Baba (title)

Baba is Turkish and also Persian for "father"; in East Turkish it also means "grandfather". Placed after a name, it is an honorific for older men, and in Turkey it is still used as a form of address. As part of a name it is best known from the story of "Ali Baba and the forty thieves" in the Thousand and One Nights. As a cognomen it was used particularly in dervish circles, for example Geyikli Baba, said to have accompanied Orkhan Beg at the siege of Bursa, and especially among the Bektashi. ²

Akhi Baba, in corrupt forms also Ah Baba, was the title of Akhi Evran's successor at his tekke in Kirsehir and master of the leather guilds, who held the privilege of inducting apprentices. A movement of dervishes calling themselves Babai arose under the Rum Saljuq sultan Kay-Khusraw II. In Iran the epithet precedes the name, often for dervishes, as with the dialect poet Baba Tahir 'Uryan. Baba also occurs in its own right, as with Baba Giray, a member of the Crimean Khan family, and the Ozbek prince Baba Beg. As part of a place name, Baba indicates that the place had dervish associations: Babadagh in the Dobruja, Babaeski in eastern Thrace, and Baba Burnu in western Anatolia. ¹