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Head of top Turkish religious body to visit Alevi cemevi
TARIK IŞIK
ANKARA - Radikal
Görmez has attracted Alevi anger in the past, especially after he said in 2005 that cemevis did not constitute places of worship. DHA photo
The head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate will pay a visit to the Erikli Baba Cultural Association and Cemevi in Istanbul on Friday, representing a landmark visit for the country’s top Sunni cleric to an Alevi place of worship.
The visit is significant from a historic, sociological and theological perspective according to association head Metin Tarhan, who will host the visit from the head of the directorate, Mehmet Görmez.
The problems of Alevis should be solved by political will, Tarhan said, adding that this kind of visit after 87 years was “tragicomic but nice.”
Görmez has attracted Alevi anger in the past, especially after he said in 2005 that cemevis did not constitute places of worship.
“According to religious, historic and scientific criteria, there is no separate Alevi-Bektaşi religion and there is no Islamic place of worship … other than a mosque,” Görmez wrote in a letter to the Istanbul Governor’s Office following a question by a citizen on the subject.
Fevzi Gümüş, the head of the Alevi-Bektaşi Federation, said Görmez’s visit to a cemevi was part of the election campaign of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP.
Gümüş said the directorate did not accept cemevis as Islamic places of worship. “From that point of view, we don’t see Görmez’s visit to a cemevi as a positive sign.”
Tarhan will serve “lokma,” a dessert that has special meaning in Alevi culture, during Görmez’s visit to the association, which was founded on March 4, 1924.
Görmez, meanwhile, will present a verse from an Eastern scholar, “Alvarlı Efe.” The verse stresses brotherhood and togetherness and recalls a quote from Hacı Bektaş Veli, a 13th century Turkish Sufi philosopher revered by Alevis, who said, “Do not harm one even if you are harmed"
Note : I am not Alevi, but I like the philosophy of Hacı Bektaş Veli " Do not harm one even if you are harmed " can there be better humanistic sentiment than this ?
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