Alawi Ziya ̄ra Tradition and Its Interreligious Dimensions

Alawi Ziyara Tradition and Its Interreligious
Dimensions: Sacred Places and Their Contested

Meanings among Christians, Alawi and Sunni
Muslims in Contemporary Hatay (Turkey)
1
Laila Prager
University of Mnster, Germany
F
rom early on, the Hatay-Region located in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian
border, has been known for its multi-ethnic and multi-religious variety. The
majority of the 1.5 million citizens of Hatay are either of Alawi origin, a so-called
heterodox Islamic group, or Turkish Sunni Muslims. Moreover, the region is inhabited
by Turkmen, Arab Sunni Muslims, various Christian groups (Rum-Orthodox,
Syrian-Orthodox, and Armenian Catholics), Jews, Bahai and others. Given this ethnic/
religious plurality, Hatay and its cultural centre Antakya, the former city of Antiochia,
have often been portrayed as a stronghold of multiculturalismwhere different ethnic and
religious groups not only live peacefully together, but mutually participate in their
religious rituals on a regular basis.
2
Thus, it is maintained that the major sacred sites, such
1
The data on which the present analysis is based was gathered during my eld research in the Hatay
and ukurova region (20062008) which was nanced by the German Research Foundation (DFG). I
would like to thank Michael Prager, Sebastian Maisel, and Birgit Schbler for their helpful comments
and corrections on the manuscript. Moreover, thanks are due to Necati Alkan who had invited me to
present an earlier version of this article at the Late Ottoman/Post-Ottoman Heterodox Communities
panel which he co-organized with Birgit Schbler in the framework of the World Congress for Middle
Eastern Studies (WOCMES) in Barcelona/Spain, 1924 July 2010. All the photographs were taken by the
author.
2
See Liam Murray, Antakya: A Lesson in Multiculturalism, Totally behude. Trying to gure
out Turkey . . . online 30.07.2011: http://totallybeyhude.blogspot.com/2011/07/antakya-lesson-in-
multiculturalism.%20html; Karin Schweissgut, Memories of a Lost Armenian Identity: Ayla Kutlus Can
Kusu, in Turkish Literature and Cultural Memory: Multiculturalism as a Literary Theme of the 1980,
ed. C. Dufft (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2009), 147155, 153; Fulya Dogruel, Multicultural Ideals
of Minorities against Oppressive State Homogenization: A case Study among Arab Alawites, Arab
Christians and Armenians in Hatay, Kolor: Journal of Moving Communities 5,2 (2005): 3148; Fulya
Dogruel, Multiple Identities on the Border: Christian and Muslim Arab Minority Communities in
Turkey, in In-between spaces: Christian and Muslimminorities in transition in Europe and the Middle
East, eds. C. Timmerman et al. (Bruxelles/New York: PIE Lang, 2009), 79102.
bs_bs_banner
2013 Hartford Seminary.
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148
USA.
DOI: 10.1111/muwo.12000
41
as churches, mosques, ziyarat, etc. are used at an interreligious basis and in a
harmonious way.
3
During my research in Hatay it became evident, however, that
although some sacred sites are indeed visited by members of different religious
afliations, such as the Khid
r-ziyara in Samandag, St. Peters Church in Antakya, the

Nabi Musa-Tree in Hidrbey, and the Sheikh Hassan al-Hakim-ziyara in Harbiye, the
various religious groups actually do not interact at the shrines. Ofcially and as a result
of Ataturks reforms, interreligious conicts and disputes do not play a prominent role in
Hatay since religion has been relocated to the private domain and subordinated to the
secular discourse of the Turkish Nation State. As a result, religious differences are not
articulated in schools, at work, markets, or other public places. However, behind the
surface of this public image of secularism and individual religious equality, there is a
domain where interreligious conicts come more openly to the fore. It is exactly the
practice of the ziyara
4
, the act of visiting a sacred site, that regularly gives cause to
disputes on religious identity.
In Hatay I came across the phenomenon that Alawi, Christians and Sunni Muslims
from this region all claimed that they mutually frequented these ziyarat. This cohabi-
tation, however, did not take place in a spirit of harmony. On the contrary, competition
among these different religious groups for these sites is quite evident. This is particularly
true for the Alawi ziyarat, the most widely distributed religious sites in the Hatay region.
Currently they witness a construction boom, which in the past decade has led to a
proliferation of the number of ziyarat.
5
Especially, the more ancient Alawi ziyarat are
targeted by members of other religious groups by contesting their genuine Alawi identity
and attributing to them a Christian or Sunni Muslim origin.
Drawing on my own research data, I shall rst discuss the three major categories of
Alawi ziyarat in Hatay and give a brief outline of their meaning in Alawi cosmology.
Then, I shall present some cases where Alawi sacred places are contested and being
usurped by other religious groups and discuss the underlying motives of the religious
3
Sean Sprague Turkeys Melting Pot: The lively cultures & faiths of Hatay Catholic Near East Welfare
Association (2011); http://www.cnewa.org/default.aspx?ID=3549&pagetypeID=4&sitecode=US&
pageno=1; The Mosque of Habib-i Neccar (H
ab b al-Najjr) (August 4, 2011); http://antioch-on-

