Otman Baba
Encyclopedia
Otman Baba was a 15th-century dervish
who traveled throughout the Ottoman Empire
, acquiring a following among heterodox Muslims
in Bulgaria
after 1445 that has developed into his veneration as a saint. After Otman Baba's death, a pilgrimage complex grew around his grave in the present-day Bulgarian village of Teketo, which was made a museum during communism. The hagiography
of Otman Baba, written by his disciple Küçük Abdal and regarded by his followers as a canonical text, maintains that Otman Baba performed miracles that proved his superiority to other dervishes and Ottoman authorities, particularly Sultan Mehmed II. Straying from orthodox Islamic tenets, Otman Baba asserted his unity with God and his mastery of divine secrets—as the embodiment of monotheistic religious figures such as Muhammad
, Jesus
, and Moses
.
with the Alevi
emigrants. A modern Turkish retelling based on various sources also exists.
Other sources include the vilâyetname of Otman Baba's successor Demir Baba, which refers to Otman Baba as the "pole of poles" and "Pole of the Universe and Time", symbols of his high spiritual rank; the vilâyetname also avouches Otman Baba’s ability to instantly appear and disappear. Another source is the work of Evliya Çelebi
, which cites Otman Baba as a leader of ascetic dervishes and a gazi (religious warrior) who helped conquer the Ottoman Empire's European province of Rumelia
.
ian, Azeri, or Central Asian territories and spoke an Azeri-accented Oghuz
language with few Persian
and Arabic
influences, like the heterodox Muslims in northeastern Bulgaria. Küçük Abdal characterized Otman Baba spiritually as a saint and prophet and physically as imposing, strong, and brave.
While those outside his inner circle knew him as Otman Baba, other dervishes and the aristocratic sayyids called him Şah-i Kerbelâ—a reference to the prophet Muhammad's grandson Husayn
, who died in the Battle of Karbala
. A vilâyetname account attributes the mystic's common name "Otman Baba" to Ottoman ruler Mehmed II. When the sultan
disguised himself as a commoner and visited the Eski Saray tekke
(a gathering place for heterodox Muslims) in Constantinople
, only Otman Baba recognized him. Convinced of the dervish’s sainthood, Mehmed addressed him as "my beloved father, Otman"—"father" translating in Turkish as "baba"
.
and Anatolia
coincides with the settlements of the nomadic Yürüks, who were hostile toward the Ottoman bureaucracy that forcibly recruited them as soldiers. Nevertheless, the vilâyetname asserts that Mehmed II recognized Otman Baba as a true saint and the true Ottoman leader, and it presents supportive interactions between Otman Baba and Mehmed II. In one account, Otman Baba appears in Mehmed’s dream to predict his reign as sultan while the then-prince was in Manisa
.
Their relationship, however, was not always cordial, as scholars Stavrides and Gramatikova mention that Otman Baba frightened Mehmed II with his mastery over the elements, summoning a storm that flooded Constantinople after Mehmed ordered the dervish to enter a monastery. Although Küçük Abdal credits Mehmed II’s military victories to Otman Baba’s sainthood, the mystic predicted the sultan's defeat in the 1456 Serbia campaign. Otman Baba's relationships with other Ottoman authorities varied. Those opposed to Otman Baba included the orthodox vizier Mahmud Paşa, who did not recognize the mystic's sainthood, and an akıncı
(military auxiliary), who apprehended Otman Baba and whose wife forced the mystic to pasture ducks for a month. A sancakbey (district governor) named Mihaloğlu Ali Bey, however, donated to Otman Baba's tomb after the mystic had supported his military victories.
, extinguishing a candlestick’s flame that had been lit by the mystic Sarı Saltık Baba, proving his sainthood to ordinary followers of Sufism
. As Gramatikova notes, Otman Baba challenged rival Alevi and Bektashi spiritual guides and won, proving his spiritual superiority.
