Some Ottoman princes have whole volumes devoted to them, while others are mentioned in the sources in a few lines. Ahmed Çelebi, the eldest son of Murad II, has long been placed in the second group. He was born in Amasya, was appointed sanjak governor of Amasya as a teenager, and died in the same city at the age of seventeen or eighteen. The sources call him "Ahmed the Elder," a name used to distinguish him from a younger son of his father who was born later and bore the same name. In the general Ottoman histories his name barely appears, but the Amasya Tarihi of Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, the city's own historian, contains a notable amount of detail about the prince's lala, his treasurer, the warden of the city, the month of his death and his grave. These records show how a child of the dynasty was placed at fifteen at the head of the key city on the eastern frontier, and amid what rivalries his short life was spent. Where the sources disagree, this is stated plainly below, and what is documented has been kept apart from what is not.

Who He Is, and Who He Is Not

Two princes named Ahmed appear among the sanjak governors of Amasya, and the sources often confuse them. One is the Ahmed Çelebi discussed here (1420-1438), the eldest son of Murad II. The other is Prince Ahmed, son of Bayezid II (1465-1513), who served as sanjak governor of Amasya from 1481 to 1511 and is remembered alongside Şehinşah and Korkut; the poet Mihrî Hatun presented most of her qasidas to him. Bülbül Hatun, who built the Hatuniye Mosque in Amasya, was the mother of this second Ahmed; the tomb of his wife Gülçiçek Hatun and the letters compiled by Münîrî likewise belong to his governorship of more than thirty years. Many lines that speak of "Prince Ahmed," in particular the Prince Ahmed Tomb in Bursa, belong to the second Ahmed. The gap between the two is roughly half a century, and none of the information given here belongs to the son of Bayezid II.

Ahmed's father, Murad II, was the sultan who came to the Ottoman throne in 1421, before he had turned seventeen. Murad, too, had been born in Amasya. Born in the city in June 1404, Murad was a child of the period when Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed) governed the sanjak, and the sources differ about his mother. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi writes that she was a concubine; Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi, by contrast, records that his mother was Şehzade Hatun, daughter of Divitdar Ahmed Pasha, one of the notables of Amasya. Ahmed is thus the second of two generations born in the same city.

Birth in Amasya and the Palace of the Princes

Hüsameddin writes that Ahmed was born in Amasya in the year 823, that is 1420, and introduces him as "the first prince born to Sultan Murad II while he was governor of Amasya." The phrase explains the time of the birth as well as the place: Murad was then still a young prince governing the province of Rum on behalf of his father Mehmed I, about a year away from the throne. Selim Özcan's article on the princes who served as sanjak governors of Amasya also gives 1420, relying on Hüsameddin. Some sources, however, give his years of birth and death as 1419-1437; this is the date found in descriptions of the grave in Bursa. Here the date of 1420, which rests on the Amasya source, has been adopted.

According to Özcan, the place where Ahmed was born was the building in the inner citadel known in the Seljuk period as the Palace of the Beys. The Ottomans called it the Palace of the Princes; locally it is also known as the Saraydüzü Barracks. This site, home to sultans and commanders since the Danishmendids, took its definitive form during the sanjak governorship of Mehmed I, when in 1396 the place known as the Gümüşlüzade pavilion was bought from Gümüşlüzade Hoca Celaleddin Çelebi and a large palace was built on it. The same article names this building, used as a palace for 350 years in the Ottoman period, as the birthplace of Murad II and his son Ahmed Çelebi, of Prince Ahmed son of Bayezid II, and of Selim I. Hüsameddin, too, writes the names "Şehzade Sultan Ahmed and Alaeddin" side by side in the palace's list of princes; he adds that it once had a great harem and a selamlık, and that in his own day only its ruins remained.

Ahmed's infancy in Amasya did not last long. According to Hüsameddin, when his father came to the throne in 1421 the prince was taken to the palace at Edirne and grew up there. It may therefore be thought that when he returned to Amasya at fifteen he came as a young man raised in the palace who did not know the city of his birth; this is an interpretation drawn from what the sources say. We could not find his mother's identity stated clearly in the sources consulted. Writing a name here would be guesswork; none has been written.

The epithet "Elder" at first suggests that Ahmed was Murad's first son, but Hüsameddin also records a complication. According to him, in the month of Rajab 828 (1425) "Sultan Murad's eldest son Mehmed Çelebi," who lived in the palace at Amasya, died in childhood and was buried in the Şehzadegân Tomb; the date of his death is carved on his gravestone. If this record is correct, Murad had another son, born before Ahmed or in the same years, who died as a child, and the name "eldest prince" given to Ahmed may come from his being the eldest of the surviving sons. This too is an inference; Hüsameddin does not connect the two records.

His Father's Years in Amasya

To understand Ahmed's post in Amasya, one has to look at his father's experience in the same city. According to the TDV entry, when Murad turned twelve he was sent to Amasya with the governorship of the province of Rum, which comprised the regions of Amasya, Tokat, Sivas, Çorum and Osmancık. A year later he was ordered to go toward Saruhan and İzmir with the forces of Amasya to suppress the revolt of Börklüce Mustafa; the revolt was in fact put down by Bayezid Pasha with the forces of Amasya and Sivas. When Murad left Amasya, the Kara Tatars of the region caused unrest, and the prince returned to the city with Bayezid Pasha. The lala at his side was Yörgüç Pasha. The TDV entry on Yörgüç Pasha relates that the province of Rum then held a large Mongol and Turkmen population, left over from the Ilkhanid period and living as nomads, that bringing them under central administration was difficult, and that the young prince tried to keep order with the help of his prudent lala.

Between 1417 and 1421 important developments in the Ottomans' favour took place on the Amasya frontier. Prince Murad and his new atabeg, Hamza Bey, beylerbey of Rum, took Samsun from the İsfendiyaroğlu. Some time after this success Murad was summoned to Bursa by his dying father; by the time he arrived, Mehmed I had died in Edirne. The viziers had kept the sultan's death secret so that Mustafa the Pretender (Düzme Mustafa), held by Byzantium, would not make a move. Murad received the oath of allegiance in Bursa from the dignitaries and part of the Janissaries and came to the throne on 25 June 1421. According to Özcan, Hamza Bey was appointed beylerbey of Amasya first, and a year later Yörgüç Pasha for the second time. Hüsameddin writes that Yörgüç Pasha came from Ankara as beylerbey of Amasya in Sha'ban 825 (1422) and that the province was then a broad "Rumiyye province" made up of the sanjaks of Amasya, Sivas, Tokat, Karahisar-ı Şarki, Canik and Çorum; TDV places the appointment in 826 (1423).

Yörgüç Pasha's twelve years of rule set the tone of the city Ahmed would inherit. The pasha had invited the brigand band known as the Kızılkocaoğulları to Amasya and had them seized in a single night, had brought Taşanoğlu Haydar Bey of Kocakayası and Alpaslanoğlu Hüseyin Bey, lord of Canik, to obedience, and in the 1430s, when the men of the Karakoyunlu İskender Mirza, who had taken refuge in Tokat after his defeat by the Timurid Shahrukh, plundered the villages, he expelled him too from the city. His mosque, madrasa and soup kitchen in Amasya had been completed in 834 (1430-31). According to Hüsameddin, he was permitted to strike a coin called the "Yörgüç Pasha akçe"; TDV, however, considers this information doubtful. The same author relates that the long governorship and these privileges gave the pasha a certain arrogance, that he trusted his men too much and drove the people to complain, and that in 837 (1433-34) the complaints followed one upon another.

His Appointment as Sanjak Governor of Amasya

In Hüsameddin's account, Ahmed's arrival in Amasya was the direct result of these complaints. In response to the people's grievances, Murad II summoned Yörgüç Pasha to Edirne in 838 and made him warden there; he made his eldest prince, Sultan Ahmed, governor of Amasya and sent him to Amasya with Şeyhî Pasha at his side. According to Hüsameddin's entry on the princes, Yörgüç Pasha was called to Edirne in the month of Safar 838, that is in September 1434. Özcan places the same change in 1435. Since the hijri year 838 began in August 1434 and ended in July 1435, the two dates may mark the two ends of the same year; if Hüsameddin's record, which names the month, is followed, the appointment fell in the autumn of 1434. Ahmed had just turned fifteen and was, in Hüsameddin's words, "a young and very robust person."

