A Political History of Bektashism from Ottoman Anatolia to...

A Political History of Bektashismfrom Ottoman Anatolia to

Contemporary TurkeyALBERT DOJA

The origin of the Bektashi order of dervishes belongs to themany Sufi movements of Islam that developed in the MiddleEast from the eleventh and twelfth centuries onwards.i At thistime, a number of missionary precursors, known as the Saints ofKhorassan, infiltrated Anatoua where they paved the way to thedervish groups like the Bektashis. The name of the order isderived from the legendary founder Hadji Bektash, even though,as in many other cases conceming Sufi hagiography, HadjiBektash was not the actual founder of the order but a patronsaint chosen at a later date. It is thought that he came originallyfrom Khorassan in northeast Iran ana lived in Anatolia m thesecond half of the thirteenth century.2 The description of hisVilayet-Name corresponds to that of the typicaT wanderingdervishes known as Iranian Kalenders or Anatolian Abdals in thethirteenth and fourteenth centuries.3 The dervishes who followedhim are called Abdal and from the very start, he is called "leader"(Pir) of Anatolian Abdals.

Apparently Bektashism started during the thirteenth andfourteenth centuries as a mixture of shamanism inherited from

•ALBERT DOJA (Ph.D., EHESS; University of Paris) is senior research fellow, College ofHumanities, University of Limerick, Ireland. His articles have appeared in Joumal of theHistory of Ideas, Social Science Information, Anthropology Today, History and.Anthropology, Reviews in Anthropology, Critique of Anthropology, Social Anthropology,The European Legacy, Rural History, Anthropos, Anthropological Quarterly, and others.Special interests include anthropology of religion, politics of kinship and social organization,anthropology of history, structuralism and poststructuralism.

1. Ahmet T. Karamustafa, God's Unruly Friend.s: Dervish Groups in the Islamic LaterMiddle Period 1200-1550 (Salt Lake City, Utali: University of Utah Press, 1994).2. Irene Melikoff, Hadji Bektach, un mythe et ses avatars: genese et evolution du soufisinepopulaire en Turquie, Islamic History and Civilization Series, vol. 20 (Leiden: Brill, 1998).3. Ahmet Yashar Ocak, "Remarques sur le role des derviches kalender dans la formationde l'ordre bektashi," in Bektachiyya: etudes sur I'ordre mystique des Bektachis et les groupesrelevant de Hadji Bektach, ed. Alexandre Popovic and Gilles Veinstein (Istanbul: Isis, 1995).

424 JOURNAL OF CHURCH AND STATE

the Turkic tribes of Khorassan, mixed with popular beliefs insuch a way as to appeal to villagers and the lower class of theAnatohan population. Bektashism must have mingled with localbehefs, and it is not surprising that besides different Sufidoctrines and practices, many rehgious traditions may havecontributed to the development and appearance of Bektashismincluding ancient Turkic elements preserving pre-Islamic andnon-Islamic beliefs and customs originating in shamanism.Buddhism, Manichaeism, Christianity and antique religions.4 InAnatoha, and later in the Balkans, Bektashism encounteredfurther Neo-Platonist, Christian and Nestorian influences. Beingreceptive to many elements of these religions, the Bektashis alsoincorporated anthropomorphic and cabbaUstic doctrines of letterand number symbohsm that can be traced to Humfism,5combined with an extremist Shiite credo that hnked devotion tothe divinity of Ali with beliefs in anthropomorphism, themanifestation of Cod in human form, reincamation, andmetempsychosis. 6

The Bektashis were one of the many bands of beheversseekini^ to achieve the goal of most Sufis, tnat is, a mystic unionwith God. When mystical union with Cod was not quite the goalsought, it was the cult of the miracle-working saints, living ordead, through worship of their tombs, which prevailed in thereligious fervor of these heretic and heterodox groupings ofdervish religiosity. Their function was to mediate the inner aspectof the reli^ous experience. They were therefore integrated byspirit and aim rather than by any formal organization, and werein fact very loosely organized^, more or less anarchical, closed, andsecret groups or circles of initiates who showed no interest insharing any collective discipline or dogma. Hadji Bektashhimself, for instance, led the life of a wandering hermit and hedid not seem to have been a prominent character in religiousmatters. He did not even seek to found any order or to navedisciples during his lifetime.'^ He remained the eponym of anorder he did not found himself, and was quite unconscious of theimpact he was destined to have.

4. John K. Birge, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes (London: Luzac, 1937; reprint, 1994).5. Irene Melikoff, Sur les traces du Soufisme turc: recherches sur I'lslam populaire enAnatolie, Analecta Isisiana 3 (Istanbul: Isis, 1992), 163-74; Alexandre Popovic and CillesVeinstein, eds., Bektachiyya: etudes sur l'ordre mystique des Bektachis et les groupesrelevant de Hadji Bektach (Istanbul: Isis, 1995), 39-53.6. Irene Melikoff, Au banquet des Quarante: exploration au coeur du Bektachisme-Alevisme, Analecta Isisiana 50 (Istanbul: Isis, 2001), 97-120.7. Melikoff, Hadji Bektach.

A POLITICAL HISTORY OF BEKTASHISM 425

ARGUMENT

Following innovative approaches regarding early Sufism inthe elevenm and twelfth centuries," Beraashism can beconsidered first as a reaction against the external rationalizationof religion in law and systematic theology. Essentially, like otherearly Sufi groupings, in its earher developments during thethirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Bektashism corresponaed tothe sphere of religious experience which developed fromcommon experience of both spiritual knowledge and suffering,while running, parallel and often in opposition to the orthodoxinstitution ana the mainstream of Islamic consciousness derivedfrom prophetic revelation. Viewed in this light, the religiousexperience of the Bektashis presented conceivable characteristicsO t a liberation theology, while the structure of their groupscorresponded more orTess to the type of rehgious organizationconventionally known as charismatic groups.

One of the functions of religion as a cultural system is to serveas a mediating representation between powerless earthlycreatures and an all-powerful God located in heaven. Mediationwould make it possible for the heavenly divinity to intercede onbehalf of humans on earth. The assumption here is that differentcovenantal structures of divine mediation must correspond tospecific stages in the development of Bektashism and Sufism.The following assumption is tnat it is possible to gain a differentmeaning if a mediating hierarchy is to be found in theconceptualization of the divinity or in the organization of theworldly human society.

Clearly, if there are mediators between humans and Cod,such as the Sufi and Bektashi master (murshid), for instance, or apriest or sacrificer, they act as representatives of the secularcongregation and place themselves on a higher plane than thelatter but in a position of inferiority with respect to the deity.However, the mediational structure may also be of another type,and claim to be the negation of hierarchy of any sort. Theinitiative must be entirely in the hands of the divinity, which maymanifest itself in a number of hierarchized emanations butwithout any mediation, by dispensing the gifts of its grace on thefaithful, with believers receiving direct, lrnmediate inspiration.Charisma, divine grace, and spiritual knowledge touch themwithout the help ofany intermediary, and is in no way affected bythe more or less effectiveness of any ritual or specific expertise,performed or controlled by a mediating priest or master.

Following a structural hypothesis suggested by Edmund

8. J. Spencer Triminghain, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971; reprint,1998); Karamustafa, God.'s Unruly Friends.


Leach,9 I have argued elsewhere that a crucial factor forunderstanding the communication between humans and God liesin the fact that the conceptualization of a hierarchical model ofreligious mediation corresponds to the dogma of orthodox faiths,while the conceptualization of a model in which all hierarchiesare denied, in its real embodiments, is closely linked tomillenarian and mystical beliefs and to the development ofheresies and heterodoxies,lo such as those related to Bektashism.The former model may well support an established, hierarchicalpower, whereas the latter corresponds to an oppressed ordeprived minority, seeking justification of its revolt against theestablished authorities.

According^ to this model, the establishment of a politicalhierarchy within society goes hand-in-hand with the introjectionof a unified conception of divinity, that is, a pure monotheismwithin the theological system. On the other Tiand, a manifesthierarchical conception of the divinity goes along with egalitarianpolitics in human society. The conception of a relational equality,derived from the idea that people are equal in their relations witiithe divinity, is effectively present aTongside an ideology ofsubstantial egalitarianism among human beings.

One of the cornerstones of political anthropology is thatideology supports the existing power relations within me socialcommunity. Indeed, religiousleaders are validated in many waysboth by the overall Bektashi cosmology and by the myths whichBektashi masters themselves teacH. Yet, both sociologicalconceptions of the role of rehgious faith, orthodoxy andliberation, are not, by any means, mutually exclusive oressentially contradictory. There are not two lands of behavior setonce and forever, nor is there a merely "routinization" in aWeberian sense, n but rather a process of dialectic change andtransformation. As pohtical conditions change and theorganization of religious structures undergo a number oftransformations, the final assumption is mat the essentialdifferences between hierarchical and unified types of theology,acting as mediating cultural systems of representation betweenhumans and God, must change and adapt accordingly.

I showed elsewhere instrumental transformations of this kind

9. Edmund Leach, "Melchisedech arid the Emperor: icons of subversion and orthodoxy,"Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute (1972).10. Albert Doja, "Histoire et dialectique des ideologies et significations religieuses,"European Legacy: Joumal of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas 5,no. 5 (2000).11. Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed. GueritherRoth and Claus Wittich, 2 vols. (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1978), 246-54.


amongst the Bektashis in Albania from independent to post-communist times. 12 It is my purpose to show here that similartransformations are clearly evidenced by the development ofBektashism down its history, depending on different politicalcontexts and the course of events, as much in the classic Ottomanperiod, in the reformed Ottoman system or in Modem Turkey.

TRIBAL POLITICS

Before becoming the champions of Sunni Islam, theOttomans, Uke all Turcoman tribes, passed necessarily through aperiod of assimilation of heterodox Islam, which correspondedwith a period of social, political, and military crisis. According toTrimingham the transformation of Sufi companionships mtoinitiatory colleges began vwth the Sunni triumphs over Shiitedynasties, whicn coincided with the foundation of the OttomanEmpire. 13 Bektashism will also find its final form at thebeginning of the sixteenth century. It left its larval state to takethe form which has since characterized it when efforts weremade by Ottomans to organize the Order by making HadjiBektash the natron of the Tanissaiy body. This heed had beendictated by disciplining the neterodox groupings and movementsthat were proliferating in Anatolia at this time in order to channeland bring them back under governmental control.

The last episodes of Hadji Bektash's Vilayet-Name are notonly naive, but confused, seeking to gain the approval of thereigning dynasty and to attach to it the Turcoman popular saintwhich will become the eponym of the Order of Bektashis. F.W.Hasluck suggested that "Hadji Bektash," the reputed founder ofthe Order of Bektashis, and proba.bly one of the most famous ofthe legendary priest-chiefs and tribal saints of Anatolia, was nomore than a tribal ancestor, representing the original tribal-chiefand medicine-man eponymous of his tribe. The whole legend-cycle connecting him with the court of Orkhan is admittedly late,as the earliest notice of him wliich we possess from the fifteenth-century Ottoman historian Ashik-Pasha-Zade denies itsauthenticity and calls Hadji Bektash the "brother of Mentesh,"which is obviously the eponym of a widely-scattered tribeencompassing Asia Minor. Bextashi is also a rarer, but widelyscattered village name, and often, curiously enough, quite nearvillages callea Mentesh. Hasluck inferred^ that cektash" and"Mentesh" were tribes which were related and that the original

12. Albert Doja, "A political history of Bektashism in Albania," Totalitarian Movementsand Political Religions 7, no. 1 (2006).13. Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, 67-104.


Hadji Bektash was the eponymous ancestor of the former. i4To be sure, HaslucR's supposition of Bektashi as a simple

tribal name was limited by the state of the knowledge in his time.Nonetheless, current research making large use ofthe historicaldata of Ottoman registers shows him correct. Moreover aconfrontation of data from tax registers to the legends reported inthe Vilayet-Name of Hadji Bektash made it possible to confirmHasluck s assumption that the order of Bektashi was bom from

territory, which Irene Beldiceanu-Steinherr believes mayindicate a takeover of (Jepni territory by the Bektashi tribe. Inher interpretation, it seems even probable that the antagonismopposing the Alevi circles to those that represent the vestiges ofFeKtashi brotherhoods could be explained by the frictionsinitially taking place between the two tnbes.

According to Hasluck, Hadji Bektash might have acquired itsreputation ' oy usurpation" and has nothing to do with thedoctrines of the order which bears his name.i6 Only his namewas exploited later by the Humfi-Bektashi sect and arbitrarilyadopted by the Janissaries. The legend of Abdal Musa, thederyish who went together with the Sultan Orkhan (1326-1359)during his conquest of Bursa in 1326 and thereafter perpetuatedthe memory of Hadji Bektash by founding a first community ofdervishes bearing his name, as all the subsequent legendsconceming the foundation of the Janissary corps ana itsattachment to Hadji Bektash might have been nothing more thanthe "intrigues" of "Bektashi leaders, aimed at appropriating^ theorganization of Janissaries while the latter recognized HadjiBektash as their patron saint and the Order of Bektashis as theirspiritual ally.

In contrast with Hasluck, modem specialists, quite unusuallygiven recent interests in political approaches, remain skepticaltoward this interpretation. In repetitive studies, taking at facevalue the fanciful stories on the relationships between a numberof personages reported in hagiographies and chronicles, therationale to explain the first Ottomans' confidence is oftenclaimed to be in the common social and ethnic Turkic origin theymust have shared with the Bektashis.i? Moreover, to consider theattachment of the name of Hadji Bektash to the Janissary body as

14. Frederick W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, 2 vols. (Oxford:Clarendon, 1929; reprint, Istanbul: Isis, 2000), 279.15. Irene Beldiceanu-Steinherr, "Les Bektachis a la lumiere des recensements ottomans(XVe-XVIe siecles)," Wiener Zeit^chrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes 81 (1991).16. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, 393-400.17. Melikoff, Sur les traces du Soufisme turc, 115-37.

1


a Bektashi "intrigue," the argument goes, is to seriouslyunderestimate, at Qie time of heroic conquests, the importanceofthe Ottomans and the absolute power oftheir dynasty, is

I believe, however, the problem is not so muchunderestimating Ottoman power, but rather to consider theconditions by which such common "intrigues" were madepossible in the shared political interest of both the Bektashis andthe Ottomans. Whereas the Bektashis became faithful tools ofthe central power, to the point of being assigned to Turkicize andIslamicize foreign and CKristian elements, it is reasonable to seehere the combination of a purposeful policy on the part ofOttoman sovereigns in a given historical context and theopportunity taken by the Bektashis, after they felt secure ofgovernmental support, in order to maintain and extend theirpolitical benefit.

In Beldiceanu-Steinherr's interpretation the Bektashis didnot try to gain political power by placing their chances on thepermanence of tribal structures, as did several other prominenttribes whose leading families were eliminated from the politicalarena by the victorious Ottomans. Rather, they placed their tmstin spiritual power, in the long run transforming tribalorganization and restmcturing themselves as a dervish order. i9Perhaps another best-known case of such a transformation inanthropological literature is Evans-Pritchard's account on theSanusi of Cyrenaica. They were able to coordinate the dervishsystem to the Bedouin tribal stmcture while maintaining theorganization intact and keeping control of it. Thereafter, havingrisen up in opposition to Italian colonial domination, the Sanusisucceeded in achieving the evolution of their Order into theKingdom of Libya. 20

The Bektashis, seemingly a part of these wandering dervishes,gradually transformed into colonizing dervishes, whose main taskBecame to convert recently conquered countries to Islam. Thismay also explain the rationale for appointing the order ofBektashis to guide and patronize the Janissaries, as they wererecruited from among the Christian children converted to Islamand raised in Turkish circles. Already in the fifteenth century,this order of dervishes was protected by the Ottoman dynasty,having been granted a significant enaowment.21 Apart frompersonal piety or the desire to strengthen the Ottoman dynasty

18. Melikoff, Hadji Bektach, 93.19. Beldiceanu-Steinherr, "Les Bektacbis a la lumifere des recensements ottomans."20. Edward E. Evans-Pritcbard, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica (Oxford: Clarendon, 1949).21. Suraiya Faroqhi, Der Bektaschi-Orden in Anatolien: vom spaten funfaehntenJahrhundert bis 1826 (Wien: Verlag des Institutes fur Orientalistik der Universitat Wien,1981); Beldiceanu-Steinherr, "Les Bektacbis Ji la lumifere des recensements ottomans."


through the prayers of dervishes on a supernatural level, on amore mundane plane, these donations must have been motivatedby the wish to both attract and recompense the loyalties of pioussubjects, in order to knit them more closely into the Ottomanfabric.

This explains why the Bektashis were increasingly on thepoint of being considered, paradoxically perhaps, given theirheterodox inchnation, as the state religious order. The Bektashiswere in fact veiy unorthodox and had gained such a strongreverence for the house of Ali that it might well be called a Shiiteorder. However, since, the Ottomans tolerated both Sunnilegalism and institutional Sufism but forbade all varieties ofShiism, the Bektashis were a self-proclaimed Sunni movement.

THE POLITICS OF SYNCRETISM

A general claim is that the Bektashis preserved many traits ofoppositional movements and heretic groups, and shaped theminto a synthesis during^ times of a mutual penetration of Turldcand Byzantine cultural traits. There is clear evidence for theparticipation of Hadji Bektash himself and his adherents in theTurcoman uprisings against Seliuk rule in 1239-1240, the so-called Babai revolt.22 However, there remains probably very littleresemblance between the Turkic beliefs of Hadji Bektash s timein the thirteenth century and those that formed the heterodoxbut sophisticated doctrines at the tum of the sixteenth centurywhen the Bektashis were organized as an established Order ofdervishes.

The considerable number of doctrines and practices supposedto lay at the heterogeneous origins of Bektashism has lead toheated disputes between specialists over the prevalence of one oranother influence and fmally to claim that the Bektashi Order didnot have a well defined theology, that it could accommodatemuch local influence, and that its fundamental character is an all-encompassing syncretism.23 In its complexity, many haveconsidered Hektashism as a "sypcretistic problem," a land of"kaleidoscope," each time revealing one or another facet whichescapes attention.24 After many times taking up and resuming thesame work, the Bektashis came to be considered as simple"victims" of their colonizing and civilizing role,25 which musthave transformed them into an overtly heterodox order allowing

22. Mehnied Fuad Koprulu, Islam in Anatolia after the Turkish Invasion, ed. Gary Leiser(Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utali Press, 1993), 76-77.23. Melikoff, Sur les traces du Soufisme turc; Popovic and Veinstein, eds. Bektachii/i/a24. Melikoff, Hadji Bektach, 278.25. Melikoff, Sur les traces du Soufisme turc, 125.


the infiltration of foreign heretic influences.Although Bektashism had spread over a wide area and gained

many adherents, it is considered that "before 1500 both the orderand its teachings developed in a random fashion." In addition,specialists are led to consider that "this vagueness of belief wasparalleled by lack of uniformity in their organization," eventhough they normally attribute this character to the supposedBektashi all-encompassing syncretism and "readiness toincorporate a wide range of beliefs and practices, which made itdifficult to define precisely what the order stood for."26

Other specialists have also many times recorded anddescribed the facts without explaining them. More generally,some probably lack an analytical and explanatory approach tosocio-religious and Islamic matters, which is necessary in order toexpose v\^ether or not an instrumental politics of religion ishidden behind the surface complexity of Bektashism. It can beargued indeed, that behind the 'syncretistic" elements ofBektashism we can look for indications of the political andmilitary rivalries between the Ottomans and the Satavids foughtin the domains of religion and ideology.

While the complexities of the Bektashi past may never beknown precisely, it appears that historians agree that they wereoften tribal or nomadic communities who inhabited that uneasygeographical region between the central power of the Ottomans,on 9ie one hand, and the gradually more orthodox Safavid Iranon the other. 27 While they were exposed to many differentcurrents of Islamic thought, one of the most effective was a formof revolutionary mysticaueadership espoused by Iranian Shiism.

However, indirect evidence from Ottoman sources, such asthe analysis of individual names recorded in tax registers,28 seemsto confirm the commonly agreed opinion that Bektashis did notadhere to Shiite tenets Ibefore 1501. The massive intrusion ofShiism is a late phenomenon, conteniporary with the Ottomanconquest, and a coherent corpus of Shiite doctrine was nevercomposed or diffused before in Anatolia,29 even if some evidenceof its propagation can be found from the thirteenth century

onward.

26. John D. Norton, "The Bektashi in the Balkans," in Religious Quest and NationalIdentity in the Balkans, ed. Celia Hawkesworth, Muriel Heppell, and Harry T. Norris (NewYork: Palgrave, 2001), 171.27. Krisztina Kehl-Bodrogi, Die Kizilbash/Aleviten: Untersuchungen uber eine esoterischeGlaubensgemeinschaft in Anatolien, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 126 (Berlin; KlausSchwarz Verlag, 1988), 42-47.28. Beldiceanu-Steinherr, "Les Bektachis k la lumiere des recensements ottomans."29. Claude Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey: A General Survey of Material and SpiritualCulture and History (London: Sidwick & Jackson, 1968).


Heterodox beliefs proliferated in all segments of thepopulation, in the towns as in the countryside, and all religioustendencies mixed together, from the most moderate to the mostheretical. A large veneration for Ali more or less penetrated allthe Sunnite religious milieus, but adherence to Shiism or toSunnism was a question which the contemporaries may not haveasked. Over several centuries, heterodox groups grew at theexpense of orthodox Sunni and Shiite Islam, and only during thesixteenth century did the Ottoman and Safavid authorities start toimpose anything like a state religion on the local population.Everything suggests that the massive diffusion of Shiism isprecisely linked to the modalities of antagonistic relationsbetween the Ottomans and the Safavids following the Ottomanconquest, as well as to the segmentary nature of Turcoman tribalsociety in conflict with Ottoman centralism from the early periodor the conquest.

Ottoman historiography has tried to dissimulate the existenceof a plurality of competitive political and ideological forces but itseems that tribal nvalries divided the Turkic populations ofAnatolia from the beginning of the Ottoman conquest. Therewere, on the one hand; the partisans of the Ottoman House andon the other, hybrid warrior-dervish figures (Ghazi), mobilizedby one or another factions, of whom one finds traces in sources asdiverse as census registers to Ottoman and Byzantine chroniclesand hagiographical legends. In particular, the name of Kizilbashappeared for the partisans ot the Safavids. This anarchisticmovement, whose majority was formed by the Turcoman tribescoming from eastern Anatolia, was transformed into a politico-reMgious force which the Safavids made an instrument of theirpolicy, at the origin of their spectacular rise, their defeats andtheir victories, up to the apogee of their political and religiousorganization, the crowning in 1501 of the young Shah Ismail(1487-1524), the restoration of the unity of modern Persia, andthe imposition of Twelver Shiism as a state religion.30

Thus, the relative crystallization of the reugious practices ofrural A^natolia into a corpus of Shiite representations becameprobably a reality only after the advent of the Safavid dynasty inIran and from the struggle between these two competingTurcoman dynasties, that of the Ottomans who became thechampions of orthodox Sunni Islam and that of the Safavids whoinstituted Shiism as a stiate religion in Iran. The inexorableextension of Anatolian Shiism and its identification with politicalresistance, becoming a rallying sign of those fighting^ against thecentral authority of the Ottoman State, seems toTiave had a

30. Adel Allouche, The Origins and Development of the Ottoman-Safavid Conflicts (906-962/1500-1555), Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 91 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 1983).


starting point.3i A direct relationship could be drawn with theattraction exerted by the Safavid power to the nomads in EasternAnatolia, coming up against the Sunni Ottoirians pressure ofcentralization, and with the defeat of Shah Ismail at the battle ofKaldiran in 1514 followed by the massacre of several thousandsof Anatolian Kizilbash, whose remembrance remains still alive inthe memory of the Bektashis-Alevis.

Many of the Anatolian Kizilbash maintained occasionalconnections with Iran throughout the sixteenth century. TheShah of Iran acted as the leader of a Sufi order, sending books,insignia and emissaries who often appointed representatives(haUjfe) from among the Shah's local adherents. To theseattempts, the Ottoman administration reacted ferociously. Evenin peacetime, Iranian envoys were often enough set upon andprovincial governors were instructed by the authorities inIstanbul to make these attacks look like ordinary robberies.32 Asto the Anatolian "contact persons" of the Iranian emissaries, theywere often executed unless they could fiee into the protection ofcertain powerful tribes who continued to form a bastion ofAnatolian heterodoxy.

The ideological basis of the Iranian dynasty was rooted in theextremist Shiism drawn from those Kizilbash elements whichwould subsequently become the essential constituent parts ofBektashism. From this period onward, the expanding OttomanEmpire tended to consider the Shiites within its territories asfifth columnists and persecuted them accordingly. With theadvent of Selim I (1512-1520) there is no further record of giftsto Bektashi foundations until the eighteenth century, andaccording to a Bektashi tradition the central foundation of HadjiBektash was closed at this time and would reopen only in 1551.This act would prove that the Sultan did not consider theBektashi innocent. The records in Ottoman sources show that formost of the sixteenth century there is some reason to assume thatthe Bektashi community at least suffered temporary losses.33 Infact, the contact with nomadic tribes continued after this period,as shown by the fact that the central foundation participated, atleast indirectly, in a series of rebellions and uprisings.

In this context, Anatolian Shiism appears more as the pohtical

31. Altan Gokalp, Tetes rouges et bouches noires: une confr4rie tribale de I'Ouest anatolien(Paris: Social d'Ethnographie, 1980), 72-73.32. Suraiya Faroqhi, "Conflict, Accommodation and Long-term Survival: The BektashiOrder and the Ottoman State (sixteenth-seventeenth centuries)," in Bektachiyya: etudes surI'ordre mystique des Bektachis et les groupes relevant de Hadji Bektach, ed. AlexandrePopovic and Gilles Veinstein (Istanbul: Isis, 1995), 173.33. Suraiya Faroqhi, "The Tekke of Hadji Bektash: social position and economic activities,"International Journal of Middle East Studies 7, no. 2 (1976).


expression of nomadic Turkoman tribes than as one of themanifestations of medieval Muslim mysticism. The few socio-anthropological analyses have showed that Kizilbash-Aleviheterodoxy can be perceived as the transposition into a religiousform of the resistance of Turcoman chieftaincies to the Ottomanstate. Using the concept of a "society against the State" proposedby Pierre Clastres,34 Altan Gokalp showed in his in-depthanalysis of the Kizilbash system that the Shiite component ofBektashism and of the Anatolian Turcoman appears to be theresult of the very structure of their social organization defined bycomplementary tribal, territorial, and political relationshipswhose structural relativity and segmentation in different levelslead to particular arrangements adapted to the circumstances.35Thus, in Gokalp's interpretation, "the comunction of Shiism andnomad society in Anatolia appears to 1be the result of theharmony existing between the principles of social organizationinherent in a clan structure and those m a brotherhood. 36

In this sense, the structure and functioning of the Bektashireligious system demonstrate a remarkable continuity. In face ofthe powerful Ottomans, the Bektashis transformed their tribalorganization and restructured themselves as a dervish orderThereafter, in contrast to the monolithic nature of Sunnite Islamwhich integrated Muslim society within a political and economicsystem where the ulema clergy were part of the state apparatusthe Bektashi integrated Kizilbash ideology within a segmentedstructure mirroring once again their tnbal system of socialorganization. In short, the Bektashi religious system appears as aprime means of thinking out the social life and pohtical struggleof those excluded from Ottoman pohty and society.

To this extent, if the Ottoman Sultans, beginning with thereign of Selim I, launched forth to persecute heterodox Shiiteelements, it was not because they had suddenly discovered theirvocation as defenders of orthodox Sunnite Islam but ratherbecause they saw in these elements a danger to the political andeconomic integrity of the empire.3v By the same token, it isnecessaiy to reiect the classical interpretations by speciaUsts whopresent Bektashism in terms of a dynamic syncretism, which firstintegrated the remnants of Anatolian Christianity and CentralAsian shamanism, and which has thereby allowed its followers tointegrate certain symbols and meanings from different religious

34. Pierre Clastres, La Sodete contre I'ttat (Paris: Minuit, 1974).35. Gokalp, Tetes Rouges et Bouches Noires.36. Altan Gokalp, "Une minorite chiite en Anatolie: les Alevis," Les Annales- HistoireSciences Sociales 35, no. 3-4 (1980): 756-57.37. Irene Beldiceanu-Steinherr, "Le rfegne de Selim I: toumant dans la vie politique etreligieuse de I'Empire ottoman," Turctca 6 (1975).


systems, above all including, the argument goes, Shiiterepresentations.

The saga of repression in the Safavid period became part of abroader symbolic framework inherent to Shiism, which is itselffounded on an original tragedy, capable of giving free expressionto the oppressed, prior to a possible mobilization. In the case ofthe Kizilbash, the identification of their social condition with theShiite martyrdom was encouraged by the fact that the Princewhom they recognized. Shah Ismail, defeated at Kaldiran, wasalso a great Turkish-speaking mystic poet and a follower ofShiism. To stimulate the warring fervor and religiouscommitment of his partisans, he used: poems in syllabic verseswritten^ in the popular Turkish language. In these elegies, whichmade him one ofthe most famous poets of the mystical literaturein Turkish language, he proclaimed himself to be the mosthumble of" "sinners,' hence his surname of Hatayi, and he drewupon the existence of mystic extremist Shiism and messianicTurldc behefs in the manifestation of God in human form(tecelli), in reincarnation and the multiphcity of forms (tenassuh).

He declared himself to be the divine essence, themanifestation of God (mazhar) and the cyclic incarnation of Ali,of" whom he was the Mystery. In the cycle of universal rotationhe was the incarnation of the prophets and the great mystics. Allowed to prostrate before him, the one to be adored like a God.In Kizilbash ideology, the divine manifestation was indeedincarnated in the Salavid sovereign, adored and deified by hispartisans, and the invocation of the temporal shah became amanifestation of the spiritual shah. Shah Ismail tended thereby tobe assimilated to Ali, the eternal god of heaven manifested onearth as the "king of men" {shah-i merdan),^^ and he proclaimedhimself as envoy of God (Mehdi) to save the Anatolian Turcomanfrom the hand ofthe Yezid, that is, the Ottomans. The followers,in that way fanaticized and carried away by a blind faith in theiryoung Shah, proclaimed his divine character, prostratedthemselves before him in prayers, and threw themselves intobattle with abandon.

It is thus not surprising that some Turkish historians havegone so far as to consider Shah Ismail as the real creator ofKizilbash-Alevi heterodoxy. "If he had not existed it is argued,there would certainly have been an Islamo-Turkish heterodoxy,but there would not have been Kizilbashism."39 Indeed, the

38. Melikoff, Au banquet des Quarante, 87-118.39. Ahmet Yashar Ocak, "Un aper^u g^n^ral sur l'h^t^rodoxie musulmane en Turquie:reflexions sur les origines et les caract^ristiques du Kizilbachisme (Alevisme) dans laperspective de l'histoire," in Syncretistic Religious Communities in the Near East, ed.Krisztina Kehl-Bodrogi, Barbara Kellner-Heinkele, and Anke Otter-Beaujean, Numen


messianic beliefs strengthened by Shah Ismail seem to have beena decisive turning point in the evolution of Bektashism. Certainrituals still practiced today owe their renewed and reformedpatterns to Shah Ismail. Among other things, he supposedlyestablished the specific sequence of the most important momentof the Bektashi ceremony, the proclamation of divine unity(tewhid), which becomes, in reality, the assertion of the identityof Ali and Divinity.

