When Prince Mustafa came to Amasya as governor of the sanjak, it was his verse and his handwriting that opened the door of the prince's close circle to Sâfî Ahmed Çelebi, an Amasya scribe and calligrapher; he thus joined the men the prince trusted. His father had been a scholar who served as judge; Sâfî studied learning and letters and entered the scribal profession. According to Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar he died after Prince Mustafa was put to death in Shawwal 960 (September-October 1553). Called "edîb, şâir, hattât", man of letters, poet and calligrapher, Sâfî has left no surviving example of his verse.

His Record in Amasya Tarihi

Hüsameddin's entry Sâfî Ahmed Çelebi-Muîdzâde reads in full:

Amasyalıdır. Ulemâ-yı kudâtdan Osmân Efendi'nin oğludur. Tahsîl-i ilm ü edeb edib kâtiblerden oldu. Şehzâde Sultân Mustafa, Amasya'ya vâlî olarak geldikde müşârün-ileyhe şiiri ve yazısıyla çatıp ümenâdan oldu. 960 şevvâlinde şehzâdenin şehâdetinden sonra vefât etdi. Edîb, şâir, hattât idi.

The entry in today's English: a native of Amasya, whose father Osmân Efendi was one of the scholars who served as judges. He studied learning and letters and became one of the scribes. When Prince Sultan Mustafa came to Amasya as governor, he attached himself to him through his poetry and his writing and became one of his trusted men. He died after the prince's martyrdom in the month of Shawwal 960. He was a man of letters, a poet and a calligrapher.

Life

The life the entry describes is tightly bound to Prince Mustafa's years in Amasya. Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa), eldest son of Süleyman the Magnificent, was transferred from Manisa to the sanjak of Amasya in 1541 according to the date on which most studies agree, or in 1538 according to some sources, and remained there until the autumn of 1553, when he was killed in his father's tent near Konya Ereğlisi during the campaign against Iran. In these years Sâfî Ahmed Çelebi, in Hüsameddin's words, "şiiri ve yazısıyla çatıp", latched on to the prince through his poetry and his hand, and became one of his "ümenâ". Ümenâ is the plural of emin and refers to the trustworthy officials to whom a sanjak governor entrusted his financial and administrative affairs. The entry does not say what work Sâfî did; his training as a scribe and his distinction as a calligrapher suggest a post connected with the written business of the prince's council.

Osmân Efendi, the father, belonged to those Hüsameddin calls "ulemâ-yı kudât", scholars from the judicial profession. The family name "Muîdzâde" probably comes from an ancestor who served in a madrasa as muîd, an assistant to the teacher. The same name is borne by Sâlim Ömer Çelebi, who taught the pages of the prince's palace and after the prince's death was sent out of Amasya as judge of Erzincan. Sâlim's father was Abdurrahmân Çelebi; whether the two men were related Hüsameddin does not say. Still, two men bearing the same family name served the same prince in the same years; perhaps the Muîdzâdes' ties to this court did not rest on a single person.

The date of his death is uncertain. Hüsameddin says "960 şevvâlinde şehzâdenin şehâdetinden sonra vefât etdi". The sentence tells us that Sâfî died after the prince, but not how long after. With the prince's death his household broke up, and, as the case of Sâlim Ömer Çelebi shows, some of his men were removed from Amasya. One senses that Sâfî did not live long after this dispersal, but that is only a reading.

Among Prince Mustafa's Scribe-Poets

Sâfî was one of the scribe-poets who gathered around Prince Mustafa in Amasya. Hüsameddin records other men of Amasya who entered the prince's service in the same years. One of them, Refâhî Süleyman Çelebi, made his name "şi'r u kitâbetle", through poetry and scribal work, and joined the prince's companions; when the prince was killed he occupied himself with the administration of his family's endowment, and he died around 980 (1572-73). Sâfî's record follows the same pattern: his poetry and his hand brought him to the prince, and the prince's death shaped his life. The prince himself wrote poetry under the pen name Muhlisî, and Muhlisî's poems are foremost among the texts that survive from this circle.

Namesakes

The pen name Sâfî appears in another poet connected with Amasya. Cezerî Kâsım Paşa, who served as treasurer to Bayezid II during his years as prince in Amasya and later became chancellor and vizier, used the pen name Sâfî in his poems, and his divan has been published. Since Kâsım Paşa died around 887 (1482), he belongs some seventy years before Ahmed Çelebi. The pen name lived on in Amasya in later centuries too: Sâfî Hüseyin Çelebi, Mesnevî reciter of the Mevlevî lodge, who died in 1143 (1730-31), was also a Sâfî. If a poem signed "Sâfî" turns up in an anthology, it can be credited to Ahmed Çelebi only if it carries some sign pointing to the prince or to Amasya.

Poetry

Hüsameddin mentions Sâfî's poetry only as the means by which he drew close to the prince, and gives not a single couplet. His poems have not been found; his name does appear in Metin Hakverdioğlu's list of the people Hüsameddin calls poets. Beyond the meaning of the pen name, "pure, unmixed", there is no clue to his verse.

Chronology

1538 or 948 (1541): Prince Mustafa becomes governor of the sanjak of Amasya; Sâfî enters his service in these years.

Shawwal 960 (September-October 1553): Prince Mustafa is put to death; Sâfî dies at some point after this date.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources