In the Ottoman age Amasya was as much one of the brightest centres of learning in Anatolia as it was a princes' sanjak. In chronicles, Islamic court records and certificates of learning (icazetname) the city appears under such names as Baghdād al-Rūm, Qubbat al-ʿUlamā (the Dome of Scholars) and Madīnat al-Ḥukamā (the City of Sages), and some sources, to convey the vigour of its intellectual life, praise it as "the Baghdad of Anatolia." Behind this reputation lie a madrasa tradition that ran without interruption from the Danishmendids to the first years of the Republic, the pious endowments (waqf) that kept those madrasas alive, and a chain of teachers and students that supplied men to the empire's learned hierarchy. The city's own historian, Abdizâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin, described Amasya as a "mine of scholars" through its sciences and learning and a "centre of the erudite" through its madrasas and schools, and said that every quarter of the city was full of madrasas and every corner of schools. The subject here is the institutions themselves: the madrasas, the schools of hadith (darülhadis), the professorships, and Amasya's place within the Ottoman learned establishment (ilmiye). The life stories of the scholars trained in the city are treated in a separate article.

Danishmendid and Seljuk Foundations

The madrasa tradition in Amasya goes back to the first century of Turkish rule over the city. In the period of Turkish administration that began after Manzikert under the Danishmendid Gümüştegin Ahmed Gazi, madrasas were built in the settlement north of the river, together with a mosque, a bridge, a han, a small palace and a bath. The mosque known as the oldest Turkish building in the city, which stood on the site of today's Şamlar Mosque, is likewise attributed to the Danishmendid Melik Gazi. Little is known of the names or teaching circles of these first madrasas; but it is clear that the city had already begun to take shape as a centre of learning in the twelfth century. Under the Seljuks Amasya, known by the title "Dār al-ʿIzz" (the Abode of Glory), broadened this foundation through the charitable works of sultans and governors.

The oldest of the Seljuk madrasas is the Halifet Gazi Madrasa. Its date is given differently in the sources: some studies place it in 1209-1210, while according to another view Mübârizüddin Halifet Gazi, governor of Amasya under İzzeddin Keykâvus I, had it built between 1222 and 1228, the years he served in the city. The sources record the name of Kadı Burhâneddin as the madrasa's first professor (müderris). The endowments of the madrasa, which forms a single ensemble with Halifet Gazi's tomb, have been studied separately by Refet Yinanç on the basis of the waqf documents. The mosque built between 1229 and 1235 by the Seljuk governor Nûreddin Toğrak was in time converted into a madrasa under the name of the Doğrakiye Madrasa; its first professor was Ömer Efendi. This madrasa was ruined by the flooding of the Yeşilırmak in 1891 and was repaired by its last professor, Canikli Mehmed Efendi.

The most striking building of learning to survive from the Seljuk period is the Gökmedrese. Built by Seyfeddin Torumtay, who rose after the battle of Kösedağ from commander of the city's castle to its governor, the building appears in his endowment deed under the name "Gökmedrese" and in its day served as both a mosque and a madrasa. As its inscription was removed and has never been found, the date of construction is not known with certainty; but since the endowment deed drawn up by Torumtay himself bears the date 665 (1266-67), the building is accepted as having been finished by that year at the latest. It takes its name, "the Blue Madrasa", from the use of its entrance section as a madrasa and from the purple and turquoise tiles and glazed bricks that adorn the adjoining tomb. With its thick, ashlar-faced walls closed to the outside, its cylindrical corner towers on either side and its façade of geometric ornament, it carries the whole character of Seljuk architecture. Torumtay's own tomb stands across a lane from the building and is dated 677 (1278-79).

Madrasas in the Ilkhanid and Beylik Periods

Mongol rule did not interrupt Amasya's intellectual life; on the contrary, it gave the city one of the most important medical institutions in Anatolia. The Dârüşşifâ (Bîmârhane), built by Anber b. Abdullah in the name of the Ilkhanid ruler Öljeitü (Olcaytu Han) and his wife Uldız Hatun, is cited in the sources with the date 1308 or 1309. This open-courtyard building combined two functions, those of a hospital and a medical madrasa, and practical medical training was given here. The first physician to serve in the institution is recorded as Reşîdüddin Lokmân-ı Hârizmî. Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin (1385-1468), author of the illustrated surgical book Cerrâhiyyetü'l-Hâniyye, was also trained in this hospital and practised medicine here for about fourteen years. In this way Amasya's madrasa tradition was not confined to the religious sciences; it also possessed a branch in which a rational science such as medicine was taught on an institutional footing.

