A Digital Atlas of Sacred Geography

Saints

1113 records · Page 8/47

Remembered in Jumada al-Awwal

Saints whose death anniversary falls this Hijri month (sourced).

Arap Baba

A place of visitation in Harput famed for the undecayed body kept in a glass sarcophagus in the lower part of a two-storey structure (mosque above, tomb below). According to its inscription the building was erected by Yusuf b. Arabshah in 678 AH/1279-80 during the reign of the Seljuk sultan Ghiyath al-Din Kaykhusraw III; however, the identity of the person in the sarcophagus has not been established by any reliable historical source (legend calls him a Seljuk-era warrior/commander or a saint). The reason the body has not decayed remains scientifically unresolved. Because the identity and religious role of the occupant are undocumented, it is recorded transparently as a shrine 'of disputed identity,' with no firm attribution to an authentic saint or scholar. (Sources: Kültür Envanteri; Kültür Portalı; Fırat University Harput archive.)

Omer Naimi Efendi of Harput

A professor and scholar who also served as mufti of Harput (1801-1882), known as 'the commentator of the Qasida al-Burda.' Son of Hajji Ahmed Efendi, he studied first under his father, then earned his license from Küçük Hafiz Necib Efendi in Antep and studied under Hoca Kasım Efendi in Kayseri. He trained many students in Harput, performed the Hajj in 1843, lost his sight late in life, and was succeeded by his son Abdülhamid Efendi. His chief works include a commentary on the Qasida al-Burda, the Manzûme-i Naîmiyye, a commentary on the Rub' treatise, and a gloss on the Velediyye; he has no separate mausoleum and is buried in the Harput cemetery. (Sources: ehlisunnetbuyukleri.com; Türkiye Gazetesi biography; ESTAD academic article.)

ElazığDied 1300 AHView

Sayyid Ahmad Chapakchuri

A Naqshbandi-Khalidi shaykh and Sufi originating from the village of Kür/Dikme in Çapakçur (Bingöl) (1830-1921), one of the khalifas of Shaykh Ali Septi. He chose the path of poverty (faqr) in Sufism and spent long years guiding people in and around Harput. It is related that during the Russian advance in World War I he prevented the people of Harput from migrating and reassured them in the mosque courtyard. He died in 1921 (1340 AH) and, by his will, was buried in the courtyard of the Grand Mosque (Ulu Cami) of Harput. (Sources: Türkiye Gazetesi; huzurpinari.com; Akademiar Journal 2018/4.)

ElazığDied 1340 AHView

Fatih Ahmed Baba

A semi-legendary Sufi-warrior remembered by his tomb and mosque at the Göllübağ site in Harput; popularly also known as 'Fetamet/Fethi Ahmet.' According to tradition he was born in Balkh, entered the Sufi path, and took part in battles during the conquest of Anatolia; per the inscription on his wooden sarcophagus he died in 713 AH/1313 (martyred during the recapture of Harput). Evliya Çelebi in his Seyahatname refers to his lodge as a 'great convent.' His biographical details are legendary and there is no modern TDV entry; yet the tomb is a registered cultural asset and the death date is documented by the sarcophagus inscription. The tomb is visited especially by those wishing for children. (Sources: harput.web.tr; Kültür Envanteri; Dergipark academic article on the Fatih Ahmet Baba tomb.)

ElazığDied 713 AHView

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.)

Shaykh Ali Septi (Khwaja Ali al-Sabti)

The founding shaykh of the Naqshbandi-Khalidi path in the Palu region of Elazığ (c. 1785-1871), one of the leading khalifas of Mawlana Khalid al-Baghdadi. Around 1830, at Mawlana Khalid's direction, he came to Palu and began spiritual guidance; the influence of his lodge spread to Diyarbekir, Harput, Erzurum and Bitlis, and Mahmud Samini trained under him for years. After a life of more than ninety years he died in 1871; his tomb stands on a hill facing the Palu district across the Murat River, where he is buried together with his son Shaykh Mehmed Efendi. He played a central role in the spread of the Khalidi order in the region. (Sources: Akademiar Journal 2018/4; Elazığ Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism; evliyalar.net.)

ElazığDied 1288 AHView

Sheikh Bedreddin of Bukhara

A saint whose tomb is in the village of Şenköy in Milas, known locally as the 'Horasan Eri' (Hero of Khorasan). Sources present him as a successor (halife) of Şeyh Muhammed Buhârî who died in Bursa; by another account he is regarded as a son-in-law of Bayezid I. According to tradition he came to the region with his soldiers and, martyred during battle, was buried here. He is venerated locally as a great figure, with prayers and votive offerings made at his tomb. NOTE: The tomb structure's inscription bears the date 1549-50 (AH 956); this conflicts with the 'son-in-law of Bayezid I' tradition, and the figure's identity and exact death date are not certain in the sources (a maqam — the traditions about the grave's certainty are disputed). The tomb is in the Şenköy cemetery, 27 km from Milas.

Sheikh Sayyid Kemaleddin

A sayyid and one of the eminent Mevlevî sheikhs who lived in the era of Bayezid I and Sultan Mehmed I (14th-15th centuries). He founded a royally endowed lodge in Muğla (Camikebir) that became the center where the foundations of the Mevlevî order in Muğla were laid. He took Hüdâyî Salih Dede into his service and sent him to Persia for education; after his death Hüdâyî Efendi became sheikh at this lodge. He is remembered as a blessed man of learning and wisdom. His grave lies in the courtyard of today's Şahidi Mosque, just west of the tomb; Evliya Çelebi described it as an open-topped shrine within a four-sided wall.

Şuhudi Efendi

A Mevlevî sheikh and poet from Muğla. Son (by one account the spiritual son) of the famous mystic-poet Şâhidî İbrâhim Dede, he received his first education from his father. After his father he served as postnishin at the Muğla Mevlevî lodge (today's Şahidi Mosque) for over forty years, playing an active role in spreading the Mevlevî order in Muğla. He died in 1591-1592 (AH 1000). He is buried in the tomb within the Şahidi Mosque courtyard; scholars debate whether the grave beside his father Hüdâyî Efendi belongs to Şâhidî Efendi or to Şuhûdî Efendi, and since Şâhidî himself is buried in the Afyon-Karahisar Mevlevî lodge, many researchers state this grave belongs to Şuhûdî Efendi.

MuğlaDied 1000 AHView

Molla Hamit Cana Hoca

Reported to have lived circa 1450-1540, Molla Hamit Cana Hoca was born in the village of Goglieti in Murgul (today within the boundaries of Başköy), the son of a Georgian priest father and a Laz mother. Taken to Istanbul by Ottoman soldiers around the age of nine or ten, he studied at the Enderûn School, becoming first a hafiz and then a molla, and was nicknamed 'Cana' for his closeness to his teachers. After teaching for a time at the Enderûn, he obtained permission from the Şeyhülislâm of the period and returned home to spread Islam in the Murgul region, converting first his own father and then the villagers. He is said to have built the first mosque in Artvin at Lomiketi in 1520 and to have carried out missionary work across Atina (Pazar), Viçe (Fındıklı), Arhavi, Maradit (Muratlı/Borçka), the İmerhev valley, and the Batumi-Kutaisi line. His tomb, restored and reopened together with a mosque in 2016, is venerated as a local site of pious visitation.

Hudayi Salih Dede

Founder of the Muğla Mevlevî lodge and a Mevlevî sheikh. He received his first Qur'anic education from his father, spent time in Egypt, then settled in Muğla and entered the service of Seyyid Kemâleddin, joining the Mevlevî order under his guidance. With the permission of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror he began serving as sheikh at Seyyid Kemâleddin's lodge, teaching the Mathnawi and writing treatises, thereby rooting the Mevlevî order in Muğla. He died in 1480-1481 (AH 885) aged ninety and was buried in the tomb within the courtyard of the Şahidi Mosque, at the foot of Seyyid Kemâleddin's grave. His son was the famous mystic-poet Şâhidî İbrâhim Dede.

MuğlaDied 885 AHView

Husameddin Efendi

A scholar who was the son of the Muğla Mevlevî sheikh Şâhidî İbrâhim Dede and who served as a mudarris (professor) and sheikh. In his work 'Tuhfe-i Hüsâmî', written in 1585 (AH 993), he stated that his father was İbrâhim, who used the pen-name Şâhidî. He had a large mosque bearing his own name (also recorded as Müftüler Mosque) built in the Ayazkıyı neighborhood of the Ula district of Muğla, and served as professor and sheikh at the lodge adjoining the mosque in accordance with the order from which he took his Sufi learning (whether Mevlevî or Qâdirî is disputed). After his death he was buried in the tomb built to the south of his mosque. His death is after 1585; the exact year is uncertain in the sources.

