Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi, known to the people of Amasya as "Şeyh Kırık", left his nickname to a quarter, a mosque and the oldest dervish lodge of the city. In the early fifteenth century he was sheikh of the lodge built by the Seljuk sultan Mes'ûd; when an earthquake brought that building down he had a new lodge raised in its place, served as adviser to Prince Alâeddin Ali Çelebi, and died in 846 (1442-43) in the terror that followed the prince's strangling. Hüsameddin records that this scholar, at home in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, also composed verse; not one example of it survives.

Life

Amasya Tarihi gives him an entry of his own among the names beginning with "şîn":

Amasyalıdır. Mes'ûdiye Hânkâhı şeyhi olan Mevlânâ Şemseddîn Ahmed Çelebi hizmetinde ilim ve kemâl-i tahsîl ederek üstâdının 805'de Amasya'dan firârında bir müddet inzivâ edib Çelebi Sultân Mehmed'in Amasya'da yerleştiği esnâda meydana çıkdı. Üstâdının yerine şeyh oldu. Kırk yıldan ziyâde mahallesini ihyâ ederek halkın tehzîb-i ahlâkına çalışdı. İkametgâhı civârında bir câmi binâ etdi. Zelzeleden harâb olan Sultân Mes'ûd'un hânkâhı yerine güzel bir tekke yaptırdı. Câmii, tekkesi, mahallesi "Şeyh Kırık" demekle meşhûr oldu. Ancak Şehzâde Sultân Alâeddîn Bey Amasya vâlisi iken bunu kendisine şeyh ve müsteşâr-ı mü'temen intihâb etmişdi. 846'da şehzâde-i müşârün-ileyhin ihnâkında beyhûde telâşa düşüp korkunun verdiği bir ızdırâb içinde terk-i hayat etdi. Âlim, kâmil, edîb, şâir üç lisâna vâkıf ve mütekellim bir zât idi. Mahdûmları ulemâ ve fuzalâdan Mevlânâ Abdülganî ve bunun oğulları Abdülkerîm Hâtemî ve Müderris Abdî Efendilerdir.

Rendered into English: He was from Amasya. He gained learning and refinement in the service of Mevlânâ Şemseddîn Ahmed Çelebi, sheikh of the Mes'ûdiye lodge. When his master fled Amasya in 805 he withdrew into seclusion for a time, and came forward when Sultan Çelebi Mehmed established himself in Amasya. He became sheikh in his master's place. For more than forty years he enlivened his quarter and worked to improve the morals of the people. He built a mosque near his house. In place of Sultan Mes'ûd's lodge, ruined by an earthquake, he had a handsome lodge erected. His mosque, his lodge and his quarter became known as "Şeyh Kırık". When Prince Sultan Alâeddin Bey was governor of Amasya, he had chosen him as his sheikh and trusted counsellor. In 846, when the prince was strangled, he fell into needless alarm and died in the anguish that fear brought on. He was learned, accomplished, a man of letters and a poet, versed in three languages and an eloquent speaker. His son was Mevlânâ Abdülganî, one of the learned, whose sons were Abdülkerîm Hâtemî and Müderris Abdî Efendi.

His master Şemseddîn Ahmed Çelebi is the Şehâbeddîn Ahmed Çelebi whom Hüsameddin calls "Sarı Şeyh", the Yellow Sheikh. He had become sheikh of the lodge in the time of Devâtdâr Ahmed Pasha and later attached himself to Prince Çelebi Mehmed, then governor of Amasya. Having opposed Kara Devletşâh, whom Timur had sent as governor of Amasya, he fled to Aleppo in 805 (1402-03) when Timur's grandson Kara Mehmed Sultan came to the city to investigate, took refuge with the emir Şeyh el-Müeyyed, and died in Damascus in 815 (1412-13). The pupil's disappearance follows directly on this flight; it may be supposed that with his master gone he did not feel safe either, though the entry gives no reason. Once Çelebi Mehmed held Amasya firmly again, Mehmed Çelebi came out of hiding and took charge of the lodge.

Lodge, Mosque and Quarter

The Mes'ûdî lodge was, according to Hüsameddin, the first dervish lodge founded in Amasya; it had been built around 545 (1150) by the Seljuk sultan Mes'ûd, and in the thirteenth century Baba İlyâs, and early in the fourteenth Âşık Paşa, had served as its sheikhs; the story of those earlier sheikhs belongs to the lodge life of Amasya after Köse Dağ. During Mehmed Çelebi's tenure the building collapsed in an earthquake and he had a new lodge built in place of the old one. According to Hüsameddin's list of lodges in the first volume, from then on the old name survived only in the quarter, while the lodge was called the "Şeyh Kırık Tekkesi" and in time, mistakenly, the "Çıkrık Tekkesi". The sheikhship remained in his line for about a hundred years. Under Süleyman the Magnificent it was given to retired madrasa teachers, and around 1257 (1841), in the mid-nineteenth century, the lodge disappeared altogether.

