Alevis? Muslims or not...

[Dilsad]

I recently read somewhere in a poll someone mentioning weither or not Alevi are muslims.

So I am asking this question to Alevis and to non-alevis:

Do you think Alevis are muslims? and why?
I'm just curious to how much we all know about an important part of our own people...

DilSad.

[Diri]

There is an existing thread which has widely discussed this issue - maybe it is better to follow up where we were?

[Dilsad]

Great,

I'll do that then...which one is it?

Dilsad.

[Diri]

Look at "Islam is the religion of Kurds" I have re-entered the subject there

[Jamo]

Hi. My name Cem pronounced like Jam in English. I'm Kurdish, my parents are from Dersim (a Kurdish city in Anatolia). I'm an Alevi-Kurd and as far as I know we never pray in a mosque because it's called Hazreti Ali was killed in a mosque by sunnis. This is just an excuse I think. The fact is, we are not Muslims. Alevi is a religion which is a mix of Mazdaism (Zorastrism), Judaism, Christianity and unfortunately also Islam (Shia). There are a lot of differences between a Muslim and an Alevi. Here are some examples.

1. We don't go to the mosque
2. Sometimes we pray in buildings which are called "Cem Evi" which looks like a mosque or a synagoge.
3. We pray also at home we don't need a specific place like a Mosque or anything it is common that we fire a candle when we pray individually.
4. The pray can be in any language in Zazaki (Kurdish), Kurmandji (Kurdish) or in Turkish.
5. We accept the Qouran as a holly book of muslims but we don't follow the rules in it.
6. We are allowed to drink any kind of alcohol.
7. We have saints and holy places such as mountains or rivers.
8. I heard that some people eat pork (Wildpig) in Dersim. That includes me too.

There are many other things that make us differnt than Muslims.

Some Alevis say that we are Muslims because we used to say that since we lived for centuries in the Ottoman Empire. The Turks and Arabs always tried to convert us completly into Muslims. we Kurds from Dersim were always differnt than other Kurds who are muslims. We always fought the Turks and Arabs and always helped minorities and Armenians. Alevis respect all religions and are very peaceful. Our enemies the Turks tried to kill all of us in 1938 because we are Zaza (Kurds) who are Alevi.

[Jamo]

Hi. My name Cem pronounced like Jam in English. I'm originally from Dersim. I'm an Alevi and as far as I know we never pray in a mosque because it's called Hazreti Ali was killed in a mosque by sunnis. This is just an excuse I think. The fact is, we are not Muslims. Alevi is a religion which is a mix of Mazdaism (Zorastrism), Judaism, Christianity and unfortunately also Islam (Shia). There are a lot of differences between a Muslim and an Alevi. Here are some examples.

1. We don't go to the mosque
2. Sometimes we pray in buildings which are called "Cem Evi" which looks like a mosque or a synagoge.
3. We pray also at home we don't need a specific place like a Mosque or anything it is common that we fire a candle when we pray individually.
4. The pray can be in any language in Zazaki, Kurmandji (Kurdish) or in Turkish.
5. We accept the Quran as a holly book of muslims but we don't follow the rules in it.
6. We are allowed to drink any kind of alcohol.
7. We have saints and holy places such as mountains or rivers.
8. I heard that some people eat pork (Wildpig) in Dersim. That includes me too.

There are many other things that make us different than Muslims.

Some Alevis say that we are Muslims because we used to say that since we lived for centuries in the Ottoman Empire. The Turks and Arabs always tried to convert us completly into Muslims. we Kurds from Dersim were always differnt than other Kurds who are muslims. We always fought the Turks and Arabs and always helped minorities and Armenians. Alevis respect all religions and are very peaceful. Our enemies the Turks tried to kill all of us in 1938 because we are Zaza who are Alevi.

[UE_kurdophile]

Hi. My name Cem (...) I'm an Alevi-Kurd (...) The fact is, we are not Muslims. (....). There are a lot of differences between a Muslim and an Alevi. Here are some examples.
(...)
5. We accept the Qouran as a holly book of muslims but we don't follow the rules in it.

Hello Cem, welcome to the forum!
I have some Alevi friends and I am quite interested in your religion, I would like to understand more.
Can you please clarify point number 5? If Quran is accepted as a holy book for Muslims, it means Alevis consider themselves afterall Muslims too, but then again if you don't follow its rules it means the Quran is not accepted.. or do you accept only some parts? I need you rhelp!

Thanks!

[Diri]

I think it's like:

Muslims accept and respect the Bible and Torah as the respective holly books of Christians and Jews - but we do not follow their teachings...

Same thing...


Welcome Cem... Bi xêr amayî...

Bi xêr hatî!

Realy nice to have an Elewî Kurd here and not least a Kirmanckî speaker...

[Jamo]

You got it Diri we don't follow the teachings of Quran.

[Diri]

You got it Diri we don't follow the teachings of Quran.

But you know - among Sunni muslims (because they are the only neighbours the Elewî have) there have been rumours, or should I say "prejudice" that the Elewî have orgies in their Cem houses...

Which of course is ridiculous...

A very popular girls-name for Elewî girls (correct me if I am wrong);

Sema...

My nephew is called that too...

What exactly happens in a Cem, Jamo?

[Piling]

like in a sufî semâ, as I could see in Dersim, for the 10 of Muharram : dances, sings, lusic, prayers and the Pîr who led the semâ. But the semâ is made of men, women and childrens, very familial meeting, nothing to do with orgies !

[Diri]

like in a sufî semâ, as I could see in Dersim, for the 10 of Muharram : dances, sings, lusic, prayers and the Pîr who led the semâ. But the semâ is made of men, women and childrens, very familial meeting, nothing to do with orgies !

Yeah... Tell that to the prejudiced people...

Have you seen a Sema in Dersîm? Cool... Who was dancing then? Only Pîr etc?

By the way - I think I still believe as I did before this "Elewî are Muslim" stuff came up ---->> That the Elewî, like Êzidîsm and Ehlê Heq belong to the Cult of Angels ---> Yarsanism...

[schoolmaster1954]

http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/1999/issue4/jv3n4a5.html


Volume 3, No. 4 - December 1999


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE ALEVI OF ANATOLIA
By David Zeidan

Abstract: Many Middle Eastern state governments, including Turkey, have tended to deny or ignore ethnic diversity, promote one specific identity as unitary, monolithic, and characteristic of the entire population. In Turkey, the suppression of minority identities has affected the little-known Alevi population, an ethnic group that has not received much attention in the english-speaking world. The recent resurgence of Sunni fundamentalism in Turkey and the state’s adoption of a Turkish-Sunni national identity has heightened the Alevis’ problem.
Middle Eastern society is to a large extent still vertically segmented into ethnic/religious communities with complex allegiances that rise to the surface in times of stress. Contrary to the official state line of a monolithic population, Turkey is no exception: Turkish society exhibits great variety in its composition. (1) This is especially evident in rural areas where populations live naturally with their regional, religious, and ethnic differences.(2) These cleavages have also been transported to Turkey’s urban areas by massive rural migration.
Turkey’s main ethnic divide concerns the Kurdish population of southeastern Turkey, whose separatist struggle, especially as waged by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), has made headlines around the world. A lesser known minority is the Alevi community.(3)
Numbering about 15 million persons, the Alevis account for some 25 percent of Turkey’s population and constitute the country’s second largest religious community, after the Sunnis. Most Alevis are ethnically and linguistically Turkish, descended mainly from Central and Eastern Anatolia, though some 20 percent are Kurds.(4) Alevis use Turkish rather than Arabic for their religious ceremonies and literature.(5)
Alevis go by a number of names. They are called Kizilbash after the Turkemen followers of the Safavid Sufi order of the 15th and 16th centuries from which they emerged, and also Bektashi, after the Anatolian Bektashi Shi’a Sufi order founded in the 13th century to which many belong.(6) Other names include Tahtaci, Abdal, Cepni, and Zaza, which signify specific tribal and linguistic identities.(7) Note that Alevis are distinct from the Arabic-speaking extreme-Shi’a Alawis of Syria and Southwest Turkey.
Alevis traditionally inhabit rural Central and Eastern Anatolia, in particular the triangle Kayseri-Sivas-Divirgi. Kurdish Alevis are mainly found in the Tunceli, Elazig and Mus provinces of Southeastern Anatolia, and some tribal settlement of Tahtaci and Cepni exist on the Mediterranean coast. Many Alevis have migrated from their rural villages, which tend to be peripheral and underdeveloped, to the large industrialized cities of Western Turkey and to Western Europe, mainly Germany.
While there are many sub-groups among Alevis, the community tends to close ranks when it comes to the Sunni world, employing an “us” versus “them” approach and emphasizing its position as a marginalized religious/ethnic minority.(8) Observers in rural Anatolia have noticed stark differences between neighboring Alevi and Sunni villages.(9)
Alevi opposition to the Sunni Ottomans in the 16th century resulted in geographical and social marginalization.(10) In order to survive despite majority hostility and persecution, the Alevis developed into an endogamous religious community with definite ethnic markers and a tight social-religious network. Like Druze, Shi’a, and Alawis they practiced dissimulation and secrecy about their religion (taqiya). Not having a central religious authority, Alevis form a complex matrix of overlapping groupings based on lineage, regional, and Sufi order links.
Despite the Turkish republic’s avowedly secular stance, Sunni Islam has, especially since the 1980s, been supported as a quasi-state religion, much to the Alevis’ detriment.(11) Traditionally branded as heretics by the Sunnis, the Alevis still carry the stigma of being sectarian “others” today. Many Sunnis think the Alevis are unclean, practice immorality and orgies, and are not true Muslims. (12) Centuries of persecution, prejudice and misconceptions at the hands of the majority Sunnis have resulted in a persistent social gap between the Sunni and Alevi Turks.
Turkey’s secular elite and military tend to view the Sunni/Alevi rift as artificial and manipulated by various interest groups. However, the sectarian differences are deeply rooted in Turkish society, and today they operate in the context of mass media, the information revolution, and financial support of fundamentalism by the rich Oil states.(13)
Fears that Alevism would lose its unique characteristics were put to rest in the mid-1980s when, in the face of modernization, the Alevi community began to reconstruct and transform its communal identity patterns, and reformulate its traditions. This process is linked to a politicization of group members and an assertive reaffirmation of the collective Alevi identity. (14)
The weakening of Kemalist secularism in the 1990s has yielded two paradoxical trends for the Alevis. First, they have been threatened by the rise of fundamentalist Sunni political parties, which now constitute a significant bloc in the Turkish parliament, and even fielded Turkey’s first ever Islamist prime minister. (15) At the same time, Turkey’s liberalization and the growth of civil society has encouraged an Alevi revival which includes the founding of hundreds of Alevi religious societies in major cities and the public practice of Alevi rituals, kept hidden not so long ago.

[schoolmaster1954]

http://www.ic-el.org/english/Living%20I ... am%205.pdf





Newsletter, Pubished by: Islamic Centre of England
Vol.1, No.5, February 2006
Living Islam
In the month of Muharram 61 AH
(approx. 20 October 680 AD), an event
took place in Iraq at a place known as
Karbala on the bank of the river
Euphrates. It seemed in those days
insignificant from the historical point of
view. A large army which had been
mobilized by the Umayyad regime
besieged a group of persons numbering
less than a hundred and put them under
pressure to pay allegiance to the Caliph
of the time and submit to his authority.
The small group resisted and a severe
battle took place in which they were all
killed.
It appeared at that time that like hundreds
of similar events, this battle would be
recorded in history and forgotten in time.
However, the events that occurred on the
10th day of Muharram in Karbala were
to become a beacon and an inspiration
for future generations. In this article, we
shall examine briefly the principal
adversaries.

[Diri]

A link would suffice, Schoolmaster...