The man who pardoned the judge Tayyib Efendi was Süleyman the Magnificent himself. As one of Şehzade Mustafa's intimates at Amasya, Tayyib Efendi had fallen from favour for a time after the prince was killed in 960 (1553); the following year the sultan came to Amasya, forgave him and made him judge of Sivas. He belonged to the Tayyibzâdes, one of the old scholarly lineages of Amasya. In Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's portrait he is a learned man and a poet who was good company and knew his history and the lore of literary anecdote well. Two of his sons, Ehlî Mehmed Efendi and Şeyhî Abdullah Efendi, were poets who found their way into the biographical dictionaries. He himself died around 975 (1567-68). No poems by Tayyib Efendi have been found.

Hüsameddin's Entry

In volume 11 the heading "Tayyib Efendi-Tayyibzâde" is used twice in a row. The first entry describes the sixteenth-century judge, the second his grandson and namesake, who died after 1045 (1635-36); the entry on Tayyibî, the family's secretary-poet, follows them. The one that concerns us here is the first:

Amasya'da Câmii olan Ubeydullah Efendi bin Ahmed Efendi bin Kadı Tayyib Çelebi mahdûmudur. Amasya'da müftü ve hâfız-ı kütüb olan Musliheddîn Mûsâ Efendi'den okuyup ikmâl-i tahsîl etdi. Ba'dehû müderris, kadı olup Amasya vâlisi Şehzâde Sultân Mustafa mukarreblerinden olmuştu. 960 senesi şevvâlinde müşârün-ileyhin katli üzerine bir müddet menkûb oldu. 961'de Kânûnî Sultân Süleyman'ın Amasya'ya gelmesinde afv ve iltifâta nâil olup Sivas kadısı oldu. Ba'dehû Kayseriyye ve Trabzon kazâlarıyla tekrîm edilerek 975 yılına doğru vefât etdi. Âlim, hoş sohbet, şâir, târih ve muhâzarâta vâkıf idi. Mahdûmları Ehlî Mehmed, Abdürrahîm Efendiler de ulemâ ve şuarâdandır. Diğer mahdûmu Lütfullah Efendi'dir.

Its meaning: he was the son of Ubeydullah Efendi, who had a mosque in Amasya; Ubeydullah was the son of Ahmed Efendi, son of Kadı Tayyib Çelebi. He studied with Musliheddin Musa Efendi, mufti of Amasya and keeper of its books, and completed his education. He then became a madrasa teacher and a judge, and had entered the intimate circle of Şehzade Sultan Mustafa, governor of Amasya. When the prince was put to death in Şevval 960, he was out of favour for a while. In 961, when Süleyman the Magnificent came to Amasya, he was pardoned and shown favour and became judge of Sivas. He was later honoured with the judgeships of Kayseri and Trabzon and died around 975. He was a scholar, pleasant in conversation, a poet, well versed in history and literary anecdote. His sons Ehlî Mehmed and Abdürrahîm Efendi were also scholars and poets. His other son was Lütfullah Efendi.

"Muhâzarât" is the knowledge of the literary anecdotes, witticisms and stories told in conversation; read together with Hüsameddin's "hoş sohbet", it shows a man whose talk was listened to in company. "Menkûb" can mean both dismissal from office and banishment; the entry does not make clear which of the two he suffered.

The Tayyibzâde Family

Kadı Tayyib Çelebi, who gave the family its name, was a son of Dursun. He studied with Şemseddin Ahmed Kırımî at Merzifon and Amasya, taught at the Atabey and Torumtay madrasas, tutored the pages of Şehzade Bayezid while the prince governed Amasya, became judge during the events of 883, and died around 891 (1486). Hüsameddin writes that the descendants of his son Ahmed Efendi and his grandson Abdullah Efendi came to be called the Tayyibzâdes.

