The Turkmen sheikh Baba İlyâs-ı Horasânî, whose name is attached to the largest popular uprising of the Anatolian Seljuk period, lived and was buried at İlyas, a village 16 kilometres from Amasya. Its old name was Çat; Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar calls the place "Çat Bükü" and writes that the sheikh's farm came in time to be known after him as "İlyâs Köyü". With a population of more than eight hundred today, İlyas is one of the larger villages of the central district, and it has taken its name from the memory of a dervish for more than seven hundred years.

From Çat to İlyas

The earliest source for the village's old name is Elvan Çelebi, Baba İlyas's grandson. As Ahmet Yaşar Ocak reports, Elvan Çelebi's Menâkıbü'l-kudsiyye, written in 760 (1358-59), relates that after coming to Anatolia the sheikh settled in the village of Çat near Amasya, opened a dervish lodge (zâviye) there, began to spread the Vefâiyye order and gathered many disciples around him. In another article Ocak places this settlement in the reign of Alâeddin Keykubad I and introduces the village as "Çat (today İlyas)". A third name appears in the account of the Amasya author Mustafa Vâzıh, who calls the village "Ellez"; Ocak glosses this name too as "formerly Çat, today İlyas". İlyas does not appear in Bekir Başalan's table of renamed settlements in the central district. The old village name was never changed by an official decision; the sheikh's name simply displaced it over the centuries.

Hüsâmeddîn Yasar refers to the sheikh's farm by a place name, "Çat Bükü", and leaves a clue to its location. According to him, Sultan Gıyâseddin Keyhusrev II crossed to Çat Bükü by way of "Cezîre-i Kubâd" in search of Baba İlyas. Yasar writes that this "island" must be Kayabaşı, lying between the Yeşilırmak and the Çekerek River, that the place resembles an island in shape and that it is very close to Çat Bükü. Kayabaşı is still a village of the central district; by Yasar's description, İlyas is a neighbour of this area where the two rivers meet.

In the published index of the 1530 accounts register, a village named "İlyâs" is recorded in the nahiye (sub-district) of Geldiklan-âbâd and is referred to page 358 of the register. No second village of this name appears in the Amasya liva. Still, the index gives only the name and the page; no document has been found that ties the entry, together with the nahiye boundaries, to present-day İlyas.

The Village of Baba İlyas

The part of Baba İlyas's life that concerns the village is told quite differently in the two main sources. In Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's account the sheikh came from the village of Mâhân near Merv in Khorasan, made Amasya his home and, after 625, became sheikh of the Mes'ûdiye lodge in the city. When his disciple Baba İshak seized Amasya in 637 and proclaimed himself a prophet, Baba İlyas withdrew to his farm "at the place called Çat". According to Yasar, once the revolt had been crushed Sultan Keyhusrev came to Çat Bükü, found the sheikh in his savma'a, his hermit's cell, and, considering that he had kept apart from Baba İshak and that his faith was known to the scholars, pardoned him and bound him to remain on his farm. About five years later, through the efforts of his son Şemseddîn Mahmûd et-Tuğrâî, he was allowed to return to Amasya, resumed his post as sheikh of the lodge in 644 and died in 657 (1258-59). Yasar knows of histories that have Keyhusrev surprising the sheikh in his cell and killing him, but he rejects this tradition, saying that old documents dated 656 in his possession show Baba İlyas still alive.

Ahmet Yaşar Ocak's encyclopaedia articles, drawing on İbn Bîbî and other contemporary sources, describe a different end. In this account Baba İlyas left the direction of the uprising he had prepared against Gıyâseddin Keyhusrev II in 637 (1240) to his deputy Baba İshak, took refuge in the citadel of Amasya, was captured there by the forces of Mübârizüddin Armağanşah and was executed. Ocak counts Hüsâmeddîn Yasar among the writers who accepted that Baba İlyas founded an order called "Babaîlik", and he does not share this view; in his reading the sheikh founded no order of his own but, as a sheikh of the Vefâiyye, addressed the semi-nomadic Turkmen from his lodge in the village of Çat. The disagreement over the date and manner of his death remains unresolved; what matters for the village is that both accounts place the sheikh's lodge and farm at Çat, that is, at present-day İlyas.

The Tomb and the Pilgrimage

According to Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Baba İlyas's grave lies in the village, on the sheikh's farm "now known as İlyâs köyü". Yasar adds that the sheikh was popularly known as the "Saint of Jaundice" (Sarılık Evliyâsı) and that his grave was visited by the people every year on the day of Hıdrellez (Hızır-İlyas). Information on who built the tomb comes from Mustafa Vâzıh. As Ocak reports in his article on Elvan Çelebi, Vâzıh says that Baba İlyas's son Muhlis Paşa came to the village of Ellez, where his father's grave lay, had a tomb (türbe) built over it, and then settled with his dervishes in the village between Çorum and Mecitözü that bears the name Elvançelebi today. The sources consulted give no information on the present structure of the tomb, its restorations or whether it carries an inscription, and no registration record could be found.

The lodge in the village is regarded as a starting point in the spread of Baba İlyas's line across Anatolia. Ocak describes Elvan Çelebi's lodge near Mecitözü as "the most important centre" of the Vefâî order "after Baba İlyas's lodge in the village of İlyas in Amasya". The celebrated historian Âşıkpaşazâde, of the same family, also lived at this second lodge. İlyas is thus remembered as the first link in a network of dervishes that spread across Central Anatolia in the fourteenth century.

The Hearth of Abdî Baba

A record showing that lodge life continued in the village after the sheikh's death is again found in Hüsâmeddîn Yasar. In his biographical volumes Abdî Baba (İbikoğlu), introduced as the grandson of İbik Baba and son of Ahmed Baba, was a disciple of Âşık Ali Paşa, a descendant of Baba İlyas. One of the Babaî deputies, Abdî Baba later founded "a hearth and a lodge" (ocak ve tekke) in İlyas Köyü and became its sheikh. Said to have been a partisan of Eratna, ruler of Sivas, he died around 754 (1353); Yasar calls him "a very famous Baba". The record shows that about a century after Baba İlyas a lodge bound to the sheikh's name was revived in the village. Nothing could be found about the lodge in later centuries.

The Village Today

The official village record for 2012 places İlyas 16 kilometres from the provincial centre. The village had a working health post; the building of a health centre existed but was not in service. The primary school was closed and pupils travelled to school by the bussed-education scheme. The village had a mains water network and a sewerage system, and postal services were provided through a PTT agency.

Population

İlyas has not experienced the rapid decline seen in most villages of the central district. The population, 740 in the 1985 census, rose to 792 in 1990 and 836 in 2000. In 2007, the first year of the address-based registration system, 804 people appear; the figure reached its peak of 879 in 2018 and has eased slightly since. At the end of 2025 the village had 805 inhabitants, 412 men and 393 women, almost exactly the figure of eighteen years earlier.

Chronology

637 (1239-40): Uprising of Baba İshak; according to Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Baba İlyas withdraws to his farm at Çat Bükü.

644 (1246): According to Yasar, Baba İlyas is pardoned and returns to his lodge in Amasya.

657 (1258-59): By Yasar's date, Baba İlyas dies and is buried on his farm; the sources used by Ocak place his death in 637 (1240).

754 (1353): Death of Abdî Baba, who founded a hearth and lodge in İlyas Köyü.

760 (1358-59): Elvan Çelebi completes the Menâkıbü'l-kudsiyye, which names the village as Çat.

1530: A village named İlyâs is entered in the register under the nahiye of Geldiklan-âbâd.

2025: 805 people are registered in the village.

Bibliography

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