Between Mezhep and Minority: Twelver Shiʿism in the Turkish Public Sphere

Abstract

Despite the growth in scholarship on diverse religious communities in Turkey, little attention has been paid to Twelver Shiʿi Muslims. Since the founding of the Republic, the Turkish state's foundational secularist agenda has attempted to control and promote a single hegemonic form of Islam, and Shiʿa have faced continuous issues practicing their faith in public as a result. While the liberalization of the past three decades has allowed Shiʿism to enter the public sphere, the community has had to continue navigating limitations on their expression of religious difference. Based on fieldwork in Eastern Anatolia, this article deepens understandings of Islam in Turkey by showing how Shiʿa have negotiated their position vis-à-vis both secularist and Sunni-majority actors and policies across various religious and political currents. Rejecting categorization as either mezhep (sect) or minority, Shiʿa have demanded independence from state religious control while also asserting their allegiance to the Republic and nation as Turkish Muslims.

In May 2020, the hashtag #CaferilerYalnızDeğildir (#Jaʿfaris are not alone) appeared on social media in response to the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, Diyanet for short) assigning a prayer leader to a mosque in the Pendik district on Istanbul's Asian side. While most mosques in Turkey are administered by the Diyanet, this one had been built and independently funded by the district's Twelver Shiʿi community, mostly known and self-identifying as Jaʿfaris (Caferi) in Turkey. The appointment of a civil servant imam infuriated Shiʿi Muslims across the country, who interpreted it as an attack on their right to worship freely and independently. This anger was vented in tweets carrying the hashtag aiming to raise awareness of the community's position. “The right to worship in accordance with one's belief is a constitutional right!” wrote one user. Another quickly responded: “Like all believers Jaʿfaris have the right to worship and live according to their beliefs. No to the Diyanet!” The outpouring of such posts was further elaborated by Shiʿi community leaders in several public statements. Kadir Akaras, chairman of the Ehl-i Beyt Scholars’ Association (Ehlibeyt Alimleri Derneği), one of the largest Shiʿi organizations in the country, appeared on a private Shiʿi-run TV channel to explain the problem: “The Diyanet's appointment of imams to Jaʿfari mosques is like Fenerbahçe choosing the president of Galatasaray Football Club, or to give a political analogy, as if the CHP had appointed the leader of the AKP. This is the same.”¹ For Akaras, the imam's appointment amounted to interference in the community's ability to pray independent of state political influence and according to their own school of Islamic jurisprudence (fıkıh). The Pendik appointment once again raised the question of the Shiʿa right to build and run their own mosques free of Diyanet interference, an ongoing issue since the founding of the Republic of Turkey a century ago.

After the founding of the republic, reforms were not merely concerned with curtailing Islam and constructing a secularized public sphere devoid of Islam, but also the implementation of a particular secular agenda, referred to as laiklik, which saw the state's control and monopolization of Islam.² The establishment of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, which remains the largest single state bureaucracy in the country, gave the state exclusive authority over defining and legitimating all Islamic precepts and practices; all mosques came under state control.³ The Diyanet has continuously presented itself as being “above sectarianism,” claiming its services are not specific in nature and are provided for every Muslim citizen regardless of sectarian orientation. ⁴ However, through its publications, training of imams, and administration of mosques over decades, the institution has produced and promoted a hegemonic public form of Sunni Islam in line with the Hanafi school of jurisprudence; a form that does not fully incorporate the country's non-Hanafi Sunni Muslims and Alevi communities.

