Subjects of the Sultan, Disciples of the Shah

Download or read book Subjects of the Sultan, Disciples of the Shah written by Ayfer Karakaya Stump and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chapters two and three deal with the trajectory of the Alevi-Bektashi symbiosis. Highlighting Alevis' historical ties to the Abdal/Bektashi convent in Karbala, these chapters propose looking beyond the central Bektashi convent in Kirsehir for a fuller grasp of the issue. Chapter four, devoted to Alevi-Safavid relations, argues that the Alevis conceived of their bond with the Safavids primarily in Sufi terms and that they continued in their spiritual attachment to the shahs even after the revolutionary phase of the Kizilbash movement. Relations between the shahs and their Anatolian followers were maintained through the mediation of the Abdal/Bektashi convent in Karbala. Until the late seventeenth century, the Safavids also continued to bestow hilafetnames on members of Alevi ocaks and to dispatch religious treatises to Anatolia. The Safavid memory among the Alevis began to fade away following the demise of the dynasty around the mid-eighteenth century and the subsequent increase in influence of the Çelebi Bektashis among them.