What do you think about the Bektashi in the Balkans, especially in Albania?
Posted by Low_Skill_4096@reddit | AskBalkans | View on Reddit | 31 comments
How are the Bektashi viewed in the Balkans, especially in Albania, where the world center of the Bektashi order is located in Tirana?
This-Wall-1331@reddit
Isn't it like a progressive version of Islam?
More_Ad_5142@reddit
Very syncretic, developed in Anatolia right after Turks entered Anatolia in the 11th century. Combined elements of Turkic paganism, Anatolian local folk religion and Sufism. Roughly 15 percent of Turks are Alevite/Bektashi today.
GlobalPineapple1947@reddit
Albanian bektashis are quite different as they added many Albanian/christian elements, and they are super chill. They were a major force in the preservation of Albanian identity against the Ottoman 19th C campaign to turkify and erase Albanians and their language. These are NOT the Alevite of Anatolia
sergeant-baklava@reddit
Lad, Ottomans that kept Albanian identity alive for centuries. Serbs were on the verge of eating you all alive before the Ottomans arrived and put you all in positions of power while preserving your language and culture.
You guys are the biggest glory hunters I’ve ever seen.
Always on the side of whoever is strong that day. Hence why you all adore America now.
In 60 years you’ll be telling everyone how you fought back Americans in the historical Albanian city of Belgrade.
GlobalPineapple1947@reddit
Albanian identity was literally illegal for the entire 19th century. Albanians were executed for speaking it. Ottoman allied with Serbs to eradicate Albanian identity, forced Albanians to give their children Turkish names, opened medreses in every corner of Albanian territories. ALL the southern Albanian beys were massacred in one day in 1831, after Ali Pasha was defeated (they couldn't handle Mehmet Ali of Egypt)
This was because Albanians were the most powerful ethnic group in the empire and a threat to Turkish identity and of course becasue Ottomans wanted to hold on to Albanian territories.
Moron
sergeant-baklava@reddit
So some Albanian leaders were killed because they were consolidating power away from the Ottoman power structure in the region?
Wow, what inhumanity! An empire didn’t want to allow internal dissent! Absolutely unthinkable. We should immediately pay reparations to all Albanians.
There’s no generic here. Albanians have chosen their side every time; and that’s whoever is strongest at the time. You know it yourself, which is why it touched a nerve.
You’re so desperate to be accepted by Europe, that you’ll say anything and turn anything into some example of how you were “just like all the Christian Balkan nations” under the Ottomans, when in fact you were the proverbial teacher’s pets.
You all love your country so much that you refuse to live in it. I’ve never seen so much pseudo history shared by any other nation.
More_Ad_5142@reddit
And how did Bektashism arrive in the Balkans? By Ottomans. Where did it originate? Anatolia. And Turkish Alevites/Bektashis are also super chill and they too incorporate many Christian and pagan elements. Your post is ill informed.
GlobalPineapple1947@reddit
I don't know why you repeated your previous comment. I only pointed out that Bektashiism is quite changed in Albania.
This is such a typical response about all things Ottoman by Turks here. When did Turks become such vile nationalists? I mean, most of you don't even know your ethnicity for God's sake....strange to be so attached to a vague national identity from a dead empire, which incidentally was controlled by Albanians for much of its history.
Ujemegaz@reddit
Found out recently that Frasheri brothers were bektashis.
jesushatedbacon@reddit
Don't forget the goat, Ali Pasha.
David_Aaron_Finck@reddit
Considering my sympathy for Suffis and the fact that, as agnostic, I never met better people, than Derwishs, BMO best of Islam, I guess that I like it too. My wife was from Montenegro and she was in the Riffai order. I am not a fan of religions generally, but Orders are for me top.
Relevant_Hat_8802@reddit
Would love to hear more about this story if you feel like sharing it. God bless you.
David_Aaron_Finck@reddit
About what part? How I met and lost my wife?
Relevant_Hat_8802@reddit
About why she was so great for you to speak to highly of her
David_Aaron_Finck@reddit
My very good friend Hafiz Bugari, from Sarajevo, he was fired from the Islamic Community, so he was hired in Montenegro. Not because he did a bad job. He was too good, that's the problem. Bugari is Baba, he was in Podgorica, for some Islamic preservation, only women. He saw her, Dijana, came to listen, so he looked her all the time, straight in the eyes. She became to feel uncomfortable, after the presentation, she came alone and asked why he's watching her like that. He said, you are widow, you always visit Sarajevo, I tell you about a very nice guy, divorced and you can look the name (mine) on the Facebook, is 8 profile with the name, but you will recognise who is my friend . So I became friendships request by unknown woman, watch the pic, I don't know her, but the woman is exactly the type I prefer. Same age, both 40, so she texted about Bugari and what he said, I had no idea, but I believed, he is doing things like that. We texted 20 days, so she said, she wants to meet me, to travel tomorrow to Sarajevo. First time I saw her coming out of bus, I loved her in the second, before we talked .
