The people of Amasya often say of their city, half in jest and half in earnest, that it has ninety-nine saints, and that had it been granted one more, a prophet would have risen from it. The exaggeration is plain, but there is a real landscape behind it. The tombs and shrines scattered over the city's hills, along its lanes and vineyard paths and across the surrounding villages preserve the memory of the scholars, dervishes and holy men and women whom the people have revered over the centuries. Hüseyin Hüsameddin, who wrote his Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya) in the early twentieth century, is reported to have counted seventy-eight tombs. Some of them belong to people recorded in the chronicles by name, by their writings and by their endowments; others take their name from a half-forgotten inscription or from a nickname the people themselves bestowed. Hicâbî Baba and Halkalı Evliya are fine examples of each kind. The first was a Naqshbandi sheikh who came from the Crimea, founded a dervish lodge in the town of Ziyaret near Amasya and left writings that survive in manuscript libraries. The second is a lady who lies in a small open tomb in the city centre and to whose door mothers have come for generations so that their children might learn to walk.

Hicâbî Abdülbâkî Efendi's Lineage and Birth

Hicâbî Baba's real name was Abdülbâkî; Hicâbî was his pen name, and Gül Baba ("Father Rose") the name the people of Amasya and Ziyaret gave him. He was born in Bahçesaray (Bakhchisaray), the old capital of the Crimean Khanate. His year of birth is unknown, and the sources disagree on the matter. The text of the entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature) places it in the middle of the seventeenth century, whereas the heading of the same entry gives the tentative estimate "mid-1700s?". Mehmet Uyar, who has studied him in detail, follows Osman Fevzi Olcay in placing his birth in the second half of the eighteenth century. For a man who migrated to Amasya in 1774 and died in 1822, a birth in the mid-seventeenth century is implausible; an eighteenth-century date is far more consistent. As Uyar points out, the principal sources for Hicâbî's life are the Osmanlı Müellifleri (Ottoman Authors) and Kırım Müellifleri (Crimean Authors) of Bursalı Mehmed Tahir.

Little more is known of his family. According to tradition, his grandfather Ebussuûd Efendi, while serving as mufti of Kefe (Caffa), wrote a work titled İbâhatü'd-Duhân and noted at its end that his grandson descended from Dede Cengî. Dede Cengî, also known as Kara Dede, whose real name was İbrahim Kemâleddin, was an Ottoman scholar born at Sonisa near Amasya; he lived in Bursa, served for seven years as mufti of Kefe and died in 970 (1562-63). Besides a number of glosses he wrote works such as a Siyasetnâme (Book of Statecraft), Menâkıb-ı Evliyâ (Legends of the Saints) and Masârif-i Beytülmâl. That Abdülbâkî, one of his descendants in the Crimea, had an ancestor from Amasya is seen as the most likely reason why he turned towards Amasya when he was forced to leave his homeland. The cenotaphs in his tomb show that the fourth from the entrance belongs to his son, es-Seyyid Müderris Hâfız Mehmed Efendi, and the second to his grandson, İsmail İzzeddin Efendi. Since his deputy İbrahim Zühdî Efendi was also his son-in-law, he evidently had a daughter as well.

The Migration from the Crimea to Amasya

Hicâbî's departure from the Crimea falls within a great upheaval that shook the Ottoman world north of the Black Sea. During the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768-1774 Russian armies entered the Crimea; the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774 severed the khanate from its allegiance to Istanbul, and in 1783 Russia annexed it. Many Crimean families crossed into Anatolia in these years. The sources that draw on Bursalı Mehmed Tahir state that Abdülbâkî migrated to Amasya in 1774, following the Russian occupation of the Crimea. Local accounts give other dates: some writings on the tomb give 1777-78, and the text published by the Ziyaret municipality says that he came to Amasya in 1198 (1783-84). This last date is striking because it coincides with the year of the annexation, but which of these is correct has not been established from documents. Nothing at all is known of the route he took or the places where he stopped on the way.

Studies in Amasya and Initiation under Sheikh Mustafa of Turhal

After settling in Amasya, Abdülbâkî completed his training in the exoteric sciences there. His teacher was Ürgüplü Hacı Ahmed Efendi, one of the well-known scholars of Amasya at the time. From Âkifzâde Abdürrahim's work on the scholars of Amasya we learn that Ürgüplü Ahmed Efendi taught his students the weighty books of the madrasa curriculum, such as the Sahîh of Bukhari, the Qur'an commentary of Baydawi, Taşköprizâde's Şerh-i Fevâid-i Gıyâsiyye, the Dürer and the Mutavvel, and granted those who finished them licences (icazet) in Qur'anic exegesis, hadith, legal theory and substantive law. That Hicâbî received a licence from this teacher shows that, before he entered a Sufi order, he had been trained as a scholar in the madrasa tradition. A tradition told in Ziyaret adds that for a time he served as a molla at the Büyükağa Madrasa.

Having received his licence, Abdülbâkî was initiated by Sheikh Mustafa Efendi of Turhal, known as the Sheikh of Turhal, who belonged to the Mujaddidi branch of the Naqshbandi order. Uyar stresses that Hicâbî never names his order in his own writings, and that his Mujaddidi identity is known through his sheikh. Having completed his spiritual training under this master, Abdülbâkî succeeded him after his death and began his work of spiritual guidance in the town of Ziyaret near Amasya. Popular tradition adorns this succession too with a legend, to which we shall return below. Among Hicâbî's deputies was Şehir Kethüdâsızâde es-Seyyid eş-Şeyh Mehmed Ârif Efendi. According to Hüseyin Hüsameddin, Mehmed Ârif Efendi built a dervish lodge in 1238 beside his house in a cul-de-sac east of the Acem Ali spring in the Acem Ali quarter of Amasya; after him his sons Ahmed Kâmil Efendi, Yûsuf Ziyâeddin Efendi (from 1299) and Mehmed Bahâeddin Efendi (from 1312) served as its sheikhs. The Naqshbandi line that Hicâbî opened thus continued for a century in the city centre as well as in Ziyaret.

The Town of Ziyaret and the Keçioğlu Mosque

Ziyaret, where Hicâbî spent his life, is an old settlement west of Amasya, overlooking the city and the Yeşilırmak valley and famed for its vineyards and orchards. In Ottoman records and in local speech its name long appeared as Ziyâre or Ziyere. Hüseyin Hüsameddin writes that the settlement's ancient name was "Zemendû" or "Semendû" and that it is not known who gave it the name Ziyâre. He suggests that it may have been called Ziyâre because the Seljuk sultan Mesud often visited it in spring and stayed in a pavilion there, and he rejects as undocumented Vâzıh Efendi's explanation linking the name to a monastery. The text published by the Ziyaret municipality, on the other hand, says that the town, once called Ziyere, took the name Ziyaret ("visitation") from becoming a place of pilgrimage on account of Hicâbî Efendi's tomb. The two explanations do not entirely exclude each other, but Hüsameddin's account makes it clear that the name Ziyâre was in use long before Hicâbî.

The mosque whose restoration Hicâbî promoted is likewise bound up with the town's long past. According to Hüsameddin, Hoca Muhibbeddin Mevdûd-ı Ziyârî, one of the Seljuk emirs, built here around 680 (1281) a mosque with stone foundations, red-brick walls and minaret and a timber roof, together with two bathhouses and a pond enclosed by a thick wall to protect it from floods. Prince Bayezid, later Bayezid II, while governor of Amasya around 870 (1465-66), built the lower pond and took the vineyards below it as a royal garden; these gardens remained under the administration of the steward of the palace gardeners until 1143 (1730-31). After the Hoca Mevdûd Mosque had been damaged by earthquakes and other calamities, it was rebuilt around 970 (1562-63) by Keçioğlu el-Hâc Ali Çelebi, who also reorganised its endowments, and from then on it was known both popularly and in official records as the Keçioğlu Mosque. Beside it stood an old bathhouse, a zaviye and a primary school. Ziyâre then consisted of two quarters, the Lower Quarter and the Upper Quarter, and the Keçioğlu Mosque and the buildings around it stood in the Lower Quarter.

