Among the folk tales of Amasya, the story of two brothers holds a place of its own: İğneci Baba and Serçoban. One was a shoemaker who worked leather with his needle in a small shop in the Kocacık Bazaar, the other a shepherd who spent his life behind his flock at Karasenir, to the west of the city. The legend draws from the meeting of these two men one of the best-loved lessons of Sufism, teaching that a miracle is to be sought in keeping the heart pure among people, amid the trials of everyday life. Handed down from generation to generation, the story has become one of the best known of the city's saint legends. Behind these two names, however, stand two distinct historical figures whom folk narrative made into brothers: a scholar who came from Tabriz in the Mongol era and withdrew to Karasenir, and a Halveti sheikh who lived in Amasya in the fifteenth century.

Amasya is a city known for the multitude of its saints. It is widely said among local people that nearly a hundred saints lie buried in the city, that it has ninety-nine saints, and that were it to have one more, it would produce a prophet. Alongside names such as Kurtboğan, Pir İlyas, Seydi Halife, Bahşi Halife, Hicabi Baba and Selamet Hatun, İğneci Baba and Serçoban are counted among the first names that come to mind in this spiritual geography. Some of the tombs have, over time, ended up in the middle of the city, while others live on at the edges of the countryside, on hilltops, intertwined with picnic grounds. İğneci Baba's tomb is the best-known example of the first kind, Serçoban's of the second.

How the Legend Is Told

According to the tradition, Serçoban settled in the village of Karasenir, attached to the city centre, and was a man who lived by shepherding and was known for the simplicity of his manner and of his worship. His elder brother İğneci Baba earned his living in Amasya as a shoemaker, or, according to some versions, as a cobbler who mended shoes. The two brothers lived far apart, yet the bond between them had not been broken. One day Serçoban decides to visit his brother and takes a gift with him: he ties up the milk he has drawn from his sheep in a handkerchief and brings it along. His intention is not merely to bring a present. He wishes to show that not a single drop of the milk placed in the handkerchief seeps out, and so to tell his brother, through a sign, how far his heart has been cleansed of worldly impurity. In some forms told among the people the gift appears as cheese made from milk, but nearly all the written collections speak of milk tied up in a handkerchief.

On entering the shoemaker's shop, Serçoban hangs the handkerchief on a nail in the wall. At that moment İğneci Baba is taking the foot measurements of a female customer. Serçoban's eye falls on the woman's heels, in some versions on her ankle, and for an instant he thinks to himself, "how beautiful." At that very moment the milk begins to drip, slowly, from the handkerchief hanging on the nail. In one of the collections the customer is described as a young girl, in the others simply as a woman, but the course of events is the same in every telling. İğneci Baba at once senses this hairline crack in his brother's intention, yet he shows nothing in front of the customer, avoids embarrassing his brother and waits to finish his work.

When the woman has given her measurements and left the shop, İğneci Baba turns to his brother, who is ashamed of what has happened, and speaks the words that form the heart of the legend: "The miracle is not in attaining sainthood on a mountaintop; the miracle is here, in not letting the milk in the bundle drip." The written forms of the saying differ slightly. In some versions the sentence runs "The miracle is not seen on the mountaintop; the true miracle is here," in others the milk drips from a cloth or from a handkerchief. Common to all is the setting side by side of two different lives: an inner purity easily preserved in the solitude of the mountain, and an inner purity that must be preserved every day in the crowd of the bazaar, amid all manner of glances and calculations.

The Meaning of the Miracle

Unlike many saint stories in Anatolia, the legend is concerned less with displaying a miracle than with not displaying one. The milk Serçoban brings has been prepared as a kind of proof, and the moment it begins to drip, it becomes clear that the proof itself was a test. The dervish who tended his flock on the mountain and kept away from people had believed himself mature in a setting where he had never been tested, and he faltered at the first small trial within the city. His brother's answer is less a rebuke than a teaching. İğneci Baba does not humiliate his brother in front of the customer; he gives his warning only when they are alone, and calls him to stop thinking of the miracle as something distant and extraordinary and to see it instead as a matter of watching over the self at every moment.

One reason the story is so loved in Amasya is that its hero is a tradesman. In the legend İğneci Baba is not portrayed as a sheikh withdrawn into his lodge; he is a shoemaker who earns his living by the labour of his hands. The Amasya writer İsa Çolaker, who has written on the legend, interprets the story in this light, as an example of a dervish working among the people and of the ethic of the craftsman befitting him. Keeping the heart pure in the middle of the bazaar, amid buying and selling, bargaining and the crowd, is counsel that touches everyone who lives an urban life. It is meaningful for the same reason that folk narrative places the elder of the two brothers in the city and the younger on the mountain. Maturity is presented as a rank attained by remaining within the world and enduring its trials.

It should also be noted that the same legend is not unique to Amasya. Abdülhalim Durma, who has worked on the saints of Amasya, records that exactly the same story is told about Piri Baba, buried in Merzifon, and his brother Çoban Baba. This pattern, in which one brother lives in the town and the other in the countryside and the townsman teaches the countryman a lesson, appears to be a wandering narrative in the Anatolian legend tradition, living on in different places under different names. In Amasya the pattern became attached to two of the city's well-known places of pilgrimage, the tomb in the bazaar and the hill at Karasenir, and so turned into a story linking two distant points on the city's spiritual map.

Serçoban's Kid and His Other Legends

The legends told of Serçoban himself follow the same line of compassion and simplicity. The best known is the story of the runaway kid. One day, while Serçoban is grazing his flock on the mountain, a young goat breaks away from the herd. He goes after it, the kid runs, he chases, and the chase goes on for a long time. Utterly exhausted, Serçoban says in anger, "When I catch you, I will slaughter you." At last he catches the kid and, just as he is about to slaughter it to keep his word, he meets the animal's sorrowful, pleading gaze. His heart softens, and saying "You have worn me out too, blessed one," he lets the kid go. In some earlier renderings of the story the words appear as "You have tired me out as well, may you be blessed."

Another form of the same legend is built around hospitality. Guests are coming to Serçoban, and to receive them properly he wants to slaughter a sheep. The sheep he has picked out flees from him into every corner. Seeing this, the villagers think Serçoban will be very angry, but when he catches the sheep he says, "I have worn you out, blessed one; come, let me kiss you on the eyes." When he takes the sheep to a secluded spot to slaughter it, a crowd of wild animals surrounds him and asks him to slaughter one of them instead. Thereupon Serçoban chooses a roe deer from among them and slaughters it. This form of the story sketches a world in which the mercy shown to a domestic animal is recognised even by the wild creatures of the mountain.

The people of the area also tell shorter legends about Serçoban. According to one of them, if a sheep from his flock strayed into someone else's garden and touched its crops or grass, Serçoban would not drink that animal's milk for three days but would give it to the villagers free of charge. According to another legend, he fed a commander passing through the region and thousands of his soldiers with a mere handful of food, and so once again displayed his miraculous power. These short tales portray Serçoban as a folk saint who scrupulously avoided unlawful food, fed his guests with abundance, and approached animals and people with the same tenderness.

The story of the kid recalls the legend of Koyun Baba in Osmancık, a district of Çorum not far from Amasya. As told in Osmancık, Koyun Baba is tending sheep on the slopes of Adatepe when a sheep runs away from the flock. He runs after it but cannot catch it. The sheep in front and the Baba behind, they circle Adatepe nine times, until both are exhausted. The Baba then says, "O blessed one, I am tired, but you have granted me the patience of Job," embraces the sheep and kisses it on the eyes. The resemblance between the two narratives shows that shepherd saints in the inland parts of the Central Black Sea region shared a common repertoire of legends.

