Reading Matter in a Sufi Tekke: Book Lists of Bektashi Tekkes in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Abstract

The present paper examines library stocks of Bektashi tekkes from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The focus is mainly on hitherto unknown book lists of nine tekkes from Albania during the late 1920s. The library stock of the tekkes gives an insight into the intellectual heritage and circulated book-based knowledge of the Bektashi order. The analysis of different tekke libraries provides general assumptions concerning translocal overlaps. Simultaneously, the study reveals local characteristics and differences of particular tekkes. By comparing the aforementioned book lists with others of Bektashi institutions from different regions and periods, we can infer continuities and discontinuities in the transmission of written knowledge. Furthermore, the book stocks exemplify the religious negotiation within the officially forbidden order since 1826 between conformity with the predominant Islamic discourse and nonconformism.