Seyid Yahya Bakuvi’s Mausoleum

Seyid Yahya Bakuvi’s Mausoleum is situated in the southern part of the palace complex and is generally known under the name of a “Mausoleum of the “dervish”.

According to the sources Bakuvi was a royal scholar in the court of Shirvanshah Khalilullah. He was born in the town of Shamakhy. He was a sophist, adherent to the teaching of Sheikh Sadraddin who was at the head of the sect “khalvati” (a secluded place). After Sheikh Sadraddin’s death Bakuvi moved to Baku. According to different sources he died in 868 (1464) and was buried in the territory of the palace complex. Up to present about 15 works by Seyid Yahya Bakuvi have been survived. They all are of a sophist-mystic nature and are kept in the cities of Turkey: Istanbul, Konya, Manisa.

These are such works as “The Mysteries of the Seekers of Truth”, “The Mysteries of Inspiration”, “The Symbolism of Signs”, “Commentaries on the Samanids’ Dynasty”, “The Mysteries of Spirits”, etc. which are the valuable sources in the sphere of studies of philosophy, astronomy and mathematics.

Sophism is a mystic-ascetic trend in the Islam known since the VIII century. The sophists aspired to the individual unity with the God and even for the blending with him through self-absorption, internal contemplation, followed by ascetic exercises.

The Mausoleum is of an octahedral shape and covered with an octahedral marquee. It consists of ground and underground parts. The upper part of the Mausoleum served to perform the cult rites, and the lower one housed the sepulchral vault. The inside of the mausoleum was ornamented and decorated with a coloured plaster. The Mausoleum is faced with narrow and wide rows of stones, tightly fitted to one another and wonderfully-dressed.

On the southern, eastern and western verges of the Mausoleum there are three small lancet windows with a stone bar - shabaka. The Mausoleum is one of the branches of the Shirvan-Apsheron school of architecture.

The Mausoleum was built to an old mosque known as Key-Kubada Mosque. It was in this mosque that Seyid Yahya Bakuvi worked, prayed and taught. The mosque was built in the years of Shirvanshah Key-Kubad’s reign in the XIV century and was named after him. But in 1918 the mosque burnt in the fire and at present only its foundation is remaining. It seems probable that the mosque had been built in the place of a more ancient one.