Şükrullah Çelebi was a scholar, judge, envoy and historian who lived under Murad II and Mehmed II (the Conqueror) in the fifteenth century. In the sources he appears as Şükrullah b. Şehâbeddin Ahmed, Şükrullah Amasyavî and Ahmedoğlu Şükrullah. The work that keeps his name alive is Behcetü't-tevârîh, regarded as the first work of Persian prose to speak of the Ottoman dynasty. Besides this he wrote books in Persian on religious and moral subjects. Whether a Turkish treatise on music attributed to him is really his remains disputed. Amasya's historian Hüseyin Hüsameddin calls him "the first historian in the Ottoman State" and draws again and again in his own book on the records about Amasya in his work.

By his own account he was born in 790 (1388) and entered Ottoman service in 812 (1409). Most sources regard him as a native of Amasya; Hüsameddin writes that he was born in Amasya and studied Arabic and Persian literature with his uncle Yâr Ali, and jurisprudence and theology with Gümüşlüzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi. He taught at madrasas in Bursa and Edirne and served as judge of Bursa; Murad II sent him as envoy to İbrâhim Bey of Karaman in 1444 and to the Qara Qoyunlu ruler Jahan Shah in 1448. In the early years of Mehmed II's reign he lived in Bursa. The date of his death is given variously in the sources as 864, 894 or after 1464. His life, his embassies and the other Şükrullahs with whom he has been confused are told in detail in the biography Şükrullah.

Works

According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Şükrullah wrote his works in Persian. Five works are counted as certainly his: a universal history, a book of prayers, a religious and moral compilation, a lost book of wisdom and a commentary on a creedal poem. To these are added a treatise on music and a book on cifr (letter divination) whose attribution is disputed. The dates he gives in his own works show that his most productive years were his seventies.

Behcetü't-tevârîh

Type and language: A universal history in Persian prose. The title means "the splendour of histories". Date and place of writing: The author says he began the book in Muharram 861 (December 1456), when he was past seventy. The work was written in Bursa in 1456-1459 and dedicated to the grand vizier Mahmud Pasha. According to the TDV, the author was rewarded for it by the grand vizier with 1,000 akçe. At the end of the book Şükrullah writes that he had served the Ottoman house since the age of twenty-two and that fifty-one years had passed since then; from these statements Kamiloğlu concludes that the book was finished in 863 (1459).

Contents: The work consists of thirteen chapters (bab). The first tells of the creation of the universe and of Adam, drawing on the traditions of the Zoroastrians, the Jews, the Christians of the Byzantine and Roman churches and the Muslims, and dealing with geography, the four elements and the angelic realm. The following chapters are devoted to the Chinese, Turkish, Greek, Indian and Abyssinian peoples, the prophets of the Children of Israel, the Prophet Muhammad and his family, the Companions, the imams of the legal schools, and well-known scholars and sheikhs. The tenth chapter treats the Greek philosophers, the eleventh the ancient kings of Iran beginning with Kayumars and then the Umayyads, and the twelfth the Islamic dynasties from the Abbasids and Fatimids to the Seljuks, ending with the Mongol invasion. The last chapter, of fifteen folios, is the history of the Ottomans and closes with praise of Mehmed II and Mahmud Pasha; the author also says that he intends to write the history of Mehmed II's reign in a separate volume.

The most original parts of the work are the reigns the author lived through himself: those of Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed), Murad II and Mehmed II. Şükrullah stresses the precedence of the Ottomans, and of the Oghuz Turks in general, among the world's sovereign houses, gives a more detailed Oghuz genealogy than Yazıcızâde's, and emphasises the Ottoman ideal of gaza and holy war. In describing the creation of the universe he starts from the concept of the light of Muhammad (nûr-ı Muhammedî) taken from Ibn Arabi's system of thought. In the Nuruosmaniye copy, which appears to be the first redaction of the book, he says that the lineage of Ertuğrul Bey goes back to Gökalp son of Oghuz, and that he took this information from a book written in the Mongol script that was shown to him at the court of Jahan Shah, to whom he went as envoy in 1448.

Sources: The introduction names Baydawi, Tabari, Ibn al-Jawzi, Ibn Khallikan and the Kūt al-arwāh of Hasan b. Ali b. Hammad. The Ottoman section makes use of Ahmedî's İskendernâme and of a Sahîhu't-tevârîh whose author and nature are unknown. Kamiloğlu writes that the sources used by the author include geographical works that have not survived, so that the book also has value for geography.

Manuscripts: In Istanbul there are copies in the Nuruosmaniye (no. 3059), Beyazıt State (no. 4902), Topkapı Palace Revan Köşkü (nos. 1538 and 1539), Istanbul University (FY no. 811) and Süleymaniye (Fatih no. 4203, Ayasofya no. 2990, Serez no. 1891) libraries; abroad there are copies in libraries in Vienna, London, Paris, St Petersburg and Munich. Kamiloğlu counts thirteen manuscripts worldwide, seven of them in Turkey. The Nuruosmaniye copy, in twelve chapters, differs from the others; only here does the name of Mahmud Pasha appear after that of Mehmed II in the section on the reason for writing. Ayla Demiroğlu thinks the difference may stem from political causes such as the Pasha's dismissal from the grand vizierate.

Translations and editions: In the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, Mustafa b. Ahmed Ali Fârisî translated the work into Turkish, with some changes and abridgements, under the title Mahbûbü kulûbi'l-ârifîn, and presented it to the grand vizier İbrâhim Pasha (937/1530-31). According to Kamiloğlu, the translation was begun on 13 September 1530 at the request of Mehmed Agha, commander of the Janissaries, and was made in an ornate style. The section on the Ottomans was published by Theodor Seif with the Persian text and a German translation in the second volume of Mitteilungen zur osmanischen Geschichte (1925, pp. 63-128), on the basis of the Munich and Vienna copies. Nihal Atsız translated the opening part of the work and its sections on the ancient Turks and the Ottomans in 1939 under the title Dokuz Boy Türkler ve Osmanlı Sultanları Tarihi; in 1949 he republished only the Ottoman section in Osmanlı Tarihleri. The complete work was prepared as a doctoral thesis and translated into Turkish by Hasan Almaz (Ankara University, 2004).

Menhecü'r-reşâd

This is a religious and moral compilation. Kamiloğlu gives the year of writing as 1460. It consists of nineteen chapters and, according to the TDV, was compiled from 144 sources. Among the fifty-eight books named as sources are works of jurisprudence, hadith and fatwa such as al-Quduri's al-Mukhtasar, al-Marghinani's al-Hidaya and its commentary and the Fatawa al-Tatarkhaniyya, together with Sufi and esoteric works such as Suhrawardi's Awarif al-maarif and Abu Yaqub al-Sijistani's Kitab al-Yanabi. The book opens with the topic of God's unity and those who profess it and goes on to the people of true knowledge, prayer, fasting, the hajj, the umra, the saints and the creation of the world. The last chapter, citing sources such as Abu Dawud al-Sijistani and Najm al-Din al-Isfahani, relates reports on the appearance of the Mahdi and the Antichrist after the conquest of Istanbul. The known copy is in the Süleymaniye Library, Fatih no. 2112. Hüsameddin, calling it "Minhâcü'r-Reşâd", counts it with Behcetü't-tevârîh as one of the author's two "highly esteemed" works.

Câmiu'd-deavât

This is a book of prayers. According to the author it was compiled from 140 works and contains 472 prayers in twenty-two chapters, giving the prayers to be said in various circumstances, at various times and in various places, together with their merits. The Süleymaniye Library holds copies under this title in Ayasofya no. 2793, as Kitâbü'd-Deavât in Fatih no. 2774 and as Ed'iye-i Me'sûre in Fatih no. 2554. Hüsameddin records that in the preface of a copy in the Ayasofya Library the author writes that he began the book in Muharram 868 and finished it in Bursa in the middle of Jumada al-Akhira 868. The year 868 corresponds to 1463-64. This record rules out the report that the author died in 864 and shows that this book is Şükrullah's last documented work.

