Bektashi Sufi Order

Abstract

One of the most famous of the Sufi orders (tarikat) of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, and the Balkans, the Bektashi order is known for its Shiʿi orientation, its immanentist Sufism, and its free spirit and wit, and is recognizable by the elaborate symbolic costume of its dervishes and babas. While the term “Bektashi” is often used today as if to indicate any tradition related to the 13th-century eponym Haji Bektash Veli, and so including the Kizilbash/Alevis, as well as being used in reference to the tradition under the leadership of the Çelebis, who are considered the descendants of Haji Bektash, the tradition discussed here is the dervish order led by babas (and thus often referred to as Babagân), typified in the premodern period by training in tekkes, non-hereditary membership defined by initiation, and still today recognizable by the costume of its dervishes. The course of this group’s history has certainly crossed and blended with, and emerged from the same historical milieu as, those of the Alevis and Çelebis, so some reference will be made to them in this bibliography. The Bektashi order has been studied especially for its history, its tekkes (convents or lodges), its relationships to the Janissary corps and the Ottoman state, its cult of saints, and its poetry. Studies have been made in English, French, and German, but mostly in Turkish. Many works by and about Bektashis were written in Ottoman-era Turkish in the Arabic-based script, so modern published editions of these often involve transcription into the modern Latin-based alphabet and/or rendering into modern Turkish phraseology.