Papers by Ayfer KarakayaStump
Crafting History: Essays on the Ottoman World and Beyond in Honor of Cemal Kafadar, 2023
Ottoman politics of difference, i.e. the ways in which the empire managed its diversity, became a... more Ottoman politics of difference, i.e. the ways in which the empire managed its diversity, became a popular topic of scholarly discussion in recent years. Several books and articles that have taken up the issue since the 1980s highlighted the Ottomans’ pragmatic inclusivity vis-à-vis their ethnically and religiously diverse subjects, and their willingness to grant the various non-Muslim communities autonomy and freedom to practice their religions. Ottoman politics of difference as such have been contrasted with the exclusionary ideologies and practices of early modern European polities, in particular those of the contemporaneous Habsburgs. Today the Ottoman Empire frequently attracts mention in comparative discussions as a classic example of the plural society, which owed its endurance to ideological flexibility, political pragmatism and religious tolerance.
However, one limiting feature of the current literature on Ottoman politics of difference has been its heavy focus on the non-Muslim communities, and the relative absence in related discussions of sectarian minorities, such as the Kizilbash/Alevis, and Crypto-Christian or Crypto- Jewish communities, which orthodox Muslims viewed as "heretical" and/or "hypocritical." Unlike “regular” Jews and Christians, whose incorporation into the Ottoman polity was facilitated by the provisions of Islamic law that extended them a protected, albeit subordinate, status as “people of the book,” these “heterodox” and “heretical” Muslims were deprived of any legal recognition. Accused of blasphemy (sabb), hypocrisy (munafik), and apostasy (irtidad), and of intentions to undermine Islam from within, they were deemed liable to corporeal punishment (including but not exclusively capital punishment) according to the overwhelming majority of Muslim authorities, though opinions differed on the exact criterion to be used in establishing a case of heresy.
After reviewing the existing scholarship on the subject, our project aims to discuss the situational nature and limits of the Ottoman tolerance with a particular attention to the Anatolian Kizilbash/Alevi communities and the Judeo-Islamic crypto Sabbateans.
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Hakikatin Darına Durmak: Alevilikte Kadın, ed. by Bedriye Poyraz. Istanbul: Dipnot Yayınları, 2018
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9. Milletlerarası Türkoloji Kongresi Bildiriler Kitabı/9th International Congress of Turcology Proceedings Book, 2022
Geç Ortaçağ Anadolusu'nda sufi ve derviş dindarlığının en belirgin özelliklerinden biri içinde ba... more Geç Ortaçağ Anadolusu'nda sufi ve derviş dindarlığının en belirgin özelliklerinden biri içinde barındırdığı mezhepler üstü "Alici" damar ve güçlü bâtıni eğilimdir. Bu olgu bazı araştırmacılarca "mezhebi muğlaklık" (İngilizce "confessional ambiguity") olarak adlandırılmıştır. Bu tebliğin savı, söz konusu dindarlık şeklinin bir mezhebî muğlaklık olmaktan ziyade, belli bir tarihsel dönemde ortaya çıkmış ve yaygınlaşmış, kendine özgü bir dinsel veya mezhepsel tavır olarak anlaşılması gerektiğidir. Bu özgün mezhepsel tavrın en erken temsilcilerinden ve hatta kurucu figürlerinden biri, Irak menşeli Vefai Sufi geleneğinin isim babası, 11. yüzyılın önemli mutasavvıflarından Ebü'l-Vefa el-Bağdadi'dir (d.1026-ö.1107). Ebü'l-Vefa'nın karmaşık toplumsal, dinsel ve siyasal dinamiklerin etkisi altında şekillenmiş olan dinî profili, Sünni ve "ortodoks" olandan Şii ve "heterodoks" olana uzanan bir spektrum şeklinde algılanan mezheplere dair geleneksel tasavvuru ciddi şekilde sarsar. Ebü'l-Vefa'nın dinî profili, güçlü Alici yönelimle harmanlanmış bir Sünniliği-ilk üç halifenin meşru olduğu kabulüyle sınırlı asgari bir çerçevede olsa da-bünyesinde barındırır. Ancak onu bilhassa ilginç kılan, Sünni kimliğini antinomyan bir mizaç ile birleştirmesidir. Vefailiğin ve onun taşıyıcısı olduğu özgün mezhepsel tavrın doğru anlaşılıp Anadolu tarihinde hak ettiği yere oturtulması mezhebi muğlaklık olgusunun açıklanmasına katkı yapacağı gibi, belli tarihsel figürler etrafında ülkemizde süregiden "Alevi miydi? Sünni miydi?" tartışmalarının neden sorunlu ve tarih dışı olduğunu da gözler önüne serecektir.
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“Who really were the Kizilbash? A Rethinking of the Kizilbash Movement in Light of New Sources and Research.” In The World of the Safavids, ed. by Rudolph Matthee, 37-55. London & New York: Routledge, 2021., 2021
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The Kizilbash/Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia: Sufism, Politics and Community, 2019
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Kurdish Studies, 2020
Missionary reports are the earliest modern records to explicitly mention the Kizilbash, 1 and the... more Missionary reports are the earliest modern records to explicitly mention the Kizilbash, 1 and the "Kizilbash Kurds" in particular. Therefore, they have been utilised relatively extensively by researchers in the field, sometimes at levels disproportionate to their reliability and usefulness. This article develops my previous work on the perils of the missionary reports' utilization without sufficient critical scrutiny of their inherent biases and limitations, and highlights, on the basis of an original missionary letter, the editorial process that they were likely subjected to before publication. It argues that the real significance of these sources lies not in their broad and biased speculations concerning distant (Kurdish) Kizilbash origins, but in the casual observations and incidental details they unwittingly supply. Abstract in Kurmanji Hizrên li ser raporên mîsyonerî yên sedsala 19an wek çavkanî ji bo dîroka Qizilbaşan (ên kurd)
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Books by Ayfer KarakayaStump
The Kizilbash were at once key players in and the foremost victims of the Ottoman-Safavid confl... more 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.
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Papers by Ayfer KarakayaStump
However, one limiting feature of the current literature on Ottoman politics of difference has been its heavy focus on the non-Muslim communities, and the relative absence in related discussions of sectarian minorities, such as the Kizilbash/Alevis, and Crypto-Christian or Crypto- Jewish communities, which orthodox Muslims viewed as "heretical" and/or "hypocritical." Unlike “regular” Jews and Christians, whose incorporation into the Ottoman polity was facilitated by the provisions of Islamic law that extended them a protected, albeit subordinate, status as “people of the book,” these “heterodox” and “heretical” Muslims were deprived of any legal recognition. Accused of blasphemy (sabb), hypocrisy (munafik), and apostasy (irtidad), and of intentions to undermine Islam from within, they were deemed liable to corporeal punishment (including but not exclusively capital punishment) according to the overwhelming majority of Muslim authorities, though opinions differed on the exact criterion to be used in establishing a case of heresy.
After reviewing the existing scholarship on the subject, our project aims to discuss the situational nature and limits of the Ottoman tolerance with a particular attention to the Anatolian Kizilbash/Alevi communities and the Judeo-Islamic crypto Sabbateans.
Books by Ayfer KarakayaStump
However, one limiting feature of the current literature on Ottoman politics of difference has been its heavy focus on the non-Muslim communities, and the relative absence in related discussions of sectarian minorities, such as the Kizilbash/Alevis, and Crypto-Christian or Crypto- Jewish communities, which orthodox Muslims viewed as "heretical" and/or "hypocritical." Unlike “regular” Jews and Christians, whose incorporation into the Ottoman polity was facilitated by the provisions of Islamic law that extended them a protected, albeit subordinate, status as “people of the book,” these “heterodox” and “heretical” Muslims were deprived of any legal recognition. Accused of blasphemy (sabb), hypocrisy (munafik), and apostasy (irtidad), and of intentions to undermine Islam from within, they were deemed liable to corporeal punishment (including but not exclusively capital punishment) according to the overwhelming majority of Muslim authorities, though opinions differed on the exact criterion to be used in establishing a case of heresy.
After reviewing the existing scholarship on the subject, our project aims to discuss the situational nature and limits of the Ottoman tolerance with a particular attention to the Anatolian Kizilbash/Alevi communities and the Judeo-Islamic crypto Sabbateans.
Vefailik, Bektaşilik, Kızılbaşlık, bu yönde uzun yıllara yayılmış bir çabanın ürünüdür. Eserde yer alan makalelerin biri hariç tümü, 1990’lı yıllarda yaşanan Alevi kültürel canlanışını takiben gün yüzüne çıkmaya başlayan, Alevi dede ailelerinin özel arşivlerindeki belge ve yazmalara dayanmaktadır. Tarihçilerin ilgisini henüz yeterince çekememiş bu son derece önemli yeni yazılı kaynaklar Alevi-Bektaşi tarihinin ana meseleleri hakkında bize yepyeni veriler ve mevcut kalıpların ötesinde taze ve çok daha nüanslı bakış açıları sunmakla kalmamakta, aynı zamanda Anadolu dinsel ve kültürel tarihine dair “büyük hikâye”yi de önemli noktalarda tashih etmektedir.