How to Conceptualize Inner-Islamic Plurality/Difference: 'Heterodoxy' and 'Syncretism'

in the Writings of Mehmet F. Köprülü (1890–1966)

Author(s): MARKUS DRESSLER
Source: British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies , DECEMBER 2010, Vol. 37, No. 3,
Heterodox Movements in the Contemporary Islamic World: Alevis, Yezidis and Ahmadis
(DECEMBER 2010), pp. 241-260
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

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British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, December 2010 ¡Λ Routledge
37(3), 241-260 ¡<¿ Tiï, Taylor & Francis Croup

How to Conceptual
Plurality/Difference
and 6Syncretism' in
Mehmet F. Köprülü
MARKUS DRESSLER*

Abstract This article examines the work of the Turkish historian Me

Köpríilü on Turkish/Anatolian Islam, which he referred to as 'p
'heterodox'. On the one hand committed to Western scientific standard
other part of the project of Turkish nationalism, Köpriilii produced an
scholarly work that is until today widely accepted as authoritative in
Here, my focus is on the concepts Köpriilii used in establishing a narra
the continuity of Turkish culture from pre-lslamic to modern t
conceptualization of non-elite Muslim currents, which was inspire
modernist Western discourses on religion and discourses of Islamic apol
revivalism, is problematic both because of the normative ambivalences
from the conflation of these different discourses and the respective politic
they are involved. The article develops a critique of concepts in the des
inner-Islamic plurality, and offers suggestions toward approaches that
Islamic and modernist biases in terms of origins, essences, and bou
cultural and religious traditions.

Introduction

Mehmed Fuad Köprülü (1890-1966), offspring of one of the most prestigious

Ottoman families, was the first Turkish scholar to gain international recognition
and fame as an expert in Turkish history and literature.1 Already his early work,
published in the last decade of the Ottoman Empire, 'caused a sensation among
knowledgeable European scholars'. For the first time a Middle Eastern scholar
showed not only proficiency in Western scientific methodology, but produced
original work dedicated to the historical evolution of under-represented parts of
Islamic culture.2 Gary Leiser, who has translated several of Köpriilü's works into
*Markus Dressler, Istanbul Technical University, Humanities and Social Sciences Department, Fen ve Edebiyat
Fak., Maslak Istanbul 34469, Turkey. Email: dresslermarkusl@gmail.com
Köprtilü received honorary doctorates from prestigious European universities, was honorary member of Western
academic societies, and from the early 1920s regular invitee to European conferences. Ömer Faruk Akün, 'Mehmed
Fuad Köprülü'.in TiirkiyeDiyanet Vakfi isiàm Ansiklopedisi, Vol. XXVI (Istanbul: Tiirkiye Diyanet Vakfi, 2002), p.
477; Gary Leiser and Robert Dankoff, 'Translators' Introduction', in Mehmed Fuad Köprülü, Early Mystics in
Turkish Literature, translated by Gary Leiser and Robert Dankoff (London: Routledge, 2006), p. XXX.
2 Leiser and Dankoff, Translators' Introduction, p. XXXI.

ISSN 1353-0194 print/ISSN 1469-3542 online/10/030241-20 © 2010 British Society of Middle Eastern Studies
DOI: 10.1080/13530194.2010.524433

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MARKUS DRESSLER

English, praises him enthusiastically as 'the most outstanding Turkish s

intellectual in the twentieth century' and 'the father of modern, scientif
research on the culture and the history of the Turks'.3 Until today Köpr
is considered a classic in the study of Turkish and Anatolian Islam. It
largely uncritical reception and has been influential in academic an
understandings of Turkish history - more particularly, Turkish religiou
as well as the role of 'popular Islam' therein.4
Köprülü's historiography was not only important for its academic con
As long-lasting and influential proved to be the implicit political dimens
work, and the way it impacted upon public discourses on Turkish histor
and religion. The historical narrative that he established contributed sig
to the formation of a national subject and needs to be evaluated within t
of Turkish nationalism that became paradigmatic for the study of his
literature in the last years of the Ottoman Empire. In his writings fr
onwards he set out to write a history of the Turkish 'national spirit' as
popular Turkish literature and religious culture, and contributed signif
the still hegemonic narrative of the continuity of Turkish culture reach
the pre-Islamic period.
This article is concerned with the religious dimension of this narrative and
on two concepts that were central to his understanding of 'popular Turk
namely 'heterodox Islam' and 'syncretism', pointing out methodol
theoretical problems in the way he used them. Such a conceptual cr
Köprülü's work is important since the latter has been fundamental in the pr
certain Sunni-Islamic and modernist biases on the historiography of Tu
tolian Islam. It is, of course, not in any way surprising that an early twentiet
scholar such as Köprülü used concepts based on modern assumptions abou
and religious essences, linear historical trajectories, and clear boundarie
cultural entities (including religions). What is remarkable is that his work on
Islam and inner-Islamic difference - despite of its lasting influence - h
been subject to critical re-evaluation.5 To the contrary, many interna
recognized historians still regard his methodology as exemplary.6 The
discomfort with the, as I will show, rather essentialist and biased way
Köprülü conceptualized plurality within Islam as difference, points to t
low level of reception - in Islamic Studies in general and the study of Turkis
in particular - of recent critical work in religion theory and postcolonia
Centred around the scholarship of Köprülü, the goal of this study is
scrutinize parts of the conceptual tool kit of Islamic Studies, particularl
3 Gary Leiser, 'Preface', in Mehmed Fuad Köprülü, The Origins of the Ottoman Empire, trans
Leiser (Albany: SUNY, 1992), pp. XI.
4 It should be noted that Köprülü was also engaged in politics, most notable being his role in the
Party, for which he served between 1950 and 1956 as Foreign Minister of Turkey. For a comprehen
of his political carrier see George T. Park, The Life and Writings of Mehmed Fuad Köprülü. The I
Turkish Cultural Modernization, Ph.D. diss. (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University, 1975),
5 There are two notable though in scope limited exceptions: Ahmet T. Karamustafa, 'Origins
Sufism', in Ahmet Ya§ar Ocak (ed.), Sufism and Sufis in Ottoman Society: Sources, Doctrine, R
Architecture, Literature and Fine Arts, Modernism (Ankara: Turkish Historical Society, 2005), pp.
DeWeese, 'Foreword', in Mehmed Fuad Köprülü, Early Mystics in Turkish Literature, translated by
and Robert Dankoff (London: Routledge, 2006). pp. VIII-XXVII.
6 For example, Ahmet Ya§ar Ocak, 'Fuad Köprülü, Sosyal Tarih Perspektifi ve Günümüz Türkiyesi
Tasavvuf Tarihi Araçtirmalarinda 'Tarihin Saptirilmasi' Problemi', Türkiyat Araçtirmalari Der
pp. 221-30; Kemal H. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and
in the Late Ottoman State (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 401.

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 HOW TO CONCEPTUALIZE INNER-ISLAMIC PLURALITY/DIFFERENCE

in which inner-Islamic plurality is cast as difference in line wit

discourses about religious/cultural origins, essences and boundaries. Sc
on Islam needs to take more seriously the work of its concepts, especial
has recourse to problematic binary pairs that confuse rather than sha
distinction between dogmatic (normative in a theological and/or a polit
and analytical perspectives. I find it very unsatisfactory to simply put
conceptual terms into quotation marks as is often done with qualifier
heterodox, popular, and so forth. Acknowledging awareness about
problem of such terms while continuing to use them is not enough. A
question of how to conceive of inner-Islamic plurality and difference
fruitful way I will side with discursive approaches as outlined by
against nominal and substantive approaches and draw in addition on insi
Daniel Boyarín, who has argued for a wave-theory model instead of st
functionalist models in the description of the relation between religious

Syncretism and Heterodoxy

In his investigation of the religious history of the Turks, Köprülü desc
religion of the Turkmen tribes as 'a syncretism, which was the result
amalgamation of the old Turks' pagan customs, with a simple and popul
extreme Shiism, painted at the outside in the colour of Sufism, and s
remainders'.7 The rural Islam of Anatolia he described variously as 'hete
'eclectic and syncretistic system'.8 This kind of conceptualizing inner
plurality, which, as I argue, has been one of the major and most p
legacies of Köprülü's work, was part of a broader project of deciphering the
roots of the Turks. Through extensive text study he inspired to recons
pedigree of Turkish religious culture that proved the continuity of Turkish
more broadly from pre-Islamic Central Asia to modern Turkey.
Within his narrative of the continuity of Turkish culture, Köprülü argued
Turkmens, who could only accept a religion that allowed the continuatio
traditions of old - i.e. groups that embraced 'syncretism' - found such
'batini and some Shia currents ... The heterodox groups that still live
regions of Anatolia and Iran, which subsequently took names such as
Alevi, Hurufi, and Alallahi [Ali-ilahi], are their offspring'.9 Elsewhere
about the 'heterodox Turkmen babas, who were nothing else but the o
Islamized continuation of the old Turkish shamans',10 or defines the
Anatolia' - a thirteenth- to sixteenth-century dervish group that later m
7 [Mehmed] Fuad Köprülii, Osmanli Devieti'nin Kitnilusu [first published in French in 1935]
Tarih Kurumu, 1991), p. 99. The major elements he mentioned as components of this 'syncretism
the Yeseviye Sufi tradition, Ismailism, and Batinism (Mehmed Fuad Köprülii, Türk Ede
Mutasavviflar [first published 1919] (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi, 1966), p. 176). It should be noted
did not deny influences from non-Muslim and non-Turkish cultures, but he mostly referred to
passing. These possible influences would stretch from local faiths of Anatolia and Iran, Christian
philosophical and mystical ideas such as neo-Platonism, and Buddhism to old Indian, and Chin
(Köprülü, Bektaçîligin Menzelen, p. 72; Mehmed Fuad Köprülü, Türk Edebiyati Tarihi [first publis
(Istanbul: Ötüken, 1980), p. 249).
8 [Mehmed] Fuad Köprülü, 'Bektajîligin Mençeleri: KûçUk Asya Batinîliginin Tekâmûl-i Tarihîsi H
Teerübe' [first published 1925], in Murat §efkath (ed.) Türk Yurdu 9. Çilt 1925 (Ankara: Tutibay,
9 Köprülü, Bektagîligin Men¡eleri, p. 71.
10 Mehmed Fuad Köprülü, The Origins of the Ottoman Empire [first published 1935], translated
(Albany, NY: SUNY, 1992), pp. 47f.

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MARKUS DRESSLER

Bektashism - as in regard of their ceremonies and doctrines 'a

(hétérodoxe), extremist (mufrit) Shiite and Alevi group'."

Structural Accounts of Socio-economic and Religious Dichotomi

Throughout Köprülü's work runs an antagonism between elite urba
'orthodox' religion on the one side, and rural culture and 'heterodo
other.12 This can be seen when he argues that under the influence
babas, the Τurkmen villagers and nomads would have become estrang
'orthodox' Islam of the cities, and have always remained in tens
central administration.13 Elsewhere, Köprülü points to the political d
the antagonism between urban centres of Islamic 'orthodoxy' and the
of the periphery entailed. The Turks' affinity for 'heterodox' Islam/
have led to political rebellions against 'orthodox' (Sunni) centres of
Throughout his work, Köprülü connects implicit or explicit distinct
'orthodoxy' and 'heterodoxy' with particular correlations of e
geographic, cultural, and political factors. The structural connection
between socio-economic contexts and religious preference does not
traced back to 'Western' intellectual trajectories only. In fact, in parts it
Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddima, a famous text from the fourteenth century th
knew and praised as a 'philosophy of history' and 'blueprint of soci
Muqaddima is concerned with the forces that drive history and neces
and decline of dynasties, and it tries to establish the sociological la
this dynamic process.16 Central to its narrative is a distinction bet
sedentary life and badäwa (rural, tribal life of the Bedouins).17 While the
life of the city is organized by law, the rural life is regulated by 'asa
that denotes tribal solidarity and egalitarianism, and is located at t
Bedouin and Arab culture.18 Alike in Ibn Khaldun and Köprülü
juxtapositions of urban and rural cultures is a certain romanticism w
the latter. For Ibn Khaldun, 'asabiyya is a force of strength and re
though not altogether absent in the town - at its most powerfu
Bedouins. Also, he considers the Bedouins as in general more virtuous
dwellers, who followed the law instead of their instinct and got spoil
of their luxurious lifestyle.19 Similarly, for Köprülü Turkish culture,
" Mehmed Fuad Köpriilti, 'Abdal', Türk Halk Edebiyati Ansiklopedisi: Ortaçag ve Yeniçag
Kültiirü Üzenne Cograjya, Etnografya, Etnoloji, Tarili ve Edebiyat Lugati', Vol. I (Istanbul: Tür
1935), p. 36.
12 In a later text he defined as 'heterodox' those Sufis 'distanced from the dogmas of Islam' while regarding as
'orthodox' those 'appropriate to Sunni dogma'. Mehmed Fuad Köprülü, 'Sazçâirleri, Dün ve Bugün' [first
published in 1962], in Mehmed Fuad Köprülü, Edebiyat Araçtirmalan (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1966),
p. 184.
3 [Mehmed] Fuad Köprülü. Osmanli Devleti'nin Kuru!u§u [first published 1935] (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu,
1991), p. 99.
14 Köprülü, Bekta¡íligin Menzelen, p. 72.
15 Köprülü reverently described Ibn Khaldun as one of the greatest philosophers of the history of the classic and
medieval periods, and apex of Islamic historiography (Köprülü, Türk Edebiyati Tarihi, p. 93).
1 Tilman Nagel, Staat und Glaubensgemeinschaft im Islam. Geschichte der politischen Ordnungsvorstellungen
der Muslime, Bd. 2: Vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Neuzeit (Zurich: Artemis, 1981 ), p. 58.
17 Erwin Rosenthal, Ibn Khalduns Gedanken über den Staat. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der mittelalterlichen
Staatslehre (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1932), pp. 6-8.
18 Nagel, Staat und Glaubensgemeinschaft, pp. 58-71.
19 Ibid., 58f.; Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah. An Introduction to History. Transi, from the Arabic by Franz
Rosenthal (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), p. 120.

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 HOW TO CONCEPTUALIZE INNER-ISLAMIC PLURALITY/DIFFERENCE

such a crucial role in the Turkists' ideas about national awakening, was f
finest, undiluted ways among the peripheral Turkmen tribes of Anatol
In other aspects, however, Köprülü's description of the relationship
urban and rural life departed significantly from Ibn Khaldun. For on
Khaldun's text the dichotomous nature of urban and rural culture wa
larger, cyclical conception of Islamic civilization, where forces fr
countryside would periodically enter the urban centre and replace, in f
the urban culture. In Köprülü's work we find a more static juxtapositio
and periphery. Also different is the way they each evaluated the rela
between centre and periphery with regard to religiosity. While there is no
value difference between urban and rural forms (and everything in b
socio-economic organization and culture in Ibn Khaldun's text, he did a
rural people tended to be more religious due to the hardships of life.20 Ibn
leads extensive discussions about different forms of Islam, and point
social role of religion in almost proto-Durkheimian fashion, but h
correlate inner-Islamic differences, for example between jurists and mu
one side, and the Sufis on the other,21 with his distinction between urban
life. In Köprülü's work, on the other hand, we can see the impact of Orient
Islamic revivalist thought, which made him depict the cultural periphery in
of religion as impure and inferior (expressed through notions of '
'heterodox' Islam) in comparison to the scriptural and law based Islam
associated with urban contexts. In other words, Köprülü can be seen a
representative of a tradition of thought that connects the (Khaldunian)
opposed but complimentary character of urban and rural Islamic
respectively, with the Orientalist distinction between 'orthodox' and 'h
Islam. Talal Asad has written about this move and criticized in particu
Gellner for presenting Islamic culture in a way that reifies essentialist
Islam in contrast to a (in the process equally essentialized) Chris
Fundamentally, Asad argued that '[i]t is wrong to represent types of Isl
correlated with types of social structure' and proposed instead a
approach to the Islamic tradition.22 The linking of notions of political
(centre/periphery model), and normative theology (orthodoxy/hetero
way to organize hierarchically different forms of Islam is akin to fu
models of social organicity and very popular in modernist historiograp
exactly the easy flow of such models that should make one suspicious
The example of Ibn Khaldun shows that the use of structural and fun
categories to describe the dynamics of Islamic civilization is not a prer
Western Orientalists, but has roots in the Islamic scholarly tradition
Neither is a concept of Islam that organizes practices in a hierarchica
defines criteria for right and wrong distinctively Orientalist and Western (
here understood not in a geographic sense but in the sense of a commitm
project of secular Western modernity and therefore my definition does not