the-orontes.blogspot.com%20/2011/08/mosque-of-habib-i-%20neccar-habib-al.html;
4
Ziyara means visit in Arabic. In religious contexts it refers to the practice of visiting a tomb or shrine
for prayers. Among the Alawi the termziyara has three dimensions, as it refers to the sacred site as such,
to the person, or more precisely, to the persons soul which is venerated at such a site, and nally to
all ritual actions performed while visiting a sacred site.
5
Prochzka & Prochzka identify a comparable construction- and renovation boom of Alawi ziyarat in
the ukurova region and explain that this development is mainly due to the mere nancial reasoning
of the Alawi sponsors, i.e. that [. . .] these places had been reconstructed only with the idea of making
money, Gisela Prochzka & Stephan Prochzka, The Plains of Saints and Prophets (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz Verlag, 2010), 115116. During my eld work in the Hatay and ukurova region I never
came across a newly constructed ziyara which had been build for economic reasons, particularly since
the money spent by the visitors (zakat) barely sufces to cover the maintenance costs. Prochzka &
Prochzkas utilitarian explanation is thus hardly convincing.
Tnr Mtsii Worir Voitr 103 JANUARY 2013
42 2013 Hartford Seminary.
actors involved. Finally, I shall contextualize these cases within a broader theoretical and
comparative perspective about the nature of ambiguous sanctuaries
6
.
Some Historical and Demographic Determinants
From the 10
th
century onwards the Alawi are living in the so-called Jebel al-Ansariye
Mountains, a region spreading over the present-day nation states of Syria, Turkey and
Lebanon. In Turkey where the Alawi are also referred to as Arap Alevileri or Nusayriler
their major area of settlement is the province of Hatay. From the 19
th
century onwards,
the Alawi have also been living in the province of ukurova, and since the 1960s and the
1990s they are present as migrants in various European countries as well as in the Arab
Gulf States. According to ofcial statistics, they account for 1013% of the total
population of Syria
7
, whereas Lebanon hardly has more than 9000 Alawi,
8
and according
to Turkish estimate, Alawi number between 700,000 to 1 million people in Turkey.
9
In the following I shall stick to the general term Alawi, though it would be more
accurate to use the term Turkish Alawi when referring to the Alawi of Hatay, in order
to differentiate them from their co-religionists in Syria. After their former common
territory had been split up as a consequence of the Turkish annexation of the Sanjak of
Alexandretta in 193839, there was very little room for cultural and political interaction
between the Syrian and the Turkish Alawi. As a result there emerged two culturally
different groups. The history of the annexation of the region of Hatay, the former Sanjak
of Alexandretta, to the young Turkish nation state under Ataturk is not only important for
understanding of contemporary Turkish Alawi identity, but also for understanding grasp
the relations between the Alawi and the other religious groups in this region. Since the
1920s the culturally and religiously diverse Sanjak of Alexandretta where Muslims,
Christians, Alawi, Jews, and other religious groups were living together, had been under
the rule of the French. However, in 1936 Ataturk intervened at the League of Nations in
order to claim Hatay as part of the new Turkish state,
10
arguing that this region was
settled by ethnic Turk societies who would have to fear for their lives in the case of an
Arab annexation.
11
France, already involved in a military conict with the Arab
6
Frederick Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, ed. M. M. Hasluck (Istanbul, The Isis
Press, 2000).
7
Ismail Engin & Erhard Franz, Nusairier die arabischsprachigen Alaw , in: Aleviler/Alewiten Vol.
1, eds. I. Engin & E. Franz (Hamburg: Deutsches Orient-Institut, 2000), 157160, 157.
8
Heinz Halm, Die islamische Gnosis. Die Extreme Schia und die Alawiten (Zrich / Mnchen: Artimis
Publishing, 1982), 383, Note 604.
9
Moshe Brawer, Atlas of the Middle East (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1988), 96.
10
Michel Gilquin, DAntioche au Hatay. Lhistoire oublie du Sandjak dAlexandrette : Nationalisme
turc contre nationalisme arabe. La France arbitre? (Paris: LHarmattan, 2000), 80.
11
Dalal Arsuzi-Elamir, Arabischer Nationalismus in Syrien. Zaki al-Arsuzi und die arabisch-nationale
Bewegung An der Peripherie Alexandretta/Antakya 19301938. (Mnster/ London: LitVerlag, 2003),
165.
Ai:\i Zi:r: Tr:ri+io :r I+s I+rrrriiciots Dirsios
nationalists in Syria and fearing a two-front war, decided to agree to the annexation of
Hatay to Turkey.
12
Since its annexation, the Hatay region has been subject to a politics of Turki-
cation and Sunnitization giving rise to an exodus of various Christian groups and
other religious minorities.
13
The Armenian Christians of Hatay had already been
expelled from their native areas two decades earlier, culminating in the dramatic
events that Werfel described in The Fourty days of Musa Dagh.
14
In the wake of the
Turkish annexation of the Hatay region, Christians, Arab Sunni Muslims and more
than 70,000 Alawi ed to Syria and Lebanon. In total, more than 140,000 people,
roughly two thirds of the gross population of Hatay left the region forever and
subsequently lost all rights to their land.
15
Therefore, many parts of the area north of
Antakya as well as the fertile valley on the shore of the river Orontes, south of the
capital once owned by the Christian and Sunni Arabs and other displaced groups
became suddenly available to other segments of the local population. As a result of
diaspora and resettlements the demographic landscape of Hatay thus changed dra-
matically, bringing forward new opportunities to acquire abandoned farm land, from
which the Alawi eventually beneted.
In earlier times most of the Alawi had been compelled to make their living as farm
hands on the elds owned by Arab Christian and Sunni Muslim landlords, formerly
constituting the ruling elite, the Agas, of Hatay. When the landlords left for Syria or
Lebanon the Alawi peasants bought up the land. Today nearly all the fertile lands in the
valley are owned by Alawi who make up the second largest population group after the
Turkish Sunni Muslims in Hatay. As will become evident, these historical developments
are essential for the understanding of the interreligious conicts about the original
ownership of the sacred sites.
12
For a detailed discussion of the annexation of the Sanjak of Alexandretta into the Turkish nation state,
see Ycel Gl, The question of the Sanjak of Alexandretta A study in Turkish-French-Syrian
relations (Ankara: Turkish Historical Society Printing House, 2001); M. Gilquin, DAntioche au Hatay.
13
Tamer reports that the migration wave of the Orthodox-Christians lasted until the 1990s and that it
was a reaction to the on-going Turkication policy of the Turkish nation state of which the Arab
Christians were the major victims, Georges Tamer, Lasst uns hier ein Dorf grnden, Rum-Orthodoxe
Christen aus der Trkei in Deutschland, in Kern und Rand, ed. Gerdien Jonker (Berlin: Das Arabische
Buch, 1999), 1530, 1516.
14
Franz Werfel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, translated by Geoffrey Dunlop and James Reidel, with a
preface by Vartan Gregorian (Boston: David R. Godine, 2012); originally published in 1933 in German.
Today the Turkish Sunni Muslims make up for 60% of the Antakya population, while the Alawi make
up 33,5%. The Christians (Arab Orthodox and Armenians) nowadays only comprise 0.60% of the city
population, c.f. F. Dogruel, Multicultural Ideals of Minorities, 3148, 3132. In total only 10.000
Rum-Orthodox Christians and around 1000 Armenians are still present in the Hatay region, see G.
Tamer, Lasst uns hier ein Dorf grnden, 1530, 16.
15
Avedik Sanjan, The Sanjak of Alexandretta (Hatay) A Study in Franco-Turco-Syrian Relations
(Michigan: unpublished Dissertation, 1956), 215.
Alawi Cosmology: a Brief Outline
The Alawi have their origins in esoteric groups manifesting themselves in Iraq
since the 9
th
century, where the founder of the Alawi religion and companion of the
11
th
Imam, Ibn Nus
ayr, heralded his doctrines.