That grandson, Tayyib Efendi's father, has an entry of his own in volume 12 under the heading Abdullah Efendi-Tayyibzâde. He had been with Selim I at Trabzon, became the first teacher of the Hâtuniye madrasa founded there by Selim's mother Gülbahar Hatun and mufti of Trabzon, and after judgeships at Trabzon, Kefe and Silistre returned to the city as judge of Amasya in 940 (1533-34); he died around 945. Hüsameddin closes the entry with the words "Mahdûmu Tayyib Efendi'dir", his son is Tayyib Efendi. The father's name is written Abdullah in one entry and Ubeydullah in the other; since the line of descent is the same, the same man is meant.

In the Circle of Şehzade Mustafa

Hüsameddin does not say in which years Tayyib Efendi was close to Şehzade Mustafa. Şehzade Mustafa came to Amasya as governor in 948 (1541) and was killed in Şevval 960 (October 1553) in the army camp near Ereğli in Konya. After his death his men at Amasya were drawn into an inquiry. The prince's companion Zahîrî Mehmed Efendi did not survive it; Tayyib Efendi came through with a lighter penalty and was pardoned a year later when the sultan came to Amasya. Süleyman arrived there on his way back from the Nakhchivan campaign and conducted the peace negotiations with the Persian envoys in the city; Tayyib Efendi's pardon falls within this stay.

Tayyibzâde Lutfî Efendi, whom Hüsameddin names in volume 3 among the prince's companions, also belonged to this family. Since the pen name Lutfî suits the name Lütfullah, he may be Tayyib Efendi's son Lütfullah. In volume 11, however, the man described as the prince's intimate and as a poet is Tayyib Efendi himself, while Lütfullah is named without any description at all. Tayyib Efendi's own name does not appear in the list of companions. The surviving records do not allow a choice between the two possibilities.

His Sons

In Tayyib Efendi's entry Hüsameddin names three sons: Ehlî Mehmed, Abdürrahîm and Lütfullah. A fourth, Şeyhî Abdullah Efendi, is introduced in another entry as "the son of Tayyib Efendi, whose biography is written below". Şeyhî studied in Istanbul, became a madrasa teacher and died young, around 1000.

The best known of the sons is Ehlî Mehmed Efendi. Âşık Çelebi, Kınalızâde, Beyânî and Atâyî all give him entries, and in his own entry Hüsameddin calls his father one of the great judges. Ehlî served as judge in towns of Rumelia and died in 1010 (1601-02) as molla of Rhodes. Abdürrahîm Efendi rose as far as a professorship at the Sahn and died in 1005 (1596-97) as judge of Diyarbekir; Atâyî, writing of him, names Ehlî and Şeyhî as his elder brothers. This Abdürrahîm should not be confused with Rahîmî Abdurrahîm Efendi, the calligrapher and poet who died in Bursa around 970 and whom Hüsameddin also records with the surname Tayyibzâde.

The family went on producing judges. The Tayyib Efendi who carried his grandfather's name was Abdürrahîm's son; he sat as judge at Çorum in 1033 (1623-24), then at Çankırı and Antalya, and died after 1045. It was this second Tayyib's grandson, Tayyibî Mehmed Efendi, a scribe and poet with a divan, who travelled as far as Egypt and Baghdad in the later seventeenth century.

His Poetry

No poems by Tayyib Efendi have been found. In the entry his being a poet is a single epithet; no sample couplet is given. No entry under this name has been found in the sixteenth-century biographical dictionaries of poets either. With his sons it is the other way round: verses by Ehlî and Şeyhî appear in the dictionaries of Kınalızâde and Beyânî, while not a single line of their father's is quoted.

Chronology

c. 891 (1486): Kadı Tayyib Çelebi, ancestor of the family, dies.

940 (1533-34): His father Abdullah (Ubeydullah) Efendi becomes judge of Amasya.

c. 945 (1538-39): His father dies.

948 (1541): Şehzade Mustafa becomes governor of Amasya.

Şevval 960 (October 1553): Şehzade Mustafa is killed; Tayyib Efendi falls from favour for a time.

961 (1554): He is pardoned when Süleyman comes to Amasya and becomes judge of Sivas.

c. 975 (1567-68): He dies after the judgeships of Kayseri and Trabzon.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources