Karadirek

Karadirek is one of the important places of pilgrimage in Ballıkaya (Yılmaz 2023). In sources on the Şah İbrahim Velî ocak (a hereditary sacred lineage) it appears as the Karadirek lodge (tekke) (Yıldız 2012).

The account in the ocak tradition

The following information rests on the oral tradition within the ocak. Harun Yıldız reports it from Abbas Yıldırım’s 2006 book Seyit Şah İbrahim Veli Ocağı (Yıldız 2012, pp. 129–130 and endnote 3):

• Şah İbrahim Velî attached his staff to the central pillar of the lodge he founded and said, “Bunu gören beni görsün, derdine derman bulsun” (“Let whoever sees this see me, and find a cure for their troubles”).
• Those who came to the lodge would make a silent wish and embrace the black pillar in the middle; it was believed that if their hands met, their wish would be granted. This is why the lodge came to be called the Karadirek (“black pillar”) lodge.
• The lodge holds the staff of Şah İbrahim Velî and the shoes and cloak of his descendant Şah Velî.
• In the 17th century Şah Velî restored the lodge.

These accounts are part of the religious tradition and are given here as the tradition’s own account.

The present building

Local sources today refer to it as the Karadirek Cem and Culture House (Karadirek Cem ve Kültür Evi) (Özerol, blog). In his notes on a visit to Ballıkaya in July 1986, Fuat Bozkurt writes that, as the village was being moved after a landslide in the old settlement, the Karadirek lodge was being rebuilt in the new settlement to plans drawn by his nephew Yusuf Ziya Bozkurt (Bozkurt 2017). For more on what Bozkurt wrote about the ocak, see our detailed article. According to a memorial text written by Zeynep Oktay, Encümen Hüseyin Yılmaz, president of the Ballıkaya Culture, Development and Tourism Association founded in 1993, began the building of the “Ballıkaya Culture and Cem House (Karadirek)” and raised it with donations (“rıza lokmaları”) collected on journeys across Türkiye and Europe (memorial text). This is reported information. Whether this is the same work Bozkurt mentions in 1986 or a later phase is not yet clear; we are looking for documents on the years of construction.

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