The Kizilbash-Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia
Sufism, Politics and Community
- The first comprehensive social history of the Kizilbash/Alevi communities
- Combines conventional sources with newly discovered ones generated within the Kizilbash-Alevi milieu
- Argues for a readjustment in focus from pre-Islamic Central Asia to the cosmopolitan Sufi milieu of the Middle East when exploring genealogies of popular Islam in Anatolia
- Offers a critical assessment of the long-standing Köprülü paradigm in the field of religious and cultural history of Anatolia
- Provides a new perspective on the Ottoman-Safavid conflict, and on Sunni-Shiʿi confessionalisation in the early modern period
- Opens new avenues of research in the study of other ‘heterodox’ communities in the Islamic world
The Kizilbash were at once key players in and the foremost victims of the Ottoman-Safavid conflict that defined the early modern Middle East. Today referred to as Alevis, they constitute the second largest faith community in modern Turkey, with smaller pockets of related groups in the Balkans. Yet several aspects of their history remain little understood or explored. This first comprehensive socio-political history of the Kizilbash/Alevi communities uses a recently surfaced corpus of sources generated within their milieu. It offers fresh answers to many questions concerning their origins and evolution from a revolutionary movement to an inward-looking religious order.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Note on Transliteration
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Iraq Connection: Abu’l-Wafaʾ Taj al-ʿArifin and the Wafaʾi Order
Chapter 2. The Forgotten Forefathers: Wafaʾi Dervishes in Medieval Anatolia
Chapter 3. Hacı Bektaş and His Contested Legacy: The Abdals of Rum, the Bektashi Order, and the (Proto-)Kizilbash Communities
Chapter 4. A Transregional Kizilbash Network: The Iraqi Shrine Cities and Their Kizilbash Visitors
Chapter 5. Mysticism and Imperial Politics: The Safavids and the Making of the Kizilbash Milieu
Chapter 6. From Persecution to Confessionalization: The Consolidation of Kizilbash/Alevi Identity in Ottoman Anatolia
Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Rich in its source base, scrupulous in its analysis of difficult and unwieldy historical evidence, and full of revisionist findings that overturn conventional scholarly views on Kizilbash/Alevi origins, Karakaya-Stump’s study is a major breakthrough in the socio-religious history of late medieval and early modern Turkish Islam.
This is an important book that has the potential to help us rethink much of what we think we know about Sufism in the pre-modern and early modern eras.
The scholarly and social sensitivity Karakaya-Stump brought to bear during this work makes The Kizilbash-Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia an exemplary study that will inspire future scholarship, but which will not be easily equaled in scope and substance.
Stump’s book is a testimony to the strength of the historical approach of Ottoman studies at Harvard [...] A careful reconstruction based on sound method and a concern for the primary sources it provides us with a serious, sustained examination of the history of the Alevis, their links to Anatolian Sufi lineages including the Bektachis, and the association with the Kizilbash in the early modern period.