The issues surrounding the status of Shiʿi mosques are the result of the state's particular categorization of who constitutes a minority community within the Turkish nation, and the subsequent recognition of religious difference. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) formally recognized only Christians and Jews as minorities in Turkey, meaning that, in constitutional terms, no sectarian distinctions were made amongst Muslims. All Muslims, regardless of sect or mezhep (Arabic madhhab), including Alevis, were effectively categorized as within the fold of Turkey's dominant religious identity.⁵ Alevis, who comprise the largest non-Sunni community in Turkey, have been especially vocal in their criticism of what they see as assimilationist state policies and, as a result, have received substantial media and academic attention.⁶ In contrast, Shiʿi Muslims’ relationship to the state, and the issues they face, have been neglected almost entirely. Like Alevis, the state has often refused to recognize Shiʿi jurisprudence, traditions, and practices as deserving of special legal status, support, or protection, instead expecting the community to conform to the Diyanet's Hanafi Sunni-centric forms of Islam. However, while some Alevi groups have argued that Alevism be treated as a religion separate from Islam, and thus for their recognition as a minority community, as an effective way to attain various rights and exemptions, Shiʿa are united in considering themselves firmly within the fold of Islam and therefore part of Turkey's Muslim religious majority, rejecting the title of minority (azınlık).⁷ Furthermore, as Azeri-Turks, many Twelver Shiʿi Muslims simultaneously feel a strong attachment to Turkish national identity through a notion of shared Turkic ethnicity, different from other ethnic and linguistic minority communities.

This article examines how Twelver Shiʿi Muslims in Turkey have negotiated their position in the public sphere vis-à-vis both the republican laiklik and hegemonic forms of Sunni-Turkish politics and socio-cultural identity to show how their experience in the country is positioned between multiple social and political currents and forces. For much of the twentieth century, Shiʿi identity and religious expression, including the building of mosques, was restricted by Kemalist laiklik policy that sought to directly control religion and remove religious difference. While the political-economic liberalization of Turkey over the past three decades has allowed Shiʿi Muslims to enter the public sphere, the modes and means of expressing difference have been limited and shaped by the community's position as a non-Sunni Muslim group. As they seek to participate fully and benefit from the opening of the public sphere, expressions of Shiʿi difference have continued to be restricted by both the Turkish state's continued limitation on pluralism and the growing hegemony of forms of Sunni Islam supported by political figures and private entities.⁸ The case of Shiʿi Muslims, a community previously ignored in studies of religion in Turkey, not only allows for comparison with previous studies of other religious and Muslim minorities in the country, it also presents a new perspective on Islam in Turkey; a perspective that challenges the common binary juxtaposition of Islamists and secularists by further highlighting the diversity of “pious Muslims” in the country beyond the Sunni mainstream.⁹ Furthermore, in showing the community's complex relationship with the Turkish state and nationalism, the article moves away from the simplistic categorization of Shiʿism as either “a religion of protest” or “quietist.”¹⁰ Indeed, I argue that Shiʿa have rejected the state's assimilationist religious policies while simultaneously asserting their belonging to the nation as Turkish Muslims.

This article traces Shiʿi Islam's entrance to the public sphere through an ethnographic focus on the construction and administration of Shiʿi mosques in Turkey, a persistent area of dispute as discussed above. This account is primarily based on long-term fieldwork carried out in the city of Kars in Eastern Anatolia, with insights also drawn from research in Istanbul, Ankara, and Iğdır. Fieldwork involved participation in community rituals, meetings, and events and interviews with senior community figures, clerics, association leaders, regular mosque attendees, association members, and self-identifying Azeri-Turkish Shiʿi Muslims. The example of Kars is significant, as the few studies that do exist on Shiʿa in Turkey have focused on the community in Istanbul, which not only has a shorter history—dating back to migration from the provinces in the 1970s—but also inadvertently reemphasizes “the unacknowledged and untested assumption that Istanbul… is the proper location for studies on contemporary Turkey.”¹¹

