When Murad IV halted at Amasya in 1635 on his way back from the Revan campaign, the madrasa teacher and poet who presented the sultan with a kaside (qasida) and with his own Kasîde-i Bürde Şerhi, a commentary on the Burda, was Hâcezâde Remzî Abdullah Efendi. His father was Kâdızâde Mehmed İlmî Efendi, known as "Küçük Hâce"; Remzî taught for some thirty years, held the chair at most of Amasya's madrasas, and died in Zilhicce 1063 (October-November 1653) while teaching at the Hâtuniye madrasa in Tokat. According to Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar he could write verse in Arabic, Persian and Turkish. Some of his poems came into the historian's hands, but they burned together with his own books.

Life

The entry Hüsameddin devoted to him in the tenth volume, Remzî Abdullah Efendi-Hâcezâde, is given below:

Amasyalıdır. "Küçük Hâce" demekle meşhûr fuzalâdan Kâdızâde Mehmed İlmî Efendi bin Mustafa Efendi'nin mahdûmudur. Pederinden ve Yağmurköylü İsmâ'îl ve Gürcü İmâm el-Hâc Hâfız Hasan Efendilerden ikmâl-i tahsîl edib ders-i âm ve Hâfız Hasan Efendi'ye dâmâd oldu. Otuz yıl kadar tedrîs-i ulûm ederek fevka'l-âde iştihâr edib Amasya medreselerinin çoğuna müderris oldu. Bu sûretle devr-i medâris ederek 1061'de Hâtuniyye-i Tokat müderrisi olduğu hâlde 1063 senesi zilhiccesinde vefât etdi. Fâzıl, muhakkik, ulûm-ı edebiyyede mâhir, elsine-i selâsede tanzîm-i eş'âra kâdir, şâir, belîğ idi. Hayli eş'ârı ve hâssaten Amasya'da Sultân Murâd'a takdîm etdiği kasîdesi elde edilmişdi. Ma'alesef yandı. Mahdûmları şu'arâdan Şevkî Mehmed Efendi ile Şeyhü'l-kurrâ Hâfız Abdurrahmân Efendi'dir. Bunun mahdûmu el-Hâc Hasan Efendi de ulemâdan idi.

Rendered into modern English: He came from Amasya. His father was Kâdızâde Mehmed İlmî Efendi (whose father was Mustafa Efendi), one of the learned men, known as "Küçük Hâce". He completed his studies with his father, with İsmâil Efendi of Yağmurköy and with the Georgian imam Hacı Hâfız Hasan Efendi, became a ders-i âm (a licensed public teacher) and married Hâfız Hasan Efendi's daughter. He taught for about thirty years, won wide renown and held the chair at most of the madrasas of Amasya. Rising through the madrasas in this way, he became professor of the Hâtuniye madrasa in Tokat in 1061 and died in that post in Zilhicce 1063. He was a virtuous and searching scholar, a master of the literary sciences, able to compose verse in three languages (Arabic, Persian, Turkish), an eloquent poet. Many of his poems, above all the kaside he presented to Sultan Murad in Amasya, had come into my hands; sadly they burned. His sons were Şevkî Mehmed Efendi, one of the poets, and Hâfız Abdurrahman Efendi, chief of the Qur'an reciters. The latter's son Hacı Hasan Efendi was also a scholar.

No year of birth is given in the entry. A teacher who went to Tokat in 1061 (1650-51) and died there after thirty years of teaching was presumably holding madrasa chairs in Amasya from the early 1620s; this is a calculation and rests on no document. His father-in-law, the Georgian imam Hâfız Hasan Efendi, was a teacher who in the same years also trained other Amasya scholars, among them Topçuzâde Hüseyin Efendi.

Sultan Murad in Amasya

The event that carries Remzî's name beyond his own entry is Murad IV's return from the Revan campaign. In the fourth volume Hüsameddin tells the story of the visit from a campaign diary kept by the palace pages of the Enderun, from a cihadnâme in the Lâleli Library and from the lost tezkire of Abdî Efendi. In the last ten days of Cemâziyelâhir 1045 (early December 1635) the sultan left İnepazarı in the late afternoon, rested at Hoca Ahmed Paşa's pavilion at Çalan Köprübaşı, entered the city after midnight and lodged in the same pasha's mansion opposite the Sultan Bayezid Mosque. The next day the townspeople offered him a horse, Amasya cloth and morocco leather; the sultan visited the tombs and performed the afternoon prayer in the Sultan Bayezid Mosque. According to Hüsameddin it was then that "Hocazâde Abdullah Remzî Efendi, one of the scholars and poets of Amasya", presented "a kaside he had composed and the Kasîde-i Bürde Şerhi he had written", while Şeyhzâde Abdî Efendi presented a panegyric of his own, and both were rewarded with favours and gifts. The sultan left the city on Tuesday morning.

The Kasîde-i Bürde is the famous Arabic poem in praise of the Prophet by the Egyptian poet al-Busiri; it was much read and much commented on in Ottoman madrasas. That Remzî wrote a commentary on the Burda gives concrete form to the entry's praise of him as "able to compose verse in three languages" and "a master of the literary sciences". No information could be found on whether a copy of the commentary survives in any library today. The text of the kaside, too, was lost, in Hüsameddin's words, among his own burned books.

Two years later a new chair opened for Remzî. When Grand Vizier Bayram Paşa came to Amasya in Zilkade 1046 (April 1637), he had the Atabey madrasa near the Sığırpazarı rebuilt with a fountain in its courtyard and had its professorship given to "Küçük Hoca Mehmed Efendizâde Abdullah Remzî Efendi, one of the renowned men of letters and learning". The annals also record his death among the events of 1063, together with the calligrapher Abdülcelîl Efendi and Zemânzâde Ali Efendi, professor of the Yörgüç Paşa madrasa, who died the same year.

Family and Students

Remzî belonged to the second generation of the Hâcezâde family, which Hüsameddin follows through thirty-one entries. The eldest son of his father Mehmed İlmî Efendi was Ahmed Efendi, who wrote under the pen name Rahmî; the third son, Abdüllatîf Efendi, became preacher of the Fethiye Mosque and lecturer at the Pervâne Bey Mosque. Remzî's own entry names two sons: the poet Şevkî Mehmed Efendi and Hâfız Abdurrahman Efendi, chief of the reciters. The entry in the eighth volume, however, also counts as his son the poet Hâmid Ahmed Efendi, who rose from the judgeship of Trabzon to the rank of devriye molla. Şevkî's entry gives his father as "Mehmed İlmî Efendi bin Abdullah Remzî Efendi", thus swapping father and grandfather; since the entries for Remzî and Hâmid agree with each other, the correct order must be Mehmed İlmî, Remzî and Şevkî.

Two poets are known by name among those Remzî trained. Harîmî Abdullah Çelebi of Merzifon learned literature and the secretary's craft "from Hâcezâde Abdullah Remzî Efendi", went to Istanbul and died young in 1066. Hâfız Abdullah Çelebi, chief muezzin of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque, was formed in his "company" and died after the earthquake of 1079. When Hüsameddin lists in the fourth volume the literary poets of seventeenth-century Amasya as Kelâmî, Türâbî, Abdî, Remzî, Câmî, Zühdî, Şevkî, Hıfzî and Dâniş, the Remzî of that series, standing beside Abdî and Şevkî, is most probably he.

Poetry

None of Remzî Abdullah Efendi's poems has come down to us. The poems in Hüsameddin's possession and the kaside presented to Murad IV burned, and the entry quotes not a single couplet. Abdî Efendi's tezkire of the Amasya poets of the years 1000-1081 would have been the nearest source to know Remzî; that tezkire is lost as well and survives only in fragments in Hüsameddin's book. His pen name comes from "remz" and describes one who speaks by signs and symbols. Other poets used it in the same centuries; in Amasya it had been borne before him by Grand Vizier Pîrî Mehmed Paşa, and in the eighteenth century the judge Topçuzâde Ali Efendi took it as well.

Chronology

1045 Cemâziyelâhir (early December 1635): Murad IV halts at Amasya; Remzî presents him with a kaside and his commentary on the Burda.

1046 Zilkade (March-April 1637): Grand Vizier Bayram Paşa rebuilds the Atabey madrasa and has its chair given to Remzî.

1061 (1650-51): He becomes professor of the Hâtuniye madrasa in Tokat.

1063 Zilhicce (October-November 1653): He dies as professor of the Hâtuniye.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources