Brother-in-law of the treasurer İskender Çelebi, Şânî Hüseyin Çelebi was a scribe-poet from Amasya who studied letters under Kemalpaşazâde, rose in the finance bureau to the post of tezkireci, and was beheaded in Baghdad in 941 (1535) when his brother-in-law fell. He belonged to the Şeyh Hamîdzâde, one of Amasya's wealthy families of merchants and treasurers. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar gave him two separate entries and joined them with the words "this is Şânî Çelebi" in the earlier one. Not a single couplet by this scribe-poet remains.

Hüsameddin's Entries

The record that names the poet by his pen name is the entry Şânî Hüseyin Çelebi-Şeyh Hamîdzâde, in one of the last volumes of Amasya Tarihi:

Amasyalıdır. Sığır Pazarında dere kenarında Câmii olan Pîr el-Hâc Hâce Mehmed Çelebi bin el-Hâc Hâce Süleyman Çelebi mahdûmudur. İstanbul'da Kemal Paşazâde Ahmed Şemseddîn Efendi'den ulûm-ı edebiyyeyi ahz ederek mülâzımı oldu. Ba'dehû akrabâsından defterdâr İskender Çelebi maiyyetinde ketebe-i mâliyeden olup Bağdat seferine beraber gitdi. Orada eniştesi İskender Çelebi'ye isnâd edilen töhmetde şerîk gösterildiğinden yukarıda yazıldığı üzere 941 senesi ramazanının yirmi sekizinci günü Bağdat'da maktûlen vefât etdi. Üdebâdan kerîm, şâir bir zât idi. Mâliye tezkîreciliğinde râkibi olan Nakkaş Ali Çelebi'nin siâyetine kurbân olup gitdi.

Its content in modern English: he was from Amasya. His father, Hacı Hâce Pîr Mehmed Çelebi, had a mosque by the stream in the Sığır Pazarı, and his grandfather was Hacı Hâce Süleyman Çelebi. In Istanbul he studied the literary sciences with Kemalpaşazâde Ahmed Şemseddin Efendi and became his mülâzım, a candidate for office. Later he served among the finance scribes in the retinue of his relative, the treasurer İskender Çelebi, and went with him on the Baghdad campaign. There, because he was presented as a partner in the crime charged to his brother-in-law İskender Çelebi, he was killed in Baghdad, as written above, on the twenty-eighth day of Ramazan 941 (April 1535). He was a generous man of letters and a poet. He fell victim to the denunciations of Nakkaş Ali Çelebi, his rival in the finance tezkireci post.

The words "as written above" point to the entry Hüseyin Çelebi-İskender Çelebi Kaynı in the ninth volume. There Hüsameddin describes the same man without his pen name and ends:

Sahî, hattât, maârif-mend idi. Mahdûmu el-Hâc Ahmed Çelebi de İstanbul'da kaldı. Şânî Çelebi budur.

That is: he was generous, a calligrapher and a learned man; his son Hacı Ahmed Çelebi stayed in Istanbul. This is Şânî Çelebi.

Life

Though his birth date is uncertain, Hüseyin Çelebi's life begins in Amasya. According to the entry in the ninth volume, he learned the various scripts and the necessary knowledge in Amasya and went to Istanbul at the accession of Selim I, that is, in 918 (1512). The entry in the eleventh volume adds that in Istanbul he studied the literary sciences with Kemalpaşazâde and became his mülâzım. Mülâzımlık was the first step on the path of the learned profession; Hüseyin Çelebi did not pursue that path but moved over to the treasury.

He owed his entry into the finance service to his brother-in-law İskender Çelebi, who was married to his sister. Coming from the village of Yenice near Amasya, İskender Çelebi had become chief treasurer under Süleyman the Magnificent and one of the richest and most powerful men of the state. Under his protection Hüseyin Çelebi was rewarded with large fiefs in Süleyman's reign and became tezkireci, a senior clerk, of the finance bureau in 938 (1531-32). On the Iraq campaign that began in 940 (1533), İskender Çelebi accompanied the grand vizier İbrâhim Paşa as steward of the army, and Hüseyin Çelebi went with him to Baghdad as a finance scribe.

On campaign, the tension between grand vizier and treasurer brought İskender Çelebi down. According to Hüsameddin, İbrâhim Paşa turned the sultan against İskender Çelebi, and Nakkaş Ali Çelebi, one of the finance officials, helped the pasha with denunciations. Hüseyin Çelebi was presented as an accomplice in the crime charged to his brother-in-law. The lines that Hüsameddin quotes in his entry on İskender Çelebi from a Süleymannâme in the Nuruosmaniye Library record the two deaths side by side:

941 cumâdelâhir on üçüncü Cuma günü Dîvân olup Ayas Paşa ve Kasım Paşa gelip içeriye girmezden evvel içeriden emrolunup İskender Çelebi'yi Bağdad'da At Pazarı'nda salb eylediler ve ramazânın yirmi sekizinci günü de İskender Çelebi'nin kaynı Hüseyin Çelebi'nin boynu vuruldu.

By this record İskender Çelebi was hanged in the Horse Market of Baghdad on 13 Cemâziyelâhir 941 (December 1534), while Hüseyin Çelebi was beheaded on 28 Ramazan of the same year (April 1535). Other works date İskender Çelebi's execution differently: Ali Yıldırım writes that he was dismissed on 24 October 1534 and hanged in the Horse Market of Baghdad four months and twenty days later, in March 1535. If that reckoning is right, Hüseyin Çelebi was killed a few weeks after his brother-in-law. What Nakkaş Ali Çelebi gained from the affair was the treasurership of Iraq, in place of the chief treasurership he had been promised.

Family

The Şeyh Hamîdzâde took their name from Hâmîdüddîn Abdülhamîd, who taught in Amasya and Bursa at the end of the fourteenth and the start of the fifteenth century and later entered the Halveti path; Hüsameddin traces the family back to this ancestor. Hüseyin Çelebi's father, Hacı Hâce Pîr Mehmed Çelebi, was one of Amasya's well-known merchants and rich men and for a time served as treasurer to Prince Ahmed. In 911 (1505-06) he built a mosque below the Sığır Pazarı, near the Atabey Madrasa, endowed his properties to it in 916, and according to his own entry died in Muharrem 917 (April 1511). His daughter married İskender Çelebi; on his father-in-law's death a great fortune came to İskender Çelebi through his wife.

Hüseyin Çelebi's brother Hacı Ahmed Çelebi inherited his father's wealth and became one of the prominent merchants of Amasya. He was imprisoned in 919 (1513) for having lent large sums to Prince Ahmed; when Selim I came to Amasya in 921 on his return from the Çaldıran campaign, he was pardoned and the loan he had made to the prince was repaid. Ahmed Çelebi, who more than once served as city commissioner of Amasya, died after 931 (1524-25).

Discrepancies in the Sources

The four entries Hüsameddin devotes to this family do not agree at every point. The father's mosque is described in one place as "by the stream in the Sığır Pazarı", in another as "at the end of the Uzun Mustafa quarter", in a third as "by the stream above Selağzı", and in the father's own entry as "below the Sığır Pazarı, near the Atabey Madrasa". These descriptions may be locating the same building by different neighbouring districts. The father's year of death is 917 in his own entry; Ahmed Çelebi's entry gives 918, and İskender Çelebi's entry comes close to that date when it says he came into his father-in-law's fortune in 918.

The more significant discrepancy lies in Ahmed Çelebi's entry. There İskender Çelebi appears as the son-in-law not of Pîr Mehmed Çelebi but of Ahmed Çelebi, and the Hüseyin Bey executed in Baghdad after İskender Çelebi "because he was his brother-in-law" is listed as Ahmed Çelebi's son and said to have been hanged. The entries on İskender Çelebi, on Pîr Mehmed Çelebi and on Hüseyin Çelebi himself, however, make İskender the son-in-law of Pîr Mehmed and Hüseyin his son. The Süleymannâme line quoted by Hüsameddin also states that Hüseyin Çelebi was not hanged but beheaded. The information in Ahmed Çelebi's entry therefore seems to have arisen from a slip of one generation.

The other bearer of the pen name in Amasya belongs to another century: Şânî Süleyman Çelebi, a Janissary scribe and epic singer who died in 1135 (1722-23).

Poetry

None of Şânî Hüseyin Çelebi's poems has been found. His standing as a poet and his pen name stand side by side only in the entry in the eleventh volume; the two entries describe him as "poet", "generous among men of letters" and "learned" without giving a sample couplet. His study of letters with Kemalpaşazâde shows that he passed through the training of divan poetry. How much he wrote, or whether he ever gathered a divan, is not known. One may suspect that his property and papers were confiscated like his brother-in-law's, but no record says so.

Chronology

911 (1505-06): His father Pîr Mehmed Çelebi builds his mosque in Amasya.

Muharrem 917 (April 1511): His father dies (918 in another entry).

918 (1512): On the accession of Selim I, Hüseyin Çelebi goes to Istanbul.

938 (1531-32): He becomes tezkireci of the finance bureau.

940 (1533): The Iraq campaign begins; his brother-in-law İskender Çelebi is steward of the army.

Cemâziyelâhir 941 (December 1534) or March 1535: İskender Çelebi is hanged in Baghdad.

28 Ramazan 941 (April 1535): Şânî Hüseyin Çelebi is put to death in Baghdad.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources