Adım Adım Amasya

The Princes' Route · Stop 9

Pir Sücaeddin İlyas Tomb

According to the narrative, this city was once saved from destruction thanks to the answers one man gave. That man lies here.

1482 · 1485 Halveti Pirler Park

Timur's examination

After completing his education under the scholars of his age, Pir Sücaeddin İlyas went to Shirvan together with Timur, and there, having received spiritual grace from Sheikh Sadreddin Şirvânî, he returned to Amasya.1

The event at the heart of the narrative is this: a scholarly and political delegation is sent to Amasya by Timur — headed by a famous scholar named Abdülcebbar. Pir İlyas answers the delegation's questions “with great clarity and deep knowledge”.

“Thanks to Pir İlyas, who won admiration in this strange examination, the city of Amasya was saved from destruction by the Lame One, and its people from the violence and massacre of the Tatars.”2

In another record the event takes place in Timur's presence: “Meeting Timur, this spiritual guide went through a great examination in Timur's presence and left none of his questions on any subject unanswered. The perfection of the great guide was appreciated by Timur, and out of respect for his renown Timur gave up the harm he had meant to do to the people of Amasya.”1

The two records differ on where the examination took place: one in Timur's presence, the other before the delegation sent to Amasya. This page gives both as they are.

📜 What do the documents say?

The tomb was built in the name of the mufti Pir Şücaaddin İlyas, who saved the city by passing Timur's examination through his wisdom and religious learning.3 It stands in central Amasya, inside Pirler Park, and is also known among the people as “Yukarı Pirler” (the Upper Pirs).4

The building was first commissioned for Pir İlyas, a member of the Halveti order, in 1482 by Gümüşlüzade Ahmed Paşa, as a single-roomed structure. Later, in 1485, Sultan Bayezid II turned it into a masonry building with a large dome in the middle and two small domes at the sides.3

According to its inscription, the building, ruined after an earthquake, was repaired in 1892 through the efforts of Hurşit Bey, the support of the people and help from the endowments of Abdülhamid II. The tomb belongs to Pir İlyas and his students.3

The sources diverge. Olcay writes that Bayezid II built the tomb, and reads the inscription as AH 887 (1482).2 The record on which the book relies, however, gives 1482 to Gümüşlüzade Ahmed Paşa and 1485 to Bayezid II.3 This page shows both records.

🗣️ What do the people say?

Pir İlyas is one of the saints most often told of in Amasya; his name occurs dozens of times in Tuğrul Balaban's collection.5 Evliya Çelebi, too, reports a hagiographic tale about him in his Seyahatnâme.5

The best-known narrative explains why he is called “Hacı” (pilgrim): it is said that every week he performed the Friday prayer in Mecca.5

A man from Ziyaret, on his way to the pilgrimage, has his money stolen and weeps. Someone who sees his plight asks where he is from. The man says he is from Amasya. The other replies: “Hacı İlyas of Amasya comes here every week to perform the Friday prayer. Wait beside this mosque and call out ‘Hacı İlyas' three times…”5

Read the original Turkish

Ziyaret'ten hacca giden bir adam parasını çaldırır, ağlar. Durumu gören biri nereli olduğunu sorar. Adam Amasyalı olduğunu söyler. Karşısındaki şöyle der: “Amasyalı Hacı İlyas her hafta Cuma namazı kılmaya buraya gelir. Sen bu caminin yanında bekle, üç defa ‘Hacı İlyas' diye bağır…”

This section is a folk narrative, not a document. No male heir of Pir İlyas's line survived; but his granddaughter was the Amasya poet Mihrî Hatun.2

The tomb inscription, in translation

“This tomb was built for the pole of the sheikhs, the finest of seekers, the nearest to the hereafter in the life of this world, the famous Sheikh Şücaeddin Pir İlyas, born in Gümüş — may God exalt him and gladden his soul. The date of the building's construction is AH 887.”
AH 887 = AD 1482. Quoted by Osman Fevzi Olcay, Amasya Şehri; English translation ours, from his Turkish.2

While you are there, look for

Key facts

First building
1482, Gümüşlüzade Ahmed Paşa — a single-roomed structure3
Present form
1485, Sultan Bayezid II — a three-domed masonry building3
Repair
1892 — Hurşit Bey, the people and the endowments of Abdülhamid II3
Popularly
Yukarı Pirler4
Died
AH 886 (1481–82)1
Granddaughter
The poet Mihrî Hatun2
Location
40.653054, 35.838518 — verified against OpenStreetMap
In the book
Kültürel Miras Boyutuyla Amasya, p. 50

📍 Open on the map

Sources

Every factual statement on this page rests on one of the sources below. Titles are given in their original Turkish so that they can be found; quotations from them are our translations.

  1. Osman Fevzi Olcay, Amasya Ünlüleri, haz. Turan Böcekçi (Amasya: Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, ts.), madde 137. — The entry “Pir Şücaeddin İlyas”. The book has no printed page numbers, so the place is given by the book's own entry number.
  2. Osman Fevzi Olcay, Amasya Şehri (Amasya: Amasya Belediyesi, 2010), 123. — The entry “İlyas Pir Şücaeddin”: “His name is İlyas, his epithet Şücaeddin… after completing his education he went to Shirvan with Timur.”
  3. Abdulhamit Budak, Bir Şehir Bir Tarikat: Amasya ve Halvetilik (Amasya: Amasya Belediyesi, 2014), 110, 164.
  4. Kültür Portalı, “Pir Sücaeddin İlyas Türbesi” (Erişim 13 Haziran 2025).
  5. Tuğrul Balaban, Amasya Efsane, Menkabe ve Memoratları (Amasya: Amasya Valiliği, 2014), 13. — The hagiographic tale Evliya Çelebi reports in his Seyahatnâme about “Şeyh Hazret-i Pir İlyas-ı Amasyavî”. Note: the “Pir İlyas Dede” narratives in Balaban's collection (around p. 107) belong to a different holy man, at Esençay in Taşova; they should not be confused with the Pir Sücaeddin İlyas of this page.