Trained in the retreat cells of the Amasya Mevlevî lodge, and for a time its head, Kelîmî Ahmed Efendi turned towards Bursa in the first half of the seventeenth century, became sheikh of a Zeyniyye lodge there and died in Bursa in 1057 (1647-48). Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, in his Amasya Tarihi, counts him a native of Amasya and calls him "şâir, edîb", a poet and man of letters. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, which draws on the lodge records of Bursa, names the same man "Ahmed Kilimî of Ankara", so the two sources disagree about his birthplace. Hüsameddin announced that he would give the rest of his life and his works under the letter "kef"; since the volumes of the book available today end with the letter "ayın", that entry cannot be read. Not a single couplet of his has come down to us; what Hüsameddin wrote can be read, with a glossary, under the title Ahmed Efendi-eş-Şeyh Kelimî.

Hüsameddin's Record

The entry stands in the sixth volume among the Amasya men named Ahmed:

Ahmed Efendi-eş-Şeyh Kelimî Amasyalıdır. Mûsâ Çelebizâde İbrâhim Efendi'nin mahdûmudur. Amasya'da tahsîl-i ilim ve ma'rifet edib ibtida Amasya Mevlevihanesi Şeyhi Garibî Mehmed Dede Efendi'nin Çilehanesinde tekmil-i süluk etdi. Bu esnâda edebiyât-ı Arabiyye ve Farisiyye'yi ondan öğrendi. Ba'dehû İstanbul'a ve buradan Bursa'ya gidip Saburi Tekkesi Şeyhi Amasyalı Abdülğani Efendi'ye intisab ederek tarikat-ı Zeyniyyeden hilafetnâme aldı. Ba'dehû Amasya'ya avdetle Garibî Dede'nin irtihaline bina'en Amasya Mevlevi-hânesi şeyhi oldu. Ancak Amasya'da hâdis olan Hüftadî vak'asında takibata düçar olduğundan dolayı 1037'de tegayyüb etdi. 1039'da Bursa'da olduğu anlaşıldı. 1041'de Bursa'da kâin Ali Paşa Tekkesi Şeyhi olduğundan 1044 senesi rebiülevvelinde vekâletle idare etdiği Amasya Mevlevihanesi meşihâtı uhdesinden ref' edilip vekili olan Sâlih Dede Efendi'ye verildi. Yıllarca Ali Paşa Tekkesi'nde meşîhat edib 1057'de vefât etdi. Tekke derûnunda medfûndur. Âlim, edebiyat-ı Arabiyye ve Farisiyye'de mâhir, müteşerri', şâir, edîb bir şeyh olup "Kelimî Ahmed Efendi" demekle meşhûr olup bakıyye-yi ahvâl ve âsârı aşağıda "kef" harfinde gelir.

In plain English: he came from Amasya, and his father was Mûsâ Çelebizâde İbrâhim Efendi. After his studies in Amasya he completed his spiritual training in the retreat cells (çilehane) of Garibî Mehmed Dede Efendi, sheikh of the Amasya Mevlevî lodge, and learned Arabic and Persian literature from him at the same time. He then went to İstanbul and from there to Bursa, attached himself to Abdülğani Efendi of Amasya, sheikh of the Sabûrî lodge, and received a hilafetname, a licence to guide disciples, in the Zeyniyye order. Returning to Amasya, he became sheikh of the Amasya Mevlevî lodge on the death of Garibî Dede. But because he was pursued in the Hüftâdî affair that broke out in Amasya, he disappeared in 1037; in 1039 it became known that he was in Bursa. When he became sheikh of the Ali Paşa lodge in Bursa in 1041, the headship of the Amasya Mevlevî lodge, which he had been running through a deputy, was taken from him in Rebiülevvel 1044 and given to that deputy, Sâlih Dede Efendi. He served for years as sheikh of the Ali Paşa lodge, died in 1057 and was buried inside the lodge. He was a learned sheikh, skilled in Arabic and Persian literature, scrupulous in religious law, a poet and man of letters, known as "Kelîmî Ahmed Efendi". The rest of his life and his works will be given below under the letter "kef".

Life

There is no record of when he was born. According to another of Hüsameddin's entries, his teacher Garibî Mehmed Dede had been the lodge's zâkirbaşı (leader of the chanting) and became sheikh in place of Ünsî Ahmed Dede, who was killed in the bandit raid of 1011 (1602-03). Kelîmî must therefore have completed his retreat after those years, during Garibî Dede's headship. Hüsameddin does not say why a man trained in a Mevlevî retreat attached himself to a Zeyniyye sheikh in Bursa.

