Şevkî Ahmed Çelebi was a poet of the first half of the sixteenth century who served Şemsî Bey, tutor (lala) of Selim I during the prince's governorship at Trabzon, and spent the end of his life in Bursa as keeper (türbedar) of the tombs of Osman Gazi and Orhan Gazi. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar records him as the son of Muslihîzâde Hamza Çelebi, a judge from Amasya; Âşık Çelebi and Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, however, call him "of Bursa". According to Âşık Çelebi he devoted years to abridging Firdevsî's enormous Süleymân-nâme, but died before he could make a fair copy of this draft. The biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire) have preserved one kıta (short poem) of his.

Hüsameddin's Record

Hüsameddin's entry describes the poet with dated details not found in the tezkires:

Şevkî Ahmed Çelebi-Muslihîzâde. Amasyalıdır. Meşâhîr-i kudâtdan Muslihîzâde Hamza Çelebi mahdûmudur. Pederi Bursa nâibi iken orada neş'et ve tahsîl-i ilim ve irfâna gayret etdi. Pederinin vefâtında Amasya'da ikâmet edib kitâbetle imrâr-ı hayat etmekde iken Yavuz Sultân Selim Hân'ın lalası Amasyalı Şemsî Bey'e Trabzon'da intisâb ve hizmet ederek ma'lûm-i padişâhî oldu. 918'de Sultân-ı müşârün-ileyhin cülûsunda divân-ı hümâyûn kâtibi olup 923'de Efendisinin azlinden musâb olarak Bursa'ya gönderildi. 926'da Sultân Süleyman Kânûnî cülûsunda Defterdâr İskender Çelebi'nin şefâatiyle gelip sânîyen divân-ı hümâyûn kâtibi oldu. Bu esnâda "Süleymannâme" adlı târihini yazmaya başladı. Defterdâr İskender Çelebi meclisine mülâzemet ederek bir müddet sonra mâliye tezkirecisi oldu. 940'da müşârün-ileyhin maiyyetinde Bağdat seferine gitdi. Hayfâ ki, Bağdat'da Efendisinin 941'de salben şehîd edilmesi üzerine azledilip sânîyen Bursa'da ikâmete me'mûr oldu. 942'de Efendisinin bâis-i şehâdeti olan Frenk İbrâhim Paşa'nın maktûlen vefâtı üzerine Sultân Osmân ve Orhan Gâzilerin türbedârı olup 947 hudûdunda vefât etdi. Yazdığı "Süleymannâme"si yarım kalmış olmakla beraber istifâdeli güzel bir târihtir. Maârifden hissedâr, şâir, kâtib olduğuna târihi şâhiddir.

In English the record says: He is from Amasya. He is the son of Muslihîzâde Hamza Çelebi, one of the well-known judges. While his father was deputy judge (naib) of Bursa he grew up there and strove to acquire learning. On his father's death he settled in Amasya and was earning his living as a secretary when he attached himself to Şemsî Bey of Amasya, tutor of Selim I, at Trabzon and, by serving him, became known to the sultan. At that sultan's accession in 918 he became a secretary of the imperial council; in 923, affected by his master's dismissal, he was sent to Bursa. At the accession of Süleyman the Magnificent in 926 he returned through the intercession of the treasurer (defterdar) İskender Çelebi and became a secretary of the imperial council for the second time. At this time he began to write his history called "Süleymannâme". Attending the gatherings of the treasurer İskender Çelebi, he became after a while tezkireci of the finance department. In 940 he went on the Baghdad campaign in his retinue. Alas, when his master was hanged in Baghdad in 941 he was dismissed and ordered once again to reside in Bursa. In 942, when Frenk İbrahim Paşa, the cause of his master's death, was killed, he became keeper of the tombs of Sultan Osman and Orhan Gazi, and he died around 947. The "Süleymannâme" he wrote, though it remained unfinished, is a useful and fine history. His history bears witness that he was a poet and secretary with a share of learning.

Şevkî in the Tezkires

In the Meşâ'irü'ş-şu'arâ, after Şevkî of Edirne, Âşık Çelebi describes this poet under the heading "Şevkî-i Sânî", the second Şevkî, and opens the entry with a couplet beginning "Ṣorarsañ aṣlın anuñ Burusalıdur" (if you ask his origin, he is from Bursa). According to him Şevkî grew up in the household of Fenârî Şems Bey, who was treasurer and tutor of Shah Selim while the latter was prince at Trabzon, whose standing rose in the years of the sultanate, and who later became treasurer of the treasury and governor of a sanjak. When that age had passed and his master had died, he opened a bookseller's (sahhaf) shop in Bursa, contented himself with a modest living, and took on the keepership of the tombs of Osman Gazi and Orhan Gazi and the ihtiyarlık, the elder's leadership, of the poets' lodge (tekke) in Bursa. The anthologist adds that old age had bent him double, and describes his main work as follows:

Firdevsî'nüñ üç yüz altmış mücelled Süleymân-nâme'sin telḫîṣe başın aşaġa egüp niçe yıl tażyîʿ-i evḳât itmiş idi. Ol müsevvede beyâża çıḳmadın dest-i ecel bunuñ ismin ḥayât defterinden terâş itdi.

In English: He had bent his head for many years and spent his time abridging Firdevsî's Süleymân-nâme of three hundred and sixty volumes. Before that draft was made into a fair copy, the hand of death scraped his name from the register of life.

Âşık Çelebi also relates a memory that Şevkî told at every opportunity. When Sultan Selim came to Bursa years later to hunt, he recognised Şevkî, who had gone out with the townspeople to welcome him, and asked Zeynel Paşa beside him whether that was not "our Şevkî"; Zeynel Paşa, however, put the sultan in doubt by saying that the man had died. When Şevkî later visited Zeynel Paşa, the Paşa asked after him, calling him "poor fellow" and wondering that he was still alive, and treated him kindly. According to a footnote in the edition, some manuscripts of the tezkire give the sultan's name as Süleyman instead of Selim.

The entry in Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi's tezkire is shorter and repeats the same information:

Burusadandur. İftihâr-ı Âl-i 'Osmân Sultân Selîm bin Bâyezîd Hân Trabzonda iken lâlâsı olan Âl-i Fenârîden Şemsî Bege hidmet itmegin Hazret-i Şehzâdenün ma'lûmı ve manzûr-ı nazar-ı eltâf-ı bî-hadd ü rukûmı olmış idi. Ba'dehû vatanına mürâca'at idüp ba'z-ı Âl-i 'Osmân ravzasına türbedâr olup ma'âş içün ba'z-ı cihet ihtiyâr itmiş idi.

In English: He is from Bursa. Because he served Şemsî Bey of the Fenârî family, tutor of Sultan Selim son of Bayezid Han, the pride of the House of Osman, while the latter was at Trabzon, he had become known to the prince and the object of his boundless favours. Later he returned to his homeland, became keeper of the tombs of some members of the Ottoman dynasty and took up some posts for his livelihood.

The State of the Sources

Hüsameddin's record differs from the tezkires on three points. The first is the question of his hometown. Both anthologists count Şevkî as from Bursa; Hüsameddin presents him as the son of a judge from Amasya and shows Bursa as the city where his father served as deputy judge and where he himself grew up. Hüsameddin does not say from which source he took this information. The second is the identity of Şemsî Bey: the tezkires count him as a member of the Fenârî family, Hüsameddin calls him "Şemsî Bey of Amasya".

The third and most marked difference concerns the work. Hüsameddin says that Şevkî began writing his "history called Süleymannâme" after the accession of Süleyman the Magnificent and that this history remained unfinished; the reader takes this to be a work narrating the reign of Sultan Süleyman. The work Âşık Çelebi describes, however, is the abridgement of another book. According to Orhan F. Köprülü's article "Firdevsî, Uzun" in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, the main subject of the Süleymannâme-i Kebîr that Firdevsî-i Rûmî presented to Bayezid II is the life of the prophet Solomon (Hz. Süleyman); Latîfî and Âlî, like Âşık Çelebi, give the number of its volumes as 360. Şevkî's work on this huge book remained, according to the anthologist, a draft never made into a fair copy. Hüsameddin's dated information about his secretaryship, the Baghdad campaign in İskender Çelebi's retinue and the appointment as tomb keeper in 942 is also not found in the tezkires. Whether this information rests on another source or was built from the known life of İskender Çelebi remains an open question.

His Connection with Amasya

Amasya enters Şevkî's life only through Hüsameddin's record, and the tie is therefore disputed. According to Hüsameddin his father was a judge from Amasya, and after his father's death Şevkî lived for a while in Amasya as a secretary and went from there to Trabzon. Âşık Çelebi and Kınalızâde, on the other hand, never mention Amasya and present the poet as from Bursa. The three sources agree that Şevkî grew up in Bursa and ended his life there; his being from Amasya remains a connection made through his father's homeland.

His Poetry

According to Âşık Çelebi, a two-couplet kıta composed for a beauty of the Seyyid lineage is the only poem left by Şevkî. Kınalızâde gives only the second couplet of this kıta. The kıta is built on the likenesses between hair, the down on the cheek and writing; it can be read on its own page in the poet's category. What became of the Süleymân-nâme abridgement on which he spent his years is unknown; no copy of it has been identified.

Chronology

918 (1512): According to Hüsameddin he becomes a secretary of the imperial council at the accession of Selim I.

923 (1517): Is sent to Bursa on his master's dismissal.

926 (1520): At the accession of Süleyman the Magnificent he becomes a council secretary again through İskender Çelebi's intercession.

940 (1533-34): Joins the Baghdad campaign in İskender Çelebi's retinue.

941 (1534-35): İskender Çelebi is executed in Baghdad; Şevkî is sent to Bursa.

942 (1535-36): Becomes keeper of the tombs of Osman Gazi and Orhan Gazi.

Around 947 (1540-41): Dies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources