∵
Driving uphill through a maze of narrow streets in the northeast of Tirana, Albania, the visitor reaches the imposing stone gate leading into the compound of the World Headquarters (Kryegjyshata)2 of the Bektashis, an Albanian Sufi order.3 Set against snow-capped mountains on the horizon, the central rectangular concrete building houses the main Sufi lodge (teqe; Turkish tekke), which includes the Bektashis’ main ritual hall (mejdan). It is flanked on the one side by a guesthouse and on the other by the tombs (tyrbes; Turkish türbes) of charismatic Bektashi authorities.4 On important Bektashi holidays, such as Sultan Nevrus on March 22 (a public holiday in Albania since 1996 commemorating the New Year and the birthday of Imam Ali) or the Day of Ashura, crowds of visitors from all over Albania and abroad come to pay their respects. These are days of intense diplomatic activity, and the Dedebaba Haxhi Edmond Brahimaj (b. 1959), world leader (Kryegjysh) of the Albanian Bektashis since 2011, receives dignitaries, foreign diplomats, and religious and political leaders from around the world.
While access to the mejdan is reserved for initiated members only, the space in which important visitors from outside the community are officially received offers an insight into Albanian Bektashi religious materiality (Rosler et al. 2013, 10–37)5 and its symbolic meanings and ideas (Ortner 1973, 1338–1346).6 Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Albania, Macedonia, and Kosovo from 2011 to 2013 and in the summer of 2019, as well as material evidence collected in Albanian Bektashi communities, this chapter explores the ways in which Albanian Bektashis utilize material elements (including objects, illustrations, and costumes) to create complex and nuanced modes of religious expression. In doing so, I aim to shed light on their visual codes and aesthetic rhetoric. Like Webb Keane (1997, xiv; 8), I understand these representations as religious ‘practices’ situated “at the unstable boundary at which the ‘symbolic’ and the ‘material’ meet.” Drawing on recent methodological tendencies inspired by the ‘material turn,’7 I consider “material things and practices as symbols to be interpreted for the religious meanings they carry” (Hazard 2016, 59; also, Geertz 1973). In this chapter, I ask: What type of symbolic ‘things’ does the visitor encounter in the carefully choreographed ‘public’ meeting space of the Kryegjyshata? What kinds of aesthetic forms – “the skin of religion,” to use the words of Brent S. Plate (2012) – of Bektashi Shiʿi belief and piety were selected to generate meaning here? And how are these contextually contingent material expressions conceived by visitors?
The pictured narratives displayed in the reception room in the Kryegjyshata provide an important resource for the material communication of contemporary Albanian Bektashis’ religious conceptualizations. The room is dominated by four large – hitherto unpublished – oil paintings that express fundamental ideas of Bektashism and signal past and present religio-political ‘alliances.’ This material ‘public engagement’ will be discussed in terms of a hermeneutic perspective that is central to Albanian Bektashi teachings, based on a distinction between exoteric and esoteric levels of thought. Appearances in the material world (zahir) have other meanings in the spiritual realm, which can be deciphered by reference to esoteric teachings (batin) that are revealed only to a closed circle of initiates. The organically interrelated discursive dimension between the visible and the hidden in the religious teachings allows us to decipher some layers of the symbolic discourse apparent in Albanian Bektashi materiality. At the same time, we will see that the simultaneity of zahir and batin plays an important role in Bektashi religio-political engagements and disengagements and in their attempts to accommodate multiple interests and points of view.
By exploiting the ceremonial significance of this site of diplomatic rituals, the incumbent Dedebaba, commonly referred to as ‘Baba Mondi,’ creates intimacies or distances between himself and the official visitors, who include Albanian dignitaries, foreign ambassadors (and, by extension, the countries they represent), and members of the national and international press. Equally, the visitors’ interactions with the display and pictorial arrangements – a process that involves aesthetic perception, communication, and consumption – provides a convenient means by which to articulate the subtleties within diplomatic relationships in a less formal and more intimate manner that can be more impactful than verbal or written modes of communication.8
Reception room at the World Headquarters (Kryegjyshata) of the Bektashis. Tirana, Albania
© Sara Kuehn (2011)
Upon entering the reception room (figure 1.1), the visitor is confronted with imposing silver-colored neo-baroque furniture. On the opposite side are three large armchairs, the central one reserved for the Dedebaba, with large sofas in the same style along the side walls. In one corner of the room the green Bektashi flag is displayed, with a central white twelve-fluted stone – the teslim tash (literally, ‘the stone of surrender’) – the points of which allude to the Bektashi cult of the twelve Shiʿi imams. On the opposite side of the same wall is the Albanian national flag. To the right of the central chair is a low table on which a closed Quran with a silver cover is propped up next to a framed photograph of the late Dedebaba Reshat Bardhi (1935–2011), the first Kryegjysh after the fall of the Communist dictatorship (figure 1.2). On another low table in the center of the reception room are a large open copy of the Quran, a large white salt crystal, and a crystal bowl filled with sweets (figure 1.3).
Propped-up closed Quran with a silver cover next to a framed photograph of the late Dedebaba Reshat Bardhi
© Sara Kuehn (2019)
Open copy of a Quran on a stand, a large white salt crystal, and a crystal bowl filled with sweets
© Sara Kuehn (2019)
1 Devotion and Allegiance to the Family of the Prophet
Despite the striking furniture and the presence of items with strong symbolic resonance, the visitor’s gaze is immediately drawn to the large oil painting that hangs above the armchairs and dominates the room (figure 1.4). Framed under glass,9 the reception-room painting depicts the five members of the Prophet Muhammed’s household or Ehli Beit:10 the Prophet Muhammed, his daughter Fatima, his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, and their two sons Hasan, and Hysejn. As the Prophet himself had no surviving sons, the sons of Fatima and Ali are considered to be the continuation of the Prophet’s family and the inheritors of his prophetic charisma and spiritual gift. While Sunnis include the Prophet’s wives and several branches of the Prophet’s tribe, Shiʿis are unanimous that Islam’s holiest family, Ehli Beit, includes only the pentad. Devotion to Ehli Beit, and especially to Ali, the first Shiʿi imam – as well as upholding the rights of the holy family to the religious and political leadership of the Muslim community – is therefore central to the Bektashi and Shiʿi creeds. Signed by one Ahmed Sultan, the painting is dated to the holy month of Muharram in the year 1123 AH (ca. February 19 to March 18, 1711).11
Large oil painting depicting the five members of Ehli Beit
© Sara Kuehn (2019)
The figural depiction of the holy five offers a glimpse not only into religious portraiture, but also into Bektashi conceptual imagination of the holy family. The painting features the haloed portraits of the pentad in the traditional frontal pose with their legs folded under them. The heads of the five figures are covered, but their faces, including that of the Prophet Muhammed, are clearly portrayed. Fatima is placed in the center, flanked by her father and her husband. At the next remove are her sons: Hasan, the second imam, and Hysejn, the third imam, who was martyred in the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE. Fatima’s central position in the painting alludes to the Bektashi emphasis on the equality of women in their rituals and structures (Elsie 2019, 2). In contrast to the dark green haloes that offset the heads of the male figures, a golden light emanates from above Fatima’s head. She is flanked by a pair of garland-bearing flying figures, probably angels, framing the twelve-ridged white headdress of the Bektashi babas (called Taxh Hysejni in commemoration of Hysejn’s martyrdom), which has a green turban wrapped around its base, from which a teslim tash is suspended. While both Muhammed and Ali hold prayer beads, young Hasan and Hysejn are rendered with their arms crossed over their chests and their hands pointing toward their shoulders, in the Bektashi position of humility and respect.
The prominent position of the painting brings to mind Baba Mondi’s pilgrimages to Shiʿi holy sites in Iraq.12 The first official visit to these holy sites in the post-Communist era took place in 2011, just after Baba Mondi’s election to the post, followed by a second visit in 2014 and a third in 2019 “to drink from the abundant resources of Ehli Beit”13 (të pijmë nga burimet e dlira të Ehli-Bejtit) (unidentified Urtësia correspondent, April 2019, 22–25). The Bektashi delegation offered joint prayers with leading Iraqi dignitaries who included Sayyid Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai, the representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Iranian-born leader of the Iraqi Shiʿi community, as well as Ayatollah Sayyid Husayn Ismail al-Sadr.14
These visits not only indicate a rapprochement between the Albanian Bektashis and the Shiʿi clerical authorities in Iraq, but also reflect the identification of the Albanian Bektashi Sufi community with Shiʿi teachings. This distinguishes them from Bektashi communities in Turkey who identify as Sunni.15 As Baba Mondi recently confirmed,16 the Albanian Bektashis identify themselves with the Alevi (Arabic ʿAlawī),17 a branch of Shiʿism practiced in Turkey and the Balkans. Alluding to the Bektashi assimilation of heterodox Shiʿi currents in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, he associated the Albanian Bektashis with mystical, antinomian dervish groups characterized by ‘extremist’ Shiʿi beliefs, singling out the Qalandars,18 Jalalis,19 and Nimatullahis.20 At the same time, he emphasized the importance of the teachings of the Quran and the guidance of the Prophet Muhammed for the Bektashi community.
When asked about the central painting, Baba Mondi explained that “just as you keep photographs of your family in your room, I have pictures of my family, Ehli Beit, in my room.” He hastened to add that, “as a sign of respect,” no figural imagery is displayed in the mejdan of the Kryegjyshata, the congregational chamber reserved for the performance of intimate ritual gatherings called muhabet (‘conversation,’ from the Arabic maḥabba, meaning ‘love’ or ‘affection’), which, as noted above, is accessible only to initiates except on special occasions. Yet even though there are no figural representations in the mejdan of the Kryegjyshata in Tirana,21 these are prominent features in all the other mejdans of the Bektashi tekkes I have visited in Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia. Thus, while the attitude toward figural depictions in religious contexts is generally more supple in Shiʿi spheres,22 Baba Mondi’s respectful position reflects a keen awareness of the varying approaches to this sensitive issue in the Sunni milieu.
By choosing to display the Ehli Beit painting in the reception room, the Albanian Bektashis not only express their devotional allegiance to the holy family, but also their affiliation with all those who love the holy family. By facilitating the creation of a common belief with the global Shiʿi Muslim world and the formulation of a communal identity, the representation acquires both socio-religious and a political signification. Baba Mondi’s pilgrimages to Iraq reflect the official Bektashi adherence to the Jaʿfari Twelver-Shiʿi school, named after the sixth imam, Jaʿfar al-Sadiq (702–765). Beyond the devotion to the holy family, the choice of the central painting in the reception room also alludes to the fact that in 1921, one year after the establishment of an Albanian state, the independence of the Bektashi order from the Sunni community was declared. After the headquarters of the Bektashi order (the Tekke of Haji Bektash Veli [Pir Evi] in Hacıbektaş in central Anatolia) was closed by Republican Turkey in 1925, the then head of the order, Dedebaba Salih Niyazi (1876–1941), himself of Albanian origin, moved to Albania and established the Kryegjyshata in Tirana. The Albanian parliament approved the statute of the Albanian Bektashi community in 1930, and Albanian became the official language of the order.
Aside from such processes of religious and socio-political interaction, visitors’ individual cognitive and experiential interaction with the Ehli Beit painting is not limited to its representational aspect (cf. Hall 2002, 16–17). Interviews with visitors to the Kryegjyshata23 indicate that the painting evokes an understanding of the importance of the pentad in Bektashi teachings. More informed viewers know that the belief in Ehli Beit is a central tenet of the Bektashi creed, which views the painting as a conduit of salvific grace and even a place of “interaction with the divine.” When gazing at the painting, some visitors, including ashiks (literally, those ‘in love [with God]’; a reference to non-initiated members of the Bektashi community), recognize visual rhetorical tropes, such as the Bektashi taxh, the teslim tash, or the deferential posture of Hasan and Hysejn. It is understood that Fatima’s position in the center alludes to her pivotal role as the paradigmatic woman. The soft light she emits prompts some Albanian viewers to recall a line from Adem Wajhi Baba’s (1842–1927) nefes (poem or hymn of esoteric content), which says that Fatima “bears the light of prophethood.”24 Looking at the luminaries that fill the interstices of the painting, some Albanian visitors are also reminded of the lines of Baba Melek Shëmbërdhenji’s nefes, which praise the holy family as bright light and as sun and moon:25
2 The Unification of Rival Dervish ‘World Models’ Under the Bektashi Banner
Next to the painting of Ehli Beit, on the long side of the rectangular room, the visitor encounters another large oil painting, dated 1270 AH (1853–54 CE) (figure 1.5). This painting depicts a figural narrative that has played a role of considerable importance in Bektashi religious experience across centuries and in different cultural contexts. This narrative relates to both diachronic and synchronic layers and aspects of historical and contemporary Bektashism. It presents the viewer with two rival Sufi ‘world models’ in binary opposition. On the left is the time-honored representation of the lion rider. On the right, facing the rider, two kneeling figures ‘mount’ a large rock. The inscriptions identify the lion rider as Karaxha Ahmed Sultan, the central figure on the rock as the thirteenth-century Haxhi Bektash Veli (1209–1270 AH)26 and his companion as Sari Ismail Sultan (1260–1350 AH).27
Large oil painting depicting Karaxha Ahmed Sultan as a lion rider flanked by two figures kneeling on a rock, Haxhi Bektash Veli and Sari Ismail Sultan
© Sara Kuehn (2019)
The ‘lion rider with serpents’ on the left represents a Muslim mystic’s miraculous ‘power’ over animals, his ability to mount a dangerous feline while brandishing a venomous serpent as a whip, and sometimes as a bridle. This pivotal motif dates back to twelfth-century Islamic hagiographic accounts (Kuehn 2011, 201–202) and is frequently depicted in Islamic miniatures and drawings (Aksel 1964, 3519–3520; 1966, 4068–4072; Danık 2004, 101–119; Kuehn 2011, 2012; McInerney 2004, 87; Soudavar 1992, 219; Welch 1985, 224). It has an extremely wide geographic distribution (Johns 2015, 75–76; Kuehn 2011, 201–202; Slyomovics 1993, 84–85) and appears to have roots in the worlds of Iranian (Asatrian and Arakelova 2004, 234–242, 274; 2014, 58–59) and Indian (van Bruinessen 1991, 117–138; 2000, 271–294) art.
The two ‘rock riders’ are singled out by their tall, pointed felt hats with green turbans wrapped around the base. Distinguished by a long white beard, the larger central figure, identified as Haxhi Bektash Veli, holds prayer beads in his right hand and a staff of authority in his left. His senior position is underscored by the presence of an attendant, Sari Ismail Sultan, a smaller, beardless figure positioned deferentially behind him. Sari Ismail is rendered in a humble posture – just like Hasan and Hysejn in the Ehli Beit painting – and wears a red twelve-sided earring of a type we will encounter again below.
By gazing at the painting, which depicts the miracles of riding a wild beast while handling poisonous serpents or riding and controlling inert substances such as walls or rocks, viewers can transcend literal approaches to viewing. Visitors versed in Bektashi teachings confirmed in interviews that their viewing of the painting offered valuable clues to a batin understanding of this Bektashi symbolism, allowing them to gain special knowledge. At the same time, the religious materiality itself served to unlock the potential of at least some viewers to understand the batin meaning. These interviewees explained that the visual codes intimated the riders’ subjugation of their somatic selves and their mastery over their nefs (‘soul’ or ‘self’) (Panjwani 2014, 267–273), representing the consuming tendency of the nefs that always wants to get ahead and needs to be tamed and trained (Awn 1983, 64–69, 185; Kuehn 2018, 261, 278–279). Mounting, in this context, symbolizes mastery. Once harnessed, the nefs will help transport the riders as they continue their journey along the mystical path. The ultimate goal of this journey is to lose oneself in God (a state referred to as the ‘fourth gate,’ see below), that is, to attain spiritual death before physical death. This quest for death before dying is based on a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammed: “Die [to this world] before you die!” (Arabic mūtū qabla an tamūtū).
At first glance, the painting seems to depict the age-old miracle of mastering animals, surpassed by the even more impressive feat of giving life to an inanimate medium, a wall or a rock. On closer inspection, however, the painting is actually intended to display harmony. Stories of such miracles were particularly popular in the context of the socio-religious movements of deviant forms of mysticism that emerged throughout the Muslim world between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. These included the mendicant, itinerant, and often celibate Qalandars (van Bruinessen 1991, 55–69; 1995, 117–138; Crooke 1926; Digby 1994, 99–129; Rizvi 1970, 119–133),28 whose antinomian asceticism rejected normative Islamic practice and with whom Baba Mondi explicitly associates the Bektashis. Karaxha Ahmed’s challenge to his rival Haxhi Bektash to a miracle contest later found its way into Bektashi hagiographies (e.g., the late fifteenth-century Vilayetname – literally, ‘Document of Sainthood’ – of Haxhi Bektash, written by Uzun Firdusi between 1481 and 1501 CE). It goes without saying that the contest was won by Haxhi Bektash’s ability to move a rock.
Miracle contests between leading mystics are a recurring feature in hagiographies and oral histories, yet the narrative depicted in the painting seems to go beyond this single dimension. This is alluded to by the image of the white dove above the two mystics. This visual trope reminds the informed viewer of another characteristic feature of Sufi hagiographic anecdotes, namely the story of the battle between a hawk and a dove (Digby 1990, 7–25). An allegorical interpretation of this story is found in the Vilayetname. Utilizing the potential for conveying ‘truths’ esoterically, the vita relates that a group of dervishes, led by Karaxha Ahmed, erected a gigantic wall to prevent Haxhi Bektash from coming to Anatolia because they feared that he would remove them from their positions. Haxhi Bektash took the form of a dove to fly over the wall and landed on a rock in the village of Suluca Karahöyük, near the central Anatolian town of Kırşehir (Birge 1994, 38; de Jong 1992, 234). One of Karaxha Ahmed’s disciples, Haxhi Doğrul, was sent out in the shape of a hawk to catch the dove. As the hawk was about to seize the dove, Haxhi Bektash transformed back into a human being and grabbed the hawk by the throat. The subdued creature was then sent to invite Karaxha Ahmed’s dervishes to come to Haxhi Bektash, which they did.29
The white dove in this painting, a representation of Haxhi Bektash, the victor in the battle, descends upon both protagonists. Emitting golden hues, the dove30 soars above a pair of garland-bearing angels of the same type as those found in the Ehli Beit painting. This visual trope reminds the informed viewer that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, antinomian religious groups – most of them characterized by controversial Shiʿi beliefs and symbolism31 – sought refuge under the Bektashi banner in order to escape persecution by the Ottoman authorities (Ocak 1992, 199–209; 1989, 132–134). Drawing on related depictions, anthropologist Martin van Bruinessen links the rock, a structural element that can be used in architecture, to the settled and urban type of sainthood, thus associating the saint and his attendant with the more conventional, socially established forms of piety. Wild animals, by contrast, are a feature of the wandering libertine dervishes who lived with the animals. Van Bruinessen interprets the competitive demonstration of miracles as a sign of the syncretistic process by which the remaining deviant dervishes were gradually absorbed into the established canonical Sufi orders, especially the Bektashis.32
As important as this interpretation is, it must also be remembered that the painting in the reception room was created in the mid-nineteenth century, at least one hundred and fifty years after the dervish groups had merged with the Bektashi order. By this time, formerly rival dervishes, such as Karaxha Ahmed or Kaygusuz Abdal, had long since been ‘naturalized’ as Bektashis.33 This is why the painter shows the two representatives of different ‘world models’ in harmony with each other and unified by Haxhi Bektash, who metonymically stands for the Bektashi community as a whole.
It should be remembered that Haxhi Bektash, in his hagiographic vita, champions ‘extremist’ Shiʿi beliefs (both Ismaili and Twelver Shiʿi). He is presented as a seyyid (Arabic sayyid) through the line of the seventh Twelver Shiʿi imam, Musa al-Kazim (745–799), and described as the ‘secret of Ali’ who introduced the Shiʿi doctrine of tevella (Arabic tawallā), or ‘affiliation’ with Ehli Beit, first to Anatolia and then on to the Balkans. In addition to his importance in the succession of leadership, Ali is understood by the Bektashis as the one who brought a mystical understanding of the Quran to Islam. Thus, the Vilayetname tells us that both Muhammed and Ali miraculously taught the Quran to Haxhi Bektash: the former revealed its outer, literal meaning (zahir), and the latter introduced him to the mysteries of its hidden inner meaning, its spiritual significance (batin). This frame of reference is often associated with the prophetic saying, “I am the city of knowledge, and Ali is its gate.” Therefore, to understand what the Bektashis mean when they invoke Haxhi Bektash’s name, one must comprehend that this name simultaneously refers to the historical figure (zahir) of Haxhi Bektash and his mystical presence (batin).
The pictorial details show that the painter paid close attention to the narrative in the Vilayetname. This is also evident in the depiction of the unusual conical headgear of Haxhi Bektash and Sari Ismail. To emphasize their batin role, both are singled out in the text as bearers of a so-called Elif taxh,34 which:
is, according to the Vilayetname, one of several articles given by Gabriel at God’s command to Muhammad who turned them over to Ali together with a knowledge of the mystical rites. From Ali they were passed down through certain of the [Shiʿi] imams to Ahmet Yesevi35 in whose convent they were preserved until at Haji Bektash Hünkar’s final investiture with authority, they were by spiritual powers moved from their places and put before Bektash, the [Elif taxh] being placed on his head by unseen hands.36
Unlike Haxhi Bektash and Sari Ismail, the lion-riding challenger, Karaxha Ahmed, does not wear the Elif taxh. Instead, he is shown wearing a Bektashi Taxh Hysejni of the type worn by Bektashi babas. His total commitment to the Bektashi creed is underscored by the green turban wrapped around the base of his taxh, identifying him as a celibate baba. Clad in a dark green cloak – a color usually reserved for a dedebaba and his halife (a term derived from the Arabic khalīfa for ‘successor,’ referring to a cleric above the rank of a baba but below that of a dede) – and sporting a thick, long beard, his depiction exudes an aura of respectability. The crescent and star in the sky above him, a symbol often associated with Islam and officially adopted by some Muslim governments in the nineteenth century, further alludes to the completion of the process of transformation of the formerly antinomian saint into a full-fledged Bektashi baba.
3 Kaygusuz Abdal and the Cycle of Creation
In the reception room of the Kryegjyshata in Tirana, a third painting, dated 1263 AH (1844 CE), is visible to the visitor just to the right of the door (figure 1.6). This painting shows a life-size depiction of a mystic in a landscape, flanked on either side by animals. The accompanying inscription identifies him as “Kaygusuz Sultan, the dervish of Abdal Musa Sultan, the son of the Shah of Egypt.”37 Kaygusuz is known to have been an Abdal of Rum,38 a dervish community of the Qalandars that developed in Ottoman Anatolia in the second half of the fourteenth century. His hagiography describes him as wearing a felt cloak with no sleeves or collar, practicing the ritual fourfold shave known later as chahar darb (literally, the ‘four blows,’ to the hair, beard, moustache, and eyebrows), and carrying a horn (Güzel 2004, 358–359). Contemporary Bektashis were similarly depicted with clean-shaven heads and faces (Kuehn 2024, fig. 1), implying their rejection of social status and the erasure of signs of civilization from their faces.39
Large oil painting depicting Kaygusuz Abdal surrounded by animals. Dated 1263 AH (1844 CE)
© Sara Kuehn (2019)
Ahmet Yaşar Ocak (1989, 4) goes so far as to claim that it was the itinerant Abdals of Rum “who gave birth to the Bektashis,” which is to say that their teachings exerted an enduring influence on the Bektashi order long after they were incorporated into this mystical community. The close relationship between the Abdals of Rum and the Bektashi movement is reflected in stories that link Kaygusuz’s spiritual lineage to that of Haxhi Bektash, and may be one of the reasons why Kaygusuz is considered the first dervish to call himself a Bektashi.40 The painter portrays him with the twelve-pointed teslim tash around his neck and a twelve-ridged taxh on his head, for according to Bektashi tradition, Kaygusuz was the first to wear the taxh.41 To his right is a large teber (ceremonial double-bladed axe),42 a weapon carried by the Bektashis and other dervishes on their wanderings, which also had symbolic meaning and later assumed ritual significance.
The reason why Kaygusuz is depicted with animals can be found in his poetry (he was the first Abdal to produce important literary works). Some of the thoughts expressed in his couplets were echoed by Baba Mondi when we discussed the painting, such as Kaygusuz’s allusion to the theory of the ‘Perfect Human Being’ (Arabic al-insān al-kāmil) at the head of the saintly hierarchy,43 an ideal espoused in Muslim esoteric mysticism. This notion goes back to the teachings of the influential gnostic Ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240), who laid the foundation for the emanationist theory of the ‘Oneness of Being’ (Arabic waḥdat al-wujūd), which had a significant impact on Sufi thought in the Ottoman milieu and beyond. For various Sufi orders, the Oneness of Being signifies the process of gradual expansion, the journey a Sufi takes toward his creator and his origins, which ultimately allows the (ordinary) limited human being to identify with the macrocosmic level of the universe.44 This identification elevates the initiate to the rank of the ‘Perfect Human Being.’ The idea here is closely related to the Sufi elaboration of ‘[divine] emanation’ (Arabic tajallī), which opens the pathway to gnosis (Chodkiewicz 2005, 97–120).45 Kaygusuz emphasized the importance of knowing the difference between a Perfect Human Being and an ordinary human being, who is alluded to as an animal (Turkish ḥayvān, derived from a Semitic root, meaning ‘to live’):46
This notion, which points towards the different degrees of spiritual development along the mystical path, recurs in Kaygusuz’s work, often with reference to ontological differences between animals.47 In another poem composed for a Sufi audience, Kaygusuz evokes the theory of the ‘Oneness of Being’ and the belief in divine manifestation by alluding to the cyclical journeys of the soul. He makes the following mystical confession:48
The Creator’s command put me on time’s revolving wheel and rotated me, like the mud of a potter. At times I became a human, at times an animal. At times I became a plant, at times a mineral. At times I became a leaf, at times the soil. At times old, at times young. At times a sultan, at times a beggar. At times a friend, at times a stranger.
By employing a genre known as the poetry of the cycle of creation (Turkish devriyye; Arabic dawriyya, from dawr, ‘cycle’ or ‘rotation,’ Kaygusuz, Delīl-i Budalā, 59, cited after Oktay 2017, 82), Kaygusuz shows the intimate relationship between different modes of existence and in doing so, gives insight into his soul’s ability to transmigrate, to be present everywhere, and to move from one being (animate or inanimate) to another.
When the Austrian journalist Kurt Selinger (1921–1999) visited the then Kryegjysh Ahmet Myftari (1916–1980) in Tirana in 1957, he asked him for an explanation of a painting in the tekke that depicted a holy man surrounded by various animals. This, we can surmise, must have been a similar picture to the one of Kaygusuz Abdal that now hangs in the reception room. Selinger was puzzled by Ahmet Myftari’s enigmatic reply that
the meaning of this painting is that whoever requites evil with evil is a beast. Whoever requites good with evil is a serpent, whoever requites good with good is a good man, and whoever requites evil with good is a magnanimous man (cited in Seliger 1960, 131; transl. Elsie 2019, 110).
As perplexing as the answer may be, it reflects the fact that in Bektashi practice, the batin interpretation – corresponding to the less contingent nature of things – does not give way to the zahir, but in a sense subsumes it.
Another noteworthy aspect of the painting is that Kaygusuz is shown wearing an earring in the shape of a teslim tash in his right earlobe. In the second painting discussed above, Sari Ismail Sultan is portrayed with a similar earring. It designates both mystics as belonging to the special category of celibate dervishes called myxher (from the Turkish mücerred, literally ‘a person tested by experience, pure’). The institutionalization of celibacy among Bektashi babas, a much revered practice in the Balkans (Bashir 2008, 144), is a development that has been ascribed to Balim Sultan (1457–1517) of Dimetoka, who is credited with initiating the process of the formal institutionalization of the order and the codification of its beliefs and practices.49 Salih Niyazi (1876–1941), who became the first dedebaba in Albania in 1929 after the 1925 ban on all dervish orders in Turkey, introduced special Bektashi rituals to Albania in which the dervishes pronounced their vows of celibacy (Elsie 2019, 308).50 Until the ban in 1925, these rituals were performed in the tekkes of Merivenköy near Istanbul, in Dimetoka in Thrace, and in Kerbela in Iraq. In addition to the earring, the green turban wrapped around the headdress serves as a further indication that the wearer is a myxher.
4 The Four-ridged taxh as a Symbol of “Disguise … to Escape Destruction”
Turning to the fourth painting flanking that of Kaygusuz Abdal in the reception room, the visitor immediately realizes that the eminent figure shown here must be a baba (figure 1.7) and that the baba was not celibate, since the turban wrapped around the base of his cap is white. The inscription above the painting informs us that it “represents Asim Dede, the pōst nishīn (literally, the ‘one who sits on the animal skin’) of the dergāh (Persian for tekke) in Ergiri [present-day Gjirokastra].” It adds that “this picture was made by Selim Baba. The date of the painting is 1351 AH (1932 CE), the date of the […] 1281 AH (1864 CE).”
Large oil painting of Asim Dede, the pōst nishīn of the dergāh in Ergiri (Gjirokastra). Made by Selim Baba. Dated 1351 AH (1932 CE)/1281 AH (1864 CE)
© Sara Kuehn (2019)
Trained at the Pir Evi in Hacıbektaş in central Anatolia, Seyyid Muhammed Asim Baba (d. 1796) was sent to the Balkans to spread Bektashism. The first Bektashi baba who was also a seyyid (a descendant of the Prophet Muhammed through his daughter Fatima’s marriage to Ali), Asim Baba arrived in Gjirokastra, southern Albania, in 1778. Two years later, he founded what became known as the Gravel Tekke (Teqeja e Zallit). At a time when there were no other functioning tekkes in Albania, the Gravel Tekke played a vital role in spreading Bektashism in the country (Kaleshi 1980, 10). Asim Dede’s immortality is symbolized by the two cypresses that frame his portrait (see Hasluck 1973, 226, n. 1), each surmounted by a white dove, again symbolizing Haxhi Bektash.
The main frame of reference implied by the painting, the Gravel Tekke, continued to play an important role in the history of the Albanian Bektashis. The scholar Margaret Hasluck (1885–1948), who visited the tekke around 1923, noted that:
they wear a four-ridged taxh outside the ordinary twelve-ridged Bektashi hat in souvenir of the disaster of 1826, when only by adopting such disguise could Bektashi escape destruction (cited in Elsie 2019, 194).
The Baba in the reception-room painting is crowned with such a four-ridged taxh. After a long period of complex and often ambiguous relations between Sufi communities, the Sunni Muslim Ottoman authorities, and representatives of local orthodoxies (Hodgson 1974, 192–194), the Bektashi order was banned by the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839) in 1826, accusing them of “neglect[ing] prayers and allow[ing] themselves to do things forbidden by the Şeriat [Arabic sharīʿa; Albanian shariʿat].”51 Throughout the Ottoman realm, many Bektashi tekkes were subsequently transferred to more Sharia-compliant Sufi orders, such as the Naqshbandiyya, or were sold on behalf of the state treasury and, for the most part, subsequently destroyed.52
Nearly forty-five years after this tragedy, the same misfortune befell the Gravel Tekke, which for a time was registered as a Naqshbandi tekke (Clayer 1990, 280–290).53 In the late nineteenth century, the tekke reemerged as a center for Bektashi proselytizing and literary activity. Sunni Islam in Albania was aligned with Ottoman rule and the Arabic language, but the Bektashis were receptive to Albanian patriotic concerns and actively helped promote the Albanian language, contributing to the development of Albanian writing. This patriotic element, so central to Albanian Bektashism, is also reflected in the prominent display of the Albanian national flag in the reception room.54
The four ridges of the taxh worn by the dervishes of the Gravel Tekke as a “disguise … to escape destruction” refer to the four ‘gates’ that mark the different stages of spiritual development. The first ridge stands for the gate of outer rituals and rules in religion, shariʿat, the exoteric path taught by Muhammed. Unlike Sunni Muslims, however, the Bektashi focus on the inner ‘meaning,’ disregarding conventional observances such as Friday congregational prayers, the five daily prayers, and the prohibition of alcohol. The second ridge relates to the mystical teachings formalized into training by the Bektashi babas, the gate of the spiritual path to God, tarikat (Arabic ṭarīqa). The third ridge signifies mystical knowledge, the gate to the secrets of the saints, marifat (Arabic maʿrifat). The fourth ridge alludes to the final gate, the pinnacle symbolizing the encounter with the Divine Reality, hakikat (Arabic ḥaqīqa).55 Hasluck informs us that the rules for the dervishes of the Gravel Tekke were exceptionally strict, and the drinking of alcohol was forbidden, which is to say that their lives were governed (at least to some extent) by the rules of the shariʿat. By following these rules, they pursued a time-honored strategy that allowed them to conceal true batin knowledge from profanation (takiye, Arabic taqiyya; permissible dissimulation) (Birge 1994, 78, 270; Amir-Moezzi 2012; Kohlberg 1995, 348–380; De Smet 2011, 148–161) in order to avoid persecution by the majority should the necessity arise. This is underscored by the injunction of Balim Sultan, who, according to tradition, asked his followers to keep certain “[Bektashi] mysteries hidden from the spiritually immature, for the revelation of such [batin] things could harm the masses and cause turmoil in society” (Rexheb 2016, 199; cf. Stoyanov 2016, 723–742).
A variety of visual tropes subtly woven into the images thus allow for a multi-layered approach to the viewer’s interpretation of the four paintings. For instance, the same mystic injunction is also reflected in a baba’s white-colored taxh, as some visitors have pointed out, for it represents the wearer’s tombstone. Once placed on a baba’s head, it is considered that he has died to this fleeting life, as instructed by the Prophet Muhammed. Another dimension of meaning alluded to by the painting involves the annual ceremony in which the Bektashis confess their sins, right their wrongs, and are granted absolution (Birge 1994, 170–171). This farewell to the old life, seen as a kind of salvation, is likewise referred to as “dying before death.”56 Bektashis submit to God, but also to their murshid (spiritual master). By surrendering their body and soul to their murshid, they proverbially become a corpse in the hands of the undertaker. The symbolic language in the image’s rhetoric reminds viewers, as some visiting ashiks explained when asked, not only of Kaygusuz’ devotion to the Twelve Imams, but also of the twelve abnegations or abstinences, many of which serve to control the soul (nefs). It also serves as a constant reminder of the importance of subjugating the nefs while traveling on the mystical path.
5 A Bektashi Balancing Act
The visitor’s gaze is eventually drawn to another display on the low table in the center of the reception room. The three ‘objects’ here include a large open copy of the Quran supported on a wooden stand and opened to display suras appropriate to the occasion, a large white salt crystal presented on a wooden stand, and a crystal bowl filled with colorful sweets (figure 1.3, above). Like the text of the Quran, which can be interpreted in both zahir and batin ways, salt communicates the close interrelationship between these two modes through its important meaning in Bektashi ritual contexts. Bektashi ritual meals begin and end with a small pinch of salt, which in a ritual context is referred to as ‘Balim Sultan.’ This terminology refers to the ‘second Pir’ of the Bektashis, who began the process of institutionalizing the order, a process which introduced structure and a sense of order to the community. The meaning that the Bektashis ascribe to salt is thus one of balance (Soileau 2012, 1–30). Bektashis also refer to the fact that both sodium and chlorine are poisonous in their pure state, but when they unite they become salt. Salt is thus the product and the equilibrium of the properties of its components. As one of the most ancient preservatives, salt signifies incorruptibility, perpetuity, and purification; it is seen as a symbol of the intention which gives significance to action.57 The sweets, by contrast, serve as transmitters of Baba Mondi’s baraka, and are presented to the visitors. Together, the display of an open copy of the Quran, salt rock, and sweets thus symbolizes the need for a balanced approach to the zahir and batin interpretive framework of the Bektashi community.
6 Albanian Bektashi Symbolic Language
The Bektashis’ reliance on the use of allegory and symbolism to convey their teachings, and their predisposition to convey truths esoterically, must be understood in the context of the order’s subjection to waves of persecution (Watenpaugh 2005, 535–565), especially during the early nineteenth century. This oppression led the Bektashis to foster a tradition of obscured or even hidden meaning in their art forms, and inspired the symbolic use of material culture to ‘speak’ while the text is muted. As a result, the narratives depicted ‘speak’ only to the informed viewer. The paintings presuppose a general knowledge of the significant figures of the Bektashi milieu and of the overall narrative context and background depicted. Even when viewed on a zahir level of meaning, the visual content requires a pre-existing familiarity with the outline of the stories set within a Bektashi frame of reference.
As the symbol par excellence of all Shiʿis, only the Kryegjyshata painting of Ehli Beit presents an exception. For all Shiʿis, the figural representation of the holy five is imbued with a potency to empower and protect; it serves as a key symbol of solace and hope, and as a vehicle for intercession with the divine. Possessing an enormous capacity to mediate socio-religious identity, the painting visibly proclaims the Albanian Bektashi’s allegiance to the wider Shiʿi world. Its central position in the reception room underscores this bond. However, as with the other three paintings, the context-specific visual codes and the aesthetic rhetoric that convey batin meanings are only revealed to those who have eyes to see. This revelation is deliberately confined to those with a heightened awareness of both the explicit and implicit messaging involved in Albanian Bektashi pictorial forms of communication, those who have undergone ‘visual training’ that includes acquiring the ability to discern formative imagery grounded in an expanded repertoire of Ehli Beit symbolism. The paramount significance of the Kryegjyshata painting is further underscored by the fact that a copy is on display in the Albanian Teqe Bektashiane in Detroit, USA (founded by Baba Rexheb [d. 1995], former head of the Gravel Tekke in Gjirokastra), and that posters portraying the holy family in the same configuration are shown in all mejdans of tekkes in Macedonia and in Kosovo. However, it is only by balancing the apparent and hidden truths – the dichotomy so central to the Bektashi way of life – that one can discern the subtly interwoven messages in the paintings.
Like Albanian Bektashi leaders of the past, Baba Mondi has to balance Albanian Bektashi batin inspirations (indebted to controversial antinomian Shiʿi beliefs and symbolism incorporated into the Bektashi community from the sixteenth century onwards) with zahir Muslim teachings. To protect himself and his community from erroneous or malicious representations, his interactions with the public (such as the larger Muslim community, the Albanian state power and national Albanian secular culture, as well as with the press) bracket batin notions of truth (reserved for initiated members) that are incompatible with public discursive fields. Baba Mondi’s decision in August 2019 to install loudspeakers on the façade of the tekke at the Kryegjyshata, from which Quranic verses are recited throughout the day, has bewildered many of his followers. This, of course, does not mean that Albanian Bektashism can be placed within an orthodox Sunni interpretation of Islam, but rather that it should be seen as one of Baba Mondi’s careful balancing acts aimed at protecting and preserving his community in times of difficulty. In other words, it is yet another case of the Bektashis outwardly adopting a kind of ‘Sunni identity’ as a form of takiye. Baba Mondi’s public interactions can thus often be understood as pragmatic attempts to ensure autonomous and uncompromised religious practice (that is batin practice) by engaging with the broader Muslim public sphere in what can be described as zahir terms. At the same time, it is this Albanian Bektashis practice of accommodation and apparent translocal solidarity and community that – throughout their history – has allowed them to cultivate a kind of pragmatic Islamic pluralism.
References
Abiva, Hüseyin. n.d. “Bektashism and Its Presence in Albanian Lands.” bektashiorder.com/bektashism-in-albania, accessed October 7, 2018.
Abu-Manneh, Butrus. 1982. “The Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya in the Ottoman Lands in the Early 19th Century.” Die Welt des Islam 22 (1/4): 1–36. doi.org/10.2307/1569796, accessed May 31, 2021.
Abu-Manneh, Butrus. 2001. Studies on Islam and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century: (1826–1876). Istanbul: Isis Press.
Aksel, Malik. 1964. “Aslana binme, duvarı yürütme kerameti [The Miracle of Riding a Lion and Moving a Wall].” Türk Folklor Araştırmaları 182: 3519–3520.
Aksel, Malik. 1966. “ ‘Yazı-resimde arslan suretleri’ [The Figures of the Lion in Calligraphies and Drawings].” Türk Folklor Araştırmaları 202: 4068–4072.
Ağırdemir, Erdoğan. 2011. “Bektaşilikte Taç Şekilleri ve Anlamları [Crown Shapes and Their Meanings in Bektashism].” Türk Kültürü ve Hacı Bektaş Velî Araştırma Dergisi 60: 365–378.
Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali. 2002. “Dissimulation.” In Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, ed. by Jane Dammen McAuliffe. dx-doi-org.uaccess.univie.ac.at/10.1163/1875-3922_q3 _EQSIM_00122, accessed August 21, 2021.
Asani, Ali S.A. 2002. “Family of the Prophet.” In Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, ed. by Jane Dammen McAuliffe. dx-doi-org.uaccess.univie.ac.at/10.1163/1875-3922_q3_EQSIM _00149, accessed August 21, 2021.
Asatrian, Garnik, and Victoria Arakelova. 2004. “The Yezidi Pantheon.” Iran & the Caucasus 8 (2): 231–279. doi.org/10.1163/1573384043076063, accessed May 31, 2021.
Asatrian, Garnik, and Victoria Arakelova. 2014. The Religion of the Peacock Angel: The Yezidis and Their Spirit World. Durham: Acumen Publishing Ltd.
Aşıkpaşazade. 1332/1913–14. Tevārīḫ-i Āl-i ʿOsmān [A History of the Ottoman Empire], ed. by Ali Bey. Istanbul: Matba-i Amire; reprinted 1970 as ʿAshiqpashazādeh taʾrikhī: A History of the Ottoman Empire to A.H. 893 (A.D. 1478). Farnborough: Gregg.
Awn, Peter J. 1983. Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption: Iblīs in Sufi Psychology. Leiden: Brill.
Bashir, Shahzad. 2008. “Islamic Tradition and Celibacy.” In Celibacy and Religious Traditions, ed. by Carl Olson, 135–147. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Beldiceanu, Irène. 2012. “Abdalan-ı Rum, historical.” In Encyclopedia of Islam. THREE, ed. by Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson. dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_23820, accessed February 2, 2019.
Birge, John Kingsley. (1937) 1994. The Bektashi Order of Dervishes. London: Luzac Oriental.
van Bruinessen, Martin. 1991. “Haji Bektash, Sultan Sahak, Shah Mina Sahib and Various Avatars of a Running Wall.” Turcica 21–23: 55–69. doi.org/10.2143/TURC.23.0.2014188, accessed May 31, 2021 [reprinted in van Bruinessen, Martin. 2000. “Haji Bektash, Sultan Sahak, Shah Mina Sahib and Various Avatars of a Running Wall.” In Mullahs, Sufis and Heretics: The Role of Religion in Kurdish Society, ed. by Martin van Bruinessen, 271–294. Istanbul: Isis Press.]
van Bruinessen, Martin. 1995. “When Haji Bektash Still Bore the Name of Sultan Sahak: Notes on the Ahl-i Haqq of the Guran District.” In Bektachiyya. Études sur l’ordre mystique des Bektachis et les groupes relevant de Hadji Bektach, ed. by Alexandre Popović and Gilles Veinstein, 117–138. Istanbul: Isis Press.
Chittick, William C. 1989. The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Metaphysics of Imagination. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Chodkiewicz, Michel. 2005. “La Réception de la doctrine d’Ibn ʿArabī dans le monde Ottoman.” In Sufism and Sufis in Ottoman Society, ed. by Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, 97–120. Ankara: Atatürk Supreme Council for Culture Language and History.
Clayer, Nathalie. 1990. L’Albanie, pays des derviches: les ordres mystiques musulmans en Albanie à l’époque post-ottomane (1912–1967). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Clayer, Nathalie. 1994. Mystiques, état et societé: les halvetis dans l’aire balkanique de la fin du XVe siècle à nos jours. Leiden: Brill.
Clayer, Nathalie. 1995. “Bektachisme et nationalism albanais.” In Bektachiyya. Études sur l’ordre mystique des Bektachis et les groupes relevant de Hadji Bektach, ed. by Alexandre Popović and Gilles Veinstein, 271–300. Istanbul: Isis Press.
Clayer, Nathalie. 2007. Aux origines du nationalisme albanais: la naissance d’une nation majoritairement musulmane en Europe. Paris: Karthala.
Crooke, William. 1926. Religion and Folklore of Northern India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Danık, Ertuğrul. 2004. “Alevi ve Bektaşi mitolojisinde aslana binenler, yılanı kamçı yapanlar ve duvar yürütenler” [Riding a Lion, Using a Serpent as a Whip, and Moving a Wall in the Alevi and Bektashi Mythology]. In Alevilik, ed. by İsmail Engin and Havva Engin, 101–119. Istanbul: Kitap Yayinevi.
Digby, Simon. 1990. “Hawk and Dove in Sufi Combat.” In Pembroke Papers: Persian and Islamic Studies in Honour of P.W. Avery, ed. by Charles Melville, vol. 1, 7–25. Cambridge: University of Cambridge.
Digby, Simon. 1994. “To Ride a Tiger or a Wall? Strategies of Prestige in Indian Sufi Legend.” In According to Tradition. Hagiographical Writing in India, ed. by Winand M. Callewaert and Rupert Snell, 99–129. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Doja, Albert. 2008. Bektashism in Albania: Political History of a Religious Movement, Tirana: Albanian Institute for International Studies.
Elsie, Robert. 2019. The Albanian Bektashi: History and Culture of a Dervish Order in the Balkans, London: I.B. Tauris.
Engelke, Matthew. 2010. “Religion and the Media Turn: A Review Essay.” American Ethnologist 37 (2): 371–379. doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2010.01261.x, accessed May 31, 2021.
Ergun, Sadettin Nüzhet. 1936–1937. Türk şairleri [Turkish Poets], Istanbul: n.p.
Faroqhi, Suraiya. 1981. Der Bektaschi-Orden in Anatolien: vom späten fünfzehnten Jahrhundert bis 1826. Vienna: Verlag des Instituts für Orientalistik der Universität Wien.
Faroqhi, Suraiya. 1995. “Conflict, Accommodation and Long-Term Survival: The Bektashi Order and the Ottoman State.” In Bektachiyya. Études sur l’ordre mystique des Bektachis et les groupes relevant de Hadji Bektach, ed. by Alexandre Popović and Gilles Veinstein, 171–184. Istanbul: Isis Press.
Firdusi, Uzun. 1990. Vilâyet-nâme [Vilayetname]. Manakıb-ı hacı bektâş-ı velî “Vilâyet- nâme”, ed. by Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı. Istanbul: Inkılâp Kitabevi.
Fontana, Maria Vittoria. 1994. Iconografia dell’Ahl al-bayt: immagini di arte persiana dal XII al XX secolo. Naples: Istituto universitario orientale.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
Gö’çek Abdal. 2002. Odman Baba Vilâyetnamesi: Vilâyetname-i şâhı̂, ed. Şevki Koca. Istanbul: Bektaşi Kültür Derneği.
Goldziher, Ignaz, Cornelis van Arendonk, and Arthur Stanley Tritton. 2012. “Ahl al-bayt.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam. Second Edition, ed. by Peri Bearman, Thierry Bianquis, C. Edmund Bosworth, E.J. van Donzel, and Wolfhart Heinrichs. dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_0378, accessed February 26, 2019.
Güzel, Abdurrahman. 2004. Kaygusuz Abdal (Alâeddin Gaybî) Menâkıbnâmesi [The Hagiography of Kaygusuz Abdal [Alâeddin Gaybî]]. Ankara: Akçağ.
Hall, Stuart. 2002. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage.
Hasluck, Frederick W. 1914. “Note on Haidar, Khodja Achmet, Karadja Achmet.” The Annual of the British School at Athens 20: 120–122. doi.org/10.1017/S0068245400 009436, accessed May 31, 2021.
Hasluck, Frederick W. (1929) 1973. Christianity and Islam under the Sultans. vol. 1. New York, NY: Octagon Books.
Hazard, Sonia. 2013. “The Material Turn in the Study of Religion.” Religion and Society 4 (1): 58–78. doi.org/10.3167/arrs.2013.040104, accessed May 21, 2022.
Hodgson, Marshall G.S. 1974. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. vol. 2. The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Period. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Ippen, Theodor. 1907. Skutari und die nordalbanische Küstenebene. Sarajevo: D.A. Kajon.
Johns, Jeremy. 2015. “Muslim Artists and Christian Models in the Painted Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina.” In Romanesque and the Mediterranean: Patterns of Exchange across the Latin, Greek and Islamic Worlds c. 1000–c. 1250, ed. by Rosa Bacile and John McNeill, 59–89. Leeds: Maney Publishing.
de Jong, Frederick. 1989. “The Iconography of Bektashism. A Survey of Themes and Symbolism in Clerical Costumes.” Manuscripts of the Middle East 4, 7–29.
de Jong, Frederick. 1992. “Pictorial Art of the Bektashi Order, The Dervish Lodge: Architecture.” In The Dervish Lodge: Architecture, Art, and Sufism in Ottoman Turkey, ed. by Raymond Lifchez, 228–241. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kafadar, Cemal. 2010. Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kaleshi, Hasan. 1980. “Die Bektashiye unter den Albanern.” Baba Kâzim, Oberhaupt der Bektâschi-Derwische in Djakovica. Sektion Ethnologie. Publikationen zu wissenschaftlichen Filmen 10 (49), 9–15.
Karakaya-Stump, Ayfer. 2011. “The Forgotten Dervishes: The Bektashi Convents in Iraq and Their Kizilbash Clients.” International Journal of Turkish Studies 16 (1/2): 1–24.
Karamustafa, Ahmet T. 1993. “Kalenders, Abdāls, Hayderīs: The Formation of the Bektaşiye in the Sixteenth Century.” In Süleyman the Second and His Time, ed. by Halil Inalcık and Cemal Kafadar, 121–129. Istanbul: Isis Press.
Karamustafa, Ahmet T. 2005. “Yesevîlik, Melâmetîlik, Kalenderîlik, Vefâ’îlik ve Anadolu Tasavvufunun Kōkenleri Sorunu.” In Osmanlı Toplumunda Tasavvuf ve Sufiler. Kaynaklar, Doktrin, Ayin ve Erkân, Tarikatlar, Edebiyat, Mimari, Güzel Sanatlar, Modernizm, ed. by Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, 61–88. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları.
Karamustafa, Ahmet T. 2006. God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Middle Period 1200–1550. Oxford: Oneworld.
Karamustafa, Ahmet T. 2013. “Kaygusuz Abdal: A Medieval Turkish Saint and the Formation of Vernacular Islam in Anatolia.” In Unity in Diversity: Mysticism, Messianism and the Construction of Religious Authority in Islam, ed. by Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, 329–342. Leiden: Brill.
Keane, Webb. 1997. Signs of Recognition: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kohlberg, Etan. 1995. “Taqiyya in Shīʿī Theology and Religion.” In Secrecy and Concealment. Studies in the History of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Religions, ed. by Hans G. Kippenberg and Guy G. Stroumsa, 348–380. Leiden: Brill.
Kuehn, Sara. 2011. The Dragon in Medieval Christian and Islamic Art. Leiden: Brill.
Kuehn, Sara. 2018. “Wild Social Transcendence and the Antinomian Dervish.” Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society 6 (1): 254–285. doi.org/10.14220/jrat.2018.4.issue-1, accessed November 8, 2018.
Kuehn, Sara. 2024. “Rose Blossoms, Ashura Pudding, and a ‘Golden Trophy’: Embodied Material Traces of Islamic Mysticism in Ottoman Hungary.” Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief 19 (5): 439–456. doi.org/10.1080/17432200.2023.2285584, accessed January 24, 2024.
Küçük, Hülya. 2002. The Role of the Bektāshīs in Turkey’s National Struggle. Leiden: Brill.
Kryegjyshata Boterore Bektashiane. kryegjyshataboterorebektashiane.org/en/headfather-hajji-dede-edmond-brahimaj, accessed November 13, 2021.
Lewisohn, Leonard. 1998. “An Introduction to the History of Modern Persian Sufism, Part 1, The Niʿmatullahi Order. Persecution, Revival and Schism.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 61 (3): 437–464. doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X00019285, accessed May 21, 2021.
Mašulović-Marsol, Liliana. 1995. “Les Bektachis dans la République de Macédoine. Notes et matériaux d’une enquête sur le terrain (1986–1987).” In Bektachiyya. Études sur l’ordre mystique des Bektachis et les groupes relevant de Hadji Bektach, ed. by Alexandre Popović and Gilles Veinstein, 339–368. Istanbul: Isis Press.
McInerney, Terence. 2004. “Three Paintings by Abu’l Hasan in a Manuscript of the Bustan of Saʿdi.” In Arts of Mughal India: Studies in Honour of Robert Skelton, ed. by Andrew Topsfield, Rosemary Crill, and Susan Stronge, 80–94. London and Ahmedabad: Mapin.
Mélikoff, Irène. 1962. Abū Muslim, le « Porte-Hache » du Khorassan dans la tradition épique turco-iranienne. Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve.
Mélikoff, Irène. 1998. Hadji Bektach: un mythe et ses avatars. Genèse et évolution du soufisme populaire en Turquie. Leiden: Brill.
Mostowlansky, Till and Andrea Rota. 2016. “A Matter of Perspective? Disentangling the Emic-Etic Debate in the Scientific Study of Religion\s.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 28 (4–5): 317–336.
Norris, Harry Thirlwall. 2006. Popular Sufism in Eastern Europe: Sufi Brotherhoods and the Dialogue with Christianity and “Heterodoxy.” London: Routledge.
Ocak, Ahmet Yaşar. 1989. La révolte de Baba Resul, ou, La formation de l’hétérodoxie musulmane en Anatolie au XIIIe siècle. Ankara: Imprimerie de la Société turque d’histoire.
Ocak, Ahmet Yaşar. 1992. Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda marjinal Sûfîlik: Kalenderîler (XIV–XVII. yüzyıllar) [Marginal Sufism in the Ottoman Empire: Qalandars (XIV–XVII Centuries)]. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi.
Oktay, Zeynep. ed. 2013. Mesnevî-i Baba Kaygusuz. Cambridge, MA: Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University.
Oktay, Zeynep. 2017. L’Homme Parfait dans le Bektachisme et l’Alévisme: Le Kitāb-ı Maġlaṭa de Ḳayġusuz Abdāl (The Perfect Man in Bektashism and Alevism: Ḳayġusuz Abdāl’s Kitāb-ı Maġlaṭa). PhD Thesis. Université Paris Sciences et Lettres.
Oktay, Zeynep. 2016. “Layers of Mystical Meaning and Social Context in the Works of Kaygusuz Abdal.” In Literature and Intellectual Life in Fourteenth and Fifteenth century Anatolia, ed. by Andrew C. S. Peacock and Sara Nur Yıldız, 73–99. Würzburg: Ergon.
Ortner, Sherry B. 1973. “On Key Symbols.” American Anthropologist 75 (4): 1338–1346.
Panjwani, Imranali. 2014. “Soul.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science and Technology in Islam, ed. by Ibrahim Kalin, 267–273. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Plate, S. Brent. 2012. “The Skin of Religion: Aesthetic Mediations of the Sacred.” CrossCurrents 62 (2): 162–180.
Rexheb, Baba. 1970. Misticizma islame dhe Bektashizme. New York: Waldon Press; 2016. Hüseyin Abiva transl. Islamic Mysticism and the Bektashi Path. Chicago: Babagân Books.
Rizvi, Saiyid Athar Abbas. 1970. “Sufis and Natha Yogis in Medieval Northern India (XII to XVI Centuries).” Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia 7: 119–133.
Rosler, Martha, Caroline Walker Bynum, Natasha Eaton et al. 2013. “Notes from the Field: Materiality.” The Art Bulletin 95 (1): 10–37. doi.org/10.1080/00043079.2013.10786104, accessed October 15, 2021.
Seliger, Kurt. 1960. Albanien. Land der Adlersöhne. Ein Reisebuch in Wort und Bild. Leipzig: Brockhaus.
Sharon, Moshe. 1986. “Ahl al-bayt – People of the House.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8: 169–184.
Slyomovics, Susan. 1993. “The Pilgrimage of Rabbi Ephraim al-Naqava, Tlemcen, Algeria.” Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review 15 (2): 84–88.
Al-Sistani, Ali. “Question & Answer: Pictures.” www.sistani.org/english/data/2, accessed August 21, 2021.
de Smet, Daniel. 2011. “La pratique de taqiyya et kitmān en islam chiite. Compromis ou hypocrisie?” In Actualité du compromis. La construction politique de la différence, ed. by Mohamed Nachi, 148–161. Paris: Armand Colin.
Soileau, Marc. 2012. “Spreading the Sofra: Sharing and Partaking in the Bektashi Ritual Meal.” History of Religions 52 (1): 1–30. doi.org/10.1086/665961, accessed May 31, 2021.
Soileau, Marc. 2014. “Conforming Haji Bektash: A Saint and His Followers between Orthopraxy and Heteropraxy.” Die Welt des Islams 54 (3–4): 423–459. doi.org/10.1163/ 15700607-05434P06, accessed May 31, 2021.
Soudavar, Abolala. 1992. Art of the Persian Courts: Selections from the Art and History Trust Collection. New York, NY: Rizzoli.
Stoyanov, Yuri. 2016. “Gnosis and ‘Gnosticism’ in Alevi and Bektasi Syncretism. Disputed Origins and New Directions for Research.” In L’Ésotérisme Shiʿite: Ses racines et ses prolongements [Shiʿi Esotericism: Its Roots and Developments], ed. by Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Maria De Cillis, Daniel De Smet, and Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, 723–742. Turnhout: Brepols.
Unidentified Urtësia correspondent. April 2019. “Të pijmë nga burimet e dlira të Ehli-Bejtit [To Drink from the Abundant Resources of Ehli Beit].” Urtësia: Revistë fetare shoqërore artistike, botim i Selisë së Shenjtë të Kryegjyshatës Botërore Bektashiane 131: 22–25.
Vahidi. 1993. Vāhidī’s Menākıb-ı Hvoca-i Cihān ve Netīce-i Cān, ed. by Ahmet T. Karamustafa. Cambridge, MA: Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University.
Watenpaugh, Heghnar Zeitlian. 2005. “Deviant Dervishes: Space, Gender, and the Construction of Antinomian Piety in Ottoman Aleppo.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 37 (4): 535–565. doi.org/10.1017/S0020743805052190, accessed October 15, 2021.
Welch, Stuart Cary. 1985. India: Art and Culture, 1300–1900. New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Yıldırım, Rıza. 2015. “Sunni Orthodox vs Shiʿite Heterodox?: A Reappraisal of Islamic Piety in Medieval Anatolia.” In Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia, ed. by Andrew C. S. Peacock, Bruno De Nicola, and Sara Nur Yildiz, 287–307. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.
Yıldız, Ayşe. 2006. “Sultan Şücaaddin Baba Velayetnamesi.” Türk Kültürü ve Hacı Bektaş Veli Dergisi 37: 49–98.
Zarcone, Thierry. 2014. “Bektaşiyye.” In Encyclopedia of Islam. THREE, ed. by Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson. dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_24010, accessed February 2, 2019.
Zarcone, Thierry. 2016. “La mort initiatique dans l’Alévisme et le Bektachisme. De la ‘résurrection’ de ʿAlī à la pendaison de Ḥallāj.” In L’Ésotérisme Shiʿite: Ses racines et ses prolongements [Shiʿi Esotericism: Its Roots and Developments], ed. by Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Maria De Cillis, Daniel De Smet, and Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, 781–798. Turnhout: Brepols.
See Hüseyin Abiva (n. d.); cf. John Kingsley Birge ([1937] 1994), 132.
Unless otherwise noted, transliterations and translations of non-English words in this chapter are from the modern Albanian.
On the Bektashi community in the Albanian-speaking world, see Nathalie Clayer (1990); Hasan Kaleshi (1980, 9–15); Albert Doja (2008); and Liliana Mašulović-Marsol (1995, 339–368).
In the Bektashi hierarchy, these comprise religious leaders, known as babas (Turkish, literally, ‘father’; usually referring to the head of a tekke) and dervishes (fully initiated individuals who serve in a tekke).
I read the terms ‘material culture’ and ‘materiality’ in a broad manner as referring to elements of culture – in this case objects – that are materially embodied.
Building on Sherry Ortner (1973), I refer to ‘symbols’ as instruments that assist us “to compound and synthesize a complex system of ideas,” serving as “vehicles for sorting out complex and undifferentiated feelings and ideas.”
On the concepts of ‘religion’ and the different kinds of ‘mediation’ in ‘the turn,’ see Matthew Engelke (2010, 371–379).
It was not possible to interview dignitaries and diplomats about their reactions to the complex and nuanced symbolic language in the visual narratives they encounter in Baba Mondi’s reception room.
Since the oil painting is framed under glass, I could not examine this or any of the other oil paintings in the reception room. A detailed analysis of this unique group of Bektashi paintings awaits further research.
They are identified in the accompanying inscriptions in Ottoman Turkish (from left to right) as Hazret Imam Hasan, Rasul Akram Muhammed Mustafa, Hatun Fatima al-Zahra, Shah Vilayet Hazret Ali al-Murteza, and Hazret Imam Hüseyin Shah Shahid Kerbela.
Nothing is known about the painter or the provenance of this and the other paintings in the reception room. The painting does not seem to be indebted to the pictorial techniques of Christian icon painting, but the artist appears to have made use of a variety of borrowed aesthetic strategies found in other Albanian contexts, creating a uniquely Albanian Bektashi pictorial aesthetic.
Alongside pilgrimages to the three principal Muslim holy sites: Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, see kryegjyshataboterorebektashiane.org/en/headfather-hajji-dede-edmond -brahimaj.
Albanian equivalent to the Arabic Ahl al-Bayt, ‘people of the House [of the Prophet].’ For a discussion of the historical interpretations of the term Ahl al-Bayt, see Moshe Sharon (1986, 169–184), Ali Asani (2002), and Ignaz Goldziher, Cornelis van Arendonk, and Arthur Stanley Tritton (2012).
It is noteworthy that – until its destruction during World War I – there was a Bektashi lodge in the shrine complex of Imam Musa al-Kazim in Kazimiyya, headed by Selman Xhemali Baba of Elbasan (d. 1949), see Harry Thirlwall Norris (2006, 113–116). For the history of the Bektashi tekkes in Iraq and their earlier association with the Abdals of Rum (especially at the lodge located in the courtyard of the shrine complex of Imam Husayn in Karbala), see Ayfer Karakaya-Stump (2011, 1–24).
The confessional division between the Sunni and Shiʿi realms of the Turkish and Albanian Bektashi communities still awaits scholarly investigation.
Author’s interview (Kryegjyshata in Tirana, Albania, on August 31, 2019). I would like to thank Arben Sulejmani for his help with the translations. Focusing on the definitions and perceptions of the Bektashis themselves and the visitors to the reception room, I differentiate between emic (‘insider’) insights and etic (i.e., scholarly) analysis to assess the information from both subjective and objective perspectives; cf. Till Mostowlansky and Andrea Rota (2016, 317–336).
The name underscores their veneration of Ali b. Abi Talib (c.600–661), the common ancestor of all Shiʿi factions.
For a detailed account of the Qalandars and related antinomian dervish groups associated with renunciatory piety, see Ahmet T. Karamustafa (2006, 3–4, 52–62, 65–67). Throughout this chapter, ‘Qalandar’ is used as a synonym for ‘antinomian dervish’ rather than in reference to a specific dervish group.
On the Jalalis, a deviant dervish group that developed in India during the fifteenth century, see Karamustafa (2006, 61).
For a historical overview of the Nimatullahis, one of the most important Sufi communities in the Persian mystical intellectual tradition, see Leonard Lewisohn (1998, 437–464).
I was able to observe this during the commemoration ceremony of the first anniversary of the death of former Kryegjysh Haxhi Dede Reshat Bardhi (April 3, 2012), which took place in the mejdan at the Bektashi Headquarters.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a widely followed clerical authority based in Najaf, Iraq, issued a religious ruling, or fatwa, declaring that depictions of “the Prophet Muhammad (s. a. w.), one of the past prophets, or the infallible Imams (a. s.), or other luminaries” are permissible if they are made with the due respect and reverence. See al-Sistani (n. d.).
The interviews cited in this chapter were conducted between August 24 and 31, 2019, at the Kryegjyshata in Tirana, Albania.
As cited in a nefes of Adem Wajhi (1842–1927), a myxher baba who opened a tekke in Prizren in Kosovo (Rexheb 2016, 396).
The baba seems to have survived the final days of Ottoman rule over Albania (Rexheb 2016, 412).
As evidenced by the dates recorded in two manuscripts preserved in the library of the Pir Evi at Hacıbektaş, see “Introduction” to Vilâyet-nâme (1990, xxiii–xxiv).
For related depictions, see Frederick de Jong (1989, pl. 15). De Jong identifies Haxhi Bektash’s companion as Güvenç Abdal, one of his closest disciples (1992, fig. 11.8).
The close association with Indian Sufism may be one of the reasons why Baba Mondi specifically alluded to the Indian Jalalis in the interview conducted on August 31, 2019.
Haxhi Bektash was later met by other competing mystics, such as Sayyid Mahmud Hayrani of Akshehir, accompanied by three hundred lion-riding Mevlevi dervishes who used serpents as whips. See Irène Mélikoff (1962, 40; 1998, 71–72).
The dove itself may probably also be seen as a symbol of the immortality of the soul; cf. Mélikoff (1962, 63).
On the various dervish groups that merged with the Bektashi order during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Karamustafa (1993, 121–129).
For a discussion of the complex relationship between the Ottoman authorities and the Bektashi order, see Suraiya Faroqhi (1995, 171–184).
The seventeenth-century Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi (1611–c.1685) already refers to the relationship between Haxhi Bektash and Karaxha Ahmed as one of master and pupil; see Frederick Hasluck (1914, 120–122, esp. 121, n. 3).
The headdress in the shape of the letter elif (Arabic alif) was the headgear of the Janissaries. On the Elif taxh, see Birge (1994, 37–38, n. 3, 46–47, 50, 104, 217, ill. no. 26).
On the connection between Ahmed Yesevi, the eponym of the Yesevi order, and the Bektashi tradition as configured in classical Bektashi hagiography, see Karamustafa (2005, 61–88).
Vilayetname, manuscript copy in the private library of John Kingsley Birge (1888–1952), fols. 16 and 27 (Birge 1994, 37–38, no. 3).
The depiction of Kaygusuz Abdal here differs from that in a nineteenth-century illustration preserved in the Pir Evi and found in many Turkish Bektashi contexts, which shows him with long hair, a long bushy moustache, arms crossed over his chest, and flanked by a snake winding around a tree trunk. This alludes to the need to be vigilant and to continue to train the nefs, as will be discussed below, but not to the idea of a ‘cycle of creation.’
On the Abdals of Rum, see Irène Beldiceanu (2012). This group of dervishes venerated the memory of Haxhi Bektash, which corresponded to their antinomian ideals, and opposed the framing of the saint’s legacy within the institutional context of the nascent Bektashi order. See Thierry Zarcone (2014).
Menāqıb-i Khvoca-i cihān ve netice-i cān, composed in 1522 by an Ottoman Sufi observer known by the penname Vahidi, who, like most mainstream Sufis, was critical of the antinomian dervishes (Vahidi 1993, 156; Karamustafa 2006, 83–84).
Mesnevî-i Baba Kaygusuz (2013, 172).
On the Qalandari cap, see Erdoğan Ağırdemir (2011, 365–378).
It is worth adding that in Bektashi initiation ceremonies, the guide who leads the candidate into the mejdan sometimes carries a teber. Perhaps the depiction of the teber in the painting should also be taken as an allusion to Kaygususz’s initiation into the Bektashi order (cf. de Jong 1989, 17, n. 79).
On the doctrine of the Perfect Man in Kaygusuz Abdal’s teachings, see Zeynep Oktay (2017, 89–92).
The ‘Perfect Human Being’ and the ‘Oneness of Being’ are controversial theological concepts in Islam. While various Sunni, Shiʿi, and some Sufi orders reject them, citing anthropomorphist tendencies (e.g., the Naqshabandiyya Sufi order), Bektashis and other Sufi groups attach great importance to these concepts.
For a comprehensive overview, see William C. Chittick (1989).
Mesnevî-i Baba Kaygusuz (2013, 110).
E.g. the description of Abdal Musa turning into a deer or riding on one (Ergun 1936–1937, 166–169).
On the Bektashi conceptualization of devriyye, see Baba Rexheb (2016, 181–185, 324–325).
In the sixteenth century, the order split into two branches: one, called the Çelebi, led by the reputed descendants of Haxhi Bektash who controlled the Pir Evi and were recognized by the central government; the other, called the Babagan, headed by a class of unmarried Bektashi who claimed spiritual descent from Balim Sultan (Bashir 2008, 143–144; Zarcone 2014).
After 1925, the members of the Çelebi branch remained in Hacıbektaş, Turkey, but outside the Pir Evi, which was turned into a museum.
For an account of the destruction of Bektashi institutions in Albania, see Robert Elsie 2019, 7. For references to the edicts, see Butrus Abu-Manneh (2001, 69–71); Faroqhi (1981, 108). In his seminal study Between Two Worlds, Cemal Kafadar (2010, 76) questions the appropriateness of a strict Sunni/Shiʿi dichotomy, as well as the formulation of notions of orthodoxy and heterodoxy along sectarian lines, when dealing with the complex religious history of Sufi communities, especially in the frontier regions of Anatolia and the Balkans between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. Instead, he conceptualizes the sectarian fluidity among these communities in terms of ‘metadoxy’ (cf. Yıldırım 2015, 287–307). As Marc Soileau (2014, 423–459) points out, the oscillation between ‘orthopraxy’ and ‘heteropraxy’ of Bektashism continues to this day.
For a description of these events, see Abu-Manneh (1982, 1–36, esp. 26–30; 2001, 69–71, esp. 71). On the abolition of the Bektashi tekkes after 1926, see Faroqhi (1981, 108–127).
For founding acts that present both the shaykh and the tekke as belonging to the Naqshbandiyya, see Clayer (1994, 197, fn. 52). On the role of the ‘Asim Baba Tekke’ in the nationalist movement, see Clayer (2007, 587–588).
For a discussion of the central role of patriotism and nationalism in Bektashism, see Clayer (1995, 271–300; and 2007).
On the four gates in the context of the Turkish Bektashi community, see Soileau (2014, 451–454).
In the same vein, since the Bektashis are often glossed as “the beheaded dead” (Turkish ser burīde murde), the knob on the Bektashi headpiece is interpreted as symbolizing a ‘human head’ (cf. Karamustafa 1993, 124). On Bektashi initiation rites with ‘initiatory death’ and symbolic resurrection, see Zarcone (2016, 781–798).
Author’s interview (Kryegjyshata in Tirana, Albania, August 31, 2019).