Among the witnesses to a deed of sale dated 875 (1470-71) stands Sa'dullah Çelebi, with the title "ed-defterî" after his name: he was treasurer (defterdar) to Şehzade Bayezid, the future Bayezid II, while the prince governed the sanjak of Amasya, a man of accounts who had come up through the judiciary. That he wrote verse we learn only from the word "şâir" in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's brief entry; no other trace of it survives. His line went back to Bedreddîn Mahmûd Çelebi, the chief judge who built a dervish lodge and soup kitchen in the İçerişehir quarter at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and beyond him to İmâdeddîn Ömer Çelebi, the ancestor behind the family name "İmâdzâde". The only other date known from his life is 878 (1473-74). Tâcî Bey, one of the masters of divan poetry from Amasya, is recorded as his son-in-law.

His Entry in the Amasya Tarihi

Hüsameddin lists him in the tenth volume, among several men of Amasya who bore the same name, under the heading "Sa'dullah Çelebi-İmâdzâde":

Amasyalıdır. İçerişehir'de tekke ve imâreti olan Bedreddîn Mahmûd Çelebi evlâdından Hacı Mahmûd Çelebi bin Ahmed Çelebi bin Bedreddîn Mahmûd Çelebi bin Mü'eyyededdîn Mehmed Çelebi bin İmâdeddîn Ömer Çelebi mahdûmudur. Amasya ulemâsından tahsîl-i ulûm ederek müderris, kadı ve ba'dehû Amasya vâlîsi olan Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî defterdârı oldu. 875'de bir mübâya'a hüccetinde şâhid olarak "Mevlânâ Sa'dullâh bin Hacı Mahmûd ed-defterî" diye görüldü. 878'de ma'zûl veya merhûm oldu. Ulemâdan muhâsib, şâir, mü'eddeb bir zât idi. Meşhûr Tâcî Bey, (Tâceddîn Paşa) bunun dâmâdıdır.

Rendered into modern English: He is from Amasya. He belongs to the descendants of Bedreddîn Mahmûd Çelebi, who had a lodge and soup kitchen in İçerişehir; his father was Hacı Mahmûd Çelebi, his grandfather Ahmed Çelebi, whose father was Bedreddîn Mahmûd Çelebi, whose father was Müeyyededdîn Mehmed Çelebi, whose father in turn was İmâdeddîn Ömer Çelebi. He studied under the scholars of Amasya and became a madrasa teacher, a judge, and later treasurer to Sultan Bayezid II, who was then governor of Amasya. In 875 he appears as a witness in a deed of sale, that is, a purchase document drawn up before the judge, under the name "Mevlânâ Sa'dullâh bin Hacı Mahmûd ed-defterî". In 878 he was either dismissed or died. He was a learned man, versed in accounts, a poet and a man of good breeding. The famous Tâcî Bey (Tâceddîn Paşa) is his son-in-law.

His Family

The long chain of names in the entry introduces the family more than the man himself. Bedreddîn Mahmûd Çelebi, in the middle of the chain, was a son of the chief judge Müeyyedüddîn Mehmed, builder of the fountain opposite the Tomb of Halfet Gâzi. On his father's death he became chief judge of Amasya, spent some years without office, and after being dismissed from the judgeship of Tokat as well, returned to Amasya and built a lodge and a soup kitchen in İçerişehir. In 807 he endowed his property to these charitable foundations; he died in Receb 808 (January 1406) and was buried in the Tomb of the Judges. In the same entry Hüsameddin notes that the trusteeship of the endowment passed to one branch of the house, which came to be called the "Çakal Kadızâdeler", or simply the "Çakallar". Bedreddîn Mahmûd's wife, Selâmet Hatun of the Gümüşlüzâde family, also attached to this lodge the property she had inherited from her father and her husband.

Sa'dullah Çelebi was a great-grandson of Bedreddîn Mahmûd Çelebi. The entry tells us nothing more about his father Hacı Mahmûd Çelebi or his grandfather Ahmed Çelebi. Judging, teaching and service in the council seem to have passed down the generations like a family trade: he followed the same road, teaching in a madrasa, sitting as a judge, and finally moving to the financial business of the prince's council.

Two of his namesakes are listed on the same page of the book. One is Sa'dullah Çelebi-Çakalzâde, son of Hacı Bedreddîn Mahmûd Çelebi, known as "Çakal Kadı"; he became a companion of Şehzade Ahmed and was exiled to Tokat in 918 (1512). The other is Ahî Sa'deddinzâde Sa'dullah Çelebi, who rose in the judiciary and died around 890 (1485). Çakalzâde and İmâdzâde belonged to two different branches of the same family, and because the name Bedreddîn Mahmûd recurs among the ancestors of both, the two are easily confused in the records; Hüsameddin keeps them in separate entries.

Treasurer to Bayezid

Şehzade Bayezid was sent to the sanjak of Amasya as a child in 1454 and remained there until he ascended the throne in 1481. In a prince's sanjak the treasurer kept the accounts of the prince's private revenues and the expenses of his council, and was responsible for the reckoning of taxes and revenue farms. When Sa'dullah Çelebi took up the post is not known. The only documentary trace Hüsameddin had was a deed of sale dated 875, in which Sa'dullah Çelebi appears among the witnesses with "ed-defterî", "the treasurer", added to his name. That he carried the title in his signature suggests that the office was still his in 1470-71.

The phrase Hüsameddin uses for the year 878, "ma'zûl veya merhûm", "dismissed or deceased", shows plainly that the author himself was unsure. Either he lost his post that year or he died. The disappearance of his name from the documents after this date explains why the two possibilities stand side by side.

His Son-in-Law Tâcî Bey

The last sentence of the entry ties Sa'dullah Çelebi to a well-known literary family of Amasya. Tâceddîn İbrâhim Paşa, called "the famous Tâcî Bey", was the father of Câfer Çelebi and Sa'dî Çelebi, and he too served as treasurer in Bayezid's council at Amasya. Hüsameddin's record in the eighth volume, however, says that Tâcî Bey married the daughter of Murâd Beyzâde Câfer Bey, one of the emirs of Amasya. Whether the two records point to two separate marriages or arise from a confusion cannot be determined from the sources; what is known about Tâcî Bey is not enough to settle the question either. Father-in-law and son-in-law holding the same post in the same prince's council remains a curious coincidence; Hüsameddin says nothing of one handing it over to the other.

His Poetry

"Muhâsib, şâir, mü'eddeb": of the three qualities Hüsameddin lists, the middle one is the only evidence that he had anything to do with poetry. Sa'dullah Çelebi's poems have not survived; the entry contains not a single couplet and gives no pen name. Without a pen name there is no way even to search the anthologies for verse of his recorded under another name. The clerks and treasurers who wrote poetry in Bayezid's council at Amasya were not few; Sa'dullah Çelebi is one of the members of that circle whose name has come down to us while their words have not.

Chronology

808 (1406): His ancestor Bedreddîn Mahmûd Çelebi dies.

875 (1470-71): He appears as a witness in a deed of sale under the name "Mevlânâ Sa'dullâh bin Hacı Mahmûd ed-defterî".

878 (1473-74): He is dismissed from office or dies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources