Gül Baba's Türbe: The Father of Roses
Why is it significant?
Catch your breath at the top of the steps. You are standing on a terrace of pale stone with roses all around, a view over the Danube, and in the middle a small octagonal building with a low dome.
Key Facts
| Place | Gül Baba's Türbe: The Father of Roses |
|---|---|
| Address | Mecset utca 14, 1023 Budapest, Hungary |
| Geo Coordinates | 47.51600, 19.03490 |
| Part of Walk | Water Town Secrets: Budapest's Víziváros from Batthyány tér to Gül Baba's Rose Garden |
| Generated | Generated |
Catch your breath at the top of the steps. You are standing on a terrace of pale stone with roses all around, a view over the Danube, and in the middle a small octagonal building with a low dome. It is the türbe, the tomb, of Gül Baba, and it is the northernmost Islamic place of pilgrimage in Europe.
Gül Baba was a dervish, a Muslim holy man, who came to Hungary with the army of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. He died in 1541, just after the Ottomans took Buda. Legend says he passed away during the very first prayer held in the great church on Castle Hill after it had been turned into a mosque, and that the sultan himself helped carry his coffin. Between 1543 and 1548 Mehmed, one of the early pashas of Buda, built this tomb over his grave.
His name means Father of Roses. The story goes that he brought roses to Buda and planted them on this slope, and that is why the whole hill is called Rózsadomb, Rose Hill. Historians are more cautious about where the name comes from, but stand among these bushes in June and you will not care very much. And remember the roses of Saint Elizabeth back at the first stop of this walk... a Christian princess and a Muslim dervish, both remembered in this city through the same flower.
After the Christian reconquest in 1686, Jesuits turned the tomb into a chapel. Yet it was never forgotten. Muslim travellers kept coming to pray, and over the centuries the Ottoman and later Turkish state helped to protect it. The tomb and its garden were restored jointly by Hungary and Turkey and reopened in 2018, and today pilgrims, schoolchildren and tourists share the terrace.
It is a rare thing: one of the few Ottoman buildings in Budapest still used for the purpose it was built for. When you are ready, go down Mecset utca, Mosque Street, towards the river, and turn left along Frankel Leó út to find the next warm spring.