Kızılbaş İslam’ı: Aceleci tanımlamalardan kaçınmak ve Divan-ı Hatâʾî’yi bağlamında okumak

This study emphasizes the necessity of analyzing the religious beliefs reflected in the poetry of Shah Ismail Hatâʾî, the founder of the Qizilbash Safavid Empire and the sheikh of the Safavid Sufi order, within the context of late medieval and early modern West Asian Sufi piety and literature. Rather than relying on decontextualized concepts inherited from Western Islamic and Oriental studies, the research advocates for a contextual understanding. The primary objective of this study is to critique (i.) the shortcomings in interpreting Shah Ismail Hatâʾî’s poetry, which serves as a key reference in defining Qizilbash Islam in modern Western scholarship, and (ii.) the conceptual tools employed in such interpretations, particularly the term ghulāt, as well as the historical tendencies that underpin its use. To this end, the study first examines examples of Qizilbash Islam definitions from well-known scholars, critiquing the concepts that complicate rather than clarify the subject. It then explores the reasons behind these tendencies, arguing through a historiographical analysis that classical Western Islamic and Oriental studies evolved within a Sunni-centric framework. This uncritical inheritance of such a framework by modern scholarship, it is claimed, has led to hasty and biased definitions of Qizilbash Islam. As a way to avoid these pitfalls, the study proposes that Divan-ı Hatâʾî, one of the richest sources of Qizilbash religious thought, should be analyzed in the context of its contemporary literary trends and Sufi intellectual traditions. It argues that interpretations grounded in concepts central to Sufi thought, such as Hakikat-i Muhammediye (Muhammadan Reality) and Nur-u Muhammedî (Light of Muhammad), will provide deeper insights into Shah Ismail Hatâʾî’s religiosity and Qizilbash Islam.