The dissimulated presence of Shah Ismail, perceptible thanksto the Hatayi canticles sung during the ceremony, allowedspecialists to assume that the structure of the ceremonyrfefinitively crystallized during his epoch. 40 Shah Ismail is stillconsidered today as the master of Alevi poetry, whichprogressively crystallized from the sixteenth century onward intoa real tradition around the themes of resistance, persecution, andmartyrdom. Hatayi elegies are always sung during the religiousceremonies of the Bektashis and continue to move enthusiasm inthe assemblies of Alevi villages.

To this extent, the necessity for the Ottoman authorities tobring back under governmental control the tribal religious systemof Kizilbash groups becomes more understandable. Around thetum of the sixteenth century, it appeared natural and necessaryfurther to reform and reorganize the Order of Bektashis, and thereform was to effective^ be accomplished by the exphcitsovereign will of the Ottoman power. Once again according^ tothe legend in the early sixteenth centuiy, S^ultan Bayezid II(1481-1512) invited Bahm Sultan, the BeMashi leader at thetime, to be his guest, and the Sultan himself with high officials ofthe court joined^the Bektashi order.4i

In plain words, as Birge pointed out,42 it was the OttomanSultan who appointed Balim Sultan precisely in 1501 to theheadship ofthe Seat ofthe Patron Saint (Pir-Evi) at HacibektashVillage. I n return, the Sultan should have expected the dervishesto wean the tribesmen away from the mixture of folk Islam andShiite beliefs which they had espoused until that time.Bayezid II, who was known for his generous donations to manypious institutions and in spite of his supposedly passive policy,must have been certaimy seeking to counterbalance thesubversive elements which came from the Iranian frontier andwhich intensified due to the increasing propaganda of theSafavids whose partisans mainly came from the Turcoman tribes.After all, the foundation of the Safavid state in Iran and the

Studies in the History of Religions 76 (Leiden: Brill, 1997): 199.40. Melikoff, Hadji Bektach, 195.41. Melikoff, Sur les traces du Soufisnw turc, 29-43.42. Birge, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes, 57.


uprisings in southwestern Anatolia had shov^ni that tribalheteroaoxy could threaten Ottoman control.

In tum, it is certainly not accidental that the new emblematicpersonage appointed at the headship of the Bektashis will be thegreat reformer and organizer of the Order. Considered as thesecond major leader in the history of Bektashism, often called the"second patron saint" {Pir-i Sani), Balim Sultan made deter-mined efrorts to reform its organization and the practice of itsmembers, apparently because both of which had succumbed tounorthodox practices and rituals. In accordance with the will ofthe Ottoman sultan, Balim Sultan took in hand the anarchicgroup of the dervishes, and he transformed them into anorganized order.

Some of the innovations, still believed to have beenintroduced directly under the influence of this new leader,provided permanent form and content to the system of beliefsand practices of the order in terms of doctrine, ritual andorganization. Thanks to this reformer, the Order, essentiallyscattered in village foundations, not only would come closer tourban settings, but would gain a permanent organizationalstructure, directed from above by a centralized hierarchy andcharacterized by well-defined rituals and religious functions. Thisorganization became the more formally organized BektashiOrder, as in some measure distinct from the Alevi village groupswho continued their very similar beliefs and practices, butoutside the regulated system of Bektashism, which from thattime onwards started to enjoy state political patronage.

STATE POLITICS

The period between 1560 and 1585 provides ampleinformation on proceedings against individuals or communitiesaccused of heterodoxy. However, they contain no information onpersecutions directed at the dervishes of well-known Bektashicommunities. This fact makes it seem likely that the majorBektashi foundations were not among the main targets of officialrepression. On the other hand, other communities in CentralAnatolia that were in serious difficulty, along with many "variousgroups which would have been regarded as schismatic and liableto be persecuted in the type of Sunni state towards which theOttomans was moving, gained the right of asylum under the allembracing and tolerant umbrella ofthe Bektasni organization."43

The persecution of Anatolian Kizilbash apparently died downafter the 1580s, even though the Ottoman-Iranian wars went on

43. Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, 83.


intermittently until the treaty of 1639. It has been suggested thatthis change in Ottoman policy was due to the reorganization ofSafavid public administration. After the military Iranian reformsat the end of the sixteenth century and when the Twelver Shiitepersuasion progressively gained influence in Iran, either theattractiveness of Safavid Iran for the heterodox tribesmendecreased dramatically,44 or the Shah of Iran was no longerinterested in exercising influence as a Sufi master in Anatolia.45Thus, when tribesmen could no longer expect an assured positionin the Safavid military establishment, their loyalty to the Iraniandynasty must have suffered proportionally.

In the short mn, however, according to Suraiya Farogui, achange in Iranian tactics was not the reason for the softening ofofficial attitudes toward the Anatolian Kizilbash, especially as therebellions taking place all over Anatolia during those years mayhave induced me Ottoman administration to revise its ownpolicies. After all, the Kizilbash uprisings ofthe earlier part ofthecentury were succeeded almost without intermption by theuprisings of the years between 1580 and 1620 thus the dang-erfrom iSzilbash-inspired movements probably having not totmlydisappeared.

As for the aim of this change in intemal pohcy, one mightconsider the assimilation of the remaining Anatohan Kizilbash, Dyisolating the leaders from their political constituency and, ofcourse, Dy eliminating as far as possible all connections with Iran.In this context, it should have made sense to revive the policy ofusing the widespread popularity of the dervish order of bektashisto neutralize trie Kizilbash as a political force. The Bektashisprobably already possessed a certain prestige among theKjzilbasri, but it is of course not necessary to seeliere, as usuallyspecialists do, an essential affinity between Bektashism andoppositional movements. The ODservation concerning theinclination of many heterodox dervishes to affiliate wim theBektashi order must take on a new meaning. Not only did thesepeople try to avoid persecution by joining the Bektashi order,which already under Bayezid II (1481-1512) had shown itscapacity to Islamicize nomads, but in Suraiya Faroqhi'sinterpretation, the Ottoman administration must have toleratedthis move and even encouraged the Bektashi order to exercise itspowers as an agent of assimilation and acculturation.46

One might object that in one way or another, a number of

44. Kehl-Bodrogi, Die Kizilbash/Aleviten.45. Hans R. Roemer, "Die turknienischen Kizilbash: Grlinder und Opfer derSafawidischen Theokratie," Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 135,no. 2 (1985).46. Faroqhi, "Conflict, accommodation and long-term survival," 177.


people associated with the Bektashi order had shown heterodoxleanings and that, as a result, the order as a whole should haveseemed suspect to the central authorities. As a matter of fact, inorder to communicate with their flock, the Bektashi missionarieshad to adapt to the culture ofthe tribesmen and as a result wereassimilated to the heterodox milieu they had been set out tochange. After all, it is only in these circumstances, after havingintegrated many of the escapees from the repression of popularheresy in Anatolia at the time of the Ottoman-Iranian wars, thatthe Bektashi order gained its identity as an order of doubtfulreligious orthodoxy.

The danger that the extremist Kizilbash may "take over" theBektashi organization must have been apparent to both theOttoman govemment and the Bektashi leaders. Under theseconditions, the policy of assimilating^ the Kizilbash and allowingthe Bektashi order to legitimize Ottoman rule toward theseAnatolian heretics could only make sense if the leaders of theBektashi order were allowed some means of control over thepeople entering their organization. Namely, the head of thecentral foundation of Hac^i Bektash possessed such a degree ofcontrol in that he was allowed to have some say m theappointment and supervision of leaders in charge of all otherfoundations claiming allegiance to the order. Indeed, he verymuch insisted that his right to present candidates be respected.,and the Ottoman administration kept on confirming this privilegeeven after its raison d'etre had vanished, according to aprocedure which was to become routine throughout theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries.47 ,

In Faroqhi's interpretation, it becomes possible to link thecessation or at least the toning down of anti-Kizilbashpersecution in the later sixteenth century and the official grant ofprivileges to the head of the central Bektashi foundation. But thisalso suggests that the prerogatives of the head of the centralfoundation of Hadji Bektash were not only meant to control theprocess by which Anatolian Kizilbashs were being absorbed intothe Bektashi order. More importantly, the whole thing mighthave been intended to facilitate central control from QieOttoman administration over the Bektashi order.

Certainly the powers of the order's head .were limited by thefact that almost all foundations were governed by families in

47. The first document of this kind was issued by Ahmed I (1603-1617), in a rescript of1610 that asserted the right of the incumbents of the central foundation to be consulted inthe appointment process of all Bektashi leaders throughout the Ottoman Empire. As thetext itself indicates, the head ofthe Bektashi order had actually exercised this privilege at anearlier date, and only intervention on the part of the local state official had prompted him toseek official confirmation of his prerogatives. Ibid.


which this dignity was still hereditary.48 But if Suraiya Faroqhi iscorrect, her interpretation could be merely supported by the factthat usually there was more than one heir to choose from, whichallowed the head of the central foundation to eliminate thosecandidates that in his opinion might compromise the order as awhole. I rather believe such a policy wouM only make sense if theBektashi order were itself reorganized along non-hereditaryoffices, and we probably must look here for the rationale of laterdevelopments in that direction.

From the early sixteenth century, the Bektashi orderconsisted of two branches. One was associated with thepresumed descendants of Hadji Bektash who controlled theestate of the order's main foundation, and the other consisted ofunmarried leaders who claimed institution by the order's "secondfounder," Balim Sultan. 49 Certainly, tax registers could onlyshow that the Ottoman administration concerned itself almostexclusively with the hereditary leaders of the foundation and allbut completely ignored the unmarried ones. But we know that itis precisely this "second founder," by the Ottoman Sultanappointed, that took over the Bektashi order and paved the wayoT its further hierarchical organization along the lines ofnormative practices and, not surprisingly, non-hereditary officesas well.

Possibly the control which the leaders of the central Bektashifoundation exercised over the lodges belonging to their order wassimply a special instance of a more generalTdnd of control, whichencompassed all persons claiming affiliation with the Bektashis.Even today Alevi groups and villages may propose the names oftheir spiritual elders to the leaders who once controlled the mainBektasni foundation, so This activity was important enough toprovide the leaders of the Bektashi order with an important ritualfunction throughout the decades during which the order hasbeen officially prohibited. This would perhaps explain why theBektashi leaders were regarded not only with less suspicion thanthe marginalized Alevis, but more importantly they held arespected position and were even considered local-leveldignitaries in mainstream Ottoman society.

POLITICAL REVERSAL

By their very existence, the Bektashi order of dervishesbecame a powerful factor for the state to reckon with, since theycontinued their activities even in those periods which did not

48. Faroqhi, Der Bektaschi-Orden in Anatolien, 79.49. Birge, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes, 56-58.50. Kehl-Bodrogi, Die Kizilbash/Aleviten, 47.


offer any immediate provocation as to the use of force.Throughout Ottoman history, they have exercised a considerable,albeit ill-defined, influence over certain sections of thepopulation. At some periods, for instance, at the end of thesixteenth century, pohtical and other combinations haveenhanced this influence to such an extent as to make thempotentially irnportant allies or dangerous enemies to the civilgovemment. iJuring this period the Bektashi dervish order setuieir ascendancy by making official their connexion vwth theJanissaries. This official connection, backed by the sanction ofthesuperstitious classes of the population, made the Janissary-Bektashi combination a very dangerous one during thesucceeding period of weak monarchs and decadent nationalmorality, and it continued to embarrass the Ottoman govemmentuntil the abolition of the Janissaries and the fall of the bektashi in1826.

Recrudescent troubles with the Janissaries were one of thechief internal causes of the decay of the Ottoman power in theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Sultans like Osman II(1618-1622) and Ibr3iim (1640-1648) made vain efforts to curtailtheir power only to become their victims. Only in the thirdquarter of the seventeenth century, an interlude of nationalrevival allowed the last important extension of the OttomanEmpire. The cause of this revival laid not in the ability of thesultan Mehmed IV (1648-1687), but in that of his viziers of theKoprulu family. They attempted to make a stand against thepower of the Janissaries in politics and against the prevalence ofheterodoxy in religion, much of it due to dervish influence whichthreatened to undermine both orthodox faith and Ottomanauthority.

Called to office in 1656 for the express purpose of quelling anunusually dangerous rebellion of the Janissaries, the elderKoprulu executed four thousand persons implicated in themovement, including several influential dervishes; his influencewas fielt throughout me empire until his death. The action againstthe dervish orders strengthened more than ever in the vizierateof his son, who followed his father's policy. The religiouscounterpart of political measures appeared with some persuasivepreachers of the strictest Sunni principles, who obtained a greatinfluence over die orthodox Sultan. Strong efforts to aboUsn thepubhc exercises of the dervishes in general, and to stamp out themystic Sufi doctrines professed by many members of the upperclasses and the cult of saints and other superstitions in vogueamongi the lower, were typical of the general policy of theKoprmu viziers. 51

51. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, 348-50.


Although current knowledge is very limited, it also seems thatpitting^ one dervish order against the other was occasionally tried.The whole of a cycle of fictitious legend composed in relation tothe coveted ceremony of the girding of the sword at the accessionof the Ottoman sultans to the throne and the connexion of theceremony with the Seljuk sultans of Rum were evidently devisedto increase the prestige of the Ottoman house in Anatolia. At thesame time, the fabrication of all legends ahke seem nonethelessaetiological intentions designed to increase the prestige of theorders concemed and sometimes to pave their way to a newpolitical claim. The traditional privilege of the Mevlevi Sheikh toplay the chief part in the investiture of the Sultan, by girding thenew sultan with the so-called sword of Osman, was calculated toenhance the prestige of the Mevlevi order and eventually to keepthe balance with the Bektashis and their influence upon themilitary.

In his analysis of the history of the ceremony, F.W. Hasluckinsisted on a political combination of the sultan with the Mevleviorder against the Janissaries and their allies the Bektashidervishes.52 The privilege of the Mevlevi Sheikh, even thoughtraditionally performed Tor the first time as far back as 1648 atthe accession of Mehmed IV to the throne, seems to be not anancient institution but a comparatively recent innovation, andthat there is a good deal of evidence to show that it becameregular only after the accession of Mahmud II in 1808. Pre-eminently a reforming sultan who continued the pohcy ofSelim III (1789-1807), Mahmud II (1808-1839) armed^ toremodel the army, which involved the abolition of tne Janissarieswho were backed by the dervish organization of the Bektashi. Bythe drastic action of 1826, the sultan rid himself of the Janissariesand paralyzed the Bektashi organization, while enlisting theMevlevi as his allies.

Characteristically, the fate of the conniving; relationshipbetween the Bektasliis and Ottoman power after 1826, when theorder was suppressed, is normally attributed to the link with theJanissaries who were dissolved in that year, causing the fall of theOrder, as it were, involved in their disgrace. Some Bektashileaders were executed, and many of the order's properties weredestroyed. There were widespread deportations and forcedresettlements of the order's members and sympathizers.Nakshbendi sheikhs were appointed to oversee and control someof the Bektashi foundations that were spared. Others wereturned over to the ulema for use as mosques, religious schools,caravansaries, hospitals, and the like. Various Bektashi functionsamong the military were transferred to the Mevlevi. Other

52. Ibid., 48a-95.


functions related to public life were transferred to theNakshbendi.

It is unlikely, however, that material considerations were thecause of the Ottoman central administration's closing of theBektashi foundations in 1826. Even allowing for the possibilitythat Ottoman fiscal officials vastly overestimated the Ordersresources, other motives must have been decisive. The affiliationof the Bektashis with the Janissaries, which apart from theheretical beliefs of the Bektashi, formed the official reason forthe campaign of repression, was probably not the main reasoneither. After all, the order's mam strength lay in small andmedium-sized towns where the Janissary connection was ofmarginal importance. More decisive, as Suraiya Faroqhi hassuggested,53 was the attempt to use the drastic measures as a sortof trial balloon in order to placate the Ottoman religious systemas a whole at a time when the control of ulema over piousfoundations was being eroded by the state. As the ulema did notprotest against this vmolesale confiscation of legally constitutedpious foundations, measures of this kind were not politicallydangerous to the Ottoman govemment and could soon berepeated on a larger scale.

However, in the aftermath ofthe official banning ofthe orderof Bektashis following the abolition of the Janissary army, whilethe latter were permanently broken, Bektashism was notannihilated, but only crippled and resumed a more or lessunderground existence, sometimes masking their identityth rou^ other orders. By the middle of the nineteenth century,they nad largely recovered, and in the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries, the order even entered a period of renewedpopularity. The Bektashis started aeain to exercise a considerableinfluence over the laymen affiliated to them, which onlystrengthened their heterodox and non-conformist cleavage. Oncereduced to a clandestine life, they gradually drew closer to theFreemasons, with whom many upper-class Bektashis shared acommon ground of liberalism, non-conformism, andanticlericaUsm. In that way, the Bektashis came to play the roleof an enlightened intelhgentsia, open to progressive ideas.Coming from the intellectual ana liberal elite, tney are said tohave played in the Ottoman Empire a role similar to that ofFreemasonry in the European reformist movements.

If the Bektashis succeeded to have an infiuence in thereformed Ottoman context after 1839, this was made possiblethanks to their affiliation to the Franc-masonry and their alliancewith the Young-Turks. Many were indeed among the prominent

53. Faroqhi, Der Bektaschi-Orden in Anatolien, 115-19.

444 ' -JOURNAL OF CHURCH AND STATE

personalities of the time who were at once Bektashis,Freemasons, and Young-Turks.54 This made it possible forBektashism to form links with certain members of the Ottomanelite and find support from influential people both in the palaceand the state administration. It is true that between 1869-1876there was an unprecedented burst of open Bektashi publicitywhich would never have been allowed unless they were receivingprotection in high places of authority. The claim is made, formstance, that the Vuayet-Name was published in 1871 under thesecret protection of the mother of Sultan, and that other Bektashibooks were printed at her expense.55 It seems that many in theclose entourage of the Sultan Abdul-Aziz (1861-1876) wereadherents or sympathizers of the Order of Bektashis. The reignof Abdul-Hamid II (1876-1909), in particular, is seen as a periodin which an exceptional relationship was estabhshed between thegovemment and the dervishes, who enjoyed a veritable boom.

In turn, the connection with enlightened and influentialintellectuals involved in active political fife made it possible andnecessary for the Order once again to reorganize itself.Apparently, it was a sympathizer of Voltaire's ideas, Fazil Bey,wrio is said to have reorganized the order by introducingfreethinker and freemason ideas,56 which made oi the Bektashisone of the driving elements of the Young-Turk movement. Thelarge use of Bektashi and later Alevi culture, in particular, provedto De highly instrumental for backing^ Young-Turk reformistideology m its emphasis of the breakdown of the culturalcleavage that separated the Ottoman elites from the majoritycommon people by looking back to Turkic origins. Increasingattempts were made to interest Bektashi leaders and otherdervish orders in the modem state and use their assistance informulating a cultural program,57 which would later give rise toTurkish nationalism.

Something similar must have been in the mind of Ataturk,who did even pay a visit to the central Bektashi foundation inDecember 191^ trying to get the Bektashis-Alevis as allies. Infact, the head of the Bektashi order sided with Mustafa Kemal,and published a letter instructing his followers to support thenationalist forces. This effort, however, did not resiflt in anyexceptional favours to the Bektashis, since after some timeAtaturk tumed away and finally all dervish orders were abolished

54. Melikoff, Hadji Bektach, 243-44.55. Birge, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes, 80-81.56. Melikoff, Sur les traces du Soufisme turc, 7.7.57. Hans-Joachim Kissling, "The Sociological and Educational Role of Dervish Orders inthe Ottoman Empire," in Studies in Islamic Cultural History, ed. Gustave E. Grunebanm,Memoirs ofthe American Anthropological Association 76 (1954); 35.


by the Republican government in 1925.

REVIVAL POLITICS

In a very broad generalization, it has been argued a "historicalbipartition between the Bektashis who were traditionallyurl)anized and educated and the Alevis who lived in villages, theformer having spread in the Balkans and the latter remaining inthe Anatolian countryside.58 Bektashism is therefore oftenconsidered as a kind of "purified" Islam, what an oldergeneration of social anthropologists might have termed the "greattradition" of the urban and organized Bektashi Order against the"little tradition" of the rural and less-educated Alevi or Kizilbash.To show, however, that modern Alevi and Bektashi groups havemuch more in common than they have differences, the Alevisthemselves will often talk about "Alevi-Bektashi" creed, culture,or traditions.

In the persecution climate during the Ottoman-Safavid warsin the sixteenth century, the isolated Kizilbash-Alevis in ruralAnatolia developed traditions, practices, and doctrines that by theearly seventeenth century marked them as closed, autonomousreligious communities, opposed to all forms of external religion.59Alevism formally was, and to some extent still continues to be, asocial stigma in contemporary Turkey, and many Alevis haveattempted to hide their backgrounds once they moved to largecities.

The relationship with the Sunni majority remains one ofmutual suspicion and prejudice, dating "back to the Ottomanperiod. Sunnis have accused Alevis of heresy, heterodoxy,rebellion, betrayal, and immorality. Alevis, on the other hand,view themselves as the true preservers of authentic Turkishculture, religion, and language. Alevism is claimed to adapt tomodernity because it is supposed to be flexible and tolerant, outof a natural sense of equality and justice. It is much more siaitablefor it includes traits supposedly suppressed by Sunnism, whichwould thereby not be true Islam but an aberration that opposesfree and independent thought by its strict legalism, seen asreactionary, bigoted, fanatic, intolerant, domineering, andantidemocratic.

The last three decades have witnessed in contemporaryTurkey what has come to be known as an Alevi cultural revival,leading to issues of Bektashi or Alevi heterodoxy being heatedly

58. Melikofi", Au banquet des Quarante, 37-44.59. Kelil-Bodrogi, Die Kizilbash/Aleviten, 38-47.


politicized and ethnicized.eo Spearheaded by the new, educatedAlevi elite, Alevi cultural associations are established, foundationsand trusts organized, old Bektashi convents reopened, saints'tombs rebuilt, rituals restored and re-invented. The overallrevival places emphasis on Alevism as a cultural and religiousheritage in an effort to reconstruct Alevi culture, community, andidentity, but also to articulate Alevi collective interests towardsthe modem state and demand equality with the Sunni majority.In an ongoing process of negotiation due to the participation ofleaders representing different traditions and trend^, manyintellectuals are making contributions towards a systematizationof Alevi behef and a flood of new books and joumals reflects theefforts to reinvent Alevism.

Certain actors interpret Alevism as the specifically Turkishform of Islam, that is, the "true" Islam rid of Arab influences. Anethnic dimension is often emphasized, making Alevism a supportfor Turkish identity or assimilating it to a Kurdish authenticphenomenon. More generally, this view sees Alevism as aTurkish-AnatoHan religion combining Islam with elements ofTurkish culture, as the authentic expression of an Anatolianculture and civilization. In contrast to a specific Turkishnationalism, an Anatolian cultural mosaic is set up, whichincludes many other groups allied with the Alevis againstOttoman oppression.

On the other hand, while many remained Kemalist and hopedthat the state would officially legitimize the Bektashi order, thenew generation showed a strong tendency to think of Alevism asa pohtical opposition rather than a religious tradition. Partly dueto the severe repression ofthe left and partly as a response to theimposition of a conservative brand of Sunni Islam by the state,the young generation joined extreme leftist parties. Working for aradical restructuring^ of society, they viewed all "reactionary"elements which tried to assimilate them into mainstream Sunnilife as enemies, reinterpreting both historical opposition toSunnism in terms of class struggle and Alevism in socialist andMarxist idioms that seem to have an affinity to Bektashi ideals ofequality and traditions of revolt and opposition to the state.eiThey viewed their religion as a positive political and social

60. Krisztina Kehl-Bodrogi, Vom revolutionaren Klassenkampf zum "Wahren" Islam:Transformationsprocesse im Alevitum der Turkei nach 1980, SocialanthropologischeArbeitspapiere 49 (Berlin: Freie Universitat, 1992); Karin Vorhofi", Zwischen Glaube, Nationund neuer Gemeimchaft: Alevitische Identitdt in der Turkei der Gegenwart, IslamkundlicheUntersuchungen, 184 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1995); David Shankland, The Alevis inTurkey: The Emergence of a Secular Islamic Tradition (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003);Elise Massicard, L'autre Turquie: Le mouvement aleviste et ses territoires (Paris: Pressesuniversitaires de France, 2005).61. Vorhoff, Zwischen Glaube, Nation und neuer Gemeinschaft.


revolutionary ideology fighting against oppression and evil onbehalf of the poor and marginalized sectors of society. They thusdefined Alevism in the tramtion of democracy or as a culture ofrebelhon, Ijased on the Kizilbash revolts under the OttomanEmpire or on the massive Alevi engagement to the left incontemporary Turkey. Considering that Ali was the defender ofthe poor and^ oppressed, and that Hassan and Hussein were thefirst martyrs in the cause of the dispossessed, they presentedAlevism as having always led the fight for liberation against alltyranny, while reactionary Sunnism served the rich and powerfuldominant elites.

Still, most Alevis follow the Kemalist secularist ideology andas Alevism becomes more secular, the conception of Codbecomes almost entirely intemalized and conflated with theperson in a worldly hfe.62 Thus, the Sufi cry of ecstasy conflatingGod and the self, regarded as the pinnacle of profoundunderstanding and conveyed often through a mass ofcomplicated symbolism and secret doctrine, becomes completelyroutmized, a casual but assertive claim to place the individual andone's desires at the center of the universe. This shift can lead to aprofoundly peaceful humanism, and frequently does. It may alsolead to a notable phenomenon whereby individuals, orsometimes whole Alevi associations, may interpret Alevism as anintemational culture. They stress only the liberal and humanisticvalues of Alevism as a worldview, downplaying its religiousconnotations. In this case, they would deny that Alevism isIslamic, and claim the origins lie in pre-Islamic religious systems,stressing their links to similar groups, all assumed to befragments of the original community. For these people being anAlevi is widened to something that is common to all humanity,not restricted to a chosen group of believers within a widercreed, and in effect, not even to do with religion.

Traditional Alevism was based in closed rural communitiesand consisted of local, largely orally transmitted traditions, whilethe new Alevism is based in modern urban associations and isexperiencing a rapid process of rationalization andscripturalization. This allowed a redistribution of the knowledgecapital to the extent of witnessing the appearance of a new bodyof^exegetes, comparable to a clergy, tnat is, to use Weberianterms, a group holding the monopoly on the manipulation of thevisions of the world. Indeed, knowledge is not only a symboliccapital but represents a prime essential resource, absolutelysacralized by all political identity actors of Alevism. However, inthe course of movement, no consensus has emerged amongactors and entrepreneurs who are even aware of their dissension

62. Shankland, The Alevis in Turkey.


on the origin and the very nature of Alevism. If all are in searchof a relevant knowledge, the accounts are so contradictory thatthey often do not know which to believe. There are so manycornpeting conceptions of what Alevism is or should be that thevalidity ofToiowledge can always be called in question. Instead ofleading to the unification of the movement, the knowledgecontributes thereby to the dispersion of interpretations and themultiplication of conflicts.

However, the persistence of debates and the not-attributionof a fixed meaning of Alevism cannot so much be explained by itssyncretistic character, but rather because the knowledge is notyet naturalized and objectified. It can be argued that this state of"affairs is due above all to the fact that dunng the movement nomajor actor has yet emerged, likely to impose a singleinterpretation of Alevism in politically relevant categories. This isdue to both the configuration of actors and the absence ofinstitutions making it possible to objectify a source of knowledgeacceptable and accepted by all

CONCLUSION

Clearly the character of Bektashism showed first a culturalsystem corresponding to the model of religious mediation inwhich all hierarchies were denied. Such a model is illustrated

i f i l l i h l f kha hierarchies were denied. Such a model is illustrated

p)ecifically in the early times of Bektashism in the thirteenth andfourteenth centuries, during the Ottoman-Safavid wars in thefirst half of the sixteenth century, after the suppression ofJanissary troops in the first half of the nineteenth century, orafter the abolition of dervish orders in the first half of thetwentieth century. It is this emphasis that has made it possible forthe Bektashis in Anatolia to achieve a close sense of identitysuccessively with the Young Turk movement, with the Albaniannational awakening in the second half of the nineteenthcentuiy,63 or with the early Turkish nationalism in the firstquarter of the twentieth century. The same emphasis must have^ so interacted with more recent nationalist ideals and left-wing"progressive" political philosophy that are even more unstable, ashas been often the case with the Alevi revival in contemporaryTurkey, or with the "democratic" processes of post-communisttransformations in contemporary Albania.

In turn, when the members of the previously persecutedreligious minority may already acquire a degree of religious andpolitical respectal)ility within society at large, the subjective andmillenarian doctrines of heterodoxy and Uberation theology fade

63. Doja, "A Political History of Bektashism in Albania."


into the background. In the end, the chances are that the heirs ofmystics and the heterodox promoters of spiritual reform andsocial movement will tum into followers and faithful defenders ofa legitimate authority. They will become the spokespeople for aninstitutionalized orthodoxy whose support will be souglit by thepolitical regime.

I believe this process must correspond to the radical changethat took place in the Belrtashi environment after theorganization ofthe order in the sixteenth century, which may alsobe discerned each time after recovering from periods ofpersecution, when the nebulous group of Bektashi dervishesgradually developed into an ecclesiastic institution with a highlyorganized and centralized hierarchy. All available accounts in theliterature clearly show that this process of organizationalcentralization, coupled with a concomitant pr^ocess of doctrinalradicalization, was fostered under the specific conditions ofOttoman patronage during the sixteenth and eighteenthcenturies, especially after the order became linked^ to thepowerful military body of the Janissaries. As I showed elsewhere,a similar process was once again reiterated in IndependentAlbania in the twentieth century when Bektashism enjoyedofficial state recognition.64 Finally, the counter-example of therevival of Alevism in contemporary Turkey shows that, wliile theAlevis are seeking to organize themselves for their ownprotection and survival by building up a religious-culturalassociation, in the process they have not yet established ahierarchy of their own, claiming a "true" faith with its owninfallible dogmas and doctrines.

The transition from innovation to conservatism in theologicalconceptions and organizational structures, and the subsequentrenewal of innovation, in support of either liberating social andnational movements or the re-establishment of a new politicalpower in society, takes on different forms and tones, forming acomplex process requiring detailed historical and politicalanalysis of the cultural values and social entities involved. Withthese necessary changes, Bektashi religion, rather than seen as anindividual life path, must be regarded as the collectivesubservience to a road, as a religious order headed byauthoritarian leadership. Bektashism, henceforth viewed as arevealed religion whose doctrines are literally true, becomes asystem of thought which also claims legal authority. The differentelements on vmich this power is basea consist of acceptance ofthe inherent superiority of the Bektashi leaders, the ratificationof their decisions at collective rituals, and the inculcation of asense of appropriate behavior encapsulated within a necessary

64. Ibid.


moral Dhilosophy. The program as a whole is supported moreimmediately through a rich corpus of ritual, narrative, poetry,music, and myth.

I have discussed elsewhere the particular affinity thatsociologists and anthropologists have always shown between newreligious movements and social, cultural and national crisismovements, as well as the extent to which religious ideas must beregarded either as a justification for liberationist movements or asan ideology justifying domination.65 The analysis of doctrinal-ideological and structural-organizational characteristics ofBektashism throughout its history that is presented here is anillustrative suggestion that it is precisely on these structural andideological grounds that such a dialectical correlation may becorrectly addressed.

65. Doja, "Histoire et dialectlque des ideologies et significations religieuses," 677-79.

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