Haji Bektash Veli (Persian: حاجی بکتاش ولی, romanized: Ḥājī Baktāš Walī; Ottoman Turkish: حاجی بکتاش ولی, romanized: Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli; Albanian: Haxhi Bektash Veliu; c. 1209–1271) was an Islamic scholar, mystic, saint, sayyid, and philosopher from Khorasan who lived and taught in Anatolia.

Genealogies encountered in later sources and designed to fill the obvious gap in time are all questionable and may well have been inspired by a wish—analogous to that of the fabricators of the Safavid genealogy—to give Bektash, as the eponym of a nominally Shia order, Imami descent.

[9] According to "The history of Aşıkpaşazade" (Aşıkpaşazade Tarihi), written by one of the grandsons of "Aşık Pasha" who was the son of "Muhlis Paşa" (Muhlees Pāshā) who was the son of renowned Bābā Eliyās al-Khorāsānī, "Sayyeed Muhammad ibn Sayyeed Ebrāheem Ātā" had come to Sivas, Anatolia from Khorasan with his brother "Menteş" (Mantash) to become affiliated with the tariqat of Bābā Eliyās al-Khorāsānī.

According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the "center and source of his teachings" was ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, whom Alevis believe to be the righteous successor of Muhammad while also "acknowledging the twelve Shia Imams" and "holding Jafar as-Sadiq in high esteem".

[11] Despite his Shia belief and his unorthodox teachings, he is considered a renowned figure in the history and culture of both the Ottoman Empire and the modern nation-state of Turkey.

On the other hand, Ibn Khallikan reports that Shī'ite tendencies belonged not to him but rather to his murids, who took refuge in his tekke at Suluca Kara Oyuk in Kırşehir after the Babai Revolt.

[14] The sisilah of Hadji Baktāsh Wālī reaches to the Yasawi Order through another but a similar tariqah, which is well known as the Wafā'īyyah Order of Abu’l Wafā al-Khwarazmī, who was a murid of Ahmad Yasawi and the murshid of Dede Ğarkhen, who was in turn the murshid of Bābā Eliyās al-Khorāsānī († 1240), an influential mystic from Eastern Persia.

Eventually, Bābā Eliyās Khorāsānī was held responsible for the Babai revolt organized by Baba Ishak, and consequently executed by Mubāriz’ud-Dīn-i Armāğān-Shāh,[15] the supreme commander-in-chief of the armies of the Sultanate of Rum.

For these reasons, his silsila gets connected to Ahmad Yasawi through two different channels, one by means of the Wafā’i and the other through Qutb ad-Dīn Haydar.

He was highly respected by the Sultanate of Rum due to his amicable attitude during the Babai revolt, and his khanqah in Suluca Kara Oyuk was permitted to remain open during and after it, thereby saving most of the lives of the Alevi survivors.

Then Hunkar Haji Bektash opened his blessed mouth and said, "I am the secret of the exalted Imam Ali, who is the dispenser of the River Kawthar and who is the Lion of Allah, the Emperor of Sainthood and the Commander of the Faithful.

Hunkar Haji Bektash Veli removed the skull cap from his blessed head and all saw a divinely illuminated mole of emerald tint between his brow.

Bektashism spread from Anatolia through the Ottomans primarily into the Balkans, where its leaders (known as dedes or babas) helped convert many to Islam.