The Hicâbî Lodge and Madrasa

Once settled in Ziyaret, Hicâbî's first undertaking was a work of building. He took the lead in restoring the Keçioğlu Mosque, which had fallen almost into ruin, and from then on the mosque came to be known as the Hicâbî Baba Mosque. In 1212 (1797) he founded his dervish lodge adjoining it. Hüsameddin lists this building among the lodges as the "Hicâbî Tekkesi" and introduces its founder as "the Crimean es-Seyyid eş-Şeyh Abdülbâkî Hicâbî Efendi, of the deputies of the Naqshbandiyya". The founder himself was the lodge's first sheikh. After his death his deputy and son-in-law es-Seyyid eş-Şeyh İbrahim Zühdî Efendi took his place, and when İbrahim Zühdî Efendi died in turn the lodge was converted into a school and lost its character as a tekke. The sources also name eş-Şeyh el-Hâc Dağıstânî Yâsin Efendi as a second deputy of Hicâbî.

There is one more building that the written sources do not mention but whose memory lives on in the town. During his research in Ziyaret, Mehmet Uyar saw for himself that near the lodge stood a madrasa where Hicâbî had taught, now used as a storehouse, and he confirmed this from the oral testimony of the townspeople. Hicâbî spent the rest of his life within this triangle of mosque, lodge and madrasa. His tenure as sheikh did more than carry on the path he had received from Mustafa Efendi of Turhal; it gave the religious life of the town a centre.

His Death and Tomb

According to Bursalı Mehmed Tahir, Hicâbî Abdülbâkî Efendi died in Ziyaret in 1238 (1822-23). Osman Fevzi Olcay gives the year 1231 (1815-16). The general view among researchers favours 1822. He was buried in the tomb adjoining the Hicâbî Baba Mosque, whose restoration he had promoted. According to the Ziyaret municipality's text, four men are buried in the tomb with him, and a woman was later interred there as well; visitors likewise report five cenotaphs inside, one of them a woman's. The domed tomb, rectangular in plan, measures about 8.5 by 6.10 metres. It was restored in 1974 and registered as a listed monument in 1991. Two banners believed to have belonged to Hicâbî Baba are kept in the tomb.

A long ghazal written for Gül Baba by Mustafa Sabri Efendi of Amasya, a poet and calligrapher who wrote under the pen name Türâbî, is an old witness to the affection in which he was held. Two couplets of this poem, published in Olcay's Amasya Ünlüleri (Notable People of Amasya), express plainly the place the tomb held in popular eyes: "Visit but once, and God will grant your wish; / beware of failing in reverence, for this is the station of the saints" and "Seek the divine secret in the letters of the clear verses; / this is Hicâbî Gül Baba of the Naqshbandi path". In the final couplet the poet names himself and closes the poem as though it were a legend in which he had read and written down Hicâbî's secret.