Gramatikova dates Otman Baba’s earliest presence in Bulgarian lands from 1445 to 1451, where he propagated and interpreted Islamic mysticism. Beginning his propagandizing alone, Otman Baba recruited dervish followers—called Abdals—from the Balkan Muslim population. When Otman Baba defeated a lamia
in the Ludogorie
region, he achieved his first miracle in Bulgarian lands, an act that Gramatikova characterizes as "one of the greatest miracles of the heterodox Muslim saints". Otman Baba travelled through the eastern foothills of Stara Planina, following Sufi doctrine by surviving on leaves and wild fruit as he meditated on God. Gramatikova proposes that the local woodcutters who saw him and hosted him in their village were Sufi Muslims and nomads who had migrated from Turkey during the mid-15th century. In the Kazanlak area, Otman Baba garnered a following of Sufi craftsmen and built a bridge with hunters, whom Gramatikova associates with nomadic Yürüks and Turcomans
. Near Plovdiv
, a local saint named Hasan Baba called Otman Baba the dual embodiment of Muhammed and Ali after spotting him in the Maritsa River.
By 1451, Otman Baba had proselytized throughout Anatolia
—particularly in Ottoman-ruled Western Asia Minor
—working miracles and proving his sainthood. The vilâyetname offers conflicting accounts of Otman Baba's activities between 1451 and 1453. One holds that Otman Baba propagandized in Azeri lands, departing with the claim: "I shall saddle a cloud, shall turn the lightning into a whip and shall go back to Rum." Another asserts that Otman Baba stayed in Tarnovo as the guest of the local kadi
(judge) and that locals bestowed the mystic with gifts after Ottoman forces had captured Constantinople.
Gramatikova dates Otman Baba’s arrival in Constantinople to 1456, where he contributed to the charitable activities of every imaret
and advocated the restoration of a fortress that he argued was the town of Hasan and Huseyn. After leaving Constantinople, Otman Baba spent time in Edirne
with the Abdals and settled in the village of Tatar Köyü, which Gramatikova supposes is either the present-day village Radovets or Filipovo—both in the Topolovgrad municipality
of Bulgaria.
, where he urged his followers to build mills and grow vineyards and claimed to follow an incomparable mystical path: “First I was a secret and I shall again become a secret. Nobody walks before me on my road nor would anybody come after me.”
On 13 January 1478, Otman Baba and his disciples arrived at the unidentified village of Konukçu köy. He settled on the nearby riverbank opposite his followers and ordered them to construct a bridge “to go back to the place where [they] were before.” After the bridge was built, Otman Baba spoke his last words: "Hey, destitute, miserable and feeble, you are afraid of Death. But I am not. In fact I am immortal, I have a horse, when I mount it I go to Heaven!" According to a manuscript annotation, Otman Baba died on 8 Receb 1478. The vilâyetname describes Otman Baba’s body releasing a halo that lit the universe the day after his death and two disciples dreaming that Otman Baba rode a horse through a portal in the sea.
Malamatiyya
, a tradition characterized by its adherents’ independence of a director, a school, or conventional religious laws. Representing the doctrines of the halo of Muhammad and of the Perfect Man, Otman Baba held that the prophet Muhammad's divinity transmitted to the kutb, the highest ranking Sufi mystics. Furthermore, Otman Baba asserted that he—as a kutb—had mastered divine secrets, regarding himself above Ottoman rulers and other mystics and identifying himself as the religious and political figures Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, Huseyn, Timur, and Sultan Mehmed II. Making the heretical claims of omnipresence and omniscience, Otman Baba insisted that anyone who harmed him would be harming themselves by denying his unity with God and that he could see the poor, starving, and ill and aid them. Before his death, Otman Baba expressed his belief in immortality: "Do not cry after me, because I am not dying, I shall live all the time on the earth and in the sky."
Although Otman Baba disapproved of mystics who worked for personal gain, he collected kurbans (livestock) for his Abdals. Illustrating the traits of an Abdal, Otman Baba said the following: "An Abdal is the man who gives up all but Allah. He has passed through all stages of spiritual self-perfection and is guided only by divine love and divine truth. He is no longer a body. Renouncing imitation and subjection to the body he aims at Ayn el-Yakın." Gramatikova interprets the term Ayn el-Yakın under Abdal and Bektashi teachings as experiencing God through God’s eyes.
Otman Baba's beliefs extended beyond the spiritual, as he disapproved of Turks speaking Persian and Arabic instead of their native tongue. Otman Baba maintained that "the Oghuz language is the father of all languages" and the "only way to stay in the alien, unknown lands".
), Kizilbash
, and Shi'ites, the Baba'is have preserved their traditions in Bulgaria through the cult of Otman Baba. In Nova Zagora
, the Kizilbash venerate the life of Otman Baba, considering him a local Shi'ite saint and regarding his tekke as their primary holy place in Bulgaria. According to Gramatikova, the vilâyetname of Otman Baba is a canonical text in Bulgaria’s heterodox Muslim community.
