Keşfî Mehmed Çelebi was a secretary, historian and poet from Amasya who accompanied Selim I (Selim the Grim) on his Iranian and Egyptian campaigns as his private secretary and wrote a Turkish Selimnâme recounting those campaigns. He used the pen name (mahlas) Keşfî in his poems. He came from the family of Hızır Pasha, governor of Amasya; the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü records him as this governor's son, while Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar records him as his grandson. After Selim's death he served briefly as treasurer (defterdar) of Anatolia, and he died in Istanbul in 931 (1524-25). Hızrî Mehmed Bey, the poet of the Âb-ı Hayât, was his nephew. The biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire) include several poets with the pen name Keşfî, but none of them is the private secretary from Amasya; no example of Keşfî's independent poems has come down to us.

Hüsameddin's Records

Hüsameddin does not give Keşfî a separate entry in his Amasya Tarihi, but he mentions him in the entries of three members of his family and in the entry on Selim I. The entry on Hızır Pasha, whom he presents as Keşfî's grandfather, ends with this sentence:

Mahdûmu İbrâhim Bey ve bunun mahdûmu meşhûr Selîm-nâme müellifi Keşfî Mehmed Çelebi'dir.

In the entry on Selim I, listing the men of Amasya who rose to high office in the sultan's reign, he puts him first:

Sır kâtibi Amasyalı Hızır Paşazâde Keşfî Mehmed Çelebi, re'îsü'l-küttâbı Amasyalı Refîkî Ali Çelebi […]

The entry on his son Selim Çelebi begins as follows:

Amasyalıdır. Sultân Selîm Hân'ın erkân-ı devletinden sır kâtibi olan Amasyalı Keşfî Mehmed Çelebi bin İbrâhim Bey bin Hızır Paşa'nın mahdûmu ve şu'arâdan Küçük Lutfî Bey'in birâderidir.

In English these three records say: Hızır Pasha's son was İbrâhim Bey, and İbrâhim Bey's son was Keşfî Mehmed Çelebi, the famous author of the Selimnâme. Selim I's private secretary was Hızır Paşazâde Keşfî Mehmed Çelebi of Amasya, and his chief of scribes (reisülküttap) was Refîkî Ali Çelebi of Amasya. Selim Çelebi was from Amasya; he was the son of Keşfî Mehmed Çelebi of Amasya, private secretary and one of the dignitaries of Sultan Selim, and the brother of Küçük Lutfî Bey, one of the poets. Hüsameddin writes that Selim Çelebi grew up under his father's protection and became a clerk of the imperial council, in 938 (1531-32) secretary for the poll tax (cizye), then accountant and steward (kethüda) of Anatolia, in 948 (1541-42) second treasurer and then treasurer of the Danube, and that he died in Rumelia.

The entry Hüsameddin wrote for the nephew, Hızrî Mehmed Bey, shows how Keşfî opened the way for his family at court. Hızrî came to Istanbul when Selim I ascended the throne in 918 (1512) and became a clerk of the Imperial Council (Divân-ı Hümâyûn) "amcasının sâye-i ikbâlinde", in the shadow of his uncle's good fortune. When his uncle died after Selim's death and the grand vizier Pîrî Mehmed Pasha of Amasya left office, Hızrî was removed from the council. In the Introduction (Mukaddime) to the Amasya Tarihi Hüsameddin also names Keşfî, together with Rahîmî, Refîkî and Rûhî, among the men of Amasya counted as dignitaries of Selim I and greatly renowned "in learning, letters and the pen". Elsewhere he quotes from Keşfî's Selimnâme a piece of information about Şeyh Şemseddin Ahmed el-Cendî, who fled from Shirvan and took refuge with Selim when Shah Ismail rose to power; this shows that he used the work himself.

Life

Keşfî's date of birth is unknown. According to Ahmet Uğur's article on the Selimnâme in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, he was from Amasya and was trained under Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi and Sa'dî Çelebi of Amasya's famous scholarly family. Yunus Kaplan's entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü also says that he benefited from these two brothers during his studies. According to Uğur, Keşfî entered Prince Selim's service while Selim was governor of Trabzon; when Selim became sultan he became a clerk of the council, private secretary on the Egyptian campaign and, in 1519, treasurer of Anatolia. Kaplan, however, writes that he served the sultan as chief secretary on the Iranian and Egyptian campaigns, was appointed treasurer of Anatolia after Selim's death and was retired from this post in 927 (1520-21). The two encyclopedias differ on the start of the treasurership. Both give 931 as the year of death; Kaplan gives Istanbul as the place of death.

Keşfî's life is bound up with the brilliant generation of Amasya in the reign of Selim I. Selim had been in Trabzon as a prince, and after ascending the throne he brought many men of Amasya into the most important posts of the scribal and learned hierarchies. Hüsameddin gives a long list: the chief of scribes Refîkî Ali Çelebi, the military judges (kazasker) Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi and Kemalpaşazâde, the officials who drew the sultan's monogram on council documents (muvakki), treasurers, the şeyhülislam Zenbilli Ali Efendi and the sultan's last grand vizier, Pîrî Mehmed Pasha. That Keşfî's teacher Câfer Çelebi belonged to this circle helps to explain his rise at court. On this circle see the site's article Selim I (Yavuz Sultan Selim).

Works

The work that keeps Keşfî's name alive is the Turkish Selimnâme recounting the campaigns of Selim I. It is also known under the titles Bâğ-ı Firdevs-i Guzât, Ravza-i Ehl-i Cihâd and Târîh-i Sultân Selîm Hân. According to Uğur, Keşfî began writing it in 1514 and made the fair copy in 1521. The narrative opens with the events of 1511 and gives accurate and detailed information especially on the Iranian and Egyptian campaigns. The work is semi-versified, that is, verse passages are set within the prose, and it is written in a heavy style. Kaplan, relying on Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir's Osmanlı Müellifleri, also records that Keşfî wrote two Selimnâmes, one short and the other detailed. Two master's theses have been written on the work, by Şefaettin Severcan (Erciyes University, 1988) and Abdurrahman Sağırlı (Istanbul University, 1993); Severcan also published an article on the glossary Keşfî added to his work.

Keşfî's second work is the Avâmil-i Fürs. According to Kaplan, the known manuscripts of this work, which gives information on the grammar of Persian, are in the Millet Library (Ali Emîrî, Kavâid 190), the Konya Regional Manuscript Library (2879) and the Manisa Provincial Public Library (5866/5). There is no record of a divan by Keşfî.

Poetry

Kaplan describes Keşfî as a learned man of fine character with a talent for writing poetry and counts him among the divan poets. Yet no example of Keşfî's independent poems has come down to us. The tezkires have no entry for him, and Hüsameddin quotes no couplet of his. The only known product of his poetry is the verse passages in the Selimnâme. No published edition of this work, and no accessible study quoting its verse passages, could be found; the two theses mentioned could not be consulted either. For this reason Keşfî's poems could not be reached. When the verse passages of the work are published, they will appear as separate pages in this category.

Poets with the Same Pen Name

The sixteenth-century tezkires contain several poets using the pen name Keşfî, and none of them is identical with the private secretary from Amasya. Âşık Çelebi and Kınalızâde describe a Keşfî from the town of Gedus in Germiyan who became incense-keeper when Bayezid II's mosque in Istanbul was built; according to Âşık Çelebi this poet died in 945 (1538-39) and, together with his brother Hasbî and his son Atâ, was counted among a family of poets. Both tezkires also include a second Keşfî from Edirne, who turned from the path of learning to the scribal career. Latîfî gives two separate poets under the names Keşfî-i Saruhânî and Keşfî-i İstanbulî. None of these names is connected with Amasya or with Selim's private secretariat. For this reason couplets under the pen name Keşfî cannot be attributed to the private secretary from Amasya unless their source states this explicitly.

Family and the State of the Sources

The sources differ on Keşfî's father. Kaplan gives him as "the son of Hızır Ağa, Sekbanbaşı and Governor of Amasya". According to Hüsameddin, however, Keşfî was the son of İbrâhim Bey, son of Hızır Pasha. According to Hüsameddin's record, Hızır Pasha was the son of Kabulî Ağa, one of the household slaves of Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed); he was raised in the palace of Murad II, took part in the battle of Varna as commander of the Janissaries in 847 (1443-44), became beylerbey (governor-general) of Amasya in 850 (1446) and died after the accession of Mehmed II (the Conqueror). Given that Hızır Pasha was in state service in the 1440s, it is more plausible that Keşfî, who died in the 1520s, was his grandson rather than his son. This is an inference. The descent given by Hüsameddin is also consistent with the entry on the nephew Hızrî: Hızrî's father Lütfullah Çelebi was İbrâhim Bey's son, and Keşfî was his uncle.

According to Hüsameddin, Keşfî had two sons: Selim Çelebi, who rose in the financial bureaux, and Küçük Lutfî Bey, "one of the poets". Hüsameddin gives no further information on Lutfî Bey. Keşfî's nephew Hızrî Mehmed Bey was a clerk of the Imperial Council, a poet and a calligrapher. The Hızır Pasha family thus appears as one of the Amasya families that supplied the court with secretaries and poets in the first half of the sixteenth century.

Chronology

850 (1446): According to Hüsameddin, his grandfather Hızır Pasha becomes beylerbey of Amasya.

918 (1512): Selim I ascends the throne; Keşfî becomes a clerk of the council.

1514: He begins writing the Selimnâme.

1519: According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, he becomes treasurer of Anatolia.

927 (1520-21): According to the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, he is retired from the treasurership.

1521: He makes the fair copy of the Selimnâme.

931 (1524-25): He dies in Istanbul.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Ahmet Uğur, "Selimnâme", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 36, Istanbul 2009, pp. 440-441. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/selimname
  • Şefaettin Severcan, "Keşfî Mehmet Çelebi'nin Selimnâmesi'ne Koyduğu Sözlük", Erciyes Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, no. 5, Kayseri 1995, pp. 414-427.

Books

Online sources