Alevi history

During the great Turkish expansion from Central Asia into Iran and Anatolia in the Seljuk period (11–12th centuries), Turkmen nomad tribes accepted a Sufi and pro-Ali form of Islam that co-existed with some of their pre-Islamic customs.

Dervish founders of "tariqat" (Sufi orders) were revered as Saints (Wali) and called dede, baba, pir, or shaykh, and their tombs were serving as pilgrimage centres.

This order gained a great following in rural areas and it later developed in two branches: the Celebi clan, who claimed to be physical descendants of Hajji Bektash Wali, were called "Bel evlâdları" (children of the loins), and became the hereditary spiritual leaders of the rural Alevis; and the Babagan, those faithful to the path "Yol evlâdları" (children of the path) who dominated the official Bektashi Sufi order with its elected leadership.

Shah Isma'il was a hereditary leader of the Safaviyya Sufi order centered in Ardabil who led his (predominantly Azeri) followers in conquering Persia.

Shah Ismail's personal religious views are reflected in his Turkish-language Sufi poetry of a ghulat nature (he claimed divinity), of which selections came to be included in Alevi scriptural compilations, the Buyruks.

The religion of the Iranian populace, however, fell under the domination of Shia Arab clerics who downplayed the ghulat beliefs of the Turkish warrior class.

[2] The Ottomans had accepted Sunni Islam in the 13th century as a means to unifying their empire, and later proclaimed themselves its defenders against the Safavid Shia state and related heretical sects.

Ismail instigated a series of revolts culminating in a general Anatolian uprising against the Ottomans, whose Sultan Bayezid II mounted a major expedition 1502–1503 which pushed the Safavids and many of their Turkmen followers into Iran.

The successor of Bayezid II, Sultan Selim I "The Grim", launched a vigorous campaign into eastern Anatolia, utilising a religious edict condemning Alevis as apostates to massacre many.

[2] The Kizilbash in Anatolia were now militarily, politically and religiously separated from their source in Iran, retreated to isolated rural areas and turned inward, developing their unique structures and doctrines.

Following the severe persecution and massacres by the Ottomans which went on into the 18th century, Alevis went underground using taqiya, religious dissimulation permitted by all Shi`a groups, to conceal their faith (pretending to be Sunnis) and survive in a hostile environment.

Isolated from both the Sunni Ottomans and the Twelver Shi`a Safavids, Alevis developed traditions, practices, and doctrines by the early 17th century which marked them as a closed autonomous religious community.

[2] Meanwhile, the rulers of the Ottoman Empire gradually distanced themselves from their nomadic Turkic heritage, ultimately (during the thirteenth century) adopting the Sunni Islam of their Mediterranean subjects.

During the long rivalry with Safavid Qizilbash tribes fought for local control of the Anatolian highlands, and were responsible for several 15th and 16th century uprisings against the Ottomans.

Apparently a 16th-century folk musician from Sivas, Pir Sultan Abdal was known for playing a stringed instrument called the bağlama and singing songs critical of his Ottoman governors, in defense of the rights of the Anatolian peasantry.

[5] Under Ottoman rule the Alevis emerged as an endogamous ethnic group, primarily Turkish-speaking but also including Kurdish communities, concentrated in rural Anatolia.

In the years before and during World War I the Çelebi family, one of two leadership groups associated with the shrine of Haji Bektash, attempted to extend its authority to the village Bektashi (Alevi) dedes, whose own hierarchy was in disarray.

[7] Rural Alevis were marginalised and discriminated against in the Ottoman Empire, although the official Bektashiya order enjoyed a privileged role through its close association with the Janissary professional military corps.

[2] Kemalism turned Alevis into legally equal citizens, and its reforms had a radical impact on them as roads were built through their formerly isolated areas, compulsory schooling was introduced, and communications improved, drawing them out of their marginalisation into active engagement in social and political life and into deeper contact with the outside world and the state centre.

The early Kemalist republic is regarded as the ideal state in which the Alevis were fairly represented proportionately to their percentage of the total population in the National Assembly.

Alevis found that they still faced discrimination in employment and education, and again turned to taqiya for stigma management, adapting to Sunni ways in order to get a share of the scarce resources.

The downplay of religion in public life and the Westernization of the ruling elite tended to turn Alevism into just one of several cultural and folklorist themes in Turkish nationalism.

[2] Under The Adnan Menderes Government Administration, the Hacıbektaş centre was restored and reopened in 1964 as a museum, with annual celebrations in August for tourists in memory of the Saint.

[2] The violence of the 70s resulted in the military takeover of 1980 whose purges hurt Alevis harder than others because of their leftist commitment, and the Hacıbektaş celebrations were forbidden for several years.

[2] The return of many Turks to their religious roots and the politicization of their communal identities were a crisis response to modernity and the accelerated rate of change it forced on Turkish society.

In 1978 in the city of Kahramanmaraş in southern Turkey local Sunnis went on a rampage, slaughtering scores of leftist Alevis from the nearby villages in the worst massacre in living memory.

[18] Though the tensions were initially ignited by the bombing by right-wing militants of a cinema frequently visited by ultra-nationalists, the incident is best remembered for the subsequent campaign of violence directed against left-wingers, largely Alevis, although some left-wing Sunnis and Kurds were also targeted.

For the first time in modern history Alevis dared to publicly accept their stigmatized identity, articulate their collective interests towards the state, and demand equality with the Sunni majority.

[21] The inter-communal violence reached its dénouement in Sivas on 2 July 1993, when thirty-six people (Alevis, intellectuals, and a Dutch anthropologist) attending the Pir Sultan Abdal Festival were burned to death in a hotel by Sunni locals.