Writer Erol Özbilgen once published a book titled Mağlupların Zaferi (The Victory of the Defeated), which has long been out of print. Published by İnsan Yayınları nearly thirty-five years ago, the book included a discussion of mass culture as well as a chapter devoted to books themselves—the meanings Eastern and Western cultures attributed to them and the aesthetic expressions of those meanings.
Özbilgen also related an anecdote familiar to nearly every bibliophile. In the Ottoman world, the phrase “Yā Kabīkaj” was sometimes inscribed on the opening pages or flyleaves of books. According to a widespread belief, Kabīkaj was the name of a supernatural being—the chief of the spirits thought to protect books from worms and insects. Since the pages of old manuscripts and calligraphic panels were often sized and polished with egg white, they could become particularly attractive to larvae. To save precious books from such destruction, their owners invoked Kabīkaj.
Whether those centuries-old appeals—“Yā Kabīkaj!”—actually worked is difficult to say. Considering the number of private libraries lost in Istanbul’s recurrent fires, one might be reluctant to answer in the affirmative. Today, however, another Kabīkaj has come to the aid of book lovers: the Kebikeç Bookbindery.
Treasures Hidden in Ruins
Kebikeç serves bibliophiles from the third floor of a weary old commercial building in Istanbul’s Cağaloğlu district, on the street beside the Diyanet Bookstore. Old bindings are renewed, damaged books repaired, and new leather or cloth bindings made according to the customer’s preference, extending the lives of volumes that might otherwise disappear.
For the true bibliophile, however, Kebikeç offers more than restoration. It is also a place where one occasionally encounters rare books—works one may never have seen before and whose existence is known only to a small circle of specialists.
I had precisely such an experience there.
At Kebikeç, I came across İrfan Sızıntıları (Outpourings of Gnosis) by Orhan Kemali (Ozan) Baba, a work I had heard of but never encountered. Only a very small number of copies had been printed, and these had been distributed privately among interested readers.
I realize that this has been a rather long introduction, but the real story begins here. Orhan Kemali Baba was an important Sufi figure of the twentieth century. For me, however, what initially made him especially intriguing was the name of the man who published his book: Baha Doğramacı.
Doğramacı had both compiled and published the volume.
At the time, he taught in the Department of Traditional Arts at what was then known as Mimar Sinan University, today Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. I had mostly heard his name mentioned among calligraphers. He was himself an accomplished calligrapher and had received his ijāza, or formal authorization, from Halim Efendi, one of the most important Turkish calligraphers of the twentieth century.
There was, however, another side of Baha Doğramacı that was frequently spoken about: his involvement with Sufism.
What I heard suggested something considerably more complex than the conventional portrait of a Sufi. Before turning to that story, however, it may be useful to say something about Doğramacı’s family and background—and then about a spiritual path whose roots stretch back through the Ottoman centuries.
The Doğramacı family originated in Kirkuk. His cousin İhsan Doğramacı was one of the best-known figures in modern Turkish higher education: the founding president of Turkey’s Council of Higher Education (YÖK) and the founder of both Hacettepe and Bilkent universities.
His Initiation under Sucu Ali Fani Dede
Baha Doğramacı, whose full name was Mehmet Bahaddin Doğramacı, was born in Istanbul on January 19, 1920. After completing primary school there, he continued his education in various Anatolian cities because of his elder brother’s work. When he was admitted to Istanbul University, however, he returned permanently to the city of his birth.
Under the university system of the period, Doğramacı first completed two years of common coursework before beginning his medical studies. But when he encountered work on cadavers in anatomy class, he abandoned medicine and transferred to the Faculty of Letters. He graduated successfully and subsequently entered public service.
During these years, Doğramacı became a disciple of Sucu Ali Fani Dede, one of the prominent Sufi figures of his time. His attraction to this path may have had something to do with his grandfather, Konyalı Hacı Tahir Efendi, who was a Mesnevihan—a scholar authorized to teach and recite Rumi’s Mathnawi.
Another disciple of Sucu Ali Fani Dede was the celebrated ney virtuoso Niyazi Sayın, who spent eight years under his spiritual guidance.
To be candid, I do not know the precise circumstances of when or how Doğramacı entered the Sufi path. Shortly after his death, I spoke with members of his family while preparing an article for the Sunday supplement of the newspaper Bugün. The family preferred not to discuss this aspect of his life. Perhaps this was itself an expression of respect for an elder who had spent his entire life carefully concealing his inner spiritual world.
Within Sufi circles, however, it was said that after Sucu Ali Fani Dede’s death, the spiritual succession passed to Baha Doğramacı. Although Ali Fani Dede was generally known and remembered as a Mevlevi, he was in fact associated with the Malāmati tradition, and Doğramacı himself became a spiritual guide within the Hamzavi-Malāmati lineage.
Baha Dogramaci
The Hamzavi Malāmatis traced their spiritual affiliation to Hamza Bali, a successor in the broader lineage descending from Hacı Bayram-ı Veli.
It was through this milieu that Doğramacı came to know Osman Kemali Baba. His path also crossed those of Eşref Ede and Nazif Uncu, important Hamzavi-Malāmati spiritual figures of their era, while the renowned marbling artist Mustafa Düzgünman became his friend. The famous preacher Şemsettin Yeşil and Muzaffer Ozak, the legendary sheikh of Istanbul’s Cerrahi lodge, were likewise among his acquaintances.
Ahmet Yüksel Özemre, himself associated with the Hamzavi-Malāmati tradition, records an important account from Baha Doğramacı in his book Üsküdar’ın Üç Sırlısı (The Three Hidden Masters of Üsküdar). According to Doğramacı, Osman Kemali Efendi (1862–January 8, 1954), a disciple of Seyyid Abdülkadir Belhi, once proposed to Eşref Efendi:
“If I depart before you, may you undertake the guidance of my brethren; and if you depart before me, let me undertake the guidance of yours.”
The intention was never realized. Eşref Efendi died on January 30, 1954—only twenty-two days after Osman Kemali Efendi.
An Unbounded Love for the Ahl al-Bayt
Baha Doğramacı compiled Osman Kemali Baba’s poems under the title Aşk Sızıntıları (Outpourings of Love) and his prose writings as İrfan Sızıntıları (Outpourings of Gnosis).
İrfan Sızıntıları appeared nearly thirty-five years after Osman Kemali Baba’s death. It was never commercially distributed; instead, copies circulated privately among his followers and admirers. The broader Sufi community became aware of the work largely through the occasional copies that found their way into Istanbul’s antiquarian bookshops.
At this point, readers unfamiliar with Malāmatiyya may reasonably wonder what exactly the term means.
The subject could easily fill an entire book, but the tradition is commonly described in terms of three historical phases.
The first period of Malāmatiyya is associated with Hamdun al-Qassar and emerged in Khurasan during the early centuries of Islam. Its practitioners placed particular emphasis on disciplining and blaming the lower self (nafs) and on concealing virtuous deeds and acts of worship in order to avoid riyā’—religious ostentation, sometimes described as a form of hidden idolatry. From Khurasan, these ideas gradually spread elsewhere in the Islamic world.
The second phase, often identified in the Ottoman context with the Hamzavi tradition, emerged during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It took shape around Ömer Dede Sıkkini, also known as Bıçakçı Ömer Dede, a successor of Hacı Bayram-ı Veli. Ömer Dede rejected the ceremonial conventions, distinctive dress, and elaborate protocols associated with institutionalized Sufi orders, placing the emphasis instead on the discipline and transformation of the self.
Those who followed him, however—including Osman Maşuki, Hamza Bali, and İdris Muhtefi—were subjected to intense scrutiny by Ottoman authorities. Osman Maşuki and Hamza Bali were ultimately executed.
The Malāmatis’ strong attachment to the doctrine of wahdat al-wujūd—the “Unity of Being”—and, in particular, their understanding of the qutb, or spiritual pole, also brought them into conflict with political authority. In their cosmology, the hidden spiritual poles of the universe were regarded as the true agents behind what was good and providential in the world, leaving worldly rulers with a far less exalted role than they claimed for themselves.
Otman Baba, who lived during the reign of Mehmed II, took this idea so far that he reportedly claimed that it was in fact he who had conquered Constantinople. He was consequently interrogated before a gathering at which Sultan Mehmed himself was present. His ecstatic utterances, some of which were deemed contrary to orthodox Islamic doctrine, further attracted official attention. Ottoman authorities consequently viewed the Malāmatis with deep suspicion, and many suffered persecution or punishment.
The third historical phase of Malāmatiyya is associated above all with Sayyid Muhammad Nur al-Arabi. Active in Istanbul and the Balkans during the nineteenth century, Nur al-Arabi revitalized the tradition and played a major role in transmitting it into the modern era.
Abdülkadir Belhi must also be mentioned in this context. An important nineteenth-century Sufi master active in Istanbul, he introduced a significant circle of followers to Malāmati teachings.
One of the most distinctive features of this later Malāmati milieu was its extraordinary devotion to the Ahl al-Bayt, the family of the Prophet Muhammad.
Among Doğramacı and some of those who shared his spiritual outlook, this devotion went considerably further than conventional Sunni reverence for the Prophet’s family. They did not accept the legitimacy of the caliphates of the first three caliphs and believed that Ali’s rightful position had been usurped. Among the figures associated with this milieu, the renowned master of Turkish marbling Mustafa Düzgünman appears to have adopted one of the strongest positions on the issue, while Eşref Ede maintained a more moderate approach. According to those who knew him, whenever the Ahl al-Bayt were mentioned, Ede’s eyes would become bloodshot with emotion.
Figures such as Ahmed Amiş Efendi, Abdülaziz Mecdi Tolun, Süheyl Ünver, Ahmet Yüksel Özemre, Necmettin Şahinler, Eşref Ede, Mustafa Düzgünman, and Niyazi Sayın all played roles in carrying the Hamzavi-Malāmati heritage into the modern era.
Among them, Baha Doğramacı undoubtedly occupied a special place.
When he departed this world on May 26, 2014, he left behind a life whose most important dimensions had never been publicly told.
The books he prepared under the pen name Ebu’l Vefa may remain the only witnesses to the secrets he so carefully guarded.
