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A Zazaki Alevi Treatise from Diyarbekir*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2010

Mustafa Dehqan
Mustafa Dehqan*
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar, Iran
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Abstract

The overwhelming importance of Kurdish, both language and literature, in Turkish Kurdistan has tended to push all other languages into the background, though some of them are spoken by large and important populations. Zazaki and its literature is one of these that has received far less attention than it deserves, many educated people outside of Turkish Kurdistan being hardly aware of its existence. In this article I have presented the content of fragments from a new Zazaki source. These fragments were fortunately preserved in the binding cover of an old book, which seems to give us at least one of the neglected sources from which the Zazaki writers drew, and carries us back into the memories and the doctrines of the Zazaki community. It has great value as a document of the history of Alevism in Eastern Anatolia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 295 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2010

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References

1 On the Zazaki language, see, for example, Paul, L., Zazaki: Grammatik und Versuch einer Dialektologie (Wiesbaden, 1998)Google Scholar.

2 For Alevi doctrines, in general, see Bumke, P. J., “Kizilbasch-Kurden in Dersim (Tunceli, Turkey): Marginalität und Haresie”, Anthropos 74 (1979), pp. 530–548Google Scholar; and van Bruinessen, M., “‘Aslini Inkar Eden Haramzadedir!’ The Debate on the Ethnic Identity of the Kurdish Alevis”, in Kehl-Bodrogi, K., Kellner-Heinkele, B., and Otter-Beaujean, A. (eds), Collected Papers of the International Symposium “Alevism in Turkey and Comparable Sycretistic Religious Communities in the Near East in the Past and Present” Berlin, 14–17 April 1995 (Leiden, 1997), pp. 1–23Google Scholar.

3 The opening words of the treatise. It is a pleasure to thank Şahîn Xêrô for checking my translation here and elsewhere and to thank Turan Kaya for making the manuscript available to me.

4 To my knowledge, Efendi's History is lost and only cited in the present manuscript. See: Fol.9v.

5 According to the writings of the second section, he was eleven years in Aleppo. See: Fol. 25v. According to these brief allusions, as we shall say, it might be accepted that he was under the influence of Shiite communities in Aleppo. For Shiite groups in Aleppo and northern Syria, see al-Tawil, Muhammad Ghalib, Ta'rīkh al-‘Alawīyyīn, 2nd ed. (Beirut, 1966)Google Scholar, and Mossa, M., Extremist Shiites: The Ghulat Sects (Syracuse, 1987)Google Scholar.

6 For general information regarding the period of Selīm III, see Gawrych, G., “Şeyh Galib and Selim III: Mevlevism and the Nizam-ı Cedid”, International Journal of Turkish Studies 4 (1987), pp. 91–114Google Scholar.

7 On the çirax-sônduran, see Fontanier, V., Voyages en Orient (Paris, 1829), p. 168Google Scholar.

8 On the pîrs, dedes, and seyîds, see S. Haykuni, “Dersim”, Ararat 2–3 (1896), pp. 84–87, 132–134, especially p. 86.

9 On the ‘holy brotherhood’, see Asatrian, G. S. and Gevorgian, N. Kh., “Zaza Miscellany, Notes on Some Religious Customs and Institutions”, in A Green Leaf, Papers in Honour of Prof. Jes P. Asmussen, Acta Iranica 28 (Leiden, 1988), p. 507Google Scholar.

10 On the feast of ‘Alī and the feast of Khiḍr, see Müller, K. E., Kulturhistorische Studien zur Genese pseudoislamischer Sektengebilde in Vorderasien, Studien zur Kulturkunde 22 (Wiesbaden, 1967), pp. 29–30Google Scholar, and Asatrian and Gevorgian, ‘Zaza Miscellany’, p. 503, n. 25.

11 On the Yezidis, in general, see Kreyenbroek, P. G., Yezidism, Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition (Lewiston, 1995)Google Scholar.

12 There is no detailed reference to the Shamsis. For very brief information, see van Bruinessen, M. and Boeschoten, H., Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir, the Relevant Section of the Seyahatname (Leiden, 1988), p. 31Google Scholar and the literature there.

13 See especially Fol.29v.

14 Compare Ḥujjatī, Ḥ., “Raddīya wa Raddīya Niwīsī”, in Encyclopaedia of Shi'a VIII (Tehran, 2001), pp. 204–207Google Scholar.

15 On the role of Satan in Yezidi religion, see Dehqan, M., “Qit'iī Gūrānī darbāra-yi Shayṭān”, Nāme-ye Irān-e Bāstān 8 (2004), pp. 47–64Google Scholar, especially p. 50ff.

16 See, for example, fol.22r. and fol.26r.

17 Fol.25r.

18 See al-Irbilī, , Kashf al-Ghumma (Qumm, 1961), iii, pp. 227–343Google Scholar; and Ja'far, Najm al-Dīn b. al-‘Askarī, Muḥammad, al-Mahdī al-Maw‘ūd al-Muntaẓar ‘inda ‘Ulamā’ Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Imāmīyya (Beirut, 1977)Google Scholar.

19 Fol.30v.

20 On the taqiyya, see Goldziher, I., “Das Prinzip der taḳijja im Islam”, ZDMG 60 (1906), pp. 213–226Google Scholar.

21 For some Alevi authentic works, see, for example, Öztelli, C., Bektaşi Gülleri (Istanbul, 1985)Google Scholar; Düzgün, M., Comerd, M., and Tornêcengi, H., Dêrsim de Diwayi, Qesê Pi-kalıkan, Erf u Mecazi, Çıbenoki, Xeletnayêni [Dersim'de Dualar, Atasözleri, Mecazlar, Bilmeceler, Şaşırtmacalar] (Ankara, 1992)Google Scholar.

22 On the Bedir Khan system, which is widely used in the Kurdish-language scholarly literature, see Khan, J. Bedir and Lescot, R., Grammaire kurde (dialecte kurmandji) (Paris, 1970), pp. 3–7Google Scholar.