20 Fuad Baali, Society, State, and Urbanism: Ibn Khaldun's Sociological Thought (New York: SUNY
2 ' See, for example, Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, p. 360.
22 Talal Asad, The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam (Washington: Center for Contemporary
Georgetown University, 1986), p. 7.
23 Sociological functionalism evaluates the meaning of religion in accordance to its social fun
undergirded by an understanding of society as forming an organic whole, the parts of which are
related.

24 Special thanks to Rosemary Hicks for directing my attention to this point.

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MARKUS DRESSLER

Muslim scholars). Such hierarchies have been part of Islamic apolog

discursive practices from early on. In fact, the work of Köprülü as a wh
that attempts to classify him along stereotypes of 'Western' versus "O
scholarship are futile since the intellectual traditions he drew on, and p
was involved in cannot be reduced to such either-or-style localization.
late Ottoman intellectual well read in Islamic historical scholarship as w
contemporary European thought. He drew on different cultural tradit
complementary rather than an antagonistic manner. Put differently, as p
in European discourses on Islamic culture and history he was a European
while at the same time remaining a in many ways typical late Ottoman in
Assumptions about dichotomies between Occidental and Oriental sc
will not help us understand the complex intellectual formation of a sch
as Köprülü.
All of this said, it still has to be acknowledged that the main body of
work was based on European, and even Orientalist, traditions of schola
example is the connection he establishes between socio-economic ar
and hierarchies of doxa. To the extent that it subordinates religio
economic factors, and thus implies that religion can analytically b
separated from the sphere of the socio-economic, such hierarchization
secularist framework, and is part of a decisively Western/Protestant underst
of religion.25
Köprülü's work is full of such Orientalist and secularist biases. Köprü
only conceives of notions of (Turkish) culture and (Islamic) religion in
that clearly separates and in fact essentializes them, but tends to redu
dynamic factors (economy and geography) and the issues of power tha
through them to a status of secondary relevance. In other words, the fo
narrative is throughout on continuities (mainly, if not exclusively, within th
of religion and culture) more than change (and dynamic factors such as
relations and geographic location).

Syncretisms, Intra-religious Boundaries, and Remnants

At a first glance, Köprülü's concept of syncretism might appear dynamic. He
that 'many remainders of the pre-Islamic period continued to live fairly
among the Turks; sometimes they would hide their old character unde
Islamic varnish; sometimes they would, while protecting old forms, begin to
new character' [emphasis added].26 But one should note the functionalist
in this description, as well as the hierarchies implied in the differentiation b
levels of religion and culture. His writings are full of taxonomic arran
juxtaposing essences (the original/authentic) with additions (the co
inauthentic), and distinguishing between 'orthodox' and 'heterodox' bel
practices, or, as in the above quoted text, between old and new 'character
25 For scholarship that has been pathbreaking in our understanding of how religion as a concept ha
historically in the Western/Christian traditions, see especially the works of Talal Asad, Genealogies
Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (London: John Hopkins University Press
Formations of the Secular. Christianity. Islam, Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Pres
also Markus Dressler and Arvind P. Mandair (eds.). Secularism and Religion-Making (Oxford: Oxford
Press, forthcoming 2011).
26 Bizanz Miiesseselerinin Osmanli Miiesseselerine Tesiri Hakkinda Bazi Miilahazalar ( 1931 ), as q
Berktay, Cumhuriyet Ideolojisi ve Fuat Kopriilii (Istanbul: Kaynak, 1983), p. 69.

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 HOW TO CONCEPTUALIZE INNER-ISLAMIC PLURALITY/DIFFERENCE

A contemporary of Köprülü, the sociologist of religion Joachim Wach

argued that from the viewpoint of its prehistory, every religion w
syncretistic.27 Some regard it as a merit of the syncretism perspective that i
light on the wandering and exchange of ideas and practices between rel
traditions. However, when highlighting movement between religions, th
of syncretism remains within the assumption that religions can and ha
treated as from each other clearly distinguishable entities.2X Köprülü's n
syncretism remained within the framework of such a static and ult
essentialist concept of religion, presupposing clear boundaries between
traditions in a manner typical of early twentieth-century Orientalist disc
religion and culture. In this way he characterized, for example, Bektashism
all Sufi orders a syncretism of a mix of different elements... which cont
remnants of all kinds of different religious sects and paths such as trace
Kalenderiye, Yeseviye, Hayderiye [Sufi groups], that is, [traces stretching
Shamanism to neo-Platonisni ,29
Critical attention also needs to be directed to the theologico-political work of
syncretism language. The remnants thesis, which is part of syncretism rhetoric, is a
point in case. It can function as an apologetic device for the justification of particular
religious hegemonies of discourse and practice, and all the implicit and explicit
hierarchies that these hegemonies are interested in establishing. As employed
by Köprülü, 'syncretism' makes an implicit distinction between two kinds of
religious traditions. The first kind we might label primary or core traditions, such as
Islam, Christianity, and within Köprülü's narrative also Shamanism. Implicitly,
primary religions are understood as authentic, meaning their essence is time
resistant. The second kind of religious formations is historically and ontologically
secondary to and dependent on these primary traditions. By pointing to processes of
incorporation of elements of primary religions into secondary ones, such syncretism
theory presupposes clearly definable and time resistant boundaries between the
primary religious traditions involved. Correspondingly, the secondary syncretistic
formations are marked by their lack of such originality and authenticity. Between
the eclecticism of the latter and the historical continuity of the primary religions
opens up a gap of essence and authenticity.
In order not to give a wrong impression it has to be emphasized that not all
approaches to syncretism are essentialist.30 Discursive approaches to syncretism
can be heuristically useful in analyzing the power dynamics at work during
processes of religious differentiation and othering. An example of a noteworthy
attempt to rescue the syncretism concept is the work of anthropologists Rosalind
Shaw and Charles Stewart, who try to circumvent the danger of essentialism by
casting syncretism as the 'politics of religious synthesis', by which they refer to
the dynamic process in which syncretism as well as 'anti-syncretism' (i.e. 'the
~Ί Joachim Wach, Religionswissenschaft. Prolegomena zu ihrer wissenschaftlichen Grundlegung (Leipzig: JC
Hinrichs, 1924), p. 86.
28 This, in the eyes of some, inherent essentialism of the concept of syncretism is one of the reasons why it has as
an analytical concept, after a prolific period of debate in the 1960s and 1970s, been widely abandoned in the field
of Religious Studies. Preferred for the description of cultural mixtures are now terms such as hybridization and
creolization. Siv-Ellen Kraft, '"To Mix or Not to Mix": Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism in the History of
Theosophy', Numen, 49(2) (2002), pp. 142-5.
29 Köprülü, Türk Edebiyati Tarihi, p. 249.
30 For a good overview on classical and contemporary perspectives on syncretism see Anita Maria Leopold and
Jeppe Sinding Jensen (eds.), Syncretism in Religion: A Reader (London: Routledge, 2004).

