Sarı Saltık (also spelled Sarı Saltuk, "the blonde", ota, صارى صالتق, Ṣarı̊ Ṣaltı̊q; also referred as ''Sari Saltuk Baba'' or ''Dede'') (died 1297/98) was a 13th-century

Alevi Alevism or Anatolian Alevism (; tr, Alevilik, ''Anadolu Aleviliği'' or ''Kızılbaşlık''; ; az, Ələvilik) is a local Islamic tradition, whose adherents follow the mystical Alevi Islamic ( ''bāṭenī'') teachings of Haji Bektash Veli, ...

Turkish Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...

dervish Dervish, Darvesh, or Darwīsh (from fa, درویش, ''Darvīsh'') in Islam can refer broadly to members of a Sufi fraternity (''tariqah''), or more narrowly to a religious mendicant, who chose or accepted material poverty. The latter usage ...

, venerated as a saint by the

Bektashi The Bektashi Order; sq, Tarikati Bektashi; tr, Bektaşi or Bektashism is an Islamic Sufi mystic movement originating in the 13th-century. It is named after the Anatolian saint Haji Bektash Wali (d. 1271). The community is currently led by ...

Sufi Muslims in the

Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

and parts of

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

as well as the mainstream Sunni Muslim community.

Historical figure

According to 14th-century Moroccan traveller

Ibn Battuta Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battutah (, ; 24 February 13041368/1369),; fully: ; Arabic: commonly known as Ibn Battuta, was a Berber Maghrebi scholar and explorer who travelled extensively in the lands of Afro-Eurasia, largely in the Muslim ...

, Saltik was an "ecstatic devotee", although "things are told of him that are reproved by the

Divine Law Divine law is any body of law that is perceived as deriving from a transcendent source, such as the will of God or godsin contrast to man-made law or to secular law. According to Angelos Chaniotis and Rudolph F. Peters, divine laws are typical ...

".Norris, ''Islam in the Balkans'', pp. 146-47. He is considered by various sources a disciple of

Mahmud Hayran Mahmud is a transliteration of the male Arabic given name (), common in most parts of the Islamic world. It comes from the Arabic triconsonantal root Ḥ-M-D, meaning ''praise'', along with ''Muhammad''. Siam Mahmud *Mahmood (singer) (born 199 ...

, of Haji Bektash Veli, or of one of the successors of Ahmed ar-Rifa'i. According to the 17th-century traveller

Evliya Çelebi Derviş Mehmed Zillî (25 March 1611 – 1682), known as Evliya Çelebi ( ota, اوليا چلبى), was an Ottoman Empire, Ottoman explorer who travelled through the territory of the Ottoman Empire and neighboring lands over a period of forty ye ...

, his real name was Mehmed, and he was from

Bukhara Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...

.Babinger, ''Ṣari Ṣaltik Dede'', p. 172 Early 20th-century historian

Frederick Hasluck Frederick William Hasluck (16 February 1878 – 22 February 1920) was an English antiquarian, historian, and archaeologist. Hasluck was educated at The Leys School and King's College, Cambridge, graduating with a first class degree in classic ...

considered him a saint of a

Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

tribe from

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a p ...

, which had brought his cult into

Dobruja Dobruja or Dobrudja (; bg, Добруджа, Dobrudzha or ''Dobrudža''; ro, Dobrogea, or ; tr, Dobruca) is a historical region in the Balkans that has been divided since the 19th century between the territories of Bulgaria and Romania. I ...

, from where it was spread by the Bektashis. According to the 15th-century '' Oghuzname'' narrative, in 1261 he accompanied a group of Anatolia Turkomans into

, where they were settled by the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantin ...

Emperor

Michael VIII Michael VIII Palaiologos or Palaeologus ( el, Μιχαὴλ Δούκας Ἄγγελος Κομνηνὸς Παλαιολόγος, Mikhaēl Doukas Angelos Komnēnos Palaiologos; 1224 – 11 December 1282) reigned as the co-emperor of the Empire ...

to protect the northern frontier of the empire. However, Dobruja was occupied by Tatars in the same period. The same source places him in Crimea after 1265, along the Turkomans transferred there by

Tatar khan Muhammad Tatar Khan ( bn, মুহাম্মদ তাতার খাঁন, fa, ) was the Sultan of North Bengal during 1259-1268 CE after usurping the Governorship of Ijjauddin Balban Iuzbaki. History In 1258 CE, Tatar Khan defeated Izz ...

Berke Berke Khan (died 1266) (also Birkai; , tt-Cyrl, Бәркә хан) was a grandson of Genghis Khan and a Mongol military commander and ruler of the Golden Horde (division of the Mongol Empire) who effectively consolidated the power of the Blue ...

, and after 1280 mentions him leading the nomads back to Dobruja. After the death of Sari Saltik, some of the Turkomans returned to Anatolia, while other remained and became Christians, becoming the ancestors of the

Gagauz people The Gagauz ( gag, Gagauzlar) are a Turkic people living mostly in southern Moldova ( Gagauzia, Taraclia District, Basarabeasca District) and southwestern Ukraine ( Budjak). Gagauz are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians. The term Gagauz is als ...

. This migration has characteristics of a folk epic '' destan'', and its historicity is doubted by some scholars.

Legacy in Babadag

The town of Babadag (Turkish, Babadağ, ''Mountain of the Baba''), in the Romanian Dobruja, identified with the town of ''Baba Saltuq'' visited in 1331/1332 by Ibn Battuta, is said to be named after him. The oldest sources about Sari Saltik available place his tomb in the area of the future town. This tomb was visited in 1484/1485 by Ottoman Sultan

Bayezid II Bayezid II ( ota, بايزيد ثانى, Bāyezīd-i s̱ānī, 3 December 1447 – 26 May 1512, Turkish: ''II. Bayezid'') was the eldest son and successor of Mehmed II, ruling as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1481 to 1512. During his reign, Ba ...

during a military campaign, and, after reporting an important victory, he ordered the building of a religious and educational complex here (including a mausoleum to Saltik, finished in 1488), around which the town developed. According to Evliya Çelebi, a marble sarcophagus was found during the construction, with a Tatar inscription attesting it was the tomb of the saint. However this miraculous discovery is not mentioned in other sources talking about the sultan's passage through the town. Babadag became an important place of pilgrimage, visited in 1538 by

Suleiman the Magnificent Suleiman I ( ota, سليمان اول, Süleyman-ı Evvel; tr, I. Süleyman; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the West and Suleiman the Lawgiver ( ota, قانونى سلطان سليمان, Ḳ ...

, and the most important urban centre in 16th-century Dobruja. The town however decayed during the frequent wars that ravaged the region during the 17th century, and was eventually burned down, along with the mausoleum to Saltik, during the

Russo-Turkish Wars The Russo-Turkish wars (or Ottoman–Russian wars) were a series of twelve wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 20th centuries. It was one of the longest series of military conflicts in History of Euro ...

. A simple domed

türbe ''Türbe'' is the Turkish word for " tomb". In Istanbul it is often used to refer to the mausolea of the Ottoman sultans and other nobles and notables. The word is derived from the Arabic ''turbah'' (meaning ''"soil/ground/earth"''), whic ...

was rebuilt over the grave of the saint in 1828. The mausoleum in Babadag remains of relative importance even nowadays, and was recently renovated, being reinaugurated in 2007 by the then-

prime-minister

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as mayor of Istanbul from 1994 t ...

Legendary figure

In various legends he is identified with Christian saints (

Saint George Saint George (Greek: Γεώργιος (Geórgios), Latin: Georgius, Arabic: القديس جرجس; died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was a Christian who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to tradition he was a soldie ...

Elijah Elijah ( ; he, אֵלִיָּהוּ, ʾĒlīyyāhū, meaning "My God is Yahweh/ YHWH"; Greek form: Elias, ''Elías''; syr, ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ, ''Elyāe''; Arabic: إلياس or إليا, ''Ilyās'' or ''Ilyā''. ) was, according to the Books ...

Saint Nicholas Saint Nicholas of Myra, ; la, Sanctus Nicolaus (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343), also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greek descent from the maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor (; modern-day De ...

, Saint Simeon,

Saint Naum Saint Naum ( Bulgarian and Macedonian: Свети Наум, ''Sveti Naum''), also known as Naum of Ohrid or Naum of Preslav (c. 830 – December 23, 910) was a medieval Bulgarian writer, enlightener, one of the Seven Apostles of the First B ...

Saint Spyridon Saint Spyridon, Bishop of Trimythous also sometimes written Saint Spiridon (Greek: ; c. 270 – 348) is a saint honoured in both the Eastern and Western Christian traditions. Life Spyridon was born in Askeia, in Cyprus. He worked as a sheph ...

). According to a legend, his body was buried in seven coffins, in remote towns in the lands of the '' Infidels''. Nowadays, alleged tombs (

) are found over the Balkans (

Blagaj Blagaj is a village in the south-eastern region of the Mostar basin, in the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It stands at the edge of Bišće plain and is one of the most valuable mixed urban and rural built environments in ...

village of

Mostar Mostar (, ; sr-Cyrl, Мостар, ) is a city and the administrative center of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the historical capital of Herzegovina. Mostar is sit ...

, Krujë,

Kaliakra Kaliakra ( bg, Калиакра; ro, Caliacra) is a cape in the Southern Dobruja region of the northern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, which ends with a long and narrow headland east of Kavarna, northeast of Varna and southwest of Mangalia. ...

) and western

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The r ...

(

İznik İznik is a town and an administrative district in the Province of Bursa, Turkey. It was historically known as Nicaea ( el, Νίκαια, ''Níkaia''), from which its modern name also derives. The town lies in a fertile basin at the eastern end ...

Notes

References

* * * * *

External links

Sari Saltik in Albania
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saltik, Sari Sufi saints from the Ottoman Empire 1290s deaths Year of birth unknown 13th-century people from the Ottoman Empire History of Dobruja