to inventory records the building was damaged in various earthquakes, most recently in the 1939 Erzincan earthquake, and the General Directorate of Foundations restored it between 1954 and 1971.

Neighbours of the Madrasa: Mosque, Imaret and Tomb

Knowing the complex helps in grasping the context of the building. The mosque's last-congregation portico consists of five bays, each covered by a dome, and rests on marble columns. As in Bayezid's other mosques, the crown portal is imposing. The muqarnas crest of the door niche lies within three frames, and an inscription is set between the entrance arch, which is made of two-coloured marble. The prayer hall consists of two domed spaces entered through squinches. The first dome has a diameter of about 13 metres, and the second, covering the qibla section, about 15 metres. The mihrab is modest and has muqarnas, the minbar is of white marble and plain. By contrast, the wooden door and window shutters are of far superior craftsmanship. Of the two minarets, whose entrances are from the last-congregation portico, the one on the right is decorated with red inlay of zigzags and lily motifs seen on no other minaret. The shaft of the left minaret is made of red and white stripes.

In Eyice's view, the three-domed sections on either side of the mosque were in fact guesthouse (tabhane) rooms. The presence of guesthouses in Bayezid's other two great complexes supports this view. Eyice adds that if traces of chimneys are found in the vaults, the matter will be settled conclusively. The L-shaped soup kitchen and imaret, with its large hearths, its broad space that may have served as a provisions store and its section with cupboards, was a building where food was given to the city's poor and travellers. The domed tomb southeast of the mosque, in line with the qibla wall, belongs to Şehzade Osman Bey, the son of Şehzade Ahmed. Osman Bey was put to death by Selim I (Selim the Grim) in 1513. An inscription above the tomb's door is known to have given the year 1513 by the abjad reckoning; it no longer exists. The tomb also contains no sarcophagus, although İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı mentions a marble one there.

Professors and the Educational Life of the Madrasa

According to Hüsâmeddin Bey, the professorship (müderrislik) of the madrasa was made conditional on the office of mufti of Amasya. Cemâlîzâde Zenbilli Ali Efendi, appointed mufti of Amasya in 891 and later to become şeyhülislâm, was the madrasa's first professor. By Hüsâmeddin's reckoning this condition was observed until the year 1084 (1673-74). That year, when the mufti Hacı Hızır Efendi died, the fatwa secretary Yahyâ Efendi was made mufti of Amasya and Merzifonî Mustafa Efendizâde Iydî Bayram Efendi professor of the Sultaniye, so that the two offices were separated. Hüsâmeddin notes that even earlier, after 1033, the two posts had been separated several times. According to Eyice, the number of professors who served at the madrasa was around sixty, and a detailed list is found in Cahit Baltacı's Osmanlı Medreseleri. Attaching the professorship to the office of mufti placed the Sultaniye Madrasa at the centre of Amasya's religious and legal life. The person who gave fatwas in the city was also the person who gave lessons.

The lives of the mufti-professors also show how strongly this office was affected by the politics of the city. In 1527-28, when the mufti Nûreddîn Hamza Efendi resigned and left for Istanbul because of the disturbances around Amasya, Musliheddîn Mûsâ Efendi, professor of the Hüseyniye and keeper of books of the Sultan Bayezid Library, became mufti of Amasya and professor of the Sultaniye. A century later, in Safar 1029 (1620), Cumazâde Hızır Efendi was appointed to the same two posts in place of Malkaralı Ahmed Efendi. The life of the Qur'an commentator (müfessir) Hacı Hızır Efendi, born in the Hacı İlyas quarter and a pupil who memorised the Qur'an at the Sultan Bayezid school, shows the inner steps of the madrasa too. Hızır Efendi entered the Sultan Bayezid Madrasa in 1030 (1620-21) as a muîd, that is, as the professor's assistant who had the lessons repeated, and years later, in 1058 (1648), became mufti of Amasya and immediately afterwards professor of the Sultan Bayezid.

Hızır Efendi's term as mufti was not a calm one. As Hüsâmeddin tells it, because he opposed Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, then district governor of Amasya, on certain points of sacred law, he was dismissed from issuing fatwas and teaching in Muharram 1060 (1650), and in Shaban of the same year Köprülü too was removed from office after complaints. Hızır Efendi became mufti and professor of the Sultaniye a second time in 1061 (1651) and for some seven years, while teaching the several hundred students who attended his circle, also had fatwas on everyday matters written out, gaining great influence. His clashes with the city steward Mumcuzâde Seyyid Ahmed Agha removed him from office again, and in 1069 (1659), by the decision of the governor of Sivas, he returned to the same post for a third time. In this life story the distance between the lesson read in the madrasa's lecture hall and the question argued in the city's court and council almost disappears.

Hüsâmeddin lists one by one the professors after the separation of the two posts. When Iydî Efendi, professor of the Sultaniye at the time of the events of 1099 (1687-88), became molla of Tripoli in Syria, he was succeeded by Şeyh Ya'kûbzâde Hacı Mustafa Efendi, who was followed in 1107 (1695-96) by Dâmâd Hacı Osman Efendi, in 1113 (1701-02) by Çorumlu Ahmed Efendi, then by Mütevellîzâde Ahmed Efendi and Iydî Efendizâde Mustafa Âkif Efendi. On Âkif Efendi's death in 1173 his son İsmâil Efendi became professor, on his death in 1191 es-Seyyid Osman Efendi, in 1221 Fazlîzâde Hâfız Ahmed Efendi and a year later Âkifzâde Molla Iydî. In 1233 (1817-18) the famous calligrapher Kâtibzâde es-Seyyid Ahmed Kâmil Efendi and in 1244 (1828-29) his son Hâfız Mustafa Rif'at Efendi were appointed to the professorship of the Sultaniye. Rif'at Efendi went to Istanbul in 1281 (1864-65) and settled there, and when he died in 1305, Arapkirli Hacı Osman Efendi, who had been acting for him, became professor in his own right. The list also shows clearly that from the eighteenth century the professorship turned into a post passed from father to son within certain families.

The Last Students

The madrasa's last period is described most vividly by Osman Fevzi Olcay. In his memoirs, the room used in the 1960s by the library director Muammer Ülker Bey was once the cell where Kaleköylü Hasan Efendi stayed until he received his diploma (icazetname). In the adjoining room, set aside for manuscripts in the years Olcay was writing, the author's father Karavaiz Ahmet Hilmi Efendi and Tosyalı Deli İsmail Efendi had lived until they received their diplomas, after which they handed the room over to Gümüşhacıköylü Müftüzâde Rıza Efendi. The second room to the left of the director's office belonged to Arapgirli Hoca Osman Efendi, whom Olcay calls "the great professor". Osman Efendi, evidently the same person as the last professor in Hüsâmeddin's list, taught students who came from inside and outside the madrasa in its lecture hall.

Olcay also records an examination from the madrasa's last years. At a time when madrasa students were being subjected to examinations, a board headed by the Amasya-born regimental mufti Hoca Asım Efendi came from Sivas, the examinations began in the building in the courtyard of the Bayezid Mosque that the military used as a depot, and the first turn was given to the students of the Sultan Bayezid Madrasa. Olcay's father was also on the board. Some young men from well-known Amasya families, who came to the madrasa only from one roll call to the next, also sat the examination. A student who said he was reading the Avâmil was asked what kind of word "vecebe" was, and instead of answering "a past-tense verb" he replied "it is not necessary, sir" (icap etmez). The examiner said, "Understood, then there is no need for you to take the examination either," and put a soldier's mark in red pencil in his examination register. Olcay says that through these examinations the unqualified were entirely weeded out. It may be thought that the soldier's mark meant the end, for that student, of the exemption from military service that madrasa enrolment provided, but this is an inference. That the madrasa shared a courtyard with the imaret used as a military depot also reflects the atmosphere of the last period.

Books and Libraries in the Complex

The conversion of the madrasa into a library is the work of the Republican period, but the place of the book in the complex is much older. On this point there is a divergence between the sources. No library appears among the units listed in the foundation deed. Hüsâmeddin, however, in enumerating the old libraries of Amasya, writes that in 890 (1485) Sultan Bayezid II founded a library inside his mosque. Hüsâmeddin's records confirm that from the sixteenth century there existed a book collection known as the "Sultan Bayezid Library", headed by a hâfız-ı kütüb, that is, a keeper of books. The Musliheddîn Mûsâ Çelebi mentioned above was the keeper of books of this library. On his death his son Cemâleddîn Mehmed Şâh Efendi was appointed to the same post, then taught as professor at the Hızır Pasha and Hüseyniye madrasas, served as a judge, is found as judge of Trabzon in 958 (1551), and died in 970 (1562-63). The passing of the keepership from father to son shows that the library was claimed by the city's learned families.

The library grew through the endowments of Amasya's scholars. Seyrekzâde es-Seyyid Ahmed Efendi, judge of Amasya in 1007-1009, had been forced to stay in the city because bandits had cut the roads, and was killed in Rajab 1011 (1602-03) when the Celali rebels entered Amasya. Before his death he had endowed his books to the Sultan Bayezid Library. Hüsâmeddin writes that he found some of these books in another collection, the Abdullatif Efendi Library, and saw the endowment note in the judge's own hand and signature. The man of letters, poet and calligrapher Müeyyedzâde Pîrî Ahmed Efendi also died, in Ramadan 1017 (1608-09), and the books he had endowed were transferred by his will to the Sultan Bayezid Library. Elsewhere Hüsâmeddin also attributes to Müeyyedzâde Pîrî Çelebi a library founded in 1017 beside the Hâtuniye Mosque. How the two records are to be reconciled is not clear. That Seyrekzâde's books were later found in another library shows that endowed works became scattered over time.

Hüsâmeddin's list of the old libraries of Amasya reveals how dense a setting for books the complex was. Of the eight libraries he counts, four are inside or around the Bayezid Mosque: the library founded inside the mosque in 890, the library of Emîr İmâm Abdullatif Efendi opposite the Sultan Bayezid school in 1159 (1746), the library of Kapancızâde Hacı Hüseyin Zeki Efendi inside the timekeeper's house in 1258 (the timekeeper's house inscription gives the date 1840), and the library of Yumuk Osmanzâde Mehmed Hamdi Efendi in the courtyard in 1329. To these the list adds libraries founded in 870 beside the Hızır Pasha Madrasa, in 1147 inside the Burmalı Minare Mosque, in 1248 above the tomb of Saçlı Hacı Mahmud Efendi and in 1017 beside the Hâtuniye. In Hüsâmeddin's time only the libraries of Abdullatif, Hüseyin and Hamdi Efendi were still standing, and the others had been dispersed or lost. He also mentions a collection inside the mosque known as the Veliyyüddin Efendi Library, and a manuscript in its section on Sufism.

The Abdullatif Efendi Library is the one Hüsâmeddin used most in Amasya. Its founder, Emîr İmâm Abdullatif Efendi, was the first imam of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque. Instead of spending the large sum sent by his brother, the vizier Seyyid Abdülğanî Pasha, he had a masonry library built opposite the Sultan Bayezid school and endowed to it the books he had collected and his property. The stewardship and keepership of the library long remained in his family and passed down the generations together with the imamate. According to the editors of Hüsâmeddin's work, the books were removed in a fire that broke out in 1333 (1914-15), the library was demolished together with its gardens and the fatwa office beside it, and no trace of the building remains. This source does not state where the books were taken. It may be thought that part of them later joined the collection gathered in the complex, but this is an inference.

The last large book collection in the courtyard was a charitable work of the Yumuk Osmanzâde family. As Hüsâmeddin tells it, the estate of Yumuk Osmanzâde Ahmed Necîb Efendi, who died in 1323, passed to his son, who before dying in 1325 left a third of his property by will to charitable works. His uncle Mehmed Hamdi Efendi, who carried out the will, seeing that there was no spring water in the mosque courtyard and that the congregation suffered because the river water ran muddy for days, had a library built in front of the wall west of the Sultan Bayezid primary school, and in front of it an ablution fountain for water he had specially brought from Çakallar. Construction began in 1327 and was completed in 1329, that is, between 1909 and 1911. In some sources the family name also appears as Yamuk Osmanzâde. Olcay writes that Hamdi Efendi had a fine masonry library built in the corner of the courtyard, but that this work was destroyed beyond repair in an earthquake together with the mosque's outbuildings.

