Gül Baba (poet)

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A statue of Gül Baba outside his mausoleum in Budapest.

Gül Baba (also known as Cafer, son of Kutb’ül Arifin Veli’üddin İbn Yalınkılıç) was a Bektashi dervish poet and companion of Suleiman the Magnificent who took part in a number of Ottoman campaigns from the reign of Mehmed II onwards. A native of Marzifūn (Marsiwān in the vilāyet of Sivas),^[1] he is thought to have died during the first religious ceremony held after the Ottoman victory at Buda in 1541, or alternatively to have been killed during fighting below the walls of the city on 21 August. Suleiman declared him patron saint of the city and is reputed to have been one of the coffin bearers.

In Hungary Gül Baba is known as the "Father of Roses" and is said to have introduced the flower to the country. However, this is probably a misunderstanding of the metaphorical use of the term which most likely refers to the dervish's status derived from his deep mystical knowledge of Allah, which made him a notably "fragrant" member of his order. The name could also be a corruption of "Kel Baba", meaning "Bald Father".

The tomb of Gül Baba in Budapest.

Gül Baba's octagonal tomb (türbe) is located on Mecset (mosque) Street, Budapest, a short but steep walk from the Margaret Bridge in the district of Rózsadomb. It was built between 1543 and 1548, on the orders of the third pasha of Buda, and has a shallow dome covered with lead plates and wooden tiles. ^[2] It was left undamaged when the Hapsburg armies captured Buda in 1686, but was converted into a Christian chapel by the Jesuits who renamed it "St. Joseph's Chapel". The land later came under the ownership of János Wagner, who maintained the site and allowed access to Turkish pilgrims. In 1885 the Turkish government commissioned a Hungarian engineer to restore the tomb and when the work was completed in 1914 it was declared a national monument. The site was restored again in the 1960s and ultimately in the 1990s and is now the property of the Republic of Turkey.

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^ Houtsma, M Th et al (Eds.). (1993). E.J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936. Brill. ISBN 9004097961, p. 181.
^ Peterson, Andrew (1994). Dictionary of Islamic Architecture. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415060842, p. 112.