Abstract
This chapter focuses on concept of humanity (insaniyya) as articulated in Alevi Islam. It challenges the equation of Islam and shariʿa by examining a manifestation of Islam, which while rejecting the primacy of shari’a including ritual prayer (salat) and the Ramadan fast, adheres to the Islamic principles of tawhid, nubuwwa and qiyama. The chapter discusses the Alevi religion as a tradition that reflects important aspects of both Shi’i and Sufi piety while maintaining its own unique identity. The chapter contains a brief discussion of the ritual of the ayn-i cem and its origins as described in the Buyruk Imam Cafer-i Sadek. There is also a discussion of contemporary Alevilik and its role in Turkish culture. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some important narratives from the Vilayetname of Hacı Bektaş. The first is a series of narratives related to the lineage and birth of Hacı Bektaş including the birth of his father Ibrahim as-Sani, through the miraculous aid of the Shi’i Imam ‘Ali Riza and his own birth and education under Lokman Perende, a disciple of Hoca Ahmet Yesevi. The second is a narrative about the miraculous training of Hacı Bektaş Veli’s disciple Güvenç Abdal. The chapter concludes with an analysis of a popular Alevi song that talks about the importance of becoming a human being.
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Notes
- 1.
Ahmet Karamustafa, “Islam a Civilizational Project in Progress,” in Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism, ed. Omid Safi (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 108.
- 2.
Karamustafa, 108.
- 3.
The number of Alevis in Turkey is a deeply contested issue. Although religion is listed on one’s passport in the Turkish Republic, Alevi is not an option. There is no religious census in Turkey. Markus Dressler says that they constitute only ten to fifteen percent. The European Policy Centre says they constitute twenty-five percent of the population, between fifteen and twenty million people http://tawhid.epc.eu/pub_details.php?pub_id=4093). The Alevi-Bektaşi foundation argues they account for thirty-three percent of the population. (http://tawhid.refworld.org/docid/49749c9950.html). My own anecdotal sense is that there are more Alevis in Turkey than most people think
- 4.
Of course, this emphasis on four doors is not unique to Alevis. It is a position shared with several important Sufi order including some far more shariʿa oriented than the Alevis.
- 5.
Since I have written the majority of this chapter, I have become aware of a new book by the historian Ayfer Karakaya-Stump which is one of the best sources on the history of the Alevi tradition. Among other things her research makes a powerful case for the both the uniqueness of the Alevi tradition and its clear resonance with other Anatolian Sufi communities, See Ayfer Karakaya-Stump The Kizilbash-Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia: Sufism, Politics and Community, Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022).
- 6.
Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, Vol.2, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 493.
- 7.
Hodgson, Venture, Vol. 2, 498–500.
- 8.
Ibid., 500.
- 9.
The relationship between the Kızılbaş and the Alevis has partially been clouded by the fact that many Alevis resent the term, which has historically been used as a derogatory epithet by urban Sunnis. However, recently the term has been resurrected with a degree of pride. The contemporary aşık and bağlama virtuoso Yavuz Top on a CD entitled Suçumuz Nerede uses lyrics adapted from a nineteenth-century Bektaşi poet to put the case that the “crime” of the kızılbaş is their devotion to the ahl al-bayt and to proudly equate Alevilik with the kızılbaş tradition.
- 10.
The late Prof. Bedre Noyan Dede-Baba, a prolific and influential Alevi-Bektaşi author, is one of the persons associated with this position. He makes a convincing case that on issues of theology and religious world view there are no significant differences between the Alevis and the historically more urban and literary Bektaşis. Both emphasize the use of Turkish language in their rituals and use the same nefes poetry in their semah. Both maintain the same “lax” attitude towards the shariʿa, substituting their own ritual practices. Both maintain devotional allegiance to the Twelve Imams (Oniki Imam) as a central facet of their piety. Both venerate the legendary medieval saint Hacı Bektaşi Veli. Perhaps the most significant difference between them is that while it is possible for anyone found worthy to enter the Bektaşi tarikat, it is generally thought that one must be born into the Alevi tradition.
- 11.
This is the position held by Faik Bulut, the author of Ali’siz Alevilik. (Istanbul: Berfin Yayınları, 2007). For him, and many others, the Hazrat Ali of Alevilik is not the Hazrat Ali of the first generation of Islam. Rather he is a purely symbolic figure standing for justice, resistance, solidarity with the poor and other Alevi values.
- 12.
Supporters of this position draw heavily upon the writings of the European scholar Irene Melikoff who has written extensively on the Alevi tradition, emphasizing its shamanic and pre-Islamic elements.
- 13.
The second position holds that Alevilik is, in fact, the original and true Islam. This position is represented by scholars like Mehmet Yaman, the author of Alevilik Inanç-Edeb-Erkan, and Niand İzzettin Doğan, the founder of the Cem Vakf.
- 14.
For example, unlike “secularists” who may refuse to pray because of “scientific” or “modernist” reasons, the avoidance of namaz has for many Alevis has a religious basis–the refusal to take part in an activity that according to their tradition has been rendered polluted by Hz. ʿAli’s murder in a mosque while in the act of prayer.
- 15.
As we have noted throughout this volume devotional allegiance to exemplary persons was never a peripheral mode of piety in medieval Islam. Belief in the authority and efficacy of pirs was a crucial element of most of medieval piety. While it is still a powerful force in Islam it has come under increasing attack in the modern world. In fact, the critique of devotional allegiance, or at least what is perceived as its excesses, it lies at the core of the anti-Shiʿi and anti-Sufi rhetoric of many of the Islamic reform movement that have arisen since the eighteenth century. From this perspective, the Republic of Turkey’s attack on Sufism was not something unique but rather part of a larger tendency within Islam to view with suspicion the notion that obedience to a pir or imam is central to Muslim piety.
- 16.
Rıza Zelyut, Öz Kaynaklarına Göre Alevilik, (Istanbul: Yön Yayıncılık Ltd. Şti, 1998), 111.
- 17.
Interestingly, there is a tendency to avoid the use of the term tarikat, replacing it with the Turkish yol, as tarikat has a negative connotation in Turkey where it is popularly used as a synonym for “cult.” The Pir Sultan Abdal Vakf and the Cem Vakf are not surprisingly somewhat antagonistic towards each other as they hold remarkably different attitudes about the future of Alevilik. Each side holds that the other will lead the community into peril. For the members of the Cem Vakf the central problem with the Pir Sultan Abdal Vakf is that they are not only leftist but also materialist. They are seen therefore as atheists who deny the reality of God and the religious nature of the Alevi tradition. As one official of the Cem Vakf explained this to me, this allows others to slander the Alevi community as kafirs and zındıklar. For members of the Pir Sultan Abdal Vakf their criticism of the Cem Vakf centers on its position concerning the relationship of the community to the Diyanet, the official organ of the state for religious affairs. The Cem Vakf believes that the Diyanet should give support to the Alevis as well as the Sunnis. This position is completely rejected by the Pir Sultan Abdal Vakf.
- 18.
Victor Turner, The Ritual Process, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), 96.
- 19.
Victor Turner, On the Edge of the Bush: Anthropology on the Edge, (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1985), 272.
- 20.
It was not unusual for me to witness arguments about the proper performance of Alevi ibadet during the ayn-i cem. Almost always the first question asked was, “What village do you come from?”
- 21.
The Karacaahmet and Garib Dede centers are built alongside tombs of Alevi erenler. The Şah Kulu center is a magnificent reconstruction of an old Bektaşi tekke that had previously fallen into ruins.
- 22.
This has been particularly true since the 1993 tragedy in Sivas. The community seems to have reached the conclusion that a public profile offers them more protection from such acts of violence, than a secretive one.
- 23.
It should be noted that the Diyanet prepares the khutbas that are read on Friday in every mosque in the country. From the standpoint of the state, this represents not only support but also substantial control over Sunni Islam. In fact, supporters of Diyanet argue that if they did exist to control the khutbas this could lead to a proliferation of radical Islamists using the minbar to attack the secular nature of the State.
- 24.
Faziletname: Beyan-ı Mucizatı Ahmedi Fazlı Fazilet Hazreti Ali. ed. Fevzi Gürgen, (Ankara: Ayyıldız Yayıları, 1995).
- 25.
Adil Ali Atalay Vaktidolu, Tam Hüsniye, (Istanbul: Can Yayınları, 1998).
- 26.
Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı, Vilâyet-nâme Menâkıb-ı Hacı Bektâş-ı Velî, (Istanbul: Inkilap Kitabevi, 2016).
- 27.
Esat Korkmaz, Buyruk Yorumlu İmam Cafer Buyruğu, (Istanbul: Anadolu Kültür, 2002).
- 28.
Markus Dressler, Writing Religion: The Making of Turkish Alevi Islam (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 256–263.
- 29.
Sefer, Aytekin, Vilayetname (Ankara: Ayyıldız Yayınları, 1995), 11.
- 30.
Aytekin, Vilayetname, 11.
- 31.
Ibid., 12.
- 32.
Ibid., pp.12–13.
- 33.
Ibid., 13–15.
- 34.
Ibid., 15.
- 35.
Vernon Schubel, Religious Performance in Contemporary Islam (Columbia, S. C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1993), 35–70.
- 36.
Aytekin, Vilayetname, 69.
- 37.
Ibid., 16–17.
- 38.
Ibid., 17–18.
- 39.
Ibid., 19–20.
- 40.
Ibid., 21–22.
- 41.
Ibid., 23.
- 42.
Ibid., 24–25.
- 43.
Hamıye Duran, Velayetname Hacı Bektaş Velı (Ankara: Türkiye Diyanet Vakf, 2007), 309–310.
- 44.
Kenneth Cragg and Marston Speight, Islam from Within: Anthology of a Religion (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing), 80.
- 45.
Farid ud-din Attar, The Conference of the Birds, trans., Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis (London: Penguin, 1984), 57–76.
- 46.
Duran, Velayetname, 310.
- 47.
Ibid., 310–314.
- 48.
Ibid., 314.
- 49.
Ibid., 314–317.
- 50.
Ibid., 317–18.
- 51.
Ibid., 318–21.
- 52.
Ibid., 321.
- 53.
It also has resonances with Sufi poetry. A clear example is the aforementioned story of Sheikh San’an from Attar. In The Conference of the Birds, Sheikh San’an travels to Rum where he falls under the spell of the beauty of a Christian girl, for the first time learning the meaning of love in all of its burning intensity. In Attar’s story, the Sheikh is rescued by the intercession of the Prophet Muhammad, who intervenes because of the prayers of the lovestruck Sheikh’s mürits. In this story, it is the mürit, who is similarly smitten and saved by the direct miraculous intercession, not of the Prophet Muhammad, but instead by his pir. Significantly, in both stories, the girl is ultimately transformed and drawn to accept a true spiritual path, but unlike in Attar’s story, where the girl, having accepted Islam, dies at the end, in this narrative she is happily united in marriage with Güvenç Abdal. Nonetheless, in both stories, we see travelers find their way to the spiritual truth through engagement in the material world, rather than withdrawal from it.
- 54.
Paul Koerbin, “İnsan Olmaya Geldim (Nimri Dede),” on his page Pir Sultan Abdal and Me, https://koerbin.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/40/
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Schubel, V.J. (2023). My Qibla Is a Man: Islam Beyond the Shariʿa. In: Teaching Humanity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22362-4_6
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