Saints and Tombs of Manisa

Shaykh Ilyas Çelebi (Ibn Isa al-Akhisari)

Sufi poet descended from the Shamsiyya line of the Bayramiyya; founder of the Isawiyya branch named after him and shaykh of the lodge at Akhisar. He is known for poems in which he treated the idea of the unity of being, and for his renown in the science of jafr . He was born in 902 (1496-97) at Akhisar , then the seat of a district in the Saruhan sub-province of the province of Aydın. His real name was İlyas , his father's name Isa. What is known of his life rests on his own work Menakıb-ı Şeyh Mecdüddin , on the virtues of his father, a Bayrami shaykh, and above all on the section about himself appended to the end of that work by an unknown hand. After completing his madrasa education he completed his spiritual training under his father Mecdüddin Isa and received his licence from him. His father had received his own licence first from Muhammad Çelebi, one of the Bayrami shaykhs, and later from Şeyh Kasım Efendi, son of İbrahim Tennuri, founder of the Tennuriyya branch of the Shamsiyya-Bayramiyya. When his father settled in Aydın in 928 (1522), he took his father's place at the lodge in Akhisar. But as long as his father lived (d. 937/1530-31) he gave no licence to anyone, thinking it would be disrespectful towards him. He died at Akhisar in 967 (1559-60) and was buried beside his father in the tomb adjoining the Şeyh Isa Mosque. His Circle of Influence — His initiatic chain reaches İbrahim Tennuri through his father Mecdüddin Isa Saruhani and Şeyh Kasım, and from him Akşemseddin, founder of the Shamsiyya-Bayramiyya. The Isawiyya named after him did not long survive him. He is known to have given his licence to eight persons: Baba Ahmed Germiyani, Muslihuddin Germiyani, Muhammad Rumi, Kasım Malatyavi, Rûşen-i Rumi (Nuri Rûşeni), Abdi Halife Tirevi, Ömer Menteşevi and Dede Hasan Bayındıri. Of these, Kasım Malatyavi is said to have been sent to Amasya, and Muhammad Rumi to have founded his lodge somewhere near Istanbul. His Poetry and Sufi Line — His poems on the unity of being draw attention for their literary side as much as for their Sufi content; his use of simile, metaphor, double meaning and paronomasia shows his mastery of the subtleties of Ottoman Turkish. The Menakıb-ı Şeyh Mecdüddin states that he had 10,000 hymns and ghazals, but these have not come down to us. A ghazal of his describing the shadow play was published by Hellmut Ritter. He was one of the best-known exponents of jafr in his time, and is reported to have been skilled in writing magic squares. Some sources also state that he was a physician and wrote a work on medicine. His Works — ① Nutk-ı İbn Isa : twenty ghazals recorded under this title in a miscellany in the National Library. ② Menakıb-ı Şeyh Mecdüddin ve Adab-ı Salikin : on his father's virtues, completed in 961 (1554) when he was about sixty; it contains 150 anecdotes, the last three of which concern himself and were probably added by one of his disciples; among the anecdotes it also gives information on the rules and rites of the order and on the Bayrami chain. ③ Şerh-i Esma-i Hüsna : a verse work composed in 1541, of about 868 couplets. ④ Rumuz al-kunuz fi'l-jafr : in twelve chapters, completed in 965 (1557-58); it speaks of what is to happen from that date until the hijri year 2035. ⑤ Ferahname ( Taskhir al-akbar fi ilm al-harf ): on drawing meanings from letters. ⑥ Fusul-i Seb'a : on the seven stages. ⑦ Fusul-i Aşere : on the initiatic chain, the order's rules, the shaykh-disciple relationship, the stations, magic squares and the science of properties. ⑧ Kavaid al-taskhir . ⑨ Tabiatname . ⑩ Kıyafetname : thought to be a verse work linking bodily build and character. ⑪ Kıyametname : said to have consisted of 3000 couplets; it has not survived. ⑫ Risale-i Mukantarat : on the calendar. ⑬ Terceme-i Müfredat-ı İbn Isa . ⑭ Nuriyye : recorded as written in the name of Selim II and presented to him during his governorship of Manisa (1543-1558). The sources also name works titled Rumuz-ı Dilgüşa , Ebvab-ı Sitte and Kenz al-asrar .

