Sun'ullah Efendi
Sun’ullah Efendi (Cafer Mustafa Sun’ullah, 1552/53-1612) served as şeyhülislam of the Ottoman Empire in four separate spells, making him one of the most influential — and controversial — religious officials of his era. His family was rooted in İskilip; according to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi he himself was born in Istanbul in 1553, though Turkish-language sources sometimes describe him as İskilip-born — a pattern he shares with Ebussuud Efendi, whose family was likewise rooted in İskilip even as its individual members were mostly born in Istanbul.
Family and Education
Sun’ullah Efendi was the son of İskilip-born Molla Cafer Çelebi, a well-known kazasker (chief military judge) of Süleyman the Magnificent’s reign. After his initial education under his father and Zenbillizâde Fudayl Çelebi, he became a mülazım (assistant/student) to his cousin, Şeyhülislam Ebussuud Efendi, in 1569. The relationship illustrates just how intertwined İskilip’s two great şeyhülislam families — the houses of Ebussuud and Sun’ullah Efendi — really were.
Career
Sun’ullah Efendi climbed every rung of the traditional scholarly (ilmiye) ladder in turn: his first teaching post came in Beşiktaş in 1571, followed by appointments at major medreses including Mahmud Paşa and Sahn-ı Semân; he became judge (kadı) of Bursa in 1590, of Edirne in 1591, and of Istanbul in 1592, rising the same year to Anatolian and then Rumelian kazasker.
First appointed şeyhülislam in 1599, Sun’ullah Efendi was appointed and dismissed a total of four times over the following decade (1599-1601, a mere 34 days in 1603, 1604-1606, and 1606-1608). His up-and-down career unfolded amid palace intrigue and the rivalry between the sipahi cavalry and the janissary corps. The chronicler Selanikî records in detail the causes he repeatedly championed for the sake of social order — curbing waste in the management of religious endowments, suppressing bribery, and reforming the decaying scholarly establishment.
Among the most contentious episodes of his career were his role in the sipahi uprising that led to the killing of the influential palace figure Kira Kadın (Esperanza Malchi), and the harsh 1601 fetva he issued that led to the execution of the Wallachian voivode Mihai Viteazul and his envoy — a ruling that drew lasting controversy. He is also credited, by contrast, with securing the pardon of the Celali rebel leader Karayazıcı Abdülhalim.
Character
Sources describe Sun’ullah Efendi as an honest scholar unafraid to speak the truth even at the cost of his own dismissal, and he was consistently praised by the historian Âlî Mustafa Efendi, otherwise known as a harsh critic of his contemporaries. Other chroniclers note that he trusted those around him too readily, a trait blamed for missteps in the Karayazıcı affair and in matters concerning the Crimean khanate.
Death
Dismissed from office for the last time in 1608, Sun’ullah Efendi withdrew from public life, made the pilgrimage to Mecca in 1611, and died shortly after his return, on 10 April 1612. His funeral prayer was held at the Fatih Mosque, and he was buried in Kırkçeşme beside his son Mehmed Çelebi, who had predeceased him.
For other İskilip-born scholars, see İskilip’s Scholars and the Museum of İskilip Scholars.