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    First published 2010by Routledge912915 Tolstoy House, 1517 Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi 110 001

    Simultaneously published in the UKby Routledge2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, OX14 4RN

    Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

    2010 Christiane Brosius and Ute Hsken

    Typeset byStar Compugraphics Private LimitedD156, Second FloorSector 7, Noida 201 301

    Printed and bound in India bySanat Printers312, EPIP, KundliSonipat 131 028, Haryana

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised inany form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now knownor hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any

    information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing fromthe publishers.

    British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

    ISBN 978-0-415-55378-0

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    Contents

    Preface ix

    Change and Stability of Rituals: An Introduction 1Christiane Brosius and Ute Hsken

    Part I. Rituals on the Move

    1. Staging Ritual Heritage: How Rituals BecomeTheatre in Uttarakhand, India 29Karin Polit

    2. Initiation, Re-birth and the EmergentCongregation: An Analysis of the SvadhyayaMovement in Western India 49

    Anindita Chakrabarti

    3. Transferring and Re-transferring Religious Practice:ISKCON between East and West 76Frank Neubert

    4. Marginalised Islam: The Transfer of Rural Ritualsinto Urban and Pluralist Contexts and the Emergenceof Transnational Communities of Practice 88Robert Langer

    5. Sunni Concepts of Ritual Purity in a ContemporaryDiaspora Context 124Udo Simon

    6. Old Rituals for New Threats: Possession and Healingin the Cult of Stala 144Fabrizio M. Ferrari

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    vi Ritual Matters

    7. Transfer of Ritual in a Local Tradition:

    Some Observations 172Barbara Schuler

    Part II. Psychological Aspects of Ritual

    8. The Uses of Ritual 201Sudhir Kakar

    9. Dynamic of Emotions and Dynamic of Rituals:

    Do Emotions Change Ritual Norms? 210Angelos Chaniotis

    10. Rituals of Possession 236William Sax and Jan Weinhold

    11. Regarding Ritual Motivation Matters: AgencyConcealed or Revealed 253Fletcher DuBois, Rolf Verres and Jan Weinhold

    Part III. Ritual Economy Beyond the Ritual Frame

    12. The Power of Ritual in Marriage: A DaughtersWedding in North-west India 271Tulsi Patel

    13. Ritual Economy and South Indian Ritual Practice 293Ute Hsken and K.K.A. Venkatachari

    Part IV. Media and Sensual Dimensions of Ritual Action

    14. Ritual Differs: Beyond Fixity and Flexibility inSouth Indian Hindu Ritual 311Saskia Kersenboom

    15. Wedding Design Online: Transfer and Transformationof Ritual Elements in the Context of Wedding Rituals 330Kerstin Radde-Antweiler

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    16. Gender, Generation and the Public Sphere:

    Islamic Values and Literary Response 356Susanne Enderwitz

    17. On the Representation of Presence: The Narrativeof Devnarayan as a Multimedia Performance 369Aditya Malik

    About the Editors 386Notes on the Contributors 388

    Index 396

    Contents vii

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    4

    Marginalised IslamThe Transfer of Rural Rituals into Urban

    and Pluralist Contexts and the Emergence

    of Transnational Communities of Practice

    Robert Langer

    The Islamic Studies/Ottoman Studies sub-project of theCollaborative Research Center Dynamics of Ritual at HeidelbergUniversity focuses on formerly so-called heterodox groups ofIslamic origin. These groups emerged in the late middle ages andearly modern times in the region around Upper Mesopotamia,reaching out into Southern Caucasia and Western Iran. UpperMesopotamia was from the sixteenth century onwards part of theOttoman Empire.1The region nowadays comprises Central andEastern Anatolia, Northern Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan. Modernmigrations brought the ritual practice of heterodox Muslimgroups form the rural Near East into its urban centres such asI.stanbul or Ankara and even further to Western Europe. In the

    course of this development and in connection with high degreesof mobility, communication and media representation (especially

    the medialisation of rituals), diaspora groups of Islamic origindeveloped transnational communities of practice2comprising thediaspora communities, the groups in urban centres of the NearEast, as well as the remaining village communities in the regionsof origin. This essay deals mainly with the Alevis from Turkeyand aims to exemplify some aspects of the concept of transfer ofritual, which was developed at Heidelberg as an analytical meansto analyse the relation between transformations of rituals andchanging contexts of cultural performances.

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    Marginalised Islam 89

    A classical Islamic studies perspective defined the historical

    starting point of many heterodox Muslim groups as an extre-mist, radical ideology (ghulw, exaggerating in this context:exaggerating the role of the Imams, worshipping them as emana-tions of God). This ideology developed out of the schism of theearly Muslim community after the death of Muhammad, at thattime mainly a conflict over how succession in the leadership of theMuslim community should be realised: electoral or hereditary (theimams). Taking up the viewpoint of Muslim orthodoxy (Sunni aswell as Shii), non-conformist groups were qualified as sectarian(firaq, sects, singular: firqa). In fact, they were a reservoir for(economically, politically or religiously) discontent parts of thepopulation as their ideology to liberate the downtrodden in con-nection with millenarian expectations was very attractive to them.This ideology of redemption was appealing to socio-economicallymarginalised groups such as the non-Arabs in the first centuries ofIslamic history. The reason for this was the identification with thesuppressed and murdered, but highly-revered leaders of the Shiitebranch of Islam, the so-called imams. The most important incidentin this history of suppression was the Karbal` incident, when

    Husayn, the grandson of Muhammad and son of his cousin andson-in-law, Al, was murdered by soldiers of the Sunni dynasty ofthe Ban Umayya (Omayyads) in the Iraqi desert. The ideology ofthe so-calledghultor exaggerators,3who themselves were Shiite,but exaggerated the veneration of Al, Husayn and other imams,was in the middle ages accommodated by tribal groups, mostlyspeakers of Iranian and Turkic languages and partly tribal Arabs.The adherents of severalghulwtraditions were mainly Turkmenand Kurdish tribesmen. In the course of history, ethno-religiousgroups emerged, triggered by social uprisings of rural populations(nomadic as well as sedentary) against state authority.

    In order to take up a perspective independent of orthodoxIslam, instead of heterodox Muslim sects, at least in a moderncontext, Islamic studies should rather refer to such traditions asmarginalised ethno-religious groups of Islamic origin, as theywere marginalised by an orthodoxisation of mainstream Muslimteaching and practice through central state authorities. Theirbeliefs and practices are heterodox from a theological positionthat defines orthodoxy, a distinction that has not to be decided

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    90 Robert Langer

    for by an academic discipline.4To name some of the groups still

    existing: Arab Nusayri (Alawiyyn), Kurdish Yezidi/Yazd (zd)and Ahl-e Haqq (Yrsn),5and Turkic as well as Kurdish Alevi,also called Kzlbas with many subgroups from the Balkans toNorthern Iraq and North-western Iran. Many of these groups although not all of them share a strong veneration of Al and hisdescendants, e.g., the name Alevi, i.e., pertaining to Al (cousinand son-in-law of Muhammad), underlines.6

    The Alevis especially were successfully pacified, put underindirect state control or marginalised in remote areas duringOttoman times; and even today under republican rule theystill have restricted access to political power and economic wealthin Turkey. Nevertheless, they constitute a strong demographicforce in modern Turkey, as reasonable estimates hold 10 to 20 percent of the actual Turkish population both Turkish and Kurdish as Alevi.7The Arab Nusayris (Alawiyyn), on the other hand,are part of the ruling Syrian elite, represented by the Asad family.8The Yezidi never completely subdued by Ottoman authority still practice their military tradition, either as part of Kurdishmovements that fought against the regime of Saddm Husayn or

    as activists in the Kurdish Workers Party in Turkey, also knownas PKK (Partiy Krkern- Kordestn).9

