Name, Location and Identity of the Building

Standing in the centre of Merzifon, in the Cami-i Cedid quarter, right beside the mosque known as the Çelebi Mehmed Mosque, the Çelebi Sultan Mehmed Madrasa is one of the oldest Ottoman madrasas within the borders of Amasya Province. It also appears in the sources as the Sultaniye Madrasa. For centuries local people called it the "Merzifon Sultâniyesi", and both Ottoman records and Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar's Amasya Tarihi usually register it as the "Sultâniye-i Merzifon". Merzifon's local descriptions count the madrasa among the five oldest and most famous madrasas of Anatolia. It lies about 49 kilometres from the centre of Amasya.

The building was commissioned by Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed), who reunited the Ottoman state, at a time close to the end of the Interregnum that followed the Battle of Ankara. The sack of Bursa by Timur's armies and the Interregnum, which lasted some eleven years, left the state almost exhausted in political and military terms; Çelebi Mehmed, who restored unity on the throne in 1413, is therefore regarded as the second founder of the state. It is known that during the Interregnum he based himself in the area around Amasya. The madrasa came from the hand of the same architect as the Bayezid Pasha Mosque in Amasya, which was built in the same year, 1414.

Architectural historians regard the building as especially important among early Ottoman madrasas. It draws attention for keeping alive, to a certain extent in the Ottoman period, the open-courtyard, four-iwan layout that is among the oldest madrasa designs of Turkish-Islamic architecture, as well as for its monumental appearance and details drawn from Mamluk architecture. The first scholar to study the building from the standpoint of architectural history is said to be Albert Gabriel, who worked on Turkish monuments in Anatolia and carried out research there in 1930; the madrasa was later treated in detail in an article by Mahmut Akok, published in the journal Mimarlık in 1952. The scholarly past of the madrasa, however, is preserved most fully in Hüsameddin's work: the biographical volumes of his book record the lives of dozens of scholars who taught or studied here.

Çelebi Mehmed and Merzifon

The reason the madrasa rose in Merzifon lies in the close bond Çelebi Mehmed formed with the town. According to Hüsameddin, Çelebi Mehmed visited Merzifon during the years when he governed from Amasya and had a palace built there; this is how the town gained a notable place in Ottoman history. The same source writes that in 818 (1415) the sultan had a madrasa and a bathhouse built in Merzifon and set up their endowments. This date falls between the starting and finishing years given in the inscription and most probably marks the year in which the endowment was arranged or in which construction was under way. Hüsameddin describes the madrasa as "a most magnificent, stone-built house of higher learning" and adds that it raised the standing of Merzifon and multiplied its scholars.

The madrasa is the first link in a wider building programme that Çelebi Mehmed's house began in the town. The sultan's mother, Devlet Hatun, had a mosque built in the İmaret quarter in 822 (1419), with a zawiya and a public kitchen beside it, and according to Hüsameddin a benefactor named Hoca el-Hâc Hasan Çelebi also gave the town a mosque in the same period. In 830 (1426-27) Murad II, too, had a mosque and a bathhouse built in Merzifon. The building beside the madrasa that is popularly known today as the Çelebi Sultan Mehmed Mosque is said to be in fact the Medreseönü Mosque, built by Murad II and dated to 830 (1427). In this way a group of buildings made up of madrasa, mosque and bathhouse took shape in the middle of the town within thirteen years, on the orders of father and son. The fact that the endowments of these buildings appear in the sixteenth-century survey registers shows that the founding arrangement was still in force a century later.

In the same years a similar undertaking was under way in the neighbouring town of Gümüş. Hacı Halil Pasha, son of Kadı Ahmed of the Kutlubeyzâde family of Amasya, had been appointed by Çelebi Mehmed in 806 (1403-04) as superintendent of the silver mine at Gümüş, received the rank of beylerbey (governor-general) in 816 (1413), and between 816 and 818 (1413-1415) built the madrasa that bears his name. That the sultan and a statesman founded madrasas in the same years in two towns so close to each other can be read as part of the effort by a state emerging from the Interregnum to reorganise the Amasya basin as a region of learning.

Foundation and Inscription

The date of the building is read from the Arabic prose inscription in thuluth script set above the arch of the entrance iwan. According to the inscription, construction began on the order of Çelebi Sultan Mehmed in 817 AH (1414) and was completed in 820 (1417) by Umur Bey, son of Ali. For this reason different spans are found in the sources. Local descriptions give 1414-1415, architectural historians, following the inscription, give 1414-1417, and Hüsameddin mentions 818 (1415). The difference should not be taken as a contradiction: the first date marks the start of construction and the last its completion. Some popular sources refer to the building simply by the date 1415.

The records also mention a repair. According to local records, the madrasa was repaired in 1418-1419 by Emin Onuroğlu Ali Bey. The similarity between this name and that of Umur Bey b. Ali, who appears in the inscription as the man who completed the work, is striking; the available sources do not make clear whether the two records refer to the same person or the same event. That a repair should have been needed immediately after completion is itself surprising. The note on the repair therefore remains tied to a single record.

The form of the inscription has also been noted. Consisting of a single line in three sections, it sits above an entrance decorated with coloured cut stone and marble. The text is also included in İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı's collection Kitâbeler, published in 1927, and it remains the basic document used for dating the building. Çelebi Mehmed's building activity was not confined to Merzifon. In Bursa the ruler commissioned, besides the Green Mosque and Tomb, a madrasa and a public kitchen, and this building drive soon spread to other cities as well.

The Architect Ebû Bekir b. Muhammed el-Müşeymeş

According to the inscription, the architect of the building was Ebû Bekir b. Muhammed Hamza el-Müşeymeş. The most valuable information on this craftsman comes from Amasya. The master named as "el-Muallim Ebû Bekr b. Muhammed el-Ma'rûf bi-İbn Müşeymeş ed-Dımaşkî" in one of the inscriptions of the city's Bayezid Pasha Mosque, dated 817 (1414), is accepted as the same person. As his nisba suggests, he belonged to a family of architects originally from Damascus and worked in Anatolia. The mention of a son named Ahmed b. Ebû Bekir el-Müşeymeş el-Muallim in the inscription of the Karaca Bey Mosque in Ankara, dated 831 (1427-28), suggests that the craft was carried on within the family.

The architect's name appears in the sources in different spellings. Some descriptions call him Ebubekir Mehmet bin Hamza, others Mehmet Mişmiş oğlu Ebubekir or Ebu Bekir İbn Muhammed İbn Hamza-tül Müşeymiş; these are different readings of the same name. The patron, too, is identified in some texts as "Çelebi Mehmet, son of Yıldırım Bayezid". These details show that the texts describing the building transmit the inscription through different Turkish readings, but that there is no disagreement over the identity of the architect or of the patron. It is possible to link the Mamluk-influenced details of the madrasa to this Damascene origin; that connection, however, is not written in the inscription and is an inference based on the architect's nisba.

Plan and Courtyard

The madrasa is a square-planned building with an open courtyard. One side of the courtyard measures about fifteen metres, and the building is arranged with near-perfect symmetry along two axes crossing at right angles at the centre of the courtyard, where a fountain once stood. Opposite the entrance iwan a square, domed iwan serving as a summer classroom was placed, while at the two ends of the other axis stood closed rooms, that is winter classrooms, of the same size and with the same superstructure. These four units project equally, by about three metres, from the mass of the building, so that the four-iwan design can be read from the outside as well. The domes of the classrooms rest on bands of lozenge-shaped triangles. The classrooms are ranged along three sides of the courtyard; the main iwan classrooms are covered by domes and the porticoes flanking the iwans by vaults, and red and white stone is used in all the arches.

The spaces between the four main units are filled by student cells, five in each interval, twenty in all. The cells are square in plan and vaulted. Each has a door opening onto the courtyard, slit windows, cupboard niches and a hearth. The cells are also described as differing in size from one another. Students lived and studied in these rooms; the biographies transmitted by Hüsameddin show that teachers formed bonds close enough to take a student's family under their protection, and that the tie between teacher and student sometimes lasted a lifetime.

A barrel-vaulted portico runs between all these spaces and the courtyard. Its pointed arches, built of two kinds of stone, rest on short, thick piers, much like those in the late-comers' portico of the same architect's Bayezid Pasha Mosque in Amasya. On all four sides of the portico, the openings facing the classrooms and the entrance iwan were made wider and taller than those beside them, and these were covered by pointed barrel vaults running at right angles to the portico vault, so that each became a kind of iwan opening onto the courtyard. The four-iwan design seen in the exterior architecture is thus emphasised in the courtyard space as well.

