Bektashism(s) in the Age of Nation-States

Throughout Ottoman history, the Bektashi order experienced ups and downs, which were, at times, quite sharp. In the age of nation-states, it featured an equally erratic trajectory, but was consistent in one particular aspect: the consolidation of the national character of the Bektashi identity (or identities) at the expense of the former imperial framework.

Nationalization of Bektashism (or Bektashisms) entailed nationalizing the cultural tone of the Bektashi tradition, preserving the Batini religious doctrine and the Twelver Shia mythology that the Bektashis had in common with the Alevis, and promoting a particularly territorial and national power center. Although related to the production of a certain kind of scholarly knowledge on Kızılbaş-Alevis and Bektashis in line with nationalist ends, as elaborated on by Markus Dreßler, this was a different process on its own. It was the Bektashis themselves who substantially transformed the Bektashi tradition (or traditions) accordingly.

This was mainly conditioned by the solidifying of national borders between the former imperial domains, and shaped by political agencies of various actors. Intra-Bektashi competition was also a decisive factor. Regarding the Babagan Bektashis, who join the path through individual initiation and follow Bektashi babas appointed with an alike process irrespective of lineage, this could be tracked in the mid-twentieth-century disputes around Dedebabate, that is, the highest religious authority for them. The milestone was Salih Niyazi Dedebaba’s departure in 1941.

For a national school of Bektashism, a presence of national cultural elements or some kind of nationalistic aspiration is only a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. In the late Ottoman era, two significant examples of this are Nafi Baba, the sheikh of the Şehitlik Convent in Rumelihisarı, Istanbul, and Naim Frasheri, whom Robert Elsie designates the poet of the Albanian nationalist movement in the 19th century.

On the gravestone of Nafi Baba, who passed away in 1912, it reads in Turkish “gönderirdi vatanın hayr dua her yanına,” which means “he had sent blessings to every part of the homeland.” Engaged in the Young Turks, the inscription on Nafi Baba’s gravestone embodied the way he tended to integrate progressive patriotism in the modern sense into his Sufi religious duty.

Born to the renown Albanian family Frasheris, Naim Frasheri came to the fore with his sixteen-page booklet Fletore e Bektashinjet (that is, Bektashi Notebook) first published in 1896. There he basically defined the Bektashi doctrine based on nationalist and patriotic values, advocated for the independence of Albanian Bektashism from the central convent in Hacıbektaş, and proposed Albanian translations for key Bektashi terms, such as atë and gjysh instead of baba and dede.

However, solely the presence of such visions did not generate nationalization. The imperial framework sustained. National schools could emerge only after the passing away of Salih Niyazi Dedebaba, the last of the undisputed Dedebabas and a unifying power under dispersive circumstances. Various actors got involved in it, and politics significantly mattered. The protracted debates around Dedebabate in between 1941–49, which resulted in the election of three rival Dedebabas in Albania, Egypt and Turkey, might be taken as the moment of birth for each.

Without immersing in too much detail, Ahmed Muhtar Dede’s election, in 1947, as the Dedebaba served as the climax. Albania was already in a long-lasted turmoil; Italy had invaded back in 1939. The Albanian society and the Bektashis themselves were politically polarized between the governing National Front Party and Enver Hoxha’s communist party waging a partisan warfare against the Italian occupation. The communist partisans captured the capital city of Tirana in late 1944, and proclaimed the people’s republic in 1946. Then in 1947, Ahmed Muhtar Dede assumed the duty with open support from the communists, and in a position to mediate between the government and the Bektashi order. Two years later, in 1949, a certain group of Albanian and Turkish Bektashis, who regarded him a “puppet” of Albanian communists and therefore unfit for Dedebabate, gathered in Cairo, and elected Ahmed Sırrı Baba as Dedebaba. Meanwhile a large group of Turkish Bektashis were accepting Ali Naci Baykal as Salih Niyazi Dedebaba’s successor, claiming that the latter had, back in 1930, left Baykal as his deputy Dedebaba before fleeing to Albania and that Baykal was already elected as the principal Dedebaba after his death. Succeeding Baykal in 1960, Bedri Noyan resumed this claim, and further elaborated on it.

This organizational split, which has long consolidated, eventually culminated in distinct national Bektashisms. National schools shared the common Bektashi religious doctrine, but differentiated in cultural and political domains. Notwithstanding nuances in various aspects, they all shared (and still share) a Batini doctrine and Twelver Shia mythology that had much in common with the Alevis; and culturally nationalized their discourses and practices in order to integrate Bektashism (or Bektashisms) into nation-building processes. Accordingly, each of them also promoted their own territorial power center as the legitimate Bektashi authority.

