The name most often recalled in Merzifon's spiritual memory is that of Pîrî Baba, a Qalandari dervish believed to have lived in the town in the fifteenth century. Nothing is known of his birth or death, and he left no written document from his own time. Two main sources survive. One is the Menâkıb-ı Pîrî Baba, a work written by a man named Hoca İbrâhim. The other is the account of Evliya Çelebi, who passed through Merzifon in 1647 and recorded what he heard in his Seyahatnâme. The two complement each other, but on some points they plainly diverge, so Pîrî Baba's life is better read as a body of legend shaped over centuries than as a historical biography.

Sources and Their Reliability

Hoca İbrâhim, the author of the Menâkıb-ı Pîrî Baba, says he built the Pîrî Baba Zâviyesi (dervish lodge) that appears in the land survey register (Tahrir Defteri) of 926 (1520). That Pîrî Baba's nephew Ali Dede was still alive when the work was written shows that not much time had passed since the dervish's death. From these clues Suraiya Faroqhi has argued that the text was composed in the reign of Selim I (Yavuz Sultan Selim). Ahmet Yaşar Ocak likewise counts the work among the Bektashi hagiographies written in the sixteenth century. Because the author presents himself as the founder of the lodge, it is conceivable that part of the narrative also serves to strengthen his own standing. It would therefore be wrong to treat every detail in the text as history.

Evliya Çelebi, by contrast, visited the tomb in person and wrote down the stories he heard there. The traveler, who reached Merzifon in 1057 (1647), writes that Pîrî Baba was one of the dervishes whom Ahmed Yesevî sent to Anatolia together with Hacı Bektâş-ı Velî, and that he lived from the age of Orhan Gazi to the age of Mehmed the Conqueror (Fâtih Sultan Mehmed). According to Evliya, Pîrî Baba came from Khorasan with Ahmed Yesevî's permission to the land of Rum, settled on a rise north of Merzifon overlooking the town, and was an enlightened man who sometimes slept in bathhouses, lost in rapture. M. Fuad Köprülü repeats this view and lists Pîrî Baba, under the name Pîr Dede, among Ahmed Yesevî's successors in Anatolia. More than a century separates the reign of Orhan Gazi from that of Mehmed II, and one man living through so many reigns is a longevity motif to which the language of legend often turns. The account expresses the people's sense of his spiritual stature more than any historical measure.

Origins and Arrival in Merzifon

Two different accounts circulate about where Pîrî Baba came from. Evliya Çelebi and Köprülü present him as a dervish from Khorasan who headed west with Ahmed Yesevî's leave. According to the Menâkıbnâme, he was from the village of Narince near Merzifon. In local tradition this village lies some four or five kilometers east of the town and is also remembered as the village of Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha. In some accounts his name appears as Seyyid Mehmed Pîrî Baba. A firm judgment between the two views is not possible. The village-birth account fits with the claim that, when the dervish died, the people of Narince wanted to take him as their own, since the Menâkıbnâme speaks openly of this dispute over his native place.

Another tradition in circulation among the people ties Pîrî Baba to the Babai movement of the mid-thirteenth century. In this version, Pîrî Baba took part, together with Hacı Bektâş-ı Velî, Koyun Baba and other Qalandari dervishes, in the branch of Baba İshak's uprising around Amasya and Tokat. The ruler of the time was Alâeddin Keykubad. When the Seljuk army scattered Baba İshak's followers, Hacı Bektâş withdrew to Sulucakarahöyük, Koyun Baba to Osmancık and Pîrî Baba to Merzifon, escaping pursuit. Another tradition counts Pîrî Baba among the seven successors of Hacı Bektâş-ı Velî and says he was sent to Merzifon for that task. These accounts rest on no solid document. The researcher Vehbi Cem Aşkun, who studied the Silsilename of Rüstem Raşid of Sivas, states in his 1947 study Piribaba that neither Pîrî Baba nor Koyun Baba is among the seven successors of Hacı Bektâş. Moreover, about two hundred years separate the Babai events from the reigns of Mehmed II and Murad II, in which the Menâkıbnâme and the Seyahatnâme place Pîrî Baba; this contradiction suggests that these traditions belong to separate lines of lore.

Apprenticeship Years and Childhood Legends

The Menâkıbnâme begins Pîrî Baba's life in childhood. According to it, when he was seven or eight his mother placed him as an apprentice with a master shoemaker in Merzifon. The work first describes the extraordinary states of these apprentice years. Devoted to worship even at that age, the boy performs his noon prayers at the Kaaba and, whenever his master asks for water, brings it from the well of Zamzam. These motifs resemble the miracles attributed to Hacı Bektâş-ı Velî, a resemblance to which the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry on Pîrî Baba draws attention.

