Hüseyin Rıza Efendi

Hüseyin Rıza Efendi, whose date of birth has not been identified, belonged to the grandson generation of the Uncuzâde family.

The Uncuzâde family is not represented in the Fatih Cemetery by this grave alone. Among the nearby records, Abdürrahim Molla is also remembered as the son of Uncuzâde Abdülhalim Efendi, one of the “kudât-ı kirâm,” or honoured judges. These two early graves show that the Uncuzâdes were a learned-judicial family that left traces around Fatih in the early nineteenth century.

Judicial families were an important part of the Ottoman learned class. Judges were not merely officials who ruled in court, but madrasa-trained state servants who played roles in the legal, administrative and social order of towns and districts. For this reason, Hüseyin Rıza Efendi’s identity becomes clear less through his own profession than through the Uncuzâde family of judges to which he belonged.

Hüseyin Rıza Efendi’s presence in the Fatih Mosque Cemetery at the early date of 1830 is also noteworthy. The cemetery in its present sense began to take shape with burials after 1780; in the Ottoman period, burial here required permission from the palace, that is, from the sultan.

Hüseyin Rıza Efendi died on 12 Sha‘ban 1245, corresponding to 5 February 1830, and was buried in the Fatih Mosque Cemetery.