Ahmet Kayhan Dede

Infobox Person
name = Ahmet Kayhan Dede
birth_date = 1891
birth_place = Malatya, Turkey
death_date = August 3, 1998
religion = Islam

Ahmet Kayhan Dede(1891-August 3, 1998) was a Turkish Sufi master of the 20th century and an important figure in Islamic Mysticism.

Early history

Ahmet Kayhan was born in the Mako-Aktarlar village of Malatya province, Turkey in either December 1890 or January 1891, although the Turkish government lists his official year of birth as 1903. In 1892 his father died, and although his mother remarried, she also died by the time Kayhan was seven. For the remainder of his childhood he reportedly stayed with an aunt.

Kayhan first met "Keko" (Ahmet efendi), the man that would become his master, when he was only four or five years old. Having lost his parents at an early age, he became deeply involved in the Islamic tradition partially because clerics took the place of parental figures.

Adult life

By 1922 Kayhan was living near Istanbul, making routine trips to the city of Ankara. Sometime in the 1930s he relocated to Ankara, where he met Hajar, who he would go on to marry on March 25, 1937. His longtime master Ahmet Efendi died in 1944, however, an older student of Efendi's, Musa Kiazim, took Efendi's place until his death in 1966. It was at this point that Kayhan not only began his life as a master, but also gained the name "Dede", which actually means "grandpa" and is appended to the name as an expression of loving respect as is custom towards elder relatives.

Ahmet spent the rest of his life, from the sixty's on, teaching and enlightening those around him and the many pilgrims that came to visit him.

Line of Descent

Master Kayhan's chain of transmission is traced through the Prophet Muhammad, his closeassociate and first Abu Bakr, Abdul Qadir Jelani, Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari,
Ahmad Sirhindi, Abdullah Dehlewi, Hadhrat Mawlânâ Khâlid-i Baghdâdî, Sheikh Samini, OsmanBadruddin, and Ahmet Kayhan Dede.

ee also

*Naqshbandi

External links

* [http://www.secondsufis.com/THEFLAWLESSHUMANBEING.htm The Flawless Human Being] English biography written by Henry Bayman

*Naqshbandi
* [http://www.irfanokulu.net]