    Because of the above-mentioned political and economicalmarginalisation, members of these groups participated over-proportionally in the migrations of the twentieth century, to themega-cities of the region or to Western Europe, either as labourmigrants or as political refugees. More than ever before, thisbrought them into contact with mainstream Islam, with secularisedmovements as well as with Orientalist scholarship. Nationalistsinterpreted their religious traditions as the true religion of the

    respective ethnicity (nation) in opposition to orthodox Islam.This way, Kurdish intellectuals presented Kurdish forms ofAlevism or Yezidism as the true Kurdish religion (belonging tothe Iranian-Zoroastrian tradition), depending on their respectiveethno-religious background. Turkish Alevism on the otherhand was described as continuing the religion of the pre-Islamicshamanistic Turks or at least as the original Turkic kind of Islamby Turkish scholars, as opposed to the Arab Islam, but equallyopposed to the orthodox Shia of the Persians. Movements from

    within the communities, on the other hand, willingly took over the

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    Marginalised Islam 91

    promises of nationalist or socialist ideologies after World War II,

    secularising their specific identities in terms of these ideologies. Themigration processes generated urban and diasporic communities10of these non-orthodox, non-Sunni Muslims who, formerly, hadbeen entirely semi-nomadic or sedentary rural populations within asemi-autonomous tribal system, hidden away from the perceptionof urban orthodox religious authorities as well as from Westernscholarship.11

    Starting in the 1980s, Alevi activists took up religious elementsof their cultural tradition and re-invented religious ritual practiceafter having migrated away from the rural areas. Consequently,they transferred their ritual into large near eastern cities andinto pluralist Western societies. This transfer of rituals into newcontexts altered the ritual practice according to the new contextfactors.12This is especially evident in the case of the Alevi cem-ritual, a congregational gathering with communal prayers, singingand ritual dancing, usually framed by animal sacrifice before, anda communal meal at its end (see Langer 2006). In the so-calledayin-i cem(from Persian n, rule, regulation, and Arabic djam,collecting, assembling), an Alevi local community congregates

    from time to time to conduct a service under the leadership ofmembers of their priestly caste, the so-called dedes (Turkic, literallygrandfathers, i.e., elders).

    In traditional contexts such as the village community, thisritual also fulfilled the important task of a local law court, presidedover by the dedes, as members of heretic groups avoided theofficial qdcourts, which applied orthodox Sunni law until theend of the Ottoman Empire. In Europe as well as in the Turkishcities such as I

    .stanbul or Ankara, their congregational cem-ritual,

    formerly practised only in secret seclusion within the village

    community, became more public, and was partly even used insecular demonstrations and festivals.13This had a reverse impacton the remaining village culture, where the traditional cem-ritualwas no longer practised regularly since the 1970s, due to (self-)secularisation of the younger generation and harsh suppressionof non-Sunni religious practices by state authorities followingthe re-Islamisation of Turkey during the rule of the conservativeDemocratic Party in the 1950s.

    As far as pre-modern contexts up to the end of the nineteenth

    century are concerned, we are not able to recognise out of

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    92 Robert Langer

    contemporary sources an Alevi identity that comprised all

    such groups, which can be considered as proto-Alevi. Even thedesignation Alevi was not used in the modern sense as a term fora distinct Muslim group of confession, but only in its narrowermeaning as pertaining to Al or stemming from Al. TheSunnification of the Muslim population of the Ottoman Empiresince the sixteenth century (after the victory of the Ottomansover Safavid Iran) led to a retreat of heterodox groups into thegeographical periphery of the empire (rural and especially mount-ainous areas).

    Although we can find networks of religious specialists and theirlay-people, attached to each other over generations, stretchingacross wide ranges of Anatolia and Upper Mesopotamia, and al-though the groups in question indisputably shared several beliefsand practices that are common to modern Alevism, we can onlyspeak of a constellation of (resembling) practices.14 This factcan be proven by means of ethnographical material describingdifferent forms of religious practice (although we have no com-plete description of a pre-modern ritual), and by the fact that con-temporary Alevis complain about the different local traditions onhow to conduct a proper cem-ritual. Alevis usually see this localdifferentiation of practice as a direct result of Sunni oppression.Activists want to overcome this heterogeneity of ritual forms by aunified cem. In fact, a survey of ethnographic material shows a set(or rather continuum) of many different (though resembling eachother) communities of practice from different areas stretchingfrom the Balkans across Anatolia up to Caucasia, Western Iran andUpper Mesopotamia (Northern Iraq). This differing communitiesof practice during the last decades came into contact in urban

    and diaspora contexts due to migration and urbanisation of ruralAlevis. As the migrated Alevis hold or have re-established contactwith their rural regions of origin, and the diaspora communitieshave strong ties with the urban communities in I

    stanbul or Ankara,

    we can speak of a triangular villagecityWestern diaspora, whichnow forms the transnational field of discourse and practice.15Thishas developed only recently through the relatively cheap accessto modern transportation and information technologies. As aresult, modern means of mobility and medialisation (of rituals) havemade possible the creation of a virtual community of practice,

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    out of what formerly could only be referred to as a constellation

    of (resembling) practices: the modernAlevilik(Alevism).The contemporary situation concerning the cem-ritual can be

    described as follows. The ritual is most regularly practised in thecity cemevis (assembly houses), in many cases on a weekly basis,taking place usually on Thursday evening (which is called theFriday evening, according to the traditional Near Eastern conceptof time measuring where the day starts with sunset). This weeklycem-rituals, performed in a distinct Alevi architectural environmentattended by urban Alevis, are the most likely forms of ritual thatmodern Alevis have the chance to participate in. In many villages,such modernised forms of congregational ritual organised to lastonly one or two hours according to modern concepts of dailyworking routine are present either through television broadcastfrom the cities cemevis or as actually practiced rituals led by urbandedes in newly-built village cemevis. In spite of the ubiquity of thismodernised ritual, most Alevis still refer to the pre-modern villagecems that functioned as a legal court and lasted many hours, as thereal or ideal cem, although in reality these forms of cemhave nolonger been regularly performed for decades. It has to take place

    in the village community, which is no longer functioning as thesole entity of religious, social and economic life due to migration.Some communities tried to re-establish this pre-modern form bybringing together all families from the same village in an urbancemevi.

    When we analyse recent performances of cem-rituals, we candistinguish different transmission or reception lines: continuingtraditions from regional contexts, and modern cems or parts ofthe cem. These modern cems are perceived by Alevis either as liveperformances (in cemevis, at festivals, etc.) or through television

    broadcasts. Both, the recollections of village religious cultureas well as patterns of recent cemperformances were transferredto Western Europe through migration. Alevis in the diasporaperceive their modern cem-rituals, which are conducted in thecommunities in Europe only irregularly once or twice a year, asnot being the proper ritual. Instead, they tend to imagine theauthentic cemto take place in a pre-modern setting, i.e., the vil-lage community. In certain cases, people who plan to migrateback to their village of origin (and set the ground for these plans

    by building modern houses in the villages) have a special interest

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    94 Robert Langer

    in re-establishing religious live back home. This is a counter-

    movement towards standardised forms of the ritual as well asagainst the political organisations that are responsible for suchattempts at standardisation and centralisation and are attemptingto monopolise the representation of Alevism. However, contem-porary urban Alevis naturally have become acquainted with Aleviritual only in the migrational contexts, through its discourse, wayof thinking and modernised practice.

    In the course of my research, I encountered an example of thistemporary bringing back of Alevi congregational ritual practice to

    the village in one East-Central Anatolian village. In 2006, a cem-ritual was organised by a German Alevi who went to his village oforigin for a short visit to his old mother. Although he encouragedthe elderly villagers to practise the ritual as they remembered it fromtheir childhood, it had a modern structure, as there was no one leftwho dared to lead the ritual in its entirety as it was practised in thepast and only some sequences were re-enacted in the traditionalway. In order to lead the ritual, an urban dedefrom the city wasbrought, who practised it in a more standardised form. In additionto such direct influences, the omnipresence of television, including

    private stations run by Alevi entrepreneurs and organisations,which regularly broadcast weekly cem-rituals from urban cemevis,transports several modern forms of ritual practice from the citiesinto the village houses. Most striking examples for that are stagedrituals such as thesemahdance, performed by dancing groups indesigned costumes, professional, amplified music performances byprofessional musicians, especially designed and decorated roomsfor the ritual (cem salonlar), et cetera. It has to be kept in mind thatthe transmission of ritual knowledge is nowadays occupied by such

    medialised forms of rituals (television, books, magazines), and notby the practise of ritual itself (mimetics), nor by traditional learningfrom generation to generation by oral transmission. The influenceof these virtual, medial forms can be detected in their modernreligious practice as they exercise elements from broadcastedrituals in their actual ritual performances. This complex network ofmutual influences is a basis for the establishment of a virtual com-munity of practice, replacing the former, pre-modern field of aconstellation of related, but autonomous practices. This realisationof standardised ritual elements nowadays characterises the field

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    of Alevi ritual in as far a geographical range as from England to

    Eastern Anatolia, and from Sweden to Australia.In this essay, I am focussing on the Alevis from Turkey in order

    to exemplify some aspects of the concept of transfer of ritual.16Moreover, I show how easily scholars can be involved in identitypolitics, not only at the group but also at a national or eventransnational level. This happens when the researcher is dealingwith processes of transfer and transference of ritual, e.g., fromTurkey to Germany or from Turkish to German language, whichcan be interpreted as acculturation or worse as assimilation

    processes. It has to be taken into account that nationalistic ideologyhas recently gained much importance and broad acceptancein Turkey. The so-called moderate Islamicists of the rulingAK Party (Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi) and their prime ministerRecep Tayyip Erdogan are struggling for Turkeys European Unionmembership, trying to fulfil certain requirements set by Europeanpoliticians, e.g., in respect of minority rights. Thus, opposition to-wards the Islamic politicians as well as towards the EuropeanUnion an attitude that gained ground with the Turkish publicin recent times is formulated along nationalistic lines.

    In order to exemplify my points I will quote from a Turkishnewspaper. I use citations from this article later on as a means toexemplify aspects of the transfer of Alevi ritual from Turkey toGermany as well as dynamic transferences between Alevi religiouslife and the surrounding German culture. Several statements bythe author of the article, which was a reaction to a lecture I gaveat a congress on Alevi culture in Sanlurfa (Turkey), should serveto highlight some aspects of the transfer of ritual processes. Thisconcerns particularly the dynamical alterations rituals go through

    when their contexts are changed as well as the effects trans-formations of rituals can have on social actors confronted withsuch processes (here, first of all, the author of the article). Thetext in its English translation17runs as follows:

    A lecture about South-Eastern Anatolian Religious Culture in theLife of Alevis in Germany and the Role of Their Rituals was givenby the German scholar Dr. Robert Langer [at a congress in Sanlurfa,Turkey]. The lecture given by Langer displayed pretty well theGermans point of view concerning the Turks and how they wish

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    to destroy the values of the Turks by means of an official [German]

    state policy. Langer, in his presentation, spoke about an Alevi dede[a religious specialist] from Tunceli [formerly Dersim, in EasternTurkey] performing [the Alevi congregational] cem-ritual in Germanyin German language instead of Turkish and at the same time heshowed this ceremony to the audience on the screen. The Germanscholar was absolutely content, satisfied and happy that an Alevidedehad performed cemin German language. In his presentation,he pushed it even further when he mentioned with tears in hiseyes and sadness in his voice that the Zazas and Kurmancis [twoKurdish groups in Turkey] have lost their languages. Because of

    that, [Professor] Arslanoglu jumped up from his chair and gavean amazing speech []: I congratulate the Germans, for they areassimilating Turkish children and even Alevi dedes. Dr. Langermentions with sadness that Kurmancis and Zazas have lost theirlanguages. However, I guess he does not at all regret that Turkishchildren forget their language; he is even contented. Not too longago a German person in charge suggested that Turkish childrenwho speak Turkish on the schoolyard should be sentenced to cleanthe schools yard. As you know, the German minister of interiorhas said that assimilation is the best way to adjust Turkish childrento Germany. While receiving vows of applause, the hall screaming

    for more, Arslanoglu continued his speech. By accepting Alevismas a religious minority, the European Union wants to use it againstTurkey. However, the patriotic Alevis do not approve of that.Westerners do not research just for the research. The research doneby them has to serve their purposes and their advantage. Well, forour entry to the European Union they want us to give up Cyprus,accept the Armenian genocide and give away the straits and thewaters of Tigris and Euphrates to an international foundation. Thatmakes their aims more than clear. [] I congratulate Arslanogluwith all my heart, who gave a pretty nice lesson for the other

    speakers, who stayed silent and just supported the German scholarwho spoke at an international academic congress like someoneofficially in charge of assimilation.18

    This article appeared in the newspaper of a Turkish nationalisticparty.19 Professor Arslanoglu, a friend of the party leader, isemployed at a state-sponsored institute for research on Anatolianfolk Islam in Ankara. The article uses a propagandistic style andis manipulative, as its author, in line with the cited professor,equals the presentation of empirical data, which I presented at the

    mentioned congress, with influencing processes of acculturation

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    through migration in general and transfer of ritual especially in a

    political way with the aim of assimilation. This is not so astonishingif we reconsider the mechanisms of Turkish politics towardsthe cultural, linguistic and ethnic heterogeneity of Turkey. Ina quasi-magical fashion, facts that would destroy the picture ofan ethnically and culturally homogenous country were not to bespoken of. In order to reach the general aim of Turkish culturalpolitics since the foundation of the Republic, namely to create ahomogenous culture of Turkishness, ethnic and cultural dif-ferences have officially been neglected.

    The cited article gives a good starting point in order to demon-strate how considerable parts of the Turkish public, who weresocialised for generations in a framework of Turkish nationalism,receive cultural transformations, such as transfer of ritual betweenTurkey and Germany, within ethno-religious groups from Turkeyas well as research on that process. Besides, it gives a clear-cutexample of how easily and quickly the scholar and his fromhis own point of view impartial research can be utilised forpolitical propaganda. He is then perceived as part of an officialGerman state policy, unfortunately not only by political extremists.

    It is not conceivable for most people socialised in the thoroughlycentralised Turkish Republic, that there is no central, well-plannedpolicy behind processes of acculturation. Moreover, anyone whois familiar with the political system of Federal Germany is awarethat, even if there would be attempts for such a policy at a centrallevel of the Federal state, the governments of the German membercountries would not accept interference of Federal authorities incultural-educational politics. The reason for that is that they arein charge of cultural and educational politics guaranteed to themby the Constitution and do not allow the interference of Federal

    authorities in their genuine fields of competence. Therefore,at best, one could inquire for planned cultural politics towardsmigrant communities in the respective member countries of theFederal state. However, this is most often not the case. While talk-ing to some members of German Federal state ministries of cultureon the topic of Turkish Alevis, it became clear to me that stateofficials dealing with the question of Muslim religious educationat state schools (which involves the Alevi wish of separate lessonsfor their children) were generally not familiar with the religio-

    cultural tradition and practices of the groups in question. Other

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    ministries are not involved in issues touching on Alevi religious

    practice. In short, there is no German official capable of suchan assimilation mission, as was stated in the article, even if theGerman politicians wished to assimilate Alevis and their religiousand cultural traditions.