16
While there is an on-going discussion
in Islamic studies whether the Alawi belong to the Sevener, Elevener or Twelver
Shiites,
17
the Turkish Alawi from the Hatay and ukurova regions strongly afrm that
they belong to the Twelver group. The Alawi religion must be considered as a
syncretistic system of ideas and practices,
18
incorporating Islamic, Christian and Jewish
inuences alongside Persian, Indian and Greek philosophical traditions. One of the
key concepts of the Alawi religion is the idea of a cyclical manifestation of Gods
revelation, resulting from the fall of the Light Souls (nuran ) and beginning with
Adam and nding its closure with Al , the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet.
These cyclical revelations were closely connected to teachings about the reincarnation
and transmigration of souls, the latter being essential for the understanding of Alawi
ideas and practices surrounding the ziyara. The reincarnation and transmigration of
souls are interpreted by the Alawi in reference to their myth of origin, recorded in the
Umm al-Kitab
19
, according to which in the beginning only Light Souls (nuran )
existed together with God. However, after the Light Souls began to consider them-
selves equal to God, they were punished for their vanity and expelled from the seven
paradises onto the earth, there being forced to materialise in human bodies (aqmis
a
= shrouds/shells/shirts). Eventually, God took pity with the fallen Light Souls and sent
them Al with His revelation. Thus the Light Souls were given the possibility to
ascend once more to the seven paradises and return to God, on condition that they
understood Gods true nature, the mana (meaning). To achieve this end, they were
granted several consecutive lives, which they had to spend incarnated in different
human bodies. Should they, however, during one of these lives, oppose Gods
commandments again, they would be reborn in the body of an animal, or, even
worse, in lifeless matter.
In Alawi religious practice, the mythical fall and potential resurgence of Light Souls
is related with two different modalities of rebirth, the cyclical reincarnation, and the
16
Joseph Azzi, Les Noussairites-Alaouites (histoire, doctrine et coutumes) (Clamecy: Editions Publisud,
2002).
17
cf. i.a. H. Halm, Die islamische Gnosis, 284ff; Alain Nimier, Les Alawites (Paris: dition Asfar, 1988).
18
For further information on the syncretistic nature of Alawi cosmology, cf. Fuad I. Khuri, The Alawis
of Syria: Religious Ideology and Organization, in: Syria: Society, Culture, and Policy, eds. R. T. Antoun
& D. Quataert (New York: New York University Press, 1991), 5051; see also Yaron Friedman, The
Nusayr -Alaw s, An Introduction to the Religion, History and Identity of the Leading Minority in Syria
(Leiden: Brill, 2010), 106; Laila Prager, Die Gemeinschaft des Hauses: Religion, Heiratsstrategien und
transnationale Identitt trkischer Alawi-/Nusairi-Migranten in Deutschland (Mnster/ London: LIT
Publishing, 2010), 4345.
19
Edited by Wladimir Ivanov, Umm al-Kitab, Der Islam 23 (1936): 1132.
transmigration of souls.
20
The reincarnation, raja, entails the return of the same
immortal Light Soul (ruh
) of unchanging rank.
21
This mode of rebirth applies solely to
the Prophets and to the Alawi sheikhs (see Figure 1), from the past and the present.
Their Light Souls are reincarnated in unchanged form, thus guaranteeing the
continuous presence of the saints and the sacred on earth, rendered visible by the
shrines of Prophets (such as Musa, Yun s, Miqdad, etc.) in the Hatay region.
The second form of rebirth, the transmigration of souls referred to as tanasukh in
Alawi religious texts, is based on the idea that an immortal Light Soul drifts from one
body and one life to another, thereby potentially increasing the chance of ascending
toward a higher spiritual and social rank in the next life, on the condition that their
20
For a detailed discussion about the idea of the transmigration of souls and its socio-cosmic
implications for the body in Alawi religious practice, see Laila Prager, The Mnemonic Body: Cycles of
rebirth and the remembrance of former lives in Alawi religion, in Krper, Sexualitt und Medizin in
muslimischen Gesellschaften, eds. Patrick Franke, Suzanne Kurz & Claudia Preckel (Bamberg:
University of Bamberg Press, forthcoming).
21
Cf. Rainer Freitag, Seelenwanderung in der islamischen Hresie (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 1985), 30.
Figure 1. Guardian-Sheikh of the Khid
r-ziya ra in Samandag.
This position is inherited from one generation to the other
respective hosts have led impeccable and God-fearing lives. As a result of such on-going
transmigrations the Light Souls may eventually be released from being condemned to
live on earth by understanding the true meanings of the world. In the course of the
ascendance, the Light Soul will completely shed the physical shell (shrouds aqmis
a)
and be transferred to the Light World again. To humans it will then be visible as a star in
the sky, where the Light Soul passes through further transformative stages so as to nally
return to its original state as a free oating nuran (Light Soul).
22
These ideas about the
reincarnation and transmigration of Light Souls are at heart of the religious ideas and
ritual practices relating to the Alawi ziyara shrines.
Alawi Ziyara Tradition
The practice of venerating local saints and the visiting of ziyara shrines is a
phenomenon well known from the Middle East and the Islamic world at large. Much has
been written about the architecture of such shrines and the concept of baraka, the
benecial force which is usually believed to emanate from such sacred places.
23
In early
Islam the practice of visiting gravesites (ziyarat al-qubur ) was considered lawful and
even recommended, as it is evident from different reports in the h
ad th, before it was

nally prohibited by the Prophet due to the exaggerated importance attributed to it.
24
The admissibility of the practice of ziyara was extensively discussed in early works of
22
According to Alawi cosmology, if the Light Soul was attached to a person who lived a morally bad
life, it will be reborn in a lower form of existence, i.e. as a non-Alawi person, as an animal, as a
bloodless insect, or as lifeless matter from which the soul no longer can escape. In the Kitab al-Usus
it is further mentioned that Jews are reborn as animals, whereas heretics turn into sacricial animals, cf.
Meir Bar-Asher & Aryeh Kofsky, The Nusayri-Alawi religion: An Enquiry into Theology and Liturgy
(Leiden: Brill, 2002), 63ff. A detailed description of the ve lower rebirth ranks, i.e. the positions of the
sinners naskh, maskh, waskh, faskh, raskh is given in al-H
usayn Ibn H
amdan al-Khas
b s
al-Risalat al-rastbashiyya, in Silsilat al-turath al Alaw II, 1582, 6465.
23
See Dionigi Albera, Plerinages mixtes et sanctuaires ambigus en Mditerrane, in Les Plerinages
au Maghreb et au Moyen-Orient, eds. S. Chiffoleau, A. Madoeuf (Damascus: Ifpo, 2005), 347378; Josef
W. Meri, Lonely Wayfarers Guide to Pilgrimage. Al ibn Ab Bakr al-Haraw s Kitab al-Isharat ila
Marifat al-ziyarat (Princeton: The Darwin Press INC, 2004); Gebhard Fartacek, Pilgersttten in der
syrischen Peripherie: Eine ethnologische Studie zur kognitiven Konstruktion sakraler Pltze und deren
Praxisrelevanz (Wien: Verlag der sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003); Richard C.
Martin, Ziyara, in Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim world, ed. R. C. Martin (New York: Thomson
Gale, 2004), 533; Nelly van Doorn-Harder, Ziyara, in the central Arab lands from 1800 to the present
day in Encyclopedia of Islam, eds. C.E. Bosworth et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999),
529530; 530; for Christian sites in Anatolia, cf. Franz Cumont, Studia Pontica (Bruxelles 190310).
24
Abdulaziz Sachedina, Ziyarah, in Encyclopedia of the Islam (2
nd
Edition), eds. P.J. Bearman et al.
(Leiden: Brill, 19602005), 5051, 50; J. W Meri, Ziyara, in the central and eastern Arab lands during
pre-modern period in Encyclopedia of Islam, eds. C.E. Bosworth et al. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999), 524529; 524; for further information about the opposition to ziyara veneration in Islam,
particularly in the Hanbali school, see 525526.
Islamic jurisprudence ( qh) and in the great collections of the h
ad th.
25
The rules of
ziyara-conduct were prescriptive as well as proscriptive
26
and consisted of specic
guidelines of proper conduct (adab al-ziyara) to which a Muslim should adhere.
27
However, even if the Alawi heed most of these guidelines, they also deviate from the
normative rules of conduct at pilgrimage sites due to the general discrepancy between
what Muslims should do according to normative Islamic rules and how they act in
reality.
28
Moreover, and more importantly, the Alawi practice of ziyara is based on a very
specic idea about the soul which necessarily entails a different way of conceptualiza-
tion the ziyara saints and ziyara shrines.
The Alawi ziyara rituals include the kissing of the tomb, lightning of candles and
essences, rubbing ones body with oil, reciting the Fatih
a, and attaching pieces of cloth

