TURKOMANS BETWEEN TWO EMPIRES: THE ... - Bilkent University

movement found shelter in the frontier zones 186 , which was, on the one hand, relatively
immune to the interference of the Seljuk authority, and on the other, devoid of well-
established institutions of the ‘orthodox’ Islam. 187 Thus, most of those Babāī dervishes
flocked to Ottoman territory. 188 The most famous representatives of this group, such as
Shaykh Edebāli, Geyikli Baba, Abdal Musa, Kumral Abdal, and Seyyid Ali Sultan, had
all grown up in the Ottoman territories within the Vefāī-Babāī tradition. 189
As intermediaries between society and the ruling elite, Vefāī-Babāī shaykhs
might be regarded as chiefly responsible for enhancing the popularity of the Ottomans.
186 See, for example, Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, “Kalenderī Dervishes and Ottoman Administration from the
Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries”, Manifestations of Sainthood in Islam, ed. G. M. Smith and C. W.
Ernst, Istanbul: ISIS Press, 1994, p. 244; "Oppositions au soufsme dans l'Empire ottoman au quinzieme et
sezieme siecles", Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and Polemics, eds. F.
de Jong, B. Radtke, Brill, Leiden 1999; "Quelques remarques sur le role des derviches kalenderis dans les
mouvements populaires dans l'Empire Ottoman au XVe et XVle siecles ", Osmanlı Araştırmaları, III,
1982, p. 70 ; “Aleviliğin Tarihsel, Sosyal Tabanı Đle Teolojisi Arasındaki Đlişki Problemine Dair”, Tarihî
ve Kültürel Boyutlarıyla Türkiye’de Alevîler, Bektaşîler, Nusayrîler, Đstanbul: ĐSAV, Ensar Neşriyat,
1999, pp. 391-2; Babaîler Đsyanı, genişletilmiş ikinci baskı, Đstanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 1996, p. 210;
Irène Mélikoff, “Bektashi/Kizilbash Historical Bipartition and Its Consequences”, in her Au banquet des
quarante. Exploration au coeur du Bektachisme-Alevisme, Istanbul: ISIS Press, 2001, p. 43.
187
See Fuat Köprülü, “Anadolu’da Đslâmiyet”, in F. Babinger-F. Köprülü, Anadolu’da Đslâmiyet, haz.
Mehmet Kanar, Đstanbul: Đnsan Yayınları, 1996, pp. 63-5 (This article is originally published with the
same title in Dârülfünûn Edebiyat Fakültesi Mecmuası, IV, 1922-3, 291-303.); Paul Wittek, The Rise of
the Ottoman Empire, ...; Halil Đnalcık, “The Emergence of ..”; Irène Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “Le règne de
Selim Ier: tournant dans la vie politique et religieuse de l’empire ottoman”, Turcica, VI, 1975, pp. 35-42.
188
Halil Đnalcık, “Osmanlı Tarihi’ne Toplu Bir Bakış”, Osmanlı, ed. Güler Eren, Ankara, 1999, p. 38;
“Orhan”, p. 384.
189
For the adherence of these dervishes to Babāī movement see Fuat Köprülü, “Anadolu’da Đslâmiyet”,
pp. 63-4; Đnalcık, “Osmanlı Tarihi’ne Toplu Bir Bakış”, pp. 41, 48-50; Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, “Ahilik ve
Şeyh Edebalı: Osmanlı Devleti’nin Kuruluş Tarihi Açısından Bir Sorgulama”, Đslâmî Araştırmalar, 12/3-
4, 1999, 225-230; “Kalenderī Dervishes and Ottoman Administration from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth
Centuries”, p. 244; “Babaīler Đsyanından Kızılbaşlığa: Anadolu’da Đslâm Heterodoksisinin Doğuş ve
Gelişim Tarihine Kısa bir Bakış”, Belleten, LXIV/239, 2000, pp. 138-9. These Vefāī-Babāī dervishes are
usually called “Abdalān-i Rum”. This term is first used by Elvan Çelebi for the followers of Baba Đlyas,
but systematically put by the fifteenth century Ottoman historian Aşıkpaşazāde and then gained widecurrency
among writers. (See Elvan Çelebi, Menâkıbu’l-Kudsiyye Fî Menâsıbi’l-Ünsiyye. Baba Đlyas-ı
Horasânî ve Sülâlesinin Menkabevî Tarihi, haz. Đsmail E. Erünsal-Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, Ankara: TTK,
1995, 166; APZ, p. 237.) Köprülü regards abdals simply as a group of dervishes affiliated to Babāī
movement and distinguished with their latitudinarian way of religious life. (See, for example, his “Abdal”,
“Abdal”, Türk Halk Edebiyatı Ansiklopedisi, Đstanbul, 1935.) One of Köprülü’s students, Abdülbaki
Gölpınarlı, on the other hand, deems abdals as a separate and independent mystical order (tariqa). (See his
Yunus Emre ve Tasavvuf, Istanbul, 1961, pp. 17-50.) However, at the end both arrive at the same
conclusion that they constituted the origin of Bektashi Order.
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