Pîrî Mehmed Pasha was grand vizier to Selim I (Selim the Grim) and, in the first years of his reign, to Süleyman the Magnificent; in his poems he used the pen name (mahlas) Remzî and at times his own name. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar writes in Amasya Tarihi that he was born around 873 in the Temennâ quarter of Amasya, and he takes particular note that the three men in Selim's saying "among the statesmen I could find only three" were all from Amasya. The sixteenth-century biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire), on the other hand, call him a man of Konya or of Karaman. The pasha is said to have had a small collection of poems (divançe), but it has not survived; a few fragments of ghazals, one opening couplet and one couplet, quoted by the tezkires and by Hüsameddin, are all that remains of Remzî's poetry. Both of Hüsameddin's entries on the pasha are published on the site: Pîri Mehmed Paşa-Cemâlîzâde and Remzî Mehmed Pîrî Paşa-Cemâlîzâde.

Hüsameddin's Record

In the "pe" section of the seventh volume Hüsameddin gives the pasha fifteen pages. The opening of the biography brings the family from Konya to Amasya:

Pîri Mehmed Paşa-Cemâlîzâde Amasyalıdır. Kuyûd-i vakfiye idâresinde müseccel olan vakfiyelerinde mestûr olduğu üzere ulemâdan Muhyiddîn Mehmed bin Ahmed bin Mahmûd bin Cemâleddîn Mehmed Aksarâyî mahdûmudur. Pederi Konya'da 871'de vefât eden Mevlânâ Nûreddîn Hamza-i Karâmânî'nin tilmîz ve dâmâdıdır. Bilâd-ı Karâmâniyye'nin Fâtîh Sultân Mehmed tarafından zabt ü istilâsı üzerine Aksaray ve Konya halkından bir kısm-ı mühimmi tehcîre tâbi' tutulmuşdu. Sadr-ı a'zam Mahmûd Paşa, bu halkı tehcîr etdiği esnâda 871'de peder ve vâlidesi Âyşe Hâtun Konya'dan kaldırılıp Amasya'ya gönderilmiş ve Temennâ Mahallesi'ne yerleştirilmiş idi. Pîri Mehmed Paşa, Amasya'nın Temennâ Mahallesi'nde takrîben 873 senesi hudûdunda doğdu.

In English: Pîrî Mehmed Pasha Cemâlîzâde is from Amasya. As written in his deeds of endowment registered with the office of pious endowments, he is the son of Muhyiddin Mehmed bin Ahmed bin Mahmud bin Cemâleddin Mehmed Aksarâyî, one of the learned. His father was the pupil and son-in-law of Mevlânâ Nûreddin Hamza-i Karamânî, who died in Konya in 871. When the land of Karaman was conquered by Mehmed II (the Conqueror), a considerable part of the population of Aksaray and Konya had been subjected to deportation. While the grand vizier Mahmud Pasha was deporting these people in 871, the pasha's father and his mother Âişe Hatun were also removed from Konya, sent to Amasya and settled in the Temennâ quarter. Pîrî Mehmed Pasha was born in the Temennâ quarter of Amasya around the year 873.

Towards the end of the entry Hüsameddin gives his judgement on the pasha in a long string of attributes and places his poetry within it:

Pîrî Mehmed Paşa, pek fâzıl, muhakkik, âkil, mehîb, kâmil, müdebbir, müstakîm, afîf, bütün kavânîn ve nizâmât-ı devlete vâkıf, nizâmü'l-mülk ü saltanât, kavvâm-ı dîn ü devlet, şâir, edîb, Felâtun-meşreb bir racul-i siyâsî idi.

That is, the pasha was a statesman of great learning, a researcher, wise, imposing, mature, prudent, upright and chaste, who knew all the laws and regulations of the state, kept the order of the realm and the sultanate, was a pillar of religion and state, a poet, a man of letters, of a Platonic disposition. Hüsameddin says that for this biography he drew on official documents, the Islamic court registers and papers bearing the pasha's signature, whereas the other biographers wrote what they had heard. In the tenth volume the pasha is mentioned again under the pen name Remzî; there it is repeated that he was the son of Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi, "who came from Karaman and settled in Amasya", and the reader is referred back to the seventh volume.

Life

In Hüsameddin's account Pîrî Mehmed studied in Amasya with Karamânîzâde Seyyideddin Ahmed, Şerefeddin İdris Çelebi and Cemâlîzâde Kıvâmeddin Kâsım Efendi, and learned calligraphy from the famous calligrapher Abdullah Efendi. In 894 he was clerk of the Amasya court; in 896, when he was dismissed from his clerkship in the disturbance in the city that Hüsameddin calls "the circumcision feast riot", he went to İstanbul, completed his studies there with Molla Kestel, Hacı Hasanzâde and Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi of Amasya, and became a madrasa professor (müderris). He was the son-in-law of Seydî Ömer Çelebi of Amasya, one of the intimates of Bayezid II; when his father-in-law fell from favour in 901, he too was removed from İstanbul with the judgeship of Silivri. Then came the judgeships of Siroz and Galata, the trusteeship of the endowments of Mehmed II, and the treasurerships (defterdar) of Anatolia and Rumelia. According to Hüsameddin it was the honesty and skill in accounts he showed when the annual accounts of the Conqueror's endowments were examined in 909 that carried him to the treasury.

Made chief treasurer on the accession of Selim I, Pîrî Mehmed was sent to Amasya to prepare the Persian campaign and became a vizier after Çaldıran. Yusuf Küçükdağ's article in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi writes that his advice at Çaldıran to give battle at once was accepted, and that he was appointed vizier on 25 Şâban 920 (15 October 1514). Hüsameddin, however, says that the vizierate was conferred in Amasya on 23 Şevval of the year 920. The army had spent that winter in Amasya, and in Muharrem 921 the janissaries plundered the pasha's house there. Having served as guardian of İstanbul during the Egyptian campaign, the pasha became Selim's grand vizier early in 924 and kept the office for the first three years of Süleyman's reign after Selim's death; he took part in the Belgrade and Rhodes campaigns. In 929 (1523) he was dismissed and withdrew to his farm at Silivri.

His death is told through a rumour. Hüsameddin relates that the grand vizier İbrahim Pasha feared that Pîrî Pasha would be recalled to office and persuaded his son Muhyiddin Mehmed, judge of Edirne, to poison his father; he adds that the pasha cursed his son as he died, and that a year later the son, lying drunk, fell onto a brazier and burned to death. The TDV article records the poisoning story with the words "it is related". The pasha died at Silivri in the autumn of 939 (1532) and was buried in the enclosure of the mosque he had built there. According to Mecdî, the line "Pîrî Paşa'nın mekânın adn ede Hayy Vedûd" composed by Mevlânâ Nazmî gives 939 by the abjad reckoning.

According to Hüsameddin the pasha's foundation in Amasya was a small mosque (mescid) and a school in the Temennâ quarter where he was born. One of his sons-in-law was Müeyyedzâde Abdullah Abdî Efendi of Amasya.

Birthplace and Lineage

The sources give the pasha's home town in three ways. Sehî Bey's Heşt Bihişt calls him "Konevî", of Konya; in some manuscripts recorded in the edition the reading is "he is of Karaman, from the city of Konya". Latîfî says "Karamânî Pîrî Paşa". Küçükdağ's TDV article also writes that he was probably born in Konya in 867 (1463), and notes that he began his madrasa education in Amasya, where his father lived as a Halveti shaykh. Against these, Hüsameddin, relying on the endowment deeds, maintains that the family was deported from Konya to Amasya in 871 and that the pasha was born in Amasya. The two accounts agree that the family was of Karaman origin and that the pasha spent his youth in Amasya; where they part is whether he was born before or after the deportation. This is also the source of the gap between the birth years 867 and 873. Which is correct cannot be settled with the sources at hand.

There is disagreement about the father as well. The TDV article presents the father as Cemâl-i Halvetî, also known as Çelebi Halife, founder of the Cemâliyye branch of the Halvetiyye order. Hüsameddin, however, gives the father's name from the endowment deeds as Muhyiddin Mehmed bin Ahmed, and writes about Çelebi Halife in the eighth volume as a separate entry with a differently ordered lineage. Hüsameddin does not accept the claim that the pasha descended from Abu Bakr; he writes that the endowment deeds clearly show him to be a descendant of Cemâleddin Aksarâyî, but that the lineage reaching back to Abu Bakr has not been proved. Beyânî and Kınalızâde trace this lineage to Abu Bakr through Dâvûd-ı Kayserî.

His Poetry

The tezkire writers mention the pasha's poetry beside his statesmanship. Sehî describes him as a man of pleasant temper, delicate heart and learning and finds the manner of his verse very graceful; Latîfî says that his learning and pure nature extended to poetry as well, and that in the place of the pen name he sometimes used his own name and sometimes Remzî. Beyânî and Kınalızâde give a ghazal (gazel) of his that they call "pür-iştihâr", very famous. In Mecdî's translation of the Şakâyık the pasha's pen name is recorded as Remzî and two couplets of the same ghazal are quoted. Küçükdağ notes that the sources say he gathered his poems in a small divan, but that no such work has come down to us.

Four pieces survive, and each has been given a page of its own in this category. The best known is the ghazal "Şeb-i zülfinde kalanlar zulemât ile yürür", with the refrain (redif) "yürür"; Beyânî gives five of its couplets, Sehî three and Kınalızâde three, and in one manuscript the pen-name couplet begins "Pîriyâ". The other pieces are the two couplets beginning "Mümkin olmaz kim nigâruñ hatt-ı mergûbın görem" quoted by Latîfî, the opening couplet (matla) "Günlesem günden n'ola ey şem'-i bezm-ârâ seni", and the couplet "Didüm görmedüm ey dilber gözüñ gibi güzel gözler", built like an exchange of words with the beloved. Quoting this entry of Latîfî, Hüsameddin gives the two-couplet piece and the matla but leaves out the last couplet.

The pasha's patronage has also passed into literary history. The TDV article counts Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi, Sücûdî of Kalkandelen and Celâlzâde Mustafa Çelebi among those he protected. Kınalızâde's mention, in another entry, of the pasha's gifts to poets while he was treasurer also points to this circle.

Chronology

871 (1466-67): According to Hüsameddin, his family is deported from Konya to Amasya.

Around 867 or 873: His birth (TDV: Konya, probably 867; Hüsameddin: Amasya, around 873).

896 (1491): He leaves his clerkship at the Amasya court.

918 (1512): On the accession of Selim I he becomes chief treasurer.

920 (1514): After the Çaldıran campaign he becomes a vizier.

924 (1518): He becomes grand vizier.

929 (1523): He is dismissed from the grand vizierate and retires to Silivri.

939 (1532): He dies at Silivri.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Official sources

Online sources