Turkey's Alevi Enigma

Turkey's Alevi Enigma
Author: Paul J. White
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2021-08-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004492356

This volume, written by specialists, be they political scientists, historians or anthropologists, is a convenient handbook on the origins and history of Turkey's Alevis - an important group that is largely unknown in the West. It examined their ethnic identity, cultural representation, political life, and relations with the Turkish State, The Turkish Left and the Kurdish National Movement.

Turkey's Alevi Enigma

Turkey's Alevi Enigma
Author: Paul Joseph White
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2003
Genre: History
ISBN: 9789004125384

This volume, written by specialists, be they political scientists, historians or anthropologists, is a convenient handbook on the origins and history of Turkey's Alevis - an important group that is largely unknown in the West. It examined their ethnic identity, cultural representation, political life, and relations with the Turkish State, The Turkish Left and the Kurdish National Movement.

The Alevis in Turkey and Europe

The Alevis in Turkey and Europe
Author: Elise Massicard
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2013
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0415667968

This book examines the development of identity politics amongst the Alevis in Europe and Turkey, which simultaneously provided the movement access to different resources and challenged its unity of action. While some argue that Aleviness is a religious phenomenon, and others claim it is a cultural or a political trend, this book analyzes the various strategies of claim-making and reconstructions of Aleviness as well as responses to the movement by various Turkish and German actors. Drawing on intensive fieldwork, Elise Massicard suggests that because of activists' many different definitions of Aleviness, the movement is in this sense an "identity movement without an identity."

Speaking for Islam

Speaking for Islam
Author: Gudrun Krämer
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2006-09-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9047408861

Who speaks for Islam? To whom do Muslims turn when they look for guidance? To what extent do individual scholars and preachers exert religious authority, and how can it be assessed? The upsurge of Islamism has lent new urgency to these questions, but they have deeper roots and a much longer history, and they certainly should not be considered in the light of present concerns only. The present volume – grown out of an international symposium at the Free University, Berlin in 2002 – is not so much concerned with religious authority, but with religious authorities, men and women claiming, projecting and exerting religious authority within a given context. It addresses issues such as the relationship of knowledge, conduct and charisma, the social functions of the schools of law and theology, and the efforts on the part of governments and rulers to organize religious scholars and to implement state-centred hierarchies. The volume focuses on Middle Eastern Muslim majority societies in the period from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, and the individual papers offer case studies elucidating important aspects of the wider phenomenon. Individually and collectively, they highlight the scope and variety of religious authorities in past and present Muslim societies.

Kurdish Alevis and the Case of Dersim

Kurdish Alevis and the Case of Dersim
Author: Erdal Gezik
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2019-01-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1498575498

In contemporary Turkey, discussions on the concept of ethnicity and religiosity continue to maintain their utmost importance in politics and daily social life. In this context, Alevi and Kurdish identities have come to the fore with mass representation marked by protests and violence. In spite of the importance of Kurds and Alevis for the history of Turkey, one specific group, namely the Kurdish Alevis, has escaped the attention of the international world. Although wide interest upon the topic in the international academic sphere, there are very limited academic works about Kurdish Alevis in general. Who are the Kurdish Alevis? What are the particular conditions for its association with the Kurdish identity, Alevi religion, and the history of Turkey? What has been the role of Dersim within Kurdish Alevism? The main purpose of this edited volume, the first of its kind, is to contribute to the understanding of these and other questions. Based on six perspectives from scholars from various disciplinary, this approach will present new insights on contemporary research and discussions on the issue.

Media, Religion, Citizenship

Media, Religion, Citizenship
Author: Kumru Berfin Emre
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2023
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0197267424

Alevis have been struggling for the right of recognition and equal citizenship in Turkey for decades. Alevi media enables a particular form of transversal citizenship. Emre presents Alevia media for the first time, demonstrating the flourishing of ethno-religious imaginaries through community media.

Toward an Islamic Enlightenment

Toward an Islamic Enlightenment
Author: M. Hakan Yavuz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2013-01-31
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199927995

M. Hakan Yavuz offers an insightful and wide-ranging study of the Gulen Movement, one of the most controversial developments in contemporary Islam. Founded in Turkey by the Muslim thinker Fethullah Gulen, the Gulen Movement aims to disseminate a ''moderate'' interpretation of Islam through faith-based education. Its activities have fundamentally altered religious and political discourse in Turkey in recent decades, and its schools and other institutions have been established throughout Central Asia and the Balkans, as well as western Europe and North America. Consequently, its goals and modus operandi have come under increasing scrutiny around the world. Yavuz introduces readers to the movement, its leader, its philosophies, and its practical applications. After recounting Gulen's personal history, he analyzes Gulen's theological outlook, the structure of the movement, its educational premise and promise, its financial structure, and its contributions (particularly to debates in the Turkish public sphere), its scientific outlook, and its role in interfaith dialogue. Towards an Islamic Enlightenment shows the many facets of the movement, arguing that it is marked by an identity paradox: despite its tremendous contribution to the introduction of a moderate, peaceful, and modern Islamic outlook-so different from the Iranian or Saudi forms of radical and political Islam-the Gulen Movement is at once liberal and communitarian, provoking both hope and fear in its works and influence.

Religious Politics in Turkey

Religious Politics in Turkey
Author: Ceren Lord
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2018-11-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108472001

Presents an account of the rise of Erdogan's AKP, showing how the politicisation of religion has roots in the period of early nation-building in Turkey.

Transnational Transcendence

Transnational Transcendence
Author: Thomas J. Csordas
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2023-09-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520943651

This innovative collection examines the transnational movements, effects, and transformations of religion in the contemporary world, offering a fresh perspective on the interrelation between globalization and religion. Transnational Transcendence challenges some widely accepted ideas about this relationship—in particular, that globalization can be understood solely as an economic phenomenon and that its religious manifestations are secondary. The book points out that religion's role remains understudied and undertheorized as an element in debates about globalization, and it raises questions about how and why certain forms of religious practice and intersubjectivity succeed as they cross national and cultural boundaries. Framed by Thomas J. Csordas's introduction, this timely volume both urges further development of a theory of religion and globalization and constitutes an important step toward that theory. This innovative collection examines the transnational movements, effects, and transformations of religion in the contemporary world, offering a fresh perspective on the interrelation between globalization and religion. Transnational Transcendence c

Religious Minorities in the Middle East

Religious Minorities in the Middle East
Author: Anne Sofie Roald
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2011-11-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004216847

Focusing on the situation of both Muslim and non-Muslim religious minorities in the Middle East, this volume offers an analysis of various strategies of resilience and accommodation from a historical as well a contemporary perspective.