Akhi Baba (title of the guild shaykh and tanners' head)

Akhi Baba (also written Ahi Baba in popular speech) was the title of the shaykh of the tekke of Akhi Evran at Kirshehir. It was also given to his delegates in the Turkish guilds, and to the heads of those guilds. ²

The Akhi Baba, or his delegate or local representative, carried out the initiation of apprentices into the guilds through the ceremony of girding (kushak, or "putting on the belt"), for which fees were charged. The title was given above all to the heads of the tanners and other leather workers (saddlers and shoemakers) in Anatolia, Rumelia and Bosnia. The Akhi Babas gradually extended their control over other guilds and their girding, so that they came to control almost the whole Turkish guild organization in Anatolia and the European provinces, though not the provinces with an Arab population. This brought the tekke of Kirshehir great wealth. Some guilds escaped their control, among them those of Ankara, which had once been the stronghold of akhism. ¹

The Akhi Babas claimed descent from Akhi Evran. Local representatives were elected by the members of the guild, but did not have to belong to it; any notable person could be chosen. They needed a licence (idjazetname) from the Akhi Baba of Kirshehir and a diploma (berat) confirming the appointment from the government. The Akhi Baba of the tanners was also head of the whole guild organization in his town, though he could be deposed. ³

The influence of the Akhi Babas reached as far as the Crimea, where the tanners' guild also took precedence in the guilds' celebrations. The practice of sending delegates declined with the decline of the Turkish guilds under Western economic penetration; a delegate came to Bosnia for the last time in 1886–87. In the Ottoman provinces it ended only with the abolition of the old guilds in 1908. ³