(mausoleum)—which he classifies as an early sixteenth-century Ottoman funerary monument, observing its domed structure and ashlar masonry. Gramatikova notes, however, that in 1492 Sultan Bayezid II blamed Otman Baba’s followers in Thrace for an assassination attempt on him and ordered their exile to Asia Minor. Nevertheless, the complex became a pilgrimage site for Otman Baba’s followers, Muslim locals, and the Roma—who, according to Ottoman documents, have venerated the türbe since at least 1568. Bulgarian scholar Markoff attributes the continued prominence of Otman Baba’s cult complex among Bulgarian miracle-seekers to its museum status during communism and protection during the Revival Process.
Dervish
A Dervish or Darvesh is someone treading a Sufi Muslim ascetic path or "Tariqah", known for their extreme poverty and austerity, similar to mendicant friars in Christianity or Hindu/Buddhist/Jain sadhus.-Etymology:The Persian word darvīsh is of ancient origin and descends from a Proto-Iranian...
who traveled throughout the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, acquiring a following among heterodox Muslims
Bektashi
Bektashi Order or Bektashism is an Islamic Sufi order founded in the 13th century by the Persian saint Haji Bektash Veli. In addition to the spiritual teachings of Haji Bektash Veli the order was significantly influenced during its formative period by both the Hurufis as well as the...
in Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
after 1445 that has developed into his veneration as a saint. After Otman Baba's death, a pilgrimage complex grew around his grave in the present-day Bulgarian village of Teketo, which was made a museum during communism. The hagiography
Hagiography
Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...
of Otman Baba, written by his disciple Küçük Abdal and regarded by his followers as a canonical text, maintains that Otman Baba performed miracles that proved his superiority to other dervishes and Ottoman authorities, particularly Sultan Mehmed II. Straying from orthodox Islamic tenets, Otman Baba asserted his unity with God and his mastery of divine secrets—as the embodiment of monotheistic religious figures such as Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
, Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
, and Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
.
Sources
Written five-and-a-half years after his death, the vilâyetname (hagiography) of Otman Baba provides the most thorough if biased depiction of the mystic's life. It differs from similar hagiographic accounts, as it more prominently presents historical information during Otman Baba's lifetime. Written by a direct disciple of Otman Baba named Küçük Abdal (also Köğçek/Köçek Abdal), the original vilâyetname was entitled Haza Kitab-i Risale-i Vilâyet-name-i Sultan Baba, kaddes’ Allahu sırruh ül-aziz (This book is a book with description of the miracles of Sultan Baba, let Allah consecrate his tomb). Known manuscripts of the vilâyetname include a 260-page one transcribed by Şeyh Ömer (Umar) bin Dervish Ahmed in 1758 and one from the Bulgarian village of Gorna Krepost taken to TurkeyTurkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
with the Alevi
Alevi
The Alevi are a religious and cultural community, primarily in Turkey, constituting probably more than 15 million people....
emigrants. A modern Turkish retelling based on various sources also exists.
Other sources include the vilâyetname of Otman Baba's successor Demir Baba, which refers to Otman Baba as the "pole of poles" and "Pole of the Universe and Time", symbols of his high spiritual rank; the vilâyetname also avouches Otman Baba’s ability to instantly appear and disappear. Another source is the work of Evliya Çelebi
Evliya Çelebi
Evliya Çelebi was an Ottoman traveler who journeyed through the territory of the Ottoman Empire and neighboring lands over a period of forty years.- Life :...
, which cites Otman Baba as a leader of ascetic dervishes and a gazi (religious warrior) who helped conquer the Ottoman Empire's European province of Rumelia
Rumelia
Rumelia was an historical region comprising the territories of the Ottoman Empire in Europe...
.
Life
According to the vilâyetname, Otman Baba was born in 1378 or 1379. Gramatikova proposes that Otman Baba came from IranIran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian, Azeri, or Central Asian territories and spoke an Azeri-accented Oghuz
Oghuz languages
The Oghuz languages, a major branch of the Turkic language family, are spoken by more than 110 million people in an area spanning from the Balkans to China.-Linguistic features:...
language with few Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
and Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
influences, like the heterodox Muslims in northeastern Bulgaria. Küçük Abdal characterized Otman Baba spiritually as a saint and prophet and physically as imposing, strong, and brave.
