The Temennâ quarter, one of the old quarters of Amasya, takes its name, according to Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, from a poet who came from Iran at the end of the fourteenth century and settled there: Temennâyî Ali Çelebi, known by the nickname "Acem" (the Persian). According to the entry Temennâyî Alî Çelebi-Acem in the eighth volume of Amasya Tarihi, this poet from Shiraz came to the city in the last years of Hacı Şâdgeldi Paşa, emir of Amasya, entered the circle of the emir and then of his son Ahmed Paşa through his kasides (qasidas), competed in Persian poetry with Divriklizâde Yârî Ali Çelebi, won great fame in the reign of Sultan Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed) and died after the year 820 (1417-18). Hüsameddin says that "it is understood" he was a poet, a man of letters, refined and one who knew how to win people's hearts; the book holds no couplet of his. The first volume of the book, however, makes the man who gave his name to the quarter a poet not from Shiraz but from Nishapur.

The Entry in Amasya Tarihi

Şirâzlıdır. Amasya hükümdârı Hacı Şâdgeldi Paşa'nın evâhir-i hükûmetinde Amasya'ya gelip kasîdeler takdîm ederek müşârün-ileyhe çattı. Ba'dehû bunun mahdûmu Beylerbeyi Devâtdâr Ahmed Paşa'ya takarrüb edib Amasya'nın Fethiye Mahallesindeki derenin cihet-i şarkiyyesine yerleşti.
Divriklizâde Mevlânâ Yârî Alî Çelebi ile hem-bezm-i ülfet olup onunla edebiyât-ı Fârisiyyede yarışdı. Buna Hâfız Şirâzî'ye teşbîhen "Yârî-i Şirâzî" lakabını verdi. Yârî Çelebi de "Şirâzî" diye iştihâr etdi. Temennâyî-i Şirâzî bununla hem-şehrîleşti.
Çelebi Sultân Mehmed Han devrinde büyük şöhret kazandı. İkâmet etdiği mahalle Temennâyî Mahallesi ve sonra tahfîfen Temennâ Mahallesi dendi. Amasya kâdısı Mevlânâ Rükneddîn Mahmûd Purânî de bu esnâda pek meşhûr olup Temennâyî Mahallesi'nin aşağı kısmında yerleşdi. Burası da bunun kerîmesi Eslemşâh Hâtun adıyla meşhûr olup Eslem Mahallesi dendi.
Temennâyî Çelebi, 820 sâlinden sonraca vefât etdi. Şâ'ir, edîb, zarîf, mizâc-gîr olduğu anlaşılır. Mülhid-i meşhûr Temennâyî bundan başka bir adam olmalıdır. Amasya'da 813 târîhinden i'tibâren mahallesi olan Temennâyî Çelebi mülhid olsaydı Amasya ulemâsı ve ricâliyle ihtilât u ünsiyyet etmesine imkân yoktu.

In translation: He is from Shiraz. In the last days of the rule of Hacı Şâdgeldi Paşa, ruler of Amasya, he came to Amasya, presented him with kasides and entered his circle. Then he drew close to his son, the beylerbey Devâtdâr Ahmed Paşa, and settled on the eastern side of the stream in the Fethiye quarter of Amasya. He became a companion in the same gatherings as Divriklizâde Mevlânâ Yârî Ali Çelebi and competed with him in Persian letters. Likening him to Hâfız of Shiraz, he gave him the nickname "Yârî-i Şîrâzî"; Yârî Çelebi too became known as "Şîrâzî", and Temennâyî of Shiraz thereby became his fellow townsman. He won great fame in the reign of Sultan Mehmed Han I. The quarter where he lived was called the Temennâyî quarter and later, in shortened form, the Temennâ quarter. The judge of Amasya, Mevlânâ Rükneddîn Mahmûd Purânî, was also very well known at this time and settled in the lower part of the Temennâyî quarter; this place in turn became known by the name of his daughter Eslemşâh Hatun and was called the Eslem quarter. Temennâyî Çelebi died some time after the year 820. It is understood that he was a poet, a man of letters, refined and one who knew people's hearts. The notorious heretic (mülhid) Temennâyî must be a different man; had Temennâyî Çelebi, who has had a quarter named after him in Amasya since the year 813, been a heretic, he could not have mixed so closely with the scholars and notables of Amasya.

His Circle in Amasya

The years when Temennâyî arrived are the last period in which Amasya lived as an independent emirate. Hacı Şâdgeldi Paşa, described in detail in Hüsameddin's third volume, was killed while fighting Kadı Burhâneddin and, according to the inscription on his tomb, died in 783 (1381). Devâtdâr Ahmed Paşa, to whom Temennâyî drew close after him, was his son, who took over the emirate. That a poet from Shiraz should enter the court of an Anatolian emirate with a kaside points to Persian poetry as a language of prestige at this small court.