    However, the article highlights points of cultural transformations,although they are not engineered by a sinister state policy of assimi-lation. They are part of a process of cultural transfer processes andtransferences of certain elements (such as language or dates offestival calendars of the society where the migrants have settled),

    which have been formulated theoretically for the context of ritual(Langer, Lddeckens, Radde, Snoek 2006). Instead of repeat-ing here the theory as a closed concept, I will use the case of theTurkish Alevis in connection with points made (and omitted) inthe Turkish article quoted above in order to illustrate the an-alytical, heuristic potential of the theoretical concept of transferof ritual.

    Cultural performances such as rituals materialise within cer-tain contexts, which are formed by nature, society and respectivesociocultural, political and economical processes, as well as his-

    torical correlations. The contexts change in the course of time,maybe faster when change of place is involved like in the case ofrecent migrations during the twentieth century, when modernmeans of transportation and communication enabled morerapid and larger exchanges of population, material culture andideas. These contextual aspects, such as media, space, ecosystem,culture, religion, politics, economy, society, gender and socialgroups, influence rituals or elements of ritual. In such cases, thefunction of the ritual may change, its script may be adjusted, the

    performance adapted to the new contexts, and so on. On the otherhand, such internal dimensions of rituals can be altered delib-erately or unconsciously. Consequently, this has an effect on thecontexts surrounding the ritual.

    Such is the case with the Alevi cem-ritual, which Alevi func-tionaries intentionally instrumentalised and used strategically inan accordingly modified popularised form, especially in the largeTurkish cities, where the cem-houses serve also as a political andcultural centre, where functionaries can reach a large public,attending the congregational ritual on a weekly basis. Functionaries

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    and intellectual leaders of the Alevi communities had an inter-

    est in establishing such facilities and organisations in order tomobilise Alevi masses, on the one hand, and to generate politicalawareness of their identity politics in the society and political class,on the other. Functionaries and intellectuals were experiencedin organising the masses from their previous activities in (mostlyleftist) political organisations in which they were active before thecoup dtatin Turkey of 1980. (At that time, religious affiliation wasnot on the agenda as a marker of identity.) Consequently, they wereable to organise and publicise Alevism in a professional manner.

    This newly-gained publicity of Alevism, besides mobilising Alevis,also had an impact on the non-Alevis who either opposed andeven attacked the Alevis physically as heretics or accepted themas harmless fellow citizens. The last point illustrates the twosides of the coin of the emancipation processes of marginalisedcommunities. They gain a modernised identity and establishorganisations to serve their interests, which were earlier occupiedby (mostly socialist and communist) political organisations.On the other hand, they become visible and therefore open tocriticism or even attack, whereas before the migration in their

    rural regions of origin they held a low profile, practising taqya(the Qurnic concept of dissimulating ones belief to safeguardoneself in a hostile surrounding) whenever they were outside oftheir communities. Some points concerning contextual aspectsof transfer processes of Alevi ritual shall be elaborated in thefollowing paragraphs.

    The Historical Context

    The historical perspective is deliberately not presented explicitlyin the Turkish article, as it is part of an ongoing struggle withinand beyond the community over the essence of Alevism: namely,whether it supports the state or, to the contrary, is a danger tothe state. The groups under investigation in our research projectwere traditionally called Muslim sects, attributed as syncretisticand heterodox by Western scholarship and simply as heretic byorthodox Muslim sources.20They formed under the influence ofdifferent extremist Shiite and mystical ideologies of economically

    marginalised groups, which often were part of tribal systems and

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    100 Robert Langer

    of specific ethnic backgrounds such as Kurdish, other Iranian

    people (like Zazas) or Turkmen. Those ideologies were used by folkreligious leaders (who later came to be considered as holy men) in the tradition of Shiism as the ideology of the downtrodden as a means to stimulate socio-political uprisings against estab-lished orthodox dynasties and the economical oppressionenforced by state structures. This formative phase stretches fromthe emergence of Turkic dynasties in the core region of thosegroups (i.e., Anatolia, Upper Mesopotamia, South Caucasia andWestern Iran) in the eleventh century to the consolidation of anOttoman-Iranian dualism in the sixteenth century. From sixteenthto nineteenth centuries, both states the Ottoman and Iranianempires conducted a two-fold policy of extermination andintegration towards heretic groups, with the support of Muslimorthodoxy, Sunni in the case of the Ottomans, Twelver Shii inthe case of Iran. One instance of attempts to integrate heterodoxMuslims into state structures can be seen in the attitude of theOttoman Empire towards the adherence of the holy man (vel)Hac Bektas, the eponymous founder of the Bektashi order. Thisorder of dervishes (the Bektasiyye), which was already in charge

    of taking care of the spiritual needs of the elite infantry corps ofthe Janissaries, was restructured as an order bound to the stateby means of pious foundations (evkf, singular: vakf). Theseevkfwere established by sultans and state officials, in order tocontrol and pacify (proto-)Alevis in West and Central Anatolia.This control was established when Alevi groups accepted themonastery (tekke) of Hacbektas as their spiritual centre. In lateOttoman times (nineteenth to twentieth century), Hac BektasVel was increasingly seen as a kind of national Turkish saint,in the context of the development of Turkish nationalism (out of

    an Ottoman patriotism) at the turn from the nineteenth century.The Bektashi order after a phase of suppression as a result ofthe extermination of the Janissary troops in 1826 until the end ofthe nineteenth century, when it had recovered again gainedeven more influence over Turkish Alevis during World War I andthe independence wars of the Turkish Republic. At that time, theleadership of the Bektashi order mobilised people to take part inthe wars against the Western allies occupying Anatolia and againstthe Greek invasion troops. Consequently, many Turkish Alevi dede

    lineages (ocak, Turkic, literally hearth, hence family, clan, lineage)

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    which received diploma from the seat of the order21came to be

    indirectly linked to state authority. The establishment of modernstate structures in the region from the nineteenth century onwardsand especially the economically caused migrations after WorldWar II brought the heterogeneity of the Near Eastern Muslimpopulation again to the surface.

    As this historical context can be interpreted either as a traditionof resistance to states perceived as Turkish, or, to the contrary,as a patriotic Turkish folk Islam, which is a source of nationalpride, the author of the cited article is omitting to refer to the trickyproblem of contextualising Alevism historically. This is of specialimportance to the contextualisation of the heterodox ritual formsof Alevism, in comparison to orthodox Sunni Islam; namely thegender equality within the participating congregation, the leadingof the ritual by holy men stemming from the family of the prophet,singing and dancing during the ritual. These constitutive elementsof Alevi ritual can, by means of historical and ethnographical data,be interpreted either as an Old Turkic, shamanistic tradition (apositive interpretation by Turkish nationalists, especially from ananti-Islamic tradition), or alternatively as a special form of Turkish

    Islam (supreme to the Arabic Wahhabism) or as a heretical Shiiteinfluence.

    The Geographical and Spatial

    Context Aspect

    As far as the contextual aspect of geography/space is concerned,in the cited article, the major geographical regions of settlementsof Alevis and other marginalised ethno-religious minorities are

    mentioned as the core region of Turkish national interests, whichare threatened by Western interests, such as in Iraqi Kurdistan,which borders the Turkish regions settled mainly by Kurds.The geographical-spatial description of the region in the articlecorresponds to the actual settlement area of the Alevi popu-lation: Anatolia from Greater I

    .stanbul (the straits) to Upper

    Mesopotamia, i.e., the upper flows of Tigris and Euphrates andits tributaries. This rather detailed description of geography is inopposition to the simple use of Germany referring to the (West-

    European) Alevi diaspora. Germany here stands as a symbol of

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    Turkish life outside Turkey; its diversity in different European

    countries, cities and regions is normally not available to Turksliving in Turkey. The author of the article, according to his pol-itical aim (i.e., to describe the Turks in Germany as victims of anassimilation policy), is clearly not willing to take into account thatthe geographical and cultural change through migration fromTurkey to Germany influences the Alevi cem-ritual, even withouta German state policy. He, therefore, blames an assimilationpolicy by the German state to force Alevi religious leaders to con-duct their rituals in German and generally to force the Turks inGermany to abandon their language in favour of the Germanlanguage. The language question was recently raised again within acongress of the Alliance of the Alevi Youth in Germany (Bund derAlevitischen Jugendlichen in Deutschland e. V./ AAGB =Almanya AleviGenler Birligi) at Heidelberg (23 November 2007). Many delegatesstated that rituals had to be conducted or at least explained inGerman, as the younger generation is not able to understandTurkish, especially that of the rituals, properly. As this problemis not adequately answered by the organisations and especiallynot by the practising older dedes, the youth organisation takes the

    responsibility of organising cem-rituals for the young generation(genlik cemleri). How controversial and explosive the situation is,is shown by the fact that, for the first time during the last years ofmy research, I was not allowed to film the ritual.

    The Contextual Aspect of the Carrier-Group

    of the Ritual

    One important contextual aspect is the group bearing the ritual

    tradition in question: The Alevis are not defined explicitly inthe cited article. However, they are presented as being at leastpartly patriotic Turks. The non-Turkic groups, which arementioned in the article, Zazas and Kurmancis, on the otherhand, are referred to as if having nothing to do with Alevism.However, a considerable percentage of the so-called Kurmancis(i.e., Northern Kurds) and many of the speakers of the West-Iranian Zaza language (living in Eastern Anatolia) are in fact Alevithemselves. This point has been omitted in the article, although

    I had highlighted this fact in the lecture in Turkey because theGerman-speaking dedeI had presented is himself a Zaza-speaker

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    from Tunceli (formerly Dersim), one of the main centres of the

    Zaza language. Nevertheless, he is a very active dedein the GermanAlevi community. As he said in a meeting witnessed by me someyears ago, Our children will lose the ability to speak Turkish, andeven Zaza and Kurdish, but what they will definitely know to speakin the future will be German. Thats why we need to conduct thecem-ritual also in German. He is referring to the emergence ofa group of German Alevis, the children of the first and secondgenerations, who have grown up in Germany and consequentlyspeak and understand better German than Turkish. With this wesee how a new group carrying the ritual tradition can emerge evenafter shifting to the language of the country to which their parentsor grandparents had migrated. At the same time, one can observethe emergence of a group of patriotic Alevis in Turkey subscribingto a chauvinist, sometimes even racist nationalism. The reasonfor this last point is the strong link between Turkish-speakingAlevis (mainly with traditional ties to the Bektashi order) and theTurkish republican state. These Alevis supported Mustafa Kemal(Atatrk) in the war of independence (following World War I inAnatolia). At that time, they saw the establishment of a secular,

    laical republic (laicism is one of the Six Principles of the republic,protected against abrogation by the Constitution) as a chance toget rid of the Sunni control of the Ottoman Empire ruled by thesultan-caliph. The recent re-emergence of an ultra-nationalistTurkish attitude has to be seen in the context of the emergenceof political Sunni Islam since the 1980s, to which nationalism isperceived as the only effective counter-ideology (after the downfallof socialist ideologies finally symbolised in the dissolution of theSoviet Union). Another factor is Kurdish nationalism, which issupported by some Kurdish Alevis (speakers of Kurmnc and

    Zaza). The aim of this ideology, namely to emancipate Kurdishlanguage and culture from historical suppression within theTurkish republic, which is seen as a major threat to the politicalsystem of the republic by the majority, gives the language questioneven in contexts such as Germany a special notion.

    In terms of ritual, we can ascertain the language shift fromTurkish to German in Germany on the one hand, and inTurkeythe presentation of Turkish national symbols within thepublic cem-rituals, on the other. These national symbols usually

    are the national anthem (I

    .

    stiklal Mars) played at the beginning ofcommunity gatherings, Turkish flags and the portrait of Atatrk

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    that are displayed during mass cem-rituals, blessings spoken by the

    dedesfor state authorities, the military and the police forces. Thelast example is obviously a parallel to the old Sunni tradition ofreferring to the ruling authority in the Friday sermon (hutbe), asthe modern weekly cem-ritual invented in the cities was interpretedsometimes as a reaction to the orthodox Friday prayer (cumanamaz).

    The Context of Material Culture

    and Aesthetisation

    Generally, in modern cemevis we can find an increasingaesthetisation of ritual spaces within urban contexts. This leads toa permanent demarcation of ritual space. I observed in most of theAlevi cem-halls portraits of saintly figures such as the Twelve Imams(Oniki I

    .mam), Hac Bektas Vel, Ahmed Yesev, Pr Sultn Abdl,

    or Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, wall paintings, carpets, special woodenfloor on the place (meydn) for the ritual dance (semah) in the formof a twelve-pointed star, symbolising the Twelve Imams, et cetera.

    In the village, any room could serve for the ritual and there wereno material symbols or pictures on display, because of fear of beinglabelled by the authorities as heretic. Additionally, in TurkeyI also found that some Alevi organisations or individual dedes try toIslamicise the cem-ritual by adding Qur`n recitations and prayersin Arabic to the ritual. Contrary to that, leading functionaries ofthe official Alevi Community Organisation in Germany (AlevitischeGemeinde Deutschland e. V.) sometimes entirely reject the notion ofAlevism being a part of Islam. Both the nationalisation as wellas the Islamisation of the ritual script and decorumis due to the

    different strains of Turkish politics, Nationalism and (political)Islam. It is interesting to note, that in Alevi contexts (such asthe CEM Vakforganisation) as well as in Turkish politics theseideologies formerly perceived as mutually exclusive coexist sideby side, even within the mindsets of acting individuals as well aswithin the same organisation. This coexistence of Turkism andIslam was even institutionalised in the 1980s by state officials bymeans of the semi-official so-called Trk-Islam Synthesis (TrkI.slam Sentezi), that has been made the official basis of the centralisededucation system since then.

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    The Change of the Dimensions

    of Ritual Through Transfer of Ritual

    Dimensions of ritual is a concept introduced by Jan G. Platvoet(1995) to describe elements of ritual (such as function, aesthetics,communication, etc.) derived from the different perspectives takenby several academic approaches to the phenomenon of humanritual(ised) modes of action. These dimensions were integratedinto the analytical concept of transfer of ritual in order to specifythe transformations within rituals that occur when their contexts

    change. Only some dimensions, those most relevant in connec-tion with the Alevi cem-ritual, will be taken up in the followingparagraph.

    Once again, the above-cited article can serve as a medium toelucidate aspects of transfer of ritual. In the Turkish article, theGermans are simply the others trying to destroy the valuesof the Turks which are deliberately not specified. There is onlythe reference to language. In this ideology, the preserving of theTurkish language and the use of pure Turkish is a value initself. The change of the language is seen as the main attack onTurkish values, a deliberately unclear concept strongly linked tolanguage and race (rk). The (partial) language change is mainlya transformation of the medium of the prescriptive instructionswithin the ritual, which are given by the specialist to the congre-gation, such as sermons at the beginning and instructions andadvices during the ritual. Prayers and hymns tend to stay in thespiritual language Turkish, as they are not easy to translate.Even modern Turks do not fully understand these, as these textswere mainly composed in fifteenthseventeenth century in an

    old form of Anatolian Turkish not entirely comprehensible tomodern Turkish-speakers. However, I took part in events whereritual hymns especially composed in German were performed. Tokeep clean Turkish language and race may well be understoodas the Turkish valueper seby the propagandists and supportersof such an ideology. In their perspective other Turkish valuesoften referred to, such as piety, cleanliness, braveness, et cetera,directly result from racial purity.22

    Interestingly, the article did not mention how the dimensionof the performance also changed, most strikingly in that the

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    German Alevis sit on chairs during the ritual, whereas in Turkey

    all participants would sit on the floor. In praxis, this can lead tovery emotional discussions, when Alevis from Germany attendcem-rituals in Turkey and want to sit on chairs there too, as theyare no longer accustomed to the bodily practice of sitting on thefloor (which then can be quite painful). Normally, dedes will mostprobably reject such attempts, as chairs within the ritual are onlyaccepted for sick people in Turkey. In Germany on the otherhand, in some communities (though certainly not in the majorityof them) a ritual event cannot take place if not enough chairscan be provided. On such occasions, the sitting on chairs can beconsidered as part of the ritual prescription. However, even inthose cases dedes would prefer to sit on the floor, which leads tospatial incongruities, the ritual leader sitting on a lower level thanthe congregation.

    It is noteworthy that the article misses another aspect of transferof ritual that could have been extracted from my lecture. It concernsthe context of Christianity as the denomination (at least nominally)of the majority of the population. Turkish radical nationalism, thecontext of the author of the article and the publishing newspaper

    (published by a right-wing political party), is generally obsessedwith the fear of Christian missionaries, a toposwidely shared by theTurkish public opinion. The dangerous impact of this ideology onTurks of the younger generation resulted in the murder of mem-bers of a Christian publishing house in Malatya city this year andof Christian priests earlier. Consequently, in Turkey we do notencounter transferences from other religious traditions apart fromother Islamic ones (namely Sunni, partly also Shii from Iran). Thisis different in Germany: the mentioned Alevi ritual leader in theGerman case sings his prayers in a rather Christian melody and

    not in the traditional Anatolian way. He learned these melodiesduring his inter-religious practice, such as jointly marrying mixedChristian-Alevi couples in a church together with a Christianpriest. As he is quite a young person who admitted that he did notlearn the practice of a dede(dedelik) in the traditional way from anelder person, we can presume that he adopted Christian melodiesin a mimetic process from Christian priests. Such a transfer ofa Christian ritual element could only occur out of reasonsdescribed above within a mainly Christian milieu such as in

    Germany, where inter-religious meetings and seminars are quite

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    Marginalised Islam 107

    common and some Alevi dedes and community activists participate

    regularly in such occasions. It is also quite significant that severalof the first performed public cems in Europe were conducted inChristian churches (see Skefeld 2005: 218, 223); and even nowAlevi communities without their own premises conduct ritualsin church buildings given to them by Christian communities forrent or for free.23A reason for that is the generally friendly attitudeof Alevis towards Christians whom they perceive as their naturalallies towards radical orthodox Islam. (It is unheard, and for mostAlevis I asked inconceivable, that a cem could be performed ina mosque.) As demographically significant Christian groups nolonger exist within Turkey, this can naturally only occur withindiaspora communities. They are sometimes eager to differentiatethemselves from non-Alevi Muslim migrants from Turkey. As faras historical Anatolia until the extermination of the Armenianpopulation by the Young Turk regime in 1915 is concerned,we know of the sometimes symbiotic relation between these twominority groups, which at times even shared the same buildingfor their religious services in mixed villages in the Eastern partsof Anatolia.24

    However, in contemporary Turkey, I observed the integration oftypical orthodox, Sunni ritual elements into Alevi ritual, especiallyin Istanbul. This must be interpreted as a kind of mimicry in urbancontexts (and is criticised as such by some Alevi intellectuals) and,at the same time, as an attempt to reclaim certain elements gen-erally perceived as typically Muslim by outsiders as well as insiders.This is namely the figure of the prophet Muhammad and theQur`n. Besides an increased mention of Islamic personae, such asMuhammad, there is the tendency to integrate Qur`nic formulaeinto the cem-ritual in practice, in one case even a classical Qur`n

    recitation as an opening ceremony for a cem-ritual I observed atthe end of the AleviMuharremfast in 2005 at the Gazi CemeviinI.stanbul. Both the German case (Christian melodies) as well as

    the cases observed in I.stanbul (Qur`n verses) are examples of the

    changed religious context a predominantly Christian milieu inGermany and a mainly Muslim-Sunni environment in Turkishcities and the impact of this changed context of the elementsof the ritual. An enhancement of traditionalism within the Alevicommunities was not possible in both cases, as the traditional

    structures of the caste of the religious specialists, namely the

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    practice was additionally enforced by the fact that they in most

    cases were not living in the villages of their direct followers, butvisited them only once or twice a year. Therefore, their followerswere dependent on their visits, during which the dedes held courtover community quarrels, if they did not want to lose their judgesand spiritual guides.

    In fact, the decisive authority on how and when to conduct theritual in migration contexts such as cities and diaspora commu-nities nowadays is taken over by functionaries who are in most ofthe cases laymen. Moreover, in many cases they do have a past asfunctionaries of leftist organisations and parties. Some of themare also Alevi intellectuals, bearing the title arastrmac-yazar,researcher-writer, who are the main proponents of the Alevirevival of the 1980s. These researcher-writers gained their au-thority in the fields of history and ethnography of Alevism. Theypublished extensively on such topics in the many magazinesand book series that were published by Alevi publishing housesmainly during the 1980s and 1990s. Since the establishment ofAlevi media in the 1990s, daily newspapers, radio and televisionstations, many of them work as journalists. Besides the agency of

    such socio-political functionaries and professionals, the actively orpassively participating community gained a partial agency throughthe discursive field that evolved around Alevi religious identity andpractice. As one main topic in the indigenous Alevi publicationsand media is the cem-ritual, many people participated in the dis-course that evolved around the ritual (Paul/Zimmermann 2005).They did so as writers of letters to the editor, as discussants atmodern symposia (basically on topics of Alevi identity) that areregularly held by Alevi associations, and as group membersactively participating in the congregational rituals. The last point

    is enabled through the traditional inclusion of lay people intothe ritual as officiants (the so-called twelve duties, oniki hizmet,analogous to the Twelve Imams, Oniki I

    .mam). These duties were

    professionalised in courses for the oniki hizmetthat are organisedby almost every Alevi community in Turkey and Europe. Withthis professionalisation of religious duties, lay people could gaina considerable agency in the ritual, for example by excludingnormal (especially elderly) lay people from the ritual dancesemah,performed during the cem. This dance, which has the potential

    to induce altered states of consciousness, was in former times

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    110 Robert Langer

    conducted by experienced (oftentimes older) people, who could

    step to the dancing floor (meydan) if they wanted to. Nowadaysit is in most of the cases occupied by official dance groups,generally young people, and performance is considered morevalid if rehearsed figures are performed and the participants wearespecially designed costumes. In this context, not only lay people,but also the younger generations the main clientele of dance andmusic courses emancipated themselves from traditional rolesand gained agency in the field of modern ritual practice.

    The role of the ritual as a discursive toposin printed and elec-tronic publications and broadcasts is worthy of consideration.As this toposgained so much importance, it might not be exag-gerated to speak of a kind of agency of the ritual itself, as the verypresence of ayin-i cem, the ceremony of the cem, (and core ele-ments of it in secular festivals) as the main performative markerof Alevi identity, developed a dynamic of itself. The acting humanagents of these processes are no longer clearly identifiable, andthe presence of the imagined as well as the actually practiced Alevicemin medialised formats can be considered as one actor in thedescribed cultural processes. At least, we can state that many more

    people are talking about and publishing on the cem-ritual, thanactually participating in it a process which was described asthe virtualisation of ritual (Motika/Langer 2005: 95100). Whenwe calculate around 150 cem-houses in I

    .stanbul, which contain

    space for up to 300 persons, only 45,000 people could participateregularly. If we roughly estimate the Alevi population of I

    .stanbul

    as amounting to three million people, only 1.5 per cent of thispopulation is in fact able to practice the cem.The participation init, on the other hand, is considered as constitutive for every Alevi.This explains why it is extremely important for many Alevis to

    have the ritual being broadcasted via television every week intothe Alevi households of the city. Another reason for the loss ofagency of the traditional dedes was their lower rate of migration.Those dedes, who still were into the tradition of practising theritual, obviously did not participate at the same rate as the laypeople or non-practising ocakzade in the migrations of the pastdecades. At the same time, consequently, they did not participatein modern education as the other group members. Even if theydid, usually they abandoned the traditional education in favour

    of a modern one, which led to the loss of ritual knowledge. In a

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    in a broader Islamic context. It is important to note that Mevlev

    Sufism is considered as the intellectual and aesthetic high peakof Turko-Islamic mysticism, both within Turkey as well as in theWest. Consequently,Mevlevlik(the tradition and practice of theMevleviyye-order) is a potential partner against political Islam ofa Wahhabist type, which in turn is a declared enemy of tasavvuf(Sufism). AsMevlevlikis accepted by official Sunni state Islam, analliance with or even incorporation of at least a considerable partof the Mevlevs would serve as an entry card into state sponsoredofficial religion. (The Directorate of Religious Affairs finances

    all officially recognised mosques all over the county together withthousands of employed imams, preachers, mzzins, et cetera,whereas Alevis are struggling for at least a legalisation of theircemevis as places of worship.) On the other hand, a step towardsmore Sunni forms of Islam, such as Mevlev tasavvuf, is stronglyrejected by anti-Sunni Alevis from a leftist tradition, especiallythose in Germany. A reason for this is the perception of theMevlev order as a rather Sunni form of Sufism, as Mevlevswere well integrated into the leading elite of the Ottoman Empire,which excluded non-Sunnis from its ranks. The public ritualsperformed by CEM VakfAlevis together with Mevlev dervishesare broadcasted by the television channel of the CEM Vakfandother Alevi-run stations in Turkey and via satellite to Europe.This ritual transfer from Sufi orders into Alevism is consequentlymade visible by medialising the cem-ritual via television. Televisionbroadcast for migrants in transnational, diasporic contexts is a veryimportant and effective means to gain access to cultural resources,such as knowledge about rituals (see Vertovec/Cohen 1999: xxiii).Moreover, political orientations are communicated to the public by

    the modern media. Discussions on identity, history, daily politicsand, not least, ritual fill the discussion boards and guest books ofAlevi Internet sites (Zimmermann [forthc. 2010]).

    The dissemination of identity debates and debates on culturalpractice connected to specific organisations that in turn areidentified with certain political orientations (from more Islamicto rather leftist) via modern mass media owned by these organ-isations in turn contributes to the differentiation of places ofworship and religious practice. This situation has led to the fact thatnowadays in most Turkish cities where Alevis have settled during

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    the last decades there exist at least two places of worship (cultural

    centres/cemevis). For instance, one is run by a local branch of therather state-conform CEM Vakfand one by another, competingorganisation, either an association affiliated with the TurkishAlevi-Bektasi Federasyonu(Alevi-Bektasi Federation) or one local branchof thePir Sultan Abdal Dernekleri, which are considered to maintainthe leftist spirit of the early Alevi movement. The Turkish Alevi-Bektasi Federasyonuis supported by the main diaspora organisation,theAvrupa Alevi Birlikleri Konfederasyonu. This Confederation ofAlevi Unions of Europe, which is the umbrella organisation forthe Alevi federations of Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark, etcetera, supplies considerable amounts of money to built cemevis,collected among the European Alevis during many festivals, whichin turn also show elements of religious ritual within a frameworkof a ritualised secular event. Obviously, the competition of severalAlevi organisations over resources, places and ritual forms is alsolinked to the inner-Turkish struggle for or against EuropeanUnion membership. This development is also visible in the villageswhere the people try to re-establish their religious lives accordingto patterns picked up from television broadcasts or brought back

    directly by (part- or full-time) re-migrants from Europe. This canresult in the construction of rather oversized cem-houses within thevillages (some of them never finished because of the lack of money)and in congregational cem-rituals modelled according to modernmedialised standards (amplified music, electric illumination, dancegroups, special dresses, shortened ritual sequences, movementsand song texts learned from television, etc.).

    Conclusion

    The aim of this eassy was to show how contextual aspects and ritualdimensions are interlinked with each other. My main task was toillustrate how the concept of transfer of ritual can be used as ananalytical instrument in order to make changes both within theritual itself and in its surrounding contexts visible by naming theinterdependencies of contexts and cultural performances (such asritual). The case of formerly isolated marginalised groups, whichdevelop a trans-regional identity through urbanisation and thena diaspora culture through transnational migration, was taken as

    an example. This case is highly significant, as together with the

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    people cultural resources such as rituals travel, are transferred,

    transformed, medialised, virtualised and re-transferred. Thesegroups, in their traditional contexts different communities ofpractice, became a constellation of resembling practices throughdeveloping an identity transcending the formerly localised contexts,being aware of each other. Parallel to that, ritual was transferredinto new contexts (urban and diaspora), and as far as into mediaand Internet representations. Considering the fact that ritualpractice is present in modern media that are available to most ofthe group members, we might even dare to speak of virtualisedritual forms. These in turn contribute to the emergence of atransnational (virtual) community of practice, including diasporaand urban groups as well as the members left behind in the ruralregions of origin. Remembering crucial points of Alevi history,one is reminded of somehow similar events that have taken placein early modern times, in one of the formative phases of Alevism.The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries have been a time of extensivemigrations during upheavals of large parts of the Eastern Anatolian,West Iranian and Upper Mesopotamian populations. Envoys of theSafav order who carried commandments of the orders Sheikhs,

    including descriptions of rituals, travelled the wider region to theirfollowers, theKzlbas. During the wars between the Ottoman andIranian empires, the system of holy lineages (ocak) must haveshaped from such religio-political-cum-tribal structures, a systemthat was functioning until the Twentieth century.26Members ofdedefamilies, bound by spiritual-hereditary ties to their followers,who often finally settled in far away regions spread over the wholeof Anatolia, started their yearly travels, transferring the ritual overthe region, a task taken over nowadays by modern associationsand their television channels.27These historic, itinerary religious

    specialists would be an example of a pre-modern, traditional formof transfer of ritual, which can also be analysed using the transferparadigm, as far as historical documentation allows.

    Further research has to be done especially on the grades ofreflection and reflectiveness concerning ritual practice and iden-tity in the described processes. It can be expected to see furtherchanges triggered by the developing self-reflective attitude ofmodern, economically developing Alevi communities, especiallyin cities and the diaspora, but also in villages, which partly prosper

    from re-transferred economic wealth, while some on the other

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    hand will probably not recover from the depopulation through

    migration. Much discussion is going on within the emerged trans-national Alevi community of practice over contents of the faithand meanings of rituals, up to the point that some interviewedhighly successful Alevi businessmen consider the cem-ritual as apsycho-social therapy or esoteric practice for themselves. But aswe enter more deeply into the oral history of Alevi communitiesgoing back into the village histories before the migrations set in(i.e., before approximately 1960), we also encounter a highly dis-cursive culture with a certain level of discussion over faith andpractice, even with arguments against religious authorities [seeLanger (forthc. 2010)].

    Moreover, to overcome traditional gender roles is a very im-portant issue in the inner-Alevi discussion on (religious) authority.Traditionally, all religious specialists presiding over a cem-ritual weremale dedes, although their wives, the so-called anas, in the villagecontext had a special but rather informal role, too, especially ashealers. As modern Alevism has developed an explicitly formulatedideology of gender equality and more women take over functionsin the organisations, especially in Europe, the male domination

    of Alevi religious leadership may change within a short time. Thenewly-elected German Alevi council of dedes already includes oneana. The same woman has previously led one cem, although so faronly in a private context. We can expect this to happen in a morepublic context in the future, as several Alevi women utter the wishto become practicing ritual specialists, too. The GermanAlevitischeGemeinde e. V.consequently refers to alevitische Geistliche (Alevipriests) practicing a gender-equal language during the last yearsalways as Dede/Ana. It would be instructive, then, to investigatehow a development to also appoint female ritual leaders may trans-

    form the performativity of the ritual across gender lines. We needto compare this further development, then, to the change in theritual structure, which came along with the change of the ritualfrom a secret meeting of a community (functioning to establish,reproduce and maintain group solidarity in closed tribal groups)to a large, public, though shortened ceremony, which serves tomobilise masses in an industrial, modern society. However, wehave to bear in mind that a major change concerning the ritual isthe degree of participation: in pre-modern times, it was obligatory

    for every group member to participate in the yearly cem-rituals,

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    with non-participation meaning social death. (The heaviest

    punishment for an Alevi at that time was dsknlk, exclusionfrom the community, symbolised in preventing the person fromparticipating in the ritual.) Nowadays in the cities and in thediaspora, just as in industrialised societies in general, only a smallproportion of the population practices religious rituals at all on aregular basis. Thus, actual ritual practice is delegated to a minority,whereas media representation and virtualisation of ritual has giventhe majority another channel to access cultural resources such asreligious performances, which are needed in order to reproducea specific Alevi identity.

    Notes

    1. For an outline of Ottoman history, see Ursinus (2003). 2. For an innovative use of this primarily sociological concept in the

    field of religious studies, see Stausberg (2001). 3. See Hodgson (1965).

    4. See Langer and Simon (2008). 5. The preferred self-designations of the groups are given in brackets. Asthey are not commonly used in the academic literature, the traditionalnames, which are nowadays perceived as designations given to themby outsiders such as Nusayri and Yezidi, are used in this paper.

    6. See as an overview: Moosa (1988). 7. For the Alevis see Shankland (2003). 8. Conf.: Halm (1982). 9. On the Yezidi religion, see Kreyenbroek (1995).10. For a convincing argumentation for the use of diaspora as an abstract

    concept in recent migration studies, emancipated from its formeruse restricted to classical diaspora groups with a long history ofmigration such as Jews and Armenians, see Ackermann (2003). Seealso in more detail and with another case study Baumann (2003).For an overview on migration studies in this context see Ackermann(1997).

    11. Reliable demographic data on Anatolia concerning religious affiliationand ethnicity is not available because of political reasons. A surveydone by the Turkish state in the 1960s in connection with the so-called village inventories was only published partly. For a shortperiod, a Western geographer, Luise Nestmann, had access to the

    data. Today it is said the archives have been destroyed by floods.

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    See Nestmann (2002). I am grateful to Prof. em. Klaus Kreiser for

    his reference to this important data material and to the work ofNestmann, which was unfortunately never published as a largerstudy.

    12. For an overview on the transfer processes under consideration, seethe contributions in: Langer/Motika/Ursinus (eds) (2005).

    13. For several aspects of this modern form of the cem ritual conf.:Motika/Langer (2005).

    14. For the concepts of community of practice and constellation ofpractices in the context of religion, see Stausberg (2001).

    15. David Shankland (Anthropology, University of Bristol, UK) hasworked in an Alevi village in Central Anatolia and subsequently hasdone work on the Alevi people, who have migrated from that villageto Germany. His work on the German part of the community is notyet published. For the village part, see Shankland (2003). For theGerman part, see Shankland and etin (forthc. 2010). For a TurkishSunni community a comparable work has been done by Schiffauer.See Schiffauer (1987 and 1991).

    16. For the concept see Langer/Lddeckens/Radde/Snoek (2006).17. Translation by Janina Karolewski and Robert Langer.18. Bayraktar (2006). Conf. the original Turkish text: Profesr Dr. I

    .brahim Arslanoglu, Gazi niversitesinde grev yapan

    ok degerli bir bilim adam. Alevilik konusunda Trkiyenin sayluzmanlarndan. Kendisini Milli Ekonomi Modeli kongrelerinde,I.stanbul ve Bakde sundugu tebliglerden, gazetemizde yazdg ok

    degerli arastrma yazlarndan da tanyorsunuz. I.brahim Arslanoglu,

    soyad gibi tam bir arslan oglu oldugunu ortaya koyan bir hadiseyasad getigimiz gnlerde. nce olay ksaca nakledelim: Cem Vakftarafndan Urfada 2428 Mays tarihleri arasnda GAP BlgesiAlevi Bektasi Yerlesimleri ve Sanlurfa Kltr Mozaiginde Ksaskonulu bir uluslararas bir sempozyum dzenlenir. Prof. Arslanogluda katlmclardan biridir. Alman bilim adam Dr. Robert Langertarafndan Almanyada Alevilerin Yasamnda Gneydogu AnadoluI.nan Yasam ve Ritellerinin Rol konulu bir teblig sundu.Langerin sundugu teblig, Almanlarn Trklere baks asn, bir devletpolitikas olarak Trklerle ait degerleri nasl yok etmek istedikleri okgzel ortaya koyuyordu. Langer konusmasnda Almanyada Tunceliasll bir Alevi dedesinin Trke yerine Almanca cem yaptgn anlattve bu ayini ayn zamanda perdeye de yanstarak tm izleyenleregsterdi. Alman bilim adam bir Alevi dedesinin Almanca cem ayiniyapmasndan son derece memnun ve keyifliydi. Konusmasnda dahada ileri giderek Zazalarn ve Kurmanclarn dillerini kaybettigindenznt ile bahsetti. Bunun zerine Arslanoglu krsye kt ve ok

    enfes bir konusma yapt. Arslanoglu zetle sunlar dedi: Almanlar

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    at the Marmara University, I.stanbul, 2122 November 2007. For

    the programme of the conference see http://www.tdtkb.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=254 . I am grateful to mycolleague Paula Schrode, who participated in the conference, for anaccount on the presentations given there and on the general spiritof the conference as well as on the attitude of its organisers.

    23. In Berlin, one of the Alevi communities there has bought an oldchurch building to be used as their cultural centre and cemevi(seeKulturzentrum Anatolischer Aleviten e. V. / Anadolu AlevileriKltr Merkezi Cemevi Berlin e. V. http://aakm-cemevi.de/), astriking parallel to a Hindu temple in North London, documentedby Waghorne (2004: 196203).

    24. For a concrete, biographical case study, see Kieser 2005. For a detailedstudy of Eastern Alevi-Armenian relations, see Kieser (2000: 6981,16770, 182412). Eastern Alevis, as Kieser calls the (Kurdish)Kzlbas-Alevis, oftentimes saved their Armenian neighbours duringthe massacres of 19151916. This historical relationship was onlyrecently turned against the Alevis by a member of the Turkish PrimeMinisters Directorate for Religious Affairs (Diyanet Isleri Baskanlg),who defamed the Alevis as the offspring of Armenians (i.e, not trueTurks, potential traitors by their race, etc.).

    25. Cf. Langer (2008).

    26. In 2006, a conference was held dealing with historical and recentdevelopments of this so-called ocak-system. The papers, investigatingtopics ranging from the interpretation of historical sources up tomodern education programmes for dedes are about to be published(Karolewski/Langer/Motika (forthc. 2010).

    27. In order to investigate different forms of transmission and reception ofAlevi ritual (knowledge) a workshop was held at Heidelberg in October2007. The papers deal with principal modes of transmission oral, scriptural, mimetic or combinations of the three, frompre-modern times to the present (see Karolewski/Langer/Ursinus(forthc. 2010).

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