Kani Karaca

Kani Karaca — Biography

Kâni Karaca was one of the best-known voices of Turkish religious music and mevlid recitation, regarded as the last representative of the Istanbul tilawa tradition. Blind from infancy, he performed a wide range of forms, including Quran recitation, mevlid, qasida, ghazal, the call to prayer and semai, in an improvisational style. He was invited every year to the Mevlana memorial ceremonies and was known in Turkey and abroad.

Born in a village in the Karataş district of Adana, he lost his sight in an accident at two months old. As a child he memorised the Quran and completed his hafiz training. He moved to Istanbul in 1950, where he learned style and technique from Sadettin Kaynak, became a student of Hafız Ali Üsküdarlı, the imam of the Yeraltı Mosque, and also studied with Halil Nuri Poyraz and Sadettin Heper. In the 1950s he reached a wide audience through radio programmes; concerts, mevlid recitation and teaching the kudüm continued until his death.

He left many recordings for Kalan Müzik and EMI, among them Destegül, Kur'an-ı Kerim, Tekbir, Durak, Naat ve Salavatlar, Aşk İle and the posthumous Mevlana Dede Efendi, and he took part in the recording Musique Classique Ottomane with Kudsi Erguner and Aka Gündüz. He died of cancer at his home in Fatih, Istanbul, on 29 May 2004, and was buried at Edirnekapı Cemetery the next day after funeral prayers at Fatih Mosque. The exhibition Karanlıkta Bir Sada: Kâni Karaca, opened in Fatih in January 2023, and a school that bears his name keep his memory alive.