Clerk of the council of the sanjak of Amasya and later clerk of the court, Abdülvâsi' Çelebi was a calligrapher who taught writing in the city in the mid-seventeenth century and a poet who wrote under the pen name "Vâsî". He died in 1076 (1665-66). He belonged to the branch of the famous Müeyyedzâde family that stayed in Amasya, and he served as trustee of the Pervâne Bey endowment. His descendants were called the "Vâsi' Çelebizâdes", and the family went on being known by that name in Amasya in later generations. Apart from Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's short entry nothing is known about him, and nothing of his poetry has reached us.

The Entry in Amasya Tarihi

In volume 12 Hüsameddin writes up three Müeyyedzâdes of the same name one after another. The poet is the third: Abdülvâsi' Çelebi-Müeyyedzâde Kâtib.

Amasyalıdır. Tercemesi yukarıda geçen Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi bin Yahyâ Çelebi bin Abdülvâsi' Çelebizâde Habîb Çelebi mahdûmudur. Hattât-ı meşhûr İsmâîl Kâtibî Efendi'den hutût-ı mütanevvi'ayı ve ulemâdan funûn-ı lâzimeyi temeşşuk ve ahzederek Amasya sancâğı dîvân kâtibi, ba'dehû mahkeme kâtibi oldu. Halka yazı öğreterek üstâd olduğu hâlde 1076'da vefât etdi. Pervâne Bey vakfına mütevellî, hattât-ı meşhûr, "Vâsî" mahlasıyla şâir, hisse-mend-i ma'ârif bir zât idi. Mahdûmu Habîb Efendi kudâttandır. Bunun evlâdına "Vâsi' Çelebizâdeler" dendi.

Translated: he was from Amasya, born to Habîb Çelebi; the line runs back through Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi, whose life was given above, to Yahyâ Çelebi and then to Abdülvâsi' Çelebi. Having learned the various scripts from the famous calligrapher İsmâîl Kâtibî Efendi and the necessary sciences from scholars, he became clerk of the council of the sanjak of Amasya, and later clerk of the court. He was regarded as a master for teaching writing to the people, and died in 1076. He was trustee of the Pervâne Bey endowment, a famous calligrapher, a poet with the pen name "Vâsî", and a man with a share of learning. His son Habîb Efendi served as a judge. His descendants were called the "Vâsi' Çelebizâdes".

Family

The chain of descent links Abdülvâsi' Çelebi to one of the family's best-known teachers. His grandfather Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi was a Müeyyedzâde who taught for many years in Amasya, trained clerk-poets, and died in 1017 (1608-09) after serving as judge of Trabzon and Erzurum. That the grandson was both a clerk and a poet is a detail suggesting that writing and poetry were taught together in this house. The ancestor whose name he bore, his grandfather's grandfather Abdülvâsi' Çelebi, is the man written up in the entry just before his own in the same volume, a son of Şemseddîn Ahmed Efendi, judge of Amasya. He too had learned calligraphy, from the calligrapher Ebü'l-Fazl Efendi, served as judge in small towns and died around 967 (1559-60). The earliest Abdülvâsi' of the family is the judge Abdülvâsi' Çelebi bin Müeyyed Çelebi, who died in 881 (1476) without leaving a son, and the name was handed down from generation to generation within the family.

Vâsî's son Habîb Efendi served as a judge. Habîb's son was Yahyâ Efendi, and Yahyâ's son was the poet Hamdî Ahmed Efendi (d. 1159/1746), who carried on the trusteeship of the Pervâne Bey endowment and undertook the repair of the Burmalı Minare Mosque. The genealogy Hüsameddin gives for Hamdî Ahmed shows Abdülvâsi' Çelebi as his grandfather's father. Vâsî is thus both the ancestor of the branch that took its family name from him and the first of the poets in that branch.

Clerk and Calligrapher

Abdülvâsi' Çelebi's working life turned around writing. He first became clerk of the council of the sanjak of Amasya, the clerk who handled the correspondence of the sanjak governor's council. Later he moved to the court as its clerk. His being regarded as a master in the city "for teaching writing to the people" tells us that he trained pupils as a calligrapher. The teacher named in the entry, "the famous calligrapher İsmâîl Kâtibî Efendi", is very probably Kâtibzâde Kâtibî İsmâil Efendi, who served as clerk and deputy judge at the Amasya court and was a poet writing in the ta'lik script. The overlap of profession, pen name and calligraphy strengthens this identification, but Hüsameddin does not connect the two entries.

The trusteeship of the Pervâne Bey endowment was a post that remained in this branch of the family. The mosque at the heart of the endowment is known today as the Burmalı Minare Mosque.

His Poetry

None of Vâsî's poems has been found. All Hüsameddin gives is the pen name and the fact that he wrote poetry. With his death in 1076, Vâsî falls within the years 1000 to 1081, the span that Abdî Efendi, a madrasa teacher, set out to cover for the poets of Amasya in his lost tezkire. Yet the entry never mentions that tezkire, so we cannot tell whether his poems had a place in it. Metin Hakverdioğlu also records him, under the pen name "Vâsî", among the poets named in volume 12 of Amasya Tarihi.

Chronology

1017 (1608-09): His grandfather Pîrî Ahmed Çelebi dies.

1076 (1665-66): Abdülvâsi' Çelebi dies.

1159 (1746): His grandson's son Hamdî Ahmed Efendi dies.

Bibliography

Online sources