Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

Ottoman central authorities in the sixteenth century, Safavid-inspired Shi'ism
converged with Türkmen tribes and the Bektasi order, but teleologically inclined
modern scholarship has written its religious history backward from this. Various
elements of the earlier tribal beliefs have been identified as heterodox — be
they the so-called survivals of shamanism, the alleged influences of batini
esotericism, or `Alid sympathies — and that heterodoxy then seen to be packaged
within an extremist Shi'ism.[40] Köprülü wrote, for instance, that "the Islam of
these Türkmen... was a syncrétisme resulting from the mixture of the old pagan
traditions of the early Turks, a simple and popular form of extremist Shi'ism —
with a veneer of Sufism — and certain local customs."[41] The most recent
student of the movement is ready to cast doubt on the Shi'ism of the Baba'is but
reiterates the views on batini influences, extremism, and heterodoxy.[42] A
revisionist view has attempted to turn this all around and has argued that the
Baba'is , as well as various other figures of Anatolian history who were
portrayed as Shi'is by Köprülü and Gö1pinarli, were "actually" orthodox and
Sunni.[43]
Elvan Çelebi's family hagiography provides evidence in both directions. There
are, on the one hand, motifs that fall beyond the purview of Sunni orthodoxy and
are part of the later `Alevi/Shi'i worldview. On the other hand, one of Baba
Ilyas's sons is named `Ömer and a disciple `Osman , names that a Shi'i cannot be
expected to honor.[44] The alleged adoption of Shi'ism by one of the western
Anatolian principalities is also suspect. There is indeed a treaty signed "in
the name of Muhammad , `Ali , Zeynel`abidin , Hasan , and Huseyin " by Aydinoglu
Hizir Beg in 1349. But the House of Aydin could hardly have been Shi'i with one
of its princes named `Osman (Hizir Begs uncle) and with strong links to the
Mevlevi order.[45] Perhaps Hizir Beg represented a particular case within the
family like Oljaitu of the Ilkhanids, but even then more evidence is needed than
a list of names that are perhaps more significant in the Shi'i tradition but are
certainly also revered by Sunnis.
Turkish nationalist-secularist ideology and Orientalist images of the warlike
but tolerant Inner Asian nomad have led to the depiction of nonsectarianism as a
national trait among Turks in the Muslim orbit. But
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Sultan Selim and Shah Isma`il should be sufficient proof that Turks are as
capable of sectarianism as anyone else. The latter's Türkmen followers may look
wildly antinomian from an orthodox Sunni point of view, but they demonstrate
that nomadic tribesfolk are not above turning to violence for their own
"correct" path. To the extent that nonsectarianism applies to earlier
Turco-Muslim polities, it ought to be seen as a product of historical
circumstances that made such sectarianism meaningless or pragmatically
undesirable until the sixteenth century.
The religious picture of Anatolia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
appears much more complex than the neat categorizations of a simple Sunni/Shi'i
dichotomy would allow. In this context, even if one were able to identify some
particular item of faith as heterodox, this would not necessarily imply "Shi'i"
as it is usually assumed; questions of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, even if they
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