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Note on Haidar, Khodja Achmet, Karadja Achmet
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2013
Extract
The local account of the Saint Haidar at Haidar-es-Sultan is given by Crowfoot as follows: ‘Haidar was the son of the king of Persia and came from a town named Yassevi; he was also called Khodja Akhmed and was the disciple of the famous Hadji Bektash. With the latter he travelled to Caesarea, and there took a Christian named Mēnĕ to wife, and together they came to the place of his tomb, where they begat children and died—the whole village claiming descent from him.’
The last clause makes clear the identity of Haidar as far as the village is concerned: he is their sainted ancestor. Whether, as Crowfoot suggests, he is confused with Haidar the father (not the son) of Ismail, the founder of the Safi dynasty in Persia, is for present purposes immaterial.
The Bektashi addition to the local legend consists, as we shall see, in the identification of Haidar with Khodja Achmet Yassevi, who seems himself confounded with the Bektashi saint Karadja Achmet: both Achmets have been adopted into the Bektashi cycle.
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References
page 120 note 1 Above, p. 98.
page 120 note 2 The survival of the name of the wife is extraordinary. In view of the oracular well which forms the chief attraction of the sanctuary, it seems worth suggesting that the Christian occupant (real or imaginary) of the site was S. Menas, who, on account of the popular derivation of his name from μηνύω, is looked on by the Orthodox as the revealer of things hidden (cf. Carnoy, and Nicolaïdes, , Trad. Pop. de l'Asie Mineure, 195).Google Scholar
page 120 note 3 J. R. Anthr. Inst. XXX. 309.
page 120 note 4 Ibid. p. 311.
page 120 note 5 Gibb, , Ottoman Poetry, i. 71Google Scholar, n. 2.
page 120 note 6 Jacob, , Beiträge, 2.Google Scholar
page 120 note 7 Evliya, , Travels, tr. von Hammer, , ii. 20Google Scholar; for the spiritual affiliation of Hadji Bektash to Khodja Achmet see also the ‘chain’ of the dervish orders by Abdi Effendi (d. 1783) in d'Ohsson's, MouradjaTableau, ii. pl. 102.Google Scholar
page 120 note 8 This chronological difficulty is admitted by learned Bektashi; their version is that Khodja Achmet foretold the coming of Hadji Bektash and bequeathed him a book as a pledge.
page 121 note 1 The smaller of the two towns of this name, on the Sakaria.
page 121 note 2 Seaman's, Orchan, 120.Google Scholar
page 121 note 3 He is spoken of as a Persian prince (like the Haidar of Haidar-es-Sultan) who came to the court of Orkhan, was initiated by Hadji Bektash, and at his death buried at Ak-Hissar, (Travels, ii. 21Google Scholar, cf. 214; at p. 20 ‘Kari (sic) Ahmed Sultan’ is said to have been one of the dervishes sent by Achmet Yassevi from Khorassan into Roum).
page 121 note 4 (1) On the banks of the Sakaria near its junction with the Poursak (von Diest, , Neue Forschungen, 28)Google Scholar; (2) at Pashalar above Levke (von Diest, , Tilsit nach Angora, 18)Google Scholar; (3) just east of Tarakly (Skene, , Anadol, 275Google Scholar).
page 121 note 5 (1) Six hours S.S.W. of Ushak; (2) three hours N.W. of Geubek; (3) an hour from Liyen. The latter is a famous place of healing (Ramsay, , Pauline Studies, 171Google Scholar). There is a village named Karadja Achmetli south of Nefez Keui (Tavium). Quite possibly the original Kara (‘black’) or Karadja (‘blackish’) Achmet was, like Haidar, an eponymous tribal ancestor, successive heads of the tribe bearing his name having been buried in various places. Kyzyl (‘red’) Achmetli was the name of a tribe settled in the Kastamouni district; divisions of the same tribe are often differentiated by colour-epithets.
page 121 note 6 Cuinet, , Asie Mineure, iv. 604Google Scholar; cp. Evliya, , Travels, i 2, 81Google Scholar (‘Convent of Kara Ahmed Sultan’), 83 (‘Convent of Karaja Ahmed Sultan’). There is now no convent attached to the tomb, which is, however, kept in repair and venerated. The Bektashi still lay claim to the saint, though this grave has passed into other hands.
page 121 note 7 See above, No. 18.
page 122 note 1 Travels, ii. 20.