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A Sufi who was the first postnishin (head sheikh) of the Kütahya Mevlevi lodge, and whose name is associated with the spread of the Mevlevi order in western Anatolia. He was born in Kütahya.
The sole source for his life is the Sefîne-i Nefîse-i Mevleviyân of Sâkıb Dede (d. 1148/1735), one of the sheikhs of the Kütahya Mevlevi lodge, written some three and a half centuries after his death. According to this work he was the son of Burhâneddin İlyas Pasha and the grandson of Süleyman Pasha of the Germiyanids. Because Süleyman Pasha had married a daughter of Sultan Veled, he too was given the title Çelebi.
He received spiritual grace from Ulu Ârif Çelebi (d. 719/1320), Emîr Âlim Çelebi (d. 739/1338) and Emîr Vâcid Çelebi (d. 742/1342). For a time he went to Bursa and attended the gatherings of Geyikli Baba. Sâkıb Dede states that Ahî Evran was his disciple, and that two futuwwa sheikhs, Ahî Mustafa and Ahî Erbasan, also attached themselves to him.
He received his licence to guide at the Şems station in Konya, donning the seven-gored Şemsî cap. Some time later he became the first postnishin of the Mevlevi lodge built in Kütahya by İmâdüddin Hezâr. After a long tenure he died there and was buried in the lodge's burial enclosure. Before his death he left his office to his son Burhâneddin İlyas Çelebi; he in turn was succeeded by Zeynüddin Çelebi, a grandson of İlyas Pasha.
The Kütahya Mevlevi lodge, known as the Erguniyye lodge, became the third most important Mevlevi centre after those of Konya and Karahisar (Afyon).
His Works — The Gencnâme is a Turkish mesnevi of forty couplets expounding the concept of the "perfect human being"; Sâkıb Dede quoted it in his own book. The İşâretü'l-beşâre is a treatise on the features of the Mevlevi ceremony, divided into eighteen "subtleties"; Sâkıb Dede likewise transmitted it recast in his own style. Sâkıb Dede further renders and comments on some of his Arabic and Persian mystical-ethical sayings, and reports that he composed a prose work entitled Çihl Kelime-i Tayyibe.
Differing Scholarly Views
This record does not conceal the points on which the sources diverge.
The limit of relying on a single source. Everything known of Celâleddin Ergun's life rests on Sâkıb Dede's Sefîne, composed roughly three and a half centuries after him. Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı held that some of the information it gives about him does not accord with historical fact, and warned that it should be used with caution.
An affiliation impossible on chronological grounds. Sâkıb Dede states that he also benefited from Abâpûş-i Velî (d. 890/1485), the father of Dîvâne Mehmed Çelebi; the source records that this is not possible chronologically.
The attribution of the works is disputed. On the basis of the pen-name "Fâizî" occurring in one couplet of the Gencnâme, it has been argued that the work is not his. Of the İşâretü'l-beşâre too it has been claimed that it belongs to another author, on the grounds that it was written after the Mevlevi ceremony had assumed its final form.
A notable silence. The source remarks that the absence of any information about Celâleddin Ergun in Ahmed Eflâkî's Menâkıbü'l-ârifîn — the principal biographical work of the order — is "a striking matter", given his standing in Mevlevi history.
Sources
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) — Nuri Özcan · vol. 7, pp. 247-248, entry “CELÂLEDDİN ERGUN”
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Permanent ID: EA-Z-000087 · this address reaches the same record even if its name changes; use it when citing.