Life
According to the vilâyetname, Otman Baba was born in 1378 or 1379. Gramatikova proposes that Otman Baba came from Turkmen people of the Karakoçlu/Black Mutton Clan, in Central Asian territories and spoke an Turkmenian-accented Oghuz language with few Persian and Arabic influences, like the heterodox Muslims in northeastern Bulgaria. Küçük Abdal characterized Otman Baba spiritually as a saint and prophet and physically as imposing, strong, and brave.
While those outside his inner circle knew him as Otman Baba, other dervishes and the aristocratic sayyids called him Şah-i Kerbelâ—a reference to the prophet Muhammad's grandson Husayn, who died in the Battle of Karbala. A vilâyetname account attributes the mystic's common name "Otman Baba" to Ottoman ruler Mehmed II. When the sultan disguised himself as a commoner and visited the Eski Saray tekke (a gathering place for heterodox Muslims) in Constantinople, only Otman Baba recognized him. Convinced of the dervish’s sainthood, Mehmed addressed him as "my beloved father, Otman"—"father" translating in Turkish as "baba".
Read more about this topic: Otman Baba
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Actors ought to be larger than life. You come across quite enough ordinary, nondescript people in daily life and I don’t see why you should be subjected to them on the stage too.”
—Donald Sinden (b. 1923)
“The detective novel is the art-for-art’s-sake of our yawning Philistinism, the classic example of a specialized form of art removed from contact with the life it pretends to build on.”
—V.S. (Victor Sawdon)
“I don’t believe that children can develop in a healthy way unless they feel that they have value apart from anything they own or any skill that they learn. They need to feel they enhance the life of someone else, that they are needed. Who, better than parents, can let them know that?”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)