"Canlara can katan bir şâir mûsikâr", a poet-musician who put life into souls: so Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar praises Hacı Mustafa Medhî Çelebi, who served in the seventeenth century as ser-müezzin, that is, chief of the muezzins, of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque in Amasya. That praise, in a single footnote of the History of Amasya, is all that has kept his name; it presents him as the teacher of a hafız who died in 1079 (1668-69). When he was born or died, how the rest of his life went and what he wrote are all unknown. The context of the record presents him as the first link in a chain of muezzins trained in the same mosque.

Hüsameddin's Record

In the chronicle of events in the fourth volume, in the lines on the year 1079, Hüsameddin first mentions the hafız who died at the end of that year:

Bu sene evâhirinde tatlı sadâsıyla halkı meftûn eden şâir mûsıkîşinâs Hâfız Mehmed Çelebi vefât etdi. Şâkirdi Bülbül Ahmed Çelebi yerini tutdu.

In English: At the end of this year died Hâfız Mehmed Çelebi, poet and musician, who enchanted the people with his sweet voice; his pupil Bülbül Ahmed Çelebi took his place. Footnote 668, attached to this sentence, is the only record that mentions Medhî Çelebi:

Hafızın üstâdı, Sultân Bâyezid Camii ser-müezzini Hacı Mustafa Medhî Çelebi de canlara can katan bir şâir mûsikâr idi.

In English: The hafız's teacher, Hacı Mustafa Medhî Çelebi, chief muezzin of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque, was also a poet-musician who put life into souls. The footnote tells us that Medhî had made the pilgrimage, that he rose to be chief muezzin of the mosque and that he combined poetry with music; it does not say when he taught or in what year he died. Since the hafız died in 1079, Medhî's years as a teacher must have fallen in the first half or the middle of the seventeenth century.

His Pupil and the Question of Paternity

The pupil called "Hâfız Mehmed Çelebi" in the footnote appears in Hüsameddin's biographical entries as Hâfız Abdullah Çelebi. According to his entry in the eighth volume, Hâfız Abdullah Çelebi's father was Mustafa Çelebi, one of the muezzins of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque; on his father's death he became muezzin of this mosque, later its chief muezzin, and he died from the effects of the earthquake of 1079. The entry on his pupil Bülbül Hâfız Ahmed Çelebi also gives the teacher's name as Abdullah. Since the year of death, the profession, the description as poet and musician and the pupil who took his place are the same, it is clear that the three records describe one person. The records are set side by side at length where the life of Hâfız Abdullah Çelebi (Hâfız Çelebi) is told.

Two possibilities follow for Medhî Çelebi. Mustafa Çelebi, muezzin of the same mosque, who appears as the hafız's father in the biographical entry, and the chief muezzin Hacı Mustafa Medhî Çelebi, who appears as his teacher in the footnote, may be the same man; their names, their place of service and their profession coincide, and it would be natural for a muezzin father to teach his son his voice and his modes. But the entry calls the father only "one of the muezzins" and says nothing of his pilgrimage, his rank as chief muezzin or his poetry; nor does the footnote establish any kinship between teacher and pupil. Joining the two records therefore remains an inference. Whether "Medhî" was a pen name or a byname cannot be told from the text either.

Poetry

No poem of Medhî Çelebi's has reached us. There is no text to set behind Hüsameddin's "şâir mûsikâr": the footnote contains no verse, and no lyric recorded under his name in a collection of songs or hymns is known. Metin Hakverdioğlu does include "Mustafa Medhî Çelebi" among the poets' names he gathered from the supplement of the fourth volume.

More than a century later the name Medhî resurfaces in Amasya with a statesman: Şîrînzâde Es'ad Medhî Bey, second master of the horse to Selim III at the end of the eighteenth century, who appears in Hüsameddin's chronicle carrying an imperial order to Tayyâr Paşa. Nothing links him to the chief muezzin.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources