Two books on music presented to the Ottoman court in the last quarter of the fifteenth century have carried far more to our day than the life of the man who wrote them. One is er-Risâletü'l-fethiyye, counted among the last major works in Arabic of the edvâr tradition that began with Safiyyüddin el-Urmevî; the other is Zeynü'l-elhân, one of the first texts of the same tradition written in Turkish. Both were written by Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi, who took his nisba from the town of Lâdik, then part of the sanjak of Amasya. Historians of music know him simply as Lâdikli Mehmed Çelebi.

What the sources say about Mehmed Çelebi's life does not go beyond a few sentences. Most of what is known has been inferred from his works, their dedications and the colophon dates of the manuscripts. Yet within this scant information there is a clear link to Amasya: Mehmed Çelebi belonged to the circle of Şehzade Bayezid (the future Bayezid II) during the prince's long years as sanjak governor in Amasya, moved to Istanbul after Bayezid came to the throne and taught there as a madrasa professor, and dedicated all his works to this prince, that is, to Bayezid II.

Name, Nisba and the Errors Surrounding Him

The author's real name was Muhyiddin Mehmed. In his works his father's name appears as Abdülhamid. In Gustave Flügel's 1835 edition of the Keşfü'z-zunûn, however, the father's name was read as Abdülmecid; the misreading passed into many later publications and was corrected only when Şerefettin Yaltkaya re-edited the same work in 1941. That an author's name circulated wrongly for more than a century also shows how late Lâdikli drew the attention of music historians.

His nisba, too, was long a matter of dispute. Some writers connected him with Latakia on the Syrian coast, others with the Lâdik near Denizli; there were also those who claimed he was of Arab descent. According to Recep Uslu's assessment in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, none of these claims is correct: Mehmed Çelebi came from the town of Lâdik, then attached to the sanjak of Amasya and today part of Samsun province. The spelling of his name as "el-Lâzikî" in the Kuwait edition of his treatise must also have made confusion with Latakia easier. The same assessment rejects the view that he wrote his works in Amasya. Their dates show that at least his two books on music were completed after Bayezid's accession, between 1483 and 1485.

From Lâdik to the Circle of Şehzade Bayezid

Mehmed Çelebi is known to have received his first education in Lâdik, learning Arabic and Persian alongside the religious sciences. The sources do not record which teachers he studied with or whether he attended the madrasas of Amasya. What is known is that he entered the circle of Şehzade Bayezid, son of Mehmed II (the Conqueror), during the prince's governorship of Amasya. Bayezid had been sent to Amasya as a child and stayed in the sanjak for about twenty-six years until he took the throne in 1481. In what capacity Lâdikli was attached to the prince, whether he drew a salary from the household, or what office he held, is not documented.

When Bayezid left Amasya for Istanbul on his father's death in 886 (1481) and ascended the throne, Mehmed Çelebi also moved to the capital. His main profession in Istanbul was teaching in a madrasa. That he dedicated every work written in this period to the new sultan, whom he had known since his days as a prince, suggests that the relationship formed in Amasya continued into the years of the reign. In which madrasa he taught in Istanbul does not appear in the sources used here.

His First Work: Zübdetü'l-beyân

Mehmed Çelebi's first known work is not on music but on logic. Noticing during his years as a professor that there was no book of logic written in Turkish, he composed Zübdetü'l-beyân and presented it, too, to Bayezid II. The work consists of an introduction, a section explaining the terms of logic and an epilogue. Its only copy, in the author's own hand, is kept in the Süleymaniye Library, in the Ayasofya collection under number 2490.

Two theses have been written on the work. In 2001 Muhsin Korkmaz made a linguistic study at Istanbul University, rendering the text into modern Turkish, and in 2010 Havva Kızılçardak examined it from the standpoint of logic at Marmara University. According to Kızılçardak, Zübdetü'l-beyân is, as far as can be determined, the first work of logic written in Turkish; it takes its terms and definitions from Kâtibî's er-Risâletü'ş-Şemsiyye and renders them into Turkish with explanations where needed, though it does not give the concepts Turkish technical terms. The effort to present one of the basic subjects of the madrasa in Turkish points in the same direction as Lâdikli's decision to write his music book first in Arabic and then translate it into Turkish.

Zeynü'l-elhân: An Edvâr from Arabic into Turkish

Zeynü'l-elhân fî ilmi't-te'lîf ve'l-evzân (The Ornament of Melodies in the Science of Composition and Rhythm) is Mehmed Çelebi's first study of music theory. It was written first in Arabic and dedicated to Bayezid II; sources stating that it was presented to Mehmed II are mistaken. The date of composition of the Arabic text is not known with certainty. At the end of the copy in the Nuruosmaniye Library (no. 3655), Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Efendi noted the year 888 (1483) as a conjectural date of writing. The entry in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi accepts this estimate as sound in view of the date of the Turkish translation. The other Arabic copies are twentieth-century reproductions of this manuscript.

