Ottoman Administration’s Position Against The Qizilbash (Dersim Sanjac Example)

It can can be claimed that, within the classical period -considered as marginal among the other islamic groups- Qızılbash were greatly excluded by the administration of the Ottoman empire, but they were not forced to be a part of the Sunni sect. But, dating from the 19th century, this view was greatly departed by the central administration. There are two main reasons for that. First of them arose from the thought of having a total control over the empire and making the most of the human resources available and the second reason was protestant missionaires’ intentions on Christians, Qızılbash, Yazidi, and Durzi people living in that area under the dominance of the Ottoman Empire. To this end, a great effort was spreaded particularly by Abdulhamit the 2nd to not to leave those societies under the Imperialist groups’s mercy and the central administration felt the need to develop new policies to gather Qızılbash, Nusayri, Yazidi and Durzi around the Padishah. It was hoped to reach that goal by assimilating these groups into Sunni practices and greatefforts were made in this respect. Within the framework of modernism, all reforms and actions were the parts of a greater whole. Besides, ret forms were not limited to a region or a certain population. In this context, this study examined the efforts made to assimilate Qızılbash into Sunni and evangelization policies of protestant missionaires.

Keywords

Ottoman, Dersim, Islam, Marginal Groups, Kızılbaşlık, Protestantism.