Edirne Hidirlik Hill [Maqam of Khizr]: Formation and Destruction of a Syncretic Cult Center

Abstract

The cult of Saint George, which evolved in the Christian era over an almost 2000 years old tumulus in Edirne, historically known as Adrianople, turned with the Ottoman sovereignty into another cult, which took shape around the Khizr-Elijah belief. This hillock was named the Maqam of Khizr/Hidirlik due to the belief that Khizr appeared and worshipped on top of it, which later witnessed various miracles with associated motifs. In course of time there emerged many and varied fantastic rumors about the origins of the cult. The rumors circulating from person to person and the historical sources indicate that the intense construction activity of the Ottomans at the Hidirlik cult centre realized especially in the first part of the 15th century. It is clear that the cult centre, which kept growing in the 16th century, contained various dervish lodges, many mausoleums, annexes and a dense population of Bektashi dervishes. The sources of the period reveal that the Hidirlik cult centre incurred two subsequent demolition attempts in the 17th century. First demolition occurred following a complaint about the sins committed here in 1642 in the period of Sultan Ibrahim I and the second in 1660s in the period of Sultan Mehmet IV after the decision of a new pavilion construction on top of this spacious and partially idle hillock. On the first and obviously partial demolition, most of the inhabitant dervishes left Hidirlik and the cult centre lost its old density. On the second demolition, the standing mausoleums and graves were razed and a pavilion with a large garden was built instead, which subsisted until the 19th century. After the construction of the pavilion in Hidirlik there were only one dervish lodge and two mausoleums left standing. As the construction of the pavilion put the cult centre under state supervision, the last standing dervish lodge in the centre was also demolished in the first half of the 18th century. At the end of the 19th century after the construction of one of the biggest bastions to defense Edirne there was no trace left of the cult centre besides the Hidir Dede Mausoleum, which was also destroyed in Balkan Wars by the Greek inhabitants of Edirne, causing only the grave of the Hizir Dede to reach to the present day. The destruction of the cult centre was related to the Kadizadeliler movement, which was utterly against the sufistic approaches and had from the first half of the 17th century onwards many fans in the palace and administrative circles. The Kadizadeliler movement was a religious movement which requested the demolition of the dervish lodges and the prohibition of grave and mausoleum visits, which led to the destruction of various lodges and mausoleums indeed. One of the fundamental issues, which became a conflict between The Kadizadeliler movement and the sufis was the nature of Khizr. Whereas the Kadizadeliler supported the idea that Khizr was dead, sufis believed he was alive. Hidirlik, which came into existence around the cult of Khizr, was a settlement which was totally against the ideas of the Kadizadeliler both theorically in terms of the belief that Khizr is not dead and also practically in terms of dervish lodge rituals and mausoleum visits. The reason of the demolition attempts occurred in Hidirlik in the 17th century and led in time to the utter destruction of the cult centre, was obviously the preaches and pressures of the Kadizadeliler.