The Kizilbash-Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia: Sufism, Politics and Community(Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire)

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.

Table of Contents:
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

About the Author :
Ayfer Karakaya-Stump is Associate Professor of History at The College of William and Mary. She has published articles in Turcica, International Journal of Turkish Studies and British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, and has published a monograph in Turkish with Bilgi University Press (2015).

Review :
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.