In Amasya, south of the Yeşilırmak and right beside the railway station, a tomb stands a little below the level of its surroundings. Locals call it the Kurtboğan Tomb. The structure dates from the fifteenth century and is a baldachin tomb (baldaken): a single dome carried on four massive piers. It takes its name from a nickname given to the man believed to lie inside after his death. According to the tradition, a wolf came to his grave on the night of his burial, a hand reaching out of the tomb strangled the wolf, and in the morning the hand could not be drawn back by any effort until it had been washed, after which it returned to the grave. The story has been told in Amasya for centuries. To judge how much of it belongs to history and how much to popular memory, one first has to ask who the man was.

Who Was Sheikh Hamza

The person believed to be buried in the tomb is known as Şerafeddin Hamza, or simply Sheikh Hamza. The sources also give his name as Hamza Şâmî b. Mehmed; the nisba "Şâmî" points to Damascus. His lineage is said to go back to Abu Bakr and to the descendants of Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi, author of the Awârif al-maârif. The sources date his arrival in Anatolia to 1383 or 1384, and the place where he settled was Kavak, then attached to Amasya. Kavak is today a district of Samsun, but at that time it was one of the nahiyes of the sanjak of Amasya. The phrase "Kavak of Amasya" in older records therefore refers to this wider area and not to the city centre as it is today.

It is his son who carried Sheikh Hamza into history. Akşemseddin, the teacher of Mehmed II (Fâtih Sultan Mehmed), who helped sustain the spiritual morale of the army during the conquest of Istanbul, was his son. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Akşemseddin was born in Damascus in 1390 and settled in Kavak at about the age of seven, having come to Anatolia with his father (1396-97). He memorised the Qur'an, received a sound religious education, served as a müderris at the Osmancık Madrasa, and evidently also had good medical training. He later became attached to Hacı Bayrâm-ı Velî, took over the position of spiritual guide after his master's death, and spent his last years in Göynük, where he died in 1459. The man regarded as the owner of the baldachin tomb in Amasya is thus the father of one of the best-known Sufis of Ottoman history. It is reasonable to think that this lineage helped the legend live so long in Amasya, since the founding figure of such a family lent himself, in the eyes of the people, to being remembered through extraordinary events.

Local sources count Sheikh Hamza among the successors (halifes) of the Halvetî sheikh Pîr İlyâs-ı Amâsî and call the man interred in the tomb "Pîr Şerefeddin Hamza-i Halvetî". It is related that Pîr İlyas was in Shirvan between 1402 and 1406, that on his return he brought the Halvetî order to Amasya for the first time in Anatolia, and that Sheikh Hamza became first his closest disciple and then his first halife. Even so, the details we have of Sheikh Hamza's own life are few, and most come from hagiographical texts. Since no work from his own pen and no contemporary endowment deed is known, his life is read largely through his son's biography and the stories told around it.

Date of Death and the Gravestones

The date of Sheikh Hamza's death is a point on which the sources do not agree. One inventory entry gives 1415. A local research article cites Hijri 861, that is 1457, and bases it on a gravestone found in the tomb. Forty-two years separate the two dates. If one takes into account that Akşemseddin was born in 1390, then in 1415 the son would have been a müderris of twenty-five; in 1457 the father's death would fall only two years before Akşemseddin's own. Both possibilities are historically defensible, and because no definitive document exists, a single date cannot be presented as certain.

Part of the dispute concerns the gravestones. According to Muzaffer Doğanbaş, an archaeologist at the Amasya Museum, the salvage excavation carried out in the tomb in 2012 revealed a concrete grave in the centre of the structure and, about a metre below it, the original sarcophagus. The Arabic stone at the head carries the phrase "ihdâ ve sittîn ve semânmiye", which gives 861 (1457). The other stone is a four-line Persian inscription. That both are footstones suggests that they may belong to different graves. The stones also appear in Albert Gabriel's engraving of 1930, and gravestones from two different periods are today kept in the Amasya Archaeology and Mummy Museum. The mismatch between the number of stones and the number of persons has raised the possibility that more than one person lies in the grave.

