Averyanov Y.A. Hadji Bektash Veli and the Sufi Brotherhood Bektashiyya

The present work is devoted of Bektashiyya as one of the most eminent mystical Turkish brotherhoods. According to the Ottoman tradition this brotherhood was founded by a wandering mystic Hadji Bektash-i Veli from Khurasan, the historical province in the north-east Iran. This book is divided into ten chapters with the introduction and conclusion. The monograph is based on the study of historical sources and legendary materials about the community of early adopters of Hadji Bektash Veli in Anatolia and adjacent countries. Among the important problems the author reconstructs the biography of the eponym of Bektashi order, Hadji Bektash, through the detailed study of this community it is possible to comprehend closer the process of the emergence and development of Sufi brotherhoods in Asia Minor and the characteristic features of the culture of this region of the Islamic world of the 13th-16th centuries.
According to calculations of various chroniclers, Hadji Bektash Veli born between 1209 and 1240 in Nishapur, in Khurasan, and died after 1270 (some sources give the date 1337, but most scientists think that this is not the truth). The first followers of the doctrine of Hadji Bektash Veli lived late 13th and early 14th century: Sari Saltuk (d. 1300), Barak Baba (d. 1307), Yunus Emre (d. 1320-1321), Sa'id-Sadeddin (who wrote the Maqalat, manuscript dates from 1313), Geyikli Baba (d. 1330/31) and others. This was the period of the Mongol invasion, when Islam has lost its privileges of the state religion for a time. There is no doubt that this occasion helped the process of development of heterodox Sufi brotherhoods and the increasing of charisma of his mentors - the Pirs, the Sheikhs, the Murshids.

Sufism in this time was presented as a kind of ideology for Turkmen principality in Anatolia and, moreover, the Ottoman principality. The union of the Ottoman dynasty with the Bektashi order was crystallized in the second half of the 14th century after the appearance of the corps of military Janissaries filled with young prisoners from Christians. Hadji Bektash became a saint patron of this corps as guarantor to honor. The Bektashi corporation became the social structure in the empire. There were no important changes in primordial Bektashi doctrine until the beginning of the 15th century.
The written sources produced by Bektashi are fairly numerous. These are at the first line hagiographic works in Turkish. The most famous treatise of this type is the biography of Hadji Bektash Veli named Vilayat-name-i Hadji Bektash-i Veli-i (written from 1481 to 1501), the main compendium about Hadji Bektashi as an eminent person for the mystical tradition in Turkey. Other hagiographies of the Bektashi saints fall into the same category: Vilayet-name-i Abdal Musa (beginning of 15th century) Saltuk-name (1473-1480), Vilayet-name-i Otman Baba (1478), Vilayet-name-i Sultan Hadjim, Vilayet-name-i Seyyid Ali Sultan (late 15th century) and others.
The life of Hadji Bektash Veli was divided into a few steps according the sources: the asceticism in Khurasan, the wanderings in the Middle East, the arriving into Anatolia and the prime contacts with local Sufis, the foundation of tekke at Suludja Karahuyuk, the refusal of the activity and, afterwards, actions of his followers and khalifa's in vast areas of medieval Anatolia. Hadji Bektash was originally a member of community of wandering Khurasania darwishes (Khurasan erenleri). Starting from his migration from Anatolia he became the leader of a group of similar darwishes in this country called the Abdalan-i Rum. The question of proportion between Shi'ite and Sunni elements in the doctrine of Abdalan-i Rum as well as the doctrine of Hadji Bektash has become the subject of discussions between Turkish and European specialists. Many of them believe that the Shi'ite elements have been integrated into the groups of Bektashi beliefs in the first half of the 15th century through the influence of the Hurufi sect that had Iranian origin.
Hagiographies of the Bektashis contain some mythological elements from pre-Islamic times (shamanistic, Buddhists, sometimes Christian). The Bektashi saints produce many miracles. Their real lives mingle with marvel sphere. The miracles of saints are not strictly linked with Muslim dogma. Sometimes these descriptions differ from the tenets of Islam. The information from the legendary Vilayet-name and other hagiographic sources of the brotherhood of Bektashiyya has not direct correlation with the Ottoman chronicles. This is the mental divergence between two points of view: official (exoteric) and spiritual (esoteric). These materials can be used by historians in studies for the Sufi community and the cult of Sufi saints.

Averyanov Y.A. Hadji Bektash Veli and the Sufi Brotherhood Bektashiyya,Moscow: the Mardjani Publishing House, 2011,ISBN 978-5-903715-36-7