Zwischen Verfolgung und Eingliederung

The history of the Kızılbaş-Alevis in the Ottoman Empire is often remembered and written as a history of persecution and oppression. This study opens up a perspective on the Ottoman state and the Kızılbaş-Alevis beyond such dominant narratives. It approaches the period between the 16th and the 18th century and investigates how the formerly persecuted Kızılbaş interacted with local and imperial Ottoman state agents. After the persecution of the Kızılbaş by the state both sides entered a relationship which aimed at conveniently accommodating the heterogeneous Kızılbaş-Alevi communities to the (local) Ottoman apparatus of power. Relying on a wide range of Ottoman sources, the author reveals formerly unstudied contexts in which the Kızılbaş-Alevis arranged themselves with and within the Ottoman state. As such, this work challenges widespread notions of persecution or essentialist ideas of Heresy and critically rethinks the social history of the Kızılbaş-Alevis in the Ottoman Empire.