Karacaburun Sufi Lodge

The Sufi Lodge was founded by Sheikh Hafidh Mehmed Aziz Efendi as a branch of the Raûfi Âsitâne in Üsküdar.
Hafidh Mehmed Efendi drew up his waqf deed in 1761 and endowed his house in Karacaburun as a Khalwati Sufi Lodge.
The Sufi Lodge disappeared and was rebuilt for a second time; the date and patron of this second construction could not be identified.
In 1932-1933, the Sufi Lodge was demolished because of road widening, while the graveyard survived to the present day.
The harem section attached to the Sufi Lodge was sold in the 1930s; the wooden structure belonging to this section was dismantled, and for a period only its ground floor was used as a shop.
The site of the Sufi Lodge was leased by the General Directorate of Foundations to Beykoz Municipality in 2012; in 2018, restitution and reconstruction works were initiated, and by 2021 the reconstruction of the Sufi Lodge and the restoration of the graveyard were completed.

The building is also referred to in the sources as “Hâfız Mehmed Efendi Sufi Lodge,” “Raûfî Sufi Lodge,” “Şeyh Hâfız Efendi Sufi Lodge,” and “Raûfî Efendi Sufi Lodge.”
The tariqah affiliation of the Sufi Lodge is the Raûfî branch within the Ramazaniyya branch of the Khalwatiyya; this identity places the Sufi Lodge within the network of Khalwati dervish lodges along the Bosphorus line.
In the graveyard of the Sufi Lodge is the grave of Hafidh Mehmed Efendi (1794), one of the sheikhs of the Sufi Lodge; the gravestone inscription and the record of the Khalwati crown are extant.
There is a decision designating the parcel and graveyard of the Sufi Lodge as cultural property requiring protection; the dimensions of the waqf plot and the parcel information are given in the sources.