While those outside his inner circle knew him as Otman Baba, other dervishes and the aristocratic sayyids called him Şah-i Kerbelâ—a reference to the prophet Muhammad's grandson Husayn
Husayn
Hussein , is an Arabic name which is the diminutive of Hassan, meaning "good", "handsome" or "beautiful"...
, who died in the Battle of Karbala
Battle of Karbala
The Battle of Karbala took place on Muharram 10, in the year 61 of the Islamic calendar in Karbala, in present day Iraq. On one side of the highly uneven battle were a small group of supporters and relatives of Muhammad's grandson Husain ibn Ali, and on the other was a large military detachment...
. A vilâyetname account attributes the mystic's common name "Otman Baba" to Ottoman ruler Mehmed II. When the sultan
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
disguised himself as a commoner and visited the Eski Saray tekke
Khanqah
A Khanqah, Khaniqah , ribat, zawiya, or tekke is a building designed specifically for gatherings of a Sufi brotherhood, or tariqa, and is a place for spiritual retreat and character reformation...
(a gathering place for heterodox Muslims) in Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
, only Otman Baba recognized him. Convinced of the dervish’s sainthood, Mehmed addressed him as "my beloved father, Otman"—"father" translating in Turkish as "baba"
Baba (honorific)
Baba is a Persian honorific term used in several Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures. It is used as a mark of respect to refer to Sufi saints....
.
Relationship with Ottoman authorities
Dervish leaders faced accusations of turning commoners against the Ottoman government’s policies. Otman Baba’s proselytizing in the Eastern BalkansBalkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
and Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
coincides with the settlements of the nomadic Yürüks, who were hostile toward the Ottoman bureaucracy that forcibly recruited them as soldiers. Nevertheless, the vilâyetname asserts that Mehmed II recognized Otman Baba as a true saint and the true Ottoman leader, and it presents supportive interactions between Otman Baba and Mehmed II. In one account, Otman Baba appears in Mehmed’s dream to predict his reign as sultan while the then-prince was in Manisa
Manisa
Manisa is a large city in Turkey's Aegean Region and the administrative seat of Manisa Province.Modern Manisa is a booming center of industry and services, advantaged by its closeness to the international port city and the regional metropolitan center of İzmir and by its fertile hinterland rich in...
.
Their relationship, however, was not always cordial, as scholars Stavrides and Gramatikova mention that Otman Baba frightened Mehmed II with his mastery over the elements, summoning a storm that flooded Constantinople after Mehmed ordered the dervish to enter a monastery. Although Küçük Abdal credits Mehmed II’s military victories to Otman Baba’s sainthood, the mystic predicted the sultan's defeat in the 1456 Serbia campaign. Otman Baba's relationships with other Ottoman authorities varied. Those opposed to Otman Baba included the orthodox vizier Mahmud Paşa, who did not recognize the mystic's sainthood, and an akıncı
Akinci
Akıncı were irregular light cavalry,scout divisions and advance troops of the Ottoman Empire's military. When the pre-existing Turkish ghazis were incorporated into the Ottoman Empire's military they became known as "akıncı." They were one of the first divisions to face the opposing military and...
(military auxiliary), who apprehended Otman Baba and whose wife forced the mystic to pasture ducks for a month. A sancakbey (district governor) named Mihaloğlu Ali Bey, however, donated to Otman Baba's tomb after the mystic had supported his military victories.
Wanderings
During his life, Otman Baba wandered throughout the Ottoman Empire, mainly in Rumelia, spending the most time in Bulgarian lands and Aegean Thrace. After 30 September 1429 or 19 September 1430, Otman Baba began proselytizing in Rumelia. He performed his first miracle in the Balkans in BabaeskiBabaeski
Babaeski is a town and district of Kırklareli Province in the Marmara region of Turkey. The countyship has a population of 27,712 and the total area of the district is 652 km².-Name:...
, extinguishing a candlestick’s flame that had been lit by the mystic Sarı Saltık Baba, proving his sainthood to ordinary followers of Sufism
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
. As Gramatikova notes, Otman Baba challenged rival Alevi and Bektashi spiritual guides and won, proving his spiritual superiority.
