Merkez Efendi Mosque

Merkez Efendi Mosque, a mosque located at the Merkez Efendi Tomb in the Zeytinburnu district of Istanbul.

Introduction

When exiting the Byzantine walls at Mevlanakapı, the Merkezefendi Cemetery and Merkezefendi Mosque are found in the neighborhood opposite the street. The mosque can be reached by two routes, one through the cemetery and the other by going around the cemetery.

History

Its patron is Şah Sultan, daughter of Yavuz Sultan Selim. She had it built for Sheikh Merkez Efendi. The green inscription on the courtyard gate bears the dates 1514 and 1580 as the second construction dates. In 1837 Mahmud II renovated it.

Architecture

The square‑plan mosque has a brick base, a wooden roof, and an adjoining single‑shrine minaret and is painted yellow. The mosque and its surroundings are arranged as follows: mosque, tomb, ascetic cell, cemeteries, Abdülbaki Paşa Library, bathhouse, school, ablution fountain, and charitable endowment sites.

When entering the mosque through the courtyard gate, on the left a small tomb contains the coffins of two of Merkez Efendi’s grandchildren. Opposite this is the Merkez Efendi Tomb. On the right, four steps lead up to the mosque’s external entrance door. The mosque floor and ceiling are wooden. The inner entrance door opens onto a single interior space. When entering through the outer entrance door, one ascends to the upper floor from the right and left; this area is for women.

Merkez Efendi lies in his tomb in the spacious garden where the mosque entrance door opens. Its ceiling is domed. The prayer room is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. except on Tuesdays. In the tomb, the wooden‑ceilinged entrance section is enclosed by a railing on the side where Sheikh Hüseyin Efendi, Sheikh Ahmed Mesud, Mustafa Efendi, Nurullah Efendi, Hatice Hanım, Sıdıka Hanım, Fatma Hatun, and Sheikh Mehmed Nureddin are buried. In the vaulted section with a Baghdadi dome is Merkez Efendi’s coffin. In front of it is a plaque of Calligrapher Aziz Efendi.

Ascetic Cell

Directly behind the tomb, a ascetic cell reached by a 15–20 step staircase is a simple hut set on a 30‑square‑metre well, with only a small door and a dotted window. A narrow path that circles the pool where red fish swim surrounds the hut.

In front of the Çilehane there is a wooden-roofed fountain supported by eight thin columns surrounded by a railing and two locked wells around it. The whole area around these sections is a cemetery. Sabahattin Eyüpoğlu, Halil Nadaroğlu, Tahsin Öz, Tevfik Kut, Mükremin Halil Yinanç, Atatürk's mourner Yaşar Okur, Halide Edib Adıvar, Abdullah Cevdet are buried here.

The complex's hamam is 200 m from the mosque. Above the compartment on the right side of the inner door it is written that Merkez Efendi bathed here.

Before entering through the mosque courtyard gate, on the left there is the former children's library, Abdülbaki Paşa Darülkurrası. This is a domed stone structure with the pasha's tomb in its small garden. With the closure of the road by the library, medical festivals are organized in this small square. The three‑storey wooden building next to the library is a metric building, and the new structures beside it are a Quran course and a student dormitory.

Merkez Efendi and Mesir Paste

The Turkish inscriptions on the exterior wall of the tomb and on the interior wall state that he was a warrior who went to war with Kanuni Sultan Süleyman, a physician, and a scholar of religion and mysticism. He was born in 1463 in Denizli, studied in Istanbul madrasas, served as a teacher, returned to Istanbul and became a disciple of Sunbul Efendi. He is the successor of Sunbul Sinan Efendi, the sheikh of the Sunbul branch of the Halveti order, and became a sheikh upon his death.

When Hafsa Valide Sultan fell ill, Merkez Efendi prepared the famous mesir paste consisting of 41 herbs; Hafsa Sultan recovered thanks to this paste and asked that it be distributed to everyone. On 22 March Merkez Efendi distributed the mesir paste to the public from the minarets and domes of Sultan Mosque next to the zawiya. This tradition has continued to the present day. Every year on 22 March mesir paste festivals are held in Manisa.