In the same period the Atabey Madrasa, built in 1322 by the emir of Amasya Nâsırüddin Ahmed, was a modest building of five rooms, a lecture hall and a garden. Hacı Şadgeldi Paşa, who governed the city under Eretnid rule and declared his independence in 1352, built the Alaca Yahyâ Bey Madrasa in 1373, and Sadreddin Artuk Türkmânî was appointed its first professor. Having stood for some five centuries, this madrasa gave way to a rüşdiye (middle) school. The date of its demolition is given differently in the sources: in one account the Ministry of Education had the madrasa pulled down in 1864 and built a rüşdiye in its place, in another this was done in 1865 by the governor (mutasarrıf) Ziyâ Paşa. These madrasas of the beylik period allowed the city to enter the new era with an intellectual infrastructure already in place when it passed under Ottoman rule.

The Growth of the Madrasa Network under the Ottomans

Amasya was annexed to the Ottoman lands by Bayezid I (Yıldırım) in 1398 and its government was given to Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed). The following two centuries are the city's most productive period in terms of institutions of learning. Researchers accept that the number of scholarly establishments in Amasya reached its peak between 1398 and 1592. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the city contained nine mosques, ten madrasas, four zawiyas, six public kitchens (imaret) and fifteen baths. Behind this vitality lay the charitable works of the princes and the statesmen around them. In a city that housed a princely court, for viziers, tutor-guardians and gate aghas to build madrasas was both an expression of piety and a matter of prestige.

The Reigns of Mehmed I and Murad II

Mehmed I's vizier Yâkub Paşa built the madrasa that bears his name in 1412. The retreat section (çilehane) of this building, also known as the Halvetî Madrasa or the Çilehane, served as a dervish lodge until 1622 and was incorporated into the madrasa after that date. That a madrasa and a lodge should stand under one roof is a fine example of how closely learning and Sufism lived together in Amasya. The madrasa built in 1419 by Bayezid Paşa, another vizier of Mehmed I, functioned within a mosque and has survived to the present. After Mehmed I came to the throne madrasas were opened in the other towns of the sanjak as well: chief among them were the Halîliye Madrasa in Gümüşhacıköy and, in Merzifon, the four-iwan Çelebi Sultan Mehmed Madrasa (1414-1417), the work of an architect from Damascus.

Yörgüç Paşa, whom Murad II appointed governor of the sanjak of Amasya for the second time in 1421, built a mosque and a madrasa together; the Yörgüç Paşa Mosque and Madrasa is still in use today. The madrasa built by Hızır Paşa, who had also governed the sanjak of Amasya in the reign of Murad II, was completed in 1466 as part of a complex comprising a mosque, an imaret, a bath, a primary school and an ablution fountain. The Hüsâmiye Madrasa, built in 1453 by Kubalızâde Şeyh Hüsâmeddin Hüseyin Halvetî, is also a work of this period. This madrasa was damaged in the fires of 1602 and 1688, repaired as a madrasa once more in 1713 by Kubalı Hafız Ali Efendi, and left to fall into ruin after 1826.

Prince Bayezid and the Reign of Bayezid II

After the conquest of Istanbul, Mehmed II (the Conqueror) sent Şehzade Bayezid (Prince Bayezid) to the sanjak of Amasya, and the prince's governorship there lasted until 1481. This period of nearly thirty years is the era that truly defined Amasya's intellectual and architectural face. Kasım Bey, one of the prince's commanders, built a madrasa at Hakala in 1464, and the Hakala Kasım Bey Madrasa went on teaching until 1827. Hızır Paşazâde Mehmed Paşa, tutor-guardian (lala) of Şehzade Ahmed, built a madrasa in his own name in 1484; this building too has survived. The complex that Bayezid had built in Amasya after his accession, the octagonal madrasa of his gate agha and the school of hadith of Abdullah Paşa added institutions of imperial scale to the city's madrasa network. The Küçük Ağa Madrasa, built in 1495 in the Şamlar quarter by the gate agha Ayas Ağa, is also a product of this reign.

The Sultan Bayezid Madrasa

Bayezid II built three great mosque complexes (külliye) bearing his name, in Amasya, Edirne and Istanbul, and placed a madrasa in each of them. The complex in Amasya lies on the bank of the Yeşilırmak, within an outer courtyard of about 160 × 120 metres; the mosque stands in the middle, the madrasa to its right, and the kitchen-imaret and hospice (tabhane) to its left. According to some records construction of the mosque began in September 1481, immediately after the sultan's accession, and according to the three-part inscription over the portal and on the side walls it was completed in July 1486. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin reports, on the authority of İdrîs-i Bitlisî, that Bayezid entrusted to Şehzade Ahmed this building work, begun in thanksgiving for the sultanate granted to him. The endowment deed of the complex is dated January 1496, and in it the complex is described as consisting of a mosque, an imaret, a madrasa and a primary school.

