A Bektashi Story in Tanzimat Period How did Huseyin Yasar Baba Became An Atheist?

Abstract

The Bektashi lodge, which was liquidated with the Janissary in 1826, has been tried to be sunnificated within the modern identity policy that the center implements from this date and it has been confronted with accusations such as being hypocrite and atheist. In the Tanzimat period, the identity politics continued, and the Bektashi lodge and the Bektashis were faced with accusations such as hypocrite and atheist, and it was desired to be liquidated from political and social life. In this article, firstly the identity policies applied in the Tanzimat period were evaluated briefly and then the identity politics and Sunnification policies applied to Bektashis in this period were examined based on Ottoman archival documents. The basic problem which has been stressed in this article is to discuss how and for what reasons Huseyin Yasar Baba, a Bektashi reverend, was accused during the Tanzimat era and to point out how the political aspects of the religious aspects of that matter constitute an intersection for Ottoman rule. According to the Ottoman rule, the Bektashis were both out of the Sunni understanding and beyond the political circle. The fact that Huseyin Yasar Baba was accused of being an imprisoned person and that the Ottoman policies applied during the Tanzimat period, along with the Sunnification policies as seen in the example of Bektashi, show that these policies should be reassessed within the framework of secularism.