Hurûfât Registries as Sources for Alevi-Bektashi History: The Case of Mecitözü

ABSTRACT: One of the perennial challenges faced by researchers of Alevi-Bektashi history is the scarcity of primary sources. Despite this, there has been limited exploration of the significant potential of the various registers in the Ottoman archives for this purpose. Existing archival-based studies in the field primarily rely on mühimme defterleri (registers of imperial orders) and tahrîr defterleri (registers of tax surveys), which help examine Kizilbash groups within the context of the Ottoman-Iranian conflict and/or their persecution by the Ottoman state. However, there are various other registers in the Ottoman archives that can further our understanding of Alevi-Bektashi communities' history and their interactions with the imperial administration. One such example is the hurûfât defterleri , which date from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries and can be found in the Archives of the General Directorate of Foundations (Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü Arşivi) in Ankara. These registers have traditionally been used to study urban histories, as well as the histories of individual mosques, masjids, and Sufi convents ( zâviye, tekke, dergâh ). This study aims to demonstrate that the hurûfât registers can also be valuable sources for Alevi-Bektashi studies.