Alevi History
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[edit] Alevi History
[edit] History
Alevis trace their origins back to the early days of Islam. After the death of Muhammad his followers were divided over who should lead the Muslim community. The modern day Sunni majority elected Abu Bakr, while the modern day Shia maintained that Ali, the son-in-law of Muhammad, was his legitimate successor. This rift was widened when Hüseyin, grandson of Mohammed, was killed in the Battle of Karbala, an event which is memorized intensively by Alevis and Shias alike. The Alevis also recognize twelve Imams similar to the Twelver community.
Pre-Islamic Turkish traditions have great influences on Alevism. Turkish tribes, which had been spread across a wide geographical area, had come into contact with and been influenced over the centuries by Shamanism, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity and even Buddhism prior to emergence of Islam. Large-scale Turkish conversion to Islam can be dated to the 8th century. Most of these Turks did not respect the traditional Muslim sheikhs (leaders) and clergy, whose spread various restrictive religious. Rather they attached themselves to, and came under the influence of, "fathers", who filled a role similar to pre-Islamic religious leaders such as shamans. Traces of this influence can be traced in Alevism. This form of Islam which the Turks who moved into Anatolia beginning in the eleventh century brought with them, mixed with local people and Persian cultures.
An important influence to the Alevi tradition has been Sufism. The Sufi philosopher Haji Bektash Wali, who spent most his life as a missioner from an Iranian based Sufi sect among Turkish tribes in Central Asia and Anatolia during the 13th century, is highly revered and generally seen as the founder of the Alevilik faith. Most of his followers belonged to the Türkmen tribes. The tribes, who tried to keep their traditional customs, often stood in opposition to the Seljuk and later the Ottoman Empire. In the late 15th century, a militant Shia order, the Kızılbash, fought with the Safavids against the Ottomans. After they lost their power, they were assumed to have merged into the Anatolian Alevis. Kurdish Alevis are sometimes still called Kızılbash. Even as far East as Pakistan, many Shias have "Qizilbash" as their family names, with most still having red hair in their gene pools. [1]
In the early 20th century, many Alevis supported the Turkish revolutionaries and the creation of the Turkish republic. Atatürk was seen by some as a new Haji Bektash, and his secularist principles as a liberation from Sunni dominance. [2]. Their hopes were dashed when the Presidency of Religious Affairs was founded as an exclusively Sunni institution, and the Bektashi orders were banned in 1925.
[edit] Recent history
In the 20th century, many Alevis became involved in secular left-wing politics in Turkey, both in the establishment Republican People's Party and parties further to the left, some to the point of left-wing extremism. In the 1970s, Alevi-inhabited regions were a setting for violent conflicts between left-wing groups (often with an Alevi base) and MHP militants (supported by Sunni population).
In 1978, confrontation between Sunni residents and Alevi immigrants (mostly Alevi Kurds, particularly from Pazarcık) in Kahramanmaraş eventually led to a massacre by the ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves of the city's Alevi population, leaving over 100 dead. The incident was of key importance in the Turkish government's decision to declare martial law, and the eventual military coup in 1980.[1]. Alevis bore the brunt of the anti-leftwing backlash after Kenan Evren's coup in 1980, and of Islamic fundamentalist violence.
The oppression reached its dénouement in Sivas on 2 July 1993, when thirty six people Alevis, intellectuals, and a Dutch anthropologist) attending a cultural conference were burned to death in a hotel by Sunni locals. Attending the conference was a left-wing Turkish intellectual Aziz Nesin who was vastly hated amongst the Sunni Turkish community as it was he who attempted to publish Salman Rushdie's controversial novel Satanic Verses, in Turkey.
The Sunni locals in Sivas, after attending Friday prayers in a near by mosque, marched to the hotel in which the conference was taking place and set the building on fire. The Turkish government sees this incident as being aimed at Aziz Nesin only, yet most agree that the target was the Alevis since many of the Alevi victims in the fire were very important artists and musicians. One musician, Hasret Gültekin, the most important and influential bağlama saz player in modern time was also killed in this fire. Gültekin is still considered a great loss for Turkish and Kurdish culture by Alevis and otherwise.
The response from the security forces at the time and afterwards was weak. The assault took eight hours without a single intervention by the police and military. Alevis and most intellectuals in Turkey argue that the incident was triggered by the local government as flyers and leaflets were published and given out for days before the incident. The Turkish government refers to the Sivas Madımak Hotel incident as an attack towards the intellectuals but refuses to see it as an incident directed towards Alevis.
Alevism is now recognized in Turkish Law as an "indigenous" Anatolian religion, and the government now sponsors certain Alevi festivals.
[edit] Literature
- John Kingsley Birge, The Bektashi order of dervishes, London and Hartford, 1937 (out of print)
- Karin Vorhoff, Zwischen Glaube, Nation und neuer Gemeinschaft: Alevitische Identität in der Türkei der Gegenwart, Berlin, 1995
- Irène Mélikoff, Hadji Bektach, Un mythe et ses avatars. Genèse et évolution du soufisme populaire en Turquie., Leiden, 1998 [Islamic History and Civilization, Studies and Texts, volume 20], ISBN 90-04-10954-4
- Aykan Erdemir, "Tradition and Modernity: Alevis' Ambiguous Terms and Turkey's Ambivalent Subjects", Middle Eastern Studies, 2005, vol.41, no.6, pp.937-951.
- Ali Yaman and Aykan Erdemir, Alevism-Bektashism: A Brief Introduction, London: England Alevi Cultural Centre & Cem Evi, 2006, ISBN 975-98065-3-3
- John Brown, The Darvishes of Oriental Spiritualism, 1927, 1st Edition.
- Matti Moosa, Extremist Shiites: the Ghulat Sects, Syracuse University Press, 1988.
- Burhan Kocadağ, Alevi Bektaşi Tarihi, Can Yayınları, 1996.
- Irene Melikoff, Uyur İdik Uyardılar, Cem Yayınevi, 1993.
[edit] References
- ^ Zurcher, Eric. "Turkey: A Modern History". I.B. Tauris: London, 1993: 276-277
