Istanbul
words for God and truth are also common in Sufi hagiography. Finally,
suitable for a Karakaş Dönme, the sect closest to Bektaşi Sufis, central
to Sufi morals, especially Bektaşi, is control over one’s hands, tongue (or
heart), and loins, in other words, not stealing, slandering, lying, or en-
gaging in inappropriate sexual behavior. References are made to the first
two here. A link is made in this inscription between Dönme spirituality
and Dönme schools, and offers evidence for this man being a Dönme
religious leader as well as educator, again emphasizing how important
religion was for the group and pointing to one of the main reasons for
their establishing their schools. The schools were not established for all
children, but for Mısırlı Zeki Efendi’s “own kind.” A Karakaş interviewee,
descendant of Mustafa Çelebi, the man who established the Karakaş sect,
pointed out a grave of a close relative, who was born in Salonika in the
1880 s and died just after World War II in Istanbul, which reads in part
“This human who put into practice the morals of his elite ancestors now
stands before you in the form of a perfect monument. Pray so that he may
complete his final journey to perfection.” The second sentence is another
Sufi reference, as it is inferred that the deceased is still traveling after his
death en route to reach God.
Secularizing Şemsi Efendi
A crack runs from left to right directly beneath the lower lip of the
aging, fez-wearing educator Şemsi Efendi—his white beard closely
cropped, his eyebrows still dark—in the oval portrait on his grave in the
Karakaş section of the Bülbüldere Cemetery, facing the Kapancı section
across a flight of stairs (fig. 8. 6 ). This placement is evidence both of his ef-
forts to reconcile the two groups, and his many years working for the edu-
cational advancement of youth of both. Unfortunately, the black Arabic
letters lightly etched into the plain outer fez-topped gravestone have been
so worn out, whether by people’s fingers touching the stone while on
pilgrimage after he was buried in 1917 , or by the weather, that the original
inscription is now completely illegible. Not a single word is readable on
the outer tombstone of the man who spent decades educating youth in
Salonika and then Istanbul. Sometime after the 1930 s, a new inscription
was added in Turkish in Latin characters above the floral design on a sec-
ond tombstone, which bears his ceramic photograph. The later inscrip-
tion reads “Atatürk’s teacher, Teacher Şemsi Ef.” It is as if the republic had