(cut from rolls of fabrics deposed on the tombs) either to trees in front of the site or to
a persons limbs. The last practice aims at healing a person or at shielding against the evil
eye or jinns. These ritual practices can be observed at all Alawi ziyarat, and they do not
differ much from Christian and local Sunni pilgrimage practices. However, some codes
of conduct distinguish particularly the Christians from the Alawi and Sunnis. The
Rum-Orthodox-Christians and Armenians in Hatay have no special dress code when
entering a sacred site, nor do they maintain taboos related to menstruation, whereas both
Alawi and Sunni women would never enter any sacred place during their menses or
without a veil. Such differences can cause conicts when members of different religious
groups meet and interact at ambiguous sanctuaries, as will become evident in the case
discussed below. Firstly, however, it is necessary to take a closer look at the different
categories of the Alawi ziyarat, and then to identify the type of sacred site is most subject
to interreligious contestation and usurpation.
The Alawi differentiate between three types of ziyarat, namely, the Khid
r-ziyarat,
nab -ziyarat, and shaykh-ziyarat. While the rst two categories are related to the idea
of reincarnation of Lights Souls, the Shaykh- ziyarat are usually connected with the
transmigration of souls, particularly those of gifted/spiritually advanced human
beings.
29
Each of these ziyarat is named after the respective Prophet, saint or shaykh to
whom the shrine is dedicated.
25
For example, see Kitab al-janaiz, in Muslim, s
ah
2:63539; or Bab al-ziyara of the Kitab

al-manasik in Abu Dawud, Sunan, 2:21819. Al-Sayyid Sabiq, Fiqh al-sunnah (Beirut, 1977), vol. 477.
26
Christopher S. Taylor, In the Vicinity of the Righteous: Ziyara and the Veneration of Muslim Saints in
Late Medieval Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 79.
27
A systematic presentation of the rules governing the correct performance of ziyara is given in Ibn
Uthman, al Muwaffaq Abu al-Qasim Abd al-Rah
man b. Ab al-h
aram Makk . Murshid al-zuwwar ila

qubur al-abrar. Ed. by Muh
ammad Fah
Abu Bakr (Cairo, 1995), 3281.

28
Taylor shows that the ziyara as a ritual complex should be seen as a conglomerate ranging from
authorized practices which were acceptable even for the most conservative and sober interpretations
of Islamic doctrine to activities which were clearly suspect and sometimes even considered as abuses
in Islam, C.S. Taylor, In the Vicinity of the Righteous, 79.
29
For more details on the sheikhs capacities, such as healing and magical powers (miracles and curses),
and astrological knowledge, see L. Prager, Die Gemeinschaft des Hauses, 5253.
In terms of spiritual potency the Khid
r-ziyarat are regarded as the most powerful.

Particularly, the Khid
r-ziyara in Samandag (see Figure 2) needs to be mentioned in

this context, because among the Alawi it has acquired the status of a pilgrimage site
equal to Mecca.
Up to the present the annual pilgrimage to the Khid
r-ziyara
30
in Samandag
(performed on the 14
th
of July), where according to tradition, Khid
r, Moses, and other

Prophets once met,
31
is considered by the Alawi as a major ritual event, especially since
the site is believed to emanate a specic category of spiritual power, designated as
khayr.
32
30
Already in the 1930s Weulersse pointed to the large numbers of pilgrims heading for the Khid
r-ziyara
in Samandag , see Jacques Weulersse, Le Pays des Alaouites, Vol. II (Tours: Arrault, 1940).
31
According to Alawi tradition, Moses and Khid
r met at Samandag. Indeed, this incident is mentioned

in the Quran, sura 18, verses 6082, without, however, pointing to a specic locality. Throughout the
Middle East Khid
r shrines are venerated by different religious groups; c.f. Yunus Emre, Khidr, Elwan
elebi and the Conversion of Sacred Sanctuaries in Anatolia, The Muslim World, 90 (2000): 309322;
Patrick Franke, Begegnung mit Khid
r. QuellenstudienzumImaginrenimtraditionellenIslam. (Beirut:
Stuttgart. 2000); for Christians the gure of Khid
r relates to Saint George, see Christopher Walker, The

Origins of the Cult of Saint George, Revue des tudes Byzantines 35 (1995), 295326.
32
The Arab word khayr (good, wellbeing, the best, advantage, Gods gift) plays a central role
in the religious and social practices of the Alawi in that it is considered to be a benecial spiritual power
comparable to the concept of baraka. The term khayr describes a differentiated semantic eld of
socio-religious relationships, in which concepts such as divine power/salvation, acknowledgement,
honour, status, giving and taking are intrinsically intertwined, see L. Prager, Gemeinschaft des
Hauses, 60, note 39.
Figure 2. The Khid
r-ziyara located at the beach of Samandag; some Alawi people

believe that it is cleaned by the waves of the sea every night
The spiritual powers of the Khid
r-ziyarat in general and the Samandag-ziyara in

particular,
33
are attributed to the nature of the prophet Khid
r as one of the emanations of

God on Earth, so that supplications to Khid
r will be channelled directly to God. The

Alawi consider Khid
r to be a bat
in epiphany of Al , who is permanently traveling

between the earth and the domain of the Light World. In the course of his wanderings,
Khid
r is believed to have generated numerous holy sites, since as the legend goes
wherever his feet touched the ground, small oases and springs emerged. Therefore,
Khid
r-ziyarat can be easily recognized, for their sacred core usually consists of an
extraordinary site within the natural landscape (a tree, spring, rock, etc., see Figure 3),
which nowadays are often being enshrined.
34
The next group of shrines is formed by the anbiya, referring to Prophets or saints
such as nab al-Miqdad
35
or nab Yunis. These Prophet/saint-shrines are, for the
most part, also characterised by natural phenomena which are out of the ordinary. For
33
Other Khid
r-ziyarat are located in Antakya, Turfanda, Hdrbey, and many other locations.
34
The superiority of the Khid
r-shrines is indicated by the prohibition to enter a ziyara of the two other

types after one has visited a Khid
r-ziyara. The Alawi explain this taboo arguing that the superior
spiritual power of the Khid
r-ziyara would contaminate the potency of the hierarchically inferior

ziyara, thus bringing danger to the visitor.
35
Miqdad is one of the ve unmatched in the Alawi cosmological hierarchy, and associated with
thunderstorms and lightning, see Sulayman al-Adani, Kitab al bakura al-Sulaymaniyya (Beirut:
publishing house unknown, 1864), according to Edward Salisbury, The Blood of Sulaimans rst ripe
fruit, disclosing the mysteries of the Nusairian Religion, Journal of the American Oriental Society 8
Figure 3. White-painted rock as the center of the Khid
r-ziya ra in Samandag.
Formerly, this rock was considered the actual ziya ra, today the whole qubba
construction is called ziya ra by the Alawi
instance, the two Miqdad-ziyarat that are located at different sites in the Hatay region
are distinguished by the conspicuous shapes of the large trees growing inside the ziyara
or in the vicinity of the ziyara.
36
In contrast to the anbiya-ziyarat and Khid
r-ziyarat the shaykh-ziyarat are

distinguished by the fact that they are the gravesites of former sheikhs, usually enclosing
holy remains in a qubba, a domed mausoleum. Cenotaphs may be venerated in the
same way by the Alawi. After the death of a sheikh who is expected to be transformed
into a saint, his ziyara announces itself by the presence of nur, a light shining at night
from the sky onto his tomb. This is deemed an unmistakable sign that the grave is a
ziyara and therefore must be enclosed by a qubba. The light that shines from the sky
onto the grave is believed to be nothing else than the sheikhs Light Soul that has been
released from the earthly cycle of rebirth, henceforth wandering between the Earthly
World and the Light World.
All shaykh-ziyarat are conceived as transmitters of the pleas, which human beings
send to God. For the Alawi a shaykh-ziyaras relative power is dependent on the degree
of closeness pertaining between God and the sheikh while the latter was still alive. The
closer the contact, the stronger the protection the ziyara will obtain from Him. My
informants often explained that the degree of closeness between the ziyara and God is
constituted by the amount of the bat
in knowledge acquired by the respective sheikh

and, above all, by the extraordinary moral purity (nd
f ) displayed during his earthly

existence. Moreover, the shaykh-ziyarat differ from the anbiya-ziyarat and
Khid
r-ziyarat in that usually they are only of local concern. Thus, they are important to
a peculiar village, a town quarter or a localized kinship group. Only a few
shaykh-ziyarat that are thought to be endowed with special healing powers such as
the Shaykh Hassan and Shaykh Yusuf ziyara in Harbiye are of translocal importance,
drawing Alawi pilgrims from all over Turkey.
It is important to note that the shaykh-ziyarat are the sacred sites most contested by
other religious groups in the Hatay region. Forming a gateway in the Alawi cosmological
topography between the earthly and the Light World and being a visible and tangible
representation of the very idea of rebirth, it is hardly surprising that the shaykh-ziyarat
(1866): 227308, 248. This is why the Alawi in the Hatay region still utter Ya Midad or sa ad ruh
ni
ya Miqdad (Help my soul Miqdad) when they see lightning.
36
The tree in the Miqdad-ziyara of Harbiye is considered by many contemporary Alawi as virtually
indestructible, since it has already deed natural catastrophes such as oods and landslides. My
informants recounted the following story regarding the Miqdad-ziyara to the north of Antakya: In the
time of the Ottoman Empire, the innocent ed from Ottoman soldiers to the place where the
Miqdad-ziyara is located today. It was nab Miqdad himself who led them to this holy site in order to
protect them. When the Ottoman soldiers arrived, he warned them not to use their weapons. The
soldiers did not listen to him, and set about killing the innocent. When they raised their arms wielding
their swords, Miqdad turned the soldiers into trees. This is why today the Miqdad-ziyara is surrounded
by many trees with strange shapes and unnaturally formed branches to remind the people that they
should obey the words of a nab , see L. Prager, Die Gemeinschaft des Hauses, 6162.
have always been considered an offence by the Sunni majority. More recently, however,
the local Sunni Muslims way of struggling with the Alawi sacred sites assumes the form
of an appropriation in the material and spiritual sense. Moreover, during the last decade
the shaykh-ziyarat were also increasingly contested by various Christian groups in the
region. In the following, I shall present some exemplary cases of interreligious
contestation and appropriation involving Alawi, Christians and Sunni Muslims.
Epitomizing Differential Religious Identities
The rst case concerns the ziyara Kismet yen H
ak m which is situated near an

Alawi village (Mzrakl) in a part of the Samandag area where Christian villages
predominate. The Alawi consider this ziyara as one of their genuine sacred sites since
it is believed to harbour the tombs of two sheikhs who are famous for their healing
powers. According to legend, the two sheikhs actually were brothers and lived together
in a house. One of the rooms contained shelves full of medicinal plants and little bottles
lled with all kinds of medicine. Due to the sheikhs extraordinary healing powers their
house was continuously visited by sick people in search of relief from their diseases.
Once a patient had entered the consulting room, one of the little bottles would start to
shake, thereby revealing to the sheikhs the type of medicine which was best suited to
cure the illness at stake. Moreover, according to legend, the sheikhs would never accept
to be compensated for their services, as they were dervishes and enlightened by God.
Building on this legend, in the vicinity of the ziyara an additional building has been
erected where the sick people who are visiting the ziyara Kismet yen H
ak m may stay
overnight.
The same site, however, is also claimed by different Christian groups. Each year the
local Rum-Orthodox Christians and the Armenian Catholics celebrate carnival at this site
which, according to them, is called ziyara Cosmanus ve Dimyanus, harbouring the
tombs of the saints Kosmas and Damian,
37
two early Christian martyrs ( around 300)
who had been twin brothers and physicians, born in Cilicia, todays ukurova region in
Turkey.
38
It is further reported that they practiced their craft in the seaports of Ayas,
Adana, and later in the Roman province of Syria, never accepting payments for their
services and thereby attracting many new believers to Christianity.
39
In this perspective,
the respective ziyara emerges as a genuine Christian site, an argument which as the
37
Hans-Gnther Griep, Cosmas und Damian, Schutzheilige der rzte und Apotheker aus der Historia
medica im Raum Niedersachsen, Ringelheimer Biologische Umschau 19 (1964): 3784.
38
For a description of the Christian mythology about Cosmas and Damian in Turkey and the alleged
localization of their tombs in Istanbul and other Turkish places, see Altan Gokalp, Ttes rouges et
bouches noires et autre crits, (Paris: CNRS 2010), 319322.
39
Only in some Eastern Churches and in Catholicism the Saints Cosmas and Damian are venerated as
saints known as the Unmercenary Physicians (Greek: anargyroi, without money). This classica-
tion refers to those who heal purely out of love for God and man, strictly observing the command of
Jesus: Freely have you received, freely give (Matthew 10: 8).
local Christians further state is more plausible than the Alawis claimgiven the fact that
the Christians had settled in Hatay long before the Alawi. Furthermore, as some Christian
informants stated, the Alawi stories about the healing powers of the two sheikhs were
nothing else than corrupted versions of the Christian tradition about the two saints.
Whereas the Christians and the Alawi are aware of their competing claims they
usually do not take part in each others religious ceremonies performed at this sacred
site. Exceptions from this rule may involve interreligious misunderstandings. While
visiting the annual Christian festival at the ziyara Cosmanus ve Dimyanus, I was
accompanied by an Alawi woman. When she was invited to enter the ziyara by the
Christian hosts, she refused to do so by explaining that she had her menses and was not
wearing a veil. The Christian women laughed at her saying that this was no sufcient
reason not to enter a ziyara (see Figure 4). Shocked by the immoral behaviour of the
Christians, the Alawi woman and her co-villagers discussed for months the shameful
ways in which the Christians were dishonouring and polluting the ziyara. The
Christians mocking of the Alawi guest was linked to the religious tensions surrounding
the competing claims regarding the ziyara.
Actually, the contemporary mausoleum sheltering the graves of the two sheikhs/
Cosmas and Dimyanus has been erected and is maintained with Alawi money. For the
Christians this is already sufcient proof that the ziyara has been usurped by the Alawi;
the more so as some Christians argue since there is no longer any Bible to be found
inside the sacred site. Indeed, historical data suggest that the valley region surrounding
Samandag until the beginning of the 20
th
century was a genuine Christian region. As
Figure 4. Rum-Orthodox and Armenian Christians worshipping their saints
Cosmas and Dimyanus during the festival at the ziya ra Cosmanus ve Dimyanus/
Kismet yen H
ak m
Hartmann noticed at the end of the 19th century that in Mzrakl, the village where the
ziyara is erected, there were the ruins of a church once dedicated to Cosmas and
Dimyanus along with a sacred spring.
40
It is thus possible that Mzrakl once was
exclusively associated with the Christian religious tradition concerning the two martyrs.
Later, however, demographic changes have led to the appropriation of this Christian
village by Alawi settlers, a phenomenon that is part of a development which will be
further explored in the course of the present article.
A second case relating to conicting Alawi-Christian interpretations is linked to a
ziyara which is situated a few meters from the Rum-Orthodox church in Samandag (see
Figure 5). As in the former case the respective site is claimed by both Christians and
Alawi. While the Alawi maintain that the ziyara contains the tomb of a sheikh called Rih
who lived in the 19

th
century, the Christians claim this site as the burial place of a female
Christian saint. Whereas the Christians preferably visit this site after their Sunday prayers,
the Alawi from Samandag usually come on Fridays. Interreligious encounters are
therefore rare. The Alawi visitors report that this ziyara is particularly renowned for its
power to heal rheumatism, which explains why it is mainly visited by older persons.
The Christian priest, whose church is located just across the street of this ziyara (see
Figure 6), does not deny the healing power of this sacred place and welcomes all Alawi
visitors. He is angered, however, as he told me that the Alawi unrightfully have
appropriated this place (Al-Alawi akhadha al-ziyara min-na), which, according to him,
40
Martin Hartmann, Das Liwa Haleb (Aleppo) und ein Teil des Liwa Dschebel Bereket, in Zeitschrift
der Gesellschaft fr Erdkunde zu Berlin, 29 (1894): 142188, 475550, 512.
Figure 5. The Rum-Orthodox Church in Samandag
was proven by the very fact that the gender of the person buried there was female,
whereas the Alawi as the priest cunningly remarked only know male ziyara.
41
The Alawi in turn point out that Samandag is mainly inhabited by Alawi, hence it is
only logical that this saint is of Alawi origin too. Again, the question of who is buried
there and whether the ziyara is belonging to the Alawi or Christian tradition is a matter
of on-going religious dispute.
Such mutual accusations of ziyara usurpation are not only the issue between Alawi
and Christians. At the end of the 1990s, the local government of the city of Belen (Hatay)
which is nowadays dominated by Turkish Sunni Muslims tried to remove an 18
th
century
ziyara claimed by the Alawi of old in order to build a highway. The removal of the
ziyara -called Gazi Abdurrahman Pasa-ziyara by the Turkish Sunni Muslim and Sheikh
41
Male Alawi (including the sheikhs) claim that a ziyara can only be of male gender, as according to
Alawi doctrine only male souls are of a prophetic origin as opposed to the satanic origin of the female
souls, see H. Halm, Die islamische Gnosis, 300 and L. Prager, Die Gemeinschaft des Hauses, 7072.
However, Alawi women claim that female saints do exist. Sometimes Alawi women even travel to
Damascus in order to gather at the compound of the tomb of Sayyida Zaynab (Qabr al-sitt; the Shi ite
shrine near Damascus). This shrine in the suburbs of Damascus has become a major attraction for
Shiites, see Sabrina Mervin, Sayyida Zaynab. Banlieue de Damas ou nouvelle ville sainte chiite? in
Cahier dtudes sur la Mditerrane orientale et le monde turco-iranien, 22 (1996): 14962. Unlike the
Alawi religious doctrine, in different traditions of Shi a and Sunni Islam the visitation of the shrines of
female saints is well known and quite common, see A. Sachedina, Ziyarah, 51.
Figure 6. View from the entrance of the Rum-Orthodox Church to the ziya ra across
the street; the ziya ra has a recent sign indicating the name Shaykh-RiH-ziya ra
Muhammad al-Belani by the Alawi,
42
however turned out to be impossible. Earthmov-
ing machinery such as excavators and bulldozers, could not overcome the power
radiating from the ziyara who as my Alawi informants proudly explained did not
want to be relocated. Moreover, every morning when the construction workers and the
staff of the civil engineering company returned to work, all their technical equipment
had been destroyed. This went on for some weeks with the result that it was not the
ziyara but the highway which had to be relocated. Meanwhile, local Sunni Muslims had
declared the ziyara as their own sacred site, claiming that it was an Islamic saint and war
hero from the Ottoman period who was buried there.
43
As in the case of the Christians,
this time it were the Alawi who became extremely outraged about this Muslim
appropriation of their former ziyara, and openly started to discuss this conict in
public. As a countermeasure, the Belen Sunni Muslims summoned various muftis
(Turkish: mft) to prove the authenticity of the Sunni origin of the respective site. Up
to the present, the Alawi comfort themselves about this theft by narrating stories how
the Sunni Muslims nally had to subordinate themselves to the superior powers of the
Alawi Belen ziyara and were forced to build the highway E91 at another place.
While in the case of the Belen-ziyara the sanctuary was taken over by Sunni Muslims
without altering its architectural shape, other cases of ziyara-appropriation may proceed
in a more radical way. In the village of Karaay where until the 1990s Sunni Muslims and
Alawi still lived together, the Sunni population had usurped an Alawi ziyara which was
located prominently next to the Orontes, in sight of every traveller leaving Antakya for
the city of Samandag. This ziyara was then transformed into a mosque with a minaret
(see Figure 7). However, the Sunni Muslims of Karaay never had the opportunity to
perform prayers in the transformed ziyara-mosque since they were resettled by the
Turkish state in another village which was inhabited exclusively by Sunni people.
My Alawi informants were convinced that the Sunni Muslims had hoped to be joined
by the Alawi when praying in this mosque, thus enhancing the Alawis willingness to
embrace true Islam. Actually, after the resettlement of the Sunni population the ziyara
was never reclaimed by the Alawi as a sacred place. Presently, it is used as a Quran
school for Alawi children whose parents also want them to learn the classical Arabic
language. From the Alawi perspective, the ziyara cannot be used as a sacred shrine
anymore because the Sunni Muslims had transformed it into a mosque the place
where Ali was killed. However, practising taqiyya (dissimulation) for centuries, the
Alawi would never dismantle a minaret or a mosque and thereby showing their
42
For more information on Gazi Abdurrahman Pasa and the Belen ziyara, see: http://www.
belen.bel.tr/belendetay.asp?ID=41
43
On the homepage of the city of Hatay it is explicitly explained that Abdurrahman Pasa is a local
historical gure and the founder of Belen: http://www.antakya.com/index.php?option=com_content&
view=article&id=1234:belen&catid=71:hatay-tanyalm&Itemid=198.
differential identity with regard to Sunni Islam. In this case, the Sunni usurpation of the
sacred site has led to its desacralization, as far as the Alawi are concerned. Consequently,
the former ziyara had to be abandoned.
These are only a few of the many examples of ziyarat-contestation and appropria-
tion in the contemporary Hatay region.
44
The cases discussed suggest that in contem-
porary Hatay various religious and ethnic groups are increasingly competing with each
other in terms of the question of autochthony and precedence in the original settling of
the land. This interreligious competition manifests itself above all in the contested claims
about the original ownership of the sacred sites. The current religious discourses on the
ziyarats authenticity and the mutual accusations of usurpation have to be contextual-
ized within the political and demographic changes that took place in the region,
44
Comparable cases are described for the nearby ukurova region where Alawi and Sunni Muslims
compete for Alawi ziyarat and where Sunni even incorporate such sites into the Sunni mosques, see
G. Prochzka & S. Prochzka, The Plains of Saints and Prophets, 155.
Figure 7. Ziya ra with detached new minaret in the vicinity of city of Karaay
particularly since the times of the annexation of the Hatay region by the Turkish nation
state and the concomitant shifts in the relative power and status occupied by the various
religious groups.
The Ziyarat as Contested Lieux de Mmoire
The conicts surrounding the ziyarat touch upon the concept of the so-called
ambiguous sanctuaries, i.e. sacred sites which are claimed and/or frequented by
members of different faith.
45
Most of the studies of such ambiguous sanctuaries point
to the harmonious atmosphere prevailing at these sacred sites,
46
rather than highlighting
their contested nature. The latter aspect, however, often has been put forward in the
history of pilgrimage research. Already in the beginning of the 20
th
century, Robert Hertz
pointed to the fact that there was no such thing as a unanimous understanding of sacred
sites, but that on the contrary one has to expect very diverse meanings and discourses,
potentially leading to conicts among the believers gathering at such shrines.
47
But it was
not before the last quarter of the 20
th
century that scholars actively focussed on the
polysemic nature of such shrines, drawing attention to the fact that there are always
competing discourses of religious specialists, shrine keepers, and people living next
door to the sanctuary, male and female believers, rich and poor, etc.
48
Yet, such studies
were primarily dealing with the different agendas and conicting interpretations of
members of the same faith, rather than studying sacred sites claimed by members of
different religious groups. The focus of the research of ambiguous sanctuaries
therefore should be widened by taking into account the phenomenon of interreligious
contestation, as Hayden has done in a comparative analysis of religious sites in
Yugoslavia, India, and Turkey. He referred to the possible changes and usurpations of
religious sites by various religious groups under the terms of antagonistic tolerance and
45
Dionigi Albera and Benoit Fliche, Les pratiques des musulmans dans les sanctuaires chrtiens: le cas
dIstanbul, in D. Albera and M. Couroucli (eds.): Religions Traverses: Lieux saints partags entre
chrtiens, musulmans et juifs en Mditerrane (Paris 2009): 141172; F. Hasluck, Christianity and
Islam; Robert Hayden, Antagonistic tolerance: competitive sharing of religious sites in South Asia and
the Balkans, Current Anthropology, 43, 2 (2002): 205231, 206.
46
See R. C. Martin, Ziyara, 533; D. Albera, Plerinages mixtes, 347378; G. Fartacek, Pilgersttten.
47
Robert Hertz, Saint Bresse. tude dun culture alpestre, in Mlanges de sociologie religieuse et
folklore, ed. Robert Hertz (Paris: Libraire Flix Alcan 1928), 131194.
48
Michael Sallnow, Pilgrims of the Andes: Regional Cults in Cusco (Washington: Smithsonian, 1987);
John Eade & Michael Sallnow (ed.), Contesting the Sacred. The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage
(London/ NewYork: Texas Press, 1991); Glenn Bowman, Nationalizing the sacred: Shrines and shifting
identities in the Israel-occupied territories, Man 28 (1993): 431460; Simon Coleman, Do you believe
in pilgrimage? Communitas, contestation and beyond, Anthropological Theory 2,3 (2002), 355368.
competitive sharing. He exemplied how such usurpations and competing claims are
entangled with changing power relations unfolding among the different religious groups
in the course of history.
49
In Hatay, historical developments, particularly from the beginning of the 20
th
century
onwards, also impacted on the intensity and frequency, with which such claims were
articulated. The public ideal of a tolerant multi-ethnic and multi-religious society has
hidden the fact that some of the local ethno-religious groups have suffered loss and
deprivation, their historical memory often being marked by the experience of diaspora
and the dispossession of land. The diverse areas of Hatay have been subject to such
dramatic changes, particularly from the 1930s onwards. Previously, the various
ethno-religious groups were spread all over the Hatay region. Nowadays, they are only
concentrated in the valley of Antakya and the Samandag region, while the northern parts
of Hatay (with the exception of Iskenderun) are almost exclusively inhabited by Sunni
Muslim Turks. As mentioned earlier, the Arab Christians and Arab Sunni Muslims who
over the centuries had settled all over Hatay, were pushed back to some enclaves, the
Christians now living in the bigger cities of Hatay and in a few villages. The same holds
true for the Arab Sunni Muslims who live either in Antakya or Samandag. The Alawi,
however, have mostly beneted from these historical events, since, as discussed earlier,
they occupied most of the land that the Christians and Arab Sunni Muslims had left
behind. Therefore, many Christians in Hatay are convinced that the majority of the
ziyarat originally were Christian sites, later being appropriated by Alawi along with the
farm land. This is also clearly reected in the complaint uttered by the Rum-Orthodox
priest from Samandag: Al-Alawi akhadha al-ziyara min-na. Due to the decline of
Christian power in the religious, economic and political spheres the Christians can hardly
cope with the fact that the Alawi historically speaking the most recent settlers in this
region and once by far the poorest community suffering formerly from the same
discriminations under the Mamluk, Ottoman and Turkish powers as the Christians
themselves
50
today are the beneciaries of this historical development.
Up to the present as the Christians mutter in discontent the Alawi buy up the
local land with the money gained as migrant labourers in European countries since the
1960s. Indeed, rich Alawi migrants often sponsor the construction of new ziyarat on
these lands, thereby marking the landscape as a genuine Alawi religious space.
51
The
49
R. Hayden, Antagonistic tolerance, 206; Robert Hayden et al., The Byzantine Mosque at Trilye:
A Proccessual Analysis of Dominance, Sharing, Transformation and Tolerance, History and Anthro-
pology 22,1 (2011): 117.
50
For a historical account on Alawi persecutions see i.a. J. Azzi, Les Noussairites-Alaouites; Matti Moosa,
Extremist Shiites: The ghulat sects (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1988).
51
Remittances from Christians living in Germany only begun to ow in the last decade and are usually
invested in the construction of houses in the Samandag area. During the next years additional money
probably will be invested in local churches and the restoration of sacred sites. Although, recently the
Turkish president Erdogan has granted the Rum-Orthodox from Syria the right to return to Hatay and
recent proliferation of building Alawi Sheikh-ziyarat in the Hatay region, however, has
to be contextualized within the nexus of the migrants desire to reconnect with the lost
homeland by sponsoring religious sites, thereby enhancing their status within the Alawi
community. Moreover, the Alawi ziyara construction boom is also connected with the
idea of rebirth. By nancing the building of a ziyara, i.e. a place where the living with
the help of the saint can send their prayers and pleas to God, the sponsor acquires great
religious merit. Localizing a ziyara on ones own land for the Alawi implies either direct
family ties to the saint or at least that one is chosen by the sacred powers since the
saint/ziyara has manifested himself in order to ask for the construction of a new
qubba/ziyara at this very place. By claiming the original ownership of the sacred sites
and by building more and more ziyarat the Alawi actually assume the role of the original
inhabitants of Hatay, forcing Arab Christians and Sunnis, as well as other Turkish ethnic
groups, such as the Turkmen into the role of tolerated minorities. This new self-image
of being the dominant ethno-religious group of Hatay is also manifested by raising the
Turkish ag, inside or in front of the Alawi ziyarat, thus displaying ones newly acquired
self-condence and economic power within the framework of the Turkish Nation State
(see Figure 8).
It is this increasing economic dominance of the Alawi of Hatay which is contested by
other religious groups when they deny the Alawi origin of various ziyarat. The same,
to acquire the Turkish citizenship, he also made clear that no land rights would be returned to
Christians, see Ercan Yavuz, Todays Zaman, 8.10.2011, online: http://www.todayszaman.com/
newsDetail_get%20NewsById.action?load=detay&link=200612.
Figure 8. Turkish ag in front of an Alawi Khid
r- and shaykh-ziya ra situated on a