The Kurtboğan Legend

The oldest written form of the legend that we have belongs to Emir Hüseyin Enisî of Göynük, who wrote the menâkıbnâme of Akşemseddin. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi notes that the fullest and most reliable information on Akşemseddin's life is found in this menâkıbnâme; the work is usually placed in the sixteenth century. In the text, on the night after Sheikh Hamza died and was buried, a wolf, "which they call a hyena", came, opened the grave and wished to devour the blessed body. Sheikh Hamza put his hand out of the coffin, seized the wolf by the throat and killed it. The next morning the people who came to visit found things in this state, took away the wolf, and placed the sheikh's hand back inside the coffin, but the hand came out again. A man of discernment said that the hand had to be washed because it had touched the wolf. They washed it, and the hand went into the coffin. Enisî adds that from that day Sheikh Hamza was called Kurdbogan and that the grave is still known by that name in the region. It is striking that the animal is described as a wolf "called a hyena", since the narrator himself is not certain of its kind.

The same legend is also reported in the work of Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi, one of the sources of Amasya's history. In later compilations the story becomes somewhat more detailed. In these versions the wolf is an animal that has long plagued the region: it finds freshly dug graves and drags the dead out of them to tear them apart. Sheikh Hamza's grave becomes its target as well. The people who come in the morning see the wolf lying dead and the sheikh's hand outside the grave. A man of spiritual standing who is present says that the hand must be washed because the wolf touched it, and once it is washed it is drawn back into the grave. Some versions add that the event was repeated several times. What all forms have in common is that the nickname arises from this event: Kurtboğan means "the one who strangled the wolf".

The legend does not aim to record an event the way a history book does. In the menâkıbnâme tradition that narrates the lives of saints, graveside miracles showing that a saint continues to protect after death are a common genre, and their function is to make the person respected in his own age and in later generations. The Kurtboğan story should be read in this frame, as a tradition that shows how the memory of Sheikh Hamza took shape. The absence of a contemporary document, such as an inscription or an endowment deed, supporting the story confirms this approach. Enisî himself opens the episode with "it is related that" (rivayet olunur ki); in other words, he too indicates that he relies not on firm testimony but on a report he has heard.

The Washing of the Hand

One of the most striking details of the story is the washing of the hand. The hand that touched the wolf, according to the account, does not return to the grave unless it is washed. In the legend the reaction of the people is shown not as astonishment or fear but as a calm suggestion by a knowledgeable person and its carrying out. The person who makes the suggestion is not named; he is referred to only as a man of discernment (ehl-i feraset) or a "man of spiritual state" (hâl sahibi). The narrators' interest lies less in the event itself than in how it is resolved. The extraordinary event ends within the bounds of everyday religious practice, and once the hand is cleaned it returns to its place.

The Station Master's Dream

Around the Kurtboğan Tomb there are, besides the first legend, narratives added in later periods. One concerns the fact that the tomb lies on the land of Amasya railway station. The linguist and folklorist Mehmet Şükrü Akkaya (1894-1971), travelling through Amasya, heard the following from an elderly narrator: the station master wanted the tomb removed and hired workers for the next day. That night Kurtboğan appeared in the station master's dream, grabbed him by the throat and told him that if he did not have the tomb built up it would be his last day. The next day the station master had the workers who came to demolish it repair the tomb instead. That the tomb is called "Kızıl Paşa" in the same collection suggests a confusion with the neighbouring tomb of Atik Ali Paşa.

The confusion continues today. Hadım Ali Paşa, also known as Gazi Atik Ali Paşa, served twice as grand vizier under Bayezid II, was charged with suppressing the Şahkulu rebellion in 1511, was gravely wounded at the Battle of Gökçay, and died in Amasya, where he had been taken for treatment. His grave is in his own tomb next to the Kurtboğan Tomb, and this building is also open for worship as the Kurtboğan Mosque. Inventory records note that the tomb is mistakenly called the Kurtboğan Tomb by most people, although the two structures are separate. Everyone who visits the area therefore hesitates for a moment over which building is which. The sources that give the location also differ: some place the tomb in the İstasyon neighbourhood, others in the Hızır Paşa neighbourhood, south of the railway station.

The Cyprus Account

There is one more section added to the legend in the twentieth century. According to local compilations, some soldiers who took part in the 1974 Cyprus Operation, when they asked who the uniformed soldier was who had helped them during the fighting, were told: "If you ask for Kurtboğan in Amasya, everyone will show you where I am." It is related that after the operation these soldiers came to Amasya, asked for Kurtboğan, were directed to the tomb, and visited the grave there with tears in their eyes. The account is attributed to the compilation Amasya efsane, menkabe ve memoratları, published by the Amasya Governorship in 2014. As a contemporary eyewitness account it has no documentary confirmation. But it is a clear example that the legend is a living tradition, to which new generations add their own experiences.

