What is Alevism

Let’s try to explain briefly what is Alevism;

First, let’s look at the meaning of the word. If we look at the dictionary meaning of the word “Alevi”, it means “Supporter of Ali, pro-Ali”. Ali mentioned here, Hz. Ali. So the Alevi means Hz. Supporter of Ali means loving pro-Ali.

If we consider and interpret this situation within the Alevi community, they are the communities that have adopted Islam with the love of Allah, Muhammad, Ali and Ahl al-Bayt and the Twelve Imams. Alevism, which deals with the western face and spirit of Islam, is a way of reaching spiritual peace.

To address the issue through the political history of Islam, this term was used for the first time during disputes regarding the caliphate. Hz. During the caliphate debates that emerged in the short period following the death of the Prophet and became more intensified after the killing of the third caliph, those who took the side of Ali were al-Alawiyya or shai Alî (followers of Ali, followers of Ali), and the groups against them al-Ömeriyye, al -Osmâniyye (those connected to Umar and Uthman, hence Abu Bakr)

(see Abdüsselâm M. Hârûn, el-ʿOs̱mâniyye [Câhiz], Takdim, p. 5; Câhiz, p. 19, 187; Kādî Abdülcebbâr, II, 377, 380).

On the basis of Anatolian Alevism, which is a publication in our country, there is love and respect for human beings. He combined and interpreted Islam with its religious ties from the past. In this form, all other Hz. Ali (Shiia etc.) is separated with his supporters.

Alevism in Anatolia

The Ottomans’ beginning to dominate Anatolia, moving away from the Turks who created themselves in this process and adopting Sunni Islam as the religious belief of the state, started to turn Turkmens living in Anatolian lands and living nomadic life as opposed to itself.

In addition to this situation, when Shah Ismail, who called the Turkmens to be united, the presence of the Safavid state was added, this form of belief, which was seen as a threat by the Ottoman Empire, began to be called Kızılbaş. Turkmens who were removed from the general society had to live in mountain villages and preserved their belief structures.

The Ottoman rulers took refuge in various fatwas in order to destroy these people, whom they regarded as a threat, and even tried to exclude them from the society and abandon this belief with slanders.

During this process, Alevis began to be called Kızılbaş and the aim of this was that they do not know mother, sisters or brothers, and they tried to show them as deviant communities without the concept of honor. It is not possible to accept this ugly slander and there are no records supporting this slander in any historical source. Upon these events, the Alevi community filled the word Kızılbaş with love in its essence and started to use it in this term simply from that ugly iftar.