Ozbekler Tekke

I have been honored with having the opportunity to perform Ottoman music at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts for a show of Turkish paper marbling, called ebru. It is also an event dedicated to the ongoing restoration of the Ozbekler Tekkesi: a very famous dervish lodge on the Asiatic side of Istanbul:
The Ozbekler Tekkesi, a dervish monastery, is located on a steep hill in the neighbourhood of Uskudar. The monastery belongs to an Uzbek Nakshibendi Sufi order. Today, the tekke is in the hands of Ethem Ozbek, the grandson of the last Sheykh of the order. The tekke was established by Hezarfen Seyh Ýbrahim Efendi, the man responsible for bringing the art of calligraphy to Turkey from Uzbekistan. In the past, Uzbeks on their way to the Haj would first come to Istanbul to pay their respects to the Caliph, that is, the Sultan who would give them symbolic permission to set out on their pilgrimage. Sultan Mustafa III presented the tekke in Sultantepe to the Nakshi Sheykh in recognition of this service. During the War of Independence, the tekke served as a base for the Nationalist Forces and was a meeting place for music lovers in the early days of the Republic, training calligraphy teachers for the Academy of Fine Arts. The tekke has recently been restored by Ahmet Ertegun, a member of the family. One can only enter with special permission, but it is still worth visiting.

There is a LOT of sufi history connected with this tekke, some of which is mentioned in Kudsi Erguner's autobiography, Journeys of a Sufi Musician. I wonder how much of the Qadir Rifai have been through that place, if at all... I will have to research. It is kind of neat, I kind of feel as if I have roots digging deeper into places I never dreamed of before...

Variant Names Özbekler Tekkesi, Haci Hoca Tekkesi, Uzbek Dervish Convent
Street Address Üsküdar District
Location Istanbul, Turkey
Architect/Planner Cengiz Bektas
Date 1752-1753, restored 1985
Style/Period Ottoman
Centuries 18th, 20th
Decade 1980s
Building Type religious
Building Usage takiyya
Project ID 595
Keywords restoration, conservation