The author translated the work into Turkish a year after presenting it to the sultan. The earliest known copy of the Turkish text is in Istanbul University Library (TY, no. 4380), and its colophon bears the date 10 Rebîülâhir 889 (7 May 1484). The copy in the library of the Mevlânâ Museum in Konya was endowed in 1846 by the Mevlevi Hemdem Çelebi; the copy in the National Library in Ankara was transcribed from the Istanbul manuscript. Because the translator is not named in the Turkish text, it has been argued that the translation is not Lâdikli's. Yet the identical hand in the author's copy of Zübdetü'l-beyân and in the Zeynü'l-elhân manuscript, together with the features of the paper, support the view, also stated by Hüseyin Sadeddin Arel, that the translation came from the author himself.

The work consists of an introduction, three treatises and an epilogue. The introduction defines the science of music, melody and rhythm (îkā'), supports the importance of beautiful recitation with verses from the Qur'an, mentions the seventeen notes used in composition and states that wind and string instruments are the ones best suited to the human voice. The first treatise explains the frets and the division of the string into intervals according to the method of Safiyyüddin el-Urmevî; its record that the performers of the day called the fret regions "perde" and "girift" is valuable for the history of terminology. The second treatise discusses, from among the modes formed by ninety-one cycles, the twelve famous makams running from rast to uşşak, the seven âvâzes, the şubes and the compound modes. The third treatise is devoted to îkā', that is, rhythm.

For historians of music, the most valuable part of the work lies in this last section. After explaining the six rhythms of the ancients, Mehmed Çelebi lists the eighteen usuls in use in his own time, beginning with berefşan and ending with darb-ı fetih, adds the cerr-i hafîf and rikâb rhythms used among the common people, and defines every usul not only by its duration but also by its beats. Names such as darb-ı tavîl, darb-ı kasîr, çârdarb, remel-i kasîr and remel-i tavîl, serendâz, nîm-sakīl and revan, which do not appear in other works, make the book one of the principal sources for the music of Istanbul in the time of Mehmed II and Bayezid II. It is also noteworthy that the şahrûd is the only instrument named. The work divides the history of music theory into three periods: "kudemâ" (the ancients), "müteahhirîn" (the later scholars) and "fî zamâninâ" (in our time).

There is a small discrepancy among the sources on the number of şubes. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry on the author states that Lâdikli's works deal with twelve makams, twenty-four şubes, seven âvâzes and thirty compound modes, while the entry on Zeynü'l-elhân gives the şubes in this work as four. The difference may arise from the different classifications of the two works; the sources at hand do not explain it.

er-Risâletü'l-fethiyye

Mehmed Çelebi's second work on music is er-Risâletü'l-fethiyye, written in Arabic. The author says he gave the book this name on account of the sultan's conquests. It is therefore thought to have been written in 889 (1484), after Bayezid II took Akkerman during his Moldavian campaign. Its earliest known copy is dated 890 (1485) and is kept in el-Mektebetü'l-Ahmediyye in Aleppo (no. 1206). Fifteen copies have been identified, twelve outside Turkey and three in Turkey, in the Atatürk Library in Istanbul, the İskilip District Public Library and the Institute of Turkic Studies of Istanbul University. That most of the copies are found outside Turkey suggests that the work was read in the Arab world as well.

The treatise consists of an introduction in three sections and two parts. The introduction explains the definition and subject of music, Pythagoras as its founder, the purpose of music and the reason for its name, and its mathematical principles. The first part, on the science of composition, has five sections: the division of the frets, the consonant intervals and their ratios, the classification of intervals, consonance and dissonance, the famous cycles, the six âvâzes and the şubes according to the old masters, and finally the makams in use in the author's time with their effects according to the hours of the day and the temperaments of people. The second part, in three sections, is devoted to îkā'; after the definition of usul, the time intervals and the rhythmic cycles, it compares the rhythms used by the old and the new theorists. The author evidently drew on Fârâbî, Safiyyüddin el-Urmevî and Abdülkādir-i Merâgī.

The history of the work's editions and translations is also long. A critical edition based on the Aleppo copy and three copies in Baghdad was published by Hâşim Muhammed Receb in Kuwait in 1986. The French translation made by Menûbî es-Senûsî from the copy in the library of the Zaytuna Mosque in Tunis appeared in 1939 in the fourth volume of Baron Rodolphe d'Erlanger's La musique arabe. In 1987 Bülent Aksoy pointed out certain differences between the French translation and the London copy. Rauf Yekta Bey's Turkish translation of the work was never printed, while Hakkı Tekin wrote a doctoral thesis on the treatise at Niğde University in 1999. Hafîd Efendi in his ed-Dürerü'l-müntehabât, and Rauf Yekta and Suphi Ezgi in their books on theory, used the work as a source.

Between the Ancients and the Moderns

What sets Lâdikli apart from earlier edvâr writers is that he places the views of the ancients (kudemâ) side by side with those of the theorists of his own age (müteahhirûn) and compares them systematically. According to the study by Semra Şahin and Ahmet Hakkı Turabi published in the Amasya İlahiyat Dergisi in 2025, er-Risâletü'l-fethiyye is the first work of music theory to treat this distinction systematically. The authors note that Lâdikli chose to present both positions comparatively rather than defend one side, while still offering theoretical openings that answered the needs of his period.

