Akyazılı Sultan Tekke, near Balchik

The Akyazılı Sultan Tekke stands in the village of Tekke (Obrochishte) near Balchik, a coastal town of Dobrich province in north-eastern Bulgaria; it is a complex of tomb, assembly hall (meydan), asitane and lodge buildings. ¹ The tomb's style suggests the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, and the hagiography of Akyazılı Sultan, a saint who took part in the early Ottoman conquests, tells of his coming here and burial. ¹

Evliya Çelebi stayed at this asitane in Rabi' I 1062 (February 1652) on his way from Silistra to Özi and described it in detail: Akyazılı, he says, was one of the deputies of Ahmad Yasawi, came to Bursa with Hajji Bektash Wali, lived over a hundred years and died under Murad II (1421-51), and the lodge and tomb were founded by Arslan Bey of the Gazi Mihal family. ¹ He describes the richly painted ceiling of the hall, its marble floor with a fountain at the centre and its lead-covered conical roof like the Galata Tower; it was then a Bektashi lodge. ^{1 2}

The asitane is said to have been burnt by the Russians in 1828; the main lodge was never rebuilt, and a new wooden lodge was added beside the tomb, where in 1872, according to the traveller Kanitz, eighteen resident and eight visiting dervishes lived under Shaykh Halil Baba. ² After the region left Ottoman rule the lodge was made a shrine of St Athanasius; the author cites Hasluck that the village priest fixed a cross on the tomb during the Balkan War, and that the crescent was put back during the First World War. ² Tomb and asitane are carefully built of cut stone, the number seven governing both: the tomb is heptagonal, and so is the great hall. ²