The Heterodox Order Tied to an Army

The Bektashi order is the most heterodox of the major Sufi orders, and its fate was bound to a military institution in a way that eventually destroyed and then relocated it.

Between Sunni and Shia

Looking to the thirteenth-century saint Haji Bektash Veli but organised into its distinctive form by Balim Sultan around 1500, the Bektashis blend Shia veneration of Ali and the Twelve Imams with older Anatolian elements and a notably tolerant, syncretic outlook. They practise a ritual meal and confession, admit women to ceremonies, and do not observe some standard Sunni obligations, which places them well outside the mainstream of Sunni Sufism.

The Janissary tie

The order was institutionally bound to the Janissary corps of the Ottoman army, and that connection proved fatal: when the Janissaries were destroyed in 1826 the Bektashis were suppressed with them, and again in 1925 with the other orders. Its centre later moved to Albania, where it survives as a recognised community closely linked to Alevism. The Bektashi case shows how completely the standing of a Sufi order could depend on its political and military attachments rather than on its doctrine alone.