According to the same author, Ahmed came to Amasya at the beginning of the year 838 together with his brothers Alaeddin and Mehmed Çelebi. This record matters for the debates that follow. Whether Mehmed, the prince who would later become the Conqueror, was ever in Amasya is disputed among historians; Hüsameddin brings him to the city with his elder brother and places Mehmed's birth in Rajab 833. The TDV entry on Mehmed II, however, gives his date of birth as 27 Rajab 835 (30 March 1432) and considers doubtful the claim that he was appointed governor of Amasya at the age of six. If the second date is correct, Mehmed was a child of two and a half in 1434, and his coming to Amasya can only be imagined at his elder brother's side, as a member of the household.

The Prince's Council and Circle

A fifteen-year-old prince did not actually govern his sanjak himself; affairs were run by his lala, his treasurer and the notables of the city. Hüsameddin gives the names of Ahmed's circle in Amasya. These names are valuable for seeing the staff with which a princely sanjak operated, though there are small but noteworthy differences between the records.

His Lala, Şeyhî Mahmud Pasha

Ahmed's lala, his "müdebbir-i umur," that is the manager of his affairs, and the warden of Amasya was one of the viziers, Şeyhî Mahmud Pasha bin Şihabeddin Kırşehrî. Hüsameddin describes him as one of "the learned viziers, who displayed his merit as treasurer and chancellor (nişancı)." The same work preserves a trace of the pasha's earlier career: in 831 (1427-28) a great change took place in the imperial council, Şeyhî Pasha of Kırşehir, who had served as chancellor with the rank of vizier, was dismissed, and Hibetullah Çelebi, known as Hatib Pasha of Bergama, was put in his place. Accordingly, when Şeyhî Pasha was assigned to Ahmed he was an experienced statesman who had served as chancellor at the centre and had then been removed from office. Hüsameddin also lists him among the names that won renown in Amasya in the reign of Murad II, together with Fettâhî of Nishapur and the judge Belâî Çelebi. Şeyhî Pasha's post in Amasya was short; he died in 839 (1435-36).

The Question of the Treasurer

Hüsameddin's records on the prince's treasurer do not fully agree with one another. The account in the third volume states that Dursun Çelebi bin Bahşayiş Bey, one of the notables of Amasya, became the prince's "defterdar and muharrir-i vilayet," that is both his treasurer and the scribe of the province. In the entry on the prince in the sixth volume, the same person appears as "Bahşayişoğlu Durmuş Çelebi of Amasya." In the seventh volume, however, another name emerges: the scribe Edhem Çelebi of Kırşehir. According to Hüsameddin, Edhem Çelebi was the son of Ali Çelebi bin Şihab, brother of the lala Şeyhî Mahmud Pasha; he had studied in Bursa under his uncle, become a treasury scribe, remained without office for a long time, and in 838 been sent to Amasya as the treasurer of Prince Sultan Ahmed. After the prince's death in 841 he became scribe of the mint, stayed in this post for about ten years, and died after 852 (1448).

The two records put two different people in the same post. It is possible that a notable of Amasya and a scribe from Kırşehir who was the lala's nephew served together, for instance one as treasurer and the other as provincial scribe; but this is an inference, and Hüsameddin does not explain the difference between the records. If the Edhem Çelebi record is correct, it may be thought that Şeyhî Mahmud Pasha brought a scribe from his own family to the prince's side. Hüsameddin also writes that he had seen and taken notes on letters containing the correspondence between the prince and his circle in a münşeat collection in the Veliyyeddin Efendi Library, but that his notes burned in a fire and he never found the collection again. Perhaps the most direct document on Ahmed's years in Amasya was thus lost.

The Warden of Amasya, Devatdar Paşazade Ahmed Bey

In Hüsameddin's sixth volume there is one more person seen at the prince's side: Devatdar Paşazade Ahmed Bey. Coming from the old Amasya family of Hacı Şadgeldi Pasha and a grandson, through his daughter, of the grand vizier Bayezid Pasha, Ahmed Bey had been in the retinue of Murad II while the latter was governor of Amasya, had served for a time as warden of Thessaloniki after Murad's accession, and had then come to the city "as warden of Amasya during Sultan Ahmed's governorship of Amasya." Since in the third volume the wardenship is given first to Şeyhî Pasha and then to Yörgüç Pasha, this record does not fully match the others either; Ahmed Bey's post may have been a narrower one, such as warden of the citadel or the town. This record also matters for an event after the prince's death and is taken up again below.

The Scholars and Judges of the City

The people who ran the religious and legal life of Amasya during Ahmed's governorship are also named in Hüsameddin. The judge of the city was Nizameddin Abdurrahman Çelebi, who had become judge at sixteen in 830 (1427) on the death of his father Muslihzade Şemseddin Mehmed Şah Çelebi; he too was called "Şah Çelebi." The office of mufti had passed, after the death of Taceddin Çelebi of Tokat, to Pir Sun'ullah Çelebi of Amasya. At the head of the Pir İlyas Halvetî Lodge, one of the city's spiritual centres, was Pir İlyas's son Gümüşlüzade Pir Celaleddin Abdurrahman Çelebi. In 836 (1432-33) the dervish lodge of Bedreddin Mahmud Çelebi, superintendent of the mint known as "Ahi Darphaneci," had been completed in the Pervane Bey quarter, and its leadership given to Seyyid Sadreddin Mehmed, known as Horasanî Baba. Apart from the visit to the lodge described below, there is no direct record of Ahmed's relations with these men.

The Return of Yörgüç Pasha and the Eastern Frontier

The death of Şeyhî Pasha in 839 brought a new arrangement to Amasya. According to Hüsameddin, there had again been changes in the imperial council, with Yörgüç Pasha becoming second vizier and İshak Pasha third vizier. When Şeyhî Pasha died, the second vizier Yörgüç Pasha was appointed in his place and came back to Amasya. In Rabi' al-awwal 840 (September-October 1436) Yörgüç Pasha endowed all his properties and revenue-producing holdings, before a large gathering, to cover the expenses of the charitable foundations he had built in Amasya; the endowment deed was registered by the judge of Amasya, Muslihzade Abdurrahman Çelebi. Thus in the second half of Ahmed's governorship his lala and warden was the old pasha who had also been his father's lala.

This record also resolves a tension between the earlier sources. Özcan writes that Yörgüç Pasha was sent to the wardenship of Edirne in 1435; according to the TDV entry on Murad II, however, in December 1436 (Jumada al-akhir 840) Karaman forces pressed Yörgüç Pasha, who is named as beylerbey of Amasya. Since Hüsameddin's account shows that the pasha went to Edirne and returned to Amasya after Şeyhî Pasha's death, the two pieces of information do not contradict each other. Yörgüç Pasha remained in Amasya until his death in Dhu al-hijja 845 (April-May 1442) and was buried in the tomb in front of his own mosque.

The eastern line was tense in those years. According to TDV, in 1435 Shahrukh sent robes of honour to the rulers of Anatolia, wishing to present all of them as under his protection; Timurid forces pursuing the Karakoyunlu İskender halted at the Ottoman frontier, and İskender took refuge for a time in Tokat. Once the danger from Shahrukh had passed, the Ottomans supported the Dulkadirids against the Karamanids, who had seized Kayseri. In December 1436, when Karaman forces put pressure on the Amasya side, Murad II, together with the Dulkadirids, attacked the Karamanid lands from east and west; an Ottoman army setting out from Tokat besieged Kayseri. Throughout Ahmed's governorship, Amasya stood just behind this restless frontier. As for the prince's role in these events, no conclusive document has been found in the sources consulted concerning the work done in this post, any order issued in his own name or any building he commissioned; the name that stands out in the military movements is Yörgüç Pasha.