The building technique combines two different kinds of workmanship. Dressed ashlar was preferred for the entrance iwan and the courtyard façades, while the outer façades make do with a coffered alternating masonry of rubble framed by bricks. The concentration of ornament in the entrance iwan means that the remaining surfaces were left plain.

A Sister Building at Gümüşhacıköy: The Hacı Halil Pasha Madrasa

The comparison that best explains the Merzifon madrasa is the Hacı Halil Pasha Madrasa, built in the same years in the neighbouring town of Gümüş. Also known as the Halîliye, this building covers a nearly square area of about 25 x 21 metres, and the two buildings spring from the same design idea: two axes crossing at the centre of a square courtyard, with an entrance iwan, a summer classroom iwan and two closed units at their ends. At Gümüş, too, the classroom iwan and the two closed rooms project about one metre from the façade, so that the scheme inherited from four-iwan Seljuk madrasas is reflected on the exterior. At Merzifon this projection grows to three metres, and the building gains a far more monumental appearance.

The main difference between the two lies in the covering of the courtyard. In the Hacı Halil Pasha Madrasa the square courtyard, 12.60 x 12.60 metres, was covered by a dome and the entrance iwan opened towards the courtyard; architectural history counts it among the madrasas "with a closed courtyard" or "with a domed courtyard". At Merzifon, by contrast, the courtyard was left open and an arcaded inner façade was built instead. At Gümüş twelve student cells, three on each wing, were placed around the courtyard, whereas the twenty cells at Merzifon show that the sultan's madrasa was designed for a larger body of students. The courtyard dome at Gümüş most probably collapsed in an earthquake, and the courtyard was later surrounded by porticoes on wooden posts.

The inscriptions also set the two buildings apart. At the entrance of the Gümüş madrasa there is an Arabic inscription dated 816 (1413), and on the jambs Turkish lines blessing the founder; the Turkish inscription in the north window states that the construction was finished in 818 (1415) and that an unnamed judge and an architect served in the work. The script of these Turkish inscriptions, which are exceptional for the early fifteenth century, is a rather crude thuluth still carrying Seljuk influence. At Merzifon, by contrast, there is a single Arabic inscription framed in coloured stone that names a Damascene master openly. One the endowment of a statesman and the other of the sultan, these two buildings are studied together as a pair showing how the same plan scheme was applied at different scales and with different means.

Entrance Iwan and Portal

The most striking part of the building is the monumental entrance iwan on the east. The iwan was pushed out from the mass of the building both horizontally and vertically, giving it a monumental appearance. Towards the outside it opens with a pointed arch worked in dark red and pale yellow stone in a manner recalling Mamluk taste, and towards the courtyard with a depressed, interlocking arch of the same masonry. The area containing the inscription is built of horizontal courses of stone in two colours, the façade is framed by a plain band and crowned by a row of palmettes in relief. On either side of the iwan are shallow niches with pointed arches and two-coloured masonry; descriptions present them as wide bays on both sides of the iwan.

Above the iwan there is a domed room. Geometric reliefs radiating from an eight-pointed star at the centre decorate the ceiling of the iwan, and this ceiling forms the floor of the room above. On entering through the courtyard door, which is fitted with a muqarnas hood and flanked by a shoe niche with compound arches and a niche with a muqarnas hood on each side, stairs to the right and left lead to the roof and from there to the domed room above the iwan.

The carved wooden leaves of the courtyard door, decorated with geometric motifs, rumi arabesques and hadith phrases in thuluth script, are regarded as among the finest examples of their kind and are today displayed in the Ankara Ethnography Museum. The leaves now standing at the entrance were made later. While some sources state that these copies, commissioned by Merzifon Municipality, are faithful to the originals, another account describes the same doors as bearing no resemblance to them.