The madrasa, also known as the Sultaniye, must have been built in the same years as the mosque. Directly opposite the entrance is the square, domed lecture hall-mosque; the courtyard, with a fountain at its centre, is surrounded on three sides by vaulted, colonnaded porticoes, behind which run eighteen domed cells, each with a hearth. The absence of cells on the entrance side in the Bayezid II madrasas of Amasya and Edirne is regarded as a feature that distinguishes these buildings in fifteenth-century Ottoman madrasa architecture. According to Hüsâmeddin Bey's records the professorship of the madrasa was reserved for the muftis of Amasya, and its first teacher was Zenbilli Ali Efendi, who later became şeyhülislam. Hüsâmeddin also gives the names of the principal professors down to the end of the nineteenth century; a more detailed list is found in Cahid Baltacı's study of Ottoman madrasas. It appears that this madrasa was of the "sixty" (altmışlı) grade. Long left in ruins, the building was saved by a good restoration and has served for many years as the Provincial Public Library.

In later centuries the courtyard of the complex continued to be part of the city's intellectual life. In 1840 Kapancızâde Hacı Hüseyin Zeki Efendi had a timekeeper's room (muvakkithane) and a library built here; between 1909 and 1911 the Yamuk Osmanzâde family, following a bequest, added another library at the foot of the courtyard wall. One of the two schools built by Zileli Hasan Efendi in the constitutional period was also in the courtyard of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque. Thus, four centuries after its foundation, the complex remained at the heart of the city's life of reading, writing and books.

The Kapı Ağası Madrasa

The most architecturally remarkable of Amasya's madrasas is the Kapı Ağası Madrasa, on the bank of the Yeşilırmak in the Şamlar quarter. It is popularly known as the Büyük Ağa Madrasa and appears in the sources as the Medrese-i Hüseyniyye. It was built by Hüseyin Ağa (Hüseyin Ağa b. Abdülmuîn), chief gate agha (kapı ağası) of Bayezid II. Its date is given in the sources as 1488; but according to the reading based on its inscription the date is 894, that is, 1489. The inscription that should stand above the entrance arch is no longer in place: when the madrasa was abandoned after 1940 and left to decay, the inscription was removed and taken in several pieces to the Amasya Museum. Its text was published by Semavi Eyice in his study of Hüseyin Ağa's endowments.

The Octagonal Plan

The madrasa's most striking feature is its octagonal plan, for which hardly any parallel exists in Ottoman madrasa architecture. This arrangement is regarded as the first application in a madrasa of the octagonal scheme seen in Seljuk funerary monuments. Researchers do not ascribe the originality of the plan to a search for form alone, but believe that the topography of the site also played a part; for this reason the gate and the lecture hall do not lie on the same axis. The entrance is through the gate on the north-west. Each side of the central octagonal courtyard is surrounded by pointed-arched porticoes resting on four piers. The porticoes are covered with shallow cross vaults, and the students' rooms behind them with domes carried on pendentives. Each room has lower and upper windows, two cupboard recesses, a lamp niche and a hearth in the partition wall; the rooms at the corners each have a deep niche.

The lecture hall-mosque on the south side rises higher than the mass of the building and projects outward. The square, domed space is extended towards the entrance by two half-domes; its façade facing the courtyard is so carefully worked as to recall the portico of a mosque. The lecture hall is entered through an arched doorway with muqarnas and rosettes at its corners; the brick mihrab is quite plain. The walls are built in courses of three rows of brick to one of stone. The façade of the rooms facing the courtyard is enlivened with Bursa arches, and traces of stucco relief ornament (malakâri) have been observed in the plaster. The arched fountain in front of the madrasa, laid in alternating red stone and white marble, is thought likely to have been another charitable work of Hüseyin Ağa. The octagonal plan of the Kapı Ağası Madrasa was applied again, with small changes, by Mimar Sinan in the Rüstem Paşa Madrasa in Istanbul, dated 1550. That a provincial madrasa in Amasya should serve a century later as a model for the chief architect of the capital shows clearly the building's place in imperial architecture.

