From the kitchen of the Amasya Mevlevî lodge Üveys Dede rose all the way to the sheikh's seat; a seventeenth-century dervish, he had Taşcızâde Mahmûd Çelebi for a father. He is also known, among the people and in the source, as "Veysî Dede". In 1067 (1656-57) he became sheikh of the lodge; for a time he and Abdülkâdir Dede were dismissed and reappointed in turn, and he died around 1075 (1664-65). In Amasya Tarihi Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar describes him as "urefâ-yı Mevleviyye'den, şâir, ârif-i tarîkat", one of the Mevlevî gnostics, a poet, an adept of the path. Not one of his verses is known. The entry does not say whether "Veysî" was a pen name or simply the popular short form of the name Üveys.

Hüsameddin's Entry

Amasyalıdır. Taşcızâde Mahmûd Çelebi mahdûmudur. Amasya Mevlevîhânesi Şeyhi Mehmed Ârif Dede hizmetinde tahsîl-i irfân edib aşçıbaşılıktan meydancı ve mesnevîhân olup 1067'de mevlevîhâne şeyhi oldu. Ba'dehû Abdülkâdir Dede ile münâvebe üzere azl ve nasbedilerek 1075 hudûdunda vefât etdi. Urefâ-yı Mevleviyye'den, şâir, ârif-i tarîkat bir zât idi.

In English: From Amasya; his father was Taşcızâde Mahmûd Çelebi. He received his spiritual training in the service of Mehmed Ârif Dede, sheikh of the Amasya Mevlevî lodge; he rose from head cook to meydancı and then to reciter of the Mesnevî, and in 1067 (1656-57) became sheikh of the lodge. Afterwards he was dismissed and reappointed in turn with Abdülkâdir Dede, and he died around 1075 (1664-65). Of the Mevlevî gnostics, he was a poet who knew the ways of the order.

A Life in the Lodge

The short sentence of the entry lists the steps of a Mevlevî dervish's progress inside the lodge. The aşçıbaşı was the dervish at the head of the lodge kitchen, the meydancı the dervish who looked after the services of the ritual hall (the meydan), and the mesnevîhân the officer who read Mevlânâ's Mesnevî. That Üveys Dede passed through all three posts in turn suggests he spent many years in the lodge; when he entered it is not known.

The life of his teacher Mehmed Ârif Dede also tells us in which lodge Üveys Dede was trained. According to the history of the Mevlevî lodge in Hüsameddin's first volume, Ârif Dede's father was İbrâhim Çelebi, sheikh of the Amasya Mevlevî lodge that burned in the brigand raid of 1011 (1602-03); his own entry in volume eleven, by contrast, introduces him as the son of Ahmed Dede, a Mevlevî dervish of Amasya. He put the matter before the former grand vizier Bayram Pasha, who in 1047 (1637-38) rebuilt the old lodge near the Hükümet Bridge, founded by Pervâne Bey, and enlarged its endowments. His own entry, Ârif Mehmed Dede, records that he was trained at the Galata Mevlevî lodge, came as sheikh to the lodge built by Bayram Pasha, served for about eleven years, was then removed on account of the Amasya governor Hüseyin Pasha, who was killed in 1058 (1648), went to Istanbul and died in 1061 (1651). The lodge where Üveys Dede was trained and which he later led was therefore this Pervâne Bey or Bayram Pasha Mevlevî lodge on the bank of the Yeşilırmak; the small Mevlevî lodge in the village of Şeyh Cûî outside the town was a separate institution.

Between 1058 and 1067

Nine years separate Ârif Dede's departure and Üveys Dede's appointment. Another of Hüsameddin's entries fills the gap: Sâlih Efendi-Dede, son of the dervish Ahmed Dede, had completed his retreat in Konya and won the favour of the Çelebi Efendi, and so was appointed sheikh of the Amasya Mevlevî lodge in 1058; he died in 1067. Üveys Dede's appointment in the same year suggests that he succeeded Sâlih Dede on his death; the entry does not say so outright. Elsewhere in the book, in the account of Kelîmî Ahmed Efendi, it is also written that the sheikhdom of the Amasya Mevlevî lodge was given in 1044 (1634) to Kelîmî's deputy Sâlih Dede; whether this is the same man could not be determined.

Other dervishes trained under Ârif Dede in the same years. Hacı Mehmed Çelebi-Şeyhzâde was trained by Ârif Dede, became reciter of the Mesnevî, was made sheikh of the Şeyh Cûî lodge in 1057 and died in 1067. Hasan Dede-Nâbî Dede, chief ney player of the lodge built by Bayram Pasha, also died around 1067; Hüsameddin calls him too "sâlih, şâir, mûsikî-şinâs", pious, a poet and a musician. The year 1067 thus appears as the year in which a whole generation of the lodge was lost one after another and Üveys Dede came to the sheikhdom.

In Turn with Abdülkâdir Dede

The entry says that Üveys Dede's sheikhdom was not continuous: he was dismissed and reappointed "münâvebe üzere", in turn, with Abdülkâdir Dede. The reason for these changes is not recorded. Since the case of Sâlih Dede shows that the Mevlânâ lodge in Konya made appointments to the Amasya sheikhdom, the dismissals and reappointments may have come from there, or from rivalries for influence in the town; this is a guess.

The history of the lodge in Hüsameddin's first volume gives the sheikhs in a different order: in the lodge rebuilt by Bayram Pasha, first Mehmed Ârif Dede, then his son-in-law Mahmûd Dede, then Abdülkâdir Dede and after him Alâeddîn Dede became sheikh. Neither Sâlih Dede nor Üveys Dede appears in this list. How the two accounts are to be reconciled is unclear; the short history, running quickly through a chain of sheikhs spread over many years, may have left out those who served in turn.

Name and Family

Nothing more could be found about his father, Taşcızâde Mahmûd Çelebi. The name Taşcızâde occurs often in Hüsameddin among the notables of Amasya in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the book has aghas, a town steward and a pasha bearing it. No record shows that any of them was related to Üveys Dede. To avoid confusion with namesakes it should also be said that Veysîzâde Hasan Efendi of volume eight was a great-grandson of the Halveti sheikh Üveys of the Gümüşlüzâde family and has nothing to do with this Mevlevî dede.

Poetry

No verse of his has been traced. All that remains is the single word "şâir" in the entry; even the hymns and chronograms so common in Mevlevî lodges are not represented by a single example. The entry as Hüsameddin wrote it appears with a glossary under the title Üveys Dede-Veysî Dede.

Chronology

1047 (1637-38): Bayram Pasha rebuilds the Amasya Mevlevî lodge; Mehmed Ârif Dede becomes sheikh.

1058 (1648): Ârif Dede is removed; Sâlih Dede is appointed sheikh in Amasya.

1067 (1656-57): Sâlih Dede dies; Üveys Dede becomes sheikh of the lodge.

c. 1075 (1664-65): Dies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources