The people of Amasya called Zâtî Mehmed Çelebi the "Nightingale of the Lodge" (Tekke Bülbülü) for the beauty of his voice. Trained in the service of a Halveti sheikh known as Mûsâ Dede and versed in music, this clerk served as secretary of the Amasya beytülmal, the office of escheated estates, and died in 1031 (1621-22). Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar records that his hymns and poems had been written down, but that these writings burned. Today nothing is left but his pen name and his nickname.

Life

With this entry Hüsameddin opens the eleventh section of Amasya Tarihi, devoted to names beginning with the letter "zel":

Amasya'nın Hacı İlyas Mahallesi'nden Hasan Çelebi oğludur. Mûsâ Dede demekle meşhûr eş-Şeyh Muhyiddîn Mehmed Halvetî'ye hizmet ederek tahsîl-i irfân etdi. Sesi güzel, mûsikîye âşinâ olduğundan Tekke Bülbülü dendi. Beytülmâl kâtibi olup 1031'de vefât etdi. Şâir, kâtib idi. İlâhiyâtı, eş'ârı yazılmışdı. Hayfâ ki yandı.

Put into plain English: His father was Hasan Çelebi, of the Hacı İlyas quarter of Amasya. He received his spiritual training by serving Sheikh Muhyiddîn Mehmed Halvetî, known as Mûsâ Dede. Because his voice was fine and he knew music, he was called the Nightingale of the Lodge. He died in 1031 while secretary of the beytülmal. He was a poet and a clerk. His hymns and poems had been written down; alas, they burned.

Here "tahsîl-i irfân" refers to the training in the Sufi path received at a sheikh's side, apart from any madrasa study. His nickname comes from the same setting: Zâtî's voice must have been known from the hymns (ilahi) sung in the gatherings of remembrance (zikir), and the entry names his hymns before his poems. His living, however, came from a government office. The clerks of the beytülmal worked in the organization that recorded, on behalf of the treasury, the estates of those who died without heirs and property left without an owner. The entry shows Zâtî both in a government office and in a dervish lodge; in which years these two lives ran side by side is not known.

Who Was Mûsâ Dede

Hüsameddin gives Zâtî's sheikh both by nickname and by full name, but nowhere else in the book does a Halveti sheikh with the nickname "Mûsâ Dede" appear. The book does mention another Halveti sheikh of the same name: according to an entry on a woman in the tenth volume, Rukiye Hâtun of the İğnecizâde family received her training in the path from her husband, Cemâlîzâde Sheikh Muhyiddîn Mehmed Halvetî, and died in 917 (1511-12). That sheikh lived more than a century before Zâtî's death and cannot have been his teacher. Mûsâ Dede, then, was another Halveti sheikh who lived in Amasya in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century and whose name survives only in this entry.

Connection with Amasya

Zâtî was from Amasya, and the entry even gives his quarter. According to Hüsameddin's list of quarters in the first volume, the Hacı İlyas quarter lay west of the Bayezid II Mosque, bounded by that mosque on the east, the Yörgüç Pasha Mosque on the west and the Yeşilırmak on the north; it was also popularly called "İmaret Arkası", Behind the Soup Kitchen. It takes its name from Hacı İlyas Bey, son of Hacı Nevruz Bey, who lived there and built a small mosque and a school. Nothing further has been found about Zâtî's father, Hasan Çelebi.

Poetry

None of Zâtî's poems has reached us. Hüsameddin's word "yazılmışdı" shows that the hymns and poems had been gathered in an anthology (mecmua) or a notebook; who gathered them, and whether the manuscript ever reached Hüsameddin's hands, is unclear. The note "Hayfâ ki yandı", alas, it burned, appears in other entries of the book as well and recalls the manuscripts the author lost from his own library in fires. In which fire Zâtî's texts were destroyed is not known. In Metin Hakverdioğlu's survey of the poets of Amasya Tarihi, too, Zâtî is no more than a name.

Chronology

1031 (1621-22): Dies in Amasya while secretary of the beytülmal.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources