Museum of İskilip Scholars
The Museum of İskilip Scholars (İskilipli Âlimler Müzesi) stands in the district center of İskilip and is dedicated to the religious and learned figures the town produced over the centuries. Completed in 2017, it is promoted by the İskilip Municipality as the “first and only” museum of its kind in Turkey — a claim that cannot be independently verified, though the museum’s concept, a stand-alone exhibition space devoted to the scholars of a single town, is unusual in Turkey.
What It Shows
The museum displays silicone figures of İskilip-linked scholars alongside objects from their era. Among those featured are Akşemseddin, tutor of Fatih Sultan Mehmed (Mehmed the Conqueror); Şeyh Muhyiddin Yavsi, from the family of Şeyhülislam Ebussuud Efendi, whose father he was; the Ottoman şeyhülislams Ebussuud Efendi and Sun’ullah Efendi; the astronomer Ali Kuşçu; Molla Cafer Çelebi; Şeyh Muslihiddîn-i Attar; and Hacı Karani (Şeyh Muhammed Abdülbaki Efendi). Each scholar’s life story, along with the history of İskilip and its Ulu Cami (Great Mosque), is told on LED-lit panels around the hall.
One section of the museum is devoted to information on the more recent scholar Şeyh İbrahim Ethem Efendi and to a list of 35 further İskilip-born scholars not otherwise displayed. That number points to the sheer density of names İskilip contributed to the Ottoman scholarly (ilmiye) establishment; according to the municipality’s own materials, the biographies of some of these names are still being compiled and await independent verification.
Everyday Life and Photography
Part of the museum is set aside not for scholars but for a display of everyday objects used in İskilip from earlier times to the present. Its walls are hung with the work of local İskilip photographers, making the museum as much a small ethnographic corner of daily life as a gallery of scholars.
Why It Matters
İskilip is one of the rare Anatolian towns to have produced more than one Ottoman şeyhülislam and several scholars close to the palace. The museum gathers this legacy in a single space, giving visitors a concrete sense of how the Ottoman scholarly hierarchy — from müderris (professor) to kazasker (chief judge) to şeyhülislam — connected to a provincial town like İskilip. For more on individual figures named in the museum, see Ebussuud Efendi, Sun’ullah Efendi and İskilip’s Scholars.
Visiting
The museum is located in the İskilip district center and the municipality actively promotes its inclusion on visitors’ itineraries. For the district’s broader history, see İskilip History; for the architectural traces of the scholars’ era, see the Şeyh Muhiddin Yavsi Mosque.