The Bektaşiyya

Abstract

As a distinctively Ottoman phenomenon, the Bektasiyya Sufi order is distinguished among myriad Sufi brotherhoods in the Islamic world. Bektasiyya's history is divided into three periods as the formative period, the tariqa period, and the period after the abolition of the tariqa in 1826. Given this periodization, this chapter focuses on the history of the Bektasiyya dervishes during the formative period, which comprises roughly two and a half centuries between the first and the second founders of the order, namely, Haci Bektas Veli and Balim Sultan. It thereby aims to explain how the spiritual legacy of Haci Bektas grew into one of the greatest Sufi orders of the Ottoman world. By assuming that Haci Bektas was celibate, contemporary scholarship has tended to underestimate the important role of the Celebi family in the Bektasiyya history. It is universally accepted by both Bektasiyyas and contemporary scholars that the Bektasiyya Sufi order was institutionalized by Balim Sultan during the early sixteenth century.