Sayyid Mansur Baba

A place of visitation in Harput marked by a two-storey, octagonal-plan tomb in the Cami-i Kebir quarter (northwest of the Sara Hatun Mosque). According to tradition Mansur Baba was the son of Arslan Baba, the teacher of Ahmad Yasawi, and by his father's testament was raised under Ahmad Yasawi before coming to Anatolia with Turkmen tribes. Because a 'Mansur Baba zawiya' appears as an endowment in the 16th-century cadastral registers (1518, 1523, 1566), the structure is established as a historic zawiya/shrine; however, the man's identity and death date rest on tradition, and some of the cenotaphs on the lower floor have also been suggested to belong to the Artukid dynasty. It is therefore recorded transparently as being of disputed identity/grave-certainty. (Sources: Kültür Portalı; harput.web.tr; 16th-century Harput cadastral registers.)