Elvan Çelebi
Elvan Çelebi was a Turkmen sheikh who gave his name to the village, in today’s Mecitözü district of Çorum, where he settled. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (Turkey’s standard reference encyclopedia of Islamic studies), he was most likely born in Kırşehir but spent most of his life at the lodge (zaviye) he built in Mecitözü. His work Menâkıbü’l-kudsiyye is a major source both for his family’s history and for 13th-14th century Sufism in Anatolia.
Family and Origins
Elvan Çelebi belonged to a great Turkmen sheikly family that had fled the Mongol invasion and settled in Central Anatolia. His father was Âşık Paşa, poet of the Garibnâme; his grandfather was Muhlis Paşa, linked to the founding of the Karamanid principality; and his great-grandfather was Baba İlyâs-ı Horasânî, leader of the Babaî Revolt of 1240. He had two brothers, Süleyman (Selman) and Can.
Elvançelebi Village and Its Lodge
According to the chronicler Mecdî, Elvan Çelebi came to what is now Elvançelebi village shortly after his father Âşık Paşa departed for Egypt in 1326, and never left it again. Some sources say his grandfather Muhlis Paşa had settled there first, building houses with his dervishes, farming the land, and being buried there upon his death; Elvan Çelebi is said to have followed in his grandfather’s footsteps with his father’s permission. According to historian Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin, the lodge, mosque and tomb here were built in 753 AH (1352) (Elvan Çelebi Lodge, Elvan Çelebi Mosque). Under the Eretnid vizier Alâeddin Ali Şâh-ı Rûmî, the lodge was granted generous endowments and the land surrounding the village.
Elvan Çelebi’s lodge became the most important centre of the Vefâiyye order after Baba İlyas’s original lodge in Amasya, remained significant throughout the Ottoman period, and, lying on a busy trade route, drew visits from European travellers. The German traveller Hans Dernschwam, who stayed there in the 16th century, reported that the dervishes attached to the lodge lived in mud-brick huts nearby and were held in great respect by the local population.
Menâkıbü’l-Kudsiyye
Elvan Çelebi’s only surviving work is Menâkıbü’l-kudsiyye fî menâsıbi’l-ünsiyye, a semi-hagiographic account of his family’s history and Sufi teachings. Based on the year 760 AH (1358-59) given in a closing couplet, he is thought to have died a few years after that date; his exact date of death is unknown. In the work he states that he received his Sufi training from Şeyhülislâm Fahreddin, one of his father’s deputies, and that after his father’s death the deputies chose him as their leader. The work is valued both for its linguistic features and as a historical source shedding light on the Sunnification of the Babaî tradition; it was published with an extensive study by İsmail E. Erünsal and Ahmet Yaşar Ocak (Istanbul, 1984).
After His Death
After his death, Elvan Çelebi continued to be venerated locally as a saint; his lodge became a pilgrimage site where the childless and the sick made vows and offerings. The 15th-century poet Hatiboğlu names him among the Sufi poets he regarded as masters in his Letâyifnâme, and legends about him reached the accounts of Western travellers as late as the 17th century. Among his descendants was the chronicler Âşıkpaşazade, who was born and raised in this village and lived at the same lodge for a period, supporting Murad II from there.