Sheikh Ahmad al-Kabir and Sheikh Muhammad al-Kabir (Dedeşen Sheikh Dede)

According to local tradition, they were two brother sheikhs revered as saints who lived in the village of Dedeşen in the Göle district. Legend holds that during Sultan Selim I's 1514 Çaldıran campaign they generously fed the passing army, whereupon the Sultan gifted them the settlement and named the village 'Dedeşen.' Their graves lie in two stone sarcophagi inside the tomb at the village entrance; the structure is dated on architectural grounds to the late 16th century, but no exact death date or documented scholarly identity is known (there is no recorded biography; the account rests on oral tradition).

Sheikh Hasan Baba (Kurila Lodge)

Sheikh Hasan Baba of Khorasan ("Horasanli Alp Eren") founded the Qadiri lodge in the Kurila quarter of Prizren; according to TDV the still-standing lodge was founded by Sheikh Hasan in 1066 (1655-56) (TDV, "Prizren"; Journal of Turkish Culture and Haci Bektas Veli Research, no. 110, 2024). The lodge bears a walnut-carved foundation inscription dated 1655; the founder's grave lies in the tomb adjoining the building, and Ottoman banners and ceremonial objects are preserved in the semahane. A secondary source names the occupant "Sheikh Hüseyin Baba", while TDV and other lists give "Sheikh Hasan" (the name discrepancy is noted transparently).

Prizren (Kurila)View

Gazi Baba (Aşık Çelebi)

The tomb of Gazi Baba stands on a hill northeast of Skopje and, by local tradition, is the grave of the 16th-century Ottoman poet and kadi of Skopje Aşık Çelebi (given name Pir Mehmed) (TDV, "Aşık Çelebi", Günay Kut). Born in Prizren in 1520, Aşık Çelebi is the author of the celebrated biographical dictionary of poets Meşairü'ş-şuara; after various judgeships he died of pleurisy while kadi of Skopje in 979/1572 and was buried here. The tomb was destroyed in the 1963 earthquake and rebuilt in 2013 with support from the Bursa Municipality. The identification of Gazi Baba with Aşık Çelebi is an accepted local tradition rather than documented certainty (noted transparently).

Üsküp (Skopje)Died 979 AHView

Dervish Ali Koç Baba

Ali Koç Baba was an Alevi-Bektashi dervish who migrated from Anatolia to the Balkans; sources present him as a disciple of Koyun Baba or as a son of Seyyid Ali Sultan and a descendant of Haci Bektas Veli (B. Aleksiev, "Ali Koç Baba", isamveri; "Ali Koç Baba Ocagi" study; TDV, "Nikopol"). He was active in the Nikopol region in the Ottoman period and is said to have joined Rumelian campaigns. His tomb, a pyramidal stone structure on the "Tekke" hill by the Danube, is visited by both Muslims and Christians for Hidrellez healing pilgrimages. His death year is disputed (14th-15th c.); although the tomb inscription bears the date of the 1396 Battle of Nicopolis, the sources give no firm year (noted transparently).

Niğbolu (Nikopol)View

Hadži Sinan-aga

Hacı Sinan Ağa (d. Ramadan 1049/1639-1640) was a wealthy merchant living in 17th-century Sarajevo, the founder of and figure buried in the courtyard tomb of the Hadži-Sinan (Silahdar Mustafa Pasha) Lodge, one of the centers of the Qadiriyya in the Balkans (TDV, "Sarajevo"; BiH National Monuments Commission, designation #2534, 2005). The lodge was built in 1638-1640 by him or his son, silahdar Mustafa Pasha, using the architect Kasım Ağa, after Murad IV's conquest of Baghdad (1638). Hacı Sinan Ağa died before the lodge was completed and was buried in the courtyard tomb with his wife Sakine. Sources describe him as the pious founder-benefactor of the lodge rather than as an order sheikh (noted transparently).

Saraybosna (Sarajevo)Died 1049 AHView

Husein-baba Zukić

Husein Zukić (d. 1213-1214/1798-1800), after studying in Fojnica and Sarajevo (Gazi Husrev-beg Madrasa), went to Istanbul where he affiliated with Hafiz Mehmed Çanakhisari in the circle of the Sheikh Murad Lodge and entered the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi path (TDV, "Nakshbandiyya" and "Bosnia-Herzegovina"; BiH National Monuments Commission designation, 2012). After sojourns in Konya, Baghdad, Bukhara and Samarkand, he founded a lodge in his native village of Živčići in 1195 (1780-81), spreading the Mujaddidi branch in Bosnia and adopting the vocal (jahri) dhikr suited to the local temperament. His tomb, on the hill above the lodge, was built by his disciple Sheikh Abdurrahman Sirri and was declared a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2012.