I am looking, we go in cafe for drinks, the boy brought, I only paid, took her package and straight to taxi. In taxi I already know I love the woman, we will marry... In my apartment we didn't make it to my bedroom, we make it on the floor, 3 meters from my bedroom. When the sex was finished, then we drunk coffee and talked 😄
David_Aaron_Finck@reddit
We were the same age, her husband was double her age, he died before 7 years ago. I divorced since 10 or 11 years. It's may sound pervert, but is not, I feel like she is my sister, but not this way. I mean like spiritual sister. Although I am agnostic, she Muslim, the vibe we have the same. I was surprised, how deep is possible to connect with the wife, then she was such a good person, wife, best friend, our sex is something I didn't honestly knew that such awesome sex can be.
David_Aaron_Finck@reddit
I always loved Bugari, now much more, than the 7 years of the marriage was best of my life. That is real religious leader, he is not looking to help only the people of Islam, he is such a generous person. The authority person from Suffi Orders never lies , I never asked him to help me find woman. That's hard to say, if you ask me why I'm talking about her with superlative, it's just the person who I feel comfortable every time when the wife is around, every meal tastes like gala dinner, because the person is the best match, I don't know, genetics or whatever, but it works, she was the true soul mate.
David_Aaron_Finck@reddit
She deserved that the story is going public in anonymous way, that someone who maybe lost the hope to be In love, we could not defend from the death, no one can, I never shared that this way, I have no shame to share my feelings, the feeling with a woman like that is like I was a boy and we met in the high school and she's my first friend. It's very painful to handle when the person who knows you without any masks and if the relationship is going any little deeper, we were looking our inner organs 😄. I don't have the idea if afterlife really exists, and if, that's really someone I wish to meet again.
EdliA@reddit
It became the official spiritual guide of Janissaries, of course it would spread to the Balkans once those soldiers went back home.
Repulsive_Work_226@reddit
Bektashi was the sect of the Janissary army mostly. Mahmud II, who is also called infidel trying to westernise the Ottomans banned the Janissary and Bektashi in 1820s. As a result most went to exile to the Balkans. There are Alevi in Turkiye who are related.
Low_Skill_4096@reddit (OP)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/398380296_Bir_Romen_kaynaginda_Adakale_ve_Miskin_Baba_Val_Cordun_Adakale%27de_Bektasilik_Miskin_Baba_-_Kirli_Evliya
On the flooded island of Ada Kaleh, there once lived an Alevi-Bektashi community who worshipped the island saint Miskin Baba (according to legend, an Uzbek prince).
sjedinjenoStanje@reddit
I heard about it for the first time in this sub lol (I know virtually nothing about it)
Barbak86@reddit
It's the only religion I would choose if someone held a gun to my head and said you have to choose one.
A down to earth religion, focused on spirituality, human friendly.
Full-Rice-9287@reddit
My family from both parents is traditionally bektashi. We have Tekkes and mekams (?) in the family. That being said, it presents itself mostly as deism with “pagan” rituals. Praying to dead people. Full of myths, and quite light as a religion. Not heavy on punishment or terror.
Dear_Wrongdoer7271@reddit
My father was in military school with the Dedebaba or whatever they called of Albania and then when communism fell he went into the religion. They should absolutely, unequivocally, irrevocably NOT have their own Vatican.
TurdEye69@reddit
Something that made me smile is that “Dedebaba” means “Grandpagrandma” in Bulgarian.
Endi_loshi@reddit
As a sect I think it is one of the most interesting religion in the balkans. They are a proper spiritual sect, with little dogmatic bullshit.
Big-Waltz5204@reddit
I know very little about it. Think it's a Sufi branch but not really sure. The whole Sufi and dervish mystical practices had been a thing in Bosnia too but it went extinct mainly, I believe. I think it had to do historically with Turks wanting more say in society and religious matters and not leave it all up to Arabs so they tailored some aspects of Islam to fit their society better. But idk. Seems interesting. I read lot of eastern spirituality and philosophy but wasn't familiar with Bektashi order.
Low_Skill_4096@reddit (OP)
indeed https://www.sarakuehn.com/the-albanian-speaking-bektashi-order-of-dervishes
Decent_Swimmer9237@reddit
Interesting denomination
Ok-Letter3775@reddit
I just know my Bektashi friends love Rakia way too much