First among these openings are the intervals. Urmevî had limited the consonant intervals to two octaves and counted nine; according to Lâdikli, the reason was the belief that the human voice could not exceed two octaves. Lâdikli, considering that some instruments such as the şahrûd could rise above two octaves, also took into account the large intervals reaching into the third octave, and wrote that in his own time five more intervals had been added to the nine, so that fourteen consonant intervals were used in performance. Two of the additions are the intervals found in the hicaz and mâye genera, corresponding to what is today called the augmented second. The same study draws attention to an innovation in the classification of instruments: whereas the ancients divided instruments into strings and winds, the new theorists, as Lâdikli reports, admitted percussion instruments into the system as a separate class.

The other differences identified by Şahin and Turabi also foreshadow the direction of Ottoman music in the following centuries: the addition of a new string to the oud, the inclusion of the yegâh note in the theoretical system, the rise of the concept of seyir (melodic progression) as a distinguishing element in defining makams, and the coming into use of many new rhythmic types while the old ones were largely abandoned. Recep Uslu likewise records that Lâdikli used the terms "ascending" and "descending" when describing the progression of makams, spoke of minor and major thirds not found in earlier theorists, and grouped the usuls as favoured, little used and least used. The tendency to define a makam not merely as a scale but as a path of movement is among the early traces of one of the basic concepts of later Turkish music theory.

In his tonal system, however, Mehmed Çelebi remains faithful to tradition. He adopts Urmevî's seventeen-note system and the modal scales that Merâgī recorded as ninety-one, and accepts, as he received them from the ancients, the three kinds of ratio (arithmetic, geometric and harmonic) and the place of the bakiyye, tanînî and mücennep intervals. Şahin and Turabi regard Lâdikli as an author who, writing in both Arabic and Turkish at the threshold where the Arabic edvâr tradition began to give way to Turkish works, served as a bridge between two periods.

His Death

When and where Lâdikli Mehmed Çelebi died is not known with certainty. Brockelmann gives only the reign of Bayezid II (1481-1512) as the period in which he lived. Henry George Farmer, Ziriklî and Abbas el-Azzâvî give the date 900 (1494-95). The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi places his death broadly in the early sixteenth century. No record of the location of his grave has been found.

Zeynü'l-elhân and er-Risâletü'l-fethiyye attracted the interest of musicologists only in the twentieth century. After d'Erlanger and Farmer, the first in Turkey to discuss the work was Rauf Yekta Bey, who published an article titled "Lâdikli Mehmed Efendi" in the Anadolu Mecmuası in 1924. Gültekin Oransay gave a complete list of the makams and usuls in Lâdikli's works in comparison with other treatises. Ruhi Kalender wrote a doctoral thesis on the Turkish copies of Zeynü'l-elhân at Ankara University in 1982; Ahmet Pekşen studied the work linguistically in 2002; Binnaz Başar Çelik and M. Cihat Can treated his definitions of the makams and his tonal system in their theses on fifteenth-century theory. In 1998 Recep Uslu published an article titled "Ladikli Mehmed Çelebi Üzerindeki Şüpheler" (Doubts about Ladikli Mehmed Çelebi) in the Musiki Mecmuası.

Lâdikli's place in the musical history of Amasya should be considered together with the circle of learning and art that formed around Şehzade Bayezid's court. In the same century, Ahmedoğlu Şükrullah's Edvâr-ı Mûsikî was also one of the Turkish links in this tradition. Although it is now accepted that Lâdikli did not write his works in Amasya, it was Amasya that brought him into Bayezid's close circle and won him a patron for the rest of his life. That Lâdik, the town from which he took his name, was then part of the sanjak of Amasya completes the link.

Chronology

1481 (886): Şehzade Bayezid leaves Amasya for Istanbul and ascends the throne; Mehmed Çelebi also moves to Istanbul and teaches in a madrasa.

1483 (888): Conjectural year of composition of the Arabic text of Zeynü'l-elhân (according to the note in the Nuruosmaniye copy).

7 May 1484 (10 Rebîülâhir 889): Colophon date of the earliest known copy of the Turkish text of Zeynü'l-elhân.

1484 (889): Bayezid II takes Akkerman; er-Risâletü'l-fethiyye is thought to have been written on the occasion of this conquest.

1485 (890): Earliest known copy of er-Risâletü'l-fethiyye (Aleppo).

1494-95 (900): Date of death given by Farmer, Ziriklî and Azzâvî.

1835: In Flügel's edition of the Keşfü'z-zunûn the father's name is misread as Abdülmecid.

1924: Rauf Yekta's article "Lâdikli Mehmed Efendi".

1939: The French translation of er-Risâletü'l-fethiyye is published in d'Erlanger's La musique arabe.

1941: In Şerefettin Yaltkaya's edition of the Keşfü'z-zunûn the father's name is corrected to Abdülhamid.

1986: Critical edition of er-Risâletü'l-fethiyye by Hâşim Muhammed Receb in Kuwait.

Bibliography

The following sources were used in this article:

Online sources