Kartal Cemevi
The Kartal Cemevi is a meeting and prayer house ( Cemevi ) of the Alevis in the Kartal district of the largest Turkish city of Istanbul .
The assembly and church in Kartal is an expression of the influx of predominantly rural Alevis, who only began to build assembly houses (cemevis) in the 1980s. The Cemevi in Kartal, one of the Asian districts of Istanbul with over 400,000 inhabitants, is a building complex with an adjoining house of prayer, which is not only used to hold a Cem . It has numerous separate rooms in several buildings, which are also used for teaching activities, Koran lessons, cultural and dance performances or meetings, and also has its own library.
In contrast to the rural areas, where the majority of Alevis live, there is a weekly Cem in the house even during the harvest season. This has to do with the fact that there are enough dedes available in the metropolitan area , which play a central role in the ceremony. A Cemevi is the Alevi counterpart to a Sunni mosque in Turkey , but the two institutions are very different from each other. The presence of quarreling people at the service is not permitted, so that all those present endeavor to resolve the conflict and thus to reach an agreement.
The architect of the building is Gökçe Gencay , who symbolized numerous elements of the Alevi faith in the building. The 12-sided rotunda symbolizes the 12 imams . The Kartal Cemevi is therefore unusual in terms of its design, but also its size and appearance. So there is no minaret or interior design that makes the preacher stand out; Men and women celebrate the Cem ceremony, i.e. the service, on an equal footing and without spatial separation, and those who prayer and prayers are on the same level. The building does not have a minaret because there is no call to prayer. With its area of 2000 m² and a total construction area of the complex consisting of several buildings of 5850 m², the building is one of the largest Alevi meeting places and places of worship in Istanbul.
The complex is also the headquarters of the Kartal Cemevi Foundation. This foundation was set up in 1993 as the Kartal Cemevi cultural, educational and social assistance association , the charter of which was initially signed by 62 members. When the association was founded, it had 88 members. In 1996 the association was transformed into a foundation.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Murut Es: Alevis in Cemevis: Religion and Secularims in Turkey , in: Irene Becci, Marian Burchardt, Jose Casanova (ed.): Topographies of Faith. Religion in Urban Spaces , Brill, Leiden 2010, pp. 25–44, here: pp. 28–42, Kartal cemevi on p. 35.
- ↑ Kartal Cem Evi Vakfi, Başkan Altinok Öz ile Buluştu .
- ↑ Kartal Cemevi Vakfı website of the foundation , archive.org, November 25, 2013.
Coordinates: 40 ° 54 ′ 4.8 ″ N , 29 ° 11 ′ 21.2 ″ E