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Alevi Identity ALEVI IDENTITY CULTURAL, RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES ALEVI IDENTITY CULTURAL, RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES Papers Read at a Conference Held at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, November 25–27, 1996 Edited by Tord Olsson, Elisabeth Özclalga and Catharina Raudvere SWEDISH RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN ISTANBUL TRANSACTION VOL. 8 Front cover: The Imam Ali, glass-painting, Ömer Bortaçina Collection, Cam Altında Yirmi Bin Fersah, Yapı Kredi Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık, İstanbul, 1998 Back cover: Symmetrical inscription of “Ali” adorned with the crown of Hacı Bektaş Veli and Zülfikâr (the sword of Ali) The photos on pages 5, 27, 29 57, 59, 61, 63, 65, 75, 89, 93, 95 belong to Murat Küçük. The photos on pages 71 and 73 belong to Helga Rittersberger. The photo on page 91 belongs to Karin Vorhoff. © Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul and the authors. Logotype: Bo Berndal Prepared by The Economic and Social History Foundation of Turkey First published 1998 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge's collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Distributor: RoutledgeCurzon, London, England ISBN 0-203-98587-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-7007-1088-4 (Print Edition) ISSN 1100–0333 Contents Preface Bektashi/Kızılbaş: Historical Bipartition and Its Consequences 1 IRÈNE MÉLIKOFF On Bektashism in Bosnia 11 ERIK CORNELL Anthropology and Ethnicity: The Place of Ethnography in the New Alevi 19 Movement DAVID SHANKLAND Academic and Journalistic Publications on the Alevi and Bektashi of Turkey 28 KARIN VORHOFF The Function of Alevi-Bektashi Theology in Modern Turkey 59 FARUK BİLİCİ Political Alevism versus Political Sunnism: Convergences and Divergences 74 RUŞEN ÇAKIR Development and Reformulation of a Returnee Identity as Alevi 81 HELGA RITTERSBERGER-TILIÇ Alevi Revivalism in Turkey 93 REHA ÇAMUROĞLU State-Community Relations in the Restructuring of Alevism 100 FUAT BOZKURT Ottoman Modernisation and Sabetaism 115 İLBER ORTAYLI A Critical Survey on Ahl-e Haqq Studies in Europe and Iran 125 JEAN DURING Taqīya or Civil Religion? Druze Religious Specialists in the Framework of the 151 Lebanese Confessional State JAKOB SKOVGAARD-PETERSEN The Druze Religious Will as a Political Instrument 162 AHARON LAYISH Alevis in Turkey—Alawites in Syria: Similarities and Differences 181 MARIANNE ARINGBERG-LAANATZA The Gnosis of Mountaineers and Townspeople. The Religion of the Syrian 200 Alawites, or the TORD OLSSON Urban Visions and Religious Communities: Access and Visibility 223 CATHARINA RAUDVERE Epilogue: The scripturalization of Ali-oriented religions. 240 TORD OLSSON List of participants 253 Acknowledgements in the Second Edition Thanks to a grant from the Swedish Consulate General in Istanbul, it has been possible to produce a second edition of this volume. We particularly wish to thank Consul General Ingmar Karlsson and Consul Annika Svahnström for their encouragement and support. We are also grateful to Sidsel Braaten of the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul for her help in bringing this edition about. Republication has allowed us to give special attention to the illustrations. Above all, we owe our heartfelt gratitude to the photographer Murat Küçük for allowing us to include many of his valuable pictures in this volume. Istanbul, April 2003. The Editors. Preface Turkish Alevi groups are often referred to in international massmedia with various epithets like “liberal Muslims”, “extreme Shia sects”, or “heretics”. Hereby ambiguous and contradictory images of the Alevi communities are produced and reproduced. For a long time the milieu in Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu’s novel Nur Baba (1922) was the prejudiced prototype for the backward and superstitious lives of the Alevi. Based on oral jocular stories about Bektashi dervishes the novel petrified pejorative common clichés of the Alevi as newly urbanized Anatolian peasants and the lodge as the site of corruption and decadence. In contemporary Turkey, the Alevi serve the role as the significant other and the public notion is to a large extent formed by a number of dramatic events: the clashes in Kahramanmaraş in 1979 and Çorum in 1980, the incendiarism in Sivas in 1993, and the riots in Istanbul (Gaziosmanpaşa) in 1995. Less evocative but in the long rum more significant is the current rising enthusiasm for Alevi folklore, oral traditions and religious practices. The fact that Alevi cemevis, centres of cultural and religious gatherings, have increased in number is significant for these changes in attitude and self- definition. The present book is a collection of papers from a conference “Religion, Cultural Identity, and Social Organization among Alevi in Ottoman and Modern Turkey” arranged by The Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, November 25–27, 1996. The meeting was part of a two year programme “Islamic culture” conducted by Professor Elisabeth Özdalga. The speakers offered historical as well as anthropological and sociological analyses and several of the contributions related to marginal religious groups in neighbouring areas. Both insider (emic) and outsider (etic) perspectives were presented but the religious aspects of Ali-oriented communities in West Asia were particularly focused. Some of the participants are themselves active in Alevi groups and therefore political and ideological issues were constantly present at the conference. Discussing the Alevi touches the most important issues in modern Turkish history: nationalism, secularization politics, urbanization, migration. Consequently, a recurrent theme in the present book deals with how identity and social memory are constructed by the choices of significant events in legendary history. In many aspects these Alevi narratives contradict official Turkish history writing, stressing other genealogies and other identities. The various attempts to construct a homogeneous and powerful Alevi identity through the use of history can serve as an example of Benedict Anderson’s discussion on ‘imaginary communities’ when analyzing the use of historical events, legendary or other. Different Alevi groups claim different self-definitions and stress social, political or religious aspects of their identity. The leftist emphasis from the 1970s is turning more and more into a new pride and consciousness of cultural and religious tradition and the former biased notion of the Alevi as Anatolian peasants has changed. A distinct Alevi social and intellectual élite has emerged during the 1980s and 1990s and a host of books and journals debating very different Alevi positions have been published. To some authors it is important to stress Alevism as a tradition within Islam. Others more easily conceive Alevilik as a conglomeration of groups that do not necessarily define themselves as religious, but rather as a basis for the formulation of alternative life-styles. Some stress the theological roots in Shiism, in contrast, other groups claim liberal traditions for their interpretation of religion. The Alevi have never been recognized as distinct groups or associations by the Directorate for Religious Affairs (DIB: Diyanet İşleri Başkanliği). Such a recognition is therefore a vital aim for the circles around the journal Cem, while other Alevis hail the underground image that has been the result of the state strategy of keeping such large groups out of public arenas. This volume does not concentrate only on the Alevi in Turkey, but includes articles on other Ali oriented communities in West Asia. Here the perspective is widened and similarities in historical development and theological structure are underlined. The volume opens with an essay by Professor Irène Mélikoff on the historical roots of the Bektashi order with special emphasis on its relation to the Kızılbaş groups. Professor Mélikoff makes an overview and compares the differences in theology and ritual practice in order to demonstrate parallels. This historical survey is followed by Ambassador Erik Cornell’s discussion on Bektashism in the Balkans. Considering the importance of the extensive migration in the beginning of this century from this region to Turkey and its influence on modern Bektashi communities, it is a topic of utmost importance. The historical perspective is further developed by David Shankland when analyzing the present use of cultural heritage and history in the construction of Alevi culture. Shankland strongly argues for more contextualized studies of the complexity of Alevi culture, the avoidance of stereotypes, and an emphasis instead on what he terms “the process of cultural recreation”. In view of the explosion of Alevi publications during the last decade Karin Vorhoff’ s essay will serve as a future guide. Her comprehensive discussion on academic and more popular writings on the Alevi and the Bektashi highlights the heterogeneity under the same umbrella term. Vorhoff also makes the important observation that the Alevi publications should not only be interpreted on a discursive level since they also function as signals and symbols of Alevi consciousness in private homes. The semiotic relevance of these books is not only substantial in relation to outsiders, but also within the Alevi communities: putting the more liberal journal Cem on the table is quite different from having books by the radical Cemal Şener on the shelf. Faruk Bilici interprets Alevi-Bektashi theology as a variant of “liberation theology” in contrast to Sunni orthodoxy. Bilici observes
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