آق شمس الدين

The shaykh Aq Shams al-Din, Muhammad ibn Hamza al-Dimashqi al-Rumi, born in 792 AH (1389 CE) and died around 1459 CE. He travelled with his father to the lands of Rum and sought the sciences. His lineage goes back to Abu Bakr. He was the teacher and tutor of Mehmed the Conqueror. ²

He memorised the Qur'an at the age of seven, and studied at Amasya, then Aleppo, then Ankara. ²

He taught the Conqueror the Qur'an, the Sunna, jurisprudence, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, mathematics, astronomy, history and the arts of war. He supervised him while he was a prince at Manisa, training in the administration of a province. Al-Salabi says that he persuaded the young prince that he was the one meant by the Prophet ﷺ's hadith about the conquest of Constantinople. ²

Al-Salabi relates that during the siege the amirs and viziers gathered before the sultan and expressed their despair. The sultan sent his vizier to the shaykh's tent, and the shaykh wrote a message that the servant plans and God decrees. The war council decided to continue. He says that the Conqueror said on the taking of the city that he was delighted by the presence of such a man. ²

• All the reports here come from one source, and the dates of birth and death are conventional; they need an additional source.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), article signed H. J. Kissling, describes Ak Shams al-Din (Muhammad Shams al-Milla wa'l-Din) as a saint of the Bayramiyya and the discoverer of the tomb of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (may God be pleased with him) near Constantinople. He was the son of Hamza, who won fame in Syria as a worker of miracles and died in the district of Kawak near Amasya. He was born at Damascus in 792/1389–90 and came with his parents to Kawak in 799/1396–7. His father died when he was seven, and he studied theology. He later became a müderris at Osmancik, but was not satisfied with the rational outlook of orthodox Islam and sought a spiritual guide, travelling to Persia and Transoxania. ³

About 830/1426–7 he turned to Hadji Bayram, who appointed him his successor (khalifa). His later activities as a shaykh and healer were at Begbazar, west of Ankara, at Isklib and at Goynuk. Between 851/1447–8 and 855/1451–2 he was called to Adrianople to treat Sulayman Celebi, kadi 'asker of Murad II. He took part in the conquest of Constantinople as a preacher; a later legend has him discovering the tomb of Abu Ayyub, and he healed a daughter of Mehmed II. He died at Goynuk at the end of Rabi' II 863/1459. He had seven, or by other accounts twelve, sons, the most important the poet Hamdi. A quarrel between him and some companions caused a great secession of the Malamatiyya, which hampered the whole order. ³