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MARKUS DRESSLER

antagonism to religious synthesis shown by agents concerned with the

religious boundaries') evolve within specific relations of power.31
To do justice to Köprülü's approach to syncretism one has to evaluate it aga
backdrop of the theoretical apparatus that was available to him. He was a
intellectual, who operated within a positivist paradigm, and was strongly inf
by contemporary European discourses on religion.32 Within these d
terms for theologico-political distinctions and classifications that appear pro
to us, such as sect, heresy, as well as the binary pair orthodoxy/heterodoxy
nicely with the concept of syncretism. What marks these concepts as m
their implication in the creation of boundaries between historical religio
with clearly identifiable origins, as well as a history marked by continuity,
or less systematized content. Köprülü's focus on essences and his tendency to
religions into their 'elements' further reminds of the phenomenologica
Religious Studies (outstanding examples and contemporaries of Köpr
Rudolf Otto and Gerardus van der Leeuw) - although his positivism
prevented him from accepting the methodology of the phenomenologists, w
that the religious would reveal itself in subjective experience.
The syncretism perspective as it has until today remained paradigmat
academic study of the religious history of Anatolia, and of Alev
specifically, is of the modernist kind.33 What is mostly lacking is reflection
work of the syncretism perspective and the concept of religion it implies. In
of Köprülü and those following in his footsteps we find a discourse at w
implicitly differentiates between authentic/original religions, and othe
less so (i.e. 'heterodox'). In the work of Köprülü this is reflected in th
apologetic and pejorative terms as if they were analytical or descriptive
example, when he asserts that 'the Babai34 incident has to be seen as an
starting point for the heretic and sectarian (rafz ve i 'tizal) movements in op
to the Sunni doctrine ... leading to the formation of sects (tâife) s
Kizilbashism and Bektashism';35 or when he qualifies belief in metemp
(itenasiih) and the circle of reincarnations (devir), which could be foun
certain Alevi groups, as 'corrupted dogmas' (bozuk akiyde).36 Cloak
mantle of secular scholarly authority this discourse normalizes certain
31 Rosalind Shaw and Charles Stewart, 'Introduction: Problematizing Syncretism', in Rosalind Shaw
Stewart (eds.), Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis (London: Routledg
32 He was particularly intrigued by Émile Durkheim, whom he read and used extensively.
33 The most prominent examples are the writings of Irène Mélikoff (d, 2009) and her student Ahm
These two scholars were extremely influential in continuing and advancing the study of non-elite A
Balkan Turkish Islam in the footsteps of Köprülü, following many of his theoretical assumpt
example, Irène Mélikoff, Hadji Bektach. Un mythe et ses avatars. Genèse et évolution du soufisme
Turquie (Leiden: Brill, 1998); Ahmet Yajar Ocak, Alevi ve Bekta§î Înançlarinm Isiàm Öncesi Tem
Menâkibnâmelerinde ¡slatti öncesi Înanç Motifleri (Istanbul: ilctisim, 2000). For a criticism of
methodology see Markus Dressler, 'Irène Mélikoff's Legacy: Some Remarks on Methodology', Türk
Haa Bekta¡ Veli Aragtirma Dergisi, 52(3) (2009), pp. 13-20 [available online at: http://www.hbek
edu.tr/dergi_dosyalar/52. .3 .pdf].
34 Name for a group of Turkmen dervishes and their supporters, who launched an uprising against t
Empire in 1240; see Ahmet Yasar Ocak, La révolte de Baba Resul ou la formation de l'hétérodoxie m
Anatolie au XlIIe siècle (Ankara: Conseil Suprème d'Atatürk pour Culture, Langue et Histoire, 1
35 Köprülü, Türk Edebiyati'nda Îlk Mutasavviflar, p. 178.
36 Köprülü, Abdal, p. 31. Pejorative evaluations of this kind we also find in the work of Abdülbak
(1900-1982), specialist on medieval Turkish Sufism and a prominent student of Köprülü, for exam
refers to the 'superstitious beliefs' of the Alevi and Bekta§i. Abdülbaki Gölpinarli, 100 Sor
(Istanbul: Gerçek, 1969), p. 189.

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 HOW TO CONCEPTUALIZE INNER-ISLAMIC PLURALITY/DIFFERENCE

formations (namely Sunni Islam) while denying originality and authenticit

those socio-religious movements that do not comply with its theological nor
Against the 'remnants' model of syncretism, which conceives of relig
formations as clearly definable and relatively time-resistant, Bruce Privratsk
within his discussion of Kazak religion argued that once certain elements from
religious tradition have been appropriated by another tradition they shoul
understood as constitutive parts of this new tradition.37 The remnants th
however, whether undertaken by scholarly observers, or by apologetic obser
from a specific 'source religion', fails to acknowledge the matter-of-factness of t
appropriation. Going beyond the remnants approach, I would argue in favou
truly historicizing perspective critically investigating all claims that imply
essences, boundaries, and historical trajectories. One should be highly suspicio
all approaches that (1) assume the possibility and historical meaningfulness
clear distinction between 'original', 'authentic' source religions on the one h
and secondary religious traditions imagined as assemblages of remnants of
'original religions' on the other hand, and (2) perceive the secondary religi
traditions as being impacted by source religions in the form of 'influences
'remnants'. Much more plausible I find dynamic approaches such as the one of
by Boyarín, who, in his discussion of the relationship between Judaism
Christianity in late antiquity has suggested a wave theory (derived from mod
historical linguistics) to conceptualize the relation of 'religious' traditions in a
that does not privilege essentialist/functionalist/linear models, but instead p
emphasis on the overlapping, and undetermined character of much of the pra
and views that we conveniently subsume under the category of religion.38 Dr
on Homi Bhabha's insights on cultural hybridity,39 arguing especially again
organicist metaphors of kinship in the description of the relations between cultur
he proposes 'a model of shared and crisscrossing lines of history and religi
development'.40 Boyarín suggests to regard religions as 'conversations' arou
traditions that are sometimes more intertwined than clearly separated and th
uproots discourses of divergence and syncretism. This approach change
perspective on what happens at the boundaries between cultures. Rather th
perceiving them as clearly demarcated points of entry/exit, we should conceptual
boundaries as, to borrow from Mary Louise Pratt, 'contact zones' or spaces
'transculturation', where 'disparate cultures meet, clash, grapple with each o
often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination'.41
Similarly, the inquiry (historical and anthropological) into the social struct
of Muslim societies in general, and its cultural and religious practices in parti
should question modernist assumptions of clear boundaries, as well as
dimensional notions of sameness and difference, and rather put the focus
17 Bruce G. Privratsky, Muslim Turkistan: Kazak Religion and Collective Memory (Richmond, Surrey: Cu
2001), pp. 15-19.
38 Daniel Boyarín, 'Semantic Differences; or, "Judaism'T'Christianity"', in Adam Becker and Annette Yos
Reed (ed.). The Ways that Never Parted. Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Midd
(Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007), pp. 65-85; Daniel Boyarín, Dying for God (Stanford, CA: Sta
University Press, 1999), pp. 7-19.
39 Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994).
40 Boyarín, Dying for God, p. 8.
41 Pratt (Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, 1992) as quoted in Boyarín, Semantic Diffe
p. 74.

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MARKUS DRESSLER

divergence, fuzziness, and socio-cultural dynamics where religious p

shared or travel between social groups.

Affinities with Modernism and Islamic Revivalism

Essentialist discourses on religion have a semantic affinity with the discourse of

modernity. The latter, with the importance it attributes to questions of origin,
essence, and boundaries, provides a matrix for othering groups that do not fit into
the master narratives of particular 'grand traditions', be they religious or
national. DeWeese remarks that in Early Mystics in Turkish Literature (1919),
his early masterpiece, 'Köprülü was paving the way for projecting a "tainted"
Islam, either rife with "Shamanic" holdovers from pre-Islamic Turkic religion or
coloured by excessive compromises with presumed "popular" religious tastes, as
the wellspring of the Yasawï tradition' and by extension also Bektashism.
Although this view could not be substantiated, it remained dominant 'no doubt
because it harmonized well with certain approaches to Islam in twentieth-century
Turkey'.42 Indeed, the scenario of an Anatolian Islam as drawn by Köprülü,
in which popular and high culture forms of religiosity stand in stark contrast
to each other, resonates well with modern discourses on religion and Islam.
Influential currents within modern Islam have since the late nineteenth century
been shaped by revivalist utopias pervaded with notions of purity and origins.43
Within Islamic revivalist discourse the accusation of practicing - according to
legalist approaches illegitimate - 'innovations' (bid'a) is semantically connected
with the construction of Islamic 'orthodoxy.' This is why the scholarly definition
of Muslim groups and currents as syncretistic renders them heretical in the
eyes of legalist interpretations of Islam, which have in the course of the
twentieth century been able to assume powerful positions in many Muslim
societies.
In symbiotic relationship with the semantics of Islamic revivalism, the
connection between the Shamanism thesis, the syncretism thesis, and binary
conceptions of Islam (such as 'popular/high', and 'heterodox'/'orthodox' Islam)
as formulated by Köprülü can be interpreted to serve besides a scholarly also a,
though less overt, theological agenda. This agenda shines through when Köprülü
employs, sometimes implicitly and sometimes explicitly, mainstream Sunni Islam
as point of comparison for the various sorts of deviation that he describes. It is part
of a set of claims around notions of purity, authenticity, essence and continuity that
perceives diversions from its own standards as a challenge in need of
externalization. Both Muslim revivalists and historians of Islam such as Köprülü
interpret inner-Islamic plurality, which is continuously reified in relation to this
implicit norm of Islam, through notions of difference, if not deviance from this
standard.
The political dimension of the resemblance between revivalist and Islamicist
discourses of Islam becomes most apparent when the historical and theological
arguments conflate and amount to an argument interested in normalizing Sunnism.
Part of what Köprülü, and those following in his footsteps did in conceptualizing
groups such as the Bekta§iye and the Kizilba§-Alevis as syncretistic was - consciously

42 DeWeese, Foreword, p. XVI.

43 Ismail Kara, 'Islâmci Söylemin Kaynaklari ve Gerçeklik Degeri,' in Tanil Bora, Murát Gültekingil and Yasin
Aktay (eds.), Modern Tiirkiye'de SiyasíDü¡iince, Vol.6: ¡slâmcihk (Istanbul: tleti§im, 2004), pp. 38-44.

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 HOW TO CONCEPTUALIZE INNER-ISLAMIC PLURALITY/DIFFERENCE

or not - to provide secular scholarly evidence for delegitimizing th

Islamic authenticity from a legalist Islamic point of view. The translation
academic concepts such as syncretism into normative (for example
nationalist) discourses of the public sphere and everyday life practices re
concepts powerful tools for the establishment and normalization o
theologico-political programs.
While Köprülü and other intellectuals of the early nationalist mov
as Ziya Gökalp (1876-1924) and Yusuf Akçura (1876-1935), to na
of the most prominent ones44 - were primarily interested in establishin
subject, their conceptualizations would have a long-term impact on th
were in this process forced to adjust to the new ideals of Turkishnes
to the Bektashis and Alevis the ambivalence of their ethno-religious
significant. On the one hand, as supposed carriers of 'Shamanist re
embodiment of the continuity of Turkish culture from pre-Islamic C
modern Turkey, their legitimacy within nationalist discours
considerably - even if, as especially Kurdish Alevis would lament,
of cultural/ethnic assimilation. On the other hand, however, t
rendered them heretics in the view of those who subscribed to revivalist notions of
Islam, and aspired a cleansing of the Islamic 'religion' from un-Islamic 'cultural'
additions. In other words, their 'heterodoxy'/'syncretism' integrated them into the
Turkish nation, while it at the same time othered them from the perspective of an
Islamic mainstream influenced by modernist and revivalist notions of purity and
essence. The following section from Early Mystics, which follows an explanation
for why the Bektashis preferred 'national language and literature' over 'Persian
language and literature,' illuminates this ambivalence:
It is for this reason that the poets who grow up among them - most of which have not seen
any formal religious education (medrese tahsili) but are aware of the national taste (millî
zevk) - have a primitive mentality bowing to superstitious beliefs (ibtidâî ve âdeta
hurâfelere tapan bir zihniyete mâlik) .and that they further, although they mostly use
the meter and poetic forms of the aruz [classical Ottoman poetic meter] very badly and
with mistakes, are able to use the national meter and national [poetic] forms in total
harmony with the Turkish taste.AS

Such ambivalence in the depiction of the Bektashis and Alevis, as I argue a

product of the intrinsic tension between the Islamic revivalist and Turkish
nationalist semantics through which he reads these groups, we find especially in
the early and middle phases of Köprülü's work.46
In the study of Anatolian Islam there has as of yet not been enough sensitivity
regarding the impact of the use of qualifiers that derive from and are related to
religious discourses, be they of the Christian (such as heretic, extremist, sectarian,
heterodox) or the Muslim kind (ghulät, ifrät, rafz ve itizäl, etc.), as conceptual
tools. It is apparent that with the translation of concepts from religious into
academic discourses and vice versa, these concepts obtain new meanings. This
translation is thus a rather serious matter for those labelled by these terms. It is one

44 For discussions of their work and politics see Taha Parla, The Social and Political Thought ofZiya Gökalp,
1876-1924 (Leiden: Brill, 1985): François Georgeon, Aux origins du nationalisme Turc: Yusuf Akçura
(1876-1935), (Paris: Inst. d'Études Anatoliennes, 1980).
45 Köpriilii, Türk Edebiyati 'nda ilk Mutasavviflar, p. 300.
46 One has to concede that in his later academic work Köpriilii would for the most part refrain from such strong
normative language.

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MARKUS DRESSLER

thing to be called a heretic on religious grounds, where the rules of a

are marked by religious semantics; it is a completely different
declared religiously deviant by secular authorities within the pu
secular grounds. One could also say that the offence of heresy is alwa
merely a transgression of dogma. To the extent that religious format
formations religious deviations are social deviations and their reper
not be reduced to a religious sphere imagined to be totally separate
spheres of life in the way that the modern religion discourse with
biases would make us believe.

