Two Religions One Value: Aziz Mamas (Şammas Baba)

Abstract

Throughout history, there have always been places to which societies have attributed some special meanings within the framework of their own dynamics, in other words, to the personalities they have attributed sanctity and to places they have attributed importance based on their religious belief and social memory. In Muslim societies, venerable personalities who find their counterparts with concepts such as “evliya”, the saint, and lay have been seen since the advent of Islam. While these people are usually a real person, they sometimes take their place in the perception of society in the form of surrogates whose existence is accepted even though they are not recognized concretely. While people who are respected in this way in the understanding of Islamic mysticism are mostly described as “evliya”, in Christian thought, they are defined as saints; In Judaism, the same value is expressed with the concept of saint. The motif of “evliya” in Islamic thought has come to the fore as the beloved servant of Allah, the person whose prayers are accepted, and people who are instrumental in good deeds. In other monotheistic religions, too, these people have manifested themselves as people who are sought after in difficult times, who live a long life, who show miracles, and who transcend the limits of time and space. While the respectable personalities of each religion have a value and ownership in themselves, some names can be owned as a common value. The person who sings the subject of our study and is known as “Şammas Baba” by Muslims and as “Saint Mamas” by Chıristians is one of them. Because of this feature, Şammas Baba was found worthy of study and became the subject of this study.