mountaintop in a predominantly Sunni settled area east of Samandag
also holds true, however, for the Turkish Sunni Muslims who conceive of themselves as
the real culturally and religiously dominant group of this region and who lately have
begun to usurp Alawi ziyarat and redene them as genuine Sunni Muslim sacred sites.
These conicts about the authenticity of the ziyarat and the mutual accusations of
illegitimate appropriation of religious sites are thus a means to articulate interreligious
tensions emerging from the gain or loss of relative status and power within the course
of history. In a certain way, the ziyarat thus share some similarities with Noras lieux
de mmoire
52
in that they constitute places where the immateriality of the sacred
materializes, and where religious and ethnic identities are moulded in the durable and
objectied form of collective memory. In the cases discussed in this article however, the
lieux de mmoire are claimed and contested by different religious groups, thereby
constructing competing narratives about historical truth.
Given that the various ethnic and religious groups in the Republic of Turkey are
increasingly proclaiming their differential identity in the public media, be it in Alevi
or Kurdish TV shows, in Alawi or Rum-Orthodox Internet discussion groups, or in
newspaper articles written by Turkish Armenian Christians. It remains to be seen
whether the struggle for the ziyarat in Hatay will even become stronger in the near
future or whether the articulation of differential religious identities and the concomitant
interreligious conicts will shift to other modes of expression.
52
Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past. Vol. I: Conicts and Divisions
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), xv.

Alawi Ziya ̄ra Tradition and Its Interreligious Dimensions

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Alawi Ziya ̄ra Tradition and Its Interreligious Dimensions

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Alawi Ziyara Tradition and Its Interreligious

Dimensions: Sacred Places and Their Contested

r-ziyara in Samandag, St. Peters Church in Antakya, the

ab b al-Najjr) (August 4, 2011); http://antioch-on-

ayr, heralded his doctrines.

ad th, before it was

a, and attaching pieces of cloth

2:63539; or Bab al-ziyara of the Kitab

aram Makk . Murshid al-zuwwar ila

Abu Bakr (Cairo, 1995), 3281.

r-ziyarat are regarded as the most powerful.

r-ziyara in Samandag (see Figure 2) needs to be mentioned in

r, Moses, and other

r met at Samandag. Indeed, this incident is mentioned

r relates to Saint George, see Christopher Walker, The

r-ziyara located at the beach of Samandag; some Alawi people

r-ziyarat in general and the Samandag-ziyara in

r as one of the emanations of

r will be channelled directly to God. The

in epiphany of Al , who is permanently traveling

r-shrines is indicated by the prohibition to enter a ziyara of the two other

r-ziyara would contaminate the potency of the hierarchically inferior

r-ziyarat the shaykh-ziyarat are

in knowledge acquired by the respective sheikh

f ) displayed during his earthly

ak m which is situated near an

who lived in the 19

r- and shaykh-ziya ra situated on a

You might also like