Çelebi (title)

Çelebi (Turkish pronunciation: [t͡ʃelebi/]) was an Ottoman title of respect, approximately corresponding to "gentleman", "well-mannered" or "courteous". Çelebi also means “man of God”, as an i-suffixed derivative from çalab (Turkish pronunciation: [t͡ʃalab]), which means "God" in old Turkish. German linguist and Turkologist Marcel Erdal, citing Baron Tiesenhausen, traces çalab back to Arabic djellaba "importer, trader, merchant" > "high social positions"; jallāb is derived from root j-l-b "to have brought, to import", ultimately from West Semitic root g-l-b "to catch, to fetch".

Notable people with the title include:

• The sons of Ottoman sultan Bayezid I, who fought one another for the throne in the Ottoman Interregnum of 1402 to 1413:
  • İsa Çelebi (1380–1406)
  • Musa Çelebi (died 1413)
  • Mehmed Çelebi (1390–1421), who won the civil war, being crowned sultan Mehmed I
  • Mustafa Çelebi (1393–1422)
  • Süleyman Çelebi (1377–1411)
• Ali Çelebi: see Kınalızâde Ali Çelebi
• Anton Çelebi (1604–1674), Armenian merchant magnate, Ottoman and Tuscan official
• Aşık Çelebi (1520–1572), Ottoman poet and biographer
• Çelebi, family of descendants of Rumi (13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic), who established and led the Sufi Mevlevi Order ("the whirling dervishes") for 800 years
• Evliya Çelebi (1611–1682), Ottoman traveler
• Gazi Çelebi, 14th-century Turkish pirate and ruler of Sinop
• Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi, alleged 17th-century Ottoman aviator, brother of Lagâri Hasan Çelebi
• Hoca Çelebi (1490–1574), Ottoman Grand Mufti
• Katip Çelebi (1609–1657), Ḥājjī Khalīfa, Ottoman polymath and encyclopaedist.

• Eremya Çelebi Kömürciyan (1637-1695), Ottoman Armenian traveller.
• Kınalızâde Ali Çelebi (1510/11?–1572), Ottoman jurist and writer.
• Kinalizâde Fehmi Çelebi (1564–1596), Ottoman poet, son of Kınalızâde Ali Çelebi.
• Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi (1546-1604), Ottoman poet and bibliographer, son of Kınalızâde Ali Çelebi.
• Lagâri Hasan Çelebi, alleged 17th-century Ottoman aviator, brother of Hezârfen Ahmed.
• Nişancı Tâcı-Zâde Câ’fer Çelebi (Nishandji Tadji-zade Dja'fer Çelebi; 1459-1515), 16th-century Ottoman statesman and a diwan poet
• Seydi Ali Reis (1498–1563), or Sidi Ali Ben Hossein, an Ottoman admiral and nautical writer.
• Suzi Çelebi of Prizren (died 1524), Ottoman epic poet.
• Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi (died 1732), Ottoman statesman.