The Bayezid II Complex, built on the bank of the Yeşilırmak in Amasya, is usually remembered for its mosque, its red-inlaid minaret and its woodwork. The part that carried the complex's daily life, however, is the L-shaped building that stretches east of the mosque, on the left as one faces it from the courtyard: the kitchen and soup kitchen (imaret). While the mosque served the congregation and the madrasa its students, the imaret was the hearth that sent out food to the complex's staff and students, to travellers and to the city's poor. A late fifteenth-century archival document measures and describes the rooms of this kitchen one by one, while account books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries record, year after year, how much meat, flour, rice and honey went into its cauldrons. Its plan, the endowment that sustained it, the people who ran it and the changes it went through over the centuries make it a suitable example of how an Ottoman charitable institution worked.

Founding of the Complex

Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Bey, drawing on the Heşt Behişt, the Mir'âtü'l-kâinât and the Künhü'l-ahbâr as well as on popular tradition, tells the story of the complex's founding as follows. While the sons of Mehmed II (the Conqueror) were serving as sanjak governors, Bayezid in Amasya and Cem in Karaman, news that Cem had designs on the throne unsettled Bayezid. Two of Amasya's Halveti sheikhs, Gümüşlüzâde Pîr Hayreddin Hızır Çelebi and Cemâlîzâde Pîr Cemâleddin Mehmed Çelebi, consoled the prince, assured him that the sultanate would be his, and asked him to build a mosque, a madrasa and a soup kitchen in Amasya. Bayezid promised to build these charitable works once he came to the throne. Having acceded in Rabi al-awwal 886 (May 1481), the sultan kept his word and sent a decree to his son Şehzade Ahmed (Prince Ahmed), then sanjak governor of Amasya, ordering the work to begin.

Citing İdrîs-i Bitlisî (d. 1520), Hüsâmeddin Bey also reports that the complex was begun as an act of thanksgiving for Bayezid's accession and that its construction was entrusted to Şehzade Ahmed. The same information is repeated in Âlî's Künhü'l-ahbâr and in Nişancızâde Mehmed's Mir'âtü'l-kâinât. The sources do not agree entirely on the construction dates, however. According to the three-part inscription around the mosque, the mosque was completed in Rajab 891, that is, July 1486; the calligrapher of these thuluth inscriptions was Ali b. Mezîd. The last section of the inscription states that the building was begun "in the year of feyz" and finished "in the year of feyyâz". Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi, author of an Amasya Tarihi, read this phrase through the abjad system as meaning that work began in 890 and ended in 891. Hüsâmeddin Bey, on the other hand, says that Vâzıh Efendi failed to distinguish between the two expressions and argues that construction began in Rajab 886 (September 1481) and was completed in Rajab 891, in exactly five years. The complex appears in some sources as 1481-1486 and in others as 1485-1486 because of this difference. According to a study based on a document found in the Muallim Cevdet Bey Library, the construction of the mosque took about four years and three months.

Hüsâmeddin Bey records that in the same year, 891, the mosque, madrasa, school, imaret and guesthouse (tabhâne) that Sultan Bayezid had built in Amasya were all completed. Cemâloğlu Alâeddin Ali Çelebi, mufti of Amasya, was appointed the first professor of the madrasa, and Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi, one of the ulema, became the first preacher and lectern sheikh of the mosque. The first trustee (mütevelli) of the large villages and farmlands that the sultan endowed for his charities in Amasya was the former mufti Abdî Çelebi, a member of the city's ulema; in 895 (1490) his accounts were audited and he was kept in office.

The Question of the Architect

Opinions differ on who designed the complex. Published encyclopaedia and inventory entries, relying on a master's thesis, name Mimar Hayreddin, chief architect of the reign of Bayezid II. Doğan Kuban considered attributing the mosque's plan to Yakub Şah b. Sultan Şah because of the two domes on the qibla axis flanked by very narrow side aisles, and Rıfkı Melül Meriç likewise put forward the name of Yakub Şah in his study of the architects of Bayezid's reign.

Hüsâmeddin Bey gives a local name instead. According to him the architect was Süleyman Çelebi, son of İbrâhim, from Amasya. Having learned the art of building in Amasya, this master was appointed "architect and building superintendent" when Sultan Bayezid II ordered a mosque, imaret, madrasa and school to be built in the city; he finished the work in five years, received generous rewards and came to be known among the people as "Emîn Mimar", the trusted architect. Because of this nickname his real name was forgotten, until a signature at the end of a work by his son Muhyiddin Mehmed Efendi revealed it as "Süleyman bin İbrâhim". Hüsâmeddin Bey also credits him with the charitable buildings of Mehmed Paşa, the mosques and madrasas of the aghas Hüseyin and Ayas, and the Hatuniye Mosque. The author, however, describes this master differently in two separate volumes: in one he writes that work began in Rajab 886 and that the architect died around 910, in the other that work began in 888 (1483) and that the architect died in 916 (1510). Since no other document confirming this has been seen, the role of Emîn Mimar Süleyman Çelebi remains a piece of information handed down by local historiography.

The Courtyard and the Place of the Imaret

Like the Bayezid complex in Edirne, the complex rises beside a river. The mosque stands in the centre; to its right, that is to the west, is the madrasa, and to its left, to the east, the kitchen and imaret. All these buildings stand within a broad outer courtyard of about 160 × 120 metres, which was once enclosed by a stone wall. No trace has been found to support the claim that the complex was built on the site of a Church of the Virgin Mary, about which nothing is known beyond its location on the riverbank.

An undated document that Abdulkadir Dündar found in the Topkapı Palace Museum Archive and published describes the original state of the complex in detail. On the basis of the watermark on the paper, Dündar dated the document to the late fifteenth century. According to it, the circuit of the courtyard wall measured one thousand two hundred cubits (zirâ), and dressed stone had been laid on top of the riverside wall so that people could sit on it. "The courtyard in front of the imaret" had four gates: two opened towards the river, one towards the town and one towards the Gökmedrese. A fifth gate had been opened "behind the kitchen" and, in the document's words, was used for carrying in barley and wheat and bringing in other goods. It is clear from this that provisions were brought straight to the back of the kitchen.

The document also describes the layout of the courtyard. The fronts and backs of the madrasa, the imaret and the kitchen are perfectly aligned: "were a string stretched, it would not be a finger's breadth out." In front of the imaret, a dressed-stone pavement four cubits wide and three hundred and fifty cubits long runs from one gate to the other. A cypress had been planted opposite each column of the portico and four cypresses at the four sides of the ablution fountain; soapberry trees had been set out, and poplars along the riverbank whose shade fell on the stone-topped wall; one hundred and thirty grafted saplings had been planted in the garden on the qibla side. The paths between the madrasa and the imaret, between the imaret and the kitchen, in front of the kitchen and the storehouses, and from the stable gate to the latrines were paved with set stones; the document adds that this was done so that no horse could enter the courtyard, which was thus "very well secured and protected". Today most of these gates survive, and with an entrance later opened in the south wall the courtyard is entered through six gates.

Hüsâmeddin Bey counts five great soup kitchens in the Amasya of his day: those of Bayezid Paşa, Yörgüç Paşa, Sultan Bayezid, Mehmed Paşa and the Hatuniye. He writes that each had a guesthouse beside it, so that the city had five imarets and five guesthouses. In his view they had been founded to support the students and teachers of the city and to host and feed the poor and the visitors, whether living in Amasya or arriving from elsewhere. The Sultan Bayezid Imaret was the only one in this list built by a reigning sultan.

The Five-Unit Imaret According to the Document

The Topkapı document gives the building no single name but names its parts one by one: the mut'ime-hâne, where food was eaten and distributed; the matbah, where it was cooked; the kiler, where provisions were stored; the fırın, where bread was baked; and the ahır, where visitors' animals were stabled. According to the document, "before the refectory, the kitchen, the storeroom, the bakery and the stable there are eleven monolithic stone columns and a portico of twelve domes." Eleven columns still stand today; above them, however, instead of twelve there are ten domes of equal size resting on pointed arches of cut stone. This arrangement shows that the imaret was not simply a distribution point but a small, self-contained establishment with its own kitchen, store, bakery and stable.

The refectory measured fourteen cubits by fourteen, a square room of roughly ten metres by ten, and in front of it stood an ablution fountain that no longer exists; it is thought to have been used for washing hands and drinking after meals. The kitchen was eighteen cubits long and fourteen wide. The document describes it thus: "In its middle stand two columns. On one side of the columns there are three domes, their tops open for the hearth... And on one side there is a vault the length of three domes. And there are two more guest hearths. And to each cauldron water flows through a separate pipe." The fact that water reached each cauldron through its own pipe shows that the kitchen was designed from the start together with a water supply. The present kitchen still matches this description: on one side of the two central piers it is covered by three domes topped with lanterns, on the other by a vault housing two hearths.

