The Kizilbash-Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia: Sufism, Politics and Community

by Ayfer Karakaya-Stump

The Kizilbash were at once key players in and the foremost victims of the Ottoman-Safavid conflict that defined the early modern Middle East. Today referred to as Alevis, they constitute the second largest faith community in modern Turkey, with smaller pockets of related groups in the Balkans. Yet several aspects of their history remain little understood or explored. This first comprehensive socio-political history of the Kizilbash/Alevi communities uses a recently surfaced corpus of sources generated within their milieu. It offers fresh answers to many questions concerning their origins and evolution from a revolutionary movement to an inward-looking religious order.

Genres: History

400 pages, Hardcover

Published December 17, 2019

Reviews

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating reexamination of the religious and social history of Anatolia that completely transformed my understanding of the relationships connecting Alevis to Bektashis, Sufis in general, the Kizilbash movement, and Iranian Shi’ism.