Ottoman persecution of Alevis
Encyclopedia
The Ottoman persecution of Alevis is best known in connection with the Ottoman sultan Selim I's
reign (1512–1520) and his war against the Safavids in 1514. But there are examples that indicate that there already existed problems with Alevi
-like groups in the Ottoman Empire
since the 14th century.
groups already existed in the 14th century. An example of this can be found in Seyyid Ali Sultan's (also called Kızıldeli) hagiography, which mentions a certain dervish called Seyyid Rüstem (d. 1421). Accordingly, Seyyid Rüstem got in trouble with the local Ottoman officials, despite the fact that he had a personal agreement with the sultan Orhan I
to obtain some soil. As the official had heard of Seyyid Rüstem, he shouted: "How dare this Torlak make a mark on my land and depart from obedience? How can he live without my permission?" It should be mentioned that the term Torlak was a typical and often condescending name for Qālandar
people.
This also marks a twist in the Ottoman position into more closely following Orthodox
Islamic law (Sharia
), which did not fall on fertile ground among the more tolerant and mysterious dervishes. This is also an example of how the Ottoman Sultan
s went from being tribal and clan leaders, which had been the situation of Osman I
and Orhan I. The following period is characterized by being more centralist ruled, leading to the elimination of a number of local leaderships.
It is also known that the heterodox Shiite sect hurufiyya was widely spread in Iran
and Anatolia
and that they made propaganda in large parts of the Ottoman Empire. In 1445 a group of Hurufis managed to personally meet sultan Mehmed II
, with the intention to invite him to the Hurufi faith. The Sultan allowed them to speak for their cause, and also showed clear signs of interest in their mystical doctrines. This aroused discontent among Mehmed II's closest advisers who were not however, able to take direct action. So they decided to call a scholar named Fakhr al-Din 'Ajami, who pretended to be interested in the Hurufi doctrines and therefore invited the leader of the present Hurufis to his home. But when the Hurufi explained his faith, Fakhr al-Din could not keep himself from shouting "heretic!". The Hurufi then attempted to seek refuge with Mehmed II, but was subdued by Fakhr al-Din's aggressive behavior and therefore held back from defending his guests. The Hurufis were subsequently led to the new mosque in Edirne
, where Fakhr al-Din publicly denounced their faith and preached the spiritual rewards, one would obtain by attending to the extermination of their faith. The Hurufi Order was then ordered to make a huge bonfire to burn their own leader. The head of the Hurufis was then thrown on the fire and the other Hurufis were otherwise executed.
This incident also confirms the previous example with Orhan I
, where the Sultan's sympathy towards the Torlaks was also destroyed by officials. In the subsequent part of Mehmed II's reign the Ottoman Empire became extended towards both east and west and thus incorporated new areas where there were a greater propensity of heterodoxy. Hurufis and other heterodox Sufi groups were still subject to persecution and massacres in various parts of the Ottoman Empire.
In the mid-15th century there was also a strife between the Ottoman Empire and the semi-autonomic Karaman area. In 1468-1474 disputes led Mehmed II to drive out tribes, possibly Qizilbāsh, from this area to Rumelia
and in 1475 he made an end to the Karaman rule.
the relationship between the state and heterodox groups further worsened. Already by the assassination of the Safavid spiritual leader Shaykh Haydar in 1488, in a letter the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II had expressed that the news has multiplied my joy and about Haydar's supporters, the Qizilbāshes, he said: may God curse Haydar's heretical followers. Only four years later, in 1492, there was an attempt of murdering the sultan by a dervish and a document from 1501 also reveals that Bayezid II had ordered the execution of all Qizilbāshes who were captured from traveling to Iran
. The rest of his reign was also marked by numerous Qizilbāsh rebellions, which Bayezid II tried to overcome by deporting thousands of Qizilbāsh from Anatolia to some of the new conquered coastal areas of Greece
: Morea, Modon, Coron and Lepanto. The official reason for the deportations was that Qizilbāshes according to religious scholars were "infidels".
The oldest preserved religious statement (fatwa
) on the Qizilbāshes was also issued under Bayezid II by the then Ottoman Mufti
Hamza Saru Görez (d. 1512).
Bayezid II's son, Selim I
, however did not think his father had taken sufficiently hard measures against the Qizilbāshes. As governor of Trabzon
, he had been closely acquainted with the Safavids and the Qizilbāsh success in Iran
and eastern Anatolia. Against his father's desire he had also repeatedly mobilized military forces and made attacks on Safavid land. It is also known that Selim I had a great hatred towards Shia Muslims in general, especially the heterodox Qizilbāsh. Therefore liquidated three of his brothers and forced deposed his father to abdicate to himself to seize power. He then sent his father Bayezid II off on "vacation" after which he too was killed.
One of the first things Selim I did as sultan, was to get the Ottoman Shaykh ul-Islam ibni Kemal (d. 1533), to issue a new fatwa against the Qizilbāshes for once and for all to justify and legitimize the killing of them. Then he gathered a great army consisting of 200,000 men to lead a gratuitous war against the Safavids. On his way to the Safavid Empire in the east, Selim I sought out and prepared a register of all the Qizilbāshes he could tracked. 40,000 Qizilbāshes were thus massacred and Selim I then continued towards Safavid land. In the Ottoman source Selimşâh-name it says:
in the lead, the Ottoman Empire entered a war against the Safavid dynasty in 1514, that ended with an Ottoman victory.
Chāldirān symbolizes an important turning point for Qizilbāshes because this war was the culmination of the long Ottoman-Safavid conflict. The war also marked the loss of the only hope of safety the Qizilbāsh people had left.
Selim's reign marked one more thing: the Ottoman Empire with the conquest of the Mameluke Sultanate, now officially became an Islamic caliphate
, where governance was based on orthodox Islamic law (Sharia
).
. Qizilbāshes responded to the oppression by increasingly revolting against the Ottoman rule. These frequent rebellions continued periodically up to the early 17th century.
The extremely violent period from 16th to the 17th century, however, was eventually subdued a little, but the oppression of Qizilbāshes continued until the Ottoman capitulation.
Being "Qizilbāsh" was a crime on its own and Qizilbāshes were kept under constant surveillance. Some of the most frequently used surveillance and persecution methods in the Ottoman Empire were:
Some of the most common punishments were:
Corps in 1826.
According to historian Patrick Kinross, sultan Mahmud II
had knowingly encouraged drummer to revolt as part of the Sultan's "coup against the Janissaries." Through af fatwa, the sultan informed them that he was about to create a new army, organized and trained in accordance with European standards. As expected, the Janissaries then drew mutinied and advanced against the sultan's palace. In the following battle the Janissary barracks took fire because of a heavy artillery
attack. This resulted in the killing of 4,000(-8,000) Janissaries. The survivors were then either expelled or executed and their possessions were confiscated by the sultan. This event is called Vaka-i Hayriye (The Auspicious Event).
The remaining Janissaries were then executed by beheading in a tower in Thessaloniki
, which was later called "Blood Tower". In this context, there was also issued a (fatwa) which allowed the extermination and prohibition of the Bektashi Sufi Order. The former leader of the Bektashi Order, Hamdullah Çelebi, was initially sentenced to death, but then sent into exile in Amasya
where his mausoleum
exists today. Hundreds of Bektashi tekkes were closed and the working dervishs and babas were either executed or expelled. Some of the closed tekkes were transferred to the Sunni Naqshbandi
Order. It all resulted in the execution of 4,000-7,500 Bektashis and the demolition of at least 550 big Bektashi monasteries (dergâh).
The official reason for the prohibition of the Bektashi Order was "heresy" and "moral deviation".
) have also been practised secretly with several guards having to keep surveillance. Suppression has also been one of the reasons that Alevis often held their religious assemblies (ayin-i cem) at nights.
It is also noteworthy that most Alevi villages and settlements are very remote. They are usually located in high mountain areas, in deep valleys or surrounded by dense forest areas. Only a minority Alevi villages are located on lush and level plains. It is exactly because of the Ottoman persecution that Alevis have sought refuge in mountains to avoid attracting attention. The Turkish
province Tunceli is a good example of this. Tunceli is the province with the highest percentage of Alevis in Turkey and is known for being a "hard penetratable" and barren mountain area.
Moreover, many of the allegations and false rumors that were put into circulation by the 16th century Ottoman Empire, have survived up to this day. This has resulted in Alevis repeatedly being subjected to verbal attacks and violations in public and on television.
These circumstances have also caused the Alevis to feel like second-class citizens even after the founding of the democratic republic of Turkey. If one presents himself as a Muslim in Turkey, it is still often considered a matter of course that he is a "standard" Sunni Muslim. And Alevis are also often assessed from a Sunni perspective, which is why they often need to explain themselves on issues as why they do not pray in mosque
s or fast during Ramadan
. Many Alevis therefore demand a more tolerant and diversity conscious approach that can recognize and accept Alevis as they are, instead of being redefined and constantly questioned.
However, it is only recently that Turkey has begun to take account of Alevis and sincerely try to acknowledge their existence.
Selim I
Selim I, Yavuz Sultân Selim Khan, Hâdim-ül Haramain-ish Sharifain , nicknamed Yavuz "the Stern" or "the Steadfast", but often rendered in English as "the Grim" , was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to...
reign (1512–1520) and his war against the Safavids in 1514. But there are examples that indicate that there already existed problems with Alevi
Alevi
The Alevi are a religious and cultural community, primarily in Turkey, constituting probably more than 15 million people....
-like groups in the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
since the 14th century.
14th century
Ottoman problems with heterodox MuslimMuslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
groups already existed in the 14th century. An example of this can be found in Seyyid Ali Sultan's (also called Kızıldeli) hagiography, which mentions a certain dervish called Seyyid Rüstem (d. 1421). Accordingly, Seyyid Rüstem got in trouble with the local Ottoman officials, despite the fact that he had a personal agreement with the sultan Orhan I
Orhan I
Orhan I or Orhan Bey was the second bey of the nascent Ottoman Empire from 1326 to 1359...
to obtain some soil. As the official had heard of Seyyid Rüstem, he shouted: "How dare this Torlak make a mark on my land and depart from obedience? How can he live without my permission?" It should be mentioned that the term Torlak was a typical and often condescending name for Qālandar
Qalandariyah
The Qalandariyyah , Qalandaris or Kalandars are wandering Sufi dervishes. The term covers a variety of sects, not centrally organized. One was founded by Qalandar Yusuf al-Andalusi of Andalusia, Spain....
people.
This also marks a twist in the Ottoman position into more closely following Orthodox
Orthodoxy
The word orthodox, from Greek orthos + doxa , is generally used to mean the adherence to accepted norms, more specifically to creeds, especially in religion...
Islamic law (Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
), which did not fall on fertile ground among the more tolerant and mysterious dervishes. This is also an example of how the Ottoman Sultan
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
s went from being tribal and clan leaders, which had been the situation of Osman I
Osman I
Osman I or Othman I or El-Gazi Sultan Osman Ghazi, or Osman Bey or I. Osman, Osman Gazi Han), nicknamed "Kara" for his courage, was the leader of the Ottoman Turks, and the founder of the dynasty that established and ruled the Ottoman Empire...
and Orhan I. The following period is characterized by being more centralist ruled, leading to the elimination of a number of local leaderships.
The 15th century
The Ottoman state must have caused major discontent among heterodox groups, since a growing number of rebellions and problems occurred within the Empire from the 15th century. Among the most notable examples include the Shayhkh Bedreddin rebellion which began in 1416. This rebellion is believed to have been caused by a combination of socio-economic and religious problems. The rebellion which was also supported by non-Muslims were eventually defeated, and Shaykh Bedreddin was executed with his apostles (halife) in 1420.Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
and that they made propaganda in large parts of the Ottoman Empire. In 1445 a group of Hurufis managed to personally meet sultan Mehmed II
Mehmed II
Mehmed II , was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a short time from 1444 to September 1446, and later from...
, with the intention to invite him to the Hurufi faith. The Sultan allowed them to speak for their cause, and also showed clear signs of interest in their mystical doctrines. This aroused discontent among Mehmed II's closest advisers who were not however, able to take direct action. So they decided to call a scholar named Fakhr al-Din 'Ajami, who pretended to be interested in the Hurufi doctrines and therefore invited the leader of the present Hurufis to his home. But when the Hurufi explained his faith, Fakhr al-Din could not keep himself from shouting "heretic!". The Hurufi then attempted to seek refuge with Mehmed II, but was subdued by Fakhr al-Din's aggressive behavior and therefore held back from defending his guests. The Hurufis were subsequently led to the new mosque in Edirne
Edirne
Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...
, where Fakhr al-Din publicly denounced their faith and preached the spiritual rewards, one would obtain by attending to the extermination of their faith. The Hurufi Order was then ordered to make a huge bonfire to burn their own leader. The head of the Hurufis was then thrown on the fire and the other Hurufis were otherwise executed.
This incident also confirms the previous example with Orhan I
Orhan I
Orhan I or Orhan Bey was the second bey of the nascent Ottoman Empire from 1326 to 1359...
, where the Sultan's sympathy towards the Torlaks was also destroyed by officials. In the subsequent part of Mehmed II's reign the Ottoman Empire became extended towards both east and west and thus incorporated new areas where there were a greater propensity of heterodoxy. Hurufis and other heterodox Sufi groups were still subject to persecution and massacres in various parts of the Ottoman Empire.
In the mid-15th century there was also a strife between the Ottoman Empire and the semi-autonomic Karaman area. In 1468-1474 disputes led Mehmed II to drive out tribes, possibly Qizilbāsh, from this area to Rumelia
Rumelia
Rumelia was an historical region comprising the territories of the Ottoman Empire in Europe...
and in 1475 he made an end to the Karaman rule.
During Bayezid II (1481-1512)
During the sultan Bayezid IIBayezid II
Bayezid II or Sultân Bayezid-î Velî was the oldest son and successor of Mehmed II, ruling as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1481 to 1512...
the relationship between the state and heterodox groups further worsened. Already by the assassination of the Safavid spiritual leader Shaykh Haydar in 1488, in a letter the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II had expressed that the news has multiplied my joy and about Haydar's supporters, the Qizilbāshes, he said: may God curse Haydar's heretical followers. Only four years later, in 1492, there was an attempt of murdering the sultan by a dervish and a document from 1501 also reveals that Bayezid II had ordered the execution of all Qizilbāshes who were captured from traveling to Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
. The rest of his reign was also marked by numerous Qizilbāsh rebellions, which Bayezid II tried to overcome by deporting thousands of Qizilbāsh from Anatolia to some of the new conquered coastal areas of Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
: Morea, Modon, Coron and Lepanto. The official reason for the deportations was that Qizilbāshes according to religious scholars were "infidels".
The oldest preserved religious statement (fatwa
Fatwa
A fatwā in the Islamic faith is a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar. In Sunni Islam any fatwā is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar. The person who issues a fatwā...
) on the Qizilbāshes was also issued under Bayezid II by the then Ottoman Mufti
Mufti
A mufti is a Sunni Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law . In religious administrative terms, a mufti is roughly equivalent to a deacon to a Sunni population...
Hamza Saru Görez (d. 1512).
During Selim I (1512-1520)
Selim I
Selim I, Yavuz Sultân Selim Khan, Hâdim-ül Haramain-ish Sharifain , nicknamed Yavuz "the Stern" or "the Steadfast", but often rendered in English as "the Grim" , was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to...
, however did not think his father had taken sufficiently hard measures against the Qizilbāshes. As governor of Trabzon
Trabzon
Trabzon is a city on the Black Sea coast of north-eastern Turkey and the capital of Trabzon Province. Trabzon, located on the historical Silk Road, became a melting pot of religions, languages and culture for centuries and a trade gateway to Iran in the southeast and the Caucasus to the northeast...
, he had been closely acquainted with the Safavids and the Qizilbāsh success in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and eastern Anatolia. Against his father's desire he had also repeatedly mobilized military forces and made attacks on Safavid land. It is also known that Selim I had a great hatred towards Shia Muslims in general, especially the heterodox Qizilbāsh. Therefore liquidated three of his brothers and forced deposed his father to abdicate to himself to seize power. He then sent his father Bayezid II off on "vacation" after which he too was killed.
One of the first things Selim I did as sultan, was to get the Ottoman Shaykh ul-Islam ibni Kemal (d. 1533), to issue a new fatwa against the Qizilbāshes for once and for all to justify and legitimize the killing of them. Then he gathered a great army consisting of 200,000 men to lead a gratuitous war against the Safavids. On his way to the Safavid Empire in the east, Selim I sought out and prepared a register of all the Qizilbāshes he could tracked. 40,000 Qizilbāshes were thus massacred and Selim I then continued towards Safavid land. In the Ottoman source Selimşâh-name it says:
Battle of Chāldirān (1514)
With Selim ISelim I
Selim I, Yavuz Sultân Selim Khan, Hâdim-ül Haramain-ish Sharifain , nicknamed Yavuz "the Stern" or "the Steadfast", but often rendered in English as "the Grim" , was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to...
in the lead, the Ottoman Empire entered a war against the Safavid dynasty in 1514, that ended with an Ottoman victory.
Chāldirān symbolizes an important turning point for Qizilbāshes because this war was the culmination of the long Ottoman-Safavid conflict. The war also marked the loss of the only hope of safety the Qizilbāsh people had left.
Selim's reign marked one more thing: the Ottoman Empire with the conquest of the Mameluke Sultanate, now officially became an Islamic caliphate
Caliphate
The term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...
, where governance was based on orthodox Islamic law (Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
).
After Selim I
After Selim I's reign the subsequent sultans continued the same harsh treatment towards Qizilbāshes in AnatoliaAnatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
. Qizilbāshes responded to the oppression by increasingly revolting against the Ottoman rule. These frequent rebellions continued periodically up to the early 17th century.
The extremely violent period from 16th to the 17th century, however, was eventually subdued a little, but the oppression of Qizilbāshes continued until the Ottoman capitulation.
Typical persecution methods
From the early 16th century the Ottoman administration was specialized in "chasing" Qizilbāshes. This century was perhaps the most harsh century for the Alevis (Qizilbāshes). They were persecuted for both sympathizing with the Safavid struggle, but also because of their "heretical" beliefs. In order to capture Qizilbāshes the Ottoman state used several methods.Being "Qizilbāsh" was a crime on its own and Qizilbāshes were kept under constant surveillance. Some of the most frequently used surveillance and persecution methods in the Ottoman Empire were:
- Persecution based on others' reports / notifications.
- Open or secret persecution.
- By asking people who were regarded as more "credible" or "objective", for example officials or Sunnis.
Typical punishment methods
The Ottomans also had different methods of punishment against Qizilbāshes. Most of the punishments took place by fabricating a reason to kill them. These false accusations were often led into the formal procedures to make them seem more realistic. In cases where the accused Qizilbāshes had many sympathizers or relatives, the Ottoman regime tried to avoid riots by not killing too many at a time.Some of the most common punishments were:
- Expulsion: Many Qizilbāshs were expelled to CyprusCyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
and cut off from their villages and families, but the Qizilbāshes who were halifes were executed immediately. The most typical displacement locations were Cyprus, Modon, Coroni, Budun(?) and PlovdivPlovdivPlovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...
.
- Imprisonment: Some were also jailed and then usually expelled to Cyprus to cut them off from their families.
- Forced labor: A second method of punishment was to send Qizilbāshs for forced labor on galleys (Kürek mahkumiyeti) where they should work as oarsmen.
- Drowning: Some Qizilbāshes was executed by being drowned in the Halys River (Kızılırmak), others were executed "on the spot". Other times Qizilbāshes were executed with the sole purpose, to deter other Qizilbāshs and give them a "lesson".
- Execution: This method which was often termed siyaset or hakkından gelme in the Ottoman archives, was perhaps the most widely used method of punishment of Qizilbāshes.
- StoningStoningStoning, or lapidation, is a form of capital punishment whereby a group throws stones at a person until the person dies. No individual among the group can be identified as the one who kills the subject, yet everyone involved plainly bears some degree of moral culpability. This is in contrast to the...
: Although stoning was normally only used against people who had committed adultery, this punishment method was also used on Qizilbāshes. There is an example of a Qizilbāsh named "Koyun Baba" which was stoned because of his faith.
Religious rulings (fatwa)
The first religious statement on the Qizilbāshes was probably issued under Bayezid II within the first years of the 16th century, but the oldest preserved fatwa is the one belonging to Hamza Saru Görez (d. 1512), an Ottoman Mufti of Bayezid II's reign:Prohibition of the Bektashi Order (1826)
From the 19th century the Bektashis who meanwhile had benefited from an Ottoman acceptance also suffered persecution. This began after the Ottoman aboilition of the Bektashi JanissaryJanissary
The Janissaries were infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops and bodyguards...
Corps in 1826.
According to historian Patrick Kinross, sultan Mahmud II
Mahmud II
Mahmud II was the 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. He was born in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, the son of Sultan Abdulhamid I...
had knowingly encouraged drummer to revolt as part of the Sultan's "coup against the Janissaries." Through af fatwa, the sultan informed them that he was about to create a new army, organized and trained in accordance with European standards. As expected, the Janissaries then drew mutinied and advanced against the sultan's palace. In the following battle the Janissary barracks took fire because of a heavy artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
attack. This resulted in the killing of 4,000(-8,000) Janissaries. The survivors were then either expelled or executed and their possessions were confiscated by the sultan. This event is called Vaka-i Hayriye (The Auspicious Event).
The remaining Janissaries were then executed by beheading in a tower in Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
, which was later called "Blood Tower". In this context, there was also issued a (fatwa) which allowed the extermination and prohibition of the Bektashi Sufi Order. The former leader of the Bektashi Order, Hamdullah Çelebi, was initially sentenced to death, but then sent into exile in Amasya
Amasya
- History :Its location in this steep valley makes the city a mountain stronghold, easy to defend, and thus Amasya has had a long and prominent history.-Antiquity:...
where his mausoleum
Mausoleum
A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or persons. A monument without the interment is a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type of tomb or the tomb may be considered to be within the...
exists today. Hundreds of Bektashi tekkes were closed and the working dervishs and babas were either executed or expelled. Some of the closed tekkes were transferred to the Sunni Naqshbandi
Naqshbandi
Naqshbandi is one of the major Sufi spiritual orders of Sufi Islam. It is considered to be a "Potent" order.The Naqshbandi order is over 1,300 years old, and is active today...
Order. It all resulted in the execution of 4,000-7,500 Bektashis and the demolition of at least 550 big Bektashi monasteries (dergâh).
The official reason for the prohibition of the Bektashi Order was "heresy" and "moral deviation".
Implications of persecution
The century-long suppression has led to a general fear among Alevis. This has meant that until recently they still have tended to keep their identity hidden from strangers. Their religious assemblies (ayin-i cemCem
Prince Cem , December 22, 1459 – February 25, 1495) was a pretender to the Ottoman throne in the 15th century. He was a son of Mehmed II the Conqueror and younger brother of Sultan Bayezid II. He was banished to Europe, first under the protection of the Knights Hospitaller of St...
) have also been practised secretly with several guards having to keep surveillance. Suppression has also been one of the reasons that Alevis often held their religious assemblies (ayin-i cem) at nights.
It is also noteworthy that most Alevi villages and settlements are very remote. They are usually located in high mountain areas, in deep valleys or surrounded by dense forest areas. Only a minority Alevi villages are located on lush and level plains. It is exactly because of the Ottoman persecution that Alevis have sought refuge in mountains to avoid attracting attention. The Turkish
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
province Tunceli is a good example of this. Tunceli is the province with the highest percentage of Alevis in Turkey and is known for being a "hard penetratable" and barren mountain area.
Moreover, many of the allegations and false rumors that were put into circulation by the 16th century Ottoman Empire, have survived up to this day. This has resulted in Alevis repeatedly being subjected to verbal attacks and violations in public and on television.
These circumstances have also caused the Alevis to feel like second-class citizens even after the founding of the democratic republic of Turkey. If one presents himself as a Muslim in Turkey, it is still often considered a matter of course that he is a "standard" Sunni Muslim. And Alevis are also often assessed from a Sunni perspective, which is why they often need to explain themselves on issues as why they do not pray in mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
s or fast during Ramadan
Ramadan
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which lasts 29 or 30 days. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex during daylight hours and is intended to teach Muslims about patience, spirituality, humility and...
. Many Alevis therefore demand a more tolerant and diversity conscious approach that can recognize and accept Alevis as they are, instead of being redefined and constantly questioned.
However, it is only recently that Turkey has begun to take account of Alevis and sincerely try to acknowledge their existence.