The Flock That Turned into Trees

Serçoban's best-known legend concerns his death. According to the tradition, when Serçoban died, every animal in his flock turned into a tree, and a great forest sprang up around his grave. Some versions say that the sheep became trees and lined up around the tomb. The place where the grave lies is called by his name and visited as a site for votive offerings and as a picnic ground. The people of the area believe that cutting down the trees there will bring them harm and ill fortune, and no tree is felled around the tomb. In this way a legend became a prohibition that has kept a grove standing for generations, and popular belief merged with a tradition that protects nature.

Local testimonies show how this belief has been carried down to the present. People of Amasya who recall visiting Serçoban with their families in childhood remember the place as both a shrine and a broad picnic area, and relate that the story of how cutting the trees brings trouble upon a person passed from mouth to mouth. Today the hill is still known in Amasya above all as the Serçoban Recreation Area, and it is one of the places where the people of the city gather on holidays and days off.

The Historical Serçoban: İbrahim Tebrizi

Behind Serçoban, known to folk narrative as a shepherd, stands a figure whom the sources describe as a man of learning. Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, author of the most comprehensive local history of Amasya, records him under the name Ebû İshâk İbrâhim Tebrîzî, Mevlânâ Bahâeddîn Ser-Çoban, and notes that he was descended from Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet. According to Hüsameddin, this scholar studied the religious and literary sciences in Tabriz under Sheikh Tâceddîn Ebû Hâmid Abdurrahman et-Tebrîzî and then, travelling from city to city, came to Amasya. His scholarly chain reaches the Quran commentator Hüseyin bin Mes'ûd el-Begavî (al-Baghawi) in three links: his teacher Ebû Hâmid Tebrîzî took his learning from his own grandfather Hoca Efdaleddîn Tebrîzî, who took it from Mevlânâ Ebu'l-Kerem el-Mervezî, who in turn took it from Begavî. Hüsameddin writes that he came across this genealogy and chain of learning by chance, on the flyleaf of a book, while he was charged with inspecting the libraries of Istanbul.

The life of İbrâhim Tebrîzî, who spread learning in Amasya for a long time and won great respect from the emirs and the people, changed during the harsh period of Mongol rule in Anatolia. According to Hüsameddin, because of the oppression of Kongurtay, who resided in Amasya as overseer of Anatolia, he withdrew to the vicinity of Karasenir, lived there in seclusion, earned his living as a shepherd and for this reason became famous as "Ser-Çoban Dede." "Ser" means head in Persian. The name therefore carries the sense of head shepherd, or the elder of the shepherds. Later, when the Ilkhanid ruler Mahmud Ghazan Khan came to the throne and embraced Islam, that is, after 1295, he again found favour, and he died during Ghazan Khan's reign. Hüsameddin describes him and his brother as "men of the ulema and of the righteous" and records that both followed the Junaydi path.

This record adds a noteworthy detail to the folk narrative. According to Hüsameddin, Ser-Çoban Dede's brother was not İğneci Baba but Seyyid Alâeddîn Ali Dede, who is buried on a hill to the east of Ser-Çoban, on the other side of the river. In other words, the motif of brotherhood exists in the historical record too, but the brother's name and place are different. Some local collections also state plainly that Serçoban was a scholar who lived about one hundred and fifty years before İğneci Baba, who is held to be his brother. Between Serçoban, who, judging by the periods of Kongurtay and Ghazan Khan, appears to have lived in the last quarter of the thirteenth century, and İğneci Baba, who died at the end of the fifteenth century, there is indeed a gap of at least a century and a half.

The Historical İğneci Baba: Sheikh Safiyüddin Mahmud

İğneci Baba, the shoemaker of the legend, likewise appears in the sources as a Halveti sheikh. His real name is İğnecizâde Sheikh Safiyüddîn Mahmûd Halvetî, and he was a deputy (halife) of Pîr Zekeriyyâ Halvetî, one of the leading sheikhs of the Halveti line in Amasya. In some studies his name is also given as Safiyüddin Mahmud (Musa). As related in Kadir Özköse's study of the Halveti dervish lodges of Amasya, the sheikh first studied under his father and the scholars of his age, then entered the path of Sheikh Zekeriyyâ Halvetî, completed his spiritual training, became his deputy and, after his death, succeeded to the leadership of his lodge. He is recorded as having died in the Hijri year 893, that is, in 1487-88.

The most striking detail in İğneci Baba's life is his relationship with Prince Bayezid. Bayezid served for many years as sanjak governor of Amasya in the reign of his father, Mehmed II (the Conqueror), and during this time he won the sheikh's trust. The prince, who showed him the greatest respect and confidence, offered the sheikh many high state offices when he came to the throne as Bayezid II in 1481, but Safiyüddin Mahmud accepted none of them, contented himself with the leadership of the lodge and lived on what he had inherited from his father. He taught Quran commentary and hadith at the Saraçhane Mosque and occupied himself with spiritual guidance and preaching. The sources describe him as a learned, ascetic man of high spiritual aspiration, endowed with miraculous gifts. The affinity between this sheikh who turned down offices of state and the hero of the legend who lived by his needle in the bazaar and saw the miracle in purity of heart rather than in display is striking.

The line to which Safiyüddin Mahmud belonged is the main artery of Halveti Sufism in Amasya. Listing the sheikhs of the Çilehane Lodge, attached to Pir İlyas's retreat, Hüsameddin gives the following order: in place of Pir İlyas came his son-in-law Gümüşlüzâde Pîr Abdurrahman Çelebi, then Pîr Şemseddîn Mehmed Buhârî, Pir İlyas's son Pîr Celâleddîn Abdurrahman Çelebi, in 843 (1439-40) the sheikh of the Saddlers, Pîr Sun'ullâh Halvetî, then Pîr Zekeriyyâ Halvetî and after him İğnecizâde Pîr Safiyyüddîn Mahmûd Halvetî. In this chain, called by the people of Amasya the "silsiletü'z-zeheb," the golden chain, İğneci Baba is followed by Kubalı Çelebizâde Pîr Muhyiddin Mehmed Çelebi. His own sheikh, Zekeriyyâ Halvetî, lies together with his master Pîr Sun'ullâh in the courtyard of the Saraçhane Mosque. Zekeriyyâ Halvetî is recorded as having endowed the farm he had inherited from his father in the village of Hakala so that portions of the Quran would be recited there.

The İğnecizâdes: An Amasya Family

Although the name "İğneci" (needle-maker) seems to point to the trade of the shoemaker in the legend, it survived in Amasya for centuries as a family name. Hüsameddin traces the lineage of this family, known as the İğnecizâdes, back to İğneci Mûsâ bin Hamza. İğneci Mûsâ Çelebi's son, Mevlânâ Şemseddîn Ahmed Çelebi, known as "İğnecioğlu," studied under scholars such as Fahreddîn İlyâs bin Aksarâyî and Şerefeddîn Mehmed bin Vecîh Erzincânî, taught at the madrasa adjoining the east side of the Saraçhane Mosque built by Hacı Şadgeldi Paşa, and died around 797 (1394-95). That Safiyüddin Mahmud, of a later generation of the same family, also taught at the Saraçhane Mosque shows the family's long-standing tie to the surroundings of this mosque.

According to the genealogy given by Hüsameddin, the family descends along this line: İğneci Mûsâ bin Hamza, Seyyidüddîn Ahmed Çelebi, Pîr Şerefeddîn Hamza Çelebi, Sheikh Seyyidüddîn Ahmed Çelebi, Pîr Safiyyüddîn Mahmûd Çelebi, Pîr Ahmed Çelebi, Abdurrahman Efendi and Mehmed Efendi. Mehmed Efendi's sons brought the family its most brilliant period in the seventeenth century. The elder son, İğnecizâde Ömer Efendi, became tutor and adviser to Sultan Osman II. With the events of 1031 (1622) that ended in the murder of Osman II his fortunes also came to an end; he went to the Hejaz and died in 1039 (1629-30). Ömer Efendi's younger son, Hocazâde Sheikh Ahmed Efendi, became a public lecturer at Hagia Sophia, was appointed preacher of Hagia Sophia in 1051 and died in 1054.

