"Chief of Calligraphers" artist: Hasan Çelebi
Born in 1937 in the village of İnci in the Oltu district of Erzurum, Çelebi memorized the Quran while learning to read and write during his primary school years. Çelebi went to Istanbul in 1954 to receive religious education, and after taking Arabic and religious lessons at the Üçbaş and Çinili madrasahs, he was appointed as a muezzin to the Üsküdar Mihrimah Sultan Mosque in 1956.
After his military service between 1957 and 1958, the master calligrapher began working as an imam at the Nasuhi Mehmed Efendi Mosque in Üsküdar. After leaving Istanbul after the 1960 coup, Çelebi went to the Yusufeli district of Artvin to work as a muezzin. Returning to Istanbul in 1963, Çelebi began working as an imam at the Mehmed Said Efendi Mosque in Üsküdar.
Çelebi was transferred to the Şeyh Mosque the following year, where he served for 10 years, and then became the imam of the Selami Ali Efendi Mosque. Having served here for many years, Çelebi retired of his own accord in 1987.
Hasan Çelebi took lessons from the most famous masters of the period to improve himself in the art of calligraphy, which he started at the age of 24.
Having studied thuluth-nesih script with calligrapher Hamid Aytaç and ta'lik-rik script with Kemal Batanay, Çelebi's mastery has gone beyond the borders of the country with his mosque inscriptions, private calligraphy collections and exhibitions.
In 1981, Çelebi was assigned to work in Jeddah to write the inscriptions of the Organization of Islamic Conference, and in 1983, he was assigned to work in Medina to repair the inscriptions of the Masjid an-Nabawi.
He opened his first exhibition at IRCICAÇelebi, who opened his first solo exhibition at the Research Center for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA) in 1982, held subsequent exhibitions in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, in 1984, and in Amman in 1985, at the invitation of Prince Hassan bin Tallal of Jordan.
In 1987, Çelebi spent a year in Saudi Arabia to write the inscriptions of the Quba Mosque. Invited to Kuala Lumpur by the Malaysian Islamic Cultural Center in 1992 to give a seminar and open an exhibition, Çelebi opened the "30th Year in Calligraphy" exhibition in 1994.
He became the calligraphy master who trained the most studentsÇelebi, who started giving calligraphy lessons in 1976, gave permission to nearly 100 students in different parts of the world and became the calligrapher who trained the most students after Hamid Aytaç.
Other important works by Hasan Çelebi, whose numerous works are in private collections, include the inscriptions on the restored dome of the Sultanahmet Mosque, the inscription on the dome of the Hırka-i Şerif Mosque, some inscriptions on the newly constructed sections of the Friday Mosque, the Qiblateyn Mosque and the Masjid al-Nabawi (Medina), the interior and exterior inscriptions of the Islamic Medical Center in Kuwait in 1986, the belt inscriptions on a mosque in the Netherlands, the inscriptions on the Fatih Mosque of Pfortzheim (Germany) in 1991, the Friday Mosque of Yuhannesburg (South Africa) in 1997 and the Central Friday Mosque of Almaty (Kazakhstan) in 1999.
In addition, the master artist's similarity in both name and profession to Hasan Çelebi, the famous calligrapher of the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent who wrote the calligraphy in the Suleymaniye, Selimiye and Rüstem Pasha mosques, is striking.
He never put down his pen for nearly 60 years in his artistic career.Hasan Çelebi, who never put down his pen for nearly 60 years in his artistic career, made his last major projects for the Grand Çamlıca Mosque and the Sri Sendayan Mosque in Malaysia.
Çelebi, who received the Necip Fazıl Respect Award and the Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Award, is accepted throughout the world as the "Reis-ül Hattatin" (Chief of Calligraphers) for his mastery in calligraphy.
In an interview with AA in 2019, Çelebi said the following about this title: "I thank the people for their kindness towards me. Otherwise, I do not see myself as a person who has achieved any position because of this title. If I have served this nation and its culture, it was my duty as a citizen. Serving this nation is the duty of every citizen. So, I have the ability to do this. I have served, so I do not see any privilege in myself because of this."
Graffiti artist Muhammed Emin Türkmen painted the calligraphy of Çelebi's 40th verse of the An-Naml Surah, meaning "This is the grace and favor of my Lord", as graffiti on a 130-square-meter wall opposite the İskender Paşa Mosque in Trabzon in 2020. Türkmen completed the work in 2.5 days using approximately 20 kilograms of paint in 6 different colors.
His life was featured in the documentary "A Life on the Line"The documentary "A Life in the Trace of the Line", which tells the story of the master artist Hasan Çelebi, was screened at the Bağlarbaşı Congress and Culture Center.
In the documentary, the artist's life spent in calligraphy art, starting from his childhood, was told through the words of himself, his relatives and his students.
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