Gramatikova dates Otman Baba’s earliest presence in Bulgarian lands from 1445 to 1451, where he propagated and interpreted Islamic mysticism. Beginning his propagandizing alone, Otman Baba recruited dervish followers—called Abdals—from the Balkan Muslim population. When Otman Baba defeated a lamia
Lamia (mythology)
In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet , referring to her habit of devouring children....
in the Ludogorie
Ludogorie
The Ludogorie or Deliorman is a region in northeastern Bulgaria stretching over the plateau of the same name. Major cities in the region are Razgrad, Novi Pazar, Pliska and Isperih...
region, he achieved his first miracle in Bulgarian lands, an act that Gramatikova characterizes as "one of the greatest miracles of the heterodox Muslim saints". Otman Baba travelled through the eastern foothills of Stara Planina, following Sufi doctrine by surviving on leaves and wild fruit as he meditated on God. Gramatikova proposes that the local woodcutters who saw him and hosted him in their village were Sufi Muslims and nomads who had migrated from Turkey during the mid-15th century. In the Kazanlak area, Otman Baba garnered a following of Sufi craftsmen and built a bridge with hunters, whom Gramatikova associates with nomadic Yürüks and Turcomans
Turkmen people
The Turkmen are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai,...
. Near Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...
, a local saint named Hasan Baba called Otman Baba the dual embodiment of Muhammed and Ali after spotting him in the Maritsa River.
By 1451, Otman Baba had proselytized throughout Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
—particularly in Ottoman-ruled Western Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
—working miracles and proving his sainthood. The vilâyetname offers conflicting accounts of Otman Baba's activities between 1451 and 1453. One holds that Otman Baba propagandized in Azeri lands, departing with the claim: "I shall saddle a cloud, shall turn the lightning into a whip and shall go back to Rum." Another asserts that Otman Baba stayed in Tarnovo as the guest of the local kadi
Kadi
Kadi may refer to:*Kadi, Gujarat, a city and municipality in Mehsana district, Gujarat, India*Kadhi, an Indian dish*Kadı, an official in the Ottoman empire*Qadi or kadi, Islamic judge*Al-Qadi, an Arabic surname*Quadi, an ancient Germanic tribe...
(judge) and that locals bestowed the mystic with gifts after Ottoman forces had captured Constantinople.
Gramatikova dates Otman Baba’s arrival in Constantinople to 1456, where he contributed to the charitable activities of every imaret
Imaret
An imaret is one of a few names used to identify the Ottoman soup kitchens built throughout the Ottoman Empire from the 14th into the 19th century. These public kitchens were often part of a larger complex known as a Waqf, which could include hospices, mosques, caravanserais and colleges...
and advocated the restoration of a fortress that he argued was the town of Hasan and Huseyn. After leaving Constantinople, Otman Baba spent time in Edirne
Edirne
Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...
with the Abdals and settled in the village of Tatar Köyü, which Gramatikova supposes is either the present-day village Radovets or Filipovo—both in the Topolovgrad municipality
Topolovgrad
Topolovgrad is a town in south-central Bulgaria, part of Haskovo Province, situated at the northern foot of the Sakar Mountain. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Topolovgrad Municipality...
of Bulgaria.
Death
In Tatar Köyü, Otman Baba predicted to his followers that they would develop into two branches. Physically weakening, he relocated near HaskovoHaskovo
Haskovo , is a city, an administrative centre of the homonymous Haskovo Province in southern Bulgaria, not far from the borders with Greece and Turkey. As of February 2011, it has a population of 74,843 inhabitants....
, where he urged his followers to build mills and grow vineyards and claimed to follow an incomparable mystical path: “First I was a secret and I shall again become a secret. Nobody walks before me on my road nor would anybody come after me.”
On 13 January 1478, Otman Baba and his disciples arrived at the unidentified village of Konukçu köy. He settled on the nearby riverbank opposite his followers and ordered them to construct a bridge “to go back to the place where [they] were before.” After the bridge was built, Otman Baba spoke his last words: "Hey, destitute, miserable and feeble, you are afraid of Death. But I am not. In fact I am immortal, I have a horse, when I mount it I go to Heaven!" According to a manuscript annotation, Otman Baba died on 8 Receb 1478. The vilâyetname describes Otman Baba’s body releasing a halo that lit the universe the day after his death and two disciples dreaming that Otman Baba rode a horse through a portal in the sea.
Beliefs
Gramatikova states that Otman Baba followed the Khurasan-regionGreater Khorasan
Greater Khorasan or Ancient Khorasan is a historical region of Greater Iran mentioned in sources from Sassanid and Islamic eras which "frequently" had a denotation wider than current three provinces of Khorasan in Iran...
Malamatiyya
Malamatiyya
The Malāmatiyya or Malamatis are a Sufi group that was active in 8th-century Samanid Iran...
, a tradition characterized by its adherents’ independence of a director, a school, or conventional religious laws. Representing the doctrines of the halo of Muhammad and of the Perfect Man, Otman Baba held that the prophet Muhammad's divinity transmitted to the kutb, the highest ranking Sufi mystics. Furthermore, Otman Baba asserted that he—as a kutb—had mastered divine secrets, regarding himself above Ottoman rulers and other mystics and identifying himself as the religious and political figures Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, Huseyn, Timur, and Sultan Mehmed II. Making the heretical claims of omnipresence and omniscience, Otman Baba insisted that anyone who harmed him would be harming themselves by denying his unity with God and that he could see the poor, starving, and ill and aid them. Before his death, Otman Baba expressed his belief in immortality: "Do not cry after me, because I am not dying, I shall live all the time on the earth and in the sky."
Although Otman Baba disapproved of mystics who worked for personal gain, he collected kurbans (livestock) for his Abdals. Illustrating the traits of an Abdal, Otman Baba said the following: "An Abdal is the man who gives up all but Allah. He has passed through all stages of spiritual self-perfection and is guided only by divine love and divine truth. He is no longer a body. Renouncing imitation and subjection to the body he aims at Ayn el-Yakın." Gramatikova interprets the term Ayn el-Yakın under Abdal and Bektashi teachings as experiencing God through God’s eyes.
Otman Baba's beliefs extended beyond the spiritual, as he disapproved of Turks speaking Persian and Arabic instead of their native tongue. Otman Baba maintained that "the Oghuz language is the father of all languages" and the "only way to stay in the alien, unknown lands".
Legacy
Categorized by Markoff as a dervish branch of the heterodox Muslim Alevi (AliansAlians
The Alians are a Shi`a order, similar to the Sufi Mevlevi, who live in several regions of Bulgaria. Alians revere Ali ibn Abi Talib, son-in-law and first cousin of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, whom they consider an emanation of God...
), Kizilbash
Kizilbash
Qizilbash or Kizilbash is the label given to a wide variety of Shī‘ī Islamic militant groups that flourished in Anatolia and Kurdistan from the late 13th century onwards, some of which contributed to the foundation of the Safavid dynasty of...
, and Shi'ites, the Baba'is have preserved their traditions in Bulgaria through the cult of Otman Baba. In Nova Zagora
Nova Zagora
Nova Zagora is a town located in the southeastern plains of Bulgaria in Sliven Province. It is the administrative centre of Nova Zagora Municipality. As of December 2009, the town has a population of 23,625 inhabitants , while the entire municipality has a population of 45,111. The first traces...
, the Kizilbash venerate the life of Otman Baba, considering him a local Shi'ite saint and regarding his tekke as their primary holy place in Bulgaria. According to Gramatikova, the vilâyetname of Otman Baba is a canonical text in Bulgaria’s heterodox Muslim community.
Cult complex
Although Otman Baba had rejected Mehmed II’s offers to build him a tekke, the mystic's followers developed a cult complex around his grave, located at the southeastern part of the Hızırilyas hill in the Haskovo-region village of Teketo. Evliya Çelebi reported a cloister near the Maden dere riverbank and credited Sultan Bayezid II for the construction of the tekke, which included a heptagonal refectory, shaped like a dervish cap and associated with the yediler (cult of the seven). Architectural historian Stephen Lewis also proposes the yediler symbolism of the seven-sided refectory—the türbeTurbe
Türbe is the Turkish word for "tomb", and for the characteristic mausoleums, often relatively small, of Ottoman royalty and notables. It is related to the Arabic turba, which can also mean a mausoleum, but more often a funerary complex, or a plot in a cemetery.-Characteristics:A typical türbe...
(mausoleum)—which he classifies as an early sixteenth-century Ottoman funerary monument, observing its domed structure and ashlar masonry. Gramatikova notes, however, that in 1492 Sultan Bayezid II blamed Otman Baba’s followers in Thrace for an assassination attempt on him and ordered their exile to Asia Minor. Nevertheless, the complex became a pilgrimage site for Otman Baba’s followers, Muslim locals, and the Roma—who, according to Ottoman documents, have venerated the türbe since at least 1568. Bulgarian scholar Markoff attributes the continued prominence of Otman Baba’s cult complex among Bulgarian miracle-seekers to its museum status during communism and protection during the Revival Process.