On his teacher in Bursa the two sources complement each other. Hüsameddin presents Abdülğani Efendi as a native of Amasya and sheikh of the Sabûrî lodge. In the article "Zeyniyye" in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Reşat Öngören writes that Abdülganî Efendi trained under Resul Efendi in the Zeyniyye lodge at Bilecik and later took the seat of the Kâsım Subaşı Zâviyesi in Bursa, also known as the Ali Paşa lodge. According to the same article Ahmed Kilimî was both Abdülganî Efendi's son-in-law and his successor (halife), and when he died in 1057 he was the last Zeyniyye sheikh of the zâviye; after him the lodge passed to other orders. Kelîmî's headship of the Ali Paşa lodge thus appears as succession to his father-in-law's seat. Hüsameddin does not mention the marriage.

Hüsameddin gives two different reasons in two places for the end of his headship in Amasya. The entry says the post was taken from him in Rebiülevvel 1044 (August-September 1634) because Kelîmî had become sheikh of another lodge in Bursa. In the chronicle part of the book, among the records of the period when Köprülü Mehmed Bey was governor of the sanjak, the same month is noted with the words "mevlevîhâne şeyhi Ahmed Dede'nin tegayyüb etmesine binâen": because the sheikh had disappeared, Derviş Sâlih Dede, one of the senior Mevlevîs, was made sheikh. The month and the successor are the same; one reason may express the official decision, the other the situation as the town saw it.

The Hüftâdî Affair

The event that drove Kelîmî from Amasya is told in detail in the fourth volume of Amasya Tarihi. Hüftâdî Ahmed Bey, of Georgian origin, arrived as governor of the sanjak of Amasya in Rebiülahir 1038 (November-December 1628), and the extortion of the Georgians in his retinue when collecting taxes, together with their abduction of young men from the streets, exhausted the townspeople. On 13 Ramazan 1038 (May 1629), after another youth was seized, the crowd besieged the governor's mansion; Hüftâdî Bey, his uncle Keyhüsrev Bey and many Georgians were killed and the mansion was plundered. The notables of the town were then taken to İstanbul and shut up in Yedikule, and were pardoned only some months later through the intervention of the Grand Vizier Hüsrev Paşa.

What Kelîmî was accused of in this affair is not known; Hüsameddin says only that he was "pursued" (takibata düçar). The dates do not fit either. The entry says he disappeared in 1037, whereas Hüftâdî Bey reached Amasya only in 1038 and the riot broke out in Ramazan of that year. Either the year of his disappearance or its link with the affair has been recorded wrongly; the available texts do not allow us to say which. His appearance in Bursa in 1039 suggests that he left Amasya in the months after the riot.

His Poetry

Hüsameddin counts him a "şâir, edîb" and leaves his works for the letter "kef", but the entry in the sixth volume contains not a single couplet. Nor is it stated whether "Kelîmî" was a pen name (mahlas) or a nickname given by those around him; Hüsameddin writes only that he was "well known" by it. The Bursa sources on which Öngören relies, İsmâil Belîğ's Güldeste-i Riyâz-ı İrfân (pp. 183-184) and the work of Mehmed Şemseddin (pp. 464-465), could not be consulted for this study, and it is not known whether they contain any verse of his. For now, not a single poem by Kelîmî is at hand.

State of the Sources

The two sources that describe him differ on three points. His birthplace is Amasya in Hüsameddin and Ankara in TDV. His name is spelled "Kelimî" in Hüsameddin and "Kilimî" in TDV. Abdülğani Efendi's lodge is the Sabûrî lodge in Hüsameddin and the Kâsım Subaşı Zâviyesi in TDV. Hüsameddin moreover gives the year of the disappearance and the year of the Hüftâdî affair in a way that does not agree. On the other hand the year of death (1057), the city (Bursa), the last lodge (the Ali Paşa lodge), the teacher (Abdülganî Efendi) and the order (Zeyniyye) are the same in both. This common ground is enough to accept that the same man is meant; the disagreement over his birthplace cannot be settled without Hüsameddin's lost "kef" entry.

Chronology

1037 (1627-28): According to Hüsameddin, pursued over the Hüftâdî affair, he disappears from Amasya; the affair itself belongs to 1038.

1038 (1629): The Hüftâdî riot breaks out in Amasya on 13 Ramazan.

1039 (1629-30): He is found to be in Bursa.

1041 (1631-32): He becomes sheikh of the Ali Paşa lodge in Bursa.

1044 (1634): In Rebiülevvel the headship of the Amasya Mevlevî lodge is given to Sâlih Dede.

1057 (1647-48): He dies in Bursa and is buried in the Ali Paşa lodge.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources