In Ottoman history some statesmen are remembered not by their own names but by the name of the ruler they raised. Yörgüç Paşa is one of them. In 1414, when Çelebi Mehmed sent his twelve-year-old son Prince Murad to the province of Rum, he assigned Yörgüç Paşa to him as lala (tutor-guardian), and when Murad took the throne he appointed him governor-general of the same region. In Amasya, on the bank of the Yeşilırmak, four marble sarcophagi stand side by side in the tomb (türbe) of the mosque that bears his name, and one of them is his. The building has been damaged by river floods and by the 1939 Erzincan earthquake and was repaired in 1946; what we know of the pasha himself survives in similar fragments.

Writing Yörgüç Paşa's life means standing firm where the sources speak and staying silent where they do not. His birthplace, his date of birth and his origins are unknown, and there is no reliable remark or anecdote about his character or his relationship with Murad. By contrast, the buildings he commissioned, the endowment records, the gravestones and the contemporary chronicles show his administrative activity in quite concrete terms. The account below rests on that concrete part and does not conceal the differences in dates and names among the sources.

His Name, Lineage and Origins

In chronicles and archival documents his name appears as Yörgüç, Yörgeç and Yörgenç. The inscriptions and gravestones, however, give his name as Yörgüç and his epithet as Celâleddin. Where and when he was born is not known. He was evidently very well educated; Çelebi Mehmed's decision to entrust his son to him supports that impression.

The genealogies proposed for him do not agree. Some studies say he descended from Nâsırüddin Ahmed, founder of the Atabekiye Madrasa in Amasya, and give his name as Yörgüç b. Muînüddin Abdullah b. Şücâüddin İlyas b. Hayreddin Hızır b. Ömer b. Atabek Nâsırüddin Ahmed. Another account ties him to the line of Gâzî Ali and Gâzî Mihal Bey and claims his real name was Yörüklüce. Yet the inscription of the mosque he built in Amasya, his own gravestone and his endowment deed all give his father's name simply as Abdullah, so none of these genealogies can be considered certain. From his father's name it has also been argued that he was of Slavic origin and that his name derives from the Slavic Jorgič, "son of Yorgi"; the basis for this view is W. Griswold's article on the endowment deed of Molla İsa of Lefke. Without a firm document, he can be described neither as the child of a local Amasya family nor as a man of Slavic origin.

The title "atabeg" in the mosque inscription refers not to his father but most probably to his own post as lala. The label "Atabeyzade" that later took hold in Amasya's local literature must have arisen from reading that title as genealogical information.

Lala of Prince Murad

When Çelebi Mehmed had put the state back together after the Battle of Ankara, he began to assign Anatolia's sanjaks to his sons. His eldest son Murad had been born in Amasya in the summer of 1404. In his Amasya Tarihi, Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar records that Murad's mother was Şehzade Hatun, daughter of Divitdâr Ahmed Paşa, one of Amasya's notables. In 1414, at the age of twelve, Murad was sent to head the province of Rum, which covered the districts of Amasya, Tokat, Sivas, Çorum and Osmancık. Yörgüç Paşa was assigned to him as lala. Some local writings date the tutorship to 1415, but most sources agree on 1414.

In the Ottoman tradition a lala is not merely a teacher. He is the person who in practice governs the sanjak in the name of a child prince, prepares him for affairs of state and reports to the center. In the province of Rum this task was especially difficult. The region held Mongol and Turkmen communities left over from the Ilkhanid period, and bringing this nomadic population under a central administration was not easy. Local Turkmen families, too, largely acted on their own. Prince Murad tried to secure calm in the region with the help of his tutor, who was known as a prudent and capable man.

The years Murad spent in Amasya were not quiet. A year after he was sent as governor, he was ordered to march with the Amasya forces toward Saruhan and İzmir to suppress the revolt of Börklüce Mustafa; it was Bayezid Paşa, at the head of the Amasya and Sivas forces, who put down the uprising. When the prince left Amasya, the Mongol nomads of the region, the Kara Tatars, caused unrest, and Murad returned to Amasya together with Bayezid Paşa. There is no direct record of exactly what the tutor did during these events.

Between 1417 and 1421 significant developments took place on the frontier of Rum. Prince Murad and Hamza Bey, the beylerbey of Rum, described as his "new atabeg," took Samsun from the İsfendiyaroğlu. This phrase is striking, because it leaves open how long Yörgüç Paşa's tutorship lasted and which other officials surrounded the prince. No record in the sources resolves this. The date of the conquest of Samsun is also disputed; Neşrî confuses Çelebi Mehmed's failed campaign of 1418 with the conquest of 1421.

An incident related by Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar shows the pasha's authority in these years. According to it, Hüseyin Bey, the lord of Canik, refused to obey Yörgüç Paşa's orders; the pasha sent one of his slaves, Polad Bey, with a sufficient force, the revolt was suppressed, and in recognition of this success he was granted the rank of vizier. The account is detailed only in this source; its date and its agreement with other records need separate verification.

The Pretender Mustafa and the Governor-Generalship of Rum

Çelebi Mehmed died in Edirne in 1421. Murad had been summoned to Bursa by his father, who lay on his deathbed, and learned on arrival that the sultan had died. The viziers, fearing that Düzmece Mustafa, whom the Byzantines held, would make his move, had kept the death secret. Murad received the oath of allegiance in Bursa on 25 June 1421 and took the throne at the age of seventeen. Soon afterward Düzmece Mustafa, backed by Byzantium, landed at Gallipoli, entered Edirne, and some of the beys in Anatolia turned to him as well. With the help of Genoese ships Murad crossed the straits at Gallipoli, and Mustafa was captured in the winter of 1422 and executed in Edirne. According to another account, Mustafa managed to flee to Wallachia and from there to Kaffa.

According to the Islamic Encyclopedia of the Turkish Religious Foundation (TDV), Yörgüç Paşa's counsel was influential in putting down this revolt: on his advice the new sultan marched against Mustafa and thus eliminated the first great threat to the throne. In return Murad appointed his tutor beylerbey of Rum in 826/1423. The governor-generalship meant the whole administration of the Amasya-centered region and was one of the most important posts in the part of the empire that reached from Central Anatolia to the Black Sea. The 2019 study by Dikmen and Toruk gives the same date; a local article on Havza says 1422.

In the early years of his governor-generalship the pasha fought bands under the command of four brothers known as the Kızılkocaoğulları. These groups cut roads and robbed around Amasya and Tokat, and at times came as far as the towns and harmed the population. It appears that Karayülük Osman Bey of the Akkoyunlu, Hasan Bey of the Dulkadiroğlu and Halil Bey of the Bayındıroğlu helped them. After bringing these rebels to obedience, Yörgüç Paşa marched against the other beys who continued to act independently in the region. Haydar Bey, the lord of Kocakayası, and Hüsâmeddin Hasan Bey son of Alparslan, the lord of Canik, were brought under obedience. Hasan Bey was captured and sent to the sultan in Bursa, and the area of Ordu and Çarşamba, held by the Tâceddinoğulları, was incorporated into Ottoman administration in 1427.

In these same years the balance of Central Anatolia was shifting under the shadow of the great powers to the east. İskender Mirza, the Kara Koyunlu ruler who had lost his war with the Timurid Shahrukh, had settled in Tokat with Murad II's permission to spend the winter. When spring came, Kara Koyunlu soldiers began to plunder the surroundings, and Yörgüç Paşa reported the situation to the sultan. Timurtaşoğlu Umur Bey, the beylerbey of Anatolia, was then sent to Tokat, and the Kara Koyunlu left the region. The article on Murad II places İskender's stay in Tokat in 1435-1436 and links it to Shahrukh's wish to present all the rulers of Anatolia as under his protection. According to the same article, in December 1436 the Karaman forces pressed Yörgüç Paşa, the beylerbey of Amasya. Murad II then attacked the land of Karaman from east and west together with the Dulkadirids, an army issuing from Tokat besieged Kayseri, and in the spring of 1437 the Ottomans entered Akşehir and took Konya, Beyşehir and Hamid-ili. What the pasha did in this war is not known in detail, but it is significant that at the end of 1436 he was still referred to as beylerbey of Amasya.

The pasha, who had secured calm in Central Anatolia, was granted the rank of vizier. Amasya's local literature also writes that, as a sign of Sultan Murad's trust, he was permitted to have coins minted in his own name and that this akçe was called "Yörgüç Paşa akçesi." Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar records this plainly, but the TDV entry finds the information doubtful. It is therefore more accurate to cite the claim as a local tradition rather than as established fact.

One local article reports that the pasha was dismissed in 1434 on account of old age. That date does not fit the record stating that in December 1436 he was still referred to as beylerbey of Amasya, and it raises doubt. A claim in an older article that the pasha was appointed warden of Edirne in 1435 could not be verified in any reliable source and has therefore not been included here.

The Complex He Left to Amasya

Yörgüç Paşa's most lasting work in Amasya is the complex that bears his name. According to the inscription over the mosque door, "Atabeg Yörgüç Paşa" had it built in 834/1430. In culture and tourism records and in some local sources the mosque is given as dating to 1428. The two-year gap may stem from different parts of the mosque and complex being completed at different times or from a misreading; there is no document that settles it. Because the date on an inscription is the most reliable basis for dating a building, 1430 is adopted here.

According to the endowment texts and the tax registers, the complex in Amasya comprised a mosque, a madrasa, an imaret (soup kitchen) and two baths. Some sources add a caravanserai and a tomb, and one adds seventeen shops. Today only the mosque and the tomb attached to it stand; the caravanserai, baths, imaret and madrasa have not survived. It is also said that the complex was the first Ottoman complex built in Amasya, about forty years after the Ottoman conquest of the city. The mosque lies in the city center next to the old market, north of the Torumtay Tomb, about fifty meters from the Amasya-Tokat road.

The building is one of the inverted-T plan mosques frequently seen in Amasya; in the architectural literature it belongs to the group of tabhane (guest-room) or zaviye (dervish lodge) type buildings and has no separate last-congregation porch. The walls are of well-cut ashlar, and red and white marble used here and there in the window arches and thick walls gives the building a colorful appearance. At the center of the three-part entrance section is an entrance iwan covered by a dome that rises from fan-shaped pendentives. The great arch of the iwan is of red and white stone and was laid projecting slightly forward from the walls, which gives the entrance an elegant look. Above the door, beneath a pointed-arch panel, is a three-line inscription with scalloped edges and palmette-decorated ends, and a border bearing the Sura of Tawba frames the arch. On either side of the door are fine stone ornaments made of rûmî palmettes; above the door of the closed section east of the iwan is a painted panel on stone in the hatâyî style. This closed section is thought to have been the lecture room of the building's madrasa, which has not survived.

In the main space there is a central sofa with tabhane rooms opening onto it from both sides, and to the south the raised mosque section. The domes of the sofa and of the mosque section rest on twelve-sided drums organized with niches, while the tabhane rooms are covered by domes on sixteen-sided drums reached through prismatic triangles. Inside these rooms are hearths without hoods and plaster shelves on the walls. In the north, above the door, is a wooden gallery, and in the south a plain marble mihrab with a muqarnas niche; the minbar is a renewed wooden one. Many reused (spolia) stones were employed on the facades, and most of them, beginning with the stone inscription on the north facade of the closed section at the entrance, date from antiquity. Because of its closeness to the Yeşilırmak the building has at times been badly damaged by floods, so its interior was entirely renewed and the painted decoration inside is new as well. The original minaret has not survived and a simple wooden minaret was built in its place. The 1939 Erzincan earthquake also damaged the building, and the mosque was repaired in 1946.

Beside the entrance iwan, a section raised on a platform, open to the outside on two piers and covered by a pendentive dome, was arranged as the tomb. It is enclosed on three sides by marble balustrades, and in the middle of the north balustrade there is a tall window with a marble frame. Here stand four marble sarcophagi belonging to Yörgüç Paşa and his family. The 2019 study by Çiğdem Belgin Dikmen and Ferruh Toruk reads the inscriptions on the gravestones and determines whom the sarcophagi belong to: Yörgüç Paşa, his son Yunus Bey, and his daughters Hundi (Hündi) Hatun and Sitti Hatun.

His works outside Amasya are likewise recorded in the endowment texts and tax registers. According to them he had a bath and a caravanserai built in Tokat, a mosque in Gümüş (today Gümüşhacıköy), an imaret in Havza, a mosque in Kavak and a bath in İskilip; the mosque in Köprü is also attributed to him. According to the TDV, of these the mosques of Amasya, Gümüş, Kavak and Köprü and the bath in Tokat have survived to the present. Turkish Wikipedia has a link suggesting that the pasha lies in the mosque at Kavak, whereas the TDV states plainly that he was buried in the tomb of the mosque he had built in Amasya. His endowment deed, approved with the tughra of Sultan Murad II, is dated 1436 (General Directorate of Foundations Archive, Def No: 747, Sıra No: 245); this information comes from the abstract of an academic study of the deed, and the document itself was not read directly.

His Family

Information about the family varies according to the source. The TDV entry gives Yörgüç Paşa three sons, Hızır, Yunus and Mustafa, and two daughters, Sitti and Hundi Hatun. It also notes another son, Molla Îsâ, who had endowments in Lefke; this name is also the subject of the Griswold article that gave rise to the thesis of Slavic origin. Çiçek Hatun, who had an endowment in Edirne, is recorded as the pasha's wife on the basis of Gökbilgin's research. It is known that of his sons Hızır and Mustafa Bey fell as martyrs at the Battle of Varna in 1444.

Ferruh Toruk's 2021 article draws the picture differently. According to the study, Mustafa Bey was the only child of Safiye Hatun; from the pasha's other wife Şahbulu Hatun were born Abdi Bey, Hızır Bey, Ali Bey, Yunus Bey, Sitti Hatun and Hundi Hatun, who were Mustafa Bey's half-siblings. Mustafa Bey had an imaret built in Havza and endowed the income of some of his real estate, in part or in whole, for its expenses. His deed was drawn up in 1437 and is registered in the General Directorate of Foundations Archive under the name "Yörgüç Paşa oğlu Mustafa Bey Vakfiyesi." The last part of the article lists in a table the personnel who would work in the imaret and the properties set aside for it. There are sources that also link the Yörgüç Mustafa Paşazade Mosque in Havza to this line.

The relationship between Çiçek Hatun and the ladies Safiye and Şahbulu has not been explained. It is possible that the pasha married more than once or that the same wife is known by different names, but this is only an inference. That independent studies give different names for his wives shows that the picture of his family remains incomplete.

His Death

According to the TDV, Yörgüç Paşa died in Amasya in Dhu al-Hijjah 845, that is, April-May 1442, and was buried in the tomb of the mosque he had built. Some local writings give his death as 1441, but the line of the TDV and of the Dikmen-Toruk study is 1442. Since his date of birth is unknown, his age at death cannot be calculated. Two years after his death, in 1444, his sons Hızır and Mustafa fell as martyrs at Varna. Around that time Murad's much-loved and trusted son Alâeddin Ali Çelebi had also died in Amasya; the news shook the sultan deeply and influenced his decision to abdicate in 1444.

His Legacy

Yörgüç Paşa's meaning for Amasya can be read in two ways. The first is Amasya as an early Ottoman example of the princely sanjak: an arrangement in which a young prince had beside him a lala who raised him and the sanjak was in practice run by the lala. The second is the trace this arrangement left in stone: the mosque, the tomb attached to it, and the area where the caravanserai, bath, imaret and madrasa, which have not survived, once stood.

Today the Yörgüç Paşa Mosque is still open for worship and is one of the stops that tell the story of early Ottoman architecture in Amasya. What is missing is the pasha's own voice. There is no reliable source on his personality, his words, or the nature of his relationship with Murad. That Murad, after taking the throne, made his tutor beylerbey of Rum and kept him in that post for many years suggests that the bond was more than an ordinary tie of duty; but this is an inference, not a document.

Chronology

1404: Prince Murad is born in Amasya.

1414: Çelebi Mehmed sends his twelve-year-old son Prince Murad to the province of Rum, to Amasya; Yörgüç Paşa becomes his lala (one source says 1415).

1417-1421: Prince Murad and Hamza Bey, beylerbey of Rum, take Samsun from the İsfendiyaroğlu.

1421: Çelebi Mehmed dies; Murad II takes the throne in Bursa.

1422: The revolt of Düzmece Mustafa is suppressed.

826/1423: Yörgüç Paşa is appointed beylerbey of Rum (one source says 1422).

Around 1427: The area of Ordu and Çarşamba is incorporated into Ottoman administration.

834/1430: Date of the inscription of the Yörgüç Paşa Mosque in Amasya (some sources give 1428).

1434: According to a local article he is dismissed on account of old age; other records do not confirm this date.

1436: Yörgüç Paşa's endowment deed; in December the Karaman forces press Yörgüç Paşa, beylerbey of Amasya.

1437: Endowment deed of his son Mustafa Bey for the imaret in Havza.

Dhu al-Hijjah 845 / April-May 1442: Yörgüç Paşa dies in Amasya and is buried in the tomb of his mosque.

1444: His sons Hızır and Mustafa fall as martyrs at the Battle of Varna.

1946: The mosque is repaired.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, digital edition of the Amasya Municipality.

Academic studies

  • Fahameddin Başar, "Yörgüç Paşa", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 43, Istanbul 2013, pp. 566-567 (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Çiğdem Belgin Dikmen - Ferruh Toruk, "Amasya Yörgüç Paşa Cami ve Türbesi", Social Sciences Studies Journal, 2019, pp. 3627-3655.
  • Ferruh Toruk, "Yörgüç Paşa Oğlu Mustafa Bey Vakfiyesi'nin Mahiyeti", SMART Journal, 2021, pp. 2962-2970.

Official sources

  • Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Culture Portal, and Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "Yörgüç Paşa Camii".

Other sources

  • Emine Naza Dönmez, "Yörgüç Paşa Camii", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 43, pp. 567-568. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, entry "Murad II". islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Turkish Wikipedia, entry "Yörgüç Paşa" (auxiliary use only).

Online sources