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Babai (Bābāʾī) is the name given to the supporters of a great socio-religious messianic revolt against Seljuk (Saljūq) rule in Anatolia in 637/1240. The rebellion was led by the Wafāʾī şeyh (shaykh) Baba İlyas-i Horasani (Bābā Ilyās-i Khurāsānī, d. 638/1240), supported by a certain Baba İshak (Bābā Isḥāq, d. 638/1240), who was most probably a converted Christian from the region of Kafarsūd. Baba İlyas was a disciple of Dede Gharkīn, a great Turkmen şeyh, and a deputy of the order founded by Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn Sayyid Abū l-Wafāʾ al-Baghdādī (d. 501/1107) (Elvan Çelebi, 9–13; Ocak, La révolte, …

Balım Sultan (Bālım Sulṭān, 862 (or 878)–922/1457–8 (or 1478)–1516–7) was the founder of the Bektaşi (Bektāşī) Ṣūfī order, its pir-i sanisi ( pīr-i thānīsi, second spiritual leader), and its first official şeyh (shaykh). He is accepted by the Bektaşis as the second spiritual leader of Bektaşism after Hacı Bektaş-i Veli (Ḥāccī Bektāş Velī, d. 669/1270). No biographical source exists from his time. All that is known about him rests on oral and written traditions created later within the order, and these contain contradictions. T…

Hacı Bayram-ı Veli (Ḥāccī Bayrām-ı Velī) (749?-833/1348?-1430) was the founder of the (Bayrāmī) tarika ( ṭarīqa, lit., “way,” i.e., Ṣūfī order), which inspired the later (Melāmī) order (formed shortly after Hacı Bayram’s death, and whose members have worn since the origin the normal clothes of their day, and are followers of the doctrine of the “oneness of being” (waḥdat al-wujūd) going back to the teachings of the famous mystic of Andalusian origin Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240 in Damscus). There are no extant sources from his period that refer to him, and w…

Ahi (akhī) designates a member of one of the mystical-artisanal guilds in the mediaeval Muslim world that adhered to the principles of fütüvvet ( futuwwa, both the ethics followed by Sufis (Ṣūfīs) to achieve spiritual perfection and the name of institutionalised organisations that embraced these principles). Ahi associations existed in Iran and Central Asia from at least the fifth/eleventh century and in Seljuk (Saljūq) Anatolia from the 600s/1200s. They played an important role in the formation of the Ottoman Empire a…

Cemaleddin Aksarayi (Jamāl al-Dīn Aqsarāyī, d. 779/1377, 790/1388, or 791/1389) was a theologian, philosopher, and Turkish linguist, who was born and died in Aksaray, in the province of Karaman, in central Anatolia. Known also as Cemali (Jamālī), he lived during the reigns of Murad (Murād) I (761–91/1360–89). According to the genealogical tradition available in the sources, he was the great-grandson of the well-known theologian and philosopher Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 605/1209). He was made müderris (professor) at the Zincirli Medrese (Madrasa) of Aksaray and is reput…

Baba İlyas-i Horasani (Bābā Ilyās-i Khurāsānī, d. 638/1240) was a Turkmen şeyh (shaykh) and the leader of a great socio-religious and messianic revolt in Seljuk (Saljūq) Anatolia in the seventh/thirteenth century, which is known in modern historical literature as the Revolt of the Babais (Bābāʾīs) or the Revolt of Baba Resul (Bābā Rasūl). Little is known about Baba İlyas other than his activities during the uprising. He had migrated to Anatolia (apparently from Khurāsān) at the beginning of the seventh/thirteenth century, before the Mongol invasio…

The concept of the millennium was transformed in the Islamic world under the influence of remnants of Central Eastern and Judeo-Christian mythology into a type of Messianism known as Mahdism. In Turkish history, from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries, there were a number of Mahdist uprisings, two of which, the Bābāʾī revolt in 1240 in the Seljuk period and the Shaykh Badr al-Dīn revolt in 1416 in the Ottoman period, were of particular importance as regards both their immediate and subsequent effects. Apart from these…

Ahmed Şemseddin b. İsa Marmaravi Yiğitbaşı (Aḥmad Shams al-Dīn b. ʿĪsā Marmarawī Yīğītbāshī) (839–910/1435 or 1436–1504) was the founder of the Ahmediyye (Aḥmadiyya)—also called Yiğitbaşıyya or Orta Yol (Turk., the modest way)—one of the four basic branches of the Khalwatiyya (Halvetiyye), a Ṣūfī order originating in the eighth/fourteenth century in northeastern Persia and whose branches developed in Turkey, the Middle East, and eastern Europe under the Ottoman Empire, and in all of North Africa. He was born in Marmaracık (or Göl Marmarası, or simply Marmara, the source of his nisba…