Rivalries at Court

Ahmed's years in Amasya coincide with a period of fierce rivalry for power at the centre. Hüsameddin describes this rivalry as the reaction of beys of Turkish origin against the rise of statesmen of devşirme origin. In 831 the question of promoting devşirmes to the rank of beylerbey had produced a crisis; the grand vizier Hacı İvaz Pasha had fallen, Çandarlızade İbrahim Pasha had died, and the council had been changed from top to bottom. In 838 İshak Pasha, whom he names as "the cause of the earlier affair," became third vizier and Yörgüç Pasha second vizier, and gossip and agitation again arose among statesmen and people. At the beginning of 841 the grand vizier Koca Mehmed Pasha was dismissed and sent to Osmancık, and İshak Pasha became grand vizier in his place. According to Hüsameddin, factional passions grew among the people, and Sultan Murad's position was considerably shaken.

There is no record of how this situation affected Ahmed directly. Still, as the eldest of the surviving sons, Ahmed may be thought to have been a natural part of the talk about the future of the throne; this is an inference not stated explicitly in the sources. Hüsameddin himself points to a striking coincidence: at the time when the dismissed Koca Mehmed Pasha died in Osmancık in Dhu al-hijja 841, the governor of Amasya, Prince Sultan Ahmed, had also died in Amasya. The author finds this "most worthy of attention" but adds no comment. Koca Mehmed Pasha was buried in the garden east of the mosque he had built in Osmancık, and the date of his death is carved on his gravestone.

Amasya in Ahmed's Time

The epithets cited by Özcan show what kind of city Amasya was in this period: Medinetü'l-Hükema (City of the Sages), Bağdâdü'r-Rum (the Baghdad of Rum), Rumiyye-i Suğra, Dârü'n-Nasr, Dârü'l-İzz, Kasrü's-Selâtin. The same article dates the start of the age of the princes to the sanjak governorship of Bayezid I (Yıldırım Bayezid) and says that Amasya reached its most brilliant era during the Ottoman rise, aided by the power of the princes appointed as its governors. Ahmed's post falls in the first half of this series, in the first half of the fifteenth century, when the tradition of the princely sanjak was still taking shape.

The city's mosques and masjids bear the mark of the same age. Özcan's footnote lists the Kaya Pasha Mosque as 1402, the Çilhane Mosque 1413, the Bayezid Pasha Mosque 1414, the Paşa Hatun Masjid 1418, the Molla Yahşi Masjid 1420 and the Yörgüç Pasha Mosque 1428. There are also buildings dated to the years of Ahmed's governorship: Özcan's list includes the Mehmed Çelebi Masjid as 1432, the Alaeddin Ali Masjid as 1436 and the Şah Bula Hatun Masjid as 1437. The sources draw no direct link between these and Ahmed; and since it is not stated whether the person named in the Alaeddin Ali Masjid is his brother, Prince Alaeddin Ali, no connection has been made between the two. After Ahmed's death the Şemseddin Ahmed Şamice Masjid was built in 1443 and the Eslem Hatun Masjid in 1444. The great building campaign of the princely sanjak would come in later years, with the Bayezid II Complex.

The Visit to the Lodge and His Death

Hüsameddin relates a local tradition from a few months before Ahmed's death. On the Ramadan feast of the year 841, that is at the end of March 1438, the three princes went to visit Pir Celaleddin Abdurrahman Çelebi, sheikh of the Pir İlyas Halvetî Lodge. The sheikh, regarded by the people as a worker of wonders, showed favour to Mehmed Çelebi, the youngest of the three, placing his cloak upon his shoulders, and "showed the way" to the other princes. From this sign the people understood that Mehmed would become sultan and that the others were travellers to the hereafter, and two and a half months later they marvelled at the death of Prince Sultan Ahmed. Hüsameddin attributes this tradition to Gelibolulu Âlî, who heard it while governor of Amasya and recorded it in his Künhü'l-Ahbâr in the biography of the sheikh.

Another version of the same visit is told in Özcan's article, on the authority of Hammer. In this account the three sons of Murad II in Amasya visit Sheikh Abdurrahman, son-in-law of Pir İlyas; the sheikh allows two of the princes to kiss his hand, but kneels before Mehmed and, in the presence of his brothers, asks him to use all his strength for the glory of the state that divine decree would grant him. The two accounts differ on who the sheikh was, Hüsameddin giving him as Pir İlyas's son and Hammer as his son-in-law; but both tie the event to Amasya and to the three princes. The tradition has the look of a legend shaped afterwards by the Conqueror's reign and the early deaths of his brothers. Its value lies less in proving the event itself than in showing how Amasya remembered these princes.

The date of Ahmed's death agrees with this tradition. Hüsameddin states clearly, in two separate places, that the prince died in Amasya in Dhu al-hijja of the year 841. In the hijri calendar this month falls between late May and late June 1438. Özcan likewise reports that he died in Amasya in 1438 after a governorship of about three years; Hüsameddin's entry on the prince says the governorship lasted "about four years." Since the time from Safar 838 to Dhu al-hijja 841 comes close to four years, this statement agrees with the calculation. Some sources, however, place the death in 1437; this is the date found in descriptions of the grave in Bursa. Hüsameddin also notes that the plaque in Bursa gives the year of death as 845 (1441-42). Of these three dates, 1438, which the Amasya source gives with the name of the month, has been adopted here.

The sources give no information on the cause of death. A phrase in Hüsameddin's sixth volume, however, shows that the death was unexpected: at "the sudden passing of the prince," certain failings were imputed to the warden of Amasya, Devatdar Paşazade Ahmed Bey, who fell from favour and died after 842 (1438-39). What these failings were is not written. The record may suggest that the death was found suspicious enough to be investigated at the level of the state, but this is an inference; since illness, accident or any other explanation does not appear in the sources, none has been written here either. He was between seventeen and eighteen years old.

His father, Murad II, was occupied at this time with affairs in the Balkans. According to TDV, the death of King Sigismund of Hungary on 9 December 1437 led Drakul, voivode of Wallachia, to bring his sons to Edirne as hostages and accept Ottoman suzerainty. The following year Murad set out on campaign to Transylvania with a large army, came as far as Sibiu, returned to Edirne through Wallachia, and took Serbia in March 1439. The death of his eldest son falls within this crowded calendar.

Afterwards: Mehmed and Alaeddin

According to Hüsameddin, Prince Mehmed was appointed to the governorship of Amasya left vacant by Ahmed's death. Relying on the history of Kemalpaşazade, the author places this appointment in Dhu al-hijja 841 and quotes Kemalpaşazade's words, "Sultan Mehmed too rested for a time in that blessed seat." As his lala, warden and manager of affairs came Hayreddin Hızır Pasha, one of Murad II's freed slaves, and as his teacher Hayreddin Hızır Çelebi, son of İlyas Fakih of Amasya. Özcan too writes that Mehmed was appointed in 1438, at the age of eight. Halil İnalcık, however, considers doubtful the claim that Mehmed was sanjak governor in Amasya and states that in the spring of 1443 he was sent from Edirne to Manisa with two lalas. According to Hüsameddin, Alaeddin, who was older than Mehmed, was sent to Manisa at this time; a few years later the princes' posts were exchanged.

The prince who followed in Ahmed's footsteps in Amasya was his brother Alaeddin Ali Çelebi. According to one biographical entry, Alaeddin was born in 1425, was raised under the tutelage of Yörgüç Pasha, became governor of Amasya at fifteen in 1440, and had Hatipzade Tâceddin İbrahim Efendi as his teacher; with Yörgüç Pasha's death in 1441, his new lala was Paşazade Mehmed Efendi. Hüsameddin confirms most of this, except that he places Alaeddin's birth around 828 and in Edirne, puts Yörgüç Pasha's death in 845, and writes that Lala Şahin Paşazade Mehmed Pasha then became lala. According to TDV, in 1443, when İbrahim Bey of Karaman marched on Akşehir and Beyşehir, Murad II set out with the kapıkulu troops, and Prince Alaeddin marched with the forces of Amasya.

The sources differ on Alaeddin's death. The biographical entries write that he died in 1443 on the return from the Karaman campaign, falling from his horse near Bursa; the TDV entry on Murad II says the news of his death came from Amasya and adds that the sultan was deeply shaken by it. Hüsameddin gives a third account: after the campaign Alaeddin returned from Bursa to Amasya with his father's permission, and Kara Hızır Pasha, sent after him, entered the city by night and strangled him in his bed, while his two sons, aged one year and six months, were also strangled and buried in the Torumtay Tomb. The same author also records a tradition that the prince, warned that he was to be strangled, fled to India and that a slave resembling him was killed in his place, and he names the historians who supported it. Thus Murad's two eldest sons, Ahmed and Alaeddin, both died young, both are remembered for the sanjak governorship of Amasya, and both deaths left dark spots in the Amasya sources.

His Grave: Amasya or Bursa

The sources point to two different places as Ahmed's burial place. In the Muradiye Complex in Bursa, on the east side of the Tomb of Murad II, in the Tomb of Sultan Alaeddin, entered through a door converted from a window, there lie according to TDV three sons of Murad II named Alaeddin, Ahmed and Orhan, and a daughter named Şehzade Hatun. The entry does not specify which Ahmed this is; his being counted among Murad's sons and the grave's location in the Muradiye suggest that he is Ahmed the Elder. Other sources describing the complex also write that this annex contains the graves of Alaeddin Ali, Şehzade Ahmed, Orhan and Şehzade Hatun, and give Ahmed's dates as 1419-1437. According to TDV, in accordance with Murad's will the top of his tomb was left open, and the sarcophagus of his son Alaeddin was placed in the room reached by passing through the tomb.

Hüsameddin, however, maintains that the prince was buried in Amasya, and bases this on the testimony of a contemporary. According to him, "the historians of Turkey" wrote later that Ahmed was buried in Bursa and that his plaque gives 845 as the year of death; whereas Şükrullah Çelebi of Amasya, a historian alive in 841, recorded in his Behcetü't-Tevârîh that this prince was buried in Amasya, together with the date of his death. Şükrullah was indeed a contemporary of the events. According to TDV, he was born in 1388, entered Ottoman service in 1409, moved into the learned profession under Murad II, served as judge of Bursa, and was sent by the sultan as an envoy to Turkish rulers. He wrote his Behcetü't-Tevârîh in Persian in Bursa between 1456 and 1459, and the most original parts of the work are the periods of Mehmed I, Murad II and the Conqueror, which the author lived through himself. The record here is taken from Hüsameddin's citation; the relevant line of the Behcetü't-Tevârîh could not be seen separately.

Hüsameddin also identifies the site of the grave. In the north-west of the Narlı Bahçe Cemetery there is a stone dome resting on four stone piers, which the people call the "Şehzade Türbesi" (Prince's Tomb). According to the author, it is understood from this name that Sultan Ahmed, the first prince of Murad II, whose burial in Amasya is recorded in the Behcetü't-Tevârîh, lies here. There is no inscription anywhere on the tomb; to its south, outside, lies the grave of Yahya Bey, one of the beys. The Narlı Bahçe Cemetery, as Hüsameddin describes it, is the cemetery west of Yukarı Pazar in front of the Receb and Üçler quarters, and the building known as the Tomb of Sultan Mesud stands on its southern side. In his entry on the princes the author repeats the same information in more cautious language, saying "there is a tradition that he is buried" there.

It is not possible today to decide between the two records. The grave in Bursa is the widely accepted information, but the witness on whom Hüsameddin relies is a historian who was alive in the year of the death and later lived in Bursa. It may be thought that the prince was first buried in Amasya and later moved to Bursa, or that the dome in Amasya was built as a memorial tomb; but these are inferences, and no record of either possibility has been found. Nor could any information be found in the sources consulted as to whether the Şehzade Türbesi in Amasya still stands today.

Bursa also has a building called the Prince Ahmed Tomb, an octagonal structure standing between the Muradiye Mosque and the Tomb of Murad II. It was built by order of Selim I (Selim the Grim) in 1513, and in it lie Ahmed, son of Bayezid II, his brothers Şehinşah and Korkut, and Şehinşah's son Mehmed. It has nothing to do with Ahmed the Elder.

His Place in Amasya's Memory

No building commissioned by Ahmed Çelebi in Amasya has been found in the sources consulted. His place in the city's memory survives through two traces. The first is the name "Şehzade Türbesi" that the people gave to the uninscribed dome in Narlı Bahçe; Hüsameddin regards this name as a local memory of the prince's burial in Amasya. The second is the tradition of the visit to the Pir İlyas Lodge; the city remembered Ahmed within a legend foretelling the rise of his brother Mehmed, as the elder brother who would die early. According to Özcan, Amasya hosted princes for about 182 years, from Bayezid I to Murad III. In this long series Ahmed is one of the princes who served in the city where he was born and died in the city where he was born; his father, too, had been born in the same city, had served as its sanjak governor, and had then come to the throne. Ahmed's post, by contrast, passed to his brothers with his early death.

Chronology

1404: His father Murad is born in Amasya (TDV).

1420 (823): Born in Amasya while his father is governor there (Hüsameddin; Özcan; some sources give 1419).

1421: On the death of Mehmed I, his father Murad comes to the Ottoman throne on 25 June; Ahmed is taken to the palace at Edirne (Hüsameddin).

1425 (Rajab 828): According to Hüsameddin, Murad's "eldest son" Mehmed Çelebi dies in childhood in Amasya.

1427-28 (831): Şeyhî Pasha of Kırşehir is removed from the chancellorship (Hüsameddin).

September 1434 (Safar 838): Yörgüç Pasha is summoned to Edirne; Ahmed becomes governor of Amasya, with Şeyhî Mahmud Pasha as his lala (Hüsameddin; Özcan places this change in 1435).

1435-36 (839): Şeyhî Pasha dies; Yörgüç Pasha returns to Amasya in his place (Hüsameddin).

September-October 1436 (Rabi' al-awwal 840): Yörgüç Pasha has the endowment deed for his foundations in Amasya registered (Hüsameddin).

December 1436: Karaman forces press Yörgüç Pasha, beylerbey of Amasya (TDV).

March 1438 (Ramadan feast 841): According to tradition, the three princes visit the sheikh of the Pir İlyas Lodge (Hüsameddin, citing Âlî).

May-June 1438 (Dhu al-hijja 841): Dies suddenly in Amasya (Hüsameddin; Özcan 1438; some sources 1437, the plaque in Bursa 845).

1438 (Dhu al-hijja 841): His brother Mehmed is appointed governor of Amasya (Hüsameddin, citing Kemalpaşazade; Özcan; İnalcık considers this appointment doubtful).

1440: His brother Alaeddin becomes governor of Amasya at fifteen (according to the biographical entry).

April-May 1442 (Dhu al-hijja 845): Yörgüç Pasha dies in Amasya (TDV).

1443: Alaeddin dies after the Karaman campaign.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Selim Özcan, "Amasya'da Sancak Beyliği Yapan Şehzadeler Döneminde Amasya Şehri", Journal of the Faculty of Theology, Amasya University, issue 5 (DergiPark); with references to Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. III, pp. 121-131.
  • Halil İnalcık, "Murad II", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Halil İnalcık, "Mehmed II", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • "Yörgüç Paşa", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • "Şükrullah", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • "Behcetü't-tevârîh", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr).
  • "Muradiye Külliyesi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr).

Other sources

  • "Muradiye Complex", Wikipedia (English). en.wikipedia.org
  • "Murad II", Wikipedia (English), family section.
  • "Muradiye Külliyesi", Turkish Wikipedia.
  • "Şehzade Alâaddin", Turkish Wikipedia.

Online sources