Sufism in Republican Turkey

Abstract

Abstract This chapter surveys the evolution of Sufi institutions in Turkey in the 20th century as they were impacted by the modernist, secularist, and nationalist ideology and movement of the Republican era. The many Sufi orders, prominent during the Ottoman period, were abruptly closed by law in 1925 as part of the new Republic’s modernizing reforms, and with their traditions now relegated to the past, the various orders and their members responded in different ways—by accepting the closure, by continuing underground, or by finding opportunities to assert themselves and their traditions. This chapter assesses these developments by focusing on the aspects of Sufism that were officially banned by the law—the tombs of saints and the pilgrimage practices occurring at them, the dervish lodges and the rituals performed in them, and the Sufi orders as units of social organization and as traditions—as well as the transmission of Sufi knowledge.