Amasyalıdır. Adana kadısı Mahmûd Efendi bin Şa’bân Efendi bin el-Hâc Bayrâm Efendi mahdûmudur. Nev’îzâde Atayî Efendi “Zeyl-i Şakâyık”da Mısır Mollası Ali Rızâî Efendi bin Pîr Mehmed Efendi’nin birâderi ve Abdurrahman Cebertî de “Tarih-i Mısır”da Ali Rızâî Efendi’nin akrabâsından diyor ki ammizâdesi demek olur.
Amasya‘da tahsîl-i ulûm edib pederinin kâtibi ve bazen nâibi olarak devr-i bilâd etdi. Ba’dehû Sultân Osmân-ı Sânî devrinde kudât-ı Mısriyye’den olup orada Kassâm-ı Askerî olduğu esnâda 1038 şevvâlinde ammizâdesi olan Rızâî Ali Efendi Mısır Mollası olmuşdu.
1039 senesi muharreminde kendi hânesinde vefât eden Rızâî Ali Efendi’nin vefâtı üzerine Cîze Kadısı olup gitdi. Ba’dehû Dimyat Kadısı olup 1045’de vefât etdi. Kibâr-ı ulemâ ve a’yân-ı Mısrîyye idi.
In Modern English
He was from Amasya. He was the son of Mahmûd Efendi, judge of Adana; Mahmûd Efendi was the son of Şa'bân Efendi, who was the son of el-Hâc Bayrâm Efendi. Nev'îzâde Atâî Efendi says in the "Zeyl-i Şakâyık" that he was the brother of Ali Rızâî Efendi, son of Pîr Mehmed Efendi and Molla of Egypt; and Abdurrahman Cebertî, in the "Tarih-i Mısır", speaks of him as being among Ali Rızâî Efendi's relatives, which means a paternal cousin.
After studying in Amasya, he traveled through various towns as his father's scribe and sometimes deputy. Then, in the time of Sultan Osman II, he became one of the judges of Egypt, and while he was Kassâm-ı Askerî there, in Shawwal 1038 [1629] his cousin Rızâî Ali Efendi had become Molla of Egypt.
When Rızâî Ali Efendi died in his own house in Muharram 1039 [1629], he went there as Kadı of Giza. Then he became Kadı of Damietta and died in 1045 [1635-36]. He was among the great scholars and the notables of Egypt.
Notes and Research
Old Words in the Text
- mahdûm: son
- kâtib: the judge's assistant for writing and records
- nâib: judge's deputy
- devr-i bilâd: going around towns and lands
- kudât-ı Mısriyye: judges of Egypt
- Kassâm-ı Askerî: official dealing with the division of estates of persons of the military class
- Mısır Mollası: judge of Egypt
- ammizâde: paternal cousin
- akrabâ: relatives
- kibâr-ı ulemâ: great scholars
- a'yân: notables
The Bayrâmzâde Family
İsmâil Efendi's lineage can be traced in several places in Hüsameddin's work. In the third volume it is written that in 969 [1561-62] Recebzâde el-Hâc Bayrâm Efendi, one of the notables of the Amasya ulema, died, and that his sons Şa'bân and Mahmûd Efendi were called "Hacı Bayrâmzâde". The entry Bayrâm Efendi-Ahî Recebzâde el-Hâc in the seventh volume extends this line: Bayrâm Efendi's sons are Mehmed, Şa'bân and Ramazân Efendi; Şa'bân Efendi's sons are Biber Mehmed, Hasan and Mahmûd Efendi. Biber Mehmed's son is the judge of Egypt Ali Rızâî Efendi. Hasan Efendi became kazasker of Rumelia; Mahmûd Efendi is counted among the judges of Rumelia, and his son is İsmâil Efendi. According to this scheme İsmâil Efendi and Ali Rızâî, being the children of two sons of Şa'bân Efendi, are indeed paternal cousins; Hüsameddin's interpretation "ammizâde" is consistent with the book's own records. It is noticeable that in the record Ali Rızâî's father appears as "Biber Mehmed", while in the sentence attributed to Atâî "Pîr Mehmed" is written; whether the two names point to the same person could not be verified in the sources read.
In the cemeteries section of the first volume, it is written that next to Sadreddîn Receb Çelebi, owner of the neighborhood, his grandson "the famous scholar el-Hâc Bayrâm Efendi" is buried; that this person is the same as the Bayrâm Efendi called "Recebzâde" is plausible, but the book does not say so explicitly. The book also mentions İsmâil Efendi's son Ebûbekir Ağa-Bayramzâde: as a small boy he went to Egypt with his father, entered the sipahi corps there, became sipahiler ağası of Egypt, in 1069 brought the Egyptian treasury to Istanbul and handed it over, and became kethüda of the sipahi corps. In Shaban 1074 he went again to Egypt as kethüda of Hacı Efendizâde Ömer Pasha of Amasya, who became governor of Egypt with the rank of vizier, and died there in Jumada I 1079. The family of İsmâil Efendi thus appears to have kept its settlement in Egypt for two generations.
Zeyl-i Şakâyık and the "Tarih-i Mısır"
The text rests on two sources. Atâî's Zeyl-i Şakâyık is a work completed in 1634 that gives information on the sheikhs, scholars and poets who lived within Ottoman borders in the years 965-1044 [1558-1634]; it covers the period in which İsmâil Efendi and Ali Rızâî lived. For the source called Cebertî, the encyclopedic entry read reports that Hasan b. İbrâhim Cebertî, a famous scholar and mufti in Cairo, was born in 1110 [1698-99]. The relationship between this man and the "Abdurrahman Cebertî" whom Hüsameddin cites is not explained in the sources read. That a scholar of the Cebertî family was born in 1698 shows that the source named belongs to a generation well after Ali Rızâî, who lived in the 1630s; Cebertî's record on Ali Rızâî may therefore rest on information compiled later or on an older source. Since the original records of Atâî and Cebertî could not be read, what these two sentences say could not be verified.
Damietta and the Ottoman Judgeship in Egypt
Damietta, İsmâil Efendi's last place of service, came under Ottoman administration when Egypt was taken by the Ottomans in 1517. From the first years of Ottoman rule it was a port of military and commercial importance, and in 1572 it was made a sanjak center. Evliya Çelebi, in the second half of the seventeenth century, counted in the city 7,600 houses, forty neighborhoods, and about 150 mosques and masjids. Damietta's revenue to the Egyptian treasury is recorded as 49 kese and 19,210 kuruş in 1108 [1696]. İsmâil Efendi's service between 1039 and 1045 falls somewhat before this rise of the city's trade. No detail was found in the sources read on the judgeship of Giza or on how the post of Kassâm-ı Askerî worked in Egypt.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 7, p. 304. amasya.bel.tr
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 3, p. 511 (Ahmed Bey); vol. 6, p. 88 (Ebûbekir Ağa-Bayramzâde); vol. 7, p. 398 (Bayrâm Efendi-Ahî Recebzâde el-Hâc); vol. 1, pp. 137–141 (Mukaddime, cemeteries).
Academic studies