The sufistic life in Bulgaria during the Ottoman period

It was implemented a hard inhabiting policy, constructed new cities, founded governing structures to supply the social, religious needs of public after the conquest in the Bulgaria where it was under control of Ottoman Empire in the past. Here at, the lands of Bulgaria earned an Islamic identity. Undoubtedly, one of the important reason of Islamisation of the region is followers of Islamic Sufism. They announced of Islam, by building Islamic monastery in lonely lands some of via government grant and some of via their own bootstraps and by serving public without distinction as to religion, language, race. In the studies which are done in Bulgaria it is found that 174 Tekke's were built and existed 27 tombs belonging to followers of Sufism. Based on this input, we tried to give information about tariqas, sheikhs and their activities, ordering these tekke and türbe as to where they exist. Plus, we attached the tekke and tombs which we identified them from both to this number archival resources and written papers and then we identified totally 286 tekke and 65 tombs in Bulgaria at the Ottoman period. Some of these tekke served for a short time, some of them were mentioned with a diversified name and there is no information about some of them except their names. Besides, it is denominated only the names of the tekke which are located at the various cities and towns, at the sources and there is any information except that. It is highly possible that once upon a time there were tekke around the identified tombs. The people who live in Bulgaria do not differentiate between tekke and tomb and they usually name the tomb as tekke. The information about some of tombs and tekkes are based on various rumors and it is showed up a half-truth half myth picture. We indexed title by title the the Sufis, which we identified as they were born in Bulgaria at Ottoman period or engaged in an activity there, by their places of birth. From the sources we could identified, there are 131 Sufis. 35 of them are Author-Sufis. Of course, in view of the period which we examine, this number is quite a little. However, it is the number which we could reach to the information about their life from the sources. Apart from that, it can be understood that there are Sufis who served in tekkes at the sheikdom duty. We give only the name of the Sufis whom we could reach to any information about their life. Keywords: Bulgaria, Ottoman Period, Tasawuf, Tekke's, Sufi's.