Živčići (Fojnica)Died 1214 AHView

Baba Abdullah Melçani

Baba Abdullah Melçani was a 19th-century Albanian Bektashi baba and a bejtexhi (poet) who wrote in Albanian (R. Elsie, The Albanian Bektashi, 2019; F. A. Turan, "Bektashi Tekkes in Albania", 2018). He led the Melçan tekke near Korçë (founded in 1640 by Hysen Ali Dede) for about forty years and died in 1852. The oldest and only surviving fortified (walled) Bektashi lodge in Albania became a center of the Albanian national awakening in his era and served as the de facto Bektashi headquarters in the 1920s.

Melçan (Korçë)Died 1852View

Enihan Baba

Enihan Baba is a legendary figure revered as a dervish and healer by the Alevi-Bektashi and Pomak communities of the central Rhodopes; his historical existence is unverified and the information rests largely on legend (E. Troeva, "Momchil ili Enihan", Rodopski Starini/BAS; V. Grigorov, tombs venerated by Bulgarian Muslims in the central Rhodopes, Sofia 1998). His shrine stands on the Svoboda peak (formerly "Eni Han Baba") about 13 km above the village of Davidkovo, atop an ancient Thracian sanctuary, and contains an empty stone sarcophagus. In legend the lodge of his brother Sarı Baba lies near Momchilovtsi; the shrine, ruined in the 1970s, was rebuilt in 2005 and draws visitors from the Kardzhali/Momchilgrad region. Nationalist framing found in some sources is rendered neutrally (multiple views).

Davidkovo (Smolyan)View

Sari Saltuk (Kaliakra Shrine)

Sari Saltuk (d. 697/1297-98) was a legendary Turkish warrior-dervish influential in the Turkification and Islamization of Anatolia and the Balkans, celebrated for his miracles. After his death numerous shrines (makam) attributed to him arose from the Balkans to Anatolia; his principal cult center and place of death is regarded as Babadag in Romania (TDV, "Sarı Saltuk", Machiel Kiel; A. Y. Ocak, Sarı Saltık, TTK 2002). The shrine at Cape Kaliakra in Bulgaria derives from a Bektashi dervish lodge said to have kept his relics there in the Ottoman period. This is one of several disputed shrines of the saint (presented transparently with multiple views).

Kaliakra (Kavarna)Died 697 AHView

Kuzum Baba (Kuzgun Baba Sultan)

Kuzum Baba, recorded by Evliya Celebi in 1670 as "Kuzgun Baba Sultan", is a Bektashi dervish whose tomb stands on a hill dominating Vlora; he is said to have lived in the early Ottoman period (15th-16th c.), with an unknown death year (R. Elsie, The Albanian Bektashi, 2019; TDV, "Avlonya", Machiel Kiel). The lodge was founded around 1600, demolished in 1826 during Mahmud II's suppression of the orders, the shrine reopened in 1998, and a new tekke was built in 2000-2003. Local tradition identifies him with Seyyid Ali Sultan; this, however, is a local legendary attribution distinct from the famous Kizil Deli at Didymoteicho (presented transparently, multiple views).

Vlorë (Avlonya)View

Umar ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Attas

Umar ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Attas (d. 1072/1652) was a great Sufi and scholar of the Bâ Alawi sada family whose lineage reaches Ali; he is known by the epithet "Qutb al-Anfas" and is the founder of the Attas branch of the Bâ Alawi. He studied under masters of his age such as Husayn ibn Abu Bakr ibn Salim and was regarded as a spiritual leader in Hadramaut. His most famous work is the Ratib al-Attas, a litany of remembrance and supplication drawn from Quran and hadith, still widely recited today. He died in the town of Huraydah, where he spent his final years, and was buried there.

HureydaDied 1072 AHView

Baba Kamber Haskaj

Baba Kamber Haskaj (d. 1913) was a Bektashi baba known for the lodge he founded in 1870 on a hill west of the village of Velabisht, on the bank of the Osum river opposite Berat (R. Elsie, The Albanian Bektashi, 2019, drawing on Hasluck 1929 and Clayer 1990). F. W. Hasluck described the tekke as an imposing structure before World War I; the building was ruined around 1914 and razed entirely in 1967 during the communist anti-religious campaign. Remains secretly kept by villagers were returned in 2009 to the shrine rebuilt in its original twelve-sided form. The lodge was affiliated with the Prishta tekke in Skrapar.

Velabisht (Berat)Died 1913View