As literature on this community is scarce, I begin with a brief overview of the Shiʿi community in Turkey before providing an account of the building of a Shiʿi mosque in Kars in 1952, claimed as the first built in republican Turkey. This account, based on both oral history and archival research in Kars, provides an early example of the ways non-Sunni Muslim communities successfully managed to carve out a space by informally circumventing strict state religious policy. Following this, I go on to show how, like other religious communities, Shiʿa in Turkey have availed themselves of the liberalization of Turkish society and neoliberal openness toward civil society institutions since the 1990s to build new mosques, found associations and foundations, open media outlets, and perform public rituals.¹² However, this entrance to the public sphere has met with multiple state attempts to bring Shiʿa into the fold of the Diyanet, a move rejected by most Shiʿa as assimilative. The Shiʿi community has continuously asserted belonging to the nation while rejecting such assimilation. This complex balancing of difference and belonging is most clearly illustrated by the sounds amplified from Shiʿi mosques across the urban soundscape of Kars, which I draw attention to in the conclusion. Although the daily sounding of a distinct Shiʿi call to prayer, ezan in Turkish (Arabic adhān), marks these mosques out as different in the public sphere, sound is also adopted as a medium for reasserting national belonging through playback of the Turkish national anthem. By tracing changes from the founding of the first mosque to the ongoing issues surrounding the status of such mosques, as in the Pendik case, I demonstrate how the community's entrance to the public sphere has involved navigating wider political and social currents and constant negotiation with the state.

Twelver Shiʿism in Turkey

The majority of Turkey's population are Hanafi Sunni Muslims, with Alevi being the second largest religious group at approximately 15 percent of the total population.¹³ Twelver Shiʿi Muslims represent only a small percentage of the country's total population and are mostly known and self-identity as Caferi or Caferi-Şii—a reference to the sixth Shiʿi Imam Jaʿfar al-Sadiq and the Jaʿfari school of Islamic jurisprudence. While there are no exact figures for the number of Shiʿa in the country, as sectarian difference is not officially noted, they are estimated to number between 500,000 and 1.5 million based on assumed demographics of areas known to have a Shiʿa presence.¹⁴

Despite the growth in scholarship on Turkey's diverse religious and ethnic groups, very little research has been undertaken on the Shiʿa. In both academic literature and amongst the public, there appears to be confusion about the community, as they are often mistakenly equated with Alevis.¹⁵ Within Turkey, academic interest has been limited to a few unpublished theses and a small number of publications primarily concentrated on documenting the central tenets of Twelver Shiʿism and surveying the community's general religious attitudes.¹⁶

Like many other religious communities, Shiʿa in Turkey are heterogenous in their beliefs, practices, and political orientations. The vast majority of Twelver Shiʿa, however, self-identify as Azeri-Turks (Azeriler or Azeri Türkleri in Turkish): Turkic-speakers whose language is mutually intelligible with modern Turkish and have historical and cultural links to Azeri-Turks, or Azerbaijanis, living in the Caucasus and Iran. Generally speaking, the Azeri population in Turkey is considered well-integrated on the basis of a “shared” Turkic identity—broadly understood as speaking Turkish and being Muslim—a feature often mobilized by nationalist political forces in society.

Until the second half of the twentieth century, Turkey's Azeri Shiʿi communities lived mostly in the Eastern Anatolian provinces of Kars and Iğdır—which today border Armenia, the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan, and Iran—and the district of Taşlıçay in the neighboring province of Ağrı. In these provinces, also home to Sunni Kurds and other Turkic-speaking groups with origins in the Caucasus, the terms Azeri and Jaʿfari are generally synonymous. Ethnolinguistic and denominational identity are interconnected; to be Azeri is to be Shiʿa.

Since the 1950s, parallel to the processes of industrialization and urbanization, there has been a steady flow of migration from rural to urban centers, including Ankara, Istanbul, Bursa, Izmir, and Manisa. In Istanbul, Azeri Shiʿi migrants from Eastern Anatolia first settled in gecekondu-style living conditions in the Halkalı district, a suburb on the European side of the Marmara Sea. By the 1970s, chain migration meant the community had grown large enough to establish a mosque and religious movement called Zeynebiye (named after Imam Husayn's sister Zaynab). This neighborhood, which is now also called Zeynebiye, quickly became the main center of Shiʿi activity in the country. Shiʿi mosques and associations (dernek), which cater to the religious needs of these rural to urban migrants, are now found in other towns and cities across Turkey.

