Few poets of Amasya from the pre-Ottoman period of the emirates left their names in the record, and Selîm Çelebi is one of them. In the second half of the fourteenth century he was keeping the endowment registers of the Mevlevî lodge when his pen carried him to the secretaryship of Hacı Şâdgeldi Pasha's council. He knew Persian literature and wrote a fine hand. His father was known in the city by the nickname "Gönül Çelebi", which is why Hüsameddin calls him "Gönüloğlu", son of Gönül. He is known to have died after 776 (1374-75); half a century later the family he founded was serving as scribes to an Ottoman vizier.

Secretary of the Mevlevî Lodge

In the tenth volume of Amasya Tarihi, the entry Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar gives him is brief but dense:

Selîm Çelebi-Gönüloğlu Amasyalıdır. "Gönül Çelebi" demekle meşhûr bir zâtın oğludur. Tercemesi geçen mevlevî-hâne şeyhi Hüsâmeddîn Hasan Dede Çelebi sohbetinde tahsîl-i ma'ârif edib mevlevî-hâne vakfı kâtibi oldu. Ba'dehû Amasya hükümdârı Hacı Şâdgeldi Paşa'ya takarrüb edib dîvân-ı emâret kâtibi olduğu hâlde 776 sâlinden sonra vefât etdi. Mahdûmu Mevlânâ el-Hâc İvaz Çelebi'dir. Şâ'ir, kâtib, hattı güzel, edebiyât-ı Fârisiyyeye âşinâ idi.

A close rendering: Of Amasya; his father was a man known as "Gönül Çelebi". He acquired learning and refinement in the company of Hüsâmeddîn Hasan Dede Çelebi, sheikh of the Mevlevî lodge, whose life has been told earlier, and became secretary of the lodge's endowment. Later he drew close to Hacı Şâdgeldi Pasha, ruler of Amasya, became secretary of the emirate's council, and died while in that office some time after the year 776. His son was Mevlânâ Hacı İvaz Çelebi. He was a poet and a scribe, wrote a fine hand and was versed in Persian literature.

The sheikh whose life the entry says "has been told" is Hüsâmeddîn Hasan Çelebi, whom Hüsameddin describes separately in the eighth volume. The son of Ali bin Mehmed, a dervish of the Babaî order, this native of Amasya had gone to Konya in his youth, entered the Mevlevî lodge, trained in the service of Sultan Veled and then of Ulu Ârif Çelebi, and returned to the Amasya lodge as its sheikh. He held the post for more than forty years, taught the Mesnevî, enlarged and set in order the lodge's endowments, gained great influence as the "special counsellor" of Hacı Şâdgeldi, and died in 773 (1371-72). Hüsameddin calls him "unique in his age" in Arabic and Persian literature. The link between Selîm Çelebi's familiarity with Persian and this sheikh's circle can be read plainly from the order of the entry itself.

In the Council of Şâdgeldi Pasha

The secretaryship of the Mevlevî endowment meant keeping the income and expenditure registers of a dervish lodge, and it was this experience with the pen that carried Selîm Çelebi into the government of the city. Hacı Şâdgeldi Pasha was the ruler at the head of the Amasya emirate in these years, the one who fought against Kadı Burhâneddin. Hüsameddin says that Selîm "drew close" to the emir. Considering that Sheikh Hüsâmeddîn Hasan Çelebi was Şâdgeldi's counsellor, it is quite likely that the scribe passed into the emirate's council through this connection, though the entry never names that route.

The title "secretary of the emirate's council" places Selîm Çelebi at the head of the emirate's official correspondence. The qualities Hüsameddin lists in describing him suit the post: a fine hand, the scribal craft, Persian. In the Anatolian emirates of the fourteenth century, chancery correspondence and literary texts rested largely on the Persian tradition; for a scribe who wrote poetry, that language was the language of both his profession and his verse. The year of his death is not certain; Hüsameddin records only that he died after 776 (1374-75), while still council secretary.

The Gönüloğulları

Selîm Çelebi's descendants reappear in another entry by Hüsameddin in the eleventh volume. Describing Şâh Melik Pasha, the vizier from Amasya (d. 845/1441-42), the author lists his household and writes that the pasha's secretary was "Gönüloğlu Hacı Kemâl Çelebi of Amasya, son of Hacı İvâz Çelebi, son of Mevlânâ Selim Çelebi"; the same sentence adds that Kemâl Çelebi's brother Hacı Hüseyin Çelebi was also well known. "Gönüloğlu" had thus become a family name: Selîm Çelebi's son Hacı İvaz Çelebi followed the path of learning with the title "Mevlânâ", while his grandson Kemâl Çelebi kept to his grandfather's calling as a scribe. A tradition of the pen that began in the council of an emirate reached the household of a vizier within the first half-century of Ottoman rule over Amasya.

Poetry

No poem by Selîm Çelebi has been found. The string of epithets in the last sentence of the entry opens with the word "poet"; even so, not one title or couplet is given. His familiarity with Persian allows the thought that he also wrote verse in that language, but no source confirms the possibility.

Chronology

773 (1371-72): His teacher Hüsâmeddîn Hasan Çelebi, sheikh of the Amasya Mevlevî lodge, dies.

After 776 (1374-75): Selîm Çelebi dies while council secretary of Hacı Şâdgeldi Pasha.

845 (1441-42): The vizier Şâh Melik Pasha, whose secretary was Selîm's grandson Hacı Kemâl Çelebi, dies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources