Changing Conditions, Changing Discourse: Bektashis and Other Sufis in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic Turkey, 1826 to 1950

Workshop des Teilprojekts B05

21.07.2025 – 22.07.2025

The workshop will focus on the Sufi response to the changes in their social and political setting in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey from 1826 to 1950. Its goal is to deepen an understanding of how Sufi communities reacted to a changing environment that brought tightened state-surveillance, prohibitions of Sufi activities, systematic state intervention in and regulation of Islamic endowments (Evkaf), the emergence of a modern public and a new media-scape. A focus will lie to the re-organisation of communication both within and outside of Sufi communities. The Bektashi order may receive special attention as this order was prohibited not only once, in 1925, but also a century earlier, in 1826.
That the Sufi orders by and large survived prohibitions and persecutions cannot only be explained with practices of vigilance, secrecy and state inefficiency, but needs also a comprehension of their intellectual, spiritual and doctrinal reaction, in short: the changes in their discourse and self-expression within the constantly changing socio-political landscape.
Sufi orders are a longstanding topic in the Ottoman studies, present already when matters Turkish were largely regarded a part of Islamic (or, rather, Arabic) philology. This approach has always paid attention to mystical theology, doctrines and rites as well as devotional literature. In recent decades, research has concentrated on institutional change and the social history of Sufism. Relatively neglected have been intellectual reactions to different forms of modernity, active adaption to new legal and social challenges, and cooperative interactions between communities. Likewise, people at the margins of the orders, namely sympathizers without or with only a low-level initiation, or those with a multiple affiliation have rarely been considered.
At the workshop, we will attempt to illuminate the Sufi perspective on changing realities, tracing their transformation through sources such as ego documents, Sufi publications, fictional works, and more.