His Works

Four works by Hicâbî survive today, all of them in the Hasan Paşa Manuscript Library in Çorum. The Risâle-i Zübdetü'l-İslâm is a Turkish treatise of 35 folios; it deals mainly with faith, its conditions, its kinds and its preservation, and offers explanations of the creation of the universe and of the realms of melekût, ceberût and mülk. The opening of this treatise is also the only place where the name Hicâbî Abdülbâkî appears. The Risâle-i Hicâbî is a short text of three folios; it sets out, in a heavier, more ornate and intricate language, the doctrine that God is the sole absolute agent. In the Arabic Risâle fi't-Takvâ he divides piety into three degrees, abstaining from the forbidden, from the doubtful and from the merely permissible, and closes the work with a prayer; the catalogue card of the work mentions a letter Hicâbî wrote to one Mahmud Efendi, but this letter has not been found. The el-Ebkiretü'l-Mü'telife fî Şerhi Emsileti'l-Muhtelife, also in Arabic, is a commentary written in a literary style on the Emsile-i Muhtelife, a morphology textbook taught in the madrasas; here Hicâbî also speaks, where the occasion arises, of the merits of worship, the value of spending the night in prayer and the tarawih prayer.

Bursalı Mehmed Tahir lists eight works by Hicâbî: el-Ebkiretü'l-Mü'telife, Bâde-i Kevser, Hediyye-i Hilâl, Înâs ve'l-İstînâs, Nükât-ı Tevhîdiyye, Bâde-i Fakr ve Fenâ, Îkâzü'n-Nâim and Ta'rîfü'l-İnsân. Of these only the first survives. Bursalı's description of them as "unpublished works" suggests that they may have been lost because they were never printed. The other three surviving treatises, meanwhile, match none of the titles in Bursalı's list. Leaving aside the possibility of changed titles, Hicâbî may be said to have written eleven works in all. A literary taste, an orderly train of thought and a forceful style are immediately apparent in his writings. Because his fame remained local, however, it does not seem possible to point to any writer or region that came under his influence.

His Thought: Faith, Worship and Sufism

Mehmet Uyar sees Hicâbî as a representative of what he calls "middle-way Sufism". By this he means a form of spiritual guidance aimed less at theoretical debate than at reforming the everyday life of ordinary people, one that holds the sharia and the inner truth together and presents Sufism as a path that everyone can follow according to their capacity. Hicâbî hardly ever uses the word "Sufism" in his writings, yet his texts as a whole describe how a Sufi life is to be built. He stands firmly within Sunni orthodoxy and names the Hanafi school as the one to be preferred. For him faith does not stand still; it advances. At the lowest step are "false imitation", which repeats the profession of faith without knowing its meaning, and "sound imitation", which at least accepts that those who utter it intend something by it. Above these is reasoned faith, which reaches a Creator by contemplating the order of the universe. At the summit is experiential faith, which cannot be described and can only be tasted.

In speaking of worship Hicâbî turns to comparisons ordinary people could easily grasp. The medicine a physician gives is bitter, but its bitterness is not meant to torment the patient; it is there for his cure, and the patient, knowing this by reason, drinks it even against his will. The commands of the Prophet are the same. If a person understands that the Prophet wishes to pull his community back from hellfire, he will cling to acts of worship that weigh on his lower self, break his "sweet sleep" to rise for the night prayer, and only then become "a believer in truth". Hicâbî distinguishes this love from "natural love", which arises of itself as one loves one's mother or brother, and calls it "rational love", weighed and measured by the intellect.

The example he chose to explain God's absolute agency is drawn from the urban life of his day. In the Karagöz shadow play, the figure that seems to speak on the screen is not the one who actually speaks; the spectator does not see the puppeteer behind the screen, yet knows that Karagöz does not speak by himself. For Hicâbî the world is just such a screen, and behind every visible act there is one true agent. In the Risâle-i Hicâbî he puts the idea this way: to say "Zeyd did this in the east, Amr did that in the west, the angels made such remembrance on the Throne, the flies had such thoughts on the earth" is hidden polytheism, because it ascribes the act to the creature. Man he likens to "a great city" inhabited by three dwellers: the spirit that comes from God and serves knowledge and gnosis; the animal spirit, whose throne is in the heart; and the appetitive spirit, which dwells in the liver and thinks of nothing but the upkeep of the body. This last is what is called the commanding self, nefs-i emmâre. He who knows himself, he says, knows his Lord; he who knows himself to be created knows his Lord as Creator, and he who knows himself to be mortal knows his Lord as everlasting.

The counsel he gives to seekers follows the same practical line. First one must learn the essential knowledge of faith, what he calls "the knowledge of religion", for one who does not know it cannot even be judged a Muslim. Then one must use one's reason, contemplating the order of the world and seeking proofs for faith. Falling into heedlessness is inevitable, yet it is precisely there that God's mercy is most fully manifested. Above all stands remembrance: for Hicâbî, remembering God is a perpetual obligation that can never be made up later, and every breath spent in remembrance is worth a thousand years.

Legends and the Story of the Name Hicâbî

The legends told about Hicâbî among the people show how he is remembered in the region. The best known explains the origin of his pen name. According to the story, Abdülbâkî set out several times to become a disciple of the sheikh at Ziyere, but each time he reached the place called Gülbaşı he could go no further for shame and turned back. The sheikh came to know of this by inspiration and sent his disciples, saying, "There is a molla named Hicâbî at Gülbaşı; bring him here." Abdülbâkî was taken into the lodge and soon became the sheikh's favourite pupil. When the other disciples grew jealous of this affection, the sheikh gathered them all and asked each of them to bring him a bunch of flowers gathered in the hills without being seen by anyone. The disciples returned with armfuls of flowers, and the sheikh's room turned into a garden. Abdülbâkî came back much later, weeping and empty-handed. When the sheikh asked why he had brought no flowers, he answered: "My master, the flowers were all making remembrance of God's name; I could not bring myself to pick them. And did you not tell us to gather them where no one would see? I bent down and saw that God was watching me." The sheikh turned to the other disciples, told them that this was why he loved him more, and later remarked, "This pupil of mine is truly hicâbî." In Ottoman Turkish hicâb means modesty or bashfulness, and the pen name is said to derive from this episode. Uyar quotes this legend from Mustafa Güler's Amasya Efsaneleri (Legends of Amasya).

A second legend concerns the death of the sheikh. When Sheikh Mustafa Efendi of Turhal fell ill, the disciples began to argue over who would succeed him. The sheikh left a testament: "When I die, let whoever lifts my turban from the ground be sheikh." After his death the disciples tried in turn to lift the turban, but it would not move. Abdülbâkî, who was occupied with the burial, would not even make the attempt, saying, "Once my sheikh is dead I need no sheikhdom." Only when unrest broke out in the lodge and the order was in danger of breaking up did he approach the turban, take it up with one hand, place it on his head and succeed his master. According to other stories told in the town, the two banners in the tomb vanish in time of war and return when the war is over, bearing traces of blood and swords. It is also said that a ewer belonging to Hicâbî Baba, which the imam of the mosque fills every day, is found empty each morning. Villagers setting out early for the fields are said to have seen Hicâbî, described as tall and imposing, performing his ablutions at the fountain. All these tales belong to popular belief and are recounted as such.

On the Name Gül Baba

Hicâbî's popular name, Gül Baba, lends itself to confusion with other saints of the Ottoman world who bore the same epithet. The best known of them is the Gül Baba famous for his tomb in Budapest. According to what Evliya Çelebi relates on his father's authority, this Bektashi dervish was born in Merzifon, took part in many campaigns from the reign of Mehmed II (the Conqueror) to that of Süleyman the Magnificent and fell in 1541 during the Buda campaign. The Gül Baba Tomb in the Tomtom quarter of Istanbul belongs to yet another figure, associated in tradition with the founding of Galatasaray. The Gül Baba of Ziyaret is a different person from both: a Naqshbandi sheikh of Crimean origin who lived in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The Tomb's Visitors Today

The Hicâbî Baba Tomb stands in the centre of Ziyaret beside the mosque that bears his name, and it is still frequently visited. The townspeople come to the tomb to recite the Qur'an for Hicâbî's soul. In the region he is believed to bring healing to spiritual ailments; besides those who come with every kind of wish, people suffering from mental distress are brought to the tomb. Those from the town who are about to go on the hajj visit the tomb together before setting out, recite prayers and pass beneath the banner kept inside. Uyar writes that although Hicâbî's work remained local, it had a beneficial effect on his surroundings and that this effect continues today. The very closeness of the tomb to the town's identity is also why the name Ziyaret has come to be linked with Hicâbî.