Binary Constructs and Politics of Othering

For a critical investigation of the scholarly debate on matters of inner-Islamic
plurality it is helpful to differentiate between ernie (culturally specific) and etic
(culturally neutral) perspectives. A first, most obvious, methodological problem is
the extent to which we can claim that analytical (etic) concepts of the Western
scholarly discourse on religion, such as orthodoxy and heterodoxy, are adequate
representations of culturally specific (emic), but by no means homogeneous
realities of Islamic societies and culture. It is rather difficult to find an Islamic
equivalent to what the term orthodoxy connotes in Christian discourses, wherein it
was coined. In scholarship on religion the term orthodoxy accomplishes often less
more than an indirect affirmation of apologetic theological discourses. Transferred
into the discourse of Islam the term lacks descriptive and analytical clarity. The
various terms offered by Islamicists as Islamic equivalents 'refer to characteristics
that cross legal, theological, and religio-political divides and depend upon
interpretation to be applied to particular groups, beliefs, and practices'.47
Since the terms suggested in Islamicist literature as indigenous equivalents of
'heterodoxy' carry the same problems,48 one ought to ask what can be gained from
discussing matters of inner-Islamic plurality/difference by means of concepts
foreign to Islamic discourses instead of, paraphrasing Asad, trying to translate and
represent the historically-situated discourses of culturally distinctive actors.49 This
also points to the question of agency and the problem of who, within the encounter
between scholarly discourses and historical life-worlds, is in a position to ascribe
hierarchies and norms of Islamic dogma in an authoritative way. Whereas the
classical Orientalist position holds on to the claim of adequate representation and
justifies substantive definitions of Islamic 'orthodoxy' and 'heterodoxy',
discursive/interactional approaches are more tuned into the politics and dynamics
that create 'orthodoxy' and 'heterodoxy' as positions of relative strength or lack
thereof within a particular theologico-political discourse.
While principally favouring discursive approaches to religion, 1 would like to
raise principal questions in regard of the heuristic usefulness of the
orthodoxy/heterodoxy dichotomy, and of binary concepts for the description of
inner-Islamic plurality. To be precise, I do not mean to contest the existence of
binaries as discursive reality within certain religio-political contexts. What I do
47 M. Brett Wilson, 'The Failure of Nomenclatura: The Concept of "Orthodoxy" in the Study of Islam',
Comparative Islamic Studies, 3(2) (2007), p. 172.
48 Cf. Robert Langer and Udo Simon, 'The Dynamics of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy. Dealing with Divergence in
Muslim Discourses and Islamic Studies', Welt des Islams, 48 (2008), pp. 282-8.
49 Asad, Idea of an Anthropology, p. 7.

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 HOW TO CONCEPTUALIZE INNER-ISLAMIC PLURALITY/DIFFERENCE

want to put into critical perspective, however, is the work that is do

binaries - especially those with roots in particular theological discours
objectified as analytical categories. In the case of inner-Islamic plu
description through binary oppositions virtually renders this plur
difference, the contours of which tend to become sharper and less pervious
a (modernist) religion discourse based on notions of essences and clear b
takes hold.
Approaching religious difference qua binary oppositions reflects the legitimate
aim to structure complex social and historical realities. The orthodoxy/heterodoxy
binary was initially introduced by outside observers as a classification tool with the
objective to reduce complexity in an attempt to make sense of the complex
theological and political realities of Islam.50 Vernacular Islamic discourses,
however, have their own concepts with their own specific significations,51 and this
again brings us to the question of what is happening in the process of the translation
of emic into etic discourses. Since apologetics are a constitutive element of inner
Islamic discourses on the legitimacy of religious difference, one could say that
these autochthonous discourses are more honest than the terminology of Western
Islamicists cloaked in the mantle of scientific objectivity. Muslim vernaculars are
also more complex and nuanced, as already a brief overview of those terms that
were historically used by Muslim apologetics to mark forms of religious deviance,
and secondarily associated by Islamicists with 'heterodoxy', and/or 'heresy',
shows.52
Beyond their obvious theological biases there is another caveat that should be
considered when dealing with apologetic discourses. They tend to be the discourses
of religious elites (independent of the non-dogmatic and potentially very material
claims that such discourses may aim to justify), which do not necessarily tell us
much about the reality of these differences in the social interactions between
various individuals, groups, and institutions. In other words, apologetic discourses
should first of all be taken as just that - discourses. The question of their relation
with social practices is important and should always be considered, but for
analytical reasons be treated separately. In other words, discourses are not
necessarily representations of social facts/practices, even if they are often
intrinsically linked with them.53

The Caveats of Cross-cultural Translation

Apparently not very concerned about the work of signification done by apol
terms, Köprülü employed them as if they were but descriptive categories. W
50 The overview of such Islamicist conceptualizations provided by Langer and Simon shows this clea
Langer and Simon, Dynamics of Orthodoxy·, for the term orthodoxy cf. also Wilson, Failure of Nomen
51 For a historical overview of the concepts used by Islamic heresiographers in their attempt to
inner-Islamic difference, in the process reifying normative standards of Islam, see Ahmet Ya§ar Ocak,
Toplumunda Zindiklar ve Miilhidler. Yaluit Dairenin Divina Çikanlar (15. - 17. yiizytllar) (Istanbul: T
Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi, 1998), pp. 1-68.
52 See Langer and Simon, Dynamics of Orthodoxy, pp. 284f.; cf. Ocak, Osmanli Toplumunda Zindiklar.
53 It has been shown for many different cultural contexts that boundaries between pre-modern religious trad
were often much more fluid than apologetic and heresiographic as well as ethno-religious/nationalist d
are willing to concede. See Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds. The Construction of the Ottoman
(Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1995), passim; Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Pos
Theory, India and 'The Mystic East' (London: Routledge, 1999); Boyarín, Dying for God, and Se
Differences.

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MARKUS DRESSLER

continuing to use apologetic language from within the Islamic tradit

same time introduced language from outside of the Islamic discour
Köprülü's narrative, 'heterodoxy' appears to be charged with reducin
of marginalizing terms from within Islamic apologetics to one sing
Their specifics are thusly reduced to their otherness from 'orthodo
Islam.
In so far as it contributes to a leveling of the particularities of inner-Islamic
plurality, the introduction of the terms heterodoxy and syncretism into historical
rationalizations of inner-Islamic plurality can be understood as a secularizing
move. This is achieved by a two-way translation process where different languages
and normativities overlap and become difficult to distinguish. The first translation
is that of apologetic significations from within Islamic discourses into Western
discourses on religion. Since the pejorative connotations of terms such as rafizT,
mülhid, and zindik - designating the thusly labelled, with slightly varying
connotations, as heretics - have been retained in the term 'heterodoxy', the implicit
claim of objectivity, namely that 'heterodoxy' as signifier would free the thusly
signified from the confines of Islamic discourse, and objectify their otherness on a
normatively less biased basis, is rendered pointless. To the extent that 'heterodoxy'
is defined with reference to and parallel use of said pejorative terms it has not been
freed from their normative connotations.
The second translation process operates in the opposite direction. Projecting
Christian assumptions of religious difference and their relation to theological
authority structures onto Islam leads to a levelling of Islamically specific
connotations of theologico-political difference. When those formerly referred to as
rafizT, miilhid, zindik, or kizilba§ are re-conceptualized as 'heterodox', then the
particulars of what had marked the religio-political difference of the thusly labelled
are annihilated. Ultimately, the effort to systematize according to Western/Chris
tian conventions of describing religious difference, with their inherent
connotations regarding theological and organizational features, leads to a
distortion if not erasure of the Islam-specific meanings of the translated terms.
Subsuming and uniting the more complex, apologetic concepts of Islamic
discourse under the term heterodoxy is therefore a reductionist act, which
embodies the questionable assumption of the translatability of the Christian/Wes
tern concept of religion onto realities outside of its discursive universe.54 This
translation process should not be confused with the subsequent adaptation of these
concepts in non-Western vernacular languages, although both processes are
logically and historically connected. Charles Hallisey has discussed this process as
'intercultural mimesis', described by King as 'the cultural interchange that occurs
between the native and the Orientalist in the construction of Western knowledge
about "the Orient'".55 Power imbalance in the politics of translation of 'religion'
beyond the Christian West is characteristic for the relationship between Orientalist
scholarship and its objects of study. Therefore, analysis of this translation process
has to give attention to the agency of local appropriations of this discourse. In other

34 Derrida has referred to this process as globalatinization. See Jacques Derrida, 'Faith and Knowledge. The Two
Sources of 'Religion' at the Limits of Reason Alone', in Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattimo (eds.), Religion
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 1-78. For a sharp methodological criticism of this
translation process see also Daniel Dubuisson, The Western Construction of Religion. Myths, Knowledge, and
Ideology (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2003).
55 King, Orientalism and Religion, p. 148.

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 HOW TO CONCEPTUALIZE INNER-ISLAMIC PLURALITY/DIFFERENCE

words, we need to think the appropriation of the Western discourse of r

manner that does not reduce local actors to the role of passive object
focuses on 'local productions of meaning', i.e. takes seriously the age
in the encounter with Orientalist knowledge and practices.56 From th
it is not surprising that, as has been observed, contemporary
appropriating certain language from the scholarly discourse, such
'heterodoxy' and 'syncretism'.57 The questions that need to be a
consequence of this observation are: what do terms such as 'het
'syncretism' signify once translated into the Alevi vernacular and th
means of Alevi self-representation?; what are the claims that are pu
them, and who is the audience they are directed to?; and finally, w
broader politics into which the conceptual and political work of such
mimesis is integrated?
While I will here not be able to answer these questions, I think they he
modes of inquiry that tend to represent local actors and discourses as sub
not victimized in relation to the academic and political power of outs
What is needed instead, is a focus on the dynamics of the interact
outside observers and local actors in the inscription, adjustment, and
of concepts and discourses of religion (and, more generally, cul
derivates.

The Theologico-political Work of Binary Concepts

The parallel use of terms from within the Islamic apologetic tradition and concepts
from outside the Islamic discourse such as syncretism, heresy, and orthodoxy in the
work of Köprülü, and others who continued in his footsteps, without distinguishing
between emic and etic concepts and the translation processes in between obscures
the normative work of these terms, and contributes to analytical ambiguity. Scholars
who use the terms orthodoxy and heterodoxy try to describe and explain theological,
legal, as well as political matters of legitimacy, hegemony, authority, and difference.
Taking a step back, we might ask what we gain when we re-construct inner-religious
relations by means of a conceptual device that directs our thinking towards binaries
and dichotomies. Defined as 'heterodox', the Kizilba§-Alevis are kept in a structural
dependence to a proposed 'orthodoxy'. This secondary, derivative position is
cemented by attributing 'survivals', or 'remnants' from other, i.e. non-orthodox
Islamic, and non-Muslim traditions to them. I claim that denying religio-cultural
formations such as Kizilbas-Alevism originality and authenticity, depicting them
instead through concepts that define them either qua a lack in comparison to the
'orthodox/high-culture', or as fusion with 'unauthentic'/'secondary'/'foreign'
religious or cultural traits, works towards the normalization of the theologico
political hierarchies that these concepts are supposed to describe and analyse.
Scholarly work should, however, not turn into an uncritical tool for the reification of
vernacular patterns of hegemony, but instead be conscious and critical of the work of
its concepts, and especially so if these concepts are involved in vernacular politics.
According to Russell McCutcheon the function of 'binary pairs' is 'to mark a
discursive boundary of a structure that manages the various items that constitute
56 Ibid.. pp. 149-50.
57 Langer and Simon, Dynamics of Orthodoxy, p. 285; Janina Karolewski. 'What is Heterodox about Alevism?
The Development of Anti-Alevi Discrimination and Resentment". Welt des Islams, 48 (2008), pp. 437. 456.

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MARKUS DRESSLER

actual historical existence'.58 In other words, binary concepts are, bey

heuristic tools, a means of world ordering, i.e. 'devices that we use and a
while making a world that suits our differing purposes'.59 McCu
reflections are helpful in disentangling heuristic from political motivati
the formation, legitimation, and maintenance of binary concepts. They i
sharpen our understanding of the normalizing perceptions and judgments th
form the subtext to their construction and maintenance. We have to ask to which
extent binary constructs may constitute tools for the justification of particular world
ordering mechanisms that guide our perception - and to which extent they prevent
us from perceiving and giving voice to those aspects that are too complex to be
expressed within the constraints of a binary scheme. At this juncture the affinity of
binary pairs with the semantics of modernist discourses on religion, in particular
the world ordering machinery of secularism, becomes apparent. In his genealogical
work on the Western concepts of religion and the secular, Asad insinuates that
binary constructs 'pervade modern secular discourse'.60 Instead of reifying them,
Asad's writings invite us to reflect on the work of binary concepts within discourses
of modernity and its obsession with essences, boundaries, and divergence. This
obsession has also impacted on the field of Religious Studies, and related
Orientalist disciplines of secular knowledge such as Islamic Studies and provides
the epistemic framework for binary concepts as devices for the ordering of inner
religious plurality as difference.
It is not without irony that it has been an essay by Asad himself, one of the
pioneers of the deconstruction of the modern genealogies of 'religion', that has
contributed to a resuscitation of 'orthodoxy' in Islamic Studies and increased
confusion regarding its proper application. In Idea of an Anthropology of Islam,
Asad defines 'orthodoxy [as] a relationship of power. Wherever Muslims
have the power to regulate, uphold, require, or adjust correct practices, and to
condemn, exclude, undermine, or replace incorrect ones, there is the domain of
orthodoxy'.61 Asad's aim in this text is to chart out a new way of conceptualizing
Islam anthropologically, critical of previous attempts of both the nominalist and the
substantive kind. He suggests understanding Islam as a 'discursive tradition', by
which he means a tradition of interpretation that 'relates itself to the founding texts
of the Qur'an and the Hadith'.62 Discursive power is here not exclusive
to particular elite institutions, but is manifest on different levels of society:
Ά practice is Islamic because it is authorized by the discursive traditions of Islam,
and is so taught to Muslims - whether by an 'alim, a khatib, a Sufi shaykh, or an
untutored parent' ,63 However, as has been argued by Ovamir Anjum among others,
Asad's relational approach ('orthodoxy' [emphasis added] as 'relationship of
power') seems to be in tension with his recognition of the Koran and the Hadith as
foundational texts of the Islamic tradition.64 The question is whether this
recognition does not privilege certain interpretations of Islam, namely those
58 Russell T. McCutcheon, "They Licked the Platter Clean': On the Co-Dependency of the Religious and the
Secular', Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 19 (2007), p. 190.
59 Ibid., p. 184.
60 Asad, Formations of the Secular, p. 23.
61 Asad, Idea of an Anthropology, p. 15.
62 Ibid., p. 14.
63 Ibid., p. 15.
64 Ovamir Anjum, 'Islam as a Discursive Tradition: Talal Asad and His Interlocutors', Comparative Studies of
South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 27(3) (2007), pp. 666-9.

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 HOW TO CONCEPTUALIZE INNER-ISLAMIC PLURALITY/DIFFERENCE

closely aligned to said foundational texts - and in this way could be und
contributing to the formulation of an Orthodoxy of Islam' [emphasis
I do think that the critical questions raised by Ovamir and Wilson rega
system of reference for Asad's notion of orthodoxy are valid, especia
connects them to Asad's preference/privileging of textual authority (
Hadith) over other sources of Islamic authority (ritual and personal cha
example) in this text. However, it is important to recognize that Asad's r
of the Koran and the Hadith as foundational texts of Islam should not be read as a
theologico-political, but rather as a historical/anthropological statement.
One should also note that Asad did not conceptualize 'orthodoxy' with reference
to 'heterodoxy' as its binary other. Here and elsewhere Asad is very critical of
binary oppositions.66 As a 'relationship of power', his notion of orthodoxy contains
that which is disputed within itself, rather than projecting it outside of itself as
dichotomized other (i.e. as 'heterodoxy'). Pursuing a genealogical approach he is
not interested in the systematics of categories, but rather in explaining their work in
discourse and practice. Put differently, if I understand him correctly, orthodoxy is
not a phenomenological category for him and to this extent should not be
understood as tacitly fostering a particular substantive definition of Islam - which
is why it cannot have a binary other. As empirical category it does reflect discursive
positions, but is not interested in qualifying dogmatic or political/historical claims.
Given all the methodological and theoretical problems of binary concepts in
general, and the orthodoxy/heterodoxy binary in particular, I argue against using
the latter as an analytical category except for the specific heuristic purpose of
subverting essentialist readings of religion. The methodological problems
that accompany such binary concepts are manifold. Firstly, the very logic of the
binary construct tends to reify functional perspectives, which, if brashly and
uncritically read backwards through history, can lead to questionable teleological
longue durée assumptions in disregard of historical contingencies, intra- and
inner-religious convergences, and the fluidity of religious boundaries in many pre
modern contexts.
Secondly, and related to the first point, the binary construction partakes in
defining religion in a static way that is more likely to cement truisms about religious
essences and differences than asking questions about discursive power, and how
inner- as well as intra-religious boundaries are established and made appear evident
in the first place. Instead of reifying particular notions of Islamic culture through
binaries introduced from outside, we should scrutinize the work of such binaries in
scholarly discourses, and within the vernacular languages into which they are
translated, as well as ask critical questions concerning the work that they do when
moving back and forth between ernie and etic discourses.
Thirdly, and most principally, we should - in recognition of the imbalances of
power that shape discourses on religion (to which we as scholars of religion/Islam
obviously contribute) - within our analysis of things associated with non-Western
religions, and Islam more specifically, strive for perspectives that increase, rather
than decrease complexity.67 Reductionism should always be serving a clearly
',3 Wilson, Failure of Nomenclatura, p. 184.
66 Asad, Idea of an Anthropology, pp. I If.; idem. Formations of the Secular, p. 23.
hl I do not want to imply that Islam is non-Western in either a historical or ontological sense. The expression
'non-Western' only pays tribute to the normative powers of Western public and academic discourses, which still
mostly treat Islam as their 'non-Western' other.

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MARKUS DRESSLER

defined heuristic purpose, and not turn into an iron cage that determines th
of a particular investigation. In other words, if binaries such as orthodo
odoxy are used at all, than they should be used with the goal of going be
confines - for example as a subversive tool in uprooting hegemonic stru
authority and their discourses (scholarly, political, dogmatic). The appr
of normalizing concepts such as the orthodoxy/heterodoxy distinction
generally disadvantaged by the politics of these concepts can be such a s
act. When Alevis, for example, turn to the term heterodoxy in their self-des
they challenge the power dynamics in the politics of theologico-
signification. Paraphrasing Bhabha, they produce ambivalence by articul
re-implicating signs of cultural difference. This re-signification can be u
as an act of resistance against dominant discourses of cultural hegemony

Conclusion

Outwardly purely analytical, but implicitly normative-dogmatic conceptuali

ations of Islam and Islamic difference are part of the legacy of an essentialist
religion discourse in general and Orientalist scholarship in particular. Fuad
Köprülü's work offers a window in the translation and normalization of these
discourses and their concepts within the narration of Turkish (religious) history. In
Köprülü's narrative, the orthodoxy/heterodoxy dichotomy invokes a scenario in
which 'heterodox Islam' is by definition syncretistic, i.e. carrying elements of non
Islamic origin, while 'Islamic orthodoxy' represents the time resistant religious
norm. Following Köprülü, some of his major ideas, such as the conceptualization
of Kizilba§-Alevism as 'heterodox' Turkish Islam carrying Shaman remnants -
which served to connect the modern Turkish nation with its most ancient roots, and
integrated the Kizilba§-Alevis into the national fold while simultaneously r
inscribing their religious difference - did not only achieve paradigmatic status
within academic discourses, but made its way into the Turkish vernacular, and
became part of emic representations of Islam.
My criticism of Köprülü connects to the more general need for critical re
investigation of the concepts that the academic study of Islam has inherited from
classical religionist and Orientalist scholarship. Deciphering and eradicating some
of the implicit normative assumptions inherent in parts of the conceptual tool park
of the disciplines that work on Islam in general, and Turkish religious history in
particular, are a precondition for new and, I would argue, more interesting
inquiries into the complex dynamics of Islamic history and culture. Regarding the
orthodoxy/heterodoxy binary, for example, questions that ought to be highlighted
should be - beyond functionalist and substantive approaches - of genealogica
and discursive nature, such as the following: How are notions of orthodoxy/heter
odoxy established in particular discourses, and what is their theologico-political
work?; Who is in a position to define 'orthodoxy' and 'heterodoxy' in which
contexts?; How should the recognition of continuous cultural mimesis between
scholarly and local discourses impact on the way in which we conceptualize the
relationship between emic and etic perspectives in our work on Islam?; and last but
not least, What are the reasons for why parts of Islamic and Religious Studies are
still indebted to a religion discourse based on hierarchies of 'doxa'?
Bhabha, Location of Culture, pp. 1

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 HOW TO CONCEPTUALIZE INNER-ISLAMIC PLURALITY/DIFFERENCE

I have argued that where normatively ambiguous concepts such

heterodoxy/binary are used, they should be used in discursive manner a
of religio-political power relations within particular contexts, if not with t
subvert hegemonic inscriptions of these terms. My criticism of a
apparatus that is either derived from religious discourses (heterodoxy/o
or tends to reinforce static notions of religion and culture (syn
center/periphery, popular/high culture) does not mean that I would qu
legitimacy of the genuine aim to find suitable concepts with which to o
discuss formations of inner-Islamic plurality. Although the primary purpos
study is not to offer a new conceptual apparatus as alternative to the
concepts, I recognize this question as a legitimate reaction to the kind of con
critique that I present and therefore would like to outline, at least in p
form, some thoughts in this direction.
Implicit in my analysis and criticism are a number of criteria that co
the description of inner-Islamic difference and plurality should ideally fulf
concepts

(1) should not be normative in a specific theological or political se

should not be intermingled in apologetic discourses, and not partic
theologico-political rationalizations of power. In other words, the di
between ernie and etic discourses should be clear, and good concept
not wander between them;
(2) should not be catering to a modernist concept of religion that
boundaries over fluidity, static over dynamic, and essentialis
historicizing approaches;
(3) should, in recognition of the fact that part of the problem is the static
of concepts in scholarly discourses, be formulated in inductive rat
deductive manner in order to prevent self-referential arguments;
(4) should be, as a consequence of the last point, guided by attention to
that a particular concept is able to accomplish. What does a particula
make us see, in which direction does it lead our attention? Converse
does it possibly hide from our perception.

As for the description of inner-Islamic plurality I therefore tend to

conceptually less ambitious, more descriptive terms.69 The goal ha
discuss the plurality of Islamic discourses and practices in a historicizin
gives non-elite and marginalized groups and currents a proper pla
historical, sociological, and/or anthropological description. With this
I have previously suggested to differentiate between Islamic orientati
respect to the authorities that they draw on in their religious practice. Acco
I distinguished ideal-typically between charisma-loyal and script
69 An example is the work of Ahmet Karamustafa, who is one of the very view contemporary sch
not only pointed out the underlying normative politics of the taxonomies criticized above, but sho
alternative ways to conceptualize inner-Islamic difference in the study of Anatolian Islam. In his
work on the medieval Islamic Kalenderi movement he conceptualized the plurality of Islamic prac
using binaries such as popular Islam/high Islam, and problematic taxonomic devises such as 'heter
he proposes terms such as 'deviance,' 'new renunciation,' and 'dervish piety'. These terms convey
of agency of the groups under question than the classic signifiers, and do not share their historical
baggage. See Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Gods Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later M
1200-1550 (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1994); idem, Origins of Anatolian Suf

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MARKUS DRESSLER

Muslim orientations. While the former category emphasizes an Isla

organized around individuals who derive their charisma from their believ
to mediate between ordinary believers and the divine (such as Sufi sheikh
saints), the latter privileges authority derived from the scriptural tradition
(in the first place the Koran and the Hadith) and the law (sharia)
differentiation between different kinds of authority models is but one s
for a normatively less ambivalent way to conceptualize inner-Islamic plur
difference.

Acknowledgements
For valuable comments that helped me in my work on this article I am gratful to
Ahmet Karamustafa, Adam Becker, Ruth Mas, and Rosemary Hicks, as well as the
participants of a workshop at the Zentrum Moderner Orient Berlin (in July 2010),
where I had the chance to present an earlier versim.

70 Markus Dressler, Die alevitische Religion. Traditionslinien und Neubestimmungen (Würzburg: Ergon, 2002),
pp. 17f.

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