Karataş|81his early twenties. But to become a dervish he had to not only travel across physi-
cal distances but also overcome his suspicions about the Sufi path. Karamani had
some adjustment problems at first:
Karamani was a madrasa student when he arrived from Anatolia at the lodge
of Seyyid Yahya. (May God bless his secret.) Immediately after meeting the
dervishes of Seyyid Yahya, he asked, “Can your shaykh show me my Lord in
a day?” [In response], Hacı Hamza, who was one of the senior dervishes and
now buried in the town of Kurşunlu in the region of Kangırı in Anatolia, gave
a quick answer by slapping him so hard that Karamani almost lost conscious-
ness. When this story was related to Seyyid Yahya, he ordered his dervishes
to bring Karamani to him. Seyyid Yahya caressed his head and said, “Sufis
happen to be very spirited and they don’t care if you are a mulla or not. Plus,
proof requires faith. Go ahead and spend the night in front of that window
and tell me your dreams.” He then turned to his dervishes and told them to
be more tolerant of the mullas. Karamani relates that, at the moment he sat in
front of that window, he lost his vanity and completely submitted himself to
his shaykh’s training.Karamani stayed with Seyyid Yahya for the next twelve years, training to be a
Sufi master through strict asceticism, the study of Islamic sciences, ritual remem-
brance of God’s names, and service to his Sufi community. At the end of his
training, circa 1450, Seyyid Yahya sent Karamani back to Anatolia to propagate
the Halveti order.
Back to Anatolia with a New Passion
A daunting task was awaiting Karamani. Around the time he returned to Anato-
lia, the non-Ottoman parts of the peninsula were diminishing as the Ottomans
found a renewed zeal under a young and ambitious sultan, Mehmed II (r. 1444–
1446, 1451–1481). In a few years the sultan would acquire the title “Conqueror”
after capturing Constantinople and the remainder of the Byzantine Empire.
Unfortunately, Mehmed II was surrounded by sympathizers of the Zeyniye Sufi
order, fierce rivals of the Halvetiye. This was a quite an obstacle to Karamani’s
plans for expanding his order in Anatolia, because during this period the sup-
port of the political authority was critical for new orders. As one of the two major
representatives of the Halvetiye in Anatolia, Karamani was aware of the urgency
of establishing connections within the Ottoman world. He had to become an
Ottoman so that his order could survive in Anatolia. Yet he was somewhat of
an outsider to Ottoman networks. As his nickname indicates, he was born and
raised in a region that was ruled by the Karamanids. And as someone who had
witnessed or heard stories of the Ottoman invasions of Karamanid lands, he may
have had negative feelings against the Ottomans.