According to one account, when the master went on the pilgrimage he entrusted Pîrî Baba to another master, on condition that the boy spend his evenings at the master's own home. While the master was on pilgrimage, the halva his wife had made was delivered to him, and it became clear that Pîrî Baba had brought it. On his return he told his wife, and she concluded that the apprentice was a blessed person and decided to hand him over to her family. In this way the woman became the first to recognize Pîrî Baba's sainthood and also made her husband understand it. The second master, who did not believe in him, is said to have been blinded in one eye by a mere gesture; this account shows that Pîrî Baba was also seen as a saint who punishes. The Menâkıbnâme further says that on one occasion he brought water from Karbala in a green cup, and that people came from Karbala to visit him. These details suggest that love of the Ahl al-Bayt (the Prophet's family) is an important thread in the hagiography.

That Pîrî Baba was a craftsman who made and mended shoes continues in later local accounts. In a story told in the same vein, one day his friend, or according to some his brother, Koyun Baba of Osmancık, arrives at the shop with a bag of milk and hangs it on a nail by the door. Pîrî Baba is at that moment measuring a woman's foot. When Koyun Baba sees the woman's bare foot, milk begins to drip from the bag. Pîrî Baba warns his friend, and when Koyun Baba comes to himself the milk stops. After the woman leaves, Pîrî Baba says that the real accomplishment lies not in keeping away from people on mountain and hillside but in guarding one's heart while living in the midst of town life. The story shows that Pîrî Baba is remembered not as an ascetic withdrawn into seclusion but as a dervish who lived in the middle of the marketplace and the bathhouse.

A Dervish in the Bathhouse Furnace

According to the Menâkıbnâme, Pîrî Baba lived in the furnace room (külhan) of a bathhouse reserved for men in the morning and for women in the afternoon. Local accounts know this bathhouse as the Old Bath (Eski Hamam) and relate that the hottest corner beside the furnace was called Pîrî Baba's retreat (halvet). The same accounts say that he sometimes entered the furnace and vanished, then reappeared in another corner of the bath. One day, displeased by the steam that condensed on the dome and fell like rain, that is, by the bath's "sweating," he told the bath not to sweat, and from that day on it never did. These are memories that remain at the level of legend and cannot be verified from sources, yet they show how firm the bond between the dervish and the bath is in Merzifon's memory.

His continuing to stay in the furnace room during the hours when women came to the bath drew the anger of Merzifon's scholars (ulema), and the matter was reported to the sultan. Evliya Çelebi gives the grounds for the complaint somewhat differently. According to him, Pîrî Baba scrubbed women's backs with a cloth and soap and told pregnant women the sex of the child they would bear. Evliya also notes that Pîrî Baba went about naked and was called by the word "ışık," used around the sixteenth century for Qalandari dervishes. These details show how the tension between the dervish and the town's guardians of the sharia was reflected in the legend.

The Encounter with the Sultan

The main subject on which both the Menâkıbnâme and the Seyahatnâme dwell is Pîrî Baba's relationship with the Ottoman sultan of the day. The two sources, however, differ on the sultan's name. According to the Menâkıbnâme, the ruler who came to Merzifon to punish the accused dervish was Mehmed the Conqueror. When the sultan saw some of the dervish's miracles, he understood that he was a holy man. Pîrî Baba in turn gave him the glad tidings that he would conquer Istanbul. After the conquest Mehmed wanted to give Pîrî Baba many gifts and much land. The dervish refused them and asked the sultan to grant them instead to Merzifon's ulema, so that they would pray for him. Koyun Baba, whom Mehmed visited in Osmancık on his way back to Istanbul, also confirmed Pîrî Baba's sainthood.

Evliya Çelebi, however, puts Murad II before the accused dervish. According to Evliya's report, the sultan went to Merzifon in a rage, intending to do away with the dervish as an unbeliever, a heretic, an apostate and a man without a sect. Pîrî Baba proved his sainthood through extraordinary acts and gave the sultan the glad tidings of the conquest of Izmir, and Prince Mehmed that of Istanbul. When the prophecy came true, the sultan endowed the lodge with 366 villages and the town of Merzifon. This figure shows the measure of the power the legend ascribes to Pîrî Baba; but since it is supported by no endowment record or other document, it cannot be counted as historical fact.

According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry, the Menâkıbnâme depicts Pîrî Baba as a saint who first wins the heart of the sultan who came to punish him and then announces the conquest of cities, thus placing him above the ruler of the age. The same motif appears in other hagiographies written in that period, such as the Vilâyetnâme-i Otman Baba. This can be seen as a reaction to Mehmed the Conqueror's unfavorable policy toward dervishes. The legend also indicates that Pîrî Baba, because of his qalandar temperament, was not much liked by the ulema of his time.

Sectarian Identity

Pîrî Baba is often called a Bektashi dervish, and Evliya Çelebi, too, says during his visit that the dervish's lodge was a Bektashi lodge. Researchers, however, treat this description with caution. Faroqhi accepts that the lodge was under Bektashi control in the seventeenth century but does not consider it possible to say it was founded as a Bektashi lodge from the start. The TDV entry likewise states, on the basis of the information given in the Menâkıbnâme, that it is hard to call Pîrî Baba a Bektashi.

On the other hand, there are striking similarities between the miracles attributed to Hacı Bektâş-ı Velî and those of Pîrî Baba. In both, an extraordinary journey to the Kaaba, ripening fruit before its season and taking the form of a dove stand out. Moreover, his being called by the term "ışık" that the Seyahatnâme uses for Qalandari dervishes, his going about naked, his conduct when he met Mehmed the Conqueror according to the Menâkıbnâme, and his similarities to Otman Baba all suggest that he was a Qalandari. The Qalandari way was the path of dervishes who lived outside the order of the lodge and paid no heed to the rules of society or the expectations of the ulema. Pîrî Baba's living in the bathhouse furnace, his scrubbing women's backs and his boldness before the sultan take on meaning in this frame.

His Death and the Later Years of the Lodge

Pîrî Baba's date of death is unknown. According to the Menâkıbnâme, after his death his fellow villagers from Narince wanted to claim him, but Merzifon's ulema did not agree. Hoca İbrâhim also relates some events that took place after Pîrî Baba's death. According to him, when they were caught in a storm and their ship was about to sink, Pîrî Baba, taking the form of a dove, saved them. Hoca İbrâhim then had a tomb built for the dervish and married a girl from his own family to Pîrî Baba's nephew Ali Dede. This last event can also be read as Hoca İbrâhim's effort to place himself in a bond of kinship with Pîrî Baba.

Pîrî Baba's lodge remained a living center after its founder's death. When the land survey register of 926 (1520) was prepared, a man named Şahkulu Baba b. Bâyezîd was serving as sheikh at this lodge. The register of 982-983 (1574-1575) shows that the same Şahkulu Baba was still in his post at that date. At the time of Evliya Çelebi's visit, about a century later, a sheikh named Memi Dede Can was serving at the lodge. The traveler describes the area around Pîrî Baba's grave as adorned with lamps, candlesticks and candelabra, the lodge as a masonry building, and how, with the permission of the poor brethren, Memi Dede Can placed the holy sultan's felt cap on his own head while the dervishes raised the call of blessing and prayed. Evliya also records that many visitors came and went to Pîrî Baba's lodge and to the bathhouse where he was believed to have lived, and that the sick who washed in that bath were believed to be healed.

In later periods many legends formed around Pîrî Baba's figure. Among the memories told in Merzifon, beliefs about wishes and healing stand out; they concern chiefly the visiting tradition at the tomb and are treated in the article devoted to that structure. What should be noted here is that all of these customs are nourished by the dervish's legends touching everyday life, such as the bath, the scrubbing cloth, healing and the wish for a child. Pîrî Baba is remembered not as the founder of an order or a Sufi who wrote books, but as a dervish who lived inside the town and stayed close to the people's troubles.

What can be verified about his life is limited: that in 1520 the lodge appears in the land survey register, that in 1574-1575 its sheikhship continued, and that in 1647 Evliya Çelebi visited the tomb. Beyond that lies a tradition of narrative shaped by the people's respect for the dervish. Faroqhi's article, which studies the life story of an urban saint in the Ottoman Empire through Pîrî Baba of Merzifon, is the basic work that discusses, on the basis of documents, how this tradition was built in an Anatolian town.

Chronology

Between the reigns of Orhan Gazi and Mehmed II: the era in which Pîrî Baba lived according to Evliya Çelebi; not historically verified.

1520: The Pîrî Baba Zâviyesi is mentioned in the land survey register of 926; Şahkulu Baba b. Bâyezîd is sheikh of the lodge. The Menâkıb-ı Pîrî Baba is said to have been written around this time, in the reign of Selim I.

1574-1575: In the land survey register of 982-983, Şahkulu Baba's sheikhship continues.

1647: Evliya Çelebi passes through Merzifon and visits the tomb; Memi Dede Can is sheikh of the lodge.

1947: Vehbi Cem Aşkun's study Piribaba is published.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Hoca İbrâhim, Menâkıb-ı Pîrî Baba, TSMK, Hazine, no. 1313.
  • Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatnâme (Dağlı), II, 206-208.
  • Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, Kültür Tarihi Kaynağı Olarak Menâkıbnâmeler: Metodolojik Bir Yaklaşım, Ankara 1997.

Academic studies

  • Haşim Şahin, "Pîrî Baba", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 34, Istanbul 2007, pp. 279-280. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/piri-baba
  • Suraiya Faroqhi, "The Life Story of an Urban Saint in the Ottoman Empire: Piri Baba of Merzifon", Tarih Dergisi, no. 32 (1979), pp. 653-678.

Other sources

  • Suraiya Faroqhi, Anadolu'da Bektaşilik, Istanbul 2003.
  • Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Marjinal Sûfîlik: Kalenderîler (XIV-XVII. Yüzyıllar), Ankara 1992.
  • M. Fuad Köprülü, Türk Edebiyatında İlk Mutasavvıflar, Ankara 1993.
  • A. Aziz Taşan, Dünden Bugüne Merzifon, Istanbul 1979.
  • Danyal Aşık, "Bektaşi Dervişi Piri Baba ve Türbesi, Merzifon", Ayak İzlerim. https://danyalasik.com/2020/04/30/bektasi-dervisi-piri-baba-ve-turbesi-merzifon/

Online sources