In 1925, the young Republic of Turkey enacted the Law 677, which entailed a set of regulations aimed at radically secularizing the society and effectively outlawed critical aspects of Sufi activities. Dismayed by the restriction on dervish veneer and narrowed space for Bektashi activities in Turkey, Salih Niyazi Dedebaba, in 1930, fled to Albania, where he was born, to manage the Bektashi order from there. Soon after, he established the World Bektashi Headquarters in Tirana.

As an ethnic Albanian himself, Salih Niyazi Dedebaba’s inauguration of the Headquarters in Tirana marked nothing but the actual realization of Naim Frasheri’s nationalist vision of Albanian independence from the central convent in Hacıbektaş. It is crystal-clear that this was not Salih Niyazi Dedebaba’s intent. However, consolidation of national polities and an aggregation of various political agencies turned it into a factor that contributed to the nationalization of Bektashism (or Bektashisms).

The main parameters are the ways in which each:

1. Nationalized the cultural tone of Bektashi discourses and practices;
2. Maintained the basics of the Batini religious doctrine and the Twelver Shia symbolism;
3. Promoted their own territorial power center.

Ilir Hamzaj goes beyond simplistic inferences confined to victimhood and external domination, and offers a rather complex picture of internal debates and various political agencies. Until he was deposed in 1958, Ahmed Muhtar Dede was in a position of actively negotiating for the interests and priorities of the Bektashi order. For a nuanced understanding of Ahmed Muhtar Dede’s rise to Dedebabate as a pro-communist baba, his role in shaping the government’s policy, and in reviving Bektashi activities should be taken into consideration.

On the part of Enver Hoxha’s government, Ahmed Muhtar Dede’s rise to Dedebabate was a gain for sure, but also a compromise from the original plan. As early as in 1945, the government was pushing for a reform plan to secularize the Bektashi tradition thoroughly and turning it into a merely civilian entity. Frustrated with the reform initiative, Abbas Hilmi Baba, the Dedebaba of the time, took a radical action in March 1947; he killed two reformist babas who were also linked to the government and then committed suicide. Ahmed Muhtar Dede, a communist baba and former partisan, assumed Dedebabate afterwards, and adopted the role of a mediator.

Ahmed Muhtar Dede dismissed reformist babas and tried reinvigorating the Bektashi order by reinviting former dervishes to attire them himself in Bektashi veneer and popularizing the order among the Albanian youth. While lobbying for reviving the Bektashi World Headquarters for socialist Albania and the Eastern Bloc would benefit from this, he also tried appeasing fellow Bektashis regarding religious freedom. In 1991, one who re-opened the Bektashi World Headquarters in Tirana was Reshad Bardhy, a dervish and Ahmed Muhtar Dede’s younger companion whom he had appointed his deputy in the post-1967 era when all religions were effectively banned. Basics of the Bektashi doctrine were maintained; the territorial power center in Tirana was promoted; and Albanian Bektashism managed to adapt to changing conditions several times and, in the end, survived. Without overlooking objections to his manoeuvres, Ahmed Muhtar Dede objectively played a role in that. The proposal of the Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order is yet another initiative in that manner on the part of Baba Mondi, who succeeded Reshad Bardhy.

The Turkish case was largely shaped by competition with Ahmed Sırrı Baba’s claim for Dedebabate, and doctrinal compromise was being compensated with concomitant moves. During Ahmed Sırrı Baba’s visit to Turkey in early 1950s, a group of babas and dervishes recognized him as the legitimate Dedebaba, but some others did not. The ground for an alternative Dedebabate in Turkey under Ali Naci Baykal was mainly framed by his successor Bedri Noyan. Noyan’s strategy was based on justifying the Kemalist secularization project and Bektashi adaptation to it through a nationalist perspective. Noyan suggested centering morality on Bektashi values and integrating Bektashism into the national cultural and literary canon.

Regarding Ahmed Sırrı Baba’s visit to Turkey and short period of detention due to breach of Law 677 by wearing Bektashi veneer and performing Bektashi rituals, Noyan referred to Ali Rıza Kadimi Öğe, a former police chief and fellow Bektashi, who accused Ahmed Sırrı Baba of showing off, which is incompatible with a dervish’s humility. Noyan also insisted it was improper not to observe the Turkish laws. This perfectly fit in his strategy to reinterpret the Bektashi tradition in a way rather compatible with the Kemalist reforms.

