Tâhir Çelebi was divan secretary to Şehzade Alâeddin Ali Çelebi, the son of Murad II, while the prince governed Amasya. A scribe and poet of the mid-fifteenth century, he had for a father İbrî İbrâhim Çelebi, secretary to the former grand vizier Koca Mehmed Paşa; it was this father's nickname that gave its name to the İbrîzâde family, which produced scholars and scribes in Amasya for generations. In his father's lifetime Tâhir was one of the scribes of the imperial council. In 841 (1437-38), when the pasha was dismissed, he was sent to Amasya together with his father; there he entered the prince's divan, fell from favour on the prince's death in 846 (1442-43) and died after 857 (1453). He is remembered for his fine hand and as a poet, but no example of his verse has survived. Because the family records contradict one another, his place in the lineage is also disputed.

The Entry and a Plain Rendering

Tâhir Çelebi-İbrîzâde. Sadr-ı esbak Koca Mehmed Paşa'nın kâtibi Amasyalı İbrî İbrâhim Çelebi bin Hasan'ın oğludur. Pederi zamanında divân-ı hümâyûn kâtiblerinden iken 841'de paşanın azli üzerine pederiyle Amasya'ya gönderildi. Ba'dehû şehzâde Alâeddîn Bey'e Amasya vâliliğinde kâtib-i divânî olmuşdu. 846'da şehzâde-i müşârün-ileyhin şehâdeti üzerine menkûb olup 857 sâlinden sonra vefât etdi. Ba'zı zurefâ buna "Ibrîzâde (عبريزاده)" demişlerdir. Kâtib, şâir, hattı güzeldi. Mahdûmu fuzalâdan Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi meşhûrdur.

Put simply: His father was İbrî İbrâhim Çelebi of Amasya, son of Hasan, secretary to the former grand vizier Koca Mehmed Paşa. While one of the scribes of the imperial council in his father's lifetime, he was sent to Amasya with his father in 841 upon the pasha's dismissal. Later he became divan secretary to Şehzade Alâeddin Bey during the prince's governorship of Amasya. When the prince was martyred in 846 he fell from favour, and he died after the year 857. Some wits called him "İbrîzâde". He was a scribe and poet, and his hand was fine. His son Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi, one of the learned, is well known.

In the Shadow of Two Masters

Both turning points in Tâhir's life depended on the fortunes of his masters. The first was the dismissal in 841 of his father's master, Koca Mehmed Nizâmüddin Paşa, from the grand vizierate. İbrî İbrâhim Çelebi was among the pasha's closest men and had been one of the witnesses to his endowment deed; with the dismissal, father and son were removed from the capital. Hüsameddin's word "gönderildi", was sent, shows that the return was not of their own choosing.

In Amasya Tâhir found a new door: Şehzade Alâeddin Ali Çelebi, the son of Murad II, was then at the head of the sanjak of Amasya, and Tâhir became his divan secretary. The prince died in 846 (1442-43); Hüsameddin calls this death a "martyrdom". Having lost his master, Tâhir lived on as a "menkûb", a man fallen from favour and without office. The last date the entry gives is 857 (1453); Tâhir is said to have died after that year, but the record in which he was seen alive in 857 is not named.

The Nickname "İbrîzâde"

In this entry Hüsameddin attaches the jest to Tâhir himself: "Some wits called him İbrîzâde." In his father's entry, by contrast, the original nickname belongs to the father, "İbrî", and the sons were called İbrîzâde, "son of İbrî". Here Hüsameddin also writes the name in Arabic script: عبريزاده. The letter ayn at the beginning of the word links "İbrî" with the Arabic ʿibrî, meaning Hebrew. Considering that another of Hüsameddin's entries calls the family "Benî İsrâil", the children of Israel, the jest most probably arose from the closeness of these two names; Hüsameddin gives no explanation.

The State of the Sources

Tâhir Çelebi's place in the family tree appears in three different forms in three of Hüsameddin's entries. In his own entry, in the eleventh volume, Tâhir is the son of İbrî İbrâhim Çelebi and Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi is Tâhir's son. His father's entry in the sixth volume first treats the two as brothers, saying "Tâhir and Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi were called İbrîzâde", and then, at the end of the same paragraph, writes "Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi son of Tâhir Çelebi". In the entry İsrâil Çelebi-Hacı Kâtib in the seventh volume the picture changes altogether: there Tâhir Çelebi is the son of Dursun Çelebi, a cousin of İbrî İbrâhim, one of "the great scholars and judges", and his descendants were called "Tâhirzâdeler"; Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi appears directly as "Ebrî Çelebizâde", the son of İbrî.

The book does not say how these three records are to be reconciled. It is possible that two different men named Tâhir within the same family, one a scribe and poet, the other a scholar and judge, became mixed up in the notes Hüsameddin had before him; whether Muhyiddîn was Tâhir's son or his brother depends on this confusion. Among Muhyiddîn Mehmed Çelebi's sons were Refîkî Ali Çelebi, the scribe-poet of the reigns of Bayezid II and Selim I, and Hasan Çelebi, preacher of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque. If Tâhir really was Muhyiddîn's father, Refîkî was his grandson.

His Poetry

Tâhir Çelebi's poems have not been found. What Hüsameddin really praises is his hand, "hattı güzeldi"; the poet appears only in the pair "scribe, poet" and is not borne out by any example. Metin Hakverdioğlu's list counts him among the poets of the eleventh volume as "Tâhir Çelebi-İbrîzâde".

Chronology

841 (1437-38): Koca Mehmed Paşa is dismissed from the grand vizierate; Tâhir is sent to Amasya with his father.

846 (1442-43): Şehzade Alâeddin Ali Çelebi dies; his divan secretary Tâhir falls from favour.

857 (1453): The last date Hüsameddin gives for Tâhir; he died after this year.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources