Sâbâyî Ahmed Çelebi, who competed in gatherings with the "poets of the pen", the divan poets who wrote in quantitative metre, is one of the very few men of Amasya whom Hüsameddin describes as a "saz poet", a poet of the long-necked lute. His working life, by contrast, lay far from the saz: he passed from the cavalry into the tax offices and from there to a voyvodalık, a revenue governorship, and was remembered as a witty, agreeable talker. He died around 1068 (1657-58). His family was known in the city by the nickname "Yakası Yelli".

Life

All of this fits into a few lines of Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi:

Sadr-ı esbak Nasûh Paşa Ağalarından ve dergâh-ı âlî kapıcıbaşılarından "Yakası Yelli" demekle meşhûr Amasyalı Ali Ağa'nın oğludur. İlim ve edeb, hat ve kitâbet öğrendi. İbtidâ sipâhi olup muhârebâta iştirâk etdi. Sonra Amasya sancağı cizyedârı, Sivas eyâleti cizye kâtibi, Tokat voyvadası ve Amasya beytü'l-mâl emîni olup 1068 sâline doğru vefât etdi. Buna Sabâyî Ahmed Ağa denirdi. Oğulları Ali, Mustafa ağalara "Kafası Tellioğulları" da dendi. Kalem şâirleriyle yarışırdı. Saz şâiri, nekre-gû, hoş sohbet idi. Kurşunlu Mahallesi eşrâfındandı.

Put plainly, the entry says: Son of Ali Ağa of Amasya, known as "Yakası Yelli", one of the aghas of the former grand vizier Nasuh Paşa and one of the head gatekeepers of the imperial palace, he learned scholarship and manners, calligraphy and the scribal art. He first became a sipahi (cavalryman) and took part in campaigns. Later he was collector of the cizye in the sanjak of Amasya, cizye clerk of the province of Sivas, voyvoda of Tokat and trustee of the public treasury (beytülmal emini) in Amasya, and died towards the year 1068. He was called Sabâyî Ahmed Ağa. His sons, Ali and Mustafa Ağa, were also called "the Kafası Telli sons". He competed with the poets of the pen. He was a saz poet, a wit and good company. He was one of the notables of the Kurşunlu quarter.

The entry gives his name in two forms: "Sâbâyî" in the heading, "Sabâyî" in the text. The root of the pen name is probably "sabâ", the morning breeze that brings news of the beloved in divan poetry. That his father's nickname "Yakası Yelli" contains the same word "yel" (wind) suggests that the pen name was chosen as an allusion to the family nickname; this is no more than a guess, and the source offers no such explanation.

Offices

Sâbâyî's career shows, step by step, how a cavalryman in the seventeenth-century Ottoman provinces moved into the financial offices. The cizyedar collected the cizye, the poll tax paid by non-Muslims; the post of cizye clerk of the province of Sivas was the bookkeeping side of the same business. The voyvodalık of Tokat was at that time an office managing the town's tax revenues and public order. The beytülmal emini looked after the property of those who died without heirs and similar claims of the state. All these posts called for literacy, arithmetic and scribal training, which is why the entry stresses at the outset that he "learned calligraphy and the scribal art".

The "former grand vizier Nasuh Paşa" whom his father Ali Ağa served must be the Nasuh Paşa who held the grand vizierate from 1611 to 1614. Hüsameddin leaves the paşa unidentified; the dates, with Ali Ağa's son dying around 1657-58, are consistent with this identification.

The Yakasıtelli Family

Hüsameddin describes one of the later generations of the same family in his sixth volume. Yakasıtellizâde Hacı Ahmed Ağa, a notable of Amasya, is introduced as the son of "el-Hâc Mustafa Ağa bin Ahmed Ağa bin Yakasıtelli Ali Ağa"; his great-grandfather was Ali Ağa, one of Nasuh Paşa's aghas and a head gatekeeper of the palace, who was called "kafası telli" and "yakası yelli". In this pedigree, Ali Ağa's son Ahmed must be Sâbâyî Ahmed Çelebi, and Ahmed's son Mustafa must be Sâbâyî's son Mustafa Ağa. Hacı Ahmed Ağa, who lived in the Üçler quarter, grew rich from tax farming, served several times as city steward and died in 1153 (1740-41), would then be Sâbâyî's grandson.

The two entries spell the nickname differently: in Sâbâyî's entry the father is "Yakası Yelli" and the sons are "the Kafası Telli sons", while the later entry makes the family name "Yakasıtelli" and quotes the two phrases together. What the popular saying "kafası telli, yakası yelli" referred to is not known. Hacı Ahmed Ağa was himself called "Yeşilli" and his sons "the Yeşillizâdes", which shows the family acquiring a new nickname in each generation.

Poetry

A saz poet's words lived mostly within the gathering, passing from mouth to mouth; unless they were written down in a cönk or a miscellany, they were lost. Not one of Sâbâyî's poems has been traced: Hüsameddin writes that he made witty remarks and competed with the poets of the pen, but he quotes not a single quatrain or couplet. Metin Hakverdioğlu, too, singles him out with the label "saz poet" in his list drawn from Amasya Tarihi.

A finance official who composed both to the saz and with the pen was evidently trying to hold his own in both traditions at the gatherings. Sâbâyî's name thus shows that, by the middle of the seventeenth century, Amasya's minstrel tradition could find its way into the social life of a state official as well.

Chronology

1611-1614: Grand vizierate of Nasuh Paşa, whose agha his father Ali Ağa was (the identification is conjectural).

Around 1068 (1657-58): Sâbâyî Ahmed Çelebi dies.

1153 (1740-41): Yakasıtellizâde Hacı Ahmed Ağa, apparently his grandson, dies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources