Devotion Hospitality and Architecture in PDF

Studia Islamica 108 (2013) 48-81 brill.
com/si
Devotion, Hospitality and Architecture in

Medieval Anatolia
Oya Pancaroğlu
Department of History, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul
Wherever we stopped in this land, whether at a lodge or a private house,

our neighbors both men and women (who do not veil themselves) came to
ask after our needs. When we left them to continue our journey, they bade
us farewell as though they were our relatives and our own kin, and you
would see the women weeping out of grief at our departure.1
Hospitality in late medieval Anatolia was serious business and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa,
the famous traveler from Tangier, was duly impressed by the flush of gen-
erosity he experienced during his extensive journey through the country
in the 1330s.2 In town after town, he and his travel companions were wel-
comed into lodges, honored with lavish banquets, and plied with gifts, pro-
visions, and even money. More than once, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s arrival sparked a
heated argument among groups of townsmen eager to host the newcomer.
The latter happily acquiesced to the outcome of these debates in Turk-
ish, a language he did not understand, once the reason for the frenzy was
explained to him. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa identified the primary agents of this acute
form of hospitality as akhīs, members of brotherhoods who typically made
their living as craftsmen and tradesmen and rallied around the figure of a
shaykh who presided over their rituals and guided their basic commitment
to chivalry and spirituality in Sufi or mystical terms. The brotherhoods of
1 Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, The Travels of Ibn Battuta, trans. H.A.R. Gibb, vol. 2 (Cambridge,
1962), p. 416; idem, Riḥlat Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, ed. Ṭalāl Ḥarb (Beirut, 1987), p. 299. The
translations provided here are based largely on Gibb, with minor emendations.
2 Due to some discrepancies in the text, it is not possible to know whether
Ibn Baṭṭūṭa traveled through Anatolia between 1330 and 1332 or between 1332 and
1334; see Ross E. Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the
14th Century (London, 1986), pp. 137-58.
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/19585705-12341275
O. Pancaroğlu / Studia Islamica 108 (2013) 48-81 49
akhīs, as Ibn Baṭṭūṭa observed, constellated in towns and villages and gath-
ered in lodges which accommodated their assemblies and provided for the
needs of travelers.
By the fourteenth century, the movement of the akhīs had pervaded
many corners of Anatolia and their presence in the towns that Ibn Baṭṭūṭa
visited prompted him to declare that “[n]owhere in the world are there to
be found any to compare with them in solicitude for strangers and ardor
to serve food and satisfy wants . . .”3 Having traveled from the Atlantic to
the Indian Ocean and back again, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s high praise of the akhīs
was grounded in ample experience with the conditions of long-distance
journey in the medieval world. His testimony to the profuse nature of akhī
generosity in Anatolia illuminates the nature of burgeoning social con-
figurations in Anatolia which were articulated by elaborate displays of
hospitality combined with rituals of devotion. These configurations can
be contextualized in the extended period of incursions and settlement in
Anatolia from the late twelfth century onward, the dynamics of which are
mirrored in patterns of building and in the adaptation of certain types of
architecture. There was, in effect, a continuity in the conception of seem-
ingly dissimilar buildings such as caravanserais, Sufi and akhī lodges, and
socio-religious complexes all of which were publically committed, accord-
ing to their endowment documents, to the constant provision of food and
lodging to “comers and goers” (āyanda va ravanda). This essay aims to illu-
minate some of the social forces that steered the formation of Islamic archi-
tecture in medieval Anatolia and to detect the dynamics of life and politics
in relation to buildings which have for long been presented in modern art
historiography as inert stakes upholding a canopy of lifeless formalistic
description.4 In attempting to contribute to the social history of architec-
ture in medieval Anatolia, this essay furthermore avoids the skewed and
misleading temporal-dynastic divisions of “Seljuq,” “Beylik,” and “Ottoman”
periods with regard to the totality of Anatolia, opting instead to investigate
3 Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Travels, p. 419; idem, Riḥla, p. 302.

4 For the introduction of a formalist methodology in modern Turkish art his-
toriography, see Oya Pancaroğlu, “Formalism and the Foundation of Turkish Art
in the Early Twentieth Century,” Muqarnas 24 (2007), pp. 67-78. The grip of for-
malist methodology is now giving way to more contextualized studies of medieval
Anatolian architecture; see, for example, Scott Redford, Landscape and the State:
Seljuk Gardens and Pavilions of Alanya, Turkey (Oxford, 2000); Ethel Sara Wolper,
Cities and Saints: Sufism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Medieval Anato-
lia (University Park, Penn., 2003).
50 O. Pancaroğlu / Studia Islamica 108 (2013) 48-81
connections and correlations in the longue durée between the thirteenth

and the fifteenth centuries.
Devotion, Mobility and Architectural Multifunctionality
By the time of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s journey, the demographic transformation

of Anatolia had been ongoing for well over two centuries with waves of
settlers coming primarily from the eastern Islamic world.5 The settlement
of the former lands of the Byzantine Empire by incoming nomadic and sed-
entary Turks (as well as significant numbers of Iranians) from the middle
of the eleventh century onwards eventually resulted in the formation of
a number of rival regional principalities. The upper hand gained by the
Seljuq dynasty over their rivals (notably the Danishmendids) at the end of
the twelfth century was short-lived as the Seljuq defeat in 1243 by Mongol
forces eventually ushered in, by the turn of the fourteenth century, a new
period of political divisions. Known as the Beylik (“Principality”) period, the
fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries continued to bring more Muslim
immigrants to the country with its multiple centers of power. These immi-
grants sought their livelihood in the changeable settings of more than a
dozen beyliks. The political re-unification of Anatolia would not be realized
until the late fifteenth century when the Ottomans extended their hege-
mony to the heartlands of Anatolia and beyond.
These variable social and political dynamics attended the demographic
transformation of Anatolia into a land characterized by great ethnic hetero-
geneity which included Greeks, Armenians, Turks (in itself not a homog-
enous group, coming from such different tribal and/or geographic origins
as the Qipchaq and Oghuz), Mongols, Kurds, Arabs and Persians. To add
to the complexity, the new settlers included both nomadic and sedentary
populations. The variegated character of settlement naturally impacted
the devotional landscape of Anatolia with an array of beliefs and practices
subsisting in fluid circumstances and providing opportune niches in which
5 For monographs that can be consulted for an overview of the history of Anato-
lia between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries, see Claude Cahen, La Turquie
pré-ottomane (Istanbul, 1988); Speros Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in
Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth
Century (Berkeley, 1971); Osman Turan, Selçuklular Zamanında Türkiye (Istanbul,
1971); and Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman
State (Berkeley, 1995).
both traditional institutions and new movements could flourish.6 Cults of

Christian saints and their associated sanctified sites, for example, supplied
the more syncretistic inclinations within Turkic and other Muslim popu-
lations with focal points for veneration and visitation. Thus, the memory,
ruins, or standing edifices of numerous former sanctuaries of Christian
saints were reincarnated as cult sites now associated, partially or fully, with
the aura of Muslim holy men who were revered as workers of miracles and
as conduits to divine alter egos.7 These forms of devotion—preserving the
vestiges of local Christian traditions and, quite often, some traces of pre-
Islamic Turkic ritual traditions—represent the multifaceted diffusions of
Islam in Anatolia which co-existed, in varying degrees of compatibility,
with the more normative or “orthodox” comprehension of the religion.
Furthermore, sacred sites of joint veneration between Muslims and Chris-
tians were by no means an uncommon occurrence. At the same time, an
active network of theologians and jurisprudents trained in such venerable
old centers as Cairo and Damascus were also welcomed into medieval
Anatolia, bringing primarily the Ḥanafī and, to a lesser degree, Shāfiʿī legal
schools of Sunni Islam to towns where they became institutionalized in the
6 For the ethnic complexity and confessional fluidity of medieval Anatolian

societies from the eleventh century onward, see Michel Balivet, Romanie byzan-
tine et pays de Rûm turc: Histoire d’un espace d’imbrication gréco-turque (Istanbul,
1994), especially ch. 2-3; idem, “Flou confessionel et conversion formelle de l’Asie
Mineure médiévale à l’empire ottoman,” in Byzantins et Ottomans: Relations, inter-
actions, succession (Istanbul, 1999), pp. 1-12; Keith Hopwood, “Christian-Muslim
Symbiosis in Anatolia,” in Archaeology, Anthropology and Heritage in the Balkans
and Anatolia: The Life and Times of F.W. Hasluck, 1878-1920, vol. 2, ed. David Shank-
land (Istanbul, 2004), pp. 13-30; Rustam Shukurov, “The Crypto-Muslims of Ana-
tolia,” in Shankland, ed., Archaeology, Anthropology and Heritage in the Balkans
and Anatolia, vol. 2, pp. 135-58; idem, “Christian Elements in the Identity of the
Anatolian Turkmens (12th-13th Centuries),” in Cristianità d’occidente e cristianità
d’oriente [secoli VI-XI] (Spoleto, 2004), pp. 707-64; Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, Babaîler
İsyanı (Istanbul, 1980); idem, “The Wafāʾī ṭarīqa (Wafāʾiyya) During and After the
Period of the Seljuks of Turkey: A New Approach to the History of Popular Mysti-
cism in Turkey,” Mesogeios 25-26 (2005), pp. 209-48; Ahmet T. Karamustafa, God’s
Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period, 1200-1550 (Salt
Lake City, 1994); Gary Leiser, “The Madrasah and the Islamization of Anatolia
before the Ottomans,” in Law and Education in Medieval Islam: Studies in Memory
of Professor George Makdisi, ed. Joseph E. Lowry et al. (London, 2004), pp. 174-191.
7 F.W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, 2 vols, ed. M.M. Has-
luck (New York, 1929). See further references in notes 66 and 67 below.
form of madrasas and thereby establishing new nuclei of Sunni learning.8

Whether represented by a charismatic bābā (a holy man), a Sufi or akhī
shaykh, or a staid scholar of religious science, diverse philosophies of Mus-
lim devotion found their niches in Anatolia and the country became an
important destination for men of religion from almost every corner of the
Islamic world. The relationship between the incoming Muslim populations
and the vectors of social and religious enterprise was modulated through
architectural patronage by members (both male and female) of the ruling
dynasties, the bureaucracy, and the military as well as by leaders of newly
emerging powers in the marches and wealthy urban elites who sponsored
a flurry of building activity across the country.9
One of the distinguishing aspects of the architectural legacy of medi-
eval Anatolia in the wake of the Seljuqs’ rise to power is the profusion of
caravanserais which were built on the roads linking major towns and con-
necting these to regional overland and sea routes. The vision for creating
hospitable travel conditions in the country was established especially with
the territorial expansion of the Seljuqs in the late twelfth and early thir-
teenth centuries. Over one hundred caravanserais were built from the turn
of the thirteenth century onward, primarily under the aegis of the Seljuqs.10
These buildings are renowned for their fine and robust ashlar masonry, for
the balance struck between their austere fortress-like aspects and their dec-
8 Gary Leiser, “The Madrasah and the Islamization of Anatolia before the
Ottomans.”
9 Howard Crane, “Notes on Saldjuq Architectural Patronage in Thirteenth
Century Anatolia,” Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient 26
(1993), pp. 1-57; Aynur Durukan, “Anadolu Selçuklu Dönemi Kaynakları Çerçeves-
inde Baniler,” Sanat Tarihi Defterleri 5 (2001), pp. 43-132; Wolper, Cities and Saints;
Redford, Landscape and the State.
10 Kurt Erdmann, Das anatolische Karavansaray des 13. Jahrhunderts (Berlin,
1961-1976); Osman Turan, “Selçuk Kervansarayları,” Belleten 10 (1946), pp. 471-96;
Kemal Özergin, “Anadolu'da Selçuklu Kervansarayları,” Tarih Dergisi (Istanbul
University) 15 (1965), pp. 141-70; Ayşıl Tükel Yavuz, “The Concepts That Shape Ana-
tolian Seljuq Caravanserais,” Muqarnas 14 (1997), pp. 80-95; idem, ”Kervansaraylar,”
in Anadolu Selçukluları ve Beylikler Dönemi Uygarlığı, vol. 2, eds. Ali Uzay Peker and
Kenan Bilici (Ankara, 2006), pp. 435-45. Erdmann catalogued ninety-eight Seljuq
period caravanserais while Özergin documented 132. Yavuz, in “Concepts,” states
that the number is as high as two hundred: one hundred ranging from nearly intact
buildings to remains of foundations and another hundred gleaned from traces of
ruins, written sources, and Turkish place names that include the word han (khān:
inn, caravanserai).
orative focal points such as portals, and for their significant visual impact
as signposts on the natural environment of the Anatolian countryside.
Among the most monumental and best-preserved of Seljuq caravan-
serais is Karatay Han, located to the southeast of Kayseri on the road to
Elbistan and Malatya. Built by the Seljuq statesman Jalāl al-Dīn Qaraṭāy
(d. 1256) during the reigns of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Kayqubād and his son Ghiyāth
al-Dīn Kaykhusraw II (r. 1236-46), Karatay Han provides an exceptional
view into the organization of a Seljuq caravanserai, thanks to the preserva-
tion of its endowment (waqf ) document which is replete with details about
its operation.11 This document outlines in great detail the numerous provi-
sions which were to be made available free to travelers, including lodging,
meals, medical care, bathing, and shoe repair, in addition to the feeding
and looking after of animals. According to the document, the caravanserai
was also provided with an imam to lead the guests in prayer and a muez-
zin to perform the call to prayer five times a day. The prayers would have
been held in the masjid mentioned in the endowment which is a domed
chamber at the end of the entrance vestibule of the building. The inclusion
of this masjid required the entire caravanserai to be oriented towards the
qibla and the same situation can be observed in other caravanserais that
incorporate a prayer hall. The merging of devotional practices with the hos-
pitality function of the caravanserai also manifested itself in the provisions
made for the serving of sweetmeats made of honey to every guest on Fri-
day nights. An eyewitness account of the running of the Karatay Han when
the Mamluk sultan Baybars (r. 1260-77) stayed here during his expedition
into Anatolia in 1277 affirms this arrangement and states that every need,
regardless of the season, is met at this establishment.12
The energy and resources invested in the building of caravanserais are
a reflection of the momentum of economic initiative which the ascendant
Seljuq state was quick to promote, capitalizing on the commercial traffic
borne of Anatolia’s strategic geography. In this sense, these way stations,
which customarily provided free lodging and services for three days, were
an assurance of the international trade and travel from which the Seljuq
11 Osman Turan, “Celaleddin Karatay, Vakıfları ve Vakfiyeleri,” Belleten 12 (1948),

pp. 17-171. For the architecture, see Erdmann, vol. 1, pp. 117-25; Doğan Kuban et al.,
Selçuklu Çağında Anadolu Sanatı (Istanbul, 2001), pp. 244-9.
12 Turan, “Selçuk Kervansarayları,” pp. 481-2.
state derived a significant portion of its revenue.13 While the basic eco-
nomic motivation for the proliferation of caravanserais cannot be doubted,
it is evident that other considerations also stimulated the distribution
and function of these buildings which became exemplary of architectural
multifunctionality and civic munificence. Any map showing the location
of medieval Anatolian caravanserais instantly reveals a noticeable concen-
tration on the Konya-Aksaray-Kayseri corridor (and its southern extension
to Antalya and Alanya) which probably cannot be explained in terms of
commercial traffic alone. This corridor corresponds to the heartland of
Seljuq hegemony from the late twelfth to the late thirteenth century when
the typically peripatetic court moved between the seasonal capitals. The
Seljuq sultan and his retinue were often on the move between these cit-
ies, effectively making this corridor into a royal thoroughfare. The Seljuq
historian Ibn Bībī mentions the ceremonials which were staged on this cor-
ridor on special occasions such as accessions, weddings, and receptions of
important embassies. It was the custom to greet important convoys before
their entrance into the cities and to honor them with lavish banquets and
spectacles prior to accompanying them ceremonially into the urban cen-
ter. Similar displays would be undertaken upon the departure of special
persons who would be accompanied out from the city and fêted one final
time in the countryside. On numerous instances, these ceremonies were
staged at caravanserais, signifying the extension of Seljuq presence from
the city to the countryside as a symbol of control and protection. One such
occasion was the visit of Shihāb al-Dīn ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī, the Abbasid
caliph’s envoy to Konya during the reign of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Kayqubād, when
the embassy was met and sent off by the notables of Konya at the behest of
the sultan at Zincirli (Zinjīrlū) Han just to the west Aksaray.14 Given such
13 Claude Cahen, “Le commerce anatolien au début du XIIIe siècle,” in Turcobyz-

antine et Oriens Christianus (London, 1974); Faruk Sümer, Yabanlu Pazarı (Istanbul,
1985); Şerafettin Turan, Türkiye-İtalya İlişkileri, I: Selçuklularʾdan Bizansʾın Sona
Erişine (Istanbul, 1990).
14 Ibn Bībī, Al-Awāmir al-ʿAlāʾiyya fī al-Umūr al-ʿAlāʾiyya, facs. ed., Adnan Erzi
(Ankara, 1956), pp. 230, 234 [Turkish translation: El Evamirüʾl-Ala⁠ʾiye fiʾl-Umuriʾl-
Ala⁠ʾiye (Selçuk Name), trans. Mürsel Öztürk, vol. 1 (Ankara, 1996), pp. 249, 252].
On Zincirli Han (no longer standing) see Erdmann, vol. 1, p. 195; vol. 2-3, p. 50.
On his accession to the throne, sultan ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Kayqubād himself was met and
congratulated at Obruk Han to the east of Konya before proceeding to the capital
city with the notables who had come to welcome him; Ibn Bībī (facs. ed.), p. 215
[Turkish translation pp. 232-33].
political stage-setting, the conspicuous building of caravanserais in rather

close proximity to each other allowed their patrons—primarily the sultans,
high-ranking state officials, and military commanders—to extend the per-
formance of their power relations beyond and between the cities. Existing
outside of the urban nexus, caravanserais also provided a favorable setting
for multilateral encounters in the changing circumstances of the period of
Mongol overlordship: in 1264, Karatay Han witnessed the meeting of the
Armenian king Hethoum I (r. 1226-70), the Seljuq sultan Rukn al-Dīn Qılıch
Arslān IV (r. 1248-65), the Ilkhanid qāḍī, and the Seljuq vizier Parwāna
Muʿīn al-Dīn Sulaymān (d. 1277) in which gifts were exchanged and an alli-
ance against the Mamluks was forged.15
Thus, caravanserais not only facilitated movement through the land
but also contributed to the legitimization of the process of settlement and
bolstered the political claim to the country. In this sense, the gestures of
hospitality extended by caravanserais amounted to a performance that
transcended the private domain and, in the process, provided the matrix
of opportunities and values on which the design, motivation, function, and
economy of much of the civic architecture could be established.
If the caravanserai projected the social and political significance of hos-
pitality in the Anatolian countryside, the same function was assumed by
a number of different institutions within the cities. The madrasa, defined
conventionally as a school for higher training in Islamic religious and legal
sciences, was a frequently patronized institution from the twelfth century
onwards. The installation of scholars of Sunnī (most commonly Ḥanafī)
theology and jurisprudence and the training of students in these religious
sciences comprised the central mission of the madrasa as a key institution
in the reinforcement of Anatolia’s incorporation into the Islamic world.16
Even as these schools were conceived to provide the normative educa-
tional framework in the training of Sunni religious scholars, the presence
of Sufism was also felt in the spaces of madrasas especially from the sec-
ond half of the thirteenth century onward. This development in Anatolia
mirrors the increasing functional parallelism between the madrasa and the
Sufi lodge (khānqāh) in Mamluk Egypt in the same period.17
15 Osman Turan, Selçuklular Zamanında Türkiye, 7th reprint (Istanbul, 2002),

p. 527.
16 Gary Leiser, “The Madrasah and the Islamization of Anatolia.”
17 Doris Behrens-Abouseif, “Change in Function and Form of Mamluk Religious
Institutions,” Annales Islamologiques 21 (1985), pp. 73-93.
This kind of contiguity was apparent in mid thirteenth-century Konya

where the figure of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 1273), who was trained as a legal
scholar and taught religious sciences before setting on the path of mysti-
cism, embodied a continuum between Sunni Islam and Sufism. Rūmī not
only held forth in the madrasa which had been endowed for him in Konya
but also often attended or initiated Sufi rituals in other madrasas and even
in the congregational mosque of the city. This spatial cross-over was some-
times challenged by the more conventional-minded citizens but, so long as
the charisma of figures like Rūmī continued to exert a magnetic force on the
devotional dimension of life, madrasa doors were not closed to the practice
and dissemination of Sufism.18 In this connection, the inclinations of patrons
of architecture also played an important role as exemplified by the Seljuq
minister Jalāl al-Dīn Qaraṭāy whose affiliation with Rūmī is recorded in the
latter’s hagiography by Aflākī and whose madrasa in Konya—endowed as
a school of Ḥanafī law—often became the venue for Sufi gatherings and
rituals.19 Aflākī’s narrative includes instances of encounter between Sufis
such as Rūmī and the theology students from madrasas such as that of
Qaraṭāy.20 In such texts, these encounters are always concluded in favor of
the latter recognizing the truth uttered by the former, shedding light on the
competition between the various strains of Islamic devotion which could
often be staged in the space of madrasas.
Madrasas became a stage for this type of competition not only through
the performance of Sufi rituals in buildings that were primarily endowed
for the dissemination of Sunni legal and theological teachings but also
through their capacity for hospitality which extended beyond the accom-
modation of its students and teachers. According to an anecdote related by
Aflākī, the Karatay Medrese in Konya was designated by the political and
religious elites to accommodate a group of dervishes of the Rifāʿī order who
had arrived in the city and who drew much attention with their performance
of various feats of extreme behavior and miraculous deeds.21 Among their
18 Anecdotes from Rūmī’s life in Konya are recounted by the fourteenth-
century hagiographer, Aflākī; Shams al-Dīn Aḥmad-i Aflākī, The Feats of the Knowers
of God (Manāqeb al-ʿārefīn), trans. John O’Kane (Leiden, 2002). For an encounter in
the Mosque of the Citadel (i.e. the Alaeddin Mosque) between a straight-minded
jurist and Rūmī who had been preaching there, see pp. 119-20. See also Franklin D.
Lewis, Rumi: Past and Present, East and West (Oxford, 2000).
19 Aflākī, pp. 86-7; 387.
20 Ibid., p. 202.
21 Ibid., pp. 498-500.
audience was Rūmī’s wife, Kirā Khātūn, who attended an exhibition of their
acts at the Karatay Medrese with a group of prominent ladies. Afterwards,
she suffered the disapproval of her husband who admonished her for giv-
ing into what he declared to be a show of cheap tricks designed to arouse
the feelings of the uninformed population. This story demonstrates that a
single madrasa could be a stage for alternative and competing discourses of
devotion because the function of the madrasa was seen to extend beyond
providing room for teaching into, at least occasionally, being appropriated
for a variety of rituals and for lodging of guests of diverse devotional persua-
sions or practices.
The extension of displays of hospitality along with competing discourses
of devotion into the space of madrasas point to a changeable conceptu-
alization of such civic institutions in medieval Anatolia. Furthermore, it
reflects the fluid nature of religious persuasion in a country newly opened
to the impact of Islam in its various guises while still negotiating the ongo-
ing and fundamental dynamics of settlement. The search for a correlation
between different social or religious groups and the spaces which would
be identified with them resulted in a complex situation where institutions
and their patrons had to maintain an adaptable outlook that would meet
the changing political and social exigencies of their environment. This
became even more critical after the middle of the thirteenth century when
the Mongol subjugation of the Seljuq dynasty created an environment in
which new kinds of allegiances were necessitated to maintain fortunes and
networks of power in the country. The prolific patronage of architecture by
the vizier Fakhr al-Dīn ʿAlī—known as Ṣāḥib ʿAṭāʾ—(d. 1285), one of the
principal actors on the political stage in the second half of the thirteenth
century, provides a revealing case of how building activity responded in
creative ways to changing circumstances.
Ṣāḥib ʿAṭāʾ’s main foundation in the city of Sivas was a madrasa located
in the southern area of the city, near the citadel. The so-called Gök Medrese
is remarkable for its marble entrance portal and interior tile decoration that
displays the range of innovative designs that emerged in late thirteenth-
century architecture.22 A redaction of its original endowment document
22 For the architecture of the Gök Medrese, see Albert Gabriel, Monuments
turcs d’Anatolie, vol. 2, Amasya-Tokat-Sivas (Paris, 1934), pp. 155-61; Aptullah Kuran,
Anadolu Medreseleri (Ankara, 1969), pp. 92-6; Metin Sözen, Anadolu Medreseleri.
Selçuklu ve Beylikler Devri, vol. 1, Açık Medreseler (Istanbul, 1970), pp. 40-8; Barbara
Brend, “The Patronage of Fakhr al-Din ʿAli ibn al-Husain and the Work of Kaluk
reveals that the madrasa, dated 1271, was actually accompanied by a sec-
ond building identified as a dār al-ḍiyāfa (hostel) which was built nearby.23
According to the endowment, the madrasa was founded to provide instruc-
tion in Islamic legal sciences to students at various levels under the tutelage
of preferably a Shāfiʿī mudarris (lecturer) and his two assistants who would
be housed in the building. In addition, the madrasa was staffed by a librar-
ian in charge of the book collection, a janitorial team, as well as a couple of
imams and muezzins who would ensure the performance of ritual prayers
five times a day in the masjid, a domed chamber located at the entrance
vestibule of the madrasa.
The dār al-ḍiyāfa, which is no longer extant, was conceived primarily to
undertake the preparation and dispensation of meals everyday according
to the amounts specified in the endowment. The beneficiaries of this gener-
ous act were identified in the first instance as visiting sayyids (descendents
of the Prophet), ʿalawīs (presumably descendents of ʿAlī), jurists ( fuqahāʾ),
and various Sufis (grouped under the terms ṣulaḥāʾ and fuqarāʾ) with pro-
visions made for up to thirty people who may be present at the time of
the meal service. On feast days, it was stipulated that special meals includ-
ing saffron rice be prepared at which students and their teachers would be
present for a peaceful consumption of the food after which prayers would
be recited for the souls of the founder, his descendants, and all Muslims.
On Friday evenings of Ramadan, sweetmeats made of honey would be pro-
vided. Although it is not clear if the general public could also benefit from
these services dispensed at the dār al-ḍiyāfa, the endowment includes a
ibn Abd Allah in the Development of the Decoration of Portals in 13th Century
Anatolia,” Kunst des Orients 10 (1975), pp. 360-82; Kuban et al., Selçuklu Çağında
Anadolu Sanatı, pp. 185-90. For its inscriptions, see İbrahim Hakkı Uzunçarşılı and
Rıdvan Nafız, Sivas Şehri, ed. Recep Toparlı (Erzurum, 1992), pp. 145-57. For a dis-
cussion of the significance of stylistic changes and patronage patterns in the build-
ings of Ṣāḥib ʿAṭāʾ, see Ethel Sara Wolper, “Understanding the Public Face of Piety:
Philanthropy and Architecture in Late Seljuk Anatolia,” Mesogeios 25-26 (2005),
pp. 311-36. For a discussion of this madrasa in the context of Sivas and the rise of
Sufi institutions in the late Seljuk period, see idem, Cities and Saints, pp. 44-7; 60-3.
For Ṣāḥib ʿAṭāʾ’s life and patronage, see M. Ferit and M. Mesut, Selçuk Veziri Sahip
Ata ve Oğullarının Hayat ve Eserleri (Istanbul, 1934) and Alptekin Yavaş, “Anadolu
Selçuklu Veziri Sahip Ata Fahreddin Ali’nin Mimari Eserleri,” (Ph.D. thesis, Ankara
University, 2007).
23 Sadi Bayram and Ahmet Hamdi Karabacak, “Sahib Ata Fahr’üd-din Ali’nin
Konya İmaret ve Sivas Gök Medrese Vakfiyeleri,” Vakıflar Dergisi 13 (1981), pp. 31-70.
clause which indicates that other charitable works were associated with
the madrasa itself. Accordingly, it is stipulated that every Friday a cow
be slaughtered, its offal sold for the purchase of flat bread which would
be given along with the meat at the gate of the madrasa to the needy. The
muezzin of the madrasa was further charged with the task of distributing
warm flat bread on special days to the poor by carefully dropping these
one by one from the balcony of one of the two minarets. In addition to this
theatrical distribution of food at the entrance of the madrasa, a fountain
built in to the façade of the building enhanced the status of the madrasa as
charitable institution which engaged in pious acts to benefit scholars, Sufis,
and the poor.
Ṣāḥib ʿAṭāʾ’s prolific patronage of architecture covered nearly the breadth
of Seljuq territories in Anatolia, extending from Sivas in the east to Akşehir
in the west, with numerous foundations in Konya, Kayseri, and various poins
in between (including two caravanserais). In Akşehir, he built a madrasa
(today known as the Taş Medrese) in 1250 on the outskirts of the city, on
the road leading northwest to Çay.24 The madrasa has a masjid in the form
of a domed chamber which was integrated into the architecture but with
its own separate street entrance through a two-bay portico. Some ten years
later, Ṣāḥib ʿAṭāʾ expanded this foundation by building a khānqāh (Sufi
lodge) and a fountain across the street from the madrasa. Although neither
addition has survived (nor an associated waqf document), the inscription
of the khānqāh, dated 1260, has been preserved. The location of the foun-
dation on one of the thoroughfares leading into the city suggests that the
madrasa must have become active not just as an educational institution
but also as a building providing lodging to travelers which likely prompted
the addition of the khānqāh a decade later. Together, the khānqāh and
the madrasa were probably perceived as a gateway into the city, where dis-
plays of hospitality and devotion were integrated into a symbiotic double
institution.
Among Ṣāḥib ʿAṭāʾ’s subsequent foundations is the complex he built in
Konya which included a mosque dated 1258, a khānqāh dated 1269-70, and
a tomb chamber dated 1283. The construction of these buildings extend-
ing over two decades, their multiple functions, and their location just
24 Kuran, Anadolu Medreseleri, pp. 79-82; Sözen, Anadolu Medreseleri, pp. 22-8;
İbrahim Hakkı Konyalı, Nasreddin Hocanın Şehri Akşehir (Istanbul, 1945), pp. 279-
95; Yekta Demiralp, Akşehir ve Köylerindeki Türk Anıtları (Ankara, 1996), pp. 57-64.
outside of the Larende Gate of Konya echo the character of the patron’s
earlier foundation in Akşehir. The patterns established in the Akşehir and
Konya complexes crystallized in Ṣāḥib ʿAṭāʾ’s charitable conception of his
madrasa and dār al-ḍiyāfa in Sivas which were conceived as a unified dou-
ble foundation situated within city limits but clearly oriented toward the
dynamics of mobility emanating from Anatolia’s busy roads.
The various activities that took place in and around the Anatolian
madrasa especially in the later decades of the thirteenth century (whether
envisioned by the patron or accommodated in response to evolving circum-
stances) suggest that notions and performance of hospitality were closely
identified with such civic-religious institutions. Some of these activities and
their agents demonstrate that the communal spaces of madrasas (or of the
buildings associated with them) were often used as an outlet for the forces
of burgeoning mystical movements in Anatolia. These movements are
characterized by their social fluidity and expressive diversity, ranging from
forms of antinomianism to forms compatible with “orthodox” Sunni pre-
cepts. The multiple orientations of the madrasa reflect a necessary adapt-
ability to changing socio-religious circumstances which are also behind the
development of the lodge from the late thirteenth to the fifteenth century.
Convivial Congregations: Akhīs and Their Lodges
An overview of Islamic architecture in medieval Anatolia leads to the

impression that more energy and resources were directed toward the
building of institutions such as caravanserais, madrasas, and lodges than
mosques which appear to have been built in proportion to the basic congre-
gational needs of urban communities. Although often incorporating finely
embellished mihrabs and wooden furnishings, by and large, medieval Ana-
tolian congregational mosques display an air of simplicity or even austerity
that is partially offset on the exterior by the presence of an ornamented
portal and, fairly often, an attached tomb chamber. Medieval Anatolian
mosques, like their counterparts in other parts of the Islamic world, func-
tioned as the venue for the obligatory Friday congregational prayers and
for the sermon in which the ruler’s name would be proclaimed. This impor-
tant but perfunctory nature of the Friday congregation did not translate
into a consistent approach to the building of mosques in Anatolia. Some of
the more remarkable examples of mosque architecture were undertaken
not as exclusive building projects but as part of an architectural complex in
which the mosque would be joined physically to a madrasa or hospital and,

in many instances, include a funerary component.25
The conceptualization of mosques in medieval Anatolia may be
described as reactive rather than proactive, compliant with particular cir-
cumstances or concerns of the rulers. For example, during the height of
Seljuq ascendancy in Anatolia in the early decades of the thirteenth cen-
tury, the royal congregational mosque in the capital Konya underwent a
phase of expansion, most likely to meet the needs of a larger congregation.26
The remodeling of the main façade that accompanied the expansion under
the sultans ʿIzz al-Dīn Kaykāwūs (r. 1211-19) and ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Kayqubād
(r. 1219-36) resulted in a patchwork visual effect that reflects the rivalries
and tensions between the two rulers rather than a focused architectural
reconfiguration intended to assert the visual integrity of the monument or
of the dynasty that it symbolized. Indeed, the fate of mosques in Anatolia
could be even more critically dependent on political agendas. In the late
fifteenth century, when the Ottomans finally conquered Larende, the capi-
tal of the Karamanid beylik based in central Anatolia, following a century
of long-drawn rivalry between the two dynasties, this military and political
victory was marked by the deliberate destruction of Karamanid mosques.27
The targeting of mosques strongly suggests that the Ottoman victors viewed
25 See, for example, the Mosque-Hospital-Tomb complex built by the Men-

gujekid ruler Aḥmad Shāh and princess Tūrān Malik in Divriği (1228-9) or the
Madrasa-Mosque-Tomb complex of Huand Hatun (Māhparī Khātūn) in Kayseri
(1237-8). Both complexes also included a bathhouse although the one in Divriği is
no longer standing.
26 Scott Redford, “The Alaeddin Mosque in Konya Reconsidered,” Artibus Asiae 51
(1991), pp. 54-74; Neslihan Asutay-Effenberger, “Konya Alaeddin Camisi Yapım
Evreleri Üzerine Düşünceler,” Middle East Technical University Journal of the Fac-
ulty of Architecture 23 (2006), pp. 113-122. These two articles offer somewhat differ-
ent accounts of the mosque’s phases of expansion.
27 Ottoman destruction in Larende (modern Karaman) is recorded, albeit
imprecisely, in the late fifteenth-century chronicle of Aḥmed Shikārī, Karaman-
nâme, eds. Metin Sözen and Necdet Sakaoğlu (Karaman and Istanbul, 2005),
p. 181 [for the older edition of this text, see Şikari’nin Karamanoğulları Tarihi,
ed. M. Koman (Konya, 1946), pp. 112, 197]. Many inscribed and decorated stones
which must have belonged to Karamanid buildings were used in the Ottoman re-
building of the citadel and are visible in the fabric of the walls. That some of these
stones came from the Ottoman destruction of the fourteenth-century mosque of
ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Beg (of which only the tomb and fountain remain standing) is indi-
cated by Shikārī. The range of Karamanid buildings extant in the sixteenth century
can also be determined by the records of land registers; see M. Tayyib Gökbilgin,
these buildings on a par with palaces such that their identification with the
vanquished rivals could override any qualms about demolishing the place
of Muslim congregational worship. Madrasas, on the other hand, do not
appear to have attracted a similar kind of destructive attention; as a result,
Karamanid architecture is known primarily from these buildings.28
For Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, the occasionally uncertain position of the mosque in
Anatolia became apparent in the northwestern town of Balıkesir which
he found to be a fine place with many buildings and pleasant markets but
with no Friday mosque to its name. He reports that one had been begun
“outside the town and adjoining it” but was left unfinished without a roof
so that Friday prayers were held “under the shade of the trees.”29 Despite
the failure of the local leadership to provide the city with a proper Friday
mosque, Balıkesir nonetheless did not lag behind other towns in its abil-
ity to accommodate its visitors so that Ibn Baṭṭūṭa was readily put up in
a lodge (zāwiya) run by one Akhī Sinān and visited there by the judge
(qāḍī) and sermon-giver (khaṭīb) of the city. It was, it seems, not for lack of
resources nor for the absence of professional men of religion that Balıkesir
remained mosqueless. In other towns, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa attended Friday prayers
at the local mosque whenever he could but his upbeat account of his social
and ritual experiences in Anatolia is very closely connected to his positive
reception in lodges run by akhīs who honored him and included him in
their activities. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s experience of travel in Anatolia is embedded
specifically in the expansion of the akhī movement in the politically frag-
mented early Beylik period of the fourteenth century. As a multifunctional
building, the lodge responded simultaneously to the exigencies of hospital-
ity and devotion within the parameters of mysticism as expressed by vari-
ous Sufi groups and brotherhoods of the akhī movement.
Ibn Baṭṭūṭa noted that the akhī movement in Anatolia subscribed to
a regional variation of the futuwwa. The latter was an ideal and praxis of
brotherhood of young men which had taken root earlier in the medieval
period in Iran and Iraq and became codified especially in Khurasan start-
ing in the eleventh century. Futuwwa evolved in time, spreading values
“XVI. Asırda Karaman Eyaleti ve Larende (Karaman) Vakıf ve Müesseseleri,”

Vakıflar Dergisi 7 (1968), pp. 29-38.
28 Aptullah Kuran, “Karamanlı Medreseleri,” Vakıflar Dergisi 8 (1969), pp. 209-23.
29 Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Travels, p. 449; idem, Riḥla, p. 321.
and forms of chivalry and spirituality within new regional frameworks.30

Derived from the Arabic word fatā (“young man”), futuwwa can be trans-
lated as manliness, incorporating such virtues as generosity, benevolence,
and bravery. The Persian term jawānmardī (“chivalry,” “manliness”) was
used interchangeably with futuwwa in the Persian-speaking lands and
implied the desired qualities of generosity and bravery which remained
core behavioral aspirations of the movement.31 For the meaning of the
prevalent term in Anatolia, akhī, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa suggested that it was a title
borrowed from the Arabic for “my brother.” However, it has also been
suggested that akhī may derive from the Middle Turkic word aqı which
was defined by the eleventh-century lexicographer Maḥmūd al-Kashgarī
as a generous and beneficent person.32 The primary motive behind local
futuwwa organizations in the eastern Islamic world appear to have been
social and moral objectives rather than the assertion of any particular
homogenous religious ideology. Indeed, in medieval Anatolia, the idea of
futuwwa organizations appealed not only to the Muslim populations who
introduced the movement from the east but also to the indigenous Greek
30 For a general view of the futuwwa movement in medieval Islam, see Claude
Cahen and Franz Taeschner, “Futuwwa,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 2
(Leiden, 1965), pp. 961-9; Lloyd Ridgeon, Morals and Mysticism in Persian Sufism:
A History of Sufi-futuwwat in Iran (Milton Park and New York, 2010). For futuwwa
in medieval Anatolia, see Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor,
pp. 396-402; Mikail Bayram, Ahi Evren ve Ahi Teşkilatının Kuruluşu (Konya, 1991);
Claude Cahen, “Sur les traces des premiers Akhis,” in Fuad Köprülü Armağanı
(Istanbul, 1953), pp. 81-92. More recently, the subject has been studied by Rachel
Goshgarian, “Beyond the Social and the Spiritual: Redefining the Urban Confrater-
naties of Late Medieval Anatolia (Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 2007). Various
issues which pertain to the rise of the futuwwa and its connections with the akhī
movement in Anatolia are also discussed in Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, “Fütüvvet: Tarih,”
in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi, vol. 13 (Istanbul, 1996), pp. 261-63. This
article has a good bibliography of earlier scholarship in Turkish and western lan-
guages. Among the latter, the work of Franz Taeschner particularly stands out.
31 Lloyd Ridgeon, Jawanmardi: A Sufi Code of Honour (Edinburgh, 2011). One of
the earliest usages of the term jawānmardī in the sense of futuwwa is found in the
eleventh-century Persian book of advice by Kay Kāwūs ibn Iskandar ibn Qābūs, A
Mirror for Princes: The Qābūs Nāma (London, 1951). See also Goshgarian, “Beyond
the Social and the Spiritual,” pp. 58-62.
32 The Arabic word which Maḥmūd al-Kashgarī gave in translation is jawād
(“liberal, generous”); Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Dīwān Luγāt at-Turk), ed.
and trans. Robert Dankoff (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), pt. 1, pp. 124, 251. See also Franz
Taeschner, “Akhī,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Leiden, 1965), pp. 322-3.
and Armenian communities. A movement similar to that of the akhīs took

root especially among Armenians in the thirteenth and fourteenth centu-
ries, testifying to the widespread impact of the pursuit of a code of moral
conduct in a social network.33
The futuwwa movement reached a peak at the turn of the thirteenth
century when it was adopted in Baghdad by the Abbasid caliph al-Nāṣir
li-Dīn Allāh (r. 1180-1225) who sought to create a new framework of politi-
cal cohesion among the successor states that emerged in the aftermath of
the disintegration of the Great Seljuq empire.34 For this project, the caliph
employed a Sufi scholar, Shihāb al-Dīn ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī (d. 1234), who
raised the banner of a caliphal futuwwa movement and invited regional rul-
ers, including those of Seljuq Anatolia, to join the initiative.35 This procla-
mation of the futuwwa movement at the top echelon of society with overt
political ambitions coincided with the diffusion of akhīs who came to Ana-
tolia mainly as immigrants from Iran and spread their influence in numer-
ous urban settings. Both the caliphal futuwwa and the akhī brotherhoods in
Anatolia upheld the idea of ritualized initiation into a hierarchy of relations
with the stated ideal of maintaining certain moral precepts. The political
potential of futuwwa organizations was a constant factor in the spread and
success of the movement and manifested itself in such cases as the city of
Ankara where, in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the reins of
government appeared to have passed to akhī hands.36
That akhīs took the ideals of futuwwa as the axis around which their
vision and activity revolved is evident from the number of manuals of futuw‑
wa (generally taking the title futuwwatnāma) composed in Arabic, Per-
sian, and Turkish from the thirteenth century onward in Anatolia.37 These
33 Goshgarian, “Beyond the Social and the Spiritual,” pp. 233ff.

34 Angelika Hartmann, An-Nasir li-Din Allah (1180-1225): Politik, Religion, Kultur
in der späten ʿAbbāsidenzeit (Berlin, 1975); Marshall G.S. Hodgson, The Venture of
Islam, vol. 2, The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods (Chicago, 1974), pp. 279-
86; Ridgeon, Morals and Mysticism in Persian Sufism, pp. 61-74.
35 Eric S. Ohlander, Sufism in an Age of Transition: ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī and the
Rise of the Islamic Mystical Brotherhoods (Leiden, 2008), pp. 271-91.
36 Although there no scholarly consensus on the precise nature or extent of
akhī “government” in Ankara, it appears that one prominent akhī family (patrons
of the Arslanhane Mosque built or rebuilt in the 1280s) at least filled a significant
local power vacuum during the time of Mongol overlordship; Goshgarian, “Beyond
the Social and the Spiritual,” pp. 225-31.
37 The magisterial work on futuwwatnāmas along with Turkish translations of
some key texts was undertaken by Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı, “İslam ve Türk İllerinde
manuals provide guidelines on the various aspects of Anatolian akhī orga-

nizations and offer a glimpse into initiation rites, principles of hierarchy
and advancement, and moral ideals concerning communal wellbeing and
solidarity. Such texts also elucidate the mystical-spiritual component of
the path taken by the aspiring akhī but allow for a distinction to be made
between the path of futuwwa and that of taṣawwuf (Sufism). The manuals
of futuwwa advocate an ethical realignment of worldly pursuits in the light
of a mystical quest for divinity but discourage the renouncement of such
pursuits in the commitment of one’s self to the mystical quest as was the
case in certain Sufi paths.38 The relationship between Sufism and futuwwa
may be described as a “symbiotic” development whereby the Sufi pursuit of
mystical insights was a central factor in the formation of various commu-
nal organizations, such as that of the akhīs.39 Suhrawardī, who promoted
the caliphal futuwwa, noted that both the Sufi lodge (khānqāh) and the
futuwwa lodge ( futuwwat-khāna; literally, “house of futuwwa”) subscribe to
the ideal of an “open table” (denoting the principle of generosity) but that
the former is typically sponsored by rulers and the élite whereas the latter
is the product of the master’s own efforts.40 In the manuals of futuwwa,
the professional activity of akhīs and their earning of a livelihood, typically
though not exclusively through craft or trade, was upheld as a prerequisite
for initiation and advancement. The committed akhī was conceptualized
as a responsible working citizen whose contribution to his brotherhood
was also gauged by his contribution to his larger community.
The subtleties of the relationship between the paths of Sufism and futuw‑
wa is reflected in the common and flexible building of the lodge known
Fütüvvet Teşkilatı ve Kaynakları,” İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası (Istanbul Univer-

sity) 11 (1949-50), pp. 3-354. See also Franz Taeschner and Wilhelm Schumacher,
Der anatolische Dichter Nasiri (um 1300) und sein Futuvvet-name (Leipzig, 1944).
The main points and sources are covered in Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, “Fütüvvetnâme,”
Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi, vol. 13 (Istanbul, 1996), pp. 264-5 and
Goshgarian, ch. 2. For futuwwatnāmas in Turkish, see Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı,
“Burgazi ve ‘Fütüvvet-Name’si,” İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası (Istanbul University)
15 (1953-56), pp. 76-148; Ali Torun, Türk Edebiyatında Türkçe Fütüvvet-nameler
(Ankara, 1998).
38 Gölpınarlı, “İslam ve Türk İllerinde Fütüvvet Teşkilatı ve Kaynakları,” pp. 39-
40; 88-91; 269; 303.
39 Lloyd Ridgeon, “Javanmardi: Origins and Development until the 13th Cen-
tury and Its Connection to Sufism,” in Sufism: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies,
vol. 3, ed. Lloyd Ridgeon (Milton Park and New York), p. 192.
40 For the full text, see Ridgeon, Javanmardi, p. 58.
most commonly by the terms zāwiya, ribāṭ, and khānqāh which were used
to denote a range of functionally and architecturally analogous buildings.41
While all of these terms could be applied to the Sufi or dervish lodge, it
appears that the akhī lodge was more commonly called a zāwiya. The dif-
ferent communal identities of lodges was central to their public image and
perception but it is noteworthy that these identifications typically did not
dictate restricted access to the lodges so that the accommodation of “out-
siders” was of primary concern for all lodges. The increasing urban impact
of Sufi lodges in medieval Anatolia from the latter half of the thirteenth
century has been explored in a study by Ethel Sara Wolper;42 the physical
evidence for the akhī lodge remains largely uncharted but it would be fair
to assume that, in terms of its architecture, it must have been largely analo-
gous to the Sufi lodge. The architecture of Sufi lodges could vary consider-
ably but, in general, comprised a main domed chamber that was adjacent
to and extending into a barrel-vaulted anti-chamber.43 This arrangement
often functioned as the central unit to which auxiliary chambers or halls
could be connected, resulting in a building that usually had a T-shaped or
41 Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, “Zaviyeler (Dini, Sosyal ve Kültürel Tarih Açısından Bir
Deneme),” Vakıflar Dergisi 12 (1978), pp. 247-69; idem and S. Faruki [Faroqhi],
“Zaviye,” İslam Ansiklopedisi, vol. 13 (Istanbul, 1986), pp. 468-76; S. Blair, “Zāwiya,”
Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 11 (Leiden, 2002), pp. 466-7; J. Chabbi, “Ribāṭ,”
Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 8 (Leiden, 1995), pp. 493-506; idem, “La fonction
du Ribat à Bagdad du Ve siècle au début du VIIe siècle,” Revue des Études Islamiques
42 (1974), pp. 101-21; idem, “Khānḳāh,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 4
(Leiden, 1978), pp. 1025-6; Süleyman Uludağ and Baha Tanman, “Hankah,” Türkiye
Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi, vol. 16 (Istanbul, 1997), pp. 42-6. For a study of
the development of the urban and Sufi context of Anatolian lodges, see Wolper,
Cities and Saints. For the lodges of so-called colonizer shaykhs and bābās, see Ömer
Lütfi Barkan, “İstila Devirlerinin Kolonizatör Türk Dervişleri ve Zaviyeler,” Vakıflar
Dergisi 2 (1942), pp. 279-365 and Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, “Emirci Sultan ve Zaviyesi,”
Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi 9 (1978), pp. 130-208. For a discussion of the blurring of lines
between various religious and professional groups with regard to the lodge, see
Wolper, Cities and Saints, pp. 74-8. For the development of the lodge into a mani-
festly multifunctional building in the early Ottoman period (to be discussed in the
next section), see Semavi Eyice, “İlk Osmanlı Devrinin Dini-İçtimai Bir Müessesesi:
Zaviyeler ve Zaviyeli-Camiler,” İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası (Istanbul University) 23
(1963), pp. 1-80 and Sedat Emir, Erken Osmanlı Mimarlığında Çok-İşlevli Yapılar:
Kentsel Kolonizasyon Yapıları Olarak Zaviyeler, 2 vols. (Izmir, 1994).
42 Wolper, Cities and States.
43 Emir, Erken Osmanlı Mimarlığında Çok-İşlevli Yapılar, vol. 1, Öncül Yapılar:
Tokat Zaviyeleri; Wolper, Cities and Saints, pp. 60-71.
cruciform plan, the latter akin to the plan of madrasas. Although the func-
tion of auxiliary spaces in Sufi lodges has not been precisely identified, it
is only logical that these would have been designated for the lodging of
guests, the preparation of meals, and storage. The overlap in the functions
and plans (as well as audiences) of lodges and madrasas argues against con-
sidering these buildings as inherently distinct from each other and suggests
that they were all used as venues for displays of communal hospitality and
for rituals of a mystical nature, whether habitually or occasionally. In other
words, the presence of multiple chambers appears to have been conceived
to serve multiple functions; the fact that a building was called a zāwiya, a
madrasa, or a khānqāh did not significantly alter this notion.
Ibn Baṭṭūṭa gives the following description of the Anatolian akhī lodge
which is remarkably in keeping with the distinction that Suhrawardī made
in the previous century between akhī and Sufi lodges:
The akhī builds a lodge (zāwiya) and furnishes it with rugs, lamps,
and what other equipment it requires. His associates work during the
day to gain their livelihood, and after the afternoon prayer they bring
him their collective earnings; with this they buy fruit, food, and the
other things needed for consumption in the lodge. If, during that day, a
traveler alights at the town, they give him lodging with them; what they
have purchased serves for their hospitality to him and he remains with
them until his departure. If no newcomer arrives, they assemble them-
selves to partake of the food, and after eating they sing and dance.44
In this account, the akhī lodge emerges as an institution with two primary
functions: the ritual gathering of akhīs and the hosting of guests. For both
functions, the provision of food was a clear priority. Furthermore, “sing-
ing and dancing” (al-ghināʾ wa al-raqṣ) are two interrelated activities that
Ibn Baṭṭūṭa repeatedly mentions in connection with the lodges in which
he stayed. Although he provides no details on the nature of these perfor-
mances, it is likely that these were recitals of some combination of profane
songs and sacred hymns, possibly accompanied by instruments, which
were part and parcel of the widespread mystical practice of samāʿ.45 The
44 Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Travels, pp. 419-20; idem, Riḥla, p. 302.

45 Samāʿ literally means “listening” but in its ritual sense it subsumes both
the listening and the performance of music; J. During, “Samāʿ,” Encyclopaedia of
Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 8 (Leiden, 1995), pp. 1018-9; idem, Musique et extase. L’audition
nature of samāʿ could differ greatly from context to context, ranging from
occasions for experiencing ecstatic raptures with outwardly manifesta-
tions such as throwing off one’s garments, to the more orderly Mawlawī
rites codified by Sulṭān Walad, Rūmī’s son, in which music and movement
were harmonized into an integrated and controlled performance. Because
Ibn Baṭṭūṭa makes no reference to any ecstatic and rapturous displays, it
may be assumed that these were mostly measured affairs, in keeping with
the moderate behavior prescribed in manuals of futuwwa and designed for
entertainment but also for mystical reflection.46
In Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s experience of akhī lodges, devotional performance was
not limited to singing and dancing but also frequently included recitations
from the Qurʾān. In the western town of Ladik, for example, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa
stayed in two different lodges and in both places he heard the Qurʾān
recited as part of a series of performances that also included singing and
dancing in the end.47 In fact, these devotional performances were incor-
porated into a sequence of activities that revolved around the display of
hospitality and congeniality to the guest who was first offered a meal, then
taken to the bath (possibly part of the lodge complex), and afterwards fed
sweetmeats and fruits before settling down to hear the Qurʾān recitation
which was followed by singing and dancing. In Bursa, recently conquered
and made into the capital of the newly emerging Ottoman beylik, Ibn
Baṭṭūṭa stayed in the lodge of the akhī Shams al-Dīn.48 He arrived on the
holy day of ʿĀshūrāʾ which was commemorated with a lavish evening ban-
quet attended by notables and military men who broke the fast they had
been observing specially for the day. The feast gave way to Qurʾān recita-
tions and a sermon from a “jurist-preacher” (al-faqīh al-wāʿiẓ) named Majd
al-Dīn Qunawī; these were followed in the end by the customary singing
spirituelle dans la tradition soufie (Paris, 1988); Annemarie Schimmel, “Raḳs,” Ency-
clopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 8 (Leiden, 1995), pp. 415-6; Fritz Meier, “The Dervish
Dance: An Attempt at an Overview,” in Essays on Islamic Piety and Mysticism, trans.
John O’Kane (Leiden, 1999), pp. 23-48.
46 For an appreciation of music and dancing in the futuwwatnāma of Nāṣirī, see
Gölpınarlı, “İslam ve Türk İllerinde Fütüvvet Teşkilatı ve Kaynakları,” pp. 349-50.
47 Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Travels, pp. 426-7; idem, Riḥla, pp. 305-6.
48 Idem, Travels, pp. 450-1; idem, Riḥla, pp. 321-2. Shams al-Dīn was the brother
of Shaykh Ede Bali, an important mystical figure who was a close associate of the
first two Ottoman rulers, Osmān and Orkhān; Franz Taeschner, “War Murad I.
Grossmeister oder Mitgleid des Achibundes?” Oriens 6 (1953), p. 23.
and dancing.49 In other lodges, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa partook of similar displays of

generosity in the form of food, bath, and accommodation as his hosts made
a point of personally attending to their guest’s need at every point. The
offering and consumption of food, in particular, were contextually related
to the undertaking of religious activities that ranged from the recitation of
the Qurʾān to the more performative expressions of mystical devotion.50
The nature and sequence of such events could differ according to the
occasion of the gathering and their configuration within the space of lodges
can be gleaned from the numerous futuwwatnāmas written in Anatolia
between the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries. These texts pay special
attention to the akhī initiation ceremony which was a formal affair that
took place in the assembly room of the lodge commonly known as maḥfil
or majlis. At such an occasion, the akhīs would be seated or standing in
the maḥfil in a precise arrangement according to their rank in the brother-
hood, ready to witness the rites of initiation undertaken by the aspirant
akhī under the direction of the naqīb (a leading akhī designated as master
of ceremony). Initiation into an akhī brotherhood was often a two-stage
process, each stage symbolized by an item of clothing (libās al-futuwwa). In
the first stage, the aspirant would be girded with a sash tied in a way indica-
tive of rank or occupation. In the second stage, which was considered to
complete the initiation process, the advanced candidate would don a spe-
cial pair of trousers indicative of having fully joined the path of futuwwa.
In the early thirteenth-century futuwwatnāma of Naqqāsh Aḥmad, for
example, it is stipulated that the girding ceremony begin with the naqīb
facing the qibla and reciting the sermon of futuwwa to be followed by seven
49 Though carrying the scholarly title of jurist (and therefore presumably hail-
ing from a background in the religious sciences), Majd al-Dīn Qunawī, according
to Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, apparently led an ascetic life in Bursa, delivering arousing homi-
lies, fasting for days on end, sleeping in the cemetery, and boasting no possessions.
Indeed, the distinction between the various strains of Islam in Anatolia could not
always be drawn very sharply and akhī lodges were often the loci where represen-
tatives of different social and religious groupings could commingle. Karamustafa
(God’s Unruly Friends, p. 10) aptly warns against the pigeonholing of antinomian
dervishes: “To judge by the presence of poets, scholars, and writers of a certain
proficiency among their numbers, the anarchist dervishes were not always the illit-
erate crowd their detractors reported them to be.”
50 On the topic of food (from production to consumption and much else in
between) in medieval Anatolia, see Nicolas Trépanier, “Food as a Window into
Daily Life in Fourteenth Century Central Anatolia,” (Ph.D. thesis, Harvard Univer-
sity, 2008).
specific verses from the Qurʾān and by prayers to the Prophet, his family,
the caliph, and the ruler.51 He would then prepare a mixture of salt and
water to be drunk by the aspirant from the initiation cup set up in the
middle of the room. The two ingredients of the drink are related to a verse
from the Qurʾān (25:53) in which the creation of water and salt by God
are mentioned and these are interpreted as symbols of devotional steadfast-
ness. Having obtained the consensus of the congregation, the naqīb would
then proceed to gird the aspirant with the sash and make him drink from
the cup to complete the process. In doing so, the initiate would be consid-
ered to have entered into a compact founded upon the moral and mystical
precepts of the brotherhood and this would be expressed in the form of
an oath sworn by the initiate. In the second stage, as described in the late
thirteenth-century futuwwatnāma of Najm-i Zarkūb, the initiate’s loyalty
to his chosen master would be symbolized by the former’s ceremonially
donning of a trouser received from the latter.52 Considered as a completing
act (takmīl), the wearing of the trouser would take place in the center of a
circle of seated akhīs who become witnesses to the occasion.53
The two initiation ceremonies remained the hallmark of akhī rites and
their ritualistic character was consistently emphasized even as the details
of the ceremonies could vary with time and region. The devotional aspect
of these rites is stressed by Najm-i Zarkūb who compared the tenets of
futuwwa undertaken by akhīs to the tenets required for the performance
of ritual prayers.54 Thus, for example, one of the primary prerequisites of
undertaking rites of futuwwa was to be in a state of ritual purity.55 In his
treatise, Zarkūb also outlines the essence of futuwwa in the form of virtues to
be cultivated and social responsibilities to be fulfilled among which the act
of eating is given special emphasis. In a long passage outlining the etiquette
of eating and drinking, Zarkūb points out that proper devotion cannot be
carried out without observing proper rules for the offering and consump-
tion of food.56 These rules spell out the myriad and detailed requisite con-
ventions of hygiene, manners of drinking and eating, and respecting one’s
51 Gölpınarlı, “İslam ve Türk İllerinde Fütüvvet Teşkilatı ve Kaynakları,”

pp. 220-5.
52 Ibid., pp. 250-1.
53 See also a similar account in the anonymous Persian futuwwatnāma, ibid.,
pp. 232-4.
54 Ibid., p. 251.
55 Ibid., p. 249.
56 Ibid., pp. 255-60.
table companions. The meal is concluded with the recitation of the Sūrat
al-fātiḥa (the opening chapter of the Qurʾān) a number of times so that the
meal may generate blessings, submission, and devotion. Conceived as both
a display of generosity and a fundamental exercise in piety, the act of eat-
ing was thus perceived by akhīs as a ritualistic activity in which the bonds
of loyalty within the brotherhood would be strengthened and the tenets of
devotion would be made manifest.57
Accounts of communal gatherings in the akhī lodge suggest that most
activities took place in the central space of the building, usually known as
the maḥfil. Neither Ibn Baṭṭūṭa nor any of the authors of the futuwwatnāmas
gives a precise idea of what the essential architectural elements of a lodge
were. More than once, however, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa emphasized the furnishings
of lodges such as rugs, glass lamps, and brass candlesticks which paint a
picture of a rather cozy environment.58 These same elements were also
pointed out by Nāṣirī, a late thirteenth-century author of a Persian verse
futuwwatnāma, who, furthermore, emphasized the importance of cleanli-
ness, bright interiors, and keeping animals away from the entrance.59 He
advocated the addition of a fountain pool from which water could be
drawn but counseled against the hanging of separating curtains which may
encourage notions of self-importance presumably by creating spatial dif-
ferentiation which would hinder communal association. Clearly, the lodge
was expected to reflect the ethical ideals of futuwwa and, in this endeavor,
the provision of a clean and comfortable space with the necessary soft fur-
nishings was of primary significance. As for the bricks-and-mortar architec-
ture of the akhī lodge, Nāṣirī suggested only that it be square (chār-sū), like
the Kaʿba.60 Nāṣirī emphasized the communal character of the akhī lodge
in the beginning of his description by referring to it as “a place in which a
57 The connection between the act of eating (whether alone or in company)

and piety is subject commonly found in moralizing literature from the medieval
Iranian world; a well-known example is the chapter on eating in al-Ghazālī’s
(d. 1111) extensive guide to piety, Iḥyā ʿulūm al-dīn. Eating as a mirror of social
relations and ideals and as a measure of jawānmardī is also reflected in the
Qābūsnāma.
58 Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Travels, pp. 420-1; idem, Riḥla, pp. 302-3.
59 Gölpınarlı, “İslam ve Türk İllerinde Fütüvvet Teşkilatı ve Kaynakları,”
p. 339; Franz Taeschner and Wilhelm Schumacher, Der anatolische Dichter Nasiri,
pp. 70-2; Persian text, lines 577-589. Interestingly, Nāṣirī refers to the lodge as
āsitāna, a word more common in Ottoman usage.
60 Gölpınarlı, p. 339; Taeschner, line 579.
group of companions come together, with lamps and candles.”61 He con-

cluded by returning to the same point: “There should be companionship
with men so that there may always be joy and laughter. And there should
be guests from among the righteous and no wine so that companionship
may be lawful.”62
Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s travelogue testifies to the function of akhī lodges as
dynamic community centers that were very much connected to the outside
world. In actively recruiting visitors to partake of their hospitality, the akhīs
made the lodge a link between their urban society and the world beyond it.
The akhī lodge—arguably even more so than the Sufi lodge—was therefore
an institution that spoke directly to the phenomenon of dynamic social
mobility in Anatolia which embraced the display of comfort and generos-
ity and embedded these in the codes of morality and spirituality. On one
level, the function of lodges in Anatolia can be contextualized in a larger of
phenomenon of charity that developed in tandem with the rise of mystical
movements in the medieval Islamic world.63 Nevertheless, it is possible to
distinguish the Anatolian lodge with respect to its role in the institutional
and architectural response to the process of settlement in which it can be
related to the conceptualization of caravanserais and madrasas. The akhī
lodge, in particular, is a clear reflection of the social conditions of Anatolia
where the fluid nature of Muslim devotion necessitated adaptable building
types which eased the seeming divide between the secular and spiritual
realms and invited participation. It appears to have been these characteris-
tics of the akhī lodge that triggered the adoption and transformation of its
functions into an established architectural type sponsored in particular by
the Ottoman rulers in the evolution of their beylik out of a frontier context
in the fourteenth century.
61 Ān maqāmī kʾandarū āyand jamʿ / Zumra-i aṣḥāb bā qandīl u shamʿ; Taesch-
ner, line 577.
62 Ṣuḥbat-ash bāyad ki bā mardān buwad / Tā hamīsha khurram u khāndan
buwad // Ham muṣāfir dar way az ahl-i ṣalaḥ / May na-bāyad tā shawad ṣuḥbat
mubāh; Taeschner, lines 588-9.
63 Donald P. Little, “The Nature of Khanqahs, Ribats, and Zawiyas under the
Mamluks,” in Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams, ed. W.B. Hallaq and
D.P. Little (Leiden, 1991), pp. 91-105; Sheila Blair, “Ilkhanid Architecture and Soci-
ety: An Analysis of the Endowment Deed of the Rabʿ-i Rashidi,” Iran 22 (1984),
pp. 67-90.
A Natural Culmination? The Imāret in the Ottoman Beylik
In 1326, Orkhān Beg (r. 1324-62), the second ruler of the budding Ottoman
beylik established in the marches of northwest Anatolia, conquered the Byz-
antine citadel of Prousa. This event provided the stage on which nascent
Ottoman royal ambitions would be played out during the next 100 years.64
The transformation of Prousa, a modest fortified settlement on the foothills
of Mount Olympus, into Bursa, the first capital city of the Ottomans, is a
story that tells as much of the momentum of military success and political
ambition as it does of the successful engagement and modulation of the
socio-religious mission of lodges for the purposes of urban expansion and
re-identification. This process can be seen in the context of the alliances
which the early Ottoman rulers forged with the charismatic and influential
leaders of mystical movements, bābās, who had settled in this region from
the latter decades of the thirteenth century. These alliances, intended to
give the beylik support necessary for political viability, were achieved by
marriages contracted between the House of Osmān and, in particular, that
of one shaykh Ede Bali (an affiliate of the Wafāʾī mystical order associated
with the so-called Bābāʾī uprising of the 1230s) as well as by the granting of
land in the countryside to various other shaykhs and bābās and their fol-
lowers for the purpose of setting up lodges.
These lodges can be traced from later land registers which reveal that
such grants were also intended to hasten and cement the process of settle-
ment in this frontier region and to encourage easy mobility through the
land.65 Brief descriptions in the registers show that many of these lodges
were established in uninhabited areas, such as mountain passes consid-
ered until then to be unsafe for travel, and that they fulfilled the mission of
serving travelers. As such, these establishments were envisioned to be self-
sufficient, creating their own resources from agriculture, husbandry, and
water and wind mills. Similar countryside lodges were also founded in other
parts of Anatolia, beyond Ottoman territories: some of these appropriated
ancient cult sites in the name of an influential mystical leader, such as the
lodge of Elvān Chelebī which was built over the ruins of a sanctuary associ-
ated with St Theodore west of Amasya in the fourteenth century.66 Indeed,
64 Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State.

65 Barkan, “İstila Devirlerinin Kolonizatör Türk Dervişleri ve Zaviyeler.”
66 Semavi Eyice, “Çorumʾun Mecidözüʾnde Aşık Paşa-Oğlu Elvan Çelebi Zavi-
yesi,” Türkiyat Mecmuası 15 (1969), pp. 211-44; Ethel Sara Wolper, “Khidr, Elwan
the practice can be traced to the Seljuqs who initiated the appropriation
of ancient cult sites in frontier regions in the name of legendary Muslim
warrior saints or Qurʾānic saints.67 These precedents may have informed
the early Ottoman practice which was particularly directed towards the
effective settlement and re-population of the region of Bithynia, Thrace,
and the Balkans, an enterprise which has also been described as a process
of “colonization.”
The systematic nature of the Ottoman practice can also be distinguished
in terms of its impact on the course and character of Ottoman royal
architectural patronage from the conquest of Prousa to the conquest of
Constantinople.68 Thus, Orkhān Beg’s main architectural investment in his
new capital consisted of a complex buildings outside of the citadel, in an
uninhabited area at some distance to its northwest, which was considered
at that time to be dangerous.69 The complex, built in 1339-40, was intended
Çelebi and the Conversion of Sacred Sanctuaries in Anatolia,” Muslim World 90

(2000), pp. 309-22. For the appropriation or joint Christian-Muslim veneration of
sacred sites in Anatolia, see Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans.
67 For the localization of the cult of the Seven Sleepers (Aṣḥāb al-Kahf ), see
Oya Pancaroğlu, “Caves, Borderlands and Configurations of Sacred Topography in
Medieval Anatolia,” Mésogeios 25-26 (2005), pp. 249-82. For the cult and shrine of
Sayyid Baṭṭāl Ghāzī, see Zeynep Yürekli, Architecture and Hagiography in the Otto-
man Empire: The Politics of Bektashi Shrines in the Classical Age (Surrey, 2012).
68 Oya Pancaroğlu, “Architecture, Landscape, and Patronage in Bursa: The
Making of an Ottoman Capital City,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 20 (1995),
pp. 40-55.
69 Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi, Osmanlı Mimarisinin İlk Devri, 630-805 (1230-1402)
(Istanbul, 1966), pp. 18-216; Albert Gabriel, Une capitale turque: Brousse, Bursa
(Paris, 1958), pp. 46-9; Emir, Erken Osmanlı Mimarlığında Çok-İşlevli Yapılar, vol. 2,
Orhan Gazi Dönemi Yapıları, pp. 18-50; Suna Çağaptay, “Frontierscape: Reconsid-
ering Bithynian Structures and Their Builders on the Byzantine-Ottoman Cusp,”
Muqarnas 28 (2011), pp. 166-70. For the endowment of the complex (extant in a
later Turkish redaction of the original), see Hüseyin Hüsameddin, “Orhan Bey’in
Vakfiyesi,” Türk Tarih Encümeni Mecmuası, fasc. 94, n.s. 17 (1926-27), pp. 284-301;
Irène Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Recherches sur les actes des règnes des sultans Osman,
Orkhan et Murad I (Munich, 1967), pp. 127-30. The fifteenth-century Ottoman
chronicler Neshrī reported that Orhan was fond of developing uninhabited areas
and built his Bursa complex in an area that was previously considered so unsafe
that people would avoid it after afternoon prayers; cited in Barkan, “İstila Devirl-
erinin Kolonizatör Türk Dervişleri ve Zaviyeler,” p. 354. Built in 1339-40, the com-
plex of Orhan Bey appears to have been affected (but not destroyed) by the fires
that ensued the Karamanid siege of Bursa following the defeat of the Ottomans by
Tīmūr in 1402.
as a civic and religious complement to a designated commercial center.

The latter function was invested in a khān (an urban commercial build-
ing) which became the first of a series of khāns built in the same area into
the sixteenth century, establishing Ottoman Bursa’s commercial vibrant
commercial and industrial core. The religious function of Orkhān’s com-
plex was centered in a building with a T-shaped plan which culminates in a
prayer hall on its central axis with side flanks formed by smaller chambers
and is clearly modeled on the architecture of lodges. This was not a Friday
mosque (for which purpose Orkhān probably converted one of the Byz-
antine buildings in the citadel)70 but rather a multifunctional building in
which devotional activities were clearly combined with social ones, such
as providing room and board to travelers. The endowment refers to it as
a zāwiya71 and designates it for the accommodation of traveling shaykhs,
scholars, descendents of the Prophet, and the poor. That the complex also
included a bathhouse further supports the idea that the provision of full-
scale hospitality was of paramount importance in this enterprise.
The inscription on the building is not the original one but a replace-
ment erected in 1417-8 following the reinstatement of Ottoman power in
the aftermath of the defeat at the Battle of Ankara by the invading army
of Tīmūr in 1402. As the inscription does not make any reference to a
re-building or restoration, it is generally assumed that the building is
essentially the original one built by Orkhān. It refers to the building as an
ʿimāra (imāret in Ottoman Turkish) a word which in later Ottoman prac-
tice acquired the meaning of “soup kitchen” but which functioned in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as a rather supple term that appears to
have denoted socio-religious building(s) that served charitable functions
with a concomitant mission of urban land development.72 The usage of the
70 Orkhān is said to have either built a mosque or converted a Byzantine church

for this purpose in the citadel of Prousa, in proximity to the two Byzantine build-
ings which were converted to serve as tombs for himself and his father, Osmān;
Suna Çağaptay, “Prousa/Bursa, a City within the City: Chorography, Conversion
and Choreography,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 35 (2011), p. 52. A small,
single-domed, mosque was also built in the citadel by Orkhān’s brother, ʿAlāʾ
al-Dīn, in 1331 (pp. 65-6).
71 For the terminological struggles in the modern historiography concerning
the function of this (and other T-shaped buildings) in early Ottoman architecture,
see Çağaptay, “Frontierscape,” p. 158.
72 For the changing connotations of imāret (from the Arabic ʿimāra, meaning
habitation or building) see Amy Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence: An
word in early Ottoman sources (including inscriptions and endowments)

suggests that imāret did not denote a single building type but rather the
architectural arrangement of charitable functions invested in one or more
buildings. As such, it appears most frequently in foundation inscriptions of
the buildings with a T-shaped plan where it refers simultaneously to that
building and, oftentimes, to all other associated buildings usually arranged
into a complex. In this sense, then, Orkhān Beg’s imāret was a complex of
buildings intended to accommodate the type of functions that Ibn Baṭṭūṭa
witnessed during his stay in Bursa in the lodge of Akhī Shams al-Dīn in the
same decade of the fourteenth century and to promote these in the name
of a royal foundation. In addition to providing food, lodging, bathing facili-
ties, and a prayer hall for worship, Orkhān’s complex also catered to the
development of trade in Bursa. Thus, the rise of the imāret could be related
to urban akhī lodges in terms of civic, religious and mercantile activities
that revolved around it and to countryside lodges identified with bābās and
shaykhs with regard to its extra-urban location.73
The socio-religious character of Orkhān’s complex established a distinct
pattern that came to characterize royal architectural patronage in early
Ottoman Bursa. Orkhān’s son and successor, Murād I (r. 1362-89), founded
a complex some three kilometers west of the citadel in an area rich with
thermal waters.74 Here, Murād I also had a bathhouse built, taking advan-
tage of the area’s primary natural resource from which this locale also
Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem (Albany, 2002), pp. 143-57; Gülru Necipoğlu, The
Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire (London, 2005), pp. 71-6.
73 The extra-urban or suburban context was a characteristic of Ottoman imārets
built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, not just in Bursa but also in other
cities such as Amasya where two imārets built by Bāyezīd Pāshā in 1414-17 and
Yörgüch Pāshā in 1428 were both located on the outskirts of the city; see Gabriel,
Monuments turcs d’Anatolie, vol. 2, pp. 25-33. The institution of the imāret was also
patronized by other contemporary beyliks; for example, the Karamanid Ibrāhim
Bey built an imāret in 1432-3 on the outskirts of Larende (modern Karaman), the
endowment of which was on a par with the most ambitious early Ottoman royal
imārets and which was designated in its foundation inscription to serve Muslim
travelers of any sect; see İbrahim Hakkı Konyalı, Abideleri ve Kitabeleri ile Kara-
man Tarihi (Istanbul, 1967), pp. 405-52; İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, “Karamanoğulları
Devri Vesikalarından İbrahim Beyin Karaman İmareti Vakfiyesi,” Belleten 1 (1937),
pp. 56-127; Aynur Durukan, “İbrahim Bey İmareti ve Kümbeti,” in Türkiye Diyanet
Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi, vol. 21 (Istanbul, 2000), pp. 287-90.
74 Ayverdi, Osmanlı Mimarisinin İlk Devri, pp. 230-64; Gabriel, Une capitale
turque, pp. 51-63; Çağaptay, “Prousa/Bursa, a City within the City,” pp. 170-77.
derived its Ottoman name, Kāplūca, meaning spa. The surviving redaction
of its endowment deed refers to Murād I’s complex as “ʿImāret-i Kāplūca”
and identifies its main building as a lodge (zāwiya), with dependencies
including kitchens and various other unspecified buildings.75 The endow-
ment also stipulates that the lodge is built to host men of religion, includ-
ing ʿulamāʾ, shaykhs, sayyids, Qurʾān reciters, and preachers as well as the
fuqarāʾ and the masākin.76 In keeping with tradition, these visitors were
to be hosted for three days and the imāret was to be staffed by an imam,
a Qurʾān reciter and various service personnel including a cook, a book-
keeper, and a janitor, to be overseen by a supervisor. An addendum to the
endowment by Murād’s son and successor, Bāyezīd I (r. 1389-1403), dated
1400, reveals that an educational mission was later added to the lodge by
means of supplementary income-generating property. Accordingly, the
additional income was to be used for the stipends of a lecturer (mudarris),
his students, and a teacher (muʿallim) who was to provide primary-level
education to children. Any remaining income from this supplement was to
be expended on the guests of the lodge.
All of these activities were associated with the lodge, the main build-
ing of the complex, a large two-storey building that is today located in the
Bursa neighborhood of Çekirge. This remarkable building is without any
known typological precedent and its considerable dimensions speak to
the significance of this architectural project associated with Bursa but also
built at some distance away from it. Oriented to the qibla, the building has
a T-shaped plan which is characteristic of lodge architecture and incorpo-
rates a large prayer hall on the ground level which is preceded by a domed
court in the center with a fountain. This domed court provides access to
a number of symmetrically disposed chambers and halls that once again
confirm a multifunctional use. Upstairs, a gallery gives access to twelve
small and four larger rooms that must have provided private accommoda-
tion to the guests or to the students and instructors who are mentioned
in the addendum to the endowment. In either case, this building can be
distinguished especially by its spacious prayer hall with its prominent and
75 M. Tayyib Gökbilgin, “Murad I. Tesisleri ve Bursa İmareti Vakfiyesi,” Türkiyat

Mecmuası 10 (1953); pp. 217-22; Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Recherches sur les actes des
règnes des sultans Osman, Orkhan et Murad I, pp. 213-8.
76 These last two terms (sing. faqīr and miskīn) could refer to wandering Sufi
dervishes but also (and more commonly in Ottoman Turkish) to the needy and
the indigent.
projecting miḥrāb as well as its numerous serial chambers which, taken

together, signal a clear combination of devotion and accommodation and
make this building a natural outcome of the multifunctional permutations
associated with madrasas, caravanserais, and lodges in medieval Anatolia.
Situated in an outlying but valuable area, Murād’s imāret could also be
seen as a means to appropriate and mark the land around the capital city.
The façade of the building with a balcony giving views onto the fertile val-
ley that contributed greatly to Bursa’s prosperity must have enhanced that
perception of the building. Furthermore, unlike his father and grandfather
who were buried in the citadel, Murād chose to be buried in a tomb cham-
ber here which bolstered the royal character of the building by preserving
the memory of its founder. At the same time, the socio-religious context of
the building, insofar as it can be gleaned from the endowment, shows that it
was very much designed to become a focus for traveling men of religion and
that it was conceived to manifest piety by foregrounding prayer, Qurʾānic
recitation, and religious education.77 In this regard, Murād’s imāret serves
as evidence for the continuing preoccupation with issues of social mobility
and settlement combined with the performative and communal aspects of
devotion.
The same preoccupations appear to have been held by Murād’s son,
Bāyezīd I, who not only bolstered his father’s complex with the above-men-
tioned addition to its endowment, but also built his own complex which
was situated in an equally outlying area, on a hilltop two to three kilome-
ters to the east of the city.78 Perched on this high location, the complex of
Bāyezīd I could be seen from some distance by travelers approaching Bursa
from the north or the east. The endowment document is drawn up for “the
noble lodge and pleasant imāret” (al-zāwiya al-sharīfa wa al-ʿimāra al-laṭīfa)
which may be taken as a reference to the main building or as a collective
epithet for the complex of buildings.79 This complex clearly surpassed that
of Murād I both in the number of its buildings and the provisions made for
77 The endowment stipulates that should the guests not observe the obligatory
rites of prayer, they will not be eligible for an extension of stay which could be
granted at the discretion of the administrator. This clause underscores the manner
in which the devotional function of the lodge was guaranteed against would-be
abusers of its hospitality function.
78 Ayverdi, Osmanlı Mimarisinin İlk Devri, pp. 419-40; Gabriel, Une capitale
turque, pp. 65-77.
79 Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi, “Yıldırım Bayezid’in Bursa Vakfiyesi ve Bir İstibdal
namesi,” Vakıflar Dergisi 8 (1969), pp. 37-46.
its staffing and operation. The endowment document comprises a kitchen,

storeroom, bathhouse, two madrasas, housing for the personnel, a foun-
tain, and stables, all to be supplied by water from an aqueduct and enclosed
within walls. A hospital was built to the east that was also conceived as
part of the complex. As for the personnel, the endowment makes monetary
and other provisions for an imam, two muezzins, various janitorial staff, a
book-keeper, seven cooks, two bakers, two builders, thirty Qurʾān reciters,
fifteen servants, and a mudarris with his assistant (muʿīd) for each of the
two madrasas with twenty students in each. The hospital was to be staffed
by at least one physician, two pharmacists, a cook, and a baker.
The whole operation was to be administered by a shaykh, presumably a
Sufi master, although it is likely that he may have been an akhī shaykh. This
possibility is strengthened by the introduction to the endowment docu-
ment where the founder is said to invoke prayers for the leaders of the state
and for akhīs. An architectural connection between early Ottoman rulers
and akhī leaders is also evident in the case of Murād I, who founded a lodge
in Malkara in Thrace for one Akhī Mūsā.80 This sheds some light on the
initial function of Murād’s complex as first and foremost a lodge for assem-
bly and hospitality and on its acquisition of an educational mission only
after Bāyezīd’s addition to the endowment. Bāyezīd’s own inclusion of two
madrasas (although only one seems to have been actually built) in his com-
plex project speaks to a slight re-orientation of early Ottoman complexes
from this point onward as all subsequent complexes were equipped with
at least one madrasa.
Nevertheless, from the number of cooks and bakers employed and the
amounts of food to be served twice daily, it is evident that a primary objec-
tive of Bāyezīd’s complex was to provide free meals.81 Allowance was made
for greater amounts of food to be served on Fridays, during Ramadan, and
on feast days and the holy nights. Guests were allowed three days’ of room
and board (as well as necessary provisions for their animals) with a pos-
sibility of extension at the discretion of the administrator but it was stipu-
lated that no “infidels” or “sinners” be accepted. Another primary objective
of the complex was the recitation of the Qurʾān, entrusted to no less than
80 Gökbilgin, “Murad I. Tesisleri ve Bursa İmareti Vakfiyesi”; Franz Taeschner,

“War Murad I. Grossmeister oder Mitgleid des Achibundes?” pp. 23-31.
81 The amount of meat to prepared on normal days is given as eight baṭmāns
(approximately equivalent to fifty kilograms) and it is said that rice and bread be
prepared in proportion to the meat.
thirty reciters each of whom was responsible for reciting one of the thirty
sections ( juzʾ) of the Holy Book everyday.
Although the endowment does not specify where these recitations were
to be performed, it is most likely that they took place in the main building of
the complex, also referred to as majmaʿ-i laṭīf (“pleasant gathering place”),
once again underscoring the social function of the lodge. This building
conforms to the characteristic T-shaped plan with two domed halls com-
prising the main axis of the building. The first hall has a fountain in the
center and gives access to four chambers and two halls on the sides. The
subsidiary chambers were furnished with built-in niches, closets, and fire-
places and were designated for the lodging of guests. The second hall which
projects outward and is furnished with a miḥrāb is the prayer hall in which
prayers and Qurʾānic recitations must have taken place. That this was not
a mosque for Friday prayers is evident from the fact that the endowment
makes no provision for a sermon-giver (khaṭīb); for this purpose Bāyezīd I
built the Ulu Cami in the flourishing commercial district near his grandfa-
ther Orkhān’s imāret.
Conceived on an apparently unprecedented scale of operation, the
complex of Bāyezīd represents the culmination of the architectural combi-
nation of hospitality and devotion developed in connection with the ongo-
ing process of settlement in late medieval Anatolia. As a civic institution
embodying generosity and carefully composed piety, the imāret also served
as a bastion of stability and reliability at a time when the fortunes of the ris-
ing Ottoman beylik were still in flux. The fragility of the status quo in post-
Seljuq Anatolia became apparent in 1402 when Tīmūr invaded the country
and defeated the Ottoman army led by Bāyezīd I at Ankara. Not having
any intentions to incorporate Anatolia into his empire, Tīmūr did not do
much more than obstruct the swift ascent of the Ottomans by returning
a significant proportion of Ottoman territories to the numerous beyliks
from which they had been taken earlier. With Bāyezīd’s death following
the battle of Ankara, the Ottomans plunged into a period of political chaos
which was not resolved until eleven years later under the unifying forces of
Meḥmed I (r. 1413-21), one of Bāyezīd’s sons. Meḥmed I commemorated his
triumph in the construction of an imāret complex, known as the Yeşil, on a
hilltop situated halfway between the citadel and Bāyezīd’s complex. Mod-
eled very much on his father’s foundation, Meḥmed’s complex—including
a madrasa, a bathhouse, and the tomb of the founder—asserted the notion
of continuity of the Ottoman polity in the aftermath of the interregnum. Its
location consolidated Bursa’s growing suburban fabric and suggests that
Meḥmed I may have intended to create a more unified city than had been
the case under his predecessors. The Yeşil complex, with its sumptuously
tiled interiors which partake of the international Timurid style of the early
fifteenth century, reveals the continued relevance of multifunctional build-
ing projects in the re-emergence of the Ottoman dynasty.
* * * * *
In his memoirs, Johannes Schiltberger, a Bavarian prisoner of war in Otto-
man lands around the time of Tīmūr’s invasion in 1402, reported on three
types of Gotteshäuser (places of worship) to be encountered in Anatolia:
mesgit (mosque), medrassa, and amarat (imāret). Schiltberger explained
that the first was accessible by everyone, not unlike a Pfarrkirche (parish
church). The other two places, however, merited more detail. He compared
madrasas to monasteries with endowments around them and explained
their allocation to scholars. For the imārets he observed that “kings
and aristocrats are buried in them. Whether Jew, Christian, or Muslim, the
needy may lodge in them. They are a kind of Spital (hospice).”82 Coming
some sixty years after Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s travel through Anatolia, Schiltberger’s
testimony points to the institutional success of the imāret and to the con-
tinuing relevance of hospitality in contexts of worship. The evolution of
buildings which not only fulfilled the exigencies of social mobility but also
contributed to the co-existence of various types of Muslim devotion indi-
cates the role played by architecture in modulating the social dynamics
of settlement in medieval Anatolia. Counterbalancing the effects of geo-
graphical displacement, the charitable orientation of caravanserais, madra-
sas, and lodges acted as an interface between the practice of faith and the
capricious realities of settlement. As such, these multifunctional buildings
provided a temperate passage into medieval Anatolia and a cordial context
for the configuration of communal and devotional thresholds.
82 Johannes Schiltberger, Als Sklave im osmanischen Reich und bei den Tataren,
1394-1427, ed. Ulrich Schlemmer (Stuttgart, 1983), p. 174.

Devotion Hospitality and Architecture in PDF

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Devotion Hospitality and Architecture in PDF

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Studia Islamica 108 (2013) 48-81 brill.

Devotion, Hospitality and Architecture in

Wherever we stopped in this land, whether at a lodge or a private house,

3 Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Travels, p. 419; idem, Riḥla, p. 302.

connections and correlations in the longue durée between the thirteenth

Devotion, Mobility and Architectural Multifunctionality

By the time of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s journey, the demographic transformation

both traditional institutions and new movements could flourish.6 Cults of

6 For the ethnic complexity and confessional fluidity of medieval Anatolian

form of madrasas and thereby establishing new nuclei of Sunni learning.8

11 Osman Turan, “Celaleddin Karatay, Vakıfları ve Vakfiyeleri,” Belleten 12 (1948),

13 Claude Cahen, “Le commerce anatolien au début du XIIIe siècle,” in Turcobyz-

political stage-setting, the conspicuous building of caravanserais in rather

15 Osman Turan, Selçuklular Zamanında Türkiye, 7th reprint (Istanbul, 2002),

This kind of contiguity was apparent in mid thirteenth-century Konya

Convivial Congregations: Akhīs and Their Lodges

An overview of Islamic architecture in medieval Anatolia leads to the

which the mosque would be joined physically to a madrasa or hospital and,

25 See, for example, the Mosque-Hospital-Tomb complex built by the Men-

“XVI. Asırda Karaman Eyaleti ve Larende (Karaman) Vakıf ve Müesseseleri,”

and forms of chivalry and spirituality within new regional frameworks.30

and Armenian communities. A movement similar to that of the akhīs took

33 Goshgarian, “Beyond the Social and the Spiritual,” pp. 233ff.

manuals provide guidelines on the various aspects of Anatolian akhī orga-

Fütüvvet Teşkilatı ve Kaynakları,” İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası (Istanbul Univer-

44 Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Travels, pp. 419-20; idem, Riḥla, p. 302.

and dancing.49 In other lodges, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa partook of similar displays of

51 Gölpınarlı, “İslam ve Türk İllerinde Fütüvvet Teşkilatı ve Kaynakları,”

57 The connection between the act of eating (whether alone or in company)

group of companions come together, with lamps and candles.”61 He con-

A Natural Culmination? The Imāret in the Ottoman Beylik

64 Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State.

Çelebi and the Conversion of Sacred Sanctuaries in Anatolia,” Muslim World 90

as a civic and religious complement to a designated commercial center.

70 Orkhān is said to have either built a mosque or converted a Byzantine church

word in early Ottoman sources (including inscriptions and endowments)

75 M. Tayyib Gökbilgin, “Murad I. Tesisleri ve Bursa İmareti Vakfiyesi,” Türkiyat

projecting miḥrāb as well as its numerous serial chambers which, taken

its staffing and operation. The endowment document comprises a kitchen,

80 Gökbilgin, “Murad I. Tesisleri ve Bursa İmareti Vakfiyesi”; Franz Taeschner,

Вам также может понравиться