Otman Baba - Legacy - Cult Complex

Cult Complex

Although Otman Baba had rejected Mehmed II’s offers to build him a tekke, the mystic's followers developed a cult complex around his grave, located at the southeastern part of the Hızırilyas hill in the Haskovo-region village of Teketo. Evliya Çelebi reported a cloister near the Maden dere riverbank and credited Sultan Bayezid II for the construction of the tekke, which included a heptagonal refectory, shaped like a dervish cap and associated with the yediler (cult of the seven). Architectural historian Stephen Lewis also proposes the yediler symbolism of the seven-sided refectory—the türbe (mausoleum)—which he classifies as an early sixteenth-century Ottoman funerary monument, observing its domed structure and ashlar masonry. Gramatikova notes, however, that in 1492 Sultan Bayezid II blamed Otman Baba’s followers in Thrace for an assassination attempt on him and ordered their exile to Asia Minor. Nevertheless, the complex became a pilgrimage site for Otman Baba’s followers, Muslim locals, and the Roma—who, according to Ottoman documents, have venerated the türbe since at least 1568. Bulgarian scholar Markoff attributes the continued prominence of Otman Baba’s cult complex among Bulgarian miracle-seekers to its museum status during communism and protection during the Revival Process.