Its Grade and Professors

The sources disagree about the madrasa's place in the learned hierarchy. Some descriptions place the Kapı Ağası Madrasa in the group of "sixty" (altmışlı) madrasas, counted among the highest-ranking institutions. According to an assessment based on Cahid Baltacı's madrasa lists, however, the madrasa was of the "thirty" (otuzlu) grade in its first years and was among the "forties" (kırklı) in 963 (1556). Given that grades could rise and fall over time, it is also possible that the two pieces of information reflect different periods. The name most often mentioned among the madrasa's professors is Taşköprülüzâde Mustafa Müslihiddin Efendi; the name shows the link with Amasya of the famous learned family that compiled the biographies of Ottoman scholars. That Kara Osman Efendi, one of the professors of the Büyük Ağa Madrasa, built the Osmaniye Madrasa in the city in 1737 is another detail showing that teachers trained in this institution expanded the city's madrasa network with their own hands.

The building's last century was turbulent. Badly damaged in the earthquakes of 1939 and 1942, the madrasa lost its lecture-hall dome entirely after 1965, and of the portico in front only two columns and the arches they carried remained. The restoration by the Directorate of Pious Foundations is dated in the sources to 1978 or to the 1980s; in this work the ruined dome, the portico arches, the columns and their capitals were rebuilt and a fountain was placed in the middle of the courtyard. The madrasa is used today as a Qur'an school, and so, more than five centuries after its foundation, it once again serves as a place of teaching.

Schools of Hadith

In the Ottoman order of learning, the darülhadis are known as madrasas devoted to the science of hadith. To the headship of a darülhadis were appointed scholars who had reached the highest level in hadith and best knew the sciences of transmission and interpretation, and their salary was set higher than that of other professors. It is known, nevertheless, that not every darülhadis was a specialist institution. Architecturally no different from madrasas, the darülhadis existed at every grade from the lowest professorial post to the highest. The rank of darülhadis, referred to as "the final degree of the path of professors", applied in the Ottoman Empire only to the Darülhadis Madrasa in Edirne and the Süleymaniye Darülhadis in Istanbul. The schools of hadith in provincial cities must be judged by this measure.

Amasya's most important school of hadith is the building erected by Beylerbey Hacısinanbeyzâde Abdullah Paşa (d. 896/1490-91), one of the notables of the reign of Bayezid II. Because it stands in the Sofular quarter it is also called the Sofular Mosque, and after its founder the Abdullah Paşa Mosque. The word "darülhadis" can be read plainly in its inscription, which gives the date 890 (1485); its endowment deed, however, was drawn up in 907 (1501-1502) by the founder's son, the treasurer Abdülkerim Bey. For this reason the building's date appears in some lists as 1502. Although Abdülkerim Bey had a school of Qur'an recitation (darülkurrâ) added to the east of the building in 1505, this part has not survived. The sources record that hadith scholars such as Şermîzâde Takıyyüddin Efendi and Abdi Efendi taught here.

The Abdullah Paşa Darülhadis also holds a distinct place for its architecture. Built on two different levels because of the sloping site, the building is reached by a double flight of steps leading to a landing that stands above the street. The space beyond the portal is an enclosed courtyard covered by a star vault with an octagonal lantern at its centre. To the east and west of this courtyard lie two darülhadis cells each, with hearths and cupboard niches, and to the south the domed prayer hall, which also served as the lecture room. Between the eastern cell and the prayer hall lies the grave of Abdullah Paşa. A medium-sized school of hadith with four cells, the building is considered unique in Ottoman architecture for a design that gives concrete form to the link between the closed-courtyard madrasas of pre-Ottoman Anatolia and the early Ottoman mosques with hospice rooms (tabhane). The peony and rumi carvings on its wooden door leaves bear the style of the reign of Bayezid II. The building is used today solely as a mosque.

The city's second school of hadith opened in the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent. The date of this timber darülhadis, built by Osman Çelebi, son of the judge Seydi Ali, is given in the sources as 933 (1526) or 1527. That it falls in the same years as the schools of hadith opened in Istanbul at Eyüp, Koska, Demirkapı and the Süleymaniye shows that Amasya was a city that closely followed the empire's investments in learning. The timber building did not last long and had fallen into ruin by 1816.

New Madrasas of the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries

In the middle of the sixteenth century Amasya lost its status as a princes' sanjak and some time later was attached to the province of Sivas. Researchers note that this administrative change led to a pause in the growth of its institutions of learning. Even so, the building of madrasas did not stop altogether. The Muhyiddin Bey Madrasa, built at Hakala in 1541 by Hacı Beyzâde Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi, taught until the middle of the nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century, the city's own notables and natives of Amasya attached to the palace began a new wave of madrasa building.