The readers of these collections were also the city's scholars. While writing his History of Amasya, Hüsâmeddin worked in the library he refers to as the "Bayezid Kütübhâne-i Umûmîsi" (Bayezid Public Library). In a footnote he records with regret that he had seen letters of Şehzade Mustafa in a miscellany (mecmua) in this library and copied them exactly, but that his copy burned and he could not remember the miscellany's number either. Amasya's relationship with the book begins before the madrasa and continues after it. The city produced Şeyh Hamdullah, the great master of calligraphy, Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin in the history of medicine, and Mihri Hatun, regarded as the first woman poet of Divan literature. Book production and reading culture stayed lively around these names for a long time and prepared the ground for the accumulation that the library would house in later centuries.

Repairs and Additions over the Centuries

The history of the complex bears the marks of earthquakes and floods. According to Hüsâmeddin Bey's findings, the mosque was badly damaged in the earthquake of Muharram 999 (November 1590); its domes and arches and the domes of the imaret partly collapsed, and these were repaired at once. In the earthquake of 1079 (1668-69) the destruction was greater. The domes collapsed, the minarets on both sides tilted, and the domes of the imaret and guesthouse fell in. The complex's steward, Merzifonî İbrâhim Agha, made good all the damage within a year. In the very severe earthquake of 1939 the mosque was damaged again, and some arches and domes of the last-congregation portico collapsed. Olcay gives the date of the earthquake that affected the madrasa as 27 Kânunuevvel (December) 1943. Since 27 December corresponds to the last days of 1939, when the Erzincan earthquake struck, it may be thought that Olcay misremembered the year, but this is an inference. The repair carried out on the mosque in the 1960s cannot be called successful. Eyice also notes that in the flood of 1980 a deposit 70 centimetres high built up inside the mosque.

The building group also developed through additions by benefactors. In 1782-83 Hacı Ali Agha had taps and a water-heating place built on the river side of the mosque so that ablutions could be made with warm water in winter. In 1813 Ayşe Hatun added a fountain, and in 1820-21 Hacı Osman Agha added a public drinking fountain (sebil). In 1840 Kapancızâde Hacı Hüseyin Zeki Efendi had a timekeeper's house with a library and one more ablution fountain built. The timekeeper's house, whose five-couplet verse inscription gives this date, is a rectangular building in the Tanzimat style. Among the painted decoration on its walls are landscapes, trees, some buildings and a picture of the Bayezid Mosque. On either side of the niche in the middle of the west wall is a cupboard. These cupboards are said to have held books in the period when the building served as a library, and timekeeping instruments when it served as a timekeeper's house. The order in which the building's functions changed is reported differently in the sources. The building was later also used as a small mosque, and today it is the room of the mosque staff. The wall paintings were repaired in the 1960s and during the restoration of the complex in 2016-2019, and art historians have stated that the latest interventions spoiled the paintings' authenticity. The paintings in the complex's ablution fountain, by contrast, were found to date from October 1872 according to a date read during the 2006 restoration.

The other units of the complex followed a different course. According to Eyice, the soup kitchen-imaret and guesthouse, once in ruinous condition, were repaired and turned into a dormitory, while the children's school disappeared entirely. The same assessment notes that the imaret was used for a long time as a military depot, and for this reason the original function of some of its sections cannot be fully understood. The madrasa stayed outside this process of wear; kept standing through repairs, it was used as a library.

Library and Museum in the Early Republican Years

The conversion of the madrasa into a library coincides with the early years of the Republic. It is said that the building began to be used as the Amasya Provincial Public Library from 1922. With the closure of dervish lodges, tombs, zawiyas and madrasas, protecting the books in them had become a problem. From 1925 the manuscripts and printed works found in the province's mosques, madrasas and tombs were gathered in the madrasa of the Bayezid II Complex together with archaeological and ethnographic items. This gathering is said to have been carried out on Atatürk's order. The official founding of the library, however, is based on a Council of Ministers decree dated 31 March 1926. According to this record, the madrasa's large room was assigned to the library and three of the other rooms to the museum and the mummies.

The dates 1922, 1925 and 1926 given in the sources do not exclude each other. The first may mark the year the building began to be used as a library, the second the year the collection was gathered and enlarged, and the third the library's official founding. In these years the madrasa also housed the city's first museum alongside the library. The Amasya Museum goes back to a museum depot set up with a small number of objects in the madrasa building in 1925. The museum was run by honorary officials until 1958, gained the status of a museum directorate that year, and as its holdings grew was moved to the Gökmedrese Mosque in 1962. That the Ilkhanid-period mummies now displayed in the Amasya Museum once stood for a time in the madrasa's rooms shows the building's mixed role in those years.

For many years the library served as a provincial public library, and the manuscripts were kept in the same building. Olcay's memoirs reflect the arrangement of the 1960s as well. One of the old cells was the director's office, and another cell next to it was the room set aside for manuscripts. Olcay's own handwritten memoir also entered this library. According to the editors of the work, the text is based on the copy the author wrote in 1967, registered in the library under number 1116. This copy, written on exercise-book paper, could be read only with difficulty because the ink had bled through to the reverse of the pages. A memoir of the city's recent history is thus preserved on the shelves of the madrasa it describes.

Character of the Collection

According to current records, the library holds 2,503 manuscripts and 19,145 printed works. Earlier presentations of the library spoke of 2,340 manuscripts and 4,000 printed works, which shows that the figures have changed with cataloguing and new accessions. When the treatises within miscellanies and duplicate copies are counted separately, the number of copies is said to exceed 4,000. The collection includes manuscripts written in Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish. The works range widely, from the religious sciences to medicine, from literature to astronomy. As the library's oldest work, a Qur'an attributed to the third caliph Uthman is cited. In the opening-day reports this work is said to date from the time of Uthman. Since the certainty of the attribution requires independent examination, this information should be conveyed as the wording of the library's own presentation. Another important part of the collection is the Qur'an fascicle known as the "Amasya Mushaf", reported to have been written in the eleventh century. The restoration of this fascicle was completed by the Turkish Manuscripts Institution.

In recent years the collection has been the subject of many academic studies. In a master's thesis prepared in 2005 at the Institute of Social Sciences of Erciyes University under the supervision of Kerim Türkmen, Savaş Maraşlı examined the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century bindings in the library. Eser Bolat's thesis of 2019 studied the illumination of sixty-seven manuscript Qur'ans and Qur'an fascicles in the library in terms of colour, composition and style, and showed that the collection contains examples of ornament from almost every period from the Anatolian Seljuks to the nineteenth century. In 2023 Azim Kartal examined the manuscripts on Qur'anic readings (qiraat) and recitation (tajweed) in the library and, leaving duplicates aside, identified forty-one works in prose and verse in Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish in this field. An article by Fatih Doğan and Halis Demir published in 2024 introduces sixty-seven works of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) not found in other libraries. Eleven of these belong to the principles of jurisprudence and fifty-six to its branches.

The value of the manuscripts is not limited to the texts they contain. Of the sixty-five bindings with central medallions (şemse) examined in Elif İmaç's thesis of 2021, most are of brown and black leather, with red, dark cherry and burgundy leather chosen for only a few. The bindings show floral motifs, rumi scrolls, interlace borders and geometric compositions. Most of the decoration was made by blind tooling, and gold was used sparingly. The bindings studied were dated to a span running from the twelfth to the nineteenth century. The same study stresses that the fore-edge flaps and envelope flaps of many bindings have been torn off and lost, and that the bindings should be repaired as soon as possible so that their designs are not lost. Together, the leather bindings, gilded ornament, illuminated pages and examples of calligraphy show the level of Ottoman book art in the provinces. Amasya is the city of Şeyh Hamdullah, known to have taught calligraphy to Bayezid II, and the city's calligraphic tradition is an important background for understanding the interest in manuscripts.

Restoration and Reopening

The madrasa's latest conversion as a library became possible when the provincial public library moved to another building. The city had long felt the lack of a modern provincial public library able to meet demand. The Governor's Office of Amasya converted the Saraydüzü Barracks Building, which it had restored, into the provincial public library. The section the public library vacated in the complex was set aside for manuscripts. Ownership of the building belongs to the General Directorate of Foundations. Its allocation was taken over by the Turkish Manuscripts Institution under a protocol. Before this arrangement, the manuscript library and the public library had served together inside the complex.

The restoration was carried out with the institution's financing and the contribution of the Amasya Special Provincial Administration. The duration of the work is reported in two different ways. The institution's own announcement speaks of about a year and a half, while reports published on the opening day say one year. The library was opened on Friday, 16 June 2023, after Friday prayers and after sweet lokma was offered to the public in the garden of the Sultan Bayezid II Mosque. At the ceremony, attended by Governor Mustafa Masatlı, were Mayor Bayram Çelik, Amasya University Rector Süleyman Elmacı and, on behalf of the institution, Hüseyin Kutan, Head of the Department of Manuscripts and Rare Works. For the opening a selection of manuscripts from the works of Amasya scholars was exhibited, and the Amasya Mushaf was also shown in the exhibition.

In his speech Governor Masatlı described the library as one of the few in Turkey in the field of manuscripts. In speaking of the importance given in the city to books, scholars and art, he recalled Mihri Hatun, Şeyh Hamdullah, Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin and Strabo. The library today appears among the libraries affiliated with the Turkish Manuscripts Institution under the name Amasya Manuscript Library. Its official presentation states that all kinds of examples of manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish can be seen here. The library serves on weekdays between 08.30 and 17.00.

Since its reopening the building has also begun to host exhibitions. The exhibition "From Amasya to Istanbul: Şeyh Hamdullah Manuscripts", prepared for the 505th anniversary of Şeyh Hamdullah's death, was opened at the Amasya Manuscript Library on 23 December 2025 with Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy in attendance. At the opening Minister Ersoy related that the institution had published in 2012 the Mesâlihu'l-ebdân ve'l-enfüs, which Şeyh Hamdullah copied for the library of Mehmed II (the Conqueror), and in 2015 a facsimile of the mushaf in Topkapı Palace that he wrote for Bayezid II's recitation. Governor Önder Bakan also attended the ceremony. That the works of the master regarded as the chief of calligraphers were displayed in the madrasa built in Amasya by the sultan who had been his pupil shows that the building's bond with books and writing continues today.

Chronology

1481: According to Hüsâmeddin Bey, the beginning of the complex's construction (September 1481).

1485: According to Hüsâmeddin, a library founded inside the mosque (890).

1486: Completion date given in the mosque's construction inscription (July 1486). Zenbilli Ali Efendi is the madrasa's first professor.

1496: Writing of the complex's foundation deed (January 1496).

1527-28: Musliheddîn Mûsâ Efendi, keeper of books of the Sultan Bayezid Library, becomes mufti and professor of the Sultaniye.

1590: Earthquake damages the domes and arches of the complex; repaired at once.

1602-03: Death in the Celali raid of Seyrekzâde Ahmed Efendi, who had endowed his books to the Sultan Bayezid Library.

1608-09: Books endowed by Müeyyedzâde Pîrî Ahmed Efendi transferred to the library.

1648-1659: The Qur'an commentator Hızır Efendi serves three times as mufti and professor of the Sultaniye.

1668-69: Great earthquake. Domes and minarets damaged, repaired within a year.

1673-74: The professorship of the Sultaniye separated from the office of mufti.

1746: Library of Emîr İmâm Abdullatif Efendi opposite the Sultan Bayezid school.

1840: Addition of a timekeeper's house with library and a fountain by Hacı Hüseyin Zeki Efendi.

1864-65: The last professor in his own right, Hâfız Mustafa Rif'at Efendi, leaves for Istanbul; his deputy Arapkirli Hacı Osman Efendi continues the lessons.

1909-1911: Yumuk Osmanzâde Mehmed Hamdi Efendi has a library and a fountain built at the foot of the courtyard wall.

1914-15: The Abdullatif Efendi Library demolished after a fire.

1922: The madrasa building begins to be used as the Amasya Provincial Public Library.

1925: The province's manuscripts, printed works and museum objects gathered in the madrasa.

1926: Official founding of the library by a decree dated 31 March.

1939: The Erzincan earthquake damages the mosque's last-congregation portico and the madrasa.

1954-1971: Restoration of the madrasa by the General Directorate of Foundations.

1962: Museum objects moved to the Gökmedrese Mosque.

2005: Master's thesis on the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century bindings in the library.

16 June 2023: The restored building opens as the Bayezid Manuscript Library.

23 December 2025: Opening of the Şeyh Hamdullah manuscript exhibition in the library.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vols. 1-4, Amasya Municipality e-book, pp. 56 (editors' introduction), 104, 118, 161, 171-172, 179, 503, 508, 542. amasya.gov.tr
  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vols. 6-8, Amasya Municipality e-book, pp. 150, 455, 529.
  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vols. 9-12, Amasya Municipality e-book, pp. 89, 116-118.
  • Osman Fevzi Olcay, Amasya Hâtıraları: Bildiklerim, Gördüklerim, İşittiklerim ile Amasya, Amasya Municipality Cultural Publications, chapter "Sultan Bayezid Medresesi" and editors' introduction.

Academic studies

  • Elif İmaç, Amasya Bayezıt İl Halk Kütüphanesi'nde Korunan 65 Adet Şemseli Cilt Süslemelerinin Tezyini Açıdan İncelenmesi ve Sanatsal Üretimler, Kastamonu University Institute of Social Sciences, master's thesis, 2021. acikerisim.kastamonu.edu.tr
  • Eser Bolat, Amasya Bayezit Yazma Eserler Kütüphanesi'nde Yer Alan El Yazması Kur'an-ı Kerim ve Cüzlerdeki Süslemeler, Ondokuz Mayıs University Institute of Social Sciences, master's thesis, 2019.
  • Fatih Doğan, Halis Demir, "Amasya İl Halk Kütüphanesinde Bulunan Nadir Fıkıh Eserlerin Değerlendirilmesi", The Journal of Bitlis Islamiyat, vol. 6, no. 2, 2024, pp. 29-56.
  • Savaş Maraşlı, Amasya II. Bayezid İl Halk Kütüphanesi'ndeki XV. ve XVI. Yüzyıl Ciltleri, Erciyes University Institute of Social Sciences, master's thesis, 2005.

Official sources

  • Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Amasya Provincial Public Library page.

Other sources

  • Semavi Eyice, "Beyazıt II Camii ve Külliyesi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 6, Istanbul 1992, pp. 40-42. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Füsun Aytekin, "Amasya II. Bayezid Külliyesi Muvakkithanesinin Duvar Resimlerinin Tarih ve Usta Sorunsalı ile Son Restorasyonu Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme", article published (PDF) on the website of the Atatürk Cultural Center Presidency.
  • Azim Kartal, Amasya II. Bayezid İl Halk Kütüphanesi'nde Bulunan Kıraat ve Tecvid Konulu Yazma Eserler, Ondokuz Mayıs University, 2023.
  • Kültür Envanteri, entry "II. Bayezid Medresesi, Amasya".
  • Amasya Governor's Office, "Bayezid Yazma Eserler Kütüphanesi Kapsamlı Bir Restorasyonun Ardından Tekrar Hizmete Açıldı", 16.06.2023.
  • Turkish Manuscripts Institution, announcement and library presentation page for the Amasya Bayezid Manuscript Library.
  • Anadolu Agency, "Amasya'da restorasyonu tamamlanan Yazma Eserler Kütüphanesi hizmete açıldı", 17.06.2023.
  • Türkiye Gazetesi (source: Anadolu Agency), "'Amasya'dan İstanbul'a Şeyh Hamdullah Sergisi' açıldı", 23.12.2025. turkiyegazetesi.com.tr

Online sources