Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE

Baba İlyas-i Horasani

Baba İlyas-i Horasani (Bābā Ilyās-i Khurāsānī, d. 638/1240) was a Turkmen şeyh (shaykh) and
the leader of a great socio-religious and messianic revolt in Seljuk (Saljūq) Anatolia in the
seventh/thirteenth century, which is known in modern historical literature as the Revolt of the
Babais (Bābāʾīs) or the Revolt of Baba Resul (Bābā Rasūl).

Little is known about Baba İlyas other than his activities during the uprising. He had migrated
to Anatolia (apparently from Khurāsān) at the beginning of the seventh/thirteenth century,
before the Mongol invasion. According to the witness accounts of his great-grandson Elvan
(Alwān) Çelebi (d. after 759–60/1358–9), he was a disciple of a certain Dede Gharkīn (7th/13th
century) (Elvan Çelebi, 9–13), who was also Turkmen şeyh, and successor to the order of Tāj al-
ʿĀrifīn Sayyid Abū l-Wafāʾ al-Baghdādī (d. 501/1107) in Anatolia (Aşıkpaşazade, 1; Ocak, La
révolte, 50–6; Ocak, Wafāʾī tarīqa). Almost nothing is known about the mystical life of Baba
İlyas before his arrival in Anatolia.

According to the Seljukid chronicler Ibn Bībī (d. after 684/1285), Baba İlyas came to a village
near Amasya, where he worked as a shepherd, tending flocks of sheep. Shortly thereafter, he
began to lead an ascetic life in a cave within the fortress of Amasya. He was able to gain the
confidence of the peasants by predicting the future, solving family problems, and curing
illnesses with the talismans that he made. Sometime later, he founded a zaviye (zāwiya, Ṣūfī
lodge) (Ibn Bībī, 499–500), which, according to Elvan Çelebi (see p. 32), was in the village of
Chāt (now İlyasköy on the road to Tokat), near Kharchana (i.e., Amasya). Baba İlyas’s zaviye
quickly became the centre of his political and religious propaganda, and within a few years he
had a group of disciples. Despite the frequent confusion of Baba İshak (Bābā Isḥāq) and Baba
İlyas under the single name of “Baba İshak,” the witness accounts of Ibn Bībī are explicit about
the life of the former on the eve of the revolt.

In 1239, apparently dissatisfied with the Seljuk regime, Baba İlyas began to disseminate
(through his disciples) considerable propaganda among the Turkmen and Kurdish tribes,
aimed at the authority of Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev II (Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kaykhusraw II, r. 634–
44/1237–46), whom he had declared an infidel (Ibn Bībī, 499). Contemporary Seljuk, Latin, and
Syrian sources recount that he proclaimed himself Rasūl Allāh (Messenger of God) in the
region of Amasya (Ibn Bībī, 499–502; Gregory Abu’l-Faraj, II, 539; S. de Saint-Quentin, 62–63).
Arab chroniclers referred to him as Walī Allāh, or “Friend of God” (Sibt Ibn al-Jawzī, 15:165a;
Dhahabī, 8:253a; Ibn Taghrībirdī, 174a), and the Turkmen called him Baba Resul Allāh (Ibn Bībī,
500; “Paperroissole,” Simon de Saint-Quentin, 62–5).

Probably to protect his ancestor from contemporary negative public opinion, Elvan Çelebi
claimed that Baba İlyas never intended to rebel and that Isḥāq-i Chāmī (he quotes Baba Ishak
under this name) instigated the revolt, despite Baba İlyas’s warnings (Elvan Çelebi, 47–9).
Hüseyin Hüsameddin also shares this view, and he relates that Baba İlyas played no role
whatsoever in the uprising (Hüseyin Hüsameddin, 2:374, 379, 395–6) (see Cahen, Bābāʾī , EI²).

Historically, as a leader of the revolt, Baba İlyas appears as a typical Muslim Messiah (mahdī).
He meant to save the Turkmen and Kurdish masses from the injustices of the Seljuk sultan, and
he promised to turn the world into a paradise. This type of messianic character was not at all
unknown to the medieval Muslim peoples. From the middle of the third/eleventh century, just
after the death of Abū Muslim al-Khurāsānī (d. 137/755), who led the first major, organized
movement against the Umayyad dynasty, the ʿAbbāsid era witnessed the outburst of a series of
revolts against the authority of the caliphs, not only in Transoxiana but also in Azerbaijan
(Blochet; Sadighi; Sachedina).

The role played by Baba İlyas in seventh/thirteenth-century Anatolia is important for several
reasons. First, his revolt weakened the Seljuk power and thus created favorable conditions for
the Mongol attack, thus ultimately preparing the ground for the end of the Anatolian Seljuk
state. Secondly, it greatly influenced successive rebellions in seventh/thirteenth-century
Anatolia, under Mongol hegemony, such as the Cimri (Jimrī, d. 676/1277) and Timurtaş
(Tīmūrtāsh, d. 722/1321) revolts, and perhaps even the uprising of Şeyh Bedreddin (Badr al-Dīn)
in 819/1416, as well as the messianic revolts of the 10th/16th century Ottoman period. Thirdly,
the Babais that survived their defeat in Muḥarram 638/August 1240, at the hands of the Seljuks
assisted by Frankish, Georgian, and Kurdish mercenaries, dispersed throughout Anatolia,
propagated the Wafāʾī order, participated in the foundation of the Turkmen beyliks, and played
a major role in the establishment of the Ottoman beylik. Fourthly, the Babais were involved in
the origins of the Bektaşi (Bektāshī) order. Fifthly, they were the primary founders of the Alevi
ocak (ojaq, religious centres) in the Wafāʾī order (Ocak, Wafāʾī tarīqa, 209–48).

It should be noted that the so-called “Babai” Ṣūfī order, supposedly founded by Baba İlyas,
never existed in seventh/thirteenth-century Anatolia. No contemporary source points to it. The
term Babai exclusively designates the rebel partisans of Baba İlyas. The earliest Ottoman
sources, including the writings of Aşıkpaşazade (ʿĀşıqpaşazādede) and Oruç (Uruj) Beg (first
half of the 8th/14th century), clearly demonstrate that the Babai dervishes, starting with
Geyikli Baba, were disciples of Baba İlyas and members of the Wafāʾī order (Ocak, La révolte,
53–8; Wafāʾī tarīqa, 209–48).
By the eighth/fourteenth century, Baba İlyas-i Horasani was the object of a relatively
widespread cult in central Anatolia, centred at Elvan Çelebi’s zaviye (founded by Elvan Çelebi
himself), in a village (now named Elvançelebi) on the outskirts of Mecidözü, near Çorum. In
the tenth/sixteenth century, European travellers who visited this zaviye noted with
astonishment that the dervishes identified Baba İlyas with Hızır-İlyas (al-Khaḍīr, a legendary
figure endowed with immortal life who became a popular saint, especially among sailors and
Ṣūfīs), and thereby with Saint George (Elvan Çelebi, xxviii–xxix, 25, 59; Eyice, 241f.; Ocak, Aya
Yorgi (St. Georges) kültü.

Ahmet Yaşar Ocak

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Cite this page

Ocak, Ahmet Yaşar, “Baba İlyas-i Horasani”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas,
Everett Rowson. Consulted online on 22 December 2021 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_24265>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 9789004282100, 2015, 2015-1