Hızır Sersem Baba is a dervish remembered as the guide of Kul Hüseyin, the minstrel of Keçiköy, and counted among the "elders" of the Merzifon area. The list counting the âşıks of Gaziler Ovacığı also includes him, as "Hızır Sersem". Almost everything known about him comes from the accounts of Kul Hüseyin's life; no poem of his own has been found. The sources say different things as to whether he was a real person or Hızır personified in the legend of Kul Hüseyin's entry into the path; this page reports separately what each source says.

Hızır Sersem Baba in the Sources

According to a collection based on Ali Cem Akbulut's 2010 book Gazilerovacığı Âşıkları, Kul Hüseyin left his village at an early age and, while working as a shepherd in the Merzifon and Gümüşhacıköy areas, met Hızır Sersem Baba, one of the well-known elders of the region, attached himself to him and settled in the village of Keçiköy in Gümüşhacıköy. Necdet Kurt's paper, published in 2017, gives this information in more detail: in the period when he was a shepherd around the village of Yakup in Merzifon, Kul Hüseyin met Hızır Sersem Baba, also called Sefil Sersem by the other name Kurt gives in brackets, stayed with him for a time and received his spiritual training, regarded him as his "uztaz", his master and elder, "took hand" from him, as the people say, and never left his devotion until his death. According to Kurt there are various accounts about the two of them; by one of them, Sersem Baba died immediately after Kul Hüseyin attached himself to him.

Caner Işık's research of 2013, however, draws a different picture. According to Işık, it is said that rather than being trained directly by a guide, Kul Hüseyin was guided by Hızır while tending his flock. No trace of this guide, who has been turned into a person under the name Hızır Sersem Baba, is found in oral tradition outside his relation with Kul Hüseyin; for this reason it is also told in oral tradition that the person in question was in fact Hızır. Işık adds that it is also possible that Kul Hüseyin, in Gaziler Ovacığı, where there was a heavy migration of Bektashi dervishes, met one of the wandering dervish types called "meczup" or "budala" and was trained by him. It is told locally that Kul Hüseyin saw Hızır and for that reason lost his reason for a short while, wandered for a long time saying "I saw, but I will not tell", and then grew calm and became a friend of God.

In the same place Işık notes in a footnote that the 1997 book Dünden Bugüne Gümüşhacıköy by Ahmet Ankaralı, Sedat Cin and Galip Tuncay speaks of a Sersem Hızır Baba whose tomb is in the village of Karatepe in Merzifon. This is the only record tying Hızır Sersem Baba to a concrete place and grave; the book itself has not been available to us.

His Connection with Amasya and His Place among the Minstrels

All the accounts place Hızır Sersem Baba in the Merzifon area: Kul Hüseyin met him in the years he was a shepherd around Merzifon, and the tomb mentioned is in the village of Karatepe in Merzifon. The name "Hızır Sersem" is also found in the list of the most celebrated âşıks of Amasya that Şerife Özer and Mustafa Topal in 2021 and Fatih Çelebi in 2026 took from the book of Ankaralı, Cin and Tuncay; the same list is given in our article The minstrel tradition in Amasya. That his name appears in the list suggests that he too was remembered as an âşık who sang deyiş, but no deyiş of his has been collected. "Sersem Köle", named among the âşıks trained by Kul Fakir, is a different person and should not be confused with Hızır Sersem Baba.

His Poetry

No poems of Hızır Sersem Baba have been found. None of the sources we examined quotes a deyiş, quatrain or line of his. The only trace we have for knowing him is the deyiş of his disciple Kul Hüseyin and the accounts collected about his life; for the category of Kul Hüseyin: Kul Hüseyin.

The State of the Sources

There is no information at all about the years in which Hızır Sersem Baba lived, his real name, his family or his death. If it is accepted that Kul Hüseyin was born between 1795 and 1800 and attached himself to him in his youth, Hızır Sersem Baba must have lived in the first half of the nineteenth century; this is our inference. The main divergence between the sources lies in his identity: in the accounts based on Akbulut and Kurt he is a known elder of the region, while in the oral tradition collected by Işık he is Hızır personified or the memory of a wandering dervish whose name is unknown. The information about the tomb in the village of Karatepe is a clue that might reconcile these two views, but we have not found a record documenting to whom the tomb belongs.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Books

  • Ali Cem Akbulut, Gazilerovacığı Âşıkları, İstanbul: KaraMavi Yayınları, 2010; as reported in "Kul Hüseyin", Alevi Deyişleri Nefesler Hakk Âşıkları, 21 August 2019. https://www.deyisler-nefesler.com/kul-huseyin/
  • Fatih Çelebi, "Âşıklık Geleneğinin Temsilcilerinden Kul Fakir'in Eserlerinde 'Dost' Kavramı", Evrim Çağlayan (ed.), Kültür ve Güzel Sanatlar, Karabük: Karabük University Press, 2026, pp. 4-5. https://kutuphane.karabuk.edu.tr/yuklenen/dosyalar/1263062026150047.pdf
  • Ahmet Ankaralı, Sedat Cin, Galip Tuncay, Dünden Bugüne Gümüşhacıköy, Gümüşhacıköy, 1997, p. 204 (as cited in Işık 2013).

Online sources