The Structure

The tomb belongs to the early Ottoman period and has a baldachin plan. Brick arches rise on four large stone piers, and the dome they carry is of brick and covered with lead. The structure is regarded as one of the largest baldachin tombs in Anatolia. The baldachin, that is a domed building type rising on piers with open or wall-less sides, was widely used in Anatolia in the period of the beyliks and the early Ottoman era. As close relatives of this tomb, the Havza İmaret Tomb and the Tomb of Seyyid Zeynel Abidin Rufâî in the village of Ahmetsaray in Ladik, both around Samsun, are cited.

Local accounts mention years in which the tomb was long neglected, rubbish was thrown around it, and only its dome was visible. According to one account, around 2015 the area was cleared, the grave was uncovered, and a sign giving the name of the tomb was set up. The details of the restoration work that followed are not documented in the sources and are therefore not reported here. The accounts also speak of a hole on one side of the tomb, pointed out as the place from which the hand came out to strangle the wolf. This detail shows how closely the structure and the legend are bound together.

The Second Grave in Kavak

Where Sheikh Hamza is actually buried is also disputed. According to the study published in 2016 by Emine Yılmaz, an archaeologist at the Kavak Museum in Samsun, information on where Sheikh Hamza died and was buried is extremely limited; the sources generally use the expression "the nahiye of Kavak near Amasya". According to legends told in the region, Sheikh Hamza served as a müderris in the village of Mahmut Beyli in Kavak and lived at the Çambaşı locality of the village of Seyitali. In the Soğuksu neighbourhood of Kavak, on a plot of 73 square metres registered in the land records as a cemetery, there is a grave attributed to Sheikh Hamza. However, there is no inscription proving that the grave belongs to him.

According to Yılmaz, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, during the Celâlî and Sûhte rebellions, many structures in Kavak and its surroundings were damaged; the destruction of tombs in Havza, Ladik and Vezirköprü is an example, and the building over this grave may have vanished in that period too. Yılmaz considers it likely that the grave in Kavak is the true burial place. She thinks the baldachin tomb in Amasya, by contrast, may be a "makam tomb", that is, one containing no burial and dedicated to the spiritual memory of a saint. The tombs of Yunus Emre and Sarı Saltuk, found in more than one place, are known examples of this practice. That the building in Amasya contains a grave was seen in the 2012 excavation; but whether this grave belongs to Sheikh Hamza has not been established with certainty.

The Meaning of the Legend

For Sheikh Hamza we have a few dates and a genealogy; what gave him a place in the memory of the city is a wolf story. Compilations of saints' lives count him among the saints of Amasya as a halife of Pîr İlyâs and the father of Akşemseddin, and relate the story of the nickname in this way. In these compilations the core of the legend consists of three elements: a saint able to protect himself even after death, a wild animal that attacks him, and a community that meets the extraordinary event with an ordinary religious rule.

The nickname has a large share in this. A nickname given to a saint offers a short story that sets him apart from other saints and can be carried from mouth to mouth. In Amasya the names of many other saints are mentioned, such as Pîr İlyâs, Sheikh Sâdî, Gani Baba and Kırklar Dede, but among them Kurtboğan is one of the rare names that carries a story with it. Even today, anyone asking in the city for the tomb is easily given directions. Whatever the historical basis of the story, the fact that Sheikh Hamza's name has been remembered in this city for nearly six centuries shows that the legend has fulfilled its function.

Chronology

1383/1384: The year in which, according to the sources, Sheikh Hamza came from Damascus to Anatolia and settled in Kavak, attached to Amasya.

1390: Birth of his son Akşemseddin in Damascus.

1396-97: Akşemseddin, aged seven, settles in Kavak with his father.

1402-1406: The years Pîr İlyâs-ı Amâsî spent in Shirvan; he is said to have brought the Halvetî path to Amasya.

1415: One of the dates given for Sheikh Hamza's death.

1453: The conquest of Istanbul; Akşemseddin is at Mehmed II's side during the siege.

1457 (H. 861): The date read on a gravestone in the tomb; the other date given for Sheikh Hamza's death.

1459: Death of Akşemseddin in Göynük.

1511: Hadım Ali Paşa is wounded at the Battle of Gökçay and dies in Amasya; his tomb stands next to the Kurtboğan Tomb.

1930: Albert Gabriel's engraving showing the gravestones in the tomb.

2012: Salvage excavation carried out at the tomb.

Bibliography

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