Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Belleten, cilt.78, sa.283, 2014 (SCI-Expanded)
© 2014, Turkish Historical Society. All rights reserved.The article undertakes the erroneously composed biography and certain activities of a Medieval Anatolian sheik, A¯ybek Ba¯ba¯. The Turkish sufi A¯ybek Ba¯ba¯, who lived during the last quarter of the 13th century, is claimed to be a "tekke sheik," a "political persona," a "murshi¯d who guided the Ilkha¯nid'ulema¯ to Islam" as well as a "spy of Ilkha¯n Abaqa situated in Anatolia;" a "spy" that had enabled Ilkha¯n Abaqa to uncover the secret correspondences between the Mamlu¯k Sultan Al-Za¯hir Baybars and the Vizier of the Sultanate of Rum Mu'i¯n al-Di¯n Parva¯na which had (in the end) lead to the execution of Parva¯na. Some modern historians also assert that A¯ybek Ba¯ba¯ had established contact with the Ilkha¯n Abaqa and that he was the one to introduce Ilkha¯n Abaqa to Islam. Modern historians such as Mehmed Fuad Köprülü have used H{combining dot below}üseyin H{combining dot below}üsa¯m el-Di¯n's work, Ama¯sya Ta¯ri¯hi (The History of Ama¯sya) as the main reference for A¯ybek Ba¯ba¯'s life and religious activities, however, the information on the biography of A¯ybek Ba¯ba¯ revealed in Ama¯sya Ta¯ri¯hi, was largely incorrect due to a spelling error that was made in a copy of 'Iqd al-Juma¯n fi¯ Ta'ri¯kh Ahl al-Zama¯n's manuscript. This mistake has been repeated for a century in articles written in Turkey involving the sufi sheik whose name does not appear in any of the Ilkhanid sources pertaining to the era. The aim of this article is to clarify the main cause of the 'misinformation' in relation to the story of A¯ybek Ba¯ba¯ as well as explain the other factors that have contributed to and reinforced such a misconception to take root by making use of the information derived from contemporary Arabic and Persian sources.