Âşık Paşa
Âşık Paşa (real name Ali, 670 AH/1272 - 733 AH/1332) wrote the Garibnâme, one of the oldest and most influential works of Turkish Sufi literature in Anatolia. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (Turkey’s standard reference encyclopedia of Islamic studies), his entire life was spent in Kırşehir, where he also died; his link to Çorum comes not from his own life but from his son Elvan Çelebi, who settled in what is now the district of Mecitözü.
Family and Life in Kırşehir
Âşık Paşa’s grandfather, Baba İlyâs-ı Horasânî, migrated from Khorasan to Anatolia in the 13th century, settled in Amasya, and led the Babaî revolt of 1240. His father, Muhlis Paşa, was Baba İlyas’s youngest son; according to tradition he was rescued as an infant during the uprising, briefly seized Konya in 1273, and then ceded power to the Karamanid dynasty.
Âşık Paşa studied first under Süleymân-ı Kırşehrî, then under Şeyh Osman, one of Baba İlyas’s deputies, and was married to Şeyh Osman’s daughter at his father’s instruction. After serving for a time as vizier to Timurtaş Paşa, governor of Anatolia, he became entangled in political events and travelled to Egypt. On his way back to Amasya he fell ill in Kırşehir and died there on 13 Safer 733 (3 November 1332). His tomb, built on a hill northeast of Kırşehir at his own request, remains a place of pilgrimage.
The Garibnâme and Other Works
Completed in 730 AH (1330), the Garibnâme is a 12,000-couplet Sufi didactic poem in ten sections, written in Turkish to educate ordinary people; it is considered one of the oldest and most far-reaching works of Turkish Sufi literature in Anatolia. The influence of Yunus Emre and Rumi is clear throughout. Several shorter mesnevis attributed to him (Fakrnâme, Vasf-ı Hâl, Hikâye) also survive.
His Çorum Tie: Through His Son Elvan Çelebi
No source places Âşık Paşa himself on the territory of present-day Çorum; the “Çorum figure” label occasionally attached to him in official lists actually reflects his son’s presence there, not his own. Indeed, almost the only source for Âşık Paşa’s biography is the work his son Elvan Çelebi wrote about the family, the Menâkıbü’l-kudsiyye. In 1352 Elvan Çelebi built a lodge (zaviye), mosque and tomb in the village that bears his name, Elvançelebi, in what is now the district of Mecitözü, and spent most of his life there (Elvan Çelebi Lodge, Elvan Çelebi Mosque). The Ottoman chronicler Âşıkpaşazade, one of Âşık Paşa’s descendants, was also born and raised in this village.