BEKTASHIYAH. - An order of dervishes (v.) whose eponym is the Muslim saint Hāggī Bektāš Vali. According to legendary accounts he was born in Nišāpūr and was a disciple of Ahmed Jesevi. Under the sultan Örḥān (1326-59) he is said to have converted the janissaries to Islam. It does not appear that he was the founder of the Order which later took his name. The B. appear clearly in history from the beginning of the 16th century. The religious movement which finds its systematization in the Turkish west in Bektashism goes back to an ancient date, and the Qizlibāš (red heads) in eastern Asia Minor and in Kurdistan, and the 'Alī lāhī (deifiers of 'Alī) in Persia profess doctrines very similar to those of the B.
In B. doctrine there survives the Sufi idea (v. 50-FISMO) of the original equality of all religions and of the uselessness of external worship. Many Christian, Gnostic and even pagan (shamanistic) elements make the picture of the doctrines of this singular sect even more motley. Although they often proclaim themselves Sunnis, they are in reality extreme Shiites: they recognize twelve Imāms, and the tombs of the saints are so venerated that the devotions performed before them even replace ritual prayer. They venerate a kind of trinity (Allāh, Mohammed, 'Alī) and in their assemblies, which take place in the mejdān ("arena" or meeting hall in the convent), they celebrate a kind of sacred agape in which they distribute bread, wine and cheese. They confess their sins to their superiors and receive forgiveness from them. The prohibition of drinking wine and the veiling of women are abolished. Some of them live in celibacy; indeed it seems that celibacy was their primitive rule.
The B. have developed the mysticism of numbers and of the letters of the alphabet and hold in high esteem the works of Fazlullāh (founder of the cabalistic sect of the hurūft). They also admit metempsychosis.
The Order was directed by a grand master who resided in the mother house at Hāggī Bektāš (between Kīrşehir and Caesarea). The office was not hereditary, but in later times it had been constantly transmitted from father to son. The superior of each convent (tekhīkh) is called Bābā, the simple dervish is called mūrid and the lay brother mūstēšib. The B. also had special garments (white cloak, segmented cap, etc.). Their political importance was based on their close union with the janissaries, so much so that they took part in numerous revolts of this turbulent corps, whose suppression in 1826 by order of the sultan Mahmūd II was a grave blow for the B.; a great number of convents were destroyed and numerous leaders condemned to death. Gradually, however, the Order rose again and had a notable flourishing, until the Turkish Republic dealt it the death blow with the abolition of the tekhīkh and of the religious Orders (1925).
Bibliography
Alessandro Bausani