The liveliest part of the entry is his friendship with Yârî Ali Çelebi. Divriklizâde Alâeddîn Ali Yârî Çelebi is the ancestor of the Müeyyedzâde family, one of Amasya's long-established families of scholars. In the first volume Hüsameddin names him as the first known of those who carried on in Amasya the path opened in Turkish poetry by Âşık Paşa; in the third volume he also writes that he presented a Persian kaside to Bayezid I (Yıldırım Bayezid), later became sheikh of the Yâkût Paşa lodge, and was counted among those who died after the great Amasya earthquake of 818 (1415). The nickname "Yârî-i Şîrâzî" that Temennâyî gave him is a compliment paid to a man of Amasya by a poet from Shiraz, invoking Hâfız, the great poet of his own city, and in the third volume too it appears as the name by which Yârî was known. Hüsameddin's sentence "Temennâyî-i Şirâzî bununla hem-şehrîleşti" is a witty record telling how, thanks to this nickname, the poet from Shiraz and his friend from Amasya became "fellow townsmen" in jest.

The judge Rükneddîn Mahmûd mentioned in the entry is Mevlânâ Rükneddîn Mahmûd, who appears in other volumes with the nicknames "Sarı Kadı" and "Buhârî"; he was the grandfather of the calligrapher Sheikh Hamdullah and the father of Eslemşâh Hatun. The emergence of the Temennâ and Eslem quarters side by side suggests that this part of Amasya along the stream was being shaped by new settlers in the reign of Çelebi Mehmed.

The Temennâ Quarter

In the first volume Hüsameddin places the quarter at the northern foot of the Zincirli Kaya, on the site of the garden of Feth Gazi, one of the Danishmendid emirs; to its east lies the Zincirli Kaya, to its west and south the stream, and to its north the İslâm quarter. The description in the entry, "the eastern side of the stream in the Fethiye quarter", agrees with this location. The name passed to other people in later centuries as well: Hüsâmeddîn Ağa, the freed steward of Hızır Paşa, built a school and a fountain in this quarter in 874 (1469-70), and in his endowment deed he is written as "Hüsâmeddîn-i Temennâyî". At the beginning of the seventeenth century the teacher and poet Temennâyî Bayram Efendi likewise took his pen name from this quarter, where he lived. These two Temennâyîs bear the name of the quarter; the one who gave the quarter its name is Ali Çelebi.

The State of the Sources

Two volumes of Amasya Tarihi present the poet who gave his name to the quarter differently. The entry in the eighth volume describes him as Ali Çelebi of Shiraz, a court poet who came in the last years of Şâdgeldi Paşa, and says that the quarter was known by his name "from the year 813". The list of quarters in the first volume, on the other hand, attributes the quarter's name to Temennâ-yı Nîsâbûrî, "one of the panegyrists of the princes in Amasya and one of the poets of Iran", living here, in the Fethiye Garden, and writes that the name has appeared in the records since the year 820 (1417). Shiraz and Nishapur are different cities, and there is a gap of seven years between the two dates. It is clear that the two records describe the same person, but no other source has been found to show which of them is correct. The first record's description "panegyrist of the princes" suggests that Temennâyî was also at court during Çelebi Mehmed's years as a prince in Amasya.

The note Hüsameddin added at the end of the entry was written against the danger of confusion with the "notorious heretic" Temennâyî who bore the same pen name. Here the author relies on no document but makes an argument: someone who lived in close company with the ulema of Amasya and whose name was given to a quarter could not have been associated with heresy. Hüsameddin does not explain who the Temennâyî known as a heretic was; nor has any reliable source on this person been found. For this reason, whether the two names really belong to separate people cannot be carried beyond Hüsameddin's opinion.

His Poetry

The kasides went to Şâdgeldi Paşa and Ahmed Paşa, the contest with Yârî was fought in Persian verse; going by what Hüsameddin reports, at least some of his poems were in Persian. Not a single couplet from these kasides or contests has been quoted, and none of Temennâyî Ali Çelebi's poems has come down to us. The word "anlaşılır" (it is understood) in the sentence "Şâ'ir, edîb, zarîf, mizâc-gîr olduğu anlaşılır" also gives away that Hüsameddin worked from indirect records rather than from a source that described him directly.

Chronology

Before 783 (1381): He comes to Amasya in the last years of Hacı Şâdgeldi Paşa.

813 (1410-11): According to the eighth volume, the quarter where he lives begins to be called by his name.

818 (1415): After the Amasya earthquake his friend Yârî Ali Çelebi dies.

820 (1417-18): According to the first volume, the quarter's name has appeared in the records since this year; Temennâyî dies some time after this year.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources