The life of Saîd Çelebi, a clerk known for his fine hand, was spent in the judge's court and over the ledgers of the Sultan Bayezid endowment. He descended from Pîr Sun'ullah, one of the great Halvetî figures of Amasya, through a judge, Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi, who was his father. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar calls him "kâtib, şâir, ehl-i dâniş": a clerk, a poet, a man of learning. He died in 958 (1551) while serving as clerk of the Sultan Bayezid endowments. His family was a house that gave fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Amasya such poets as Sun'î, Celîlî and Cenânî; of Saîd Çelebi's own poems, however, not one is known.

His Entry in the Amasya Tarihi

The record in Hüsameddin's tenth volume runs to a few lines:

Amasyalıdır. Debbâğlar şeyhi Pîr Sun'ullâh-ı Halvetî evlâd-ı kirâmından ve kudâtdan Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi'nin mahdûmudur. Tahsîl-i ilm ü kitâbet ederek mahkeme kâtibi oldu. Hayli müddet îfâ-yı kitâbet-i şer'iyye edib sonra Sultân Bâyezîd evkâfı kâtibi olduğu hâlde 958'de vefât etdi. Kâtib, şâir, ehl-i dâniş, yazısı güzel idi.

Put into modern English: A man of Amasya. He is the son of the judge Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi, a descendant of Pîr Sun'ullah Halvetî, sheikh of the tanners. Having learned the sciences and the clerk's craft, he became a court clerk. For a long time he served as clerk of the sharia court, and later died in 958 while clerk of the Sultan Bayezid endowments. He was a clerk, a poet, a learned man, and his handwriting was beautiful.

The House of Pîr Sun'ullah

The ancestor of the family, Pîr Sun'ullah Halvetî, was a pupil and deputy of Pir İlyas. For years he preached from the pulpit chair of the Saraçhane Mosque, and he died in 847 (1443-44) as sheikh of the lodge Şeyh Paşa had built beside the mosque; he was buried together with his deputy Şeyh Zekeriyyâ in the garden before the mosque's eastern window. Hüsameddin calls him "sheikh of the saddlers" in one place and "sheikh of the tanners" in another. The bond with the leather workers around the Saraçhane Mosque must be the source of the epithet.

The sheikh's descendants rose through the pen and the judiciary. Several poets came from the household of Abdüsselâm Çelebi, one of the leading judges: his son Pîr Mehmed Çelebi wrote verse under the pen name "Sun'î" and died after 915 (1509-10). Another son, Rıdvan Çelebi, was one of Şehzade Bayezid's council clerks, and his son Cenânî Hüseyin Çelebi was a poet raised in Şehzade Ahmed's circle. Celîlî Mehmed Çelebi, whose father is also recorded as Abdüsselâm Çelebi, studied with Münîrî, kept company with Şehzade Ahmed's poets and died in Amasya in 943 (1536-37). Hüsameddin does not give these generations in the same order in every entry; Abdüsselâm Çelebi appears in some places as Sun'ullah's son and in others as his grandson.

Where Saîd Çelebi's father, Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi, fits into this tree is uncertain. Hüsameddin describes him only as one of the "evlâd-ı kirâm", the sheikh's noble descendants. Sun'ullah's entry mentions a son of the sheikh named Mehmed Çelebi, but it does not say that this Mehmed bore the honorific Muhyiddîn or served as a judge. Whether Saîd Çelebi was a first cousin of Celîlî and Sun'î or a more distant relative therefore remains unknown.

In the Court and the Endowment

Saîd Çelebi's whole career was spent as a clerk. He first served in the judge's court as a sharia clerk, writing out deeds, rulings and register entries, and stayed in that post for what Hüsameddin calls "hayli müddet", a long while. He then became "Sultân Bâyezîd evkâfı kâtibi". What is meant here must be the endowment of the Sultan Bayezid Complex, the mosque, madrasa, soup kitchen and library that Bayezid II had built in Amasya. The endowment clerk entered in the ledgers the revenues of the foundation, the salaries of its staff and its expenses; a fine hand was a reason to be chosen for such work. Saîd Çelebi died in this post in 958, in the middle years of the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent.

His year of birth is unknown. The source mentions no post of his outside Amasya; unlike relatives such as Celîlî, who moved from district to district as a judge, he seems to have spent his whole life in the town's court and over the endowment's ledgers.

His Poetry

Relatives such as Sun'î and Celîlî are remembered by their pen names; Saîd Çelebi was recorded under his own name alone. Hüsameddin counts him among the poets but withholds the pen name, and Saîd Çelebi's poems have not come down to us; as long as the pen name is unknown, any couplets of his that may lie in the anthologies cannot be traced. The bare name suggests that poetry stood in the shadow of the clerk's work in his life. This is a guess drawn from the silence of the source.

Chronology

847 (1443-44): His ancestor Pîr Sun'ullah Halvetî dies.

943 (1536-37): His relative Celîlî Mehmed Çelebi dies in Amasya.

958 (1551): Saîd Çelebi dies while clerk of the Sultan Bayezid endowments.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources