Kemalpaşazâde Şemseddin Ahmed, also known as İbn Kemal, was one of the greatest Ottoman scholars of the first half of the sixteenth century. He served for eight years as şeyhülislam (chief jurist of the empire) under Süleyman the Magnificent, wrote hundreds of works in fields ranging from Quranic exegesis and jurisprudence to theology and history, and besides these produced literary works such as a Turkish divan, the mesnevi Yûsuf u Zelîhâ and the Persian Nigâristân. His birthplace, however, is one of the longest-running disputes in the Ottoman biographical tradition. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam writes that some sources record him as born in Tokat, others in Edirne, and that it has also been claimed that he was from Amasya. The author of this last view is Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar. In the long entry he devotes to Kemalpaşazâde in his Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya), the historian tries to prove that he was born in 873 in the Süveyda (Sevâdiye) quarter of Amasya. On this page the views and the evidence behind them are set out separately. Hüsameddin's entry can be read in the Hüsameddin encyclopedia on this site as a first and a second part; for the literary milieu of Amasya, see the article Divan Poets of Amasya and Their Literary Milieu.

Hüsameddin's Entry

Hüsameddin opens his entry with a firm verdict and returns to the same verdict at the end of a long argument. The first lines of the entry read:

Amasyalıdır. Kuyûd-ı resmiyyeden anlaşıldığı üzere Tokat Sancağı Beyi Şucâeddîn Süleyman Bey bin Vezîr Kemâleddîn Ahmed Paşa bin el-Hâc Tâceddîn İbrâhim Çelebi bin Hayreddîn Halîl Çelebi bin el-Hâc İbrâhim Bey bin Hâce Alâeddîn Ali Şâh bin el-Hâc Nûreddîn Kutlu Bey bin Cemâleddîn Fîrûz Bey bin Şemseddîn Mahmûd et-Tuğrâî bin Baba İlyâs Horasânî mahdûmudur. Buna Ahmed Şâh Çelebi denirdi.

In English: He is from Amasya. As appears from the official records, he was the son of Şucâeddin Süleyman Bey, sanjak governor of Tokat; Süleyman Bey was the son of Vizier Kemâleddin Ahmed Paşa, and the line reaches Baba İlyâs-ı Horasânî through Hacı Tâceddin İbrâhim Çelebi, Hayreddin Halil Çelebi, Hacı İbrâhim Bey, Hâce Alâeddin Ali Şah, Hacı Nûreddin Kutlu Bey, Cemâleddin Fîruz Bey and Şemseddin Mahmud et-Tuğrâî. He was called Ahmed Şah Çelebi.

At the end of the argument Hüsameddin sums up his conclusion in these words:

Binâenaleyh: Kemâl Paşazâde Mevlânâ Şemseddîn Ahmed Çelebi, mevliden ve neslen ba'de'n-neslin, fer'an neseb-i aslin Amasyalı'dır. Pederi, Latîfî Efendi'nin dediği gibi "Tokat'da zeâmete mutasarrıf" bir zaîm parçası değil, belki Tokat Sancağına mutasarrıf bir mîr-livâdır. Ceddî Kemâl Paşazâde Amasya'da medfûn bir vezîrdir. 873 senesi zilka'desinin beşinci günü Amasya'nın (Süveydâ, Sevâdiye) Mahallesi'nde doğdu.

In English: For this reason Kemalpaşazâde Mevlânâ Şemseddin Ahmed Çelebi is from Amasya to the root, both by birth and by descent from generation to generation. His father was not, as Latîfî Efendi says, some petty holder "of a zeamet (fief) in Tokat," but a sanjak governor who ruled the sanjak of Tokat. His grandfather was a vizier buried in Amasya. He was born on the fifth day of Dhu al-Qa'da 873 (17 May 1469) in the Süveyda (Sevâdiye) quarter of Amasya. The text's calling the grandfather "Kemâl Paşazâde" is a slip; the context makes clear that Kemal Paşa is meant.

His Life

According to the TDV entry, Kemalpaşazâde was born on 3 Dhu al-Qa'da 873 (15 May 1469); the record that Hüsameddin says was copied from his father's handwriting gives the date two days later, 5 Dhu al-Qa'da. He takes his name from his grandfather Kemal Paşa, who served as lala (tutor-guardian) to Prince Bayezid (Bayezid II). After memorising the Quran he studied Arabic, logic and Persian with the scholars of Amasya; this information appears both in the TDV and in Hüsameddin. Hüsameddin names his teachers: Şeyhîzâde Abdî, İbrîzâde Abdurrahman and Ya'kûbzâde Bahşî. The young Ahmed first took up a military career and joined the campaigns of Bayezid II. According to an account that Taşköprizâde relates from his own lips, when he saw Molla Lütfî, a teacher on thirty akçes a day, sit above the famous raider commander Evrenosoğlu Ahmed Bey in the assembly of Grand Vizier Çandarlı İbrâhim Paşa, he decided to join the learned profession. Following Cenâbî Mustafa Efendi, Hüsameddin considers this story a fabrication.

Having studied with scholars such as Kestelli Muslihuddin, Hatibzâde Muhyiddin, Muarrifzâde Sinâneddin and Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman of Amasya, Kemalpaşazâde became professor at the Ali Bey (Taşlık) madrasa in Edirne with Müeyyedzâde's support, and at this time he was commissioned to write a history of the Ottomans in Turkish. After madrasas in Skopje, Edirne and Istanbul, he became judge of Edirne in 921 (1515) and kazasker (chief military judge) of Anatolia in 922 (1516), and took part in Selim I's Egyptian campaign. After a period of dismissal he was appointed professor at the Dârülhadis of Edirne in 926 (1520), and in 932 (1526) became şeyhülislam in succession to Zenbilli Ali Efendi of Amasya. He died in that office on 2 Shawwal 940 (16 April 1534) and was buried in the graveyard of the Mahmud Çelebi zaviye (dervish lodge) outside the Edirnekapı gate in Istanbul. Hüsameddin stresses that Mahmud Çelebi, sheikh of this lodge, was also from Amasya and that the two scholars lay side by side. The TDV entry records that this plot was cleared in 1971 during the building of the Golden Horn ring road and that the grave was moved elsewhere.

The dates given by Hüsameddin diverge from those of present-day sources in a few places. The historian places the judgeship of Edirne in 918 and the kazaskership of Anatolia in 921; the TDV gives these appointments in 921 and 922. For the year of death, Hüsameddin follows Gelibolulu Âlî, who rejected Âşık Çelebi's record of 941, defends 940 and cites the grave inscription as witness to it; this is also the date generally accepted today.

His Connection with Amasya and the Birthplace Dispute

There are three different views on Kemalpaşazâde's birthplace. The Edirne view rests on Mecdî Mehmed Efendi of Edirne, translator of the Şakâyık into Turkish, who counts him as "belonging to Edirne," and on Mehmed Süreyya's Sicill-i Osmânî, which follows him. Şerafettin Turan, who published the seventh book of Kemalpaşazâde's history, also accepts that he was born in Edirne. The Tokat view rests on the statement in Latîfî's biographical anthology (tezkire) that he "was born in Tokat and raised in Edirne," and on the writers who follow it. İsmet Parmaksızoğlu supports this view with the fact that his maternal grandfather Küpelioğlu Muhyiddin Mehmed came from Iran and settled in Tokat; Fuad Köprülü is also among those who count Kemalpaşazâde as a native of Tokat. The Amasya view belongs to Hüsameddin, and the present-day encyclopedia entry bases it directly on his work.

Hüsameddin's evidence is as follows. Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Halabi, the historian of Aleppo who wrote the biography of Muhaşşî Sinan Efendi of Amasya, a pupil of Kemalpaşazâde, calls Kemalpaşazâde "al-Amâsî" in his Durr al-habab, completed in 965 (1557-58). Two court documents (hüccet) of the Amasya court dated 875 and 878, which Hüsameddin says he found in the archive of the Sublime Porte, show his father Süleyman Bey in Prince Bayezid's retinue in Amasya. That his grandfather Kemal Paşa died in Amasya at the end of 874 while serving as Bayezid's lala and was buried in his tomb west of the Yakub Paşa Mosque is also based on the registers of the Amasya court. To these is added the birth note copied from his father's handwriting, which Hüsameddin says he saw in a miscellany in the Yerebatan Library: "hâmis-i zilka'de sene selâsîn ve seb'în ve semânimi'e fî Süveydâ-i Amasya," that is, the fifth of Dhu al-Qa'da 873, in the Süveyda of Amasya. Finally, he points to Kemalpaşazâde's praise of Amasya in Persian and Turkish verse in his Ottoman history, and in particular his mention of the Sevâdiye quarter.

The weight of each piece of evidence differs. Şerafettin Turan rejects Hüsameddin's view as resting on no solid evidence; in his opinion a person's praise of a city does not prove that he came from it, and indeed İbn Kemal also praised Edirne and Sinop, with which he had no family tie. Fatih Erkoçoğlu, in a paper presented in Amasya in 2017, notes that the critics dwelt only on this matter of praise and did not see Hüsameddin's detailed text in the sixth volume or the documents he lists there. Hüsameddin's strongest piece of evidence, the birth note, can no longer be verified by his own admission: the historian writes that the notes in which he had recorded the number of the miscellany burned in the Taşmusluk fire and that he never found the miscellany again. In short, Kemalpaşazâde's birth in Amasya is a view put forward only by Hüsameddin and cannot be proven directly by any document available today.