In addition to Azeris, who consider themselves “born into” the Twelver Shiʿi tradition, there also exist smaller groups of “converts” from Sunni backgrounds and Alevis who have turned towards Twelver Shiʿism. These Alevi groups, often pejoratively called “Şiileşen Aleviler” or Shiʿified Alevis, are small in number and organized around a few foundations based in urban centers like Istanbul and Çorum.¹⁷ There are also Shiʿi migrants from other countries living in urban centers—most notably Twelver Shiʿi Iranians, who have had a presence in Istanbul since Ottoman times—and two historic mosques still in use today: Valide Han Mosque in Fatih and Seyyid Ahmet Deresi Mosque in Üsküdar, both popularly known as İranlılar Mescidi.¹⁸

Unlike Sunni prayer leaders and clerics, who are trained in state institutions, Shiʿi clerics are mostly educated at ḥawzah, the main seminaries of Shiʿi learning, in Iran or Iraq due to the lack of Jaʿfari education in Turkey. As the title Imam is mostly reserved for the twelve male figures from the Prophet's family believed to be his divinely-ordained successors, Shiʿa in Turkey use the titles ahund, şeyh, molla, or hoca for their community and prayer leaders. There is no mujtahid in Turkey and the practice of following a marjiʿ, a source of emulation (marjaʿ al-taqlīd), is not as prominent as in other Shiʿi contexts. Clerics and active members of associations and foundations tend to follow either ʿAli Sistani or ʿAli Khamenei, but sermons in mosques rarely refer to them and their images are not displayed publicly.¹⁹

According to Shiʿi associations in the country, there are over 300 Shiʿi mosques in Turkey today.²⁰ Mosques are of particular importance for Shiʿa in Turkey, as they are not only spaces for prayer but also centers for community activities and commemorative rituals, most notably mourning meclis gatherings (Fig. 1) held during the Islamic month of Muharram to mark the martyrdom of the third Shiʿi Imam and grandson of the Prophet, Husayn ibn ʿAli.²¹ The majority of Shiʿa mosques in Turkey are independently funded by their community. Since the founding of the Republic and constant state attempts to bring all mosques—both Sunni and Shiʿi—under its control, this has given rise to ongoing issues. While no laws specifically target Shiʿi mosques in the country, legal restrictions on mosques’ independence from Diyanet authority have sometimes been invoked in disputes over their status. Building and running these mosques has instead involved the informal negotiation of various actors, leading to inconsistencies in their status and acceptance in different times and parts of the country. This has been true since the opening of the first Shiʿi mosque in republican Turkey in Kars in the early 1950s.

Figure 1. Mourning gathering (matem meclisi) during Muharram at Hazret Ali Mosque in Kars. Photo by author, October 2015.

1952: Building the First Shiʿi Mosque in Kars

The city of Kars, at the geographical intersection of Anatolia and the Caucasus, has a long and complex history under different empires, rulers, and people. Today, the city is composed of an ethno-linguistically diverse, yet almost entirely Muslim population of just under 80,000, mainly comprised of three self-differentiating Turkic-speaking groups: Yerli, literally “local” but, in the context of Kars, meaning “unmarked” Sunni Anatolian Turks; Azeri, Shiʿi Turks who are mostly the descendants of immigrants who arrived in the city from present day Armenia between 1918 and 1925; and Terekeme, who also trace their origins to the Caucasus but are predominantly Sunni.²² Since the 1980s, there is also a growing number of Sunni Kurdish-speakers in the city center. Azeris are said to make up around a third of the total population of Kars Center today.²³ When the city was taken by Turkish forces in 1920, only two mosques were in use, both of which are now used by Sunni congregations as many of the earlier Ottoman Islamic monuments were damaged or destroyed under Russian occupation between 1877 and 1917.²⁴ Russian censuses show that the late nineteenth-century Muslim population of Kars province consisted of both Sunni and Shiʿa, though there is little description of what Shiʿi life in the province was like at the time.²⁵

During the one-party era (1923–50), expressions of Shiʿi religious difference—similar to those of Alevis—were effectively driven out of the public sphere under a “republican cloak of invisibility.”²⁶ While the national public sphere was thriving under the supervision of the state and secularist elite circles in the early decades of the Republic, Islamic formations maintained a rather low profile, surviving through personal networks and communal gatherings that avoided public visibility and, thereby, the state's domineering gaze. With no mosques serving the community, Shiʿi Muslims in Kars wishing to attend communal prayer had to join congregations in state-approved mosques, where prayers were performed according to the Hanafi tradition. In addition to the difficulties organizing communal prayer at this time, public commemoration of Imam Husayn's martyrdom during the Islamic month of Muharram was initially forbidden along with all other public displays of Shiʿi religiosity.

Hasan, an octogenarian I first met at one of the Shiʿi mosques in Kars, recounted the restrictions imposed on Muharram mourning rituals in this period.

For decades, Muharram mourning (Muharremlik) here in Kars was closely monitored, restricted, and interrupted by the jandarma or police. Most of them were not from here, they couldn't understand our culture (kültürümüzü anlayamadılar). They said these activities went against the promotion of national unity and the secular ideals of the state… but we knew this was not true, nothing can stop the cause of Imam Husayn! We continued to hold our mourning gatherings (matem meclisleri) in secret (gizli bir şekilde) using different tactics to remain unnoticed. We would meet in houses on the outskirts of town or in our villages. The curtains would be drawn and windows blocked to stop the sound of weeping and recitation of laments (mersiye) being heard outside.²⁷

Hasan and other elders I spoke to in Kars and Iğdır recalled instances when these meclis were interrupted by officials tasked with inspecting and searching houses, as they knew such rituals were taking place. In addition to the “underground” locations of these meclis, other tactics were used to pre-empt such crackdowns, including lookouts standing guard outside to warn of any officials nearby. Dissimulation was necessary if a meclis was uncovered, as Hasan continued:

If they came to the houses, we would do everything to hide the fact we were mourning. We would pretend it was a celebration, an engagement, a circumcision. We even had a saz (a long-necked lute) at hand so that the jandarma believed it was a party.²⁸

The end of the single-party period and the rise of the Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, hereafter DP) in the first multi-party elections in 1950 brought changes to religious policy. Despite the DP's roots in Atatürk's Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), there was a clear move away from the militantly secular stance of early Kemalism. After the relaxation of some authoritarian political controls on religion, such as the scrapping of policies like the enforcement of the Turkish-language ezan (call to prayer; Arabic adhan), large numbers began to call more openly for a return to traditional religious practice. During the 1950s, some political leaders found it expedient to join religious leaders advocating greater state respect for religion and the restoration of religious education in public schools. In Kars in this period, the DP's entrance mobilized different ethnic and religious groups in the city. According to one critical government report from the time, political parties sought to gain from the divisions between Azeris and Yerlis, Sunni and Shiʿa.²⁹

It was in this context that a series of events led to the construction of the first Shiʿi mosque in Kars in 1952, which is also said to be the first Shiʿi mosque built in republican Turkey. The mosque's founder, Ahunt Malik Mehmet Işıklı (1889–1979), was born to a family of farmers in a village near Yerevan in present-day Armenia. He moved with his father and older brother across the border to a village in the Arpaçay region of Kars, before being sent to Iranian Azerbaijan for religious education. At the age of thirty-two, Ahunt Malik returned to Turkey and soon settled in the center of Kars. Malik began providing religious services for the Shiʿi community and received mixed reactions from non-Shiʿi clerics, who were somewhat suspicious of his views, some going so far as to make complaints to the authorities. Despite being taken for questioning by the police on numerous occasions, Malik seemingly continued his work with little fear of repercussions. Having gathered a loyal following amongst Azeris locally, he attended communal prayers led by a Sunni cleric at the Yusuf Paşa Mosque over a twenty-five-year period, purportedly to promote unity between the city's sects.

