A guild town
In 2015 Mudurnu entered the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List as the “Historic Guild Town of Mudurnu”. At the heart of the nomination is the Ahi tradition — the guild culture in which craftsmen taught their trade and their ethics together — and the traces of it that live on today.
The best known of these is the craftsmen’s prayer said in the arasta on Fridays, described as a tradition of some 700 years. 7 Kapı itself stands at the southern end of this bazaar, in a shop more than 120 years old.
Friday in the bazaar
The craftsmen’s prayer is said in the bazaar on Fridays, after the call that precedes the noon prayer; each tradesman stands before his shop and answers “amen”. By tradition, the shopkeepers of the Orta Çarşı say their amens standing, while the blacksmiths of the Demirciler Çarşısı say theirs seated: those who spend the week sitting at their counters rise, and those who stand all week at the anvil sit down. The exchange is said to be a mark of respect for one another’s labour.
During the prayer, slices of charity bread brought by benefactors are handed round. Anyone opening a new shop in Mudurnu holds the opening right after this Friday prayer, and the congregation walks to its door to pray together for its prosperity.
A bazaar rebuilt after the fire
Today’s arasta was rebuilt after the great fire of 1906 on a regular grid of parallel streets. As you wander the bazaar you can still read this plan in the long, parallel rows of shops.
The Ahi Museum
In the former shop of the blacksmith Emin İnce on Belediye Street, a small museum devoted to Mudurnu’s Ahi tradition opened on 26 May 2017. Ask in the bazaar for its opening hours.
The women’s market and needle lace
The legacy of the Bacıyân-ı Rum — often described as the women’s branch of the Ahi tradition — lived on in Mudurnu too. The town is said to have had a separate women’s market, where women sold the food, weaving and lace they had made themselves.
Mudurnu is said to have been famous for its needle-making in the 16th century. Worked in silk that women raised and dyed themselves, needle lace (iğne oyası) grew here from a craft into an art; the bridal crown inspired by wild roses and worn on henna nights is known as an ornament unique to the town.