Clock Tower

The clock tower rising above the entrance iwan, which resembles a minaret with its cylindrical brick shaft, does not belong to the original construction of the madrasa. It was built in 1282 AH (1865) by Ziyâ Pasha, mutasarrıf (district governor) of Amasya. Some sources give the date 1866 instead; even within the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, the entry on Merzifon gives 1866, while the entry on the madrasa gives 1865 as the equivalent of 1282. Since the year 1282 AH began in May 1865 and ended in May 1866, the two dates may be different conversions of the same year. Ziyâ Pasha's title also varies in the sources between mutasarrıf and governor.

Three rings can be seen on the cylindrical shaft of the tower, and above them is a walkway resembling a minaret balcony. Above the walkway the shaft becomes angular, and the clock faces looking in four directions are set in this section. On the second storey, above the faces, hangs the bell of the clock; small round-arched windows were opened on all four sides of this storey so that its sound could be heard more easily. The top of the tower is covered by a dome. Today the tower, together with the madrasa, is counted among the landmark buildings of Merzifon.

The Professors of the Founding Century

The first professor of the madrasa was Ferîdüddîn-i Dîvânî. Hüsameddin refers to the same man as Ferîdeddîn Mehmed Devvânî and records that he was a pupil of the celebrated theologian Seyyid Şerîf Cürcânî; some sources also spell the name Feridüddin Mehmed Çelebi. Among the scholars who taught at the madrasa after him are Seydî Şemseddin Ahmed-i Kırîmî, Rükneddin Abdülkerim of Amasya and Nizâmeddin Abdurrahman-ı Âftâbî. Hüsameddin gives these four names in the same order and writes that the madrasa won fame through such learned professors "until about the year 1260".

The most brilliant name of the founding years is Mevlânâ Şücâeddîn İlyâs bin Yahyâ of Merzifon. Having received his first instruction in Amasya from Gümüşlüzâde Celâleddîn Abdurrahman Çelebi, İlyâs went on to Transoxiana and attended the lessons of Hâce Muhammed Pârsâ, one of the Naqshbandi masters, in Bukhara. Pârsâ was a scholar known for his teaching of hadith who also ran a madrasa beside his lodge in Bukhara, and he died in Medina in 822 (1420) after performing the pilgrimage. According to Hüsameddin, İlyâs received his licence (icazet) from him in 821 (1418) and returned to Merzifon, where he formed a teaching circle and his students grew so numerous that "in his age Merzifon became a university". On the death of Ferîdeddîn Devvânî he was appointed professor of the Sultâniye, and later became mufti and judge of Merzifon.

Şücâeddîn İlyâs died in Merzifon on the tenth day of Cemaziyelahir 852 (August 1448). Hüsameddin calls him "the master of all in the lands of Rum", and relates that he visited his tomb in Merzifon and copied the date of death from the gravestone in his own hand. According to the record in the chronicle, İlyâs was succeeded as professor of the Sultâniye by Şemseddîn Ahmed el-Kırîmî, a pupil of Mevlânâ Kemâl el-Kırîmî. İlyâs's line did not break with the madrasa either: one of his descendants, Hasan Efendi, became professor of the Sultâniye after studying in Amasya, moved to Amasya in 954 (1547) as professor of the Hüseyin Ağa Madrasa, and there attracted the attention of Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa).

The teaching circle of Seydî Ahmed Kırîmî left a broad mark among the fifteenth-century scholars of Amasya. The biographies list among his pupils Tâceddîn İbrâhim Çelebi of Niksar, Ahî Yûsuf Çelebi, Cemâlîzâde Bahâeddîn Mehmed Efendi, who later became judge of Sivas and was the brother of Şeyhülislam Zenbilli Ali Efendi, Kırıkzâde Hüsâmeddîn Hüseyin Çelebi, who became chief judge of Amasya in 897 (1492), and Aydınzâde Hüsâmeddîn Hasan Çelebi. When Hüsâmeddîn Hasan Çelebi died young around 870 (1465-66), his teacher Kırîmî, who had by then moved to Amasya as professor of the Torumtay Madrasa, married his pupil's widow and took his young son under his protection. This child was Şeyh Mahmûd Çelebi, who later became the son-in-law and deputy of Emir Buhârî.

The other professors of the same century also tie Merzifon to the wide network of Ottoman learning. Ömer Çelebi, a scholar from Aleppo, was carried off by Timur to Samarkand, came to Anatolia in 804 (1402) and stayed in Amasya, and during the reign of Çelebi Mehmed became professor first at the madrasa of Yıldırım Bayezid in Edirne and then at the Merzifon Sultâniye, where he died; his son Mehmed Çelebi also taught for a time in Merzifon and became one of the teachers of Mehmed II (the Conqueror). Bahâeddîn Mehmed Çelebi of Aleppo settled in Merzifon after studying in the Arab lands and died around 863 (1458-59) as professor of the Sultâniye and judge of Merzifon. Mahbûbzâde Cemâleddîn Ahmed Çelebi and Celâleddîn Mehmed Çelebi bin İlyâs combined the professorship with the posts of mufti and judge of Merzifon. Seydî Mehmed Çelebi, son of Mevlânâ Mehmed Kocevî, was born beside the madrasa while his father was its professor, and eventually rose to a professorship at the Sahn-ı Semân in Istanbul.

Princes, Sultans and the Sultâniye Professorship

Amasya's status as a princely sanjak drew the Merzifon madrasa into an indirect but lasting relationship with the court. Emîr Sadreddinzâde Abdullah Efendi, who distinguished himself as professor at the Sultan Mehmed Madrasa in Merzifon after teaching at the Atabey Madrasa, became tutor in 883 (1478) to Şehzade Bayezid, then governor of Amasya; with Bayezid's accession in 886 (1481) he moved to the Sultan Murad Madrasa in Bursa, and he died in 890 (1485). Şeyhîzâde Âfitâbî Abdurrahman Çelebi, most probably the same man as the Âftâbî named in the list of early professors, entered the prince's circle of companions by presenting him with odes, was sent to Ankara during the Halîmî affair of 883 (1478), and was appointed professor of the Sultâniye-i Merzifon in 886 (1481), the year Bayezid came to the throne. Couplets from an ode he sent from Ankara on Bayezid's accession are preserved in the Tezkire of Latîfî.

In later generations, too, the Merzifon professorship opened the way to the tutorship of princes. A scholar named in one of Hüsameddin's biographies went to Manisa in 896 (1490-91) as tutor to Şehzade Korkud after serving as professor of the Sultâniye-i Merzifon. When Seyrek Muhyiddîn Mehmed Efendi, tutor to Şehzade Mustafa, died in 947 (1540-41), Hayreddîn Hızır Efendi, professor of the Sultâniye-i Merzifon, was appointed in his place; this appointment so offended the judge of Amasya who had hoped for the post, Molla Çelebi, that is Cemâleddîn Mehmed Çelebi, son of Şeyhülislam Zenbilli Ali Efendi, that he resigned his judgeship and went to Egypt. Bünyâd Efendi, while secretary to the Grand Vizier Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi, fled to Merzifon in 917 (1511) after his master's dismissal and the plundering of his house; when his master returned to office he became professor of the Sultâniye, and he compiled his master's works under the title "Risâle-i Âşûriyye".

Among those who held the chair in the sixteenth century are scholars such as Bedreddînzâde Ebussuud Efendi (d. 967/1559-60), Şeyhzâde Cemâleddîn Mehmed Efendi (d. 938/1531-32) and Hâfızeddîn Mehmed Berda'î. Most of these men used the professorship as a step towards judgeships, mufti posts or the madrasas of Istanbul. These biographies make it clear that, besides being a seat of learning, the madrasa served as a springboard that allowed families from Merzifon to rise within the Ottoman learned hierarchy.

The Madrasa in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

From the seventeenth century onwards the Sultâniye professorship and the office of mufti of Merzifon were often held by the same person. Hayâtî Ebûbekir Efendi, from the village of Sehmüddevle near Merzifon, taught for more than twenty years and died in 1068 (1657-58) as professor of the Sultâniye and mufti; Hasan Efendi of Gümüş was appointed to the professorship in 1053 (1643); and Ganîzâde Bedreddîn Mahmûd Efendi went on from here to the judgeship of Zile and from there to a career that took him to the high judgeships of Erzurum, Tokat and Sivas. Among the pupils of Recebzâde el-Hâc Mehmed Efendi was Ahmed Efendi of Çorum; after his teacher's death he became professor of the Sultâniye and mufti of Merzifon, and later moved to Amasya. Ma'kûlzâde İbrâhim Efendi, for his part, was removed from office in 1100 (1688-89) while professor and mufti, and, aggrieved, settled in Amasya.

The madrasa also had an endowment administration. The records mention the trustees of the "Sultâniye-i Merzifon evkâfı" separately; local notables of Merzifon such as Sansâr İbrâhim Pasha and Kadızâde İbrâhim Bey held the trusteeship of this endowment together with the office of voyvoda. This administration did not always work honestly. According to Hüsameddin's chronicle, in 1128 (1716) the voyvoda of Merzifon, Hasan Ağa, together with the judge of Merzifon, Ali Efendi, and Abdullah Efendi, professor of the Sultâniye and mufti, embezzled money collected from the people to buy camels for the army, making only a show of the purchase. All three were dismissed, exiled to Samsun and imprisoned in the fortress, and the money they had taken was recovered from them and returned to its owners. In their place Kamlıklı Mustafa Efendi became professor and mufti, and Nûhoğlu Hacı İbrâhim Ağa trustee of the endowment.

The most notable of the eighteenth-century professors from a literary point of view is Abdîzâde Eşref Abdurrahman Efendi. A paternal relative of the poet Nedim, Eşref Efendi became mufti of Merzifon in 1136 (1723-24) after holding the Sultâniye professorship, wrote the "Tezkiretü'l-Hikem", the "Mir'âtü's-Safâ" and a divan, and died in 1151 (1738-39). Müftüzâde Halîl Efendi rose from the Sultâniye professorship to the office of mufti of Amasya in 1147 (1735), while Hacı Müftü İbrâhim Efendi of Merzifon was forced in 1188 (1774) to flee to Istanbul from Canikli Hacı Ali Pasha. Ma'kûlzâde el-Hâc İbrâhim Efendi died in 1200 (1785-86); to illustrate his simplicity, Hüsameddin relates that when a visitor from Istanbul told him that the steps of the Süleymaniye were made of cheese and its pulpit of ice cream, he believed it and remarked, "So it is easy to fill one's stomach in Istanbul".

The Closure of the Madrasa and Later Uses

This scholarly life continued until 1844. Hüsameddin gives the same limit as "about the year 1260" and writes that what brought the madrasa to a standstill was "the custom of inheritance": from that year on the professorship began to pass from father to son, which cut the chair off from scholarly merit and ended the madrasa's role as a place of learning. When the American College opened in Merzifon in the late nineteenth century, the reform of the town's madrasas and the founding of new primary and middle schools came onto the agenda; these efforts, however, did not restore the old scholarly identity of the Sultâniye.

After this the building was used for a time as an arms depot. Hüsameddin notes that work to restore it was undertaken in the years close to his own time. In the Republican period it was repaired by the General Directorate of Foundations and assigned to various cultural activities. According to local sources, in the 1950s it served as a children's and public library, a municipal storehouse and a music classroom, and in later years it also functioned as a wedding hall and a Qur'an course.

Restoration and the Centre for Science, Culture and Art

The building was restored under a protocol signed between Amasya University and the Tokat Regional Directorate of Foundations and given a new function as the Amasya University Çelebi Sultan Mehmet Centre for Science, Culture and Art. The opening ceremony was held on 9 June 2026 and was attended by the Governor of Amasya, Önder Bakan, the Amasya members of parliament Haluk İpek and Hasan Çilez, the District Governor of Merzifon, Ahmet Karaaslan, the garrison commander and the Rector of Amasya University, Ahmet Hakkı Turabi. Governor Bakan referred to the contribution of Amasya University, founded in 2006, to the educational, cultural and artistic life of the city, and judged the madrasa's revival valuable for passing the historical heritage on to future generations. Rector Turabi stated that the centre would host activities addressing every part of society, recalled that the building had been protected by the General Directorate of Foundations during the Republican period, and said that the university did not see itself merely as an institution that awards diplomas. The madrasa has thus come under the roof of a scholarly institution again about six hundred and eleven years after its foundation.

Chronology

1403-1404 (806 AH): Çelebi Mehmed appoints Hacı Halil Pasha superintendent of the silver mine at Gümüş.

1413: Çelebi Mehmed ends the Interregnum and restores unity on the Ottoman throne; the entrance inscription of the Hacı Halil Pasha Madrasa at Gümüş bears the date of this year (816).