Citing Hasan Ragıb Erensel, a fellow Bektashi and the chief doctor at the Presidency during Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s term, Noyan conveys Ali Nutki Baba’s comments to Atatürk on the Bektashi tradition. Ali Nutki Baba, who is generally considered to be the true Nur Baba portrayed in a very negative way in Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu’s eponymous novel, is reported saying the Bektashis established a social order for the Turkish nation centuries ago, and emphasizing certain Bektashi practices such as men and women sitting together and Bektashi contribution to the Turkish literature and Turkish folk music. Clearly in line with Baha Said’s theory of Alevi communities as the bearers of the very essence of a pure Turkish culture, he was articulating certain Bektashi practices and cultural work as an affirmation of and contribution to the progressive reforms of the time. This served to nationalize the Bektashi tradition. Bedri Noyan illustrated it further in a way that also justified his claim for Dedebabate and reinforced the Batini aspect of Bektashism.

Noyan mentions his dialogue with Cafer Sadık Bektaş Baba, a senior Bektashi who took pledge for celibacy as early as 1898 and served in Crete, and claims the Baba’s affirmation of Noyan’s fitness for Dedebabate and of his proposal of “clearing Bektashism of unnecessary details and rituals.” Regarding the question of celibacy, which was historically the case for Dedebabas, Noyan states that the Baba rejected the idea it is a must, saying successors of Hacı Bektaş himself were not celibate either. Besides, Noyan also adds, in passing, that Cafer Sadık Bektaş Baba was of the Dedekargıns, which is a prominent Alevi ocak. This is also a reinstating of his Alevi-friendly approach, which he expresses in his criticism of the nineteenth-century Chelebi Bektashis who favored pençecis against the tarikçis, saying that defaming the latter was an improper act of offending fellow Alevi communities. Last but not least, Noyan also cites, in passing, Hilmi Ziya Ülken who links Hacı Bektaş Veli’s religious lineage with Najmaddin al-Kubra instead of Ahmed Yesevi. Unlike Yesevi’s line, the Kubrawiya order eventually gained a clearly Shiite identity. Noyan’s referral to Ülken in this matter unquestionably distances the Bektashis from Sunnism, which serves connecting to the broader Alevi tradition.

As for Ahmed Sırrı Baba and the Egyptian Bektashis, it was yet another attempt at a nationalized school. Although it ceased to exist in mid-twentieth century, the Egyptian case equally possessed the main parameters of nationalized schools.

In her biography of Rexheb Baba, the founder of the Bektashi convent in Detroit, USA, Frances Trix mentions a tradition of the Egyptian Bektashis on the granting of the splendid space for convent in Muqattam Hills: Bektashis from Egypt used to narrate a miracle that once Mehmed Ali, the son of Abbas Pasha who reigned between 1848–54, fell down from the balcony when he was a very little kid, and it was Qayghusuz Sultan who immediately arrived and saved him. Qayghusuz Sultan had, back in late fourteenth century, travelled from Elmalı to Cairo to establish a Sufi lodge. The locals believe he is at rest in Muqattam. This miraculous narrative also offers insight into the way Egyptian Bektashis embedded themselves in Egyptian territory through a certain divine favor to the dynastic family. Coupled with the long Sufi history of Muqattam in general, this narrative and the believed-to-be tomb of Qayghusuz Sultan lay the ground for special emphasis on the very space of the convent, which is yet another aspect of nationalizing the Bektashi tradition in Egypt.

As for the religious dimension, Ahmed Sırrı Baba’s Müzekkere, published in 1949 and also added to the final edition of his Risala, is a classical vird, which might suggest a Sunnitized Sufi practice. However, the context of the text and further evidence on the lived faith of Egyptian Bektashism offer a diverging picture.

“…took the pledge as dervish … and he was entitled with the spiritual tag (Shah Ismail).”

Müzekkere was published immediately after Ahmed Sırrı Baba’s election as Dedebaba, which also necessitated the claim to re-activate the World Bektashi Headquarters within the Cairo convent. They simply needed to appease the concerns of the Sunni ulama. Based on Bektashi registers, the frequency of initiations during Nawruz and Ashura significantly increased in the 1940s. In 1949, a certain Bektashi disciple was awarded the spiritual tag “Shah Ismail” when he was promoted to dervishhood. Such evidence suggests that the Egyptian Bektashis maintained the Batini Sufi doctrine and the Twelver Shia symbolism that they largely shared with the Alevis.

The second quarter of the 20th century witnessed quite sudden and sharp upheavals that profoundly changed the world that earlier generations lived in. Divided along consolidating national borders, Bektashi entities in Albania, Turkey and Egypt faced different challenges, struggled in various ways to adapt to the changing world around them, and competed with one another in order to assert one’s own authority and legitimacy. The conception of nationalized schools of Bektashism may offer a fruitful framework to study various aspects of the Bektashi tradition and Bektashi clusters in the age of nation-states.