Hızır Bey Tomb
About the Person:
- Hızır Bey was born in 1407 in the town of Sivrihisar in Eskişehir. His father was Celaleddin Efendi, the judge of Sivrihisar. He studied under Molla Yegan, married his teacher’s daughter, and received his license to teach (ijazah).
- He taught at the Çelebi Mehmed Madrasah in Bursa and served as judge in İnegöl and Yanbolu. Shortly after the conquest of Istanbul, he was appointed as the city’s first judge.
- The district of Kadıköy is named after him. He learned Arabic without traveling to Arab lands, followed the school of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, and was known as the “Second Ibn Sina” and a “treasury of knowledge.”
- He taught many prominent scholars such as Hocazade Muslihuddin and Sinan Paşa. He composed poetry in Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, and introduced an innovative style of chronogrammatic poetry. He passed away in 1458/59.
About the Tomb:
Construction Year: 15th century
Ordered by: Unknown
Architects: Unknown
Prominent Features:
- The graveyard (hazire) consists of two sections: the first, triangular in plan, includes the graves of Katip Çelebi and the poet Necati.
- In the second section, which has a trapezoidal rectangular plan and lies behind a window with latticework bars, is the grave of Hızır Bey.
- His gravestone bears inscriptions, including the phrase “ʿĀlam al-ʿilm Hızır Bey Çelebi” and a chronogram dated AH 863.
- There are 20 gravestones in the hazire dated between 1458/59 and 1863; of these, 9 belong to women and 11 to men.
- As the first judge of Istanbul and the namesake of Kadıköy, he holds a significant place in the city’s historical memory.