The Tomb of Halkalı Evliya

Back in the city centre, at the edge of the Çeribaşı quarter where it borders the Şehreküstü quarter, a small tomb stands in a secluded corner. Hüseyin Hüsameddin describes it as the "Halkalı Dede Türbesi"; today it is better known as Halkalı Evliya, "the Saint with the Rings". The tomb is square in plan and covered by a conical dome resting on four stone piers. Open on every side except the south, it is an example of the canopy type of tomb known as a baldachin. It has a garden on three sides and the road on the south, and is enclosed by a wall. The building is thought to date from the fifteenth century, though its builder is unknown. In its centre stands a marble cenotaph.

The Lady in the Tomb: Sâru Hatun and Şahruz Hatun

There are two different accounts of who is buried in the tomb. Hüseyin Hüsameddin reports what was inscribed on the headstone and on a stone set into the qibla wall: here lies Sâru Hatun, daughter of Şâdî Bey, one of the descendants of Şadgeldi Paşa, emir of Amasya. Most local writings on the tomb follow this account. The description published by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the inventory of historic monuments in Amasya, however, state that the tomb holds Şahruz Hatun, daughter of the army chief (Reisü'l-asker) Burak Bey, a descendant of Şadgeldi Paşa, and give the year of her death as 1475. Both accounts link the family to the same lineage but differ in the names of father and daughter. Hüsameddin evidently read the inscription himself, whereas the document on which the Şahruz Hatun attribution rests has not been made known. As it is also unknown whether the inscription survives today, no firm choice can be made between the two names.

A popular interpretation of the name Sâru circulates among the people. The word means "yellow"; some connect it with the lady's pale, sallow complexion, others with the yellowed appearance of the body described below. Since the name is written in the inscription, however, the second explanation is clearly a later folk interpretation. Hacı Şadgeldi, to whom her lineage is traced, was an emir who governed Amasya in the second half of the fourteenth century. The second eldest son of Hacı Kutlu Şah, Şadgeldi became emir of Amasya in 1359; at first loyal to Eretna Bey, he began to act independently after Eretna's death. He was defeated in his struggle with Kadı Burhaneddin, who had proclaimed his sovereignty in Sivas, and was killed in the autumn of 1381. Hüsameddin notes that Şadgeldi lies in an old tomb within the Halifet Gazi cemetery, but that this tomb was built long before his time. The lady buried in Halkalı Evliya was the daughter of one of this emir's descendants and must therefore have lived in the fifteenth century.

The Crypt and the Tradition of the Incorrupt Body

According to Hüsameddin, beneath the cenotaph lies a crypt as large as the whole floor of the tomb. In the middle of the crypt, in an open coffin, the body lies undecayed, wrapped in a slightly yellowed shroud. Hüsameddin records this as something that could be seen in his own day, and his description passed unchanged into later compilations on the saints. The mouth of the crypt is closed by two dark, almost black, rectangular stones facing each other to the north of the cenotaph. Each stone has two iron rings on its edge. When necessary the stones are lifted by these rings and the crypt can be entered. A writer who grew up in the neighbourhood recalls that, although he and his friends sat in the tomb for years, they never knew these stones covered a crypt and thought they were fixed to the floor. The Ministry's description, for its part, speaks of these stones as having been there "formerly"; whether they are still in place today is not clear.

The Rings and the Belief about Children Learning to Walk

It is these iron rings that gave the tomb its name. Hüsameddin writes that a firm belief had taken root that if the feet of children who could not walk were placed in these rings on Saturdays for three weeks, they would walk by God's leave, and that it was the women who, on account of the rings, gave Sâru Hatun the name "Halkalı Dede". The practice evidently continued until recent times. The writer who grew up beside the tomb recalls how, in the summer heat, the neighbourhood children would gather in the open tomb to read comic books, and how, whenever mothers and grandmothers came with children who had not yet walked, they would go out into the garden and wait until they had left. He adds that in later years those who put children's feet through the rings began to leave money there. In the neighbourhood it was said that Sâru Hatun, the woman saint, loved children.

Necdet Kurt's survey of tomb beliefs around Amasya and Tokat describes the present form of the practice in detail. Children who have reached walking age but cannot walk are brought to the tomb, especially on Saturdays, and prayers are recited. To the accompaniment of prayers the child's feet are put through the ring and taken out three times. According to those who tell of it, most of the children brought here begin to walk within a week. When the child walks, a sacrificial animal is brought to the tomb and slaughtered, and the meat, cooked on the spot, is sometimes eaten amid dancing to drum and shawm. Some of the tombs of Amasya are known to be called by names reflecting the help they are believed to give, such as "the saint of jaundice". Within this tradition Halkalı Evliya has turned the daughter of a half-forgotten noble family into a place of pilgrimage identified with children's first steps.

Two Tombs, Two Kinds of Memory

The memories of Hicâbî Baba and Halkalı Evliya have survived by very different paths. Hicâbî's name has found a secure place in historical writing thanks to his four treatises, Bursalı's list, Hüsameddin's record of his lodge and the lodges founded by his deputies; the legends have been woven around this documented life. With Halkalı Evliya the situation is reversed. Beyond the few words of the inscription nothing is known of the life of the lady buried in the tomb, and even her name is disputed; what has kept her alive is the faith of the mothers who have come to the tomb for centuries. That a learned dervish from the Crimea and a lady descended from an emir of Amasya stand side by side on the spiritual map of the same city shows that Amasya's tradition of saints has drawn on two sources: the culture of the madrasa and the dervish lodge, and the everyday cares of ordinary people.

Chronology

c. 680 (1281): Hoca Muhibbeddin Mevdûd-ı Ziyârî builds the mosque in Ziyâre that will later be called the Keçioğlu and then the Hicâbî Baba Mosque.

1359: Hacı Şadgeldi becomes emir of Amasya.

1381: Şadgeldi is defeated and killed in his struggle with Kadı Burhaneddin.

c. 870 (1465-66): Prince Bayezid, governor of Amasya, builds the lower pond at Ziyâre and takes the vineyards as a royal garden.

1475: According to one record, the year of death of Şahruz Hatun, buried in the Halkalı Evliya Tomb.

c. 970 (1562-63): Keçioğlu el-Hâc Ali Çelebi rebuilds the Hoca Mevdûd Mosque, which becomes known as the Keçioğlu Mosque. In the same year Hicâbî's ancestor Dede Cengî dies.

1774: According to Bursalı Mehmed Tahir, Abdülbâkî migrates from Bahçesaray to Amasya following the Russian occupation of the Crimea. Local accounts also give the dates 1777-78 and 1198 (1783-84).

1212 (1797): Hicâbî founds his lodge adjoining the Keçioğlu Mosque at Ziyâre and has the mosque restored.

1231 (1815-16): The date of death given by Osman Fevzi Olcay.

1238 (1822-23): According to Bursalı, Hicâbî Abdülbâkî Efendi dies in Ziyaret and is buried in the tomb beside the mosque. In the same year his deputy Şehir Kethüdâsızâde Mehmed Ârif Efendi builds a lodge in the Acem Ali quarter.

1974: The Hicâbî Baba Tomb is restored.

1991: The Hicâbî Baba Tomb is registered as a listed monument.

Bibliography

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