Amasya's Female Saint

The number of saints' tombs in Amasya is summed up in local lore by the phrase "ninety-nine saints." Among this crowd, Selâmet Hatun is one of the most frequently mentioned women saints. Her tomb in the Pirinççi quarter stands today on the same street as the Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, and the people of the neighborhood still regard it as a place of pilgrimage. Some modern writers present her as the second woman saint known in Anatolia after Rabia al-Adawiyya. This description cannot be said to rest on any historical document; it is a judgment reported by İsa Çolaker, who writes on Amasya's spiritual figures, and it expresses the esteem in which people hold her.

The most reliable information we have about Selâmet Hatun's life is the short biographical entry in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar's Amasya Tarihi. Local blogs and tomb guides give her identity only as "the daughter of the Amasya judge Nizâmeddin Abdurrahman Çelebi" and "the lady who had her lodge built in 1453." Hüsâmeddin, by contrast, also names her family, her education, her order, her endowment and her sister. This record is only partly completed when read together with field collections on the tomb and with studies of Amasya's Sufi history; where sources are thin, what is known and what is not has been kept apart here.

A Family of Judges

Hüsâmeddin counts Selâmet Hatun among the "Muslihîzâde" line. Her father was Mevlânâ Nizâmeddin Abdurrahman Çelebi, chief judge (kadılkudât) of Amasya, known among the people by the nickname "Molla Beylik." Nizâmeddin Abdurrahman was the son of the chief judge Mevlânâ Şemseddin Mehmed Şah Çelebi and the grandson of Mevlânâ Celâleddin Abdurrahman al-Muslihî. She was thus born into a family that had held the office of judge and scholar in Amasya for three generations. In fifteenth-century Amasya a judge was not merely an official who settled lawsuits; he stood at the center of religious law, endowment affairs and the madrasa milieu.

According to Hüsâmeddin's sentence, Selâmet Hatun learned the sciences "from her father and her husband," that is, from both. On the question of her husband he gives no firm ruling; he reports, with the words "it is supposed" (zann olunur), that she was the wife of Seyyid Şemseddin Ebû Hâşim Mehmed es-Semerkandî, who is treated in another entry of the same book. The reservation belongs to Hüsâmeddin and ought to be preserved in the text. Since this seyyid is recorded as the first sheikh of the lodge Selâmet Hatun founded, the marriage hypothesis fits consistently among the records. Even so, their marriage remains information advanced by interpretation rather than by a document.

One more name from the family circle is mentioned separately. Hüsâmeddin writes that Selâmet Hatun was the sister of Zeyneb Hatun, one of the well-known poets of the fifteenth century. In studies of Amasya's scholarly and poetic life, Zeynep Hatun appears as the most important woman poet raised in the city in the fifteenth century; Mihri Hatun, who came after her, also grew up in Amasya and was the granddaughter of the Halveti sheikh Pîr Şücaeddin İlyas. That one of these sisters from a judge's family is remembered as a poet and the other as the founder of a lodge shows how far women could take part in the circles of learning and letters in the Amasya of those years.

The Lodge and the Endowment: 1453

According to Hüsâmeddin, after completing her studies Selâmet Hatun joined the Halveti order and had a tall lodge (zaviye) built in front of the Pirinççi quarter, in the vicinity of Kuşköprü. A tomb for herself was also built adjoining the lodge. She had her endowment deed drawn up in the year 857, during her father's term as judge; the Hijri year 857 corresponds to 1453. The statement in local accounts and modern tomb guides that the lodge was built in 1453 appears to rest on this document. Since the text of the deed is not available to us, it is impossible to tell which structures were completed at which date.

The economic strength of the endowment consisted of two parts: Selâmet Hatun endowed two farms as private property and left their management to trustees. Their revenue was spent at the lodge as food and stipends for the dervishes and sheikhs. The founding of endowments by women is a known practice in Amasya. Sekîne Hatun, who appears in Hüsâmeddin's book, endowed a farm inherited from her husband, assigning its revenue to the recitation of the Qur'an and to her children, and died after the year 860. What Selâmet Hatun did is an endowment along the same lines.

The story of Seyyid Ebû Hâşim Mehmed es-Semerkandî, the lodge's first sheikh, also shows Amasya's position at that time. According to Hüsâmeddin, he was born in Samarkand, and his father died in the town of Keş. Wearied by the civil wars within the Timurid dynasty, he left his homeland, ran into the conflict between the Akkoyunlu and the Karakoyunlu in Iraq, and from there came to the city during Yörgüç Pasha's governorship of Amasya. Settling in Amasya, the seyyid won the regard of the governing prince Sultan Ahmed and of Alâeddin Bey, served as naqib al-ashraf (head of the descendants of the Prophet), and taught Qur'anic exegesis and hadith. He served as the first sheikh of Selâmet Hatun's lodge and died in Dhu al-Hijja of the year 867, that is, toward the end of 1463. Hüsâmeddin describes him as "a learned and pious, esteemed seyyid." His sons were Seyyid Hâşim, Ahmed and Abdullah; his descendants served in later centuries as deputies of the naqib al-ashraf of Amasya and became known as the "Mansûroğulları."

According to Hüsâmeddin's records, Selâmet Hatun died after the year 870, that is, at some date after 1465-1466. Hüsâmeddin presents her as buried in her tomb, "among the virtuous of women, pious, devout, a person of charity and good works." Her year of birth is unknown. Her documented chronology fits within three dates, 1453, 1463 and 1465-1466; whatever lies outside them is the product of popular memory.

Naqshbandi and Halveti Attributions

The sources conflict on Selâmet Hatun's order. Local tomb guides and the compilations on which they draw name the lodge she had built in 1453 the "Yâ Vedûd Lodge" and describe it as a Naqshbandi lodge. Hüsâmeddin, on the other hand, writes that she was a "münîb" of the Halvetiyye, that is, that she entered this path with repentance and commitment. The first is later compiled information; the second is the record of Hüsâmeddin, who consulted endowment deeds, court registers and inscriptions while writing Amasya Tarihi. Studies of Amasya's Sufi history likewise present the city as one of the centers where the Halvetiyye was most widespread in Anatolia. All the same, in the academic list that enumerates the Halveti lodges, no lodge is plainly found under Selâmet Hatun's name; either the lodge came to be known by another name over time or it does not appear in that survey.

The origin of the name "Yâ Vedûd" is likewise unsettled. In the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, a lodge bearing this name and said to have been founded in the fifteenth century is in Istanbul's Ayvansaray district, and there is no record whatever of any connection with the lodge in Amasya. How this name came to be attached to the lodge in Amasya is not known. What can be said on the basis of the documents we have is this: the lodge was founded by the 1453 endowment deed, its first sheikh was a seyyid scholar, it stood together with a tomb near Kuşköprü, and in terms of order it is recorded, according to Hüsâmeddin, as following the Halveti line. The Naqshbandi attribution could not be verified.

Women Who Share the Same Name

Amasya Tarihi contains two separate entries under the name "Selâmet Hatun," and this may have caused confusion in popular accounts. The first Selâmet Hatun was the wife of the chief judge İmâdzâde Hacı Bedreddin Mahmud Çelebi. Her father was Gümüşlüzâde Hâce Celâl Çelebi, the treasurer of Çelebi Sultan Mehmed in Amasya. According to Hüsâmeddin, this lady endowed the properties that came to her from her husband and her father and added them to the lodge and soup kitchen her husband had built in İçerişehir. She died after the year 817, that is, after 1414-1415. She is remembered as "a person of charity and pious."

The second Selâmet Hatun is the daughter of the Muslihîzâde family. About half a century lies between the two ladies, and both were pious and respected women who founded endowments. Which of the two the present tomb and legend belong to cannot be settled with documents. Because Hüsâmeddin's record states plainly that the lodge and tomb in Pirinççi belong to the Muslihîzâde, it is taken as the basis here.

Comparison with Rabia al-Adawiyya

Calling Selâmet Hatun "Anatolia's second woman saint" in effect refers to Rabia al-Adawiyya, who has become the emblem of women saints. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Rabia was born in Basra in 95 (714) or 99 (718) as the fourth daughter of a poor family, and was therefore given the name "Râbia." Orphaned at an early age, she was separated from her sisters during a famine and sold as a slave. Her withdrawal to prayer at night led her master to free her. After the pilgrimage she settled in Basra, refused marriage proposals by saying that marriage was a veil before divine love, and died in 180 (796) or 185 (801). In the history of Sufism she is named at the head of the line that put love, hope and optimism in the place of fear and anxiety. The saying "I worship God neither out of fear of hell nor out of love of paradise; I worship Him out of my love and longing" is attributed to her.

This account also has a side that reaches into Anatolia. The same encyclopedia entry records, as one of the living traces of Rabia in Turkish culture, a belief that she was bought as a slave in Basra and brought to Erzurum, and that her grave is there, in the Hasan-ı Basrî quarter. Researchers dispute this attribution of a grave; according to Ömer Rıza Doğrul, some of the graves ascribed to Rabia belong to another woman of the same name. There is no written document showing that Selâmet Hatun developed an outlook of asceticism and love like Rabia's; the word "second" expresses the highest rank that the people could give a woman saint.

