People’s Stories

Ali Baba was a Turkish minister who gave up his honorable duty and comfortable life and for religious reasons decided to commit to the Dervish order of Baktash and their way of life. When he resigned, the Sultan told him: "You must be a fool ("sersem") to leave". Since then, Ali Baba has been known as "sersem", too.

Ali Baba – Sersem decided to leave Istanbul and came to Tetovo, where he lived for the rest of his life, accompanied by four students of his religious teaching. After his death, only one of his students, Arabat Baba, stayed in Tetovo, while the other three left. Some time later, Arabat Baba noticed that there was a candle in the yard that wasn’t there before. He understood at once that it was the soul of his teacher Ali Baba. Without hesitating, he decided to build a "tulbe" on the place of his teacher’s grave and near it he built a Teke dedicated to Sersem Ali Baba.

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