By The European Times | Created at 2026-09-03 08:16:55 | Updated at 2026-09-03 09:20:50
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Early Period
Osman I and his son Orhan were Vefâiyye sufi order members led by its legendary grandmaster Edebâlî.
Murad I the Benevolent was a follower of the mystic Seyyid Mehmed Hammârî of Tabriz.
Bayezid I the Thunderbolt was a disciple of the Nurbakhshiyye order grandmaster Emir Sultan.
Mehmed I the Prince went with the Zeyniyye order’s legendary leader Molla Fenari.
Murad II was a Mevlevî under the grandmaster Emir Âdil Çelebi and abdicated from throne to become a true dervish and a seeker after truth, but the War Party reenthroned him to fend off Crusader campaigns that his then teenage son Mehmed could not.
Mehmed II the Conqueror was a Bayramî and a true student of its grandmaster Shemseddin the White.
Bayezid II the Saint followed Halvetî order and its leader Çelebi Halife. There are legends of paranormal deeds of this Sultan who tried to prevent war at all costs for 30 years while staging the first large scale humanitarian operation in history, saving entire Sephardic Jewish population of Andalusia from destruction under inquisition.
Selim I the Grim who conquered the entire Middle East was a dervish of the Zeyniyye order headed by grandmaster Halimî Çelebi. His nemesis, Shah Ismail of Iran was too a Turkish sufi, a grandmaster himself.
Enter Nakhshbendi
Because now the enemy was Twelver Shiites and most sufiism revered Ali and his descendants, they looked for a solidly Sunni sufi order which did not take Ali as its founder but Abu Baqr. Imam Rabbani provided the solution with a strongly Sunni sufi order based on reform of Bahaeddin Nakhshbandi’s teachings.
Süleyman I the Magnificient was the first Nakhshbendi and followed grandmasters Abdüllatif Mahdumî and Mehmed Nurullah.
After a brief period of Selim II Murad III returned back to the Nakhshibendî order under the Central Asian visitor Hâce Ahmed Sâdık of Kabul.
Halveti Period
Selim II the Blond went Halvetî under grandmaster Süleymân of Diyarbakır.
Mehmed III and five of his next generation sultans broke with the Nakhshbendi and followed the newly started order Celvetiyye under a break-away from Halvetiyya by Mahmud Hüdâî the Saint. Ahmed I, Mustafa I, Osman II the Young, Murad IV and Ibrahim the Unrestrained were also followers of this order.
Mehmed IV the Hunter returned back to the original Halvetî order under Ahmed Câhidî.
Süleyman II was also a follower of Halvetiyye under Osman Fazlî Efendi.
Mevlevis vs Nakhshbendis
Mevlevi order was the dominant force during the fall of the Ottoman empire. Some believe it was not coincidental.
Ahmed II, Mustafa II and Ahmed III were disciples of the Mevlevî order under grandmaster Receb Enis Dede.
Mahmud I and Osman III were Nakhshibendî disciples led by Seyyid Muhammed Murâdî. Mustafa III was also a follower of the Nakhshibendî order but following Mustafa Efendi.
Abdülhamid I was a dervish of the Sa’diyye order and its grandmaster Mehmed Ziyâd Efendi.
Selim III one of the best composers of classical Turkish music was a disciple of the Mevlevî order under grandmaster Mehmed Emin Çelebi.
Mustafa IV was a Nakhshibendî and visited one of its masters Abdülhalim Efendi.
Mahmud II who started a massive attack on the Janissaries and its sufi base the Bektashi was himself a Nakhshibendî following Mehmed Nuri Efendi of the Yahya Efendi tekke. He handed over banned Bektashi’s properties mostly to the Nakhshbendis.
So was Abdülmecid I a Nakhshbendi of the same ring.
Abdülaziz was a Mevlevî following Sadreddin Çelebi.
Abdülhamid II was a Şâzelî order disciple under Zâfir Efendi.
Murad V and Mehmed V were Mevlevî following Salâhaddin Dede of Yenikapı lodge. Murad V was also a Freemason as well as being Mevlevi, which is allowed in Mevlevi order even today.
Rise of Nakhshbendi Gümüşhanevi
Mehmed VI was a Nakhshibendî and followed the Gümüşhanevî branch grandmaster Ziyaeddin Dağıstanî.
Former chief of Turkish armed forces and Atatürk’s trusted supporter Field Marshall Fevzi Çakmak who controlled Turkish armed forces for 25 years and later set up the first free opposition party MP in 1946 (now the government partner MHP), founder of modern Islamist politics in Turkey late Prime Minister Prof. Necmeddin Erbakan (under Abdulaziz Bekkine and later Mehmed Zahid Kotku), pro-American but pro-conservative late president Turgut Ozal and present president Recep Tayyip Erdogan were all influenced by the Iskender Pasha lodge of the Gümüşhanevî branch of the Nakhshibendî order.
Kemal Atatürk was secular but respectful to religious figures although suspicious of both Sufi Muslims and Secular Freemasons, whom he had been nominally initated as all Young Turks used freemasonic lodges for their secret meetings to stay under the radar. He later banned sufism and, on rumours of a pro-British faction using lodges again, freemasonry. But there are anecdotes he was sympathetic with the Bektashi, even considered himself a member culturally. The banned Bektashi pantheistic order, once dominated the Balkans and the Janissary corps, had already gone underground during Ataturk’s childhood.
Source: Kutluk Ozguven at quora.com.
Photo: Sultan Murad V.
