Guide
Mehmet Şakir Suntay, known as Gedikhasanlı Şakir Efendi, was born in Yozgat in 1853. His family came originally from the Cami-i Kebir quarter of Kayseri — known there as the Cücezadeler — and had settled in the village of Gedikhasanlı; he was the middle son of Ali Efendi. He began his education in the village, completed the Osmanpaşa medrese, then went to Kayseri, took his licence from Müritzade Ali Efendi and other well-known scholars of the city, and returned to Yozgat.
He taught at the Demirli medrese in Yozgat under both the Ottoman state and the Republic, and for a time at the Osmanpaşa medrese where he had studied. When the medreses were closed he withdrew to his village and carried on as imam and preacher. Over a lifetime in Yozgat and Osmanpaşa he taught a great many students; among them were Şeyhzade Ahmet Efendi, a Nakşi sheikh, and the mufti Hulusi Akyol.
His learning lay in the religious sciences, in Arabic, in hadith and above all in the Qur'anic sciences and exegesis. People who knew the matter at first hand say that he passed the ruus examination and was appointed dersiam, and that a scholar's salary was assigned to him which he refused to take from the state — but the portal records plainly that no official document confirming this has been found.
Though otherwise in good health, he lost the sight of both eyes in his last years. He died in the village of Gedikhasanlı in 1937 and was buried in the village cemetery. Those who revered him had the grave built as a place of visit, and it is still visited.