The family's connection with Amasya stands on firmer ground. The TDV entry writes that his father Süleyman Çelebi was appointed guardian of Amasya in 879 (1474) and served in Prince Bayezid's retinue, and that he moved to the sanjak governorship of Tokat in 883 (1478). On the grandfather's tomb in Amasya, however, the sources diverge: the TDV says that Süleyman Çelebi died in Istanbul and was buried in the tomb of his father Kemal Paşa near Eski Odalar, while Hüsameddin argues that the tomb in Istanbul belonged to another vizier and that Kemal Paşa lies in Amasya. Hüsameddin also relates that in his youth Kemalpaşazâde studied with scholars of Amasya, rose under the patronage of Müeyyedzâde of Amasya, and met Refîkî of Amasya, Süleyman's private secretary, in poetry gatherings in Edirne as "two fellow townsmen." None of these ties settles the birthplace, but they show how closely Kemalpaşazâde's life was interwoven with Amasya.

His Poetry and Works

Between 179 and 226 works are attributed to Kemalpaşazâde. At the head of his literary works stands the ten-book Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osmân (History of the House of Osman); according to the TDV, its books were published separately by Şerafettin Turan, Ahmet Uğur, Koji Imazawa and Şefaettin Severcan. His divan consists of prayers, poems in praise of the Prophet, two kasides, mesnevi-style poems, more than 400 ghazals and many kıt'as and single couplets; it was printed in Istanbul in 1313 (1895-96) in an incomplete form mixed with poems by others, a critical edition was made by Mustafa Demirel (Istanbul 1996), and it has been prepared anew by M. A. Yekta Saraç. Saraç's book Şeyhülislam Kemal Paşazade: Hayatı, Şahsiyeti, Eserleri ve Bazı Şiirleri (Istanbul 1995) also contains a selection of his poems. Mustafa Demirel wrote a doctoral thesis on the 7777-couplet mesnevi Yûsuf u Zelîhâ (Istanbul University, 1979), and Mustafa Çiçekler one on the Persian Nigâristân (Istanbul University, 1994).

According to M. A. Yekta Saraç, who wrote on his literary personality in the TDV entry, the biographers rank his prose above his verse; in his poetry he turns less to deep imagery than to wise sayings, to reason and to the concrete, and his language is plain and his expression sound. He uses proverbs and cinas (wordplay on homonyms) with success. According to Saraç, because of his closeness to Arabic literature he used no pen name (mahlas) in his poems. Hüsameddin, too, says that his poems were "very many and very fine," and adds that he wished to quote some of them but gave up because the biography had grown too long.

Not all of Kemalpaşazâde's poems are published here. In this category only the seven pieces quoted by Hüsameddin in the Amasya Tarihi are given on separate pages, with their original text, a modern rendering and commentary: the Persian mesnevi passage and the Turkish poem praising Amasya, taken from his Ottoman history; the matla (opening couplet) addressed to Çandarlı İbrâhim Paşa on the death of Göde Ahmed Bey; the Persian chronogram kıt'a on the execution of his teacher Molla Lütfî; the Persian kıt'a in the preface of the Nigâristân; the kıt'a "Telef kılma be-gâyet sakla malı"; and the two couplets beginning "Ma'rifet gerçi ki beyzâdelere lâyıkdır." For his other poems, the Demirel and Saraç editions mentioned above may be consulted.

Chronology

873 (1469): Born; according to the TDV on 3 Dhu al-Qa'da, according to Hüsameddin on 5 Dhu al-Qa'da, in the Süveyda quarter of Amasya.

879 (1474): His father Süleyman Çelebi becomes guardian of Amasya and serves in Prince Bayezid's retinue.

883 (1478): His father becomes sanjak governor of Tokat.

900 (1495): His teacher Molla Lütfî is executed; Kemalpaşazâde composes a Persian chronogram on his death.

921 (1515): According to the TDV, becomes judge of Edirne; the following year kazasker of Anatolia.

932 (1526): Becomes şeyhülislam in succession to Zenbilli Ali Efendi.

940 (1534): Dies in Istanbul on 2 Shawwal (16 April); buried in the graveyard of the Mahmud Çelebi zaviye outside Edirnekapı.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 6, Amasya: Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, pp. 130-142 (entry "Ahmed Şemseddîn Efendi-Kemâl Paşazâde"; e-book pp. 131-143). https://amasya.bel.tr/uploads/e-kitap/kitap/6-8/files/basic-html/page131.html
  • Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 3, p. 476 (e-book p. 477); vol. 11, p. 405 (entry "Şemseddîn Ahmed Efendi-Kemâl Paşazâde"; e-book p. 406). https://amasya.bel.tr/uploads/e-kitap/kitap/1-4/files/basic-html/page477.html
  • İbn Kemâl, Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman VII. Defter, ed. Şerafettin Turan, Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu (as cited in Erkoçoğlu 2017).
  • Mustafa Demirel (ed.), critical edition of Kemalpaşazâde's divan, Istanbul 1996 (as reported in the TDV entry).

Academic studies

Books

  • İsmet Parmaksızoğlu, "Kemal Paşa-zâde", İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 6, Istanbul 1977, p. 561 (as cited in Erkoçoğlu 2017).
  • M. A. Yekta Saraç, Şeyhülislam Kemal Paşazade: Hayatı, Şahsiyeti, Eserleri ve Bazı Şiirleri, Istanbul 1995 (as cited in the TDV entry).

Online sources