Crtice iz života Šejha Hamida Velija
Lines from the life of Shaykh Hamid-i Veli

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents basic information on the life of shaykh Hamid-i Veli, better known as Somuncu Baba. Shaykh Hamid-i Veli belonged to the Halveti Sufi Order, whose basic postulates are: asceticism and strengthening spiritual relations with dear God by means or retiring to occasional seclusion (halwa). With these principles Somuncu Baba practiced the principle of melamet, meaning hiding one’s own tasawwuf identity in public. Somincu Baba was considered to be a serious great of tesawwuf, which is proven by his very lifestyle, by papers he wrote and many students he taught and left behind to serve others in various ways. Amongst his students we find great Islamic scholars such as Mulla Fenari, who was the first Shaykh-al-Islam of the Ottoman Empire. Somincu Baba was not a founder of a tariqa. Whole his life he was a member of the Halveti tariqa, but he was a spiritual leader and teacher of Shaykh Bayram-i Veli, who is considered an eponym of the Bayrami tariqa. We can safely assume that the Bayrami tariqa “one scion grown from the seed planted by respected Shaykh Hamid-i Veli, Somuncu Baba”.

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