Mehmed Efendi's younger son, Hoca Ahmed Paşa, was a man who passed from the learned profession into the ranks of the emirs. From a professorship at the Atabeg Gazi Madrasa he rose in Hijri 1027 (1618) to the post of treasurer of Sivas and in 1028 to that of beylerbey (governor-general) of Karaman; with his brother's fall he was dismissed and returned to Amasya, and in the following years served as beylerbey of Batum and Trabzon. When Sultan Murad IV came to Amasya in 1045 (1635), he stayed at Ahmed Paşa's mansion, and Ahmed Paşa was given the trusteeship of the endowments of Sultan Bayezid. Hoca Ahmed Paşa was repeatedly governor of Amasya, in the Hijri years 1048, 1057, 1058 and 1068, and took part in the Cretan campaign. Hüsameddin introduces him as "one of the descendants of İğnecizâde Sheikh Safiyyüddîn Halvetî, who is buried in Amasya and whose tomb is a place of pilgrimage." Traces of the family continue into the nineteenth century, and professors and judges known by the name İğnecizâde continue to appear in the learned circles of Amasya.

The Brotherhood Tradition and History

When the historical records and the folk narrative are set side by side, it is clear that İğneci Baba and Serçoban cannot, chronologically, have been brothers by blood. Serçoban lived in the late thirteenth century, under Ilkhanid rule, while İğneci Baba died nearly two hundred years later, a few years after Bayezid II came to the throne. Moreover, Hüsameddin records Serçoban's brother under another name. One local collection introduces Serçoban directly as the brother of Sheikh Safiyüddin Mahmud who lived by shepherding, while further on the same text also records that he was a scholar who lived about one hundred and fifty years before İğneci Baba. The coexistence of these two pieces of information shows how folk narrative becomes interwoven with historical knowledge.

Brotherhood, in this case, should be understood as an expression of spiritual kinship rather than of blood ties. The popular imagination linked the city's two beloved saints, two names, one lying in the middle of the bazaar and the other on a hill outside the city, through a widespread legend pattern. Serçoban's own seclusion and shepherding fitted easily into the role of the brother in the countryside, while the needle in the name of the Halveti sheikh İğnecizâde turned him into a shoemaker. The resulting story does not relate a historical event, but it clearly reflects the place of the two men in the eyes of the people and Amasya's understanding of virtue. That the legend is also told of Piri Baba and Çoban Baba in Merzifon is a further clue supporting this reading.

The Tomb of İğneci Baba

The Tomb of İğneci Baba stands in the centre of Amasya, within the boundaries of today's Dere quarter, in the Kocacık Bazaar, opposite the Çıtak Han. Hüsameddin describes it as "a dedicated tomb within the bazaar in front of the Kocacık quarter." For a long time the tomb lived alongside a mansion next to it. The sheikh's granddaughter, Ayşe Hatun, endowed this mansion to the tomb and assigned it to the judges and the court. Thus the premises where the tomb stands were formerly used as a court, set aside as the residence of the qadis of Amasya, and its annual rent was spent on the needs of the tomb. According to Hüsameddin, in 1115 (1703-04) the court was moved from its old site beside the Burmalı Minare Mosque to this house adjoining the İğnecizâde Tomb, which was used as a courthouse. In the street behind the tomb stood the Benderli Madrasa, built in 1228 (1813) by Benderli Hacı Hafız Feyzullah Ağa.

The fate of the tomb was changed by the great fire that swept Amasya in 1893. In this fire, which corresponds to the Hijri year 1311, the tomb burned together with the endowed mansion, and a significant part of the old court registers was also reduced to ashes. After the fire the Amasya Education Commission seized this large and valuable plot, had income-producing buildings erected on it and left not a single shop for the tomb. Hüsameddin openly calls this seizure an injustice and interprets the misfortunes that later befell the members of the commission as the worldly recompense for usurping endowment property. The tomb was rebuilt after the fire, and in 1983 the building and the graves were repaired by a private individual. The present structure dates from the Republican period and bears no inscription.

The outer facade of the rectangular building, which runs north to south, is arched, and the openings between the arches are closed with iron frames and coloured glass. Below the entrance are ablution places faced with floral tiles. Inside, in the northeast corner, two cenotaphs belonging to İğneci Baba and his son stand side by side. On the south side are a fluted minbar and a mihrab faced with tiles of various colours and patterns. The lower parts of the walls are tiled from the skirting up to a height of about one metre. The minbar and mihrab suggest that, besides being a tomb, the building also served as a small masjid. The tomb is a registered structure under monumental protection.

The Tomb of Ser Çoban and the Recreation Area

The Tomb of Ser Çoban stands to the southwest of Amasya, on a hill on the west bank of the Yeşilırmak, today within the boundaries of the Karasenir quarter. According to Hüsameddin, Karasenir lies about eleven kilometres from the city and is one of two quarters counted as part of the city although they lie outside it. Its name derives from the place having been the farm of Emir Seyfeddin Kara Sungur. "Kara Sungur Çiftliği" (Kara Sungur's Farm) turned over time, in popular speech, into "Karasenir." The Kayabaşı quarter to its south forms a triangular island between the Yeşilırmak and the Çekerek River. Hüsameddin writes that between these two quarters lies a pleasant hill called "Serçoban," and that the village of Damlar on the eastern side of the hill is also counted as part of Karasenir. These village-like quarters, known for their vineyards, vegetable gardens, butter, yoghurt and cheese, also provide a fitting setting for the story of Serçoban the shepherd.

According to Hüsameddin, when Serçoban died he was buried on top of this hill between Kayabaşı and Karasenir, and for a long time his grave remained an open-air shrine. The first tomb over the grave was built of wood by the Hejaz commander Major General Hasan Paşa of Karasenir. Hüsameddin dates this construction to 1292 (1875) and notes that a cell was built together with the tomb. Other sources give the date as 1878-79. In 1980 a partial repair was carried out by the headman's office of Karasenir village, and in 1984 the tomb was thoroughly repaired by a private individual. In 2001 the Amasya Municipality renewed the tomb together with landscaping of its surroundings, and the building took on its present reinforced-concrete form.

The present tomb is a plain, single-storey, rectangular building with a pyramidal roof, covered with Marseille-type tiles. On the side walls are two rectangular windows each. As the building is also used as a masjid, it contains a mihrab and a wooden minbar. At the foot of the north wall lies a rectangular grave made of concrete, with turbans at its head and foot. In the garden of the tomb are simple hearths for cooking, wooden dining tables and old trees. This garden turns the tomb into a meeting place where the people of the city gather, sacrifice animals and cook, rather than an ordinary place of pilgrimage.

Pilgrimage and Votive Traditions

Because of its closeness to the city and the use of its surroundings as a picnic ground, Ser Çoban is one of the most visited votive sites in Amasya. The tomb is visited above all to ask for blessings. There are those who come for every kind of illness and wish. Some visitors come especially on Fridays, perform the prayer and recite the Quran. Other visitors come on any day of the week, circle the tomb seven times, offer candles and kiss the tomb in various places. The wishes of women unable to have children are made together with the tomb keeper. Offerings are usually vows of sacrifice, and outside the tomb there are places set aside for sacrifice and cooking.