Legend and Tradition

The stories that formed around Selâmet Hatun are much later than the historical records and much more centered on abundance. According to popular tradition, she survived Noah's Flood together with her cows, and the name "selâmet" (safety) comes from this deliverance. The same traditions say that she is buried in the tomb together with her cow. These cannot be verified as historical fact; they are popular traditions of unknown origin, and their agreement with the meaning of the name (safety, deliverance) is striking.

Local collections also record that Selâmet Hatun has appeared in the dreams of many people. Most visitors to the tomb are women, and those who come say they apply for the blessing of a prayer and for various wishes. Field studies on tomb and shrine belief around Amasya and Tokat note that shrines attributed to women saints and tombs visited heavily by women hold a distinct place in the region; wishes for children, marriage and healing are the main reasons for these visits. That communities as varied as the Khorasan dervishes and Turkmen tribes settled in the region has made the practices of belief multilayered.

A second example of the same tradition is Ehl-i Hatun in the Kurşunlu quarter. Ehl-i Hatun, the granddaughter of Şadgeldi Pasha and daughter of Divitdar Ahmed Pasha, had a lodge and tomb built at the head of the Meydan Bridge in 1467. This lodge, served by Halveti sheikhs, is known as the "Wishing Well" (Dilek Kuyusu) and is still visited today by women, especially on Fridays. Built about fourteen years after Selâmet Hatun's lodge, it is another example of the tradition of women benefactors in Amasya having lodges and tombs built.

The Tomb

The Tomb of Selâmet Hatun stands in the Pirinççi quarter in central Amasya, on the street that bears her name. The structure has a square plan and a dome and is built of cut stone and rubble. It lies below the level of the road. Because it is surrounded by apartment blocks, Çolaker describes it as a building "imprisoned among apartments" behind the Commercial High School. Registered as a monument in 1992, the tomb is owned by the General Directorate of Foundations (Vakıflar). Women of the neighborhood volunteer to keep the building clean and open.

In November 2025 it was reported that nine tombs in Amasya, Selâmet Hatun's among them, had been closed to visitors on grounds of irregular electricity use. According to the reports, the electricity distribution company had found that devices such as electric heaters and air conditioners were being used in the tombs besides lighting, and an accumulated debt of about 250,000 liras had been charged to the Tokat Regional Directorate of Foundations. The Foundations announced that the closure was temporary and that the tombs could reopen if the neighborhood headman's office or public institutions took responsibility. The neighborhood headman Ahmet Balcı said he could take over the socket electricity subscription of the tomb; an 84-year-old resident said that women come here, pray, and find peace. No verified record was found, at the time these lines were written, of whether the doors were opened afterward.

What Is Known and What Is Not

Selâmet Hatun's life is tied to three documented dates: the 1453 endowment deed, the death in 1463 of Ebû Hâşim, the lodge's first sheikh, and her own death after 1465-1466. Her father, grandfather and great-grandfather held the office of judge; her sister Zeyneb Hatun wrote poetry; she joined the Halvetiyye; she endowed two farms. That her husband was Ebû Hâşim is, according to Hüsâmeddin, a supposition. The Naqshbandi attribution and the name "Yâ Vedûd" are not confirmed in the early sources at hand. The stories of Noah's Flood and of her burial with her cow are products of popular memory and can be read only as such.

Even within these limits, Selâmet Hatun is one of the few examples showing that a woman in fifteenth-century Amasya could exist in her own name in the life of learning, endowment and Sufi order alike. No trace of her lodge remains today; what is left is her tomb, a few lines in Amasya Tarihi, and the tradition of visits kept up by the women of the neighborhood.

Chronology

95/714 or 99/718: Birth of Rabia al-Adawiyya (two accounts, according to the TDV).

857 (1453): During her father's term as judge, Selâmet Hatun has her endowment deed drawn up and has a lodge and tomb built in front of the Pirinççi quarter, near Kuşköprü.

867 Dhu al-Hijja (1463): The lodge's first sheikh, Seyyid Ebû Hâşim Mehmed es-Semerkandî, dies.

After 870 (1465-1466): Selâmet Hatun dies and is buried in her tomb.

1467: The Ehl-i Hatun Lodge and tomb are completed in the Kurşunlu quarter.

1992: The Tomb of Selâmet Hatun is registered as a monument.

November 2025: Nine tombs in Amasya are temporarily closed to visitors on grounds of irregular electricity use.

Sources

Primary sources

Academic studies

Other sources

Online sources