1414 (817 AH): According to the inscription, construction of the madrasa begins on the order of Çelebi Sultan Mehmed; the architect is Ebû Bekir b. Muhammed Hamza el-Müşeymeş.

1415 (818 AH): According to Hüsameddin, the sultan has a madrasa and a bathhouse built in Merzifon and sets up their endowments; many sources give the construction date as 1414-1415.

1417 (820 AH): According to the inscription, construction is completed by Umur Bey, son of Ali.

1418 (821 AH): Şücâeddîn İlyâs receives his licence from Muhammed Pârsâ in Bukhara and returns to Merzifon.

1418-1419: The date recorded for the repair by Emin Onuroğlu Ali Bey.

1419 (822 AH): Devlet Hatun has a mosque, a zawiya and a public kitchen built in Merzifon.

1427 (830 AH): Murad II builds the mosque in front of the madrasa.

1448 (852 AH): Şücâeddîn İlyâs dies; Şemseddîn Ahmed el-Kırîmî succeeds him as professor of the Sultâniye.

1478 (883 AH): Emîr Sadreddinzâde Abdullah Efendi, a former professor of the madrasa, becomes tutor to Şehzade Bayezid.

1481 (886 AH): With the accession of Bayezid II, Âfitâbî Abdurrahman Çelebi becomes professor of the Sultâniye-i Merzifon.

1540-1541 (947 AH): Hayreddîn Hızır Efendi, professor of the Sultâniye, comes to Amasya as tutor to Şehzade Mustafa.

1716 (1128 AH): Abdullah Efendi, professor and mufti, is dismissed and exiled to Samsun over the embezzlement of the camel money.

1844 (1260 AH): The professorship begins to pass by inheritance and the madrasa's scholarly life comes to an end.

1865 (1866 in some sources): Ziyâ Pasha has the clock tower built above the entrance iwan.

1950s: The building is used as a children's and public library, a municipal storehouse and a music classroom.

2026 (9 June): The restored madrasa opens as the Amasya University Centre for Science, Culture and Art.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 1, pp. 401-405; vol. 3, pp. 219-220; vol. 4, pp. 19-20, 57 (Amasya Municipality e-book, volumes 1-4). amasya.bel.tr
  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 6, pp. 28, 65, 81, 118, 124, 175-180, 244, 263, 267, 376, 592; vol. 7, pp. 12, 238, 262-263, 485, 504, 540, 549; vol. 8, pp. 134, 166, 171, 316, 321, 371, 418 (Amasya Municipality e-book, volumes 6-8). amasya.bel.tr
  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, volumes 9-12, Amasya Municipality e-book, pp. 163, 346, 558.

Official sources

  • Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Kültür Portalı, entry "Çelebi Mehmet Medresesi".

Other sources

  • M. Baha Tanman, "Mehmed I Medresesi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 28, Ankara 2003, pp. 394-395. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • M. Baha Tanman, "Hacı Halil Paşa Medresesi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 14, İstanbul 1996, pp. 477-479. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Mehmet Öz, "Merzifon", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 29, Ankara 2004, pp. 243-245. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Hamid Algar, "Muhammed Pârsâ", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 30, Ankara 2020, pp. 560-562.
  • Mahmut Akok, "Merzifon'da Çelebi Mehmet Medresesi", Mimarlık, IX/1-2, Ankara 1952, pp. 29-37.
  • A. Gabriel, Monuments Turcs d'Anatolie, II, Paris 1934, pp. 25-31, 72.
  • İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, Kitâbeler, I, İstanbul 1927, pp. 112-116.
  • Ahmet Edis, "Merzifon Çelebi Mehmet Medresesi ve Saat Kulesi", Online Türkiye Turizm Ansiklopedisi, 2024.
  • Merzifon District Governorate, "Sultaniye Medresesi" description page.
  • Çelebi Mehmet Medresesi, Wikipedia (Turkish); Eserleri ve Tarihî Özellikleriyle Merzifon, 2009, pp. 49-51.
  • "Amasya'da 611 yıllık medrese Bilim, Kültür ve Sanat Merkezi olarak hizmet vermeye başladı", haberler.com, 9 June 2026. haberler.com
  • "Amasya'daki 600 Yıllık Osmanlı Mirası Ayağa Kaldırıldı", Objektif Amasya, June 2026.