This tradition has a long history. Hüsameddin records that at the beginning of the twentieth century the people of the surrounding area would gather on the hill during religious holidays, sacrifice animals, prepare food and distribute it to everyone. The belief in not cutting down the trees, the tradition of sacrifice and hospitality, and the culture of the picnic ground have mingled on the hill of Serçoban, blurring the line between legend and daily life. İğneci Baba's tomb, by contrast, sustains a quieter, more everyday tradition of visiting in the middle of the bazaar, on a corner the tradesmen pass every day. Like the two brothers of the legend, the two tombs, one in the heart of the city and the other outside it, hold the two ends of Amasya's spiritual geography.

Chronology

1295: Ghazan Khan ascends the Ilkhanid throne and embraces Islam. According to Hüsameddin, Serçoban regains favour after this date and dies during Ghazan Khan's reign.

797 (1394-95): Mevlânâ Şemseddin Ahmed Çelebi, son of İğneci Mûsâ Çelebi, dies while professor at the madrasa beside the Saraçhane Mosque.

843 (1439-40): Pîr Sun'ullâh Halvetî, sheikh of the Saddlers, succeeds to the leadership of the Çilehane Lodge. He is followed by Pîr Zekeriyyâ Halvetî and İğnecizâde Safiyüddin Mahmud.

1481: Prince Bayezid, who had come to trust İğneci Baba during his governorship of the sanjak of Amasya, ascends the throne as Bayezid II and offers the sheikh offices of state.

893 (1487-88): İğnecizâde Sheikh Safiyüddin Mahmud Halvetî dies and is buried in his tomb in the Kocacık Bazaar.

1622: İğnecizâde Ömer Efendi, tutor to Osman II, falls from favour with the sultan's murder and goes to the Hejaz.

1635: Sultan Murad IV comes to Amasya and stays at the mansion of İğnecizâde Hoca Ahmed Paşa.

1115 (1703-04): The Amasya court moves to the endowed house adjoining the İğnecizâde Tomb.

1875 / 1878-79: Major General Hasan Paşa of Karasenir has a wooden tomb built over Serçoban's grave. Hüsameddin gives the date as 1292 (1875), other sources as 1878-79.

1893: The Tomb of İğneci Baba and the endowed mansion burn in the great fire of Amasya.

1980: The Tomb of Ser Çoban is partially repaired by the headman's office of Karasenir village.

1983: The building and graves of the Tomb of İğneci Baba are repaired by a private individual.

1984: The Tomb of Ser Çoban is thoroughly repaired by a private individual.

2001: The Tomb of Ser Çoban is renewed in reinforced concrete by the Amasya Municipality, together with landscaping of its surroundings.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vols. 1-4 and 6-8 (entries on the İğnecizâde Tomb, the Karasenir and Kayabaşı quarters, the Çilehane Lodge, Ebû İshâk İbrâhim Tebrîzî and the İğnecizâde family).
  • Abdülhalim Durma, Evliyalar Şehri Amasya, Amasya 2003 (quoted in "Serçoban", amasya-abdulhalim.blogspot.com). amasya-abdulhalim.blogspot.com
  • "İğneci Baba", Evliyalar Ansiklopedisi, ehlisunnetbuyukleri.com.

Academic studies

Official sources

  • Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, Culture Portal, "İğneci Baba Efsanesi" and "Serçoban" (Culture Atlas); "İğneci Baba Türbesi" and "Ser Çoban Türbesi" (Culture Inventory).
  • Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "İğneci Baba". https://amasya.ktb.gov.tr/tr-59491/igneci-baba.html

Books

  • Rahime Özdoğan, Amasya'da Adak Yerleri ile İlgili Halk Anlatıları, 2006.

Other sources

  • Wikisource (Turkish), "İğneci Baba Efsanesi" and "Serçoban Efsanesi".
  • İsa Çolaker, "Amasya'nın Manevi Sahipleri", 30 June 2014. https://www.isacolaker.com/amasyanin-manevi-sahipleri/
  • Taylan Köken, "Ser Çoban Türbesi / Amasya, Merkez, Karasenir Mahallesi", Sosyo Denemeler, 2013.

Online sources