Alevilik and Bektaşilik

The Redhouse Ottoman-English dictionary, which was first published in 1890 only explains the literal meaning of “Alevi;” it neither defines any sort of society or faith, nor relates Alevilik to other definitions. There “A’levi” (the dictionary’s transcription) means simply: “Pertaining to a man of the name Ali; especially, pertaining to or descendent from the caliph Ali.”12

The Turkish-English dictionary of Vahid Moram, which was first published during the Kemalist era (1945), defines the word Alevi as a rare synonym of Shi’ite; the author also identified Alevilik with Shi’ism.13
There “Alevi” is “partisan of the Caliph Ali; Shiite”. This identification is the most common and it appears in most of the dictionaries that were published thereafter, like the Langensceidt Turkish-English dictionary
14and the Consice Oxford Turkish dictionary.15 In the “Encyclopedia of Islam”16 the terms “Alevi” and “Alevilik” do not appear as separate entries; instead, “Alevi” is included under “Kizilbash,” whose meaning is: “a wide variety of extremist Shii sects, which flourished in Anatolia and Kurdistan from the late 7th
/13thcentury onwards, including such groups as the Alevis (Alawis).”

According to the author, the Alawis are the Nusayris, and differ from the Tahtacılar, whom he relates to the Bektaşi order. and Present”. One year later, an international symposium about Alevilik that was held in Istanbul by a Swedish research center got the title: “Alevi Identity”.

“Strictly speaking,” he writes, “the term Kizilbash should be applied only to those Turcoman tribes inhabiting eastern Anatolia, northern Syria and the Armenian highlands which were converted by the Safawid da’wa and became the disciples of the Safawid shaykhs at Ardabil.” In “İslam Ansiklopedisi,”17 the Turkish version of “Encyclopedia of Islam,” “Alevi” or “Alevilik” also do not appear separately, but under the entry “Kızılbaş.” The author of the entry, Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı, defines Alevilik as the worship of Imam Ali, which was developed by Shii ghulat sects that lived between Rumeli and Iran. These sects are called Kızılbaş, and their members are Turks, Persians, or Kurds. According to Gölpınarlı, the Anatolian Kızılbaş resemble the other groups in every respect, except one; unlike the other Kızılbaş, they regard Hacı Bektaş veli as their saint. In another Turkish encyclopedia for Turkish culture, "İnönü Ansıklopedisi,”18 the term “Alevi” appears as an independent entry, and it means a general name for all the groups between the Mediterranean and China, which worship the Imam Ali.

In Turkey the Alevis are identified with the Kızılbaş, which is general name for separate rural communities that have different leaders, practices and faiths. One of the reasons for the differences between the groups is the fact that every community mixed in its own tradition elements taken from neighboring religions; thus, in different regions of Anatolia, one can recognize in the local Kızılbaş communities rituals of Orthodox Christianity, Zoroastrian, Armenian Christianity, Sunna, Shi’a etc. In addition to the identification with the Kızılbaş, in Turkey it is common to identify Alevilik as a synonym of Bektaşilik, and hence the term “Alevi-Bektaşi.”

Early 20th century historians like Gölpınarlı, Köprülü, Hasluck and Birge, as well as recent scholars, tend to differentiate between the two and to argue that while Alevis are the rural Anatolian non-Sunni Turks, who during the Ottoman era were powerless and disrespected, the Bektaşis were the heterodox Muslim Sufis, who were in charge of converting conquered populations to Islam, and until the abolition of the Janissaries were responsible for the education the young soldiers.

Although this distinction between Alevilik and Bektaşilik is prominent in the historiography of the field, many Turkish scholars tend to conflate the two groups. They do it by emphasizing that some Alevi communities developed close relationships with Bektaşi tekkes in Anatolia and formed their traditions under the influence of the heterodox Islam of the Bektaşilik. For example, Besim Atalay, a nationalist scholar, whose book Bektaşilik ve Edebiyati was published in 1924,19 argues that the Bektaşilik was more than a Sufi order, it was a unique Turkish medheb of Islam.

Notes:

12 James W. Redhouse, A Turkish and English Lexicon, (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1996).
13 Ahmet Vahid Moram, Büyük Türkçe-Ingilizçe Sözlük, (İstanbul: Adam, 1945).
14 Resuhi Akdikmen, Langsceidt’s Standard Turkish Dictionary, (New York: Langsceidt, 1986).
15 A.D Alderson & Fahir Iz, The Concise Oxford Turkish Dictionaary, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959).
16 R.M. Savory, “Kizilbash”, in: Encyclopedia of Islam, (Leiden: Brill, CD-ROM edition, 1999).
17 Abdülbakı Gölpınarlı, “Kızılbaş”in İslam Ansiklopedisi, vol.6 no.61, (İstanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi,
1968), 789-795.
18 Inönü Ansliklopedisi, vol.2, (Ankara: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1948) , 46-48.
19 Besim Atalay, Bektaşilik ve Edeabiyati, (İstanbul: Matbaa-i Amre), 1924.