Shaykh Ahmad Vehbi Efendi

The first representative in Manisa of the Ma'rifiyya branch of the Rifa'iyya-Sayyadiyya order; founder and first shaykh of the Entekkeliler Lodge in the İbrahim Çelebi quarter of Manisa. He was born in Antakya (Antioch), which is why his lodge became popularly known as "Entekkeli". He studied in Egypt and in Istanbul. After his studies he became a disciple, at Kartal, of the pir of the Ma'rifiyya, Sayyid Muhammad Fath al-Ma'arif; on receiving his authorization he was sent to Manisa to guide the people. Around 1833 he first taught at the Hatuniye and İbrahim Çelebi madrasas in Manisa; then, with the support of Rüstem Ağa, one of the notables of Manisa, he guided disciples for eighteen years in the lodge he opened on the north side of the İbrahim Çelebi Mosque. Beside the lodge he also ran a bakery oven. He died in 1851. His Circle of Influence — He married his daughter to Hasan Rüşdi Efendi (d. 1919), a native of Manisa, gave him authorization and seated him as shaykh. Hasan Rüşdi Efendi served as guide at the Entekkeliler Lodge for sixty-two years; in his time the lodge's followers are said to have reached 10,000 people. The custom peculiar to the lodge of holding a "milk mevlid" on the nights of the Ascension is still maintained at the İbrahim Çelebi Mosque. His Poetry and Sufi Line — The source records that he possessed a lofty state of ecstasy ( vecd ); he also wrote poems under the pen name "Vehbi". His Tomb and Complex — The source states that his successor Hasan Rüşdi Efendi, after the funeral prayer at the Çaşnigir Mosque, was buried in the lodge's graveyard beside his master ; accordingly, Ahmed Vehbi Efendi's grave lies in the graveyard of the Entekkeliler Lodge. The grave of the lodge's last shaykh, Hüseyin Kemaleddin Efendi, was also moved to the tomb in the lodge in 1968.

Ahmad al-Rumi al-Akhisari

An Ottoman scholar known for his work Majalis al-abrar and for his severe stance against innovations ( bid'a ). He was born in Cyprus into a Christian family and embraced Islam after the Ottoman conquest of the island. He studied with scholars in Damascus and Istanbul. He settled in Akhisar, a district of the sanjak of Saruhan in western Anatolia, where, without accepting any official post, he taught and wrote until the end of his life. According to the source, the subjects of his works are first of all personal piety, the ascetic life and honesty in trade, with no bearing on administrative, political or military matters; hence Majalis al-abrar was written for Ottoman merchants, scholars and service people rather than addressed to any sultan or ruler. The source states that it is possible to say al-Aqhisari was connected with the Ottoman revivalist movement of the XVI and XVII centuries influenced by Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. In his Radd al-qabriyya and in the seventeenth chapter of the Majalis he refers explicitly to Ibn Qayyim and his master and quotes from their works rejecting the veneration of graves. In his commentary on Birgivi Mehmed Efendi's al-Durr al-yatim on Qur'anic recitation he speaks of him with praise. In many collections of treatises in libraries, Birgivi's Vasiyetname , Kadızade Mehmed Efendi's Risale and al-Aqhisari's Risala fi al-aqa'id are bound together, showing that these works were perceived at the time as complementary texts. His works give much space to such topics as innovations, commanding right and forbidding wrong, the ragha'ib and bara'a prayers, dhikr , the supplications in Friday sermons, hand-shaking after congregational prayers, Sufi rites and sama' ceremonies, and the use of tobacco. According to the source these were the subjects of the debates between the Kadızadelis and the people of the Sufi orders and were treated in Katib Chelebi's Mizan al-haqq ; on them al-Aqhisari mostly took a strict and prohibitive position. He died in Akhisar. Because Katib Chelebi fixed the date of his death on the authority of al-Aqhisari's son, who was his own student, the source regards the date 1041 (1632) as more reliable than those given elsewhere. He is recorded as having been buried in the Uzuntaş Cemetery in Akhisar. His Circle of Influence — According to the source, al-Aqhisari's influence on later Ottoman society has not yet been brought to light. By contrast, Majalis al-abrar can be said to have strongly influenced the Indian subcontinent. Around 1850 long extracts from it, together with sections from the works of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim, appeared in a Persian work titled al-Balagh al-mubin , wrongly attributed to Shah Wali Allah al-Dihlawi. The work was printed in Delhi in 1866 with an Urdu translation by Subhan Bakhsh al-Shikarpuri, without naming its author and with its end missing; this edition carries a foreword by Shah Abd al-Aziz al-Dihlawi. In 1903 it was published in Lucknow with a different Urdu translation by Abd al-Wali al-Madrasi, this time attributed to al-Aqhisari. The Urdu translation printed in 1978 was made by Kifayat Allah Dihlawi, mufti of the Deobandi movement, and has been reprinted ever since. In 2011 Mustafa Şeyh (Mustapha Sheikh) wrote a doctoral thesis and Mustafa Boz a master's thesis on al-Aqhisari. His Works — ① Majalis al-abrar wa-masalik al-akhyar : his most famous and, according to Katib Chelebi, his last work, comprising a hundred religious topics inspired by hadiths in sources such as al-Baghawi's Masabih al-sunna . Many manuscripts exist in Turkey, the Arab countries and India; in all its Urdu translations the 100th session is missing. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Khumayyis published four of its sessions (Riyadh 2001), and this edition was translated into Turkish (Istanbul 2002). ② Sharh al-Durr al-yatim fi al-tajwid . ③ Risala fi al-aqa'id : the author's only known work in Turkish, also called Vasiyetname . He also wrote treatises on imitation ( taqlid ), the superiority of prophethood over sainthood, the degrees of the self and of worship, the remembrance of the tongue and the heart, the blameworthiness of innovation, evil and non-evil innovation, graves ( Radd al-qabriyya ), blessings and amin during the sermon, hand-shaking after the prayers, dancing and whirling ( dawran ), and tobacco ( Dukhaniyya ). Ali Çelik produced a study of the treatise on innovation (Eskişehir 2000), and Yahya Michot translated the Dukhaniyya into English.

Revak Sultan

(q.s.)

A sheikh of the Halwati order who lived in Manisa during the reign of Saruhanoglu Ishak Celebi. His lodge was established on land granted by Ishak Celebi, with an endowment deed (vakfiye) dated 773/1371; his tomb stands in the Sehzadeler district of Manisa, near the rock known as the 'weeping rock' (Niobe).

Ahmad Shamsuddin al-Marmaravi (Yigitbasi Veli)

(q.s.)

The founder of the Ahmediyye branch of the Halvetiyye; a Sufi and author known by the epithet Yiğitbaşı. He was born in 839 (1435) in a village near Akhisar. He received his first education from his father İsâ Halîfe, who was a Halvetî sheikh. After studying the exoteric sciences he drew benefit from Alâeddin Uşşâkī, a Halvetî guide living in the village of Kabaklı near Uşak. He afterwards settled at Manisa and began to train disciples there. When he went to Istanbul in order to settle the disputes between the orders and succeeded in doing so, he was given the epithet Yiğitbaşı (fatâ'l-fityân). After the death of his sheikh Alâeddin Uşşâkī he succeeded him and carried on the work of guidance at Manisa. He died in 910 (1504). His Circle of Influence — The Ahmediyye branch of the Halvetiyye is attributed to him. After him this branch divided into four sub-branches: Ramazâniyye , Sinâniyye , Uşşâkıyye and Mısriyye . His influence thus did not remain confined to a single lodge but became one of the principal channels of the spread of the Halvetiyye in Anatolia and Rumelia. His Poetry and Sufi Line — His treatises treat the theoretical and the practical sides of Sufism together: in verse he takes up such subjects as the divine attributes, the perfect guide, the love of God, the world, manifestation, the vision of God and the self; in prose, such subjects as belief, the sharia, instruction, remembrance, the divine unity and the realities of the human being. That he wrote a simplified text for disciples shows that he took care that what he wrote should be read. His Works — Eleven treatises of his have been identified. 1. Câmiu'l-esrâr (in verse; the divine attributes, the perfect guide, the love of God, the world, manifestation, the vision of God and the self). 2. Risâle-i Tevhîd (in prose; belief, the sharia, mâye, instruction, remembrance, the divine unity and the realities of the human being). 3. Keşfü'l-esrâr (a simplified prose text for disciples). 4. Ravzatü'l-vâsılîn (questions of the divine unity and the interpretation of dreams). 5. Atvâr-ı Seb'a (an exposition of the stages of the spiritual path). 6. Risâletü'l-hüdâ (Sufi counsels). 7. Kenzü'l-hakāyık (the attributes of God). 8. Hurde-i Tarîkat (the etiquette of the order). 9. Tabakātü'l-evliyâ (on the abdâl, the evtâd and the gawth). 10. Mukaddimetü's-sâliha (the people of the sunna, the godfearing, the ascetics, and the states of sheikh and disciple). 11. İrfânü'l-maârif (the methods of guidance of the scholars of the outward and the inward). His Tomb and Complex — It is in the Seyyid Hoca quarter of Manisa. Beside his tomb there was a lodge of his; in place of the ruined lodge a mosque was built by the Yiğitbaşı Foundation.