The quarter took the same name. Recorded in official registers as "Şeyh Kırık ma'a Hânkâh", the district had, according to Hüsameddin, been called the "Lodge Quarter" from 560 to 840 and had borne the name "Şeyh Kırık" since 841 (1437-38), because Mehmed Çelebi practised his austerities in a cell beside the lodge. In popular speech the name turned into "Çıkrık"; some scribes, likening "Kırık" to an Arabic word, wrote it "Şeyh Garîk". Like the Eslem quarter that became "İslâm", it is one of Amasya's Ottoman neighbourhoods whose name wore down from mouth to mouth.

Adviser to Prince Alâeddin

While governing the sanjak of Amasya, Prince Alâeddin Ali Çelebi, son of Murad II, made Mehmed Çelebi his sheikh and his "müsteşâr-ı mü'temen", his trusted adviser. In Hüsameddin's account the strangling of the prince in 846 (1442-43) also marks the end of the old sheikh: though no harm came to him, he was seized by fear and died of that anguish. The author's phrase "needless alarm" shows that he did not think the sheikh was in real danger. The circumstances of the prince's death are disputed in the sources; the date the entry gives is 846.

Poetry

Hüsameddin's "man of letters and a poet" is backed by no title and no couplet; the poems of this sheikh, who could speak and write in three languages, have not been found. Nor is it clear whether "Şeyhî" was a pen name or an epithet drawn from his sheikhship; it stands as a name in the heading of the entry and led to his descendants being called "Şeyhîzâde". Beyond the shared name, nothing links him to the great Germiyan poet Şeyhî.

State of the Sources

The identity and lineage of Şeyh Kırık are given in ways that do not agree across the volumes of Hüsameddin's work. The confusion arises from the names "Şeyhî", "Mehmed" and "Hasan", which recur in the family generation after generation.

  • His own entry in the eleventh volume calls him simply "Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi", names his teacher as Şemseddîn Ahmed Çelebi and carries his line on through his son Abdülganî and his grandsons Hâtemî Abdülkerîm and Abdî.
  • The account of the lodges in the first volume gives his full name as "Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi", makes him the son of Sheikh İzzeddîn Hasan Çelebi, who became sheikh of the lodge after 787 (1385), and a pupil of Sarı Şeyh. It says the lodge was granted to him by Çelebi Mehmed on his return from Bolu.
  • The entry Hasan Çelebi-Hüsâmeddînzâde in the eighth volume lists, among the sons of a sheikh of the Mevlevî lodge named Hasan Çelebi who died around 855 (1451), "Şeyhî Mehmed Çelebi, one of the poets", and makes his son Abdülkerîm Hâtemî directly. The same volume also records a judge called Hüsâmeddîn Hüseyin Çelebi-Şeyh Kırıkzâde as a son of İzzeddîn Hasan Çelebi.
  • The entry on Âfitâbî Abdurrahman Çelebi in the sixth volume, for its part, makes Hâtemî and Âfitâbî the sons of "Şemseddîn Mehmed Çelebi bin Şeyhî Çelebi".

What these accounts share is an ancestor, a Mehmed Çelebi surnamed "Şeyhî", and the attachment of the name "Şeyh Kırık" to his line. That his father was İzzeddîn Hasan Çelebi, sheikh of the lodge, is a reading drawn from the first and eighth volumes; yet if the Hasan Çelebi of the eighth volume lived until 855, he would have died nine years after his son. Whether Hâtemî Abdülkerîm Çelebi was Şeyh Kırık's son or his grandson cannot be settled from the sources available either; the same three schemes stand side by side when Hâtemî's own lineage is given.

Chronology

c. 545 (1150): The Seljuk sultan Mes'ûd has the lodge in Amasya built.

805 (1402-03): His master Şemseddîn Ahmed Çelebi flees Amasya for Aleppo; Mehmed Çelebi goes into seclusion.

815 (1412-13): His master dies in Damascus.

841 (1437-38): The quarter where he lives begins to be called "Şeyh Kırık".

846 (1442-43): Dies after the strangling of Prince Alâeddin Ali Çelebi.

c. 1257 (1841): The Şeyh Kırık lodge disappears altogether.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources