In the first half of the sixteenth century Remzî Çelebi, a judge and poet, rose to the judgeship of Galata, married into the Amasya family of the Müeyyedzâdes as son-in-law of its sheikh Abdürrahîm Efendi, and fathered Mehmed İlmî, whom Kınalızâde praised as "şâ'ir oglı şâ'irdür", a poet son of a poet. Who he was, however, is disputed. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar presents him as the son of Şemseddîn Ahmed Efendi, judge of Amasya, a Müeyyedzâde born in Amasya, and gives his name as "Abdülhâdî" in two entries and as "Abdülvehhâb" in three places. The sixteenth-century tezkires, on the other hand, describe the same judge of Galata, the father of İlmî, as Mustafa Remzî Çelebi, son of a rich merchant of Bursa, and write that he died at Sivas in 954 (1547) while judge of Mardin. All the couplets that survive come from these tezkires.

Hüsameddin's Records

The entry Remzî Abdulhâdi Efendi-Mü'eyyedzâde in the tenth volume introduces him as follows:

Amasyalıdır. Amasya kadı'l-kudâtı Şemseddîn Ahmed Efendi bin Mehmed Çelebi bin Mü'eyyed Çelebi bin eş-Şeyh Alâeddîn Ali Yârî Çelebi mahdûmudur. Amasya'da ammizâdesi Abdülkerîm ve Şirvânî Abdulmuhsin Efendilerden tahsîl-i ulûm ve Ebû'l-fazl A'rec Mehmed Efendi'den ahz-ı hutût edib İstanbul'a gitdi. Diğer ammizâdesi Abdurrahmân Efendi'den mülâzım ve diğer ammizâdesi eş-Şeyh Abdurrahîm Efendi'ye dâmâd olup müderris ve bilâd-ı mühimmeye kadı oldu. Nihâyet Belgrad kazâsından ma'zûlen vefât etdi. Âlim, şâir, kâtib, hattât idi. Ta'lîki pek güzeldi. Mahdûmu Bursa mollası Mehmed İlmî Efendi de şâirdir.

Translated: He belonged to Amasya; his father, Şemseddîn Ahmed Efendi, was its chief judge, and his line runs through Mehmed Çelebi, Müeyyed Çelebi and Sheikh Alâeddîn Ali Yârî Çelebi. In Amasya he studied the sciences with his cousin Abdülkerîm Efendi and with Şirvânî Abdülmuhsin Efendi, and calligraphy with the lame Ebü'l-Fazl Mehmed Efendi, and then went to Istanbul. He became a candidate (mülâzım) under another cousin, Abdurrahman Efendi, and son-in-law of yet another cousin, Sheikh Abdürrahîm Efendi; he taught in madrasas and became judge of important cities. In the end he died after being dismissed from the judgeship of Belgrade. He was a scholar, poet, secretary and calligrapher; his talik script was very fine. His son Mehmed İlmî Efendi, molla of Bursa, is also a poet.

In the twelfth volume a second entry is devoted to the same man under the heading "Abdülhâdî Remzî Efendi-Müeyyedzâde":

Amasya kadısı Şemseddîn Ahmed Efendi bin Mehmed Efendi bin Müeyyed Çelebi mahdûmudur. Amasya ulemâsından ikmâl-i tahsîl edib 921'de İstanbul'a gitdi. Orada amcazâdesi Abdürrahîm Efendi'nin zâviyesinde ikâmet ederek müşârun ileyhin dâmâdı oldu. Bir müddet müderris olup sonra kazâ mesleğine girdi. Rûmeli'ne ve büyük beldelere ta'yîn edilerek mesleğinde tefeyyüz edib Filibe kazâsından münfasılan İstanbul'a geldikde Galata kadısı oldu. Ceddi olan Müeyyedzâde Mehmed Efendi Mahallesi'nde ikâmet ve 975 sâline doğru vefât etdi. Âlim, kâmil, edîb, şâir idi. Mahdûmu mevâlîden Mehmed İlmî Efendi Bursa kazâsından ma'zûlen 1000'de vefât etdi.

English rendering: Şemseddîn Ahmed Efendi, judge of Amasya, was his father. Having completed his studies with the scholars of Amasya, he went to Istanbul in 921 (1515). There he stayed in the zaviye of his cousin Abdürrahîm Efendi and became his son-in-law. After teaching in madrasas for a time he entered the judicial career. Appointed to Rumelia and to large cities, he rose in his profession; when he came to Istanbul after leaving the judgeship of Filibe (Plovdiv), he became judge of Galata. He lived in the quarter named after his grandfather, the Müeyyedzâde Mehmed Efendi quarter, and died around 975 (1567-68). He was a scholar, accomplished, a man of letters and a poet. His son Mehmed İlmî Efendi, of molla rank, died in 1000 (1591-92) after being dismissed from the judgeship of Bursa.

The two entries agree in outline and differ in detail: one has him die after his dismissal from Belgrade, the other in Galata around 975. The more important difference concerns his name. In the eleventh volume, in the entries on his father Şemseddîn Ahmed and his mother Ayşe Hâtun, Hüsameddin lists their sons as "Abdülvâsi' and Abdülvahhâb Remzî Efendi", and in his father's entry says that "the descendants of Abdülvahhâb Remzî Efendi remained in Istanbul"; in the entry on his father-in-law Abdürrahîm Efendi he names the son-in-law "Müeyyedzâde Abdülvehhâb Remzî Efendi" and promises that "his biography too will follow". The promised entry, however, appears in the twelfth volume under the heading "Abdülhâdî Remzî". The last paragraph of that same entry describes Remzî's brother-in-law, Abdülhâdî Çelebi, Abdürrahîm Efendi's son who died young in 930. One may suspect that the brother-in-law's name passed to the son-in-law; this is a guess. The confusion is fed by the repetition of the same names from generation to generation in the Müeyyedzâde family.

Kadı Remzî Çelebi in the Tezkires

The sources that knew Remzî in his own time tell another story. Sehî Bey's Heşt Bihişt, completed in 1538, lists "Mevlânâ Remzî" in its eighth class: his name was Muslihuddîn, his birthplace Bursa, and he had served as judge of Gelibolu; he wrote poems in Arabic, Persian and Turkish. Latîfî gives him a place under the heading "Remzî Çelebi" and calls him "from the city of Bursa, of the class of judges, a contemporary of Sultan Selim". Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi and Beyânî are more detailed: his name was Mustafa, and his father was a hace, a wealthy merchant, one of the great traders of Bursa. According to Kınalızâde he became a mülâzım under Seyyid Alizâde, entered the judiciary and served as judge in Galata and other large towns, and died at Sivas in 954 (1547) while judge of Mardin. He was a master of Arabic, a poet whose kasides and ghazals were well known in his day. Gelibolulu Âlî, too, counts "Remzî Efendi of Bursa" as the "şehlevend-i ercümend", the most handsome and esteemed, of the judges; he writes that Remzî devoted his time to studying Arabic kasides and the hours left over from worship to reading fine books, and that in all his life he never hurt anyone by hand or tongue.

What connects this judge of Bursa with Amasya is his son. In the entry on Mehmed Efendi, who wrote under the pen name "İlmî", Kınalızâde introduces him as "Remzîzâde" and says that his father was "Kâdî Remzî Çelebi, whose biography is given under the letter Râ"; in other words, İlmî's father is the Mustafa Remzî of Bursa described under the letter Râ of his own tezkire. In the same sentence İlmî is also linked with Müeyyedzâde Hacı Efendi. Âşık Çelebi's Meşâirü'ş-şuarâ makes the connection clearer: İlmî is "Mehmed Çelebi, son of the late Remzî Çelebi"; he is the "nebîre", a descendant in the grandchild line, of Sheikh Yavsî, and the "hafîd", the grandson, of "Müeyyedzâde Hacı Efendi". Hüsameddin writes that Abdürrahîm Efendi was called "Hacı Çelebi" because of his pilgrimage in 908 and that he was the son-in-law of İskilipli Muhyiddîn Mehmed Efendi, the sheikh known as Şeyh Yavsî, father of Ebüssuûd Efendi. Âşık Çelebi's own mother also came from the Müeyyedzâde family; the tezkire writer notes that there was "close kinship" between himself and İlmî.

Âşık Çelebi mentions Remzî Çelebi in other entries as well. While judge of Galata he noticed the talent of a young man called Yahyâ, nicknamed "Sütlü Pirinç" (rice pudding), that is "İlmî the Second", and took him on as clerk of his court. The poet Şânî, who lived in the Galata quarter, spent some time in the service of "the late Remzî Çelebi" and benefited from his guidance. In the entry on Sûzî Çelebi of Prizren, Remzî appears as a schoolfellow of Sûzî's madrasa years, in the class attended also by Sûzî's elder brother Nehârî; the two lost their hearts to Ömer Çelebi, son of Kadı Mahmud. When Ömer Çelebi died young, Remzî found a cure for his grief in study, while Sûzî left the madrasa. The tezkire writer also introduces the poet Ehlî, Mehmed, son of Kadı Tayyib Efendi of Amasya, as "the grandson of Kadı Remzî and the son of Molla İlmî's sister". Accordingly, one of Remzî's daughters married into the Tayyibzâde family.

The State of the Sources

The two accounts have obvious points in common: the judgeship of Galata, marriage to the daughter of Müeyyedzâde Abdürrahîm Efendi, and the poet son İlmî. These point to a single person. Where they part is the question of who this person was. The tezkires make him a merchant's son from Bursa, give his name as Mustafa (Muslihuddîn in Sehî) and place his death in 954. Hüsameddin records him as a man of Amasya of the Müeyyedzâde line, son of the judge Şemseddîn Ahmed, named Abdülhâdî or Abdülvehhâb, and connects his death with the year 975 or with his dismissal from Belgrade. Neither of Hüsameddin's entries cites a source.

The dates support the two accounts in different ways. Sûzî Çelebi, the schoolfellow mentioned by Âşık Çelebi, was born between 1455 and 1465 according to the TDV encyclopedia and died in 931 (1524); if Remzî studied in the same class, he must have been born in the second half of the fifteenth century, and a death in 954 fits that generation. That Âşık Çelebi, in the tezkire he completed in 976 (1568-69), always calls Remzî "the late" is compatible with both dates. On the other hand, being the husband of a daughter of Abdürrahîm Efendi, born in 873 (1469), the father of a son who died in 1000, and a young man who finished his studies and went to Istanbul in 921 suits the younger man drawn by Hüsameddin. The tezkires are testimonies close to his lifetime, and Âşık Çelebi knew the family from within; Hüsameddin, for his part, may have had family records unknown to us. No firm conclusion can be reached with the sources available. That Sehî's Muslihuddîn and Kınalızâde's Mustafa are the same man is also an inference; Muslihuddîn is a common honorific for men named Mustafa, and the judge from Bursa described by both tezkire writers lived in the same years.

Connection with Amasya

According to Hüsameddin, Remzî was a man of Amasya who was born and educated there and went to Istanbul in 921. According to the tezkires he was from Bursa and his connection with Amasya came through marriage: his wife was a daughter of the Müeyyedzâdes, the best-known scholarly family of Amasya, and his daughter married into the Tayyibzâdes of Amasya. Hüsameddin's record and the place of his family in Amasya put him among the poets of Amasya; where he was born remains a question the sources cannot settle.

Family

If the lineage drawn by Hüsameddin is correct, Remzî grew up in a household very close to the Amasya court of Prince Ahmed. His father Şemseddîn Ahmed Efendi became chief judge of Amasya and adviser to the prince in 912 (1506-07), was counted the first of the prince's companions known as the "Şems"es, wrote poetry under the pen name "Şems", and died in 918 (1512) amid the fear caused by the accession of Selim I. His mother Zeyneb Hâtun (named Ayşe Hâtun in her husband's entry) learned the sciences from her husband according to Hüsameddin, became a companion to the ladies of the prince's harem and died around 923 (1517). His father-in-law Sheikh Abdürrahîm Efendi guided disciples for eighteen years in the Halveti and Bayrami manner in the zaviye in the Sultanselim district of Istanbul and died in 944 (1537-38). Remzî's wife was therefore the sister of Şeyhülislam Abdülkâdir Şeyhî Efendi and the niece of Ebüssuûd Efendi.

His son Mehmed İlmî was a poet like his father. Âşık Çelebi shows him, at the time the tezkire was written, as professor at the Hanceriyye madrasa in Bursa with forty akçes and writes that he composed mostly in Persian; Kınalızâde mentions him as professor at the Sultan Süleyman madrasa in Edirne and quotes Turkish and Persian couplets of his. According to Hüsameddin he died in 1000 (1591-92) after being dismissed from the judgeship of Bursa. Remzî's daughter's son Ehlî was also a judge and poet.

Poetry

No divan of Remzî is known. Neither of Hüsameddin's entries quotes a couplet of his. The poems recorded as his are found in the tezkires that describe Kadı Remzî of Bursa: Kınalızâde gives seven couplets, Gelibolulu Âlî a four-couplet fragment of a ghazal, another two-couplet fragment and an opening couplet, Latîfî three couplets, Beyânî four couplets and Sehî a three-couplet ghazal fragment. In the manuscript of Âşık Çelebi's tezkire designated F, a couplet is also recorded which Remzî Çelebi composed as an "answer" to a couplet of Hayâlî. The best known of all is the opening couplet that Latîfî praises as "the product of his own imagination": "Şekkeristândur bu meclis âl ṭûṭîdür şarâb / Âşiyândur ṭut ki sâġar beyżâdur gûyâ ḥabâb". The gathering is a sugar field, the red wine a parrot, the cup a nest, and the bubble on the wine the egg in that nest.

The texts that have come down are these: the ghazal fragment beginning "Ölürüz içmeyince bir dem mey" (Kınalızâde and Âlî), the opening couplet "Şekkeristândur bu meclis" (Latîfî, Kınalızâde, Beyânî, Âlî), the opening couplet "Didiler sakın seni tutar cefâsı taşına" (Kınalızâde, Beyânî), two couplets, including the signature couplet, of the ghazal "Tur salın nâz ile ey serv-i gül-endâmum benüm" and the couplet "Safâ-hâtır eyleyüp benüm ey seng-dil gönlüm" (Kınalızâde), two couplets of the ghazal "Ele Ferhâd ile bir yirden alup baş ikimüz" (Âlî), the opening couplets "Şekkerîn leblerinüñ yâdına inmiş hasenâ" and "Sunup göñlüm disem yâra bir elma gibi el vardı" (Latîfî), the couplet "Seni seyr içün ağyâra eger bu vech ile vara" (manuscript F of Âşık Çelebi), and the ghazal fragment "Aramuzda olan hicrân efendi sanma bendendür" given by Sehî. All these poems were recorded under the name of Remzî of Bursa, at the other end of the identity debate; that he is the same man as Hüsameddin's Abdülhâdî is an assumption resting on the shared points set out above.

Chronology

912 (1506-07): His father Şemseddîn Ahmed Efendi becomes chief judge of Amasya and companion of Prince Ahmed.

918 (1512): His father dies after the accession of Selim I.

921 (1515): According to Hüsameddin he completes his studies, goes to Istanbul, stays in Abdürrahîm Efendi's zaviye and becomes his son-in-law.

944 (1537-38): His father-in-law Sheikh Abdürrahîm Efendi dies.

954 (1547): According to Kınalızâde and Beyânî he dies at Sivas while judge of Mardin.

Around 975 (1567-68): According to the twelfth volume of Hüsameddin he dies in Galata.

1000 (1591-92): His son Mehmed İlmî Efendi dies after his dismissal from the judgeship of Bursa.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Official sources

Online sources