In 1737 Kara Osman Efendi, professor of the Büyük Ağa Madrasa, founded the Osmaniye Madrasa, and in 1739 the timber Fevziye Madrasa in the name of Seyyid Feyzullah Efendi. Fatma Hatun of Amasya, a member of the palace household of Mahmud I, built the Fâtımiye (Hatuniye) Madrasa in 1740, and Şeyh İsmâil Efendi was appointed its first professor. Sungurzâde Hacı Mehmed Ağa's Sungurlu Madrasa was completed in 1750; in the same year Bekir Beyzâde Hacı Osman of Amasya, a former mirliva (brigadier governor) of Egypt, built the Bekir Paşa Madrasa, which has survived to the present. In 1754 the timber Narlı Bahçe Madrasa of Türüdüzâde Hafız Süleyman Ağa was opened. The Kâşifiye Madrasa, built in 1762 by Halil Ağazâde Ömer Ağa, took its name from Sekükköylüzâde Mehmed Kâşif Efendi. Besides these, the sources also count the Şamlılar and Çöplüce madrasas among the institutions of the Ottoman period. That some of these buildings were of timber is the main reason why their lives were short.

The Learned Establishment and the Grades of Madrasas

In the Ottoman state order the ilmiye was one of the three principal professional groups, alongside the military (seyfiye) and the scribal bureaucracy (kalemiye). The şeyhülislam, the chief military judge (kazasker), the judge (kadı), the mufti and the professors all belonged to this class. Entry into the learned profession began with madrasa education, and a scholar who graduated from a madrasa with a certificate (icazet) could serve in teaching, the judiciary, the issuing of legal opinions and religious services. In the period lasting from the conquest of Istanbul to the beginning of the seventeenth century, this profession had become a settled tradition with its own order, grades and spheres of authority. The madrasas of Amasya were the provincial links of this system; a student who studied or a professor who taught here was regarded as having stepped onto a career ladder that operated across the whole empire.

Grades by Salary and by Status

The grade of Ottoman madrasas was expressed in three interconnected ways. The first was according to the book taught: such as the Tecrid madrasas, where the theological work Ḥāshiyat al-Tajrīd was read, and the Miftah madrasas, where the rhetorical work Miftāḥ al-ʿulūm was read. The second was according to the daily salary paid to the professor: the "twenty", "thirty", "forty", "fifty" and "sixty" madrasas. In the Tecrid madrasas the professor received 20-25 akçe a day, in the Miftah madrasas 30-35 akçe; above the forties came the outer and inner fifties (hâriç and dâhil ellili), and above them the Sahn-ı Semân and the sixties. The third was the ranking by status: outer, inner, Sahn, sixty, Süleymaniye and darülhadis. From the seventeenth century this system turned into a ladder of twelve degrees running from the lowest outer grade (ibtidâ-i hâric) to the Süleymaniye Darülhadis, and it lasted until the end of the state.

When the grades of Amasya's madrasas are considered by this measure, it is clear that the city possessed institutions at both middle and high levels. While the Sultan Bayezid Madrasa was counted among the sixties, the Kapı Ağası Madrasa is known to have risen from thirty to forty. It must be remembered that grades were not fixed: a madrasa could be raised according to the seniority of its professor and lowered to its former grade some time later. All madrasas were at first under the chief military judges; from the end of the sixteenth century the higher-ranking ones were transferred to the şeyhülislam, while the others remained with the chief military judges. The day-to-day management of each madrasa was the responsibility of its professor. Recording in a register the lessons the students had studied, maintaining discipline in the madrasa, and acting as administrator in madrasas with small revenues were among the professor's duties. The judges, too, from time to time inspected whether lessons were being taught in accordance with the conditions of the endowment.

Candidacy and the Path from Professorship to Judgeship

A scholar graduating from a madrasa had to pass through a stage called "mülâzemet" before taking up office. The term had two meanings: the period of probation between graduation and appointment to a professorship or judgeship, and the waiting period of a member of the ilmiye who had left office until he was reappointed. As long as graduates were few, there was no need to apply this procedure strictly. In the 1540s, following the accumulation and complaints of madrasa graduates, Şeyhülislam Ebüssuûd Efendi laid down the basic rules of mülâzemet by order of Süleyman the Magnificent. From the middle of the sixteenth century the grades of madrasa, judgeship and muftiship were brought into line with one another; passing from professorship to judgeship, and sometimes from judgeship to professorship, became common. The great judgeships and the professorships of the higher madrasas were called "mevleviyet".

The upper rungs of this path were largely in the hands of certain learned families. Among such families as the Çandarlıs, the Fenârîzâdes, the Ebüssuûdzâdes and the Kınalızâdes are counted two with a direct link to Amasya, the Müeyyedzâdes and the Taşköprülüzâdes. That scholars trained or teaching in Amasya rose to the offices of judge, professor, chief military judge and şeyhülislam shows that the city served as a source feeding the empire's learned cadres. The best-known example is the later rise to the office of şeyhülislam of Zenbilli Ali Efendi, the first professor of the Sultan Bayezid Madrasa.

Curriculum and Student Life

The sciences taught in the madrasas of Amasya spanned a wide range. Alongside religious sciences such as jurisprudence, Qur'anic exegesis and hadith, logic, mathematics, astronomy, medicine and literature also entered the teaching circles. A student began with Arabic grammar, logic and the basic religious sciences, and moved on to higher-ranking madrasas as he completed each level. The path took years, and only after receiving a certificate from his teacher could a student teach on his own or be appointed to an office. That the works left by Amasya scholars range from exegesis, Qur'anic recitation, hadith, jurisprudence and Sufism to philosophy, logic, language and literature and history reflects the breadth of this curriculum. Some of the works were written in Ottoman Turkish, and a significant part in Arabic and Persian.

One of the best examples of this comprehensive approach is Hayreddin Hızır el-Atûfî, who studied in the madrasas of Amasya. Versed in both religious and rational sciences, Atûfî wrote works in medicine, theology, exegesis, hadith and logic, later served at the palace, and became known for his glosses on the commentaries of Zamakhsharī and Bayḍāwī. The arrangement of the madrasa rooms also gives an idea of student life. As in the Kapı Ağası Madrasa, each room had a hearth, cupboard recesses and a lamp niche; the student both slept and read his books in his cell. The free meals distributed from the public kitchens allowed a young man on the path of learning to concentrate on his lessons without worrying about his livelihood. That the madrasa and the kitchen-imaret share the same courtyard in the Sultan Bayezid complex is the architectural counterpart of this arrangement.

The Endowment System

The madrasa was in essence an endowment institution, and its operation, revenues and supervision were governed by the rules of the waqf. When a madrasa was founded, shops, hans, mills and lands were endowed to meet its expenses. From these revenues were paid the professor's salary, the students' food and lodging, the provision of books and the upkeep of the building. Endowment deeds also set the conditions of the institution; that the professorship of the Sultan Bayezid Madrasa was tied to the muftis of Amasya, that the name of the Gökmedrese first appears in its endowment deed, or that the deed of the Abdullah Paşa Darülhadis was drawn up by the founder's son ten years after his death, shows that the history of Amasya's madrasas is read largely from these documents. Hüseyin Ağa's endowments have been studied separately by Semavi Eyice, Torumtay's endowment deed by İsmet Kayaoğlu, and the endowments of Halifet Gazi by Refet Yinanç.

This order opened the path of learning to a gifted young man whatever his means, and it worked for centuries without burdening the state's budget. The weak point of the system was likewise the endowment. When the Ministry of Imperial Pious Foundations (Evkāf-ı Hümâyun Nezâreti) was established in 1826 and endowment revenues were taken into the state budget, the madrasas and religious services that lived on those revenues suffered great harm. In Amasya, the abandonment of the Hüsâmiye Madrasa to ruin after 1826 and the closing of the Hakala Kasım Bey Madrasa in 1827 may be read as the local reflections of this rupture.

The Madrasa and the Princely Court

Amasya's intellectual life cannot be considered apart from the city's identity as a princes' sanjak. Beginning with Mehmed I, Murad II, Mehmed II and Bayezid II served here as sanjak governors; Şehzade Ahmed, Şehzade Mustafa and Şehzade Bayezid also governed Amasya. While the future sultans were being trained here, the leading scholars of the age were always around them, and the princes' gatherings turned into assemblies of learning and art. The prince's tutor-guardian, gate agha and viziers displayed the prestige of the court circle by building madrasas. That Hızır Paşazâde Mehmed Paşa, builder of the Mehmed Paşa Madrasa, was the tutor-guardian of Şehzade Ahmed, and that the founder of the Kapı Ağası Madrasa was the sultan's gate agha, are concrete examples of this relationship.

Dynastic patronage gave the professors both prestige and means; in this way the princely court and the madrasa became two complementary faces of the same city. Amasya's loss of its status as a princes' sanjak after the middle of the sixteenth century also closed the age of the great madrasas built by the princely circle. From then on the madrasas would be built no longer by members of the dynasty but by the city's own notables and by natives of Amasya who had risen in Istanbul.

Scholars Trained in the Madrasas of Amasya

Amasya produced great figures from within as much as it drew scholars from outside. Foremost among them are the historian Şükrullah, Şeyh Hamdullah, the greatest calligrapher of his age, the physician Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin, one of the important names in the history of surgery, and the scholar-poet Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi, who rose as high as chief military judge. The biographical dictionaries and tezkires devoted to Ottoman scholars include many scholars from Amasya, and manuscript libraries hold many works written or translated by them. The works Amasya Şehri and Amasya Meşâhiri by Osman Fevzi Olcay, himself a native of Amasya, collect the lives and principal works of these scholars. Because the city was a centre of learning, many scholars from other Anatolian cities also settled in Amasya and taught and guided disciples here. The life stories of these scholars and their chains of teachers and students are told in detail in our article on the scholars of Amasya and the ulema tradition.

Through the Eyes of Travellers and Yearbooks

The most frequently cited testimony to the vitality of Amasya's madrasas in the nineteenth century belongs to the French archaeologist Georges Perrot, who visited the city in 1861. In the book describing his journey through Asia Minor, impressed by the intellectual bustle of the city, Perrot calls Amasya "the Oxford of Anatolia" and writes that some two thousand students were studying in its madrasas. Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi (d. 1831), regarded as the pioneer of Amasya's urban historiography, also speaks in his work el-Belâbilü'r-râsiyye of the large number of the learned class in the city. Perrot's figure, as the impression of a traveller, should be received with caution; but it shows clearly that in the middle of the nineteenth century the city still appeared as a city of madrasas.

Official records draw a more measured picture. According to the Sivas provincial yearbook (salname) of 1870, there were forty-four professors and 278 students in thirty-one madrasas in Amasya; in the same year 718 Muslim pupils were studying in twenty-seven primary schools. Vital Cuinet, who came to the city in 1891, records in La Turquie d'Asie that among the Muslim schools there were 240 students in a madrasa with three teachers. The great difference between Perrot's two thousand students and the yearbook's 278 points either to the traveller's exaggeration or to a rapid decline over thirty years; with the documents at hand it cannot be said with certainty which is correct. In either case it is clear that by the end of the century the madrasas were gradually giving way to new schools such as the rüşdiye and the idadi.

Decline and the Closing of the Madrasas

The decline of Amasya's institutions of learning accelerated from the 1800s, and many establishments of learning and charity fell into ruin. Natural disasters made the process heavier: the Doğrakiye Madrasa was damaged in the flood of 1891, the Sultan Bayezid Mosque in the earthquakes of 1590 and 1668-69; the timber darülhadis was ruined by 1816, and most of the timber madrasas collapsed within a short time. In 1865 the governor Ziyâ Paşa had the Alaca Yahyâ Madrasa and the Narlı Bahçe Madrasa demolished, and a rüşdiye school was built in place of Alaca Yahyâ. The grandchildren of the notable families who had built madrasas a century earlier were now building schools. Yet the traditional institution did not vanish at a stroke; in the constitutional period Hatipzâde Mehmed Emin Efendi had a madrasa built on the site of the Mimarbaşı Hasan Efendi School next to the Burmalı Minare.

In the first years of the Republic madrasa graduates still made up a significant part of the city's teaching staff. In 1921 fifteen of the eighty-eight teachers working in Amasya's schools, and in 1922 eleven of the 114 teachers in the primary schools, were madrasa graduates. In 1924 Arabic and Persian lessons were abolished in the schools converted from sultanis into lycées. With the Law on the Unification of Education (Tevhid-i Tedrisat) passed in the same year, the madrasas closed in Amasya as everywhere in Turkey, and the last link of an eight-hundred-year institutional tradition was completed.

Madrasa Buildings and the Tradition of Learning Today

Some of the madrasa buildings of Amasya have survived and are used for new purposes. The Sultan Bayezid Madrasa serves as the Provincial Public Library and the Kapı Ağası Madrasa as a Qur'an school; the Gökmedrese and the Abdullah Paşa Darülhadis are open as mosques; and the Dârüşşifâ and the Yörgüç Paşa, Bayezid Paşa, Mehmed Paşa, Küçük Ağa and Bekir Paşa madrasas still stand. That books are read or the Qur'an taught inside a madrasa building in the city shows that these buildings live on in a use close to their original function.

Scholarly research into the tradition also continues. The International Symposium on the Scholars of Amasya, held in the city, aims to study its historic institutions of learning and the scholars it produced from an interdisciplinary perspective. The line of higher education that grew out of the Amasya Institute of Education, opened in the 1974-1975 academic year, has today become, with Amasya University founded in 2006, a broad institution including faculties of theology and medicine. Within this eight-century line stretching from the Halifet Gazi Madrasa to its university, the city on the Yeşilırmak holds a place of its own in the history of learning in Anatolia.

Chronology

1209-1210 / 1222-1228: Construction of the Halifet Gazi Madrasa (the date is given differently in the sources).

1229-1235: Mosque of Nûreddin Toğrak, later the Doğrakiye Madrasa.

1266-1267: Endowment deed of Seyfeddin Torumtay; the Gökmedrese completed by this date at the latest.

1308-1309: Construction of the Dârüşşifâ in the name of Öljeitü and Uldız Hatun.

1322: Atabey Madrasa of Nâsırüddin Ahmed.

1373: Alaca Yahyâ Bey Madrasa of Hacı Şadgeldi Paşa.

1398: Annexation of Amasya to the Ottoman lands.

1412: Yâkub Paşa (Çilehane) Madrasa.

1419: Bayezid Paşa Madrasa.

1453: Hüsâmiye Madrasa.

1464: Hakala Kasım Bey Madrasa.

1466: Hızır Paşa complex and its madrasa.

1484: Mehmed Paşa Madrasa.

1485: Inscription date (890) of the Abdullah Paşa Darülhadis.

1486: Completion of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque; the madrasa built in the same years.

1488-1489: Kapı Ağası (Büyük Ağa) Madrasa.

1495: Küçük Ağa Madrasa.

1496: Endowment deed of the Sultan Bayezid complex.

1501-1502: Endowment deed of the Abdullah Paşa Darülhadis; a darülkurrâ added in 1505.

1526-1527: Osman Çelebi Darülhadis.

1541: Muhyiddin Bey Madrasa at Hakala.

1550: Mimar Sinan applies the plan of the Kapı Ağası Madrasa in the Rüstem Paşa Madrasa in Istanbul.

1556: The Kapı Ağası Madrasa recorded among the "forty" madrasas.

1737-1762: The Osmaniye, Fevziye, Fâtımiye, Sungurlu, Bekir Paşa, Narlı Bahçe and Kâşifiye madrasas.

1826: Establishment of the Ministry of Imperial Pious Foundations; endowment revenues taken into the budget.

1840: A timekeeper's room and library added to the courtyard of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque.

1861: Georges Perrot describes Amasya as "the Oxford of Anatolia".

1865: Demolition of the Alaca Yahyâ and Narlı Bahçe madrasas.

1870: The Sivas yearbook records thirty-one madrasas, forty-four professors and 278 students.

1909-1911: Library of the Yamuk Osmanzâde family in the Sultan Bayezid courtyard.

1924: Closure of the madrasas under the Law on the Unification of Education.

1978 / 1980s: Restoration of the Kapı Ağası Madrasa by the Directorate of Pious Foundations.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Osman Fevzi Olcay, Amasya Şehri and Amasya Meşâhiri.

Academic studies

  • Introductory text of the International Symposium on the Scholars of Amasya.
  • İsmet Kayaoğlu, "Turumtay Vakfiyesi", Vakıflar Dergisi, no. 12 (1978), pp. 91-112.
  • Refet Yinanç, "Selçuklu Medreselerinden Amasya Halifet Gazi Medresesi ve Vakıfları", Vakıflar Dergisi, no. 15 (1982), pp. 5-22.

Official sources

  • "Kapı Ağa (Büyük Ağa) Medresesi", Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism.

Books

  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin [Yasar], Amasya Târihi, I-V, Istanbul 1330-32 and 1927-35.
  • Mustafa Vâzıh, el-Belâbilü'r-râsiyye fî riyâzi mesâili'l-Amâsiyye, Istanbul University Library, TY, no. 2574.
  • G. Perrot, Souvenirs d'un voyage en Asie Mineure, Paris 1864, pp. 439-473.
  • V. Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, I, Paris 1890-1895.
  • A. Gabriel, Monuments Turcs d'Anatolie, II, Paris 1934.
  • Cahid Baltacı, XV-XVI. Asırlarda Osmanlı Medreseleri, Istanbul 1976.
  • Semavi Eyice, "Kapu Ağası Hüseyin Ağa'nın Vakıfları", EFAD, no. 9 (1978), pp. 149-246.
  • İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devletinin İlmiye Teşkilâtı, Ankara 1965.

Other sources