Enîsü'l-ârifîn

Kâtib Çelebi mentions this work as a biographical book on scholars written in the reign of Mehmed II. Atsız suggested that it might be a book on music rather than on scholars. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, a book on wisdom and ethics registered under this title in the Manisa Provincial Public Library (no. 1169) is probably this work of Şükrullah. Its content will not be certain until that copy is examined.

Commentary on the Kasîde-i Emâlî

This must be a commentary on al-Amali, the creedal poem of Ali b. Osman al-Ushi. The author mentions this work in the introduction to Menhecü'r-reşâd. Nothing is known of a surviving copy.

Works of Disputed Attribution

The author of the music treatise that is a Turkish translation, with extensive additions, of Safi al-Din al-Urmawi's Kitab al-Adwar also introduces himself as "Ahmedoğlu Şükrullah". Kamiloğlu counts this work among those of Şükrullah of Amasya and writes that it was made at the command of Murad II, that twenty chapters were added to Urmawi's fifteen, and that the added parts describe the making of musical instruments. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, however, states that there is no certain information on whether the two Şükrullahs are the same person. Zümrüt Şirinova argues that they are different people, showing that the author of the treatise says in one of his poems that his "ancient homeland" was Çemişgezek and in another work introduces himself as the son of Ahmed, judge of Çemişgezek. M. Orhan Bayrak gives the work called Fütûhât fi'l-cifr to Şükrullah of Amasya; Atsız says it belongs to Şükrullah of Shirvan. These two works are not counted here among the historian's works.

Amasya in His Works

As we have had no access to the Persian text of Behcetü't-tevârîh or to a complete Turkish translation, we cannot give the passages on Amasya in their original language. Hüsameddin, however, refers to Behcetü't-tevârîh frequently in his Amasya Tarihi when describing the Seljuk and early Ottoman periods of the city, and renders its records on Amasya in his own Turkish. The passages below are these renderings; they have not been compared with the actual wording of the Behcet.

According to Hüsameddin, Behcetü't-tevârîh records that the Seljuk sultan Mesud made Amasya his home and founded a new city near it. In the debate over which of the places called "Simre" near Amasya is the original one, Hüsameddin cites Şükrullah as his first witness:

Asıl "Simre"nin ta'yîn-i mekânına dâ'ir "Behcetü't-Tevârîh"de "Şükrullâh Çelebi" diyor ki: "Sultân Mes'ûd Selçûkî" Amasya'da tavattun ve "Sîmre" nâmıyla bir şehr-i cedîd binâ ve burada câmi ve medrese inşâ ederek orada yapdırdığı türbe-i âliyede defn edilmişdir."

In English: On the location of the original Simre, Şükrullah Çelebi says in Behcetü't-tevârîh: "The Seljuk sultan Mesud settled in Amasya, built a new city named Simre, built a mosque and a madrasa there, and was buried there in the lofty tomb he had had built." Hüsameddin quotes the same information from Cenâbî Mustafa Efendi's al-Aylam al-zahir and Derviş Ahmed Efendi's Câmiu'd-düvel, and notes that in Behcetü't-tevârîh the word "Sîmre" is vocalised with kasra on the sin, sukun on the mim and fatha on the ra. He writes that the same work records the lodge (Hânkâh-ı Mes'ûdî) that Sultan Mesud had built in Amasya, later known as the Şeyh Kırık Tekkesi.

Hüsameddin's most important quotation from Behcetü't-tevârîh concerns the grave of Prince Ahmed, the eldest son of Murad II. Against the common view that the prince, who died while governor of Amasya, was buried in Bursa, he writes:

Türkiye müverrihleri, Sultân Ahmed'in Bursa'da medfûn olduğunu, levhasına da 845 senesinde vefât etdiğini sonradan yazmışlardır. Hâlbuki 841 senesinde ber-hayât olan müverrih-i meşhûr Amasyalı Şükrullâh Çelebi, Behcetü't-Tevârîh'inde bu şehzâdenin Amasya'da medfûn olduğunu ve târîh-i vefâtını kayd etmişdir.

In English: Turkish historians wrote later that Sultan Ahmed was buried in Bursa, and on his tomb plaque that he died in the year 845. Yet the famous historian Şükrullah Çelebi of Amasya, who was alive in the year 841, recorded in his Behcetü't-tevârîh that this prince was buried in Amasya, and the date of his death. On the strength of this record Hüsameddin identifies the uninscribed Şehzade Türbesi to the north-west of the Narlıbahçe cemetery as the tomb of Prince Ahmed. Since Şükrullah was a contemporary of the events, this record carries particular weight for the identity of the tomb in Amasya.

Hüsameddin also says, when listing the old names of Amasya, that he found the city called "Rûmiyye-i Suğrâ" (Little Rome) and "Ermeniyye-i Kübrâ" in Behcetü't-tevârîh as well; and he gives the year of death of Gıyâseddin Muhammed, one of the princes who ruled Amasya in the Seljuk period, as 580 according to the Behcet. Taken together, these records show that the universal history of an Amasya-born author was one of the oldest written sources Hüsameddin had for the past of his own city.

Influence and Assessment in the Sources

According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Behcetü't-tevârîh, although an important source, attracted little attention from historians other than Zaîm Mîr Mehmed, author of the Câmiu't-tevârîh. Babinger considers the Ottoman section of Zaîm's work a translation of Şükrullah's book. The circulation of the Turkish translation made in the reign of Süleyman in various copies shows that the book was still read in the sixteenth century. In modern historiography the work is regarded as an early and detailed example of linking the Ottoman dynasty to Oghuz descent.

Hüsameddin records Şükrullah in the biographical volumes of Amasya Tarihi under the heading "Şükrullah Çelebi-Mevlânâ Zeyneddîn". The part of his entry concerning the works reads:

Gâyet fâzıl, muhakkik, kaffe-i ulûmda mâhir, edîb, mütekellim, şâir, natûk bir zât idi. Ba'zı husûsât-ı mühimmede hayırhâhâne ihtârâtıyla Sultân Murad'ı ve Sultân Murad'ın ikinci cülûsunda Fatih Sultân Mehmed'i gücendirdiğinden kazaskerliğe terfî edemedi. Bununla beraber her iki pâdişâhın nezdinde pek muhterem, ulemâ ve halk arasında pek muvakkar idi. "Behcetü't-Tevârih", "Minhâcü'r-Reşâd" adlı eserleri pek makbûldur. Osmanlı Devletinde ilk müverrih tanınmıştır.

In English: He was a most learned man, an investigator, master of all the sciences, a man of letters, a theologian, a poet and an eloquent speaker. Because with his well-meant warnings on certain important matters he offended Sultan Murad and, at Sultan Murad's second accession, Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, he could not be promoted to the office of military judge. Nevertheless he was highly respected by both sultans and greatly esteemed among scholars and people. His works called "Behcetü't-tevârîh" and "Minhâcü'r-reşâd" are much admired. He is recognised as the first historian in the Ottoman State.

Considering that Şükrullah used Ahmedî's verse history in his Ottoman section and that Yazıcızâde had written the Oghuz genealogy before him, Hüsameddin's description "the first historian" cannot be taken quite literally; this is our assessment. On the other hand, it is still accepted today that Behcetü't-tevârîh is the first work of Persian prose to speak of the Ottomans. Kamiloğlu likewise writes that his works convey the history, culture and learning of their age to the present, that because they are in Persian no thorough study of them has yet been made, and that one should be. That his religious works have never been published shows that, though Şükrullah is known as a historian, a large part of his authorship still waits in manuscripts.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources