Saints and Tombs of Kastamonu

Sheikh Mehmed Efendi (of Daday)

Born in Sofular village (Daday, Kastamonu), Sheikh Mehmed Efendi is named among the deputies personally licensed by Şeyh Şâbân-ı Velî, thus belonging to the Halvetiyye-Şâbâniyye lineage. He settled in the Kuzyaka area as a spiritual guide and died in 1662. His tomb stands in Kuzyaka, in the Akçasu quarter of Şeyh village, beside the Akçasu Mosque. (Sources: Fazıl Çifçi, 'Kastamonu Mosques and Tombs', Kastamonu Municipality; Evliyalar.net compilation)

Muzaffereddin Yavlak Arslan (Atabey Gazi)

Muzaffereddin Yavlak Arslan, ruler of the Çobanoğulları principality (r. 1280-1292), advanced the Turkification of Paphlagonia through his campaigns against Byzantium. In 1273 he had the Atabeygazi (Forty-Columned) Mosque built in Kastamonu. He was killed in 1292 in a battle against Rükneddin Kılıçarslan during a Seljuk succession struggle; his tomb, venerated popularly as 'Atabey Gazi', adjoins the southeast of the mosque. (Historically a bey/ruler, but venerated in folk tradition as a gazi-saint.) (Sources: TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam 'Yavlak Arslan'; Kastamonu Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism)

Haddadizade Sheikh Seyyid Ahmed Siyahi Efendi

Sayyid, Sheikh

A saint of the Halidiyye-Nakshibendiyye path in Kastamonu. Because he constantly wore a black turban, he was given the epithet 'Siyahi' by Mevlana Halid-i Baghdadi; he received his authorization and returned to Kastamonu in 1827. He died around the age of ninety-five in 1874 (AH 1291); per his bequest no domed tomb was built over his grave, which lies in central Kastamonu.

Benli Sultan (Sheikh Mehmed Muhyiddin Efendi)

Sultan, Sheikh

A saint whose real name was Muhyiddin, known as 'Benli Sultan' due to a large mole (ben) on his cheek. Believed to have lived in the 16th century, he carried out spiritual teaching and trained students in the region for a long time. His tomb and complex are in Ahlat village near Kastamonu, on the foothills of Mount Ilgaz; the complex was built during the reign of Yavuz Sultan Selim.

Seyyid Sunneti Efendi

Sayyid, Sheikh

The representative of the Khalwati order in Kastamonu before Şeyh Şâbân-ı Velî, and the founder of the first small mosque that stood where the Şâbân-ı Velî complex stands today. The source records his death as 864 (1459) , accompanied by a question mark. It is known that the Khalwatiyya existed in Kastamonu before Şeyh Şâbân-ı Velî, in the time of Seyyid Sünnetî Efendi: the order's activities began for the first time in the Şeyh Sünnetî Efendi Mosque , a small wooden building. Şeyh Şâbân-ı Velî too at first worshipped in this mosque and carried on the order's activities there; but because the mosque lay outside the town in those years, at the people's request he worked for a time in the Honsalar Mosque, and after that mosque burned down he returned to the Şeyh Sünnetî Mosque. According to the inscription above the door of the present mosque, the building was rebuilt in 988 (1580) by Şücâ' Efendi, the spiritual guide of Murad III; the mosque also served as the tevhidhâne of the lodge. Şeyh Seyyid Sünnetî Efendi, the first founder of the mosque, is buried in the burial enclosure in front of the qibla in the courtyard of the complex — that is, not inside the tomb of Şâbân-ı Velî but in the enclosure. The complex lies in the Hisarardı quarter and consists of a mosque, a tomb, a library, a kitchen, a fountain and two lodge houses. Limit of this record: This record rests not on an article devoted to the sheikh himself but on the article about the complex in which his grave lies; the source gives no more about Seyyid Sünnetî Efendi than the above. The text has been kept within what the source provides and has not been padded out with architectural description.

Sheikh Sha'ban-i Veli

Hazret-i Pir

The patron saint of the Şâbâniyye branch of the Khalwatiyya; he is regarded in all Sufi circles as one of the four poles of Anatolia (the others being Mevlânâ Celâleddîn-i Rûmî, Hacı Bektâş-ı Velî and Hacı Bayrâm-ı Velî). He was born in the district of Taşköprü in Kastamonu. A considerable part of what is known of his life rests on the Menâkıb-ı Şerîf-i Pîr-i Halvetî Hazret-i Şa'bân-ı Velî of Ömer Fuâdî, the fifth sheikh of the Şâbân-ı Velî lodge. Having lost his mother and father at an early age, Şâbân-ı Velî was adopted by a woman. After his first schooling at Taşköprü he studied Qur'anic exegesis and hadith under Hoca Velî, son of Osman, who is buried in the tomb of the Abdürrezzak Mosque at Kastamonu, and received his licence from him; he then went to Istanbul and stayed in one of the Fâtih medreses. According to Ömer Fuâdî, when in the days of completing his studies he was told in a dream "Go to your original homeland", he set out, probably in 925 (1519), with a few companions to return to Kastamonu. At Konrapa between Düzce and Bolu he met Hayreddin Tokadî , one of the successors of Cemâl-i Halvetî, founder of the Cemâliyye branch of the Khalwatiyya. During their conversation Hayreddin Efendi asked him the meaning of a verse, and he answered according to the views of the commentators. Hayreddin Tokadî's explanation of the verse's inner meaning, very different from all he had learned until that day, left deep traces in his heart. He told his companions that he would remain with Hayreddin Efendi, became his dervish, and after twelve years of service completed his training and was sent to Kastamonu as a successor; it may therefore be said that he returned to Kastamonu around 937 (1530-31). On arriving at Kastamonu he first settled in the small mosque that the Khalwati sheikh Seyyid Sünnetî Efendi had built in the Hisarardı quarter for use as a lodge; after a time he withdrew into seclusion in the nearby Cemal Ağa (Hüsam Halîfe) Mosque. At the proposal of Hacı Seydi and Çatak Baba he returned to the Seyyid Sünnetî Mosque and there performed the forty-day retreat many times. Because this mosque lay outside the town, at the insistent invitation of some of his dervishes he moved to the Honsalar Mosque in the town centre; during his work of guidance there Şâbân Dede came to be known as Şâbân-ı Velî and reports of his miracles began to pass from mouth to mouth. When the Honsalar Mosque burned in a fire that broke out in the Atabey Gazi quarter, he moved to a house near the Seyyid Sünnetî Mosque at Hisarardı donated by Eyüb Halîfe, and had an endowment deed drawn up so that the sheikhs succeeding him should also dwell there. Continuing his work of guidance for long years in this place, which was later to become the mother lodge of the Şâbâniyye order, Şâbân-ı Velî died on 18 Dhû al-Qa'da 976 (4 May 1569) and was buried in the garden of his lodge. The line "Eyledi Şa'bân Efendi azm-i dildâr-ı cinân" was composed as a chronogram of his death. Hüseyin Vassâf records that Şâbân-ı Velî — of whose marriage the Menâkıb says nothing — had a son named Yahyâ, that Yahyâ Efendi died in 1082 (1671) at over 100 years of age, and that his son Müntehâ Efendi and his descendants also served as sheikhs. His Circle of Influence His learning in the outward sciences and his regard for the balance between outward and inward were effective in bringing many scholars to attach themselves to him. One of these was Muharrem Efendi of Kastamonu, preacher at the Süleymaniye Mosque, said to have been a close friend of Ebüssuûd Efendi; Muharrem Efendi received the licence to guide from him and served as a sheikh in Istanbul alongside his preaching. Just as the Khalwatiyya is the order divided into the greatest number of branches, so the Şâbâniyye is the most widespread order within the Khalwatiyya, having many branches of its own. The Şâbâniyye has been represented across a very wide geography, from Anatolia, the Balkans, Iraq, Syria and the Hijaz as far as the interior of India and Africa. Besides Ömer Fuâdî, the Şâbânî sheikh İbrâhim Hâs composed a hagiography of him entitled Tezkiretü'l-Hâs ; and Mehmed Atâullah Efendi (Armay), the last sheikh of the Şâbân-ı Velî lodge, wrote a supplement to Ömer Fuâdî's Menâkıbnâme . His Poetry and Sufi Line Attaching great importance to seclusion and ascetic discipline, Şâbân-ı Velî spent the last seven years of his life in the retreat cell of his lodge. Muslihuddin Vahyî, a seventeenth-century Şâbânî sheikh, presents him as a lover belonging to the path of the " şüttâr ", who reach God through rapture and self-blame; according to Vahyî his capital is the secret of Ali. Throughout his life he observed the etiquette of both the law and the reality and wished his followers to preserve this balance; his saying " The law is the shell of the almond, the path its kernel " shows this trait. His noble cap and a shirt of his, together with certain staffs, prayer-beads and prayer-rugs, have survived; but some of these objects preserved in his tomb were stolen recently. His Tomb and Complex The construction of his tomb was begun by Ömer Fuâdî under the patronage of Sultan Osman, son of Ahmed I, and was continued with the support of Ömer Bey, steward of the vizier Murad Pasha and son of Himmet Dede, one of Şâbân-ı Velî's dervishes. When Ömer Bey was executed at Diyarbekir by Nasuh Pasha on the ground that he had spent and wasted much money, the tomb was completed in 1020 (1611) through Ömer Fuâdî's efforts and the aid of benefactors; it underwent important repairs in the reigns of Abdülaziz and Abdülhamid II.