Items related to Writing Religion: The Making of Turkish Alevi Islam...

Writing Religion: The Making of Turkish Alevi Islam (AAR Reflection and Theory in the Study of Religion Series) - Softcover

Book 33 of 38: AAR Reflection and Theory in the Study of Religion

Dressler, Markus

 
9780190234096: Writing Religion: The Making of Turkish Alevi Islam (AAR Reflection and Theory in the Study of Religion Series)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0190234091 ISBN 13: 9780190234096
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2015

Synopsis

In the late 1980s, the Alevis, at that time thought to be largely assimilated into the secular Turkish mainstream, began to assert their difference as they never had before. The question of Alevism's origins and its relation to Islam and to Turkish culture became a highly contested issue. According to the dominant understanding, Alevism is part of the Islamic tradition, although located on its margins. It is further assumed that Alevism is intrinsically related to Anatolian and Turkish culture, carrying an ancient Turkish heritage, leading back into pre-Islamic Central Asian Turkish pasts.

Dressler argues that this knowledge about the Alevis-their demarcation as "heterodox" but Muslim and their status as carriers of Turkish culture-is in fact of rather recent origins. It was formulated within the complex historical dynamics of the late Ottoman Empire and the first years of the Turkish Republic in the context of Turkish nation-building and its goal of ethno-religious homogeneity.

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About the Author

Markus Dressler is currently Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Göttingen.



"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Publication date
2015
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0190234091
ISBN 13 
9780190234096
Binding
Paperback
Number of pages
346