The storeroom is described as a room of sixteen cubits by sixteen containing a granary with five compartments, two for rice and three for other necessities. The bakery measured sixteen cubits by fourteen, held a granary with two compartments, and its oven, too, had a pipe that fed water to its cauldron. The stable, at twenty-four by sixteen cubits, was the largest unit; before its door stood a fountain "for watering the guests' horses", and according to the document this fountain sufficed for the whole neighbourhood. Behind the kitchen, moreover, a woodshed holding four thousand loads of firewood had been built, together with a house for storing repair materials, a granary holding three hundred müd of barley and another holding one hundred and fifty müd of wheat. The document also lists a "guesthouse of the schoolhouse" of ten cubits by ten with an outer hall, and a four-cubicle latrine beside the great ablution fountain. None of these additional buildings has survived.

In the bird's-eye plan drawn by Albert Gabriel in 1934 the imaret appears E-shaped rather than L-shaped. Gabriel's drawing shows a further rectangular, vaulted room running parallel in front of the western section of the stable and adjoining the courtyard wall. This room too has been demolished, and a courtyard portico has taken its place.

The Present Plan and the Guesthouse Problem

Today the imaret extends east of the mosque as an L-shaped building. Along its courtyard façades runs a portico of pointed arches and domes resting on columns. The main rectangular rooms are covered by vaults, while the domes of the portico are small. Because the building was long used as a military depot and was probably altered at that time, it is no longer entirely clear what purpose some of its parts originally served; the repairs carried out after earthquakes have also made the units harder to distinguish.

The first section of the wing that runs away from the Yeşilırmak is a large vaulted room of 9 × 10 metres with a square pier in its centre, and according to Semavi Eyice it was most probably the provisions store. The adjoining rectangular room of 10.87 × 17.25 metres is, as its two large hearths show, the kitchen. The lantern domes and the long vault of this section rest on two piers in the middle. Beside the kitchen, at the corner where the two arms of the L meet, is a domed room of 8.85 × 10.22 metres. Its walls contain thirty-four cupboard niches arranged in two tiers. Eyice considers it unknown whether these cupboards were made with the building or opened when it served as a military store; Dündar and the research that follows him identify this room as the storeroom of the document, while noting that it has taken a different form from the square plan and five-compartment granary described there. The other arm of the L contains two more vaulted rooms, one small and one large, strengthened with arches. The bakery of the document is matched with the section north of the storeroom; its oven lies between the door and the window of the west façade, while its two-compartment granary has not survived.

The location of the guesthouse, where visitors lodged, is disputed among the sources. According to Eyice, no part of the present plan suits a guesthouse, and all the rooms appear to belong to the kitchen and imaret. He therefore believes that the guesthouses should be sought in the domed spaces on either side of the mosque. These side rooms are entered by a door from each side, are connected to the outside, and the qibla section is separated from the first domed area by a step; the presence of guesthouses in Bayezid's two other great complexes supports this possibility. Eyice notes that guesthouse rooms always had hearths, so that if traces of chimneys were found in the vaults the question would be settled definitively. In other examples, guesthouses are known to have lost their function after the second half of the sixteenth century and to have been absorbed into the prayer hall by removing their partition walls; whether such a change took place in Amasya requires detailed research.

Hüsâmeddin Bey, however, describes the arrangement he saw in the early twentieth century differently: east of the mosque an imaret and refectory, a guesthouse, "that is, a hostel", adjoining the imaret on the north, in front of it a teaching room facing west and reserved for calligraphers, and a school south of the imaret. In his account the guesthouse lay immediately north of the imaret, as part of it. His statement that "the domes of the imaret and the guesthouse" split together in the earthquake of 1668 fits this view. Dündar thinks that the schoolhouse guesthouse of the document, if it survived into the nineteenth century, may be the calligraphers' room mentioned by Hüsâmeddin Bey. The most recent study concludes that the section built as a bakery and the stable were later used as a hostel and military depot. Since the sources do not agree on this point, the exact location of the imaret's lodging quarters remains an open question.

The Endowment Deed and Its Revenues

The hearth of an imaret could only be kept burning by a secure income set aside for it. The endowment deed (vakfiye) of the complex was drawn up in the middle of Jumada al-awwal 901, that is, January 1496, and is recorded in a register in the archive of the General Directorate of Foundations. The deed describes the complex as consisting of a mosque, an imaret, a madrasa and a primary school. Given that, according to its inscription, the mosque was completed in 1486, the deed was evidently set down about ten years later. The deed states the purpose of the imaret plainly: the sultan has built a lofty "imâret-i âmire" in Amasya; it is intended for "orphans, the poor and guests" and for those entitled to rations according to their rank, and it continues the tradition of the Prophet Abraham in receiving guests and feeding the hungry. The deed also stipulates that tables be laid for those who came according to their station.

