Bektashi

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Dollmatekke of the Bektashi inside the fortress in Kruja, Albania

The Bektaschi - Tarīqa (also Bektashi ; Albanian  Bektashizma or Bektashizmi , Turkish Bektaşilik ) is one of the largest and most influential Islamic - Alevi dervish orders in Anatolia and the Balkans . The Sufi and mystic Hajji Bektash (Turkish spelling Hacı Bektaş Veli ; † 1270), to which all Alevis also refer, is traditionally considered the founder of the order . However, it is very likely that only the order was named after this man and not that he founded his own order with his name. This legendary mystic, to whom the Bektashi can be traced back, is also venerated by the Alevis as the most important saint after ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib . Balım Sultan is considered the founder .

history

The order of the Bektashi originated in the second half of the 13th century in Seljuk- ruled Asia Minor . The teaching and prayer practice of the community goes back to Hajji Bektash . He emigrated originally as Yesevi -Derwisch of Khorasan from Anatolia. The members of the order named after him venerate him as the founder of the community, but it is more likely that only early followers of Hajji Bektash formed an order.

Dervishes in the Tekke of Përmet in southern Albania (Photo Edith Durham , 1904)

The closeness of the teachings and views of the more urban Bektaschi orders to the more rural Alevism leads to an extensive equation of the two communities, so that they are often referred to together as Alevi / Bektaschi. In the past there was also the general opinion that one could only become Alevite by being born into an Alevi family, whereas Bektaschi could become anyone who joins the order. If one considers these connections, the Bektashi Tarīqa appears as a kind of Sufi way of Alevism.

Historically, there were two groups of Bektashi; a group, the so-called "Çelebi", claimed to be direct descendants of Hajji Bektash (bel evladi) . A larger group of Bektaschi, also called “Dede” or “Dedebaba”, however, claimed that Hajji Bektasch had no physical offspring at all, but only spiritual disciples (yol evladi) .

Bektashism was well received by the Anatolian rural population and spread from the 14th century to the Balkans, first in Macedonia and Kosovo , then also in Romania and Hungary . The dervishes Sarı Saltık Baba , Hıdır Baba and Sersem Ali Dede from Anatolia were among the first missionaries .

Orhan I. is considered the founder of the Janissaries and is said to have asked Hajji Bektash for his blessing and a name for his elite soldiers. From the 16th century onwards, Bektashi dervishes lived near the janissary garrisons to spiritually guide the soldiers there.

In 1826 the Bektashi suffered a severe setback in both Albania and Anatolia when Sultan Mahmud II disbanded the Janissary troops and ordered the closure of all Bektashi-Tekken in the empire. This sultan announced through a fetva that he would create a new army that would be organized and trained according to European standards. As expected, the janissaries marched mutinously against the sultan's palace. In the battle that followed, the Janissaries' barracks burned down after a heavy artillery attack . 4000 (-8000) Janissaries were killed. The survivors were evicted or executed and their property confiscated. The event is called Vaka-i Hayriye ( The Beneficial Event ).

The remaining Janissaries were beheaded in a tower in Thessaloniki , which was later called the "Blood Tower". Another fetva was enacted, which resulted in the ban on the Sufi Bektashi order. The head of the Bektashi order, Hamdullah Çelebi , was first sentenced to death, then exiled to Amasya , where his mausoleum still exists today. Hundreds of Bektashi- Tekken were closed and dervishes were executed or driven out. Some of the closed tekkes were transferred to the Sunni Naqschbandi Order. In the course of the events, over 4000–7500 Bektaschis were executed and at least 550 Bektashi monasteries ( dergâh ) were destroyed. The official justification for banning the Bektashi order was " heresy " and "moral deviation".

In Albania, however, the order quickly revived after the death of Sultan Mahmud II and reached its peak in the second half of the 19th century. 15 percent of the Albanian population supported the Bektashi. In the Balkan Wars (1912/1913) 80 percent of the Tekken in Epirus and southern Albania were destroyed by the Greeks. The Order found it difficult to recover from this blow.

Until the ban on all dervish orders in Turkey by the state founder Kemal Ataturk in 1925, the order had its center in Anatolia, since 1931 in Albania ( Tirana ). Since then, most of the Bektashi have been Albanians . In the mid-1940s there were around 280 babas and simple dervishes in Albania, and in the 1960s there were still fifty Bektashi-Tekken with around eighty dervishes. After Albania was declared the first atheist state in the world in 1967, most of the holy places of the Bektashi were destroyed. Many members received prison terms. Until the collapse of the communist dictatorship , only five babas and one dervish had survived. There were only six Tekken that were still recognizable as cult buildings.

Before the Second World War , Bektaschi emigrated and continued the tradition of the order in the USA. The American Tekke was set up in 1954 by Baba Rexheb in Detroit . After the ban on religion in Albania was lifted in 1990, the international center of the Bektashi Order was re-established in Tirana. In 2005/2006 the Bektaschi built a large educational center in Vlora .

organization

Edmond Brahimaj , head of the Bektashi since 2011
Entrance to the world center of the Bektashi in the Albanian capital Tirana
Education center of the Bektaschi in Vlora in southern Albania

The Bektashi run convents ( tekken ) where dervishes work. The head of the Bektashi- Tariqa is the (grand) - Dede (Dedebaba) , Dede means something like 'grandfather'. The next rank is the Halifebaba , then that of the Baba ('father'). This rank holds the duties of preaching and pastoral care. The middle station is that of the dervish , who like the baba can be married or lead a celibate life. At the end of the hierarchy is the normally initiated member, the Talib or Muhibb ('lover'). The Bektashi were last headed by Dedebaba Reshat Bardhi , who died on April 2, 2011. Baba Edmond Brahimaj was appointed his successor in the summer of 2011 .

In Albania , the Bektashi split off in 1946 from the Muslim Community of Albania , which represented the Sunnis and other Sufi orders, and are, alongside the Christian churches and Sunni Islam, an officially recognized religious community by the state. In Turkey they have not been re-approved since a ban in the 1920s, but are more or less tolerated by the authorities. At the end of the 19th century they played an important role in founding the first US university in the Middle East, Robert College , which was built right next to the main Tekke in Istanbul . Since the death of longtime Dedebaba Bedri Noyan in 1997, the Bektashi community in Turkey has been split into two groups, each with its own Dedebabas.

Religious practice

The Bektashi religious practice differs from Islamic orthodoxy. Prayer is not tied to certain times of the day, but rather concentrates on certain hours of the evening, when work rests and the believers can spiritually open themselves to the ceremonies of Cem in contemplative devotion . In this rite, the believers - women and men, young and old, poor and rich - are brought into a mystical mood of being one ( El ele ve el hakka ) through song, music and the recitation of hymns and heroic sagas accompanied by the saz instrument ), in which all indiscriminately and together stretch their hands towards the Creator ( Hak-Tanri-Allah ).

The Semah dance is the ritual dance of the Alevis and Bektashi that takes place within the Cem ceremony. It is the physical-spiritual expression of the eternal return of all creations, because in the Semah dance women and men (as a symbol of the antagonistic yet mutually dependent opposites) turn in a circle and symbolically simulate the orbit of the planets around the sun .

The Bektaschi celebrate their highest festival every year in August for five days on Mount Tomorr near Berat in southern Albania, where they visit Abbas Ali's Türbe .

To describe the Bektashi way of life, the following anecdote is told: “The Caliph visited the head of the Bektashi order. When he saw the lush vineyards around the convent of the Order, he asked: 'My dear friend, what are you doing with all the grapes?' 'Oh,' replies the dervish, 'we like to eat sweet, ripe grapes.' The caliph replied: 'But it is impossible to eat so many grapes.' The dervish replied: 'That's no problem. What we cannot eat, we press and store it in wooden barrels. And what happens then is solely the will of Allah. '"

literature

  • Statuti i komunitetit Bektashian shqiptar . Vlora 1924 (statutes of the Albanian Bektashi community).
  • Manfred Backhausen: Alevism-Bektaschism. Information about an unknown Islam . Fromm Verlag, Saarbrücken 2013, ISBN 978-3-8416-0431-6 .
  • Robert Elsie : Islam and the dervish sects of Albania. Notes on their history, distribution and the current situation . In: Kakanien revisited . Olzheim May 27, 2004, OCLC 732379135 ( online version of the article (PDF; 159 kB) and associated bibliography (PDF; 100 kB)).
  • John Kingsley Birge: The Bektashi Order of Dervishes . Luzac & Co., London 1937 (Facsimile: John Kingsley Birge: The Bektashi Order of Dervishes. Luzac Oriental, London 1994, ISBN 1-898942-00-5 .).
  • Abdülkadir Haas: The Bektaşi. Rites and mysteries of an Islamic order . EXpress Edition, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-88548-354-8 (Religion and Mystik series).
  • Frederick William Hasluck: Christianity and Islam under the Sultans . Ed .: Margaret Masson Hardie Hasluck. tape 2 . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1929, pp. 483-596 ( online version of the article ).

Web links

Commons : Bektashi Order  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The Bektasi Order. Archived from the original on January 17, 2016 ; Retrieved March 3, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Duyuru Panosu. Retrieved September 26, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Alevis, Haji Bektash and the Bektashi. Retrieved September 26, 2014 .
  4. ↑ a b İsmail Özmen & Koçak Yunus: Hamdullah Çelebi'nin Savunması, - Bir inanç abidesinin çileli yaşamı , Ankara, 2008, p. 74
  5. ↑ Patrick Kinross: The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire London, Perennial, 1977, pp. 456–457.
  6. ↑ İsmail Özmen, Koçak Yunus: Hamdullah Çelebi'nin Savunması - Bir inanç abidesinin çileli yaşamı. Ankara 2008, pp. 70-71
  7. ↑ Cemal Şener: Osmanlı Belgelerinde Alevilik-Bektaşilik, in BEKTAŞİLİĞİN KALDIRILMASI. uzumbaba.com, accessed May 19, 2010 .
  8. ↑ İsmail Özmen & Koçak Yunus: Hamdullah Çelebi'nin Savunması - Bir inanç abidesinin çileli yaşamı , Ankara, 2008, p. 207
  9. ↑ İsmail Özmen & Koçak Yunus: Hamdullah Çelebi'nin Savunması - Bir inanç abidesinin çileli yaşamı, Ankara, 2008, p. 205
  10. ↑ a b Olsi Jazexhi: Yearbook of Muslims in Europe . Ed .: Jørgen Nielsen, Samim Akgönül, Ahmet Alibašić , Egdunas Racius. tape 5 . Brill, Leiden, Boston 2013, Albania, pp. 25 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed March 12, 2016]).
  11. ^ Friedrich Schrader : North and South . Ed .: Robert College. November 1919, p. 165-169 .
  12. ↑ Michael Skasa : The Sunday supplement of October 25, 2009, Bayerischer Rundfunk , Bayern 2