Amasyalıdır. Şa’bân bin Ali mahdûmudur. Lakabı Şücaeddîn’dir. Amasya hükümdârı Hacı Şadgeldi Paşa’nın ve mahdûmu Fahreddîn Ahmed Paşa’nın tabîb-i hâssı olan Mevlâna Burhâneddîn Ahmed Çelebi’den fünûn-ı tıbbiyeyi ve Mevlânâ Hüsâmeddîn Hasan el-Hoyî’den ulûm-ı edebiyye ve şer’iyyeyi ahz ve tahsîl edib tabîb oldu.
Çelebi Sultân Mehmed ve şehzâdesi Sultân Murâd Hânlara Amasya‘da hekîmbaşı ve dârü’ş-şifâ tabîbi olup büyük bir şöhret kazandı. Sultân Bâyezîd câmi-i şerîfinin taraf-ı garbîsi olan mahalle bunun nâmıyla şöhret buldu. 831 sâlinden sonra vefât etdi. Âlim, tabîb-i hâzık, halûk bir hekîm-i meşhûr idi. Birâderi İbrâhim Çelebi hattâtdır. [259]
İstanbul kütübhânelerini teftîş esnâsında “Şerh-i Mûciz” kitâbının sonunda şu kitâbesi görüldü:
سوده الفقير العبد العطشان الى رحمة ربه الرحمن حاجى الياس بن شعبان يوم األربعاء
الرابع عشر من جمادى األولى سنة خمس و عشرين و ثمانمائة بمدينة اماسيه ¹⁵⁸
Amasya‘da bugün “Akbilek Bağları” demekle meşhûr olan bağlar, bunun mülkü olup “Hekim Bahçesi” demekle meşhûr olduğu Yörgüç Paşa vakfiyesinde mezkûrdur. Sonra buraları Yörgüç Paşa, hekîm-i müşârün-ileyhin mahdûmu Alâeddîn Ali Çelebi’den alıp 840’da vakfetmişdir.
Hekim-i müşârün-ileyhin hafîdi Mevlânâ Şerefeddîn İsa Çelebi bin Alâeddîn Ali Çelebi 873’de Amasya Dârüşşifâsı tabîbi ve Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî hekîm-i hâssı idi. Bunun birâderi Abdullah Çelebi ve bunun mahdûmu İlyâs Çelebi de etıbbâdan idi. Bunlara “Hacı İlyâsoğulları” dendi. Diğer birâderi de İlyâs Çelebi’dir.
In Modern English
He was from Amasya. He was the son of Şaban, son of Ali. His epithet was Şücaeddin. He learned the medical sciences from Mevlânâ Burhâneddin Ahmed Çelebi, personal physician to Hacı Şadgeldi Pasha, ruler of Amasya, and to his son Fahreddin Ahmed Pasha, and the literary and religious sciences from Mevlânâ Hüsâmeddin Hasan el-Hoyî, and became a physician.
He won great fame in Amasya as chief physician and physician of the dârüşşifâ (hospital) to Çelebi Sultan Mehmed and to his son Sultan Murad Khan. The neighborhood on the western side of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque became known by his name. He died after 831 [1427-28]. He was a learned, skilled, good-natured and famous physician. His brother İbrahim Çelebi was a calligrapher.
During an inspection of the libraries of Istanbul, the following note was seen at the end of the book "Şerh-i Mûciz":
The poor servant, in need of the mercy of his Lord the Merciful, Hacı İlyas bin Şaban, wrote this on Wednesday, the fourteenth day of Cumâdelûlâ in the year 825, in the city of Amasya. (Meaning of the Arabic note)
The vineyards famous in Amasya today as "Akbilek Bağları" were his property; they are mentioned in the waqf deed of Yörgüç Pasha as known as "Hekim Bahçesi" (the Physician's Garden). Later Yörgüç Pasha took these places from the son of the said physician, Alâeddin Ali Çelebi, and endowed them as a waqf in 840 [1436-37].
The grandson of the said physician, Mevlânâ Şerefeddin İsa Çelebi, son of Alâeddin Ali Çelebi, was in 873 [1468-69] physician of the Amasya Dârüşşifâ and personal physician to Sultan Bayezid II. His brother Abdullah Çelebi and the latter's son İlyas Çelebi were also among the physicians. They were called "Hacı İlyasoğulları." The other brother is also İlyas Çelebi.
Notes and Research
Old Words in the Text
- tabîb-i hâss: the ruler's personal physician
- fünûn-ı tıbbiyye: the medical sciences
- ulûm-ı edebiyye ve şer'iyye: literary and religious (shar'i) sciences
- ahz ve tahsîl: taking up and learning
- dârüşşifâ: hospital, house of healing
- tabîb-i hâzık: a capable, skilled physician
- halûk: good-natured
- kitâbe: here, the written note at the end of a manuscript
- mezkûr, müşârün-ileyh: the said, the aforementioned
- hafîd: grandson
- etıbbâ: physicians
Hacı İlyas Çelebi and the Sabuncuoğlu Family
According to Nuran Yıldırım's article on Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin, Şerefeddin belonged to a famous family of physicians whose name lives on in a neighborhood of Amasya today called Sabuncuoğlu (Hacı İlyas), and he was a grandson of Sabuncuoğlu Mevlânâ el-Hâc İlyas Çelebi Bey, chief physician of Çelebi Sultan Mehmed. The neighborhood information Hüsameddin gives for Hacı İlyas Çelebi agrees with this record. The same article reports that Şerefeddin was born in 788 [1386], practiced for fourteen years in the Amasya Dârüşşifâ, and wrote the Cerrâhiyye-i İlhâniyye in 870 [1465] and the Mücerrebnâme in 873 [1468].
It is plausible that the grandson called "Şerefeddin İsa Çelebi" in Hüsameddin's text, physician of the Amasya Dârüşşifâ in 873, is the same person as Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin: both are grandsons of Hacı İlyas, and the name and the date match. Yıldırım's article gives no information on Şerefeddin's father or on the name "İsa", so the identification remains an inference.
His Teacher and His Time
The text names İlyas Çelebi's teacher as personal physician to Hacı Şadgeldi Pasha, ruler of Amasya. Şadgeldi was emir of Amasya from 1359 until his death in 1381; he was killed in the war with Kadı Burhâneddin. The teacher's practice therefore belongs to the second half of the fourteenth century. The text does not say in which years İlyas Çelebi received his medical education; that he was still writing in 825 [1422] is known from the colophon.
The Amasya Dârüşşifâ was built in 1308-1309 in the names of the Ilkhanid Sultan Olcaytu and his wife Yıldız Hatun. Many famous physicians were trained there; psychiatric patients were treated with music and conversation. The period of Çelebi Mehmed and Murad, in which İlyas Çelebi served as chief physician, comes about a century after the building was founded.
The Physician's Garden and Yörgüç Pasha
According to what Hüsameddin reports, Yörgüç Pasha took the gardens from İlyas Çelebi's son Alâeddin Ali Çelebi and endowed them in 840 [1436-37]. According to Fahameddin Başar's article on Yörgüç Pasha, the Pasha died in 845 [1441-42] and built a mosque, a madrasa, an imaret and two hamams in Amasya; his waqf deed is also mentioned. This sequence of dates does not contradict Hüsameddin's account. The "Hekim Bahçesi" entry in the waqf deed could not be verified in the sources read; this information rests on Hüsameddin.
The present location of the "Şerh-i Mûciz" manuscript and the text of the colophon were also not found in the sources read. By calendar calculation, 14 Cumâdelûlâ 825 does fall on a Wednesday; this check is our own calculation.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 7, p. 342–342. amasya.bel.tr
Academic studies
Official sources
Other sources