According to Kayhan Orbay's study of the foundation's account books, Bayezid's waqf in Amasya was among the largest of its time, and almost all of its income came from agriculture. The sultan had attached to it villages from very different parts of Anatolia. Among them were the village of Boğa in the Geldigelenabad district of Amasya, Şabhane in İskilip near Çorum, more than twenty villages in the Murtazaabad and Ayaş districts of Ankara, dozens of villages around Mudurnu, Kastamonu, İnebolu and Sinop, a large group of villages in Bafra, Samsun and Canik, and others in Çankırı, Kalecik and Sivrihisar. Some villages had been endowed together with their farmlands, pastures and rice fields. The deed also lists among the foundation's buildings the great bridge over the Kızılırmak near the fortress of Osmancık.

The revenue of these villages was collected by the foundation's own collectors, the câbîs. In 1496 the foundation had thirteen of them; by 1595 and 1596 their number had risen to twenty, four of them mounted, and by 1632 to twenty-two. The administration farmed out villages or groups of villages as revenue units called mukataa, generally for three years. The villages in Samsun and Canik, for example, were let as a single unit. Besides the village revenues there were smaller items of income, such as the rent of the "imaret garden" and of a mill. Orbay also established that a neighbourhood grew up around the imaret where the foundation's staff lived, referred to in the records as "mahalle-i imâret-i Sultân Bâyezîd Han".

One condition of the deed gives an idea of the scale of the imaret: seventeen batmans of fresh meat were to be bought every day for the foundation's kitchen, each person was to receive fifty dirhems of meat per meal, and food was to be served twice a day. On the basis of these figures Orbay calculates that seventeen batmans of meat corresponded to the daily ration of about 408 people. Since the foundation's staff in 1496, counting orphans and students, numbered 139, by Orbay's reckoning some 269 people benefited from the imaret as guests or as poor; he adds that the number of guests was probably small at any given time. Another condition of the foundation was that seven hundred gold pieces be sent every year to Medina, to the servants of the Prophet's tomb and to the Quran reciters of the city.

The Imaret Kitchen in the Account Books

The foundation's account books, which run from the late sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century, make it possible to follow the imaret's kitchen in figures. According to the book of 1595, kitchen expenditure amounted to 723,980 akçe. The first entry of the same book shows that seventeen batmans of meat were bought every day for 359 days, and that 188,880 akçe were paid for a total of 6,103 batmans in the year. This means that the deed's condition of seventeen batmans was still being followed to the letter a century later. Yet the number of the foundation's staff had risen to 175; Orbay interprets this as a situation that can only be explained by a reduction in rations or by a fall in the number of poor fed at the imaret.

The books also list the goods that entered the kitchen. In 1595-96 some seventeen thousand batmans of flour, more than a thousand kile of wheat, over two thousand batmans of rice, 470 batmans of honey, 368 batmans of clarified butter, 766 batmans of salt and 534 dirhems of saffron were purchased, along with chickpeas, almonds, red grapes, starch and cottonseed oil. The largest items of expenditure were flour, meat and rice. A daybook (ruznamçe) for Sha'ban 1016 (November-December 1607) shows the kitchen's daily routine: on the first day of the month firewood and cotton for candles were bought, flour, wheat, butter and salt were spent for the kitchen, and rice, honey, oil, black pepper and saffron were used for a feast given to guests.

This abundance did not last. Orbay's study shows that the foundation fell into a severe financial crisis in the first half of the seventeenth century, closely connected with the great Celali revolts, the desertion of villages and the fall in agricultural production. In 1600 about 76 per cent of the mukataa revenues could not be collected, the imaret was closed for part of the year, the kitchen operated for only seven and a half months, and salaries were paid for only eight. An imperial order entered in the Amasya court register in 1624 shows that the foundation's staff complained that they had not been paid and that the kitchen had been closed for several years; they also alleged that the trustee was abusing his authority. The same complaints were repeated in 1627.

The deepest fall came in 1632. That year kitchen expenditure dropped to 42,869 akçe, a figure indicating that the imaret was closed for most of the year, perhaps for all of it. A further 21,300 akçe was recorded separately for the students' food, but this too was spent over only seven months. Even so, the foundation sent 84,000 akçe to Medina that year. In 1634, when the trustee changed, the store to be handed over to the new trustee, Ahmed Paşa, was inventoried and found to be in a very poor state compared with the 1590s. In 1635 the foundation recovered and spent 315,770 akçe on the kitchen. In 1646-47 sixteen months of kitchen expenditure fell to 111,271 akçe, and the book of 1656 records 159,463 akçe for two years. Kitchen expenditure appears as 200,700 akçe in 1719 and 362,440 akçe in 1757; according to Orbay these figures always remained below the level of the late sixteenth century.

Repair costs were kept as a separate item in the account books. Under the deed and Islamic law, the foundation's revenues had to be spent first of all on the upkeep of its buildings. Repairs to the woodshed, the latrines and the kitchen hearth were entered under this heading. Orbay notes that these expenses never became a heavy burden.

Trustees, Scribes and Sheikhs of the Imaret

Hüsâmeddin Bey's biographical volumes contain scattered but rich information about the people who administered the foundation and ran the imaret. Among those who held the trusteeship after the first trustee, the former mufti Abdî Çelebi, were the poet Âfitâbî Abdurrahman Çelebi, who retired from the judgeship of Sivas and became trustee of the Sultan Bayezid endowments in Amasya in 903 (1497-98); the former chief secretary (reisülküttâb) Pîr Ahmed Çelebi (around 935); and Emîn Mehmed Paşa, who came from the post of accountant of Rumelia (1002/1593-94). In the seventeenth century the trusteeship often became a post given to palace gatekeepers, cavalrymen (sipahis) or dismissed governors-general. Hüsâmeddin Bey's chronicle shows that in the 1610s and 1620s the trustees changed almost every year; this rapid turnover coincides with the years of financial crisis that Orbay observed in the account books.

One of these trustees was Murâd Beyzâde Ahmed Ağa of Amasya. Dismissed as steward of Grand Vizier Köprülü Fâzıl Ahmed Paşa, he came to Amasya in 1081 (1670) as trustee of the "imperial endowments" and was appointed to the post four times in all, in 1085, 1088 and 1094 (1683). According to Hüsâmeddin Bey, during his last term he administered the Sultan Bayezid endowments well for five years, restored and revived the mosque, and "kept the soup kitchen running". In the same period Bektaş Ağa came to Amasya in 1084 (1673) as "trustee of the endowments of the İmâret-i Sultân Bâyezîd", but lasted only a single year. In the eighteenth century Nüzhet Ahmed Efendi became trustee in 1175, and when he died the following year the post passed to his son Es'ad Mehmed Efendi. Paşalızâde Hasan Ağa, removed from the palace household, was likewise sent to Amasya with this trusteeship in 1218 (1803-04) and held it until his death in 1223 (1808).

The scribes who kept the foundation's accounts included some of Amasya's well-known calligraphers and poets. Celâlî Mehmed Çelebi, one of Şehzade Ahmed's chancery scribes, became scribe of the Sultan Bayezid endowments in 934 (1527-28). The poet Belîğî Mehmed Çelebi was given this post in 961 (1554), when Süleyman the Magnificent came to Amasya. The calligrapher Mehmed bin Süleyman, known as Hâfız Cîlânî, became "scribe of the endowments of the Sultan Bayezid imaret" for the second time in 974 (1566-67). After Kâsım Efendi, regarded as a master of the six scripts, the scribeship passed to a family descended from him and known as the Kâtibzâdes, many of whose members were known both as scribes of the foundation and as calligraphers.

The imaret also had a sheikh. Hüsâmeddin Bey names some of those who held this office: Genceli Veli Bey, who died in 1058 (1648), and Şeyh Mehmed Efendi, who after teaching at the Halfet Gâzi madrasa became sheikh of the Sultan Bayezid imaret and preacher of the mosque, professor at the Sultan Bayezid madrasa in 1173 and mufti of Amasya in 1175. When Şeyh Mehmed Efendi died in 1176, the office of mufti and the professorship went to his eldest son, while the sheikhship of the imaret was given to his other sons, Abdürrahîm, Mehmed and Mustafa Efendi. The sources do not describe the daily duties of the imaret sheikh; it is clear, however, that the post circulated among the ulema and could pass from father to son.

School, Quran School and Calligraphers' Room Around the Imaret

The imaret formed a group of buildings with other small institutions in the eastern part of the courtyard. According to Hüsâmeddin Bey, the Sultan Bayezid School stood east of the mosque, at a corner in line with the imaret, and had been built in 890 (1485). Its endowment was well ordered and its teaching staff good; Emir İmamzâde Seyyid Halil Efendi and his son Seyyid Mehmed Emin Efendi became well known as teachers there. In 1300 (1882-83) the school was turned into a state primary school. The primary school has disappeared without trace within the last century.

The Sultan Bayezid Quran School (dârülkurrâ) was also built by the sultan, "north of the imaret's bakehouse and west of the guesthouse, in the row of the calligraphers' room", and was completed in 891. This Quran school, famous in Amasya, trained many hafızes; it was abandoned in 1264 (1847-48) and in 1296 (1879) was turned into lodgings for the officials of the military supply depot.

The calligraphers' room is remembered as a place where calligraphy was taught beside the imaret for centuries. In the seventeenth century Hâce Ahmed Paşa of Amasya built two upper-storey rooms adjoining the Sultan Bayezid imaret, one for the calligrapher Fazlullah Efendi and the other as a timekeeper's room for Koca Müneccim Ahmed Efendi, and endowed his shops in the market for their upkeep. Koca Müneccim became timekeeper (muvakkit) of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque in Sha'ban 1049 (December 1639) and lived in this timekeeper's room. There he taught students to use the astrolabe, wrote a calendar every year, and on Fridays the ulema and poets gathered in his room. When he died in 1070 (1660) he was succeeded by his son Mehmed Mâhir Efendi. The calligrapher Ahmed Efendi also taught calligraphy for many years "in the calligraphers' room adjoining the Sultan Bayezid imaret" and died around 1090. In the eighteenth century Kâtibzâde Mehmed Emin Efendi, known as "Köse Hattat", taught calligraphy to students in his room adjoining the imaret and became scribe of the Sultan Bayezid endowments. Hüsâmeddin Bey writes that although Hâce Ahmed Paşa's other charities had disappeared, the timekeeper's room and the calligraphers' room still stood in his own day, yet he also notes that they burned in the fire of 1233 (1817-18); it may be inferred from this that the rooms were repaired after the fire.

The Imaret Within the Ensemble

The place of the imaret becomes clearer when the complex is viewed as a whole. The prayer hall of the mosque consists of two domed spaces, linked by squinches, and side wings of three domes each. The first dome is about 13 metres in diameter; the second, covering the qibla section, is about 15 metres. The two sections are separated by a great arch 2.37 metres wide. This arrangement is regarded as one of the finest examples of mosque architecture with side spaces, or zaviye-type mosques. The five-bay portico rests on marble columns; the window lunettes contain tile panels with white thuluth inscriptions on a dark blue ground.

Of the minarets rising at the two corners of the mosque, the one on the right is decorated, in a manner seen on no other minaret, with zigzag red inlays ending in lily motifs. The shaft of the left minaret, in keeping with the old Turkish minaret tradition, is built in red and white bands. The interior is plain. The mihrab is modest in size and has muqarnas, and the minbar is of white marble; by contrast, the wooden door and window shutters are counted among the finest examples of fifteenth-century kündekâri work.

The portal, as in Bayezid's other mosques, is imposing. Within three frames is a doorway niche with a muqarnas hood; the inscription is set into the entrance arch, which is made of marble in two colours. The two side façades and the qibla façade of the mosque are supported externally by three buttresses, each topped by a small dome resting on an octagonal drum. Inside the main door is a narrow gallery carried on a series of brackets, reached by spiral staircases inside the piers on either side of the door. The muezzins' gallery, resting on slender black columns, is also plain.

The portico is covered by domes carried on five pointed arches resting on six round marble columns. The interiors of the domes and the areas above the window arches are decorated with rich painted ornament. Both minarets have a single balcony with muqarnas beneath. The main door leaves are made of interlocking pieces following a geometric pattern, and their brass bands and studs are still in place. The same patterns are used on all the lower window shutters, most of which have carved inscription panels in their upper sections. The leaves of the side entrances have been lost. It is said that the mosque's carpets include some very valuable old pieces. This careful decoration stands side by side, within the same courtyard, with the plain and functional rooms of the imaret.

The madrasa, also known as the Sultaniye, was most probably built in the same years. Opposite the entrance is a square, domed classroom-mosque. The courtyard, with an ablution fountain in its centre, is surrounded on three sides by vaulted, columned porticoes, behind which are ranged eighteen domed cells with hearths. According to Hüsâmeddin Bey, the professorship was reserved for the muftis of Amasya. In his chronicle he names Cemâloğlu Alâeddin Ali Çelebi, mufti of Amasya, as the first professor; it is also written that the madrasa's first teacher was the famous Şeyhülislam Zenbilli Ali Efendi. Since Zenbilli Ali Efendi's actual name was Alâeddin Ali Cemâlî, it may be that the two records refer to the same person. The madrasa has survived thanks to a sound restoration and served for many years as the Provincial Public Library. The madrasa's students were also fed from the imaret; the account books show the kitchen expenditure for students as a separate item.

