Dede Notebooks as Sources for Kizilbash/Alevi History: A Case Study of the Antep-Centered Ocak of İmam Musa Kâzım Through Archival Documents and Hasan Çevik Dede's Notebook

ABSTRACT: Since the Alevi Cultural Revival in the 1990s, the study of Alevi communities has undergone a transformative shift, marked by the emergence of a significant corpus of written sources preserved across generations within the private archives of Alevi saintly lineages, known as ocaks (lit. hearths). These newly uncovered Kizilbash/Alevi texts, spanning from the late fourteenth to the early twentieth centuries and comprising a diverse array of documents and manuscripts, challenge the entrenched scholarly narrative that Alevi communities relied exclusively on oral transmission for the perpetuation of their culture. Despite growing scholarly engagement with these internal sources in recent years, the personal notebooks of dedes (lit. elders)—members of ocak families serving as Alevi religious leaders—have largely been neglected in academic research. This article combines and juxtaposes the documents in the family archives of the İmam Musa Kâzım ocak and relevant state archives with the personal notebook of Hasan Çevik Dede (1922–2005) to explore the multifaceted familial history of a Kizilbash/Alevi ocak based in the city of Antep (modern-day Gaziantep). Through this case study, the article demonstrates how personal notebooks of dedes (henceforth, dede notebooks) serve as critical supplements to documentary evidence, bridging oral histories with written sources. More broadly, it argues for the significant potential of these notebooks as primary sources for advancing our understanding of the complexities inherent in Alevi history and religiosity.