Reinscribing the Dönme in the Secular Nation-State Distinct Cemeteries and Dönme Religion
the cemeteriesAlong with self-segregation and separate schools, cemeteries were the
third way Dönme maintained their boundaries in the new republic. Hasan
Akif ’s descendants, Mustafa Fazıl, and the leading Dönme who migrated
from Salonika to Istanbul were buried in distinct Dönme cemeteries.
On the Asian side of the Bosphorus, uphill from the quay of Üsküdar,
past the gray-stone sixteenth-century mosque of Suleiman I’s wife Roxe-
lana, along Selânikliler Street, past a mosque in which the inscription
over the prayer niche is the same as that in the last mosque dedicated
in Salonika, one enters the main gate of Bülbüldere, the Valley of the
Nighting ales, also known as the Cemetery of the Salonikans, the main
Dönme cemetery in Istanbul.
I was told the originally seventeenth-century mosque and tomb com-
plex was remade in its present form in 1883 , replacing a wooden mosque
under which a spring (dere) flowed, and renamed in 1939 – 40 by a man
who dedicated it to his wife. Both are buried here. Its name became
Feyziye mosque, the same name as the Karakaş school. According to the
web site of the Üsküdar Municipality, the “Salonikan” section of the cem-
etery and the mosque were established in 1882 – 83 by the Salonikan im-
migrants to Istanbul, “all of whom were wealthy.”^45
Many may have been wealthy, but the cemetery has lost its grandeur.
The main part of the lower section of Bülbüldere Cemetery is neatly di-
vided by a staircase into Kapancı and Karakaş sections. The Kapancı sec-
tion, which is nearest the front gate of the cemetery, is noticeably untidy.
There is no one to look after these graves anymore. Graves have crumbled,
trees and weeds grow between the cracks in the cement, many graves have
been opened by people searching for buried gold, and one occasionally
sees bones of the deceased. One also sees bones of birds and small animals
devoured by stray cats, and comes across the refuse of homeless people.
Despite its condition, the uniqueness of the Kapancı section of the
Bülbüldere Cemetery immediately strikes the visitor. Two aspects make it
unique. First, unlike most other Sunni Muslim tombstones, and unlike the
Karakaş section, these Dönme tombstones are marked by photographs of
the deceased. Soon after entering the gate of the cemetery one is met by a
sea of photographs of elegantly dressed people, facing southeast, who died
mainly in the 1930 s, especially in 1932 , at roughly the age of 50 ,^46 whose