Southeast of the mosque, in line with the qibla wall and between the mosque and the imaret, stands a square, domed tomb. Above its door was an inscription giving, through the abjad system, the year 919 (1513). In Eyice's day this inscription was no longer in place, while a 2023 study has published the inscription as it appears after the latest restoration. The tomb is attributed to Şehzade Osman, son of Şehzade Ahmed. Eyice writes that Osman was put to death by Selim I in 1513; in some accounts, however, Osman appears as a child who died young, and the tomb is said to have been added to the complex later. There is no cenotaph in the tomb today, although Uzunçarşılı mentions a marble cenotaph there.

Repairs, Earthquakes and Floods

The survival of the complex and its imaret over the centuries depended on regular repairs. While Bayezid was still alive, on 20 Dhu al-Hijja 914 (April 1509), a reward of two thousand akçe is recorded as having been given to the chief architect Ali, sent to inspect the repairs of the imaret in Amasya; the document does not say whether the craftsmen who did the work were sent from Istanbul or were local men. According to Hüsâmeddin Bey, in the earthquake of Muharram 999 (November 1590) the mosque was badly damaged, its front dome and arches and the domes of the imaret cracked, but the buildings were repaired at once.

The damage was greater in the earthquake of 1079 (1668): the inner arch gave way, the domes collapsed, the right-hand minaret toppled from its lower band towards the qibla, the left-hand one leaned to the east, and the domes of the imaret and the guesthouse split. With the complex's trustee Merzifonî İbrâhim Ağa as supervisor and Ahmed Paşazâde Ali Bey as commissioner, all the damage was made good within a year. Hüsâmeddin Bey writes that the slight damage caused by later earthquakes was also repaired at once and that the imaret had been well preserved down to his own time.

A document dated 1147 (1734-35) relates that heavy rain and snow made the Yeşilırmak overflow and damage the whole town, and that besides the mihrab of the mosque, the ablution fountain and the madrasa, the bakery inside the imaret where bread was baked had been completely destroyed. The document requests the materials needed to repair the bakery's dome, chimney and the kitchen hearths, a new workbench and two kneading troughs. According to the same document, the lead covering of the schoolhouse was to be removed and replaced with tiles, and the lead recovered was to be used to repair the fountain and a ruined spot above the mihrab. A document of 1821 records that parts of the mosque, imaret and madrasa were in ruins and that 9,443 kuruş were assigned for their repair from the treasury of the Holy Cities. Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi writes that in an earthquake around 1824-25 more than two hundred silkworm houses collapsed and that, among Sultan Bayezid's buildings, some of the minarets and the domes of the mosque and the madrasa fell. A document of 1827 likewise reports that the guesthouse of the mosque, madrasa and imaret had collapsed in a great earthquake and was in need of repair.

Over time other charitable works were added around the complex. In 1197 (1782-83) Türedîzâde Hacı Ali Ağa built, on the river side of the mosque, taps that allowed ablutions to be made with warm water in winter, together with a room for heating the water; the place was called "Sıcak Su" (Warm Water). Ayşe Hatun built an ablution fountain in 1227 or 1228 (1812-13), and Kâtibzâde Hacı Osman Ağa a snow-water sebil in 1236 (1820-21). Kapancızâde Hacı Hüseyin Zeki Efendi built a timekeeper's room with a library and another ablution fountain. Between 1909 and 1911, in accordance with a bequest, the Yamuk Osmanzâde family built a library in front of the wall west of the school, together with a new ablution fountain for water brought specially from Çakallar, because the courtyard had no spring water and the river water often ran muddy for days.

Like the complex in Edirne, the one in Amasya is known to have suffered from time to time from the river's floods. In the flood of June 1980 the complex was covered with about 70 centimetres of mud. In the violent earthquake of 1939, which caused great destruction in Amasya, the mosque was damaged again and some arches and domes of the portico collapsed. In 1937-1938 a proposal was also made to add a strip of the courtyard 160 metres long to the road for the widening of the Samsun-Tokat highway. The repair carried out in the 1960s cannot be called successful; the portico arches and the great arch separating the two sections were renewed incorrectly at that time. A 1968 report on the restoration of the imaret is also known. The mosque's most recent comprehensive restoration was carried out by the General Directorate of Foundations between 2017 and 2019.

From Storehouse to Museum

The imaret's role of distributing food seems to have come to an end in the nineteenth century. According to what Hüsâmeddin Bey wrote in the early twentieth century, the imaret and refectory were then used as an "a'şâr-ı ayniye ambarı", a store for the tithe collected in kind; the guesthouse north of the imaret had become an army weapons depot, and the teaching room reserved for calligraphers the office of the Commission for the Reform of Madrasas. A document dated 1281 (1864-65) reports that an inn (han) set aside for the staff of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque was being used by the army as a supply depot. The most recent study suggests that this inn may have been the part of the imaret used as a stable, but this is only a conjecture.

For a time the imaret was in a very ruinous state and it was long used as a military depot. It was saved from collapse by restoration, and for a period the kitchen-imaret and the guesthouse were used as a student dormitory. According to the 2023 study, the northern section of the imaret, once the stable, now houses the Miniatür Amasya Museum; the room identified as the storeroom is a book café run by the Amasya Mufti's Office; the kitchen is the İmaret Cultural Centre attached to the Amasya Governorate; and the refectory is a sales point for publications. In a hall of 300 square metres the museum recreates the Amasya of about a hundred years ago in a 1/150 scale model. The model was made after a photograph taken in 1914, and the vaulted ceiling of the imaret has been designed to look like a night sky.

Of the complex as a whole, the mosque, the madrasa and the imaret have survived; the primary school has disappeared, while the timekeeper's room and the ablution fountain added in the nineteenth century still stand. According to the five-couplet verse inscription above the door of the timekeeper's room, the building was erected by Hacı Hüseyin Zeki Efendi in 1256 (1840); Hüsâmeddin Bey, however, gives the date as 1258. The walls of this small building in the Tanzimat style carry painted decoration showing landscapes, trees, various buildings and a picture of the nearby Beyazıt Mosque. Under the eaves of the ablution fountain, which appears to rest on an old foundation but to have been renewed in later periods, there are also nineteenth-century landscape paintings, said to show a broad view of Istanbul and probably to date from the same time as the timekeeper's room. Günsel Renda has written a separate article on the painted decoration of the timekeeper's room. The inscriptions of the complex are treated in İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı's collection of inscriptions, and its architecture in the works of G. de Jerphanion and A. Gabriel.

The plane trees on either side of the ablution fountain, planted when the mosque was built, are said to have shaded the garden for more than five hundred years. Though food is no longer cooked beneath the domes of the imaret, its plan, hearths and storerooms still make the arrangement described in the fifteenth-century document largely legible today.

Chronology

1481: Accession of Bayezid; according to Hüsâmeddin Bey, the start of construction (Rajab 886).

1485: According to Hüsâmeddin Bey, construction of the Sultan Bayezid School (890).

1486: Completion of the mosque according to its inscription (Rajab 891); completion of the mosque, madrasa, school, imaret, guesthouse and Quran school.

1496: Drawing up of the endowment deed of the complex (mid-Jumada al-awwal 901).

1509: Reward given to the chief architect Ali, who inspected the repairs of the imaret (20 Dhu al-Hijja 914).

1513: Date of the inscription attributed to the Tomb of Şehzade Osman (919).

1590: Cracking of the domes of the mosque and imaret in an earthquake, and their repair.

1595: Annual kitchen expenditure of 723,980 akçe according to the account book.

1600: Failure to collect most of the revenues; temporary closure of the imaret.

1632: Fall of kitchen expenditure to 42,869 akçe; the imaret idle for most of the year.

1639: Koca Müneccim Ahmed Efendi becomes timekeeper of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque.

1668: Splitting of the imaret and guesthouse domes in an earthquake; repair by Merzifonî İbrâhim Ağa within a year.

1734-35: Destruction of the imaret bakery in a flood of the Yeşilırmak.

1840: Construction of the timekeeper's room and library (1256 according to its inscription).

1879: Conversion of the Quran school into lodgings for military depot officials (1296).

1909-1911: Construction of the Yamuk Osmanzâde library and ablution fountain.

1939: Major earthquake and renewed damage to the mosque.

1980: The complex covered with mud in a flood.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • Elif Nur Dönmezgüç, Belgelerle Amasya Sultan II. Bayezid Külliyesi, master's thesis, Ankara University Institute of Social Sciences, Ankara 2023 (with extracts from Abdulkadir Dündar, "Bir Belgeye Göre Amasya II. Bayezid Külliyesi", Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 44/2, 2003, and from Ottoman archival documents). dspace.ankara.edu.tr
  • Kayhan Orbay, The Financial Administration of an Imperial Waqf in an Age of Crisis: A Case Study of Bâyezîd II's Waqf in Amasya (1594-1657), master's thesis, Bilkent University, Ankara 2001. repository.bilkent.edu.tr
  • Kültür Envanteri, "II. Bayezid Külliyesi İmareti" (entry based on the Amasya Governorate City Guide and Sühan Bayraktar's master's thesis). kulturenvanteri.com

Official sources

  • Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "Sultan II. Bayezid Külliyesi".
  • Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "Miniatür Amasya".

Other sources

  • Semavi Eyice, "Beyazıt II Camii ve Külliyesi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 6, Istanbul 1992, pp. 40-42. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr

Online sources