1950, when Ahunt Malik traveled to Ankara to seek Diyanet permission to build a Shiʿi mosque, was a turning point for the Shiʿa of Kars. With the support of three Azeri members of parliament from Kars—two lawyers, Latif Aküzüm (1912–75) and Abbas Ali Çetin (1914–75), and a merchant, Veyis Koçulu (1891–1984)—Malik met with Ahmet Hamdi Akseki (1886–1951), the head of the Diyanet at the time. Latif Aküzüm recalled the unusual event:

Upon entering the office, the president of the Diyanet hardly paid us attention, only sitting up ever so slightly from his chair to lightly shake our hands and invite us to take a seat. Ahunt Malik sat directly in front of the president. After speaking a while Ahunt Malik pointed out a grammatical mistake in the Arabic calligraphy written on the wall above where the president was sitting. The president did not accept that there could be a mistake at first and as Ahunt attempted to correct the mistake they began to argue. Ahunt finally demonstrated his point to which the president replied “perhaps,” thereby accepting that Ahunt had, in fact, been right.

As we left, the president who had not even stood up to greet us when we entered the room, accompanied us all the way to the entrance of the building! No matter how much we told him not to trouble himself he insisted on accompanying us saying: “I look up to knowledge and its possessors.” He eventually said farewell, providing us later with the permission needed to build our mosque.³⁰

Other, perhaps more hagiographical, versions of the same event were commonly recounted to me during my fieldwork in Kars. In another version, the president and other important clerics from the Diyanet tested Ahunt Malik's knowledge of Islam. With only a pocket-sized Qur'an in his hands, Malik's knowledge of both Sunni and Shiʿi hadith and jurisprudence proved so immense that, deeply impressed, those gathered immediately signed a letter granting permission to build the mosque. Regardless of what occurred during the meeting, it was a combination of political forces, including a changing climate towards religion, and Ahunt Malik's individual personality that secured the necessary permission to build the first Shiʿi mosque in the Turkish Republic. Ahunt Malik returned to Kars and began working on the mosque in the Yeni Mahalle neighborhood, which was home to most of the city's Azeri population. The community covered the cost of materials, volunteered in construction, and the mosque opened in 1952 without funding from the Turkish state or support from actors outside the country.

In founding the first Shiʿi mosque and congregation, Ahunt Malik managed to bring Shiʿa Islam into the public sphere in Kars, despite the limited space for religious expression outside the narrow state definition of Islamic practice. This was done in part by expressing the community's allegiance to the Republic. It was said that, during congregational prayers, Ahunt Malik always offered prayers for Atatürk and the Republic of Turkey, something still common in Shiʿi mosques in Turkey today. Ahunt Malik also repeatedly sought to downplay sectarian difference in Kars. This is most clearly seen in his only book Doğru Yol (True Path), published in 1973, the first to outline the central tenants of Islam for a Turkish Shiʿi audience.³¹ In this book, Malik emphasizes the unity of Islam through asserting that only one mezhep existed at the time of the Prophet and in early Islam, concluding with the declaration: “so let's all come together and abandon these sectarian quarrels” (mezhep münakaşalarını bırakalım).³²

Although Ahunt Malik's position may seem contradictory within the binary representations of secularism versus Islamism and rigid sectarian boundaries dominant today, it is unlikely that statements like this, and his loyalty to the Republic and Atatürk, were solely attempts to appease the authorities. For Muslims in Kars, living on the Turkey-Soviet border, Atatürk was seen as having liberated them from non-Muslim occupation, with the Republic ensuring the protection of their faith, unlike the Muslims in the Caucasus now under atheist Soviet rule. Similarly, his assertion of the unity of Islam resonates with the wider moment of Islamic ecumenism at the time, which predates more recent forms of sectarianization in the Middle East.³³

While Ahunt Malik played a crucial role in organizing the Shiʿa in Kars, the Diyanet's permission was, of course, also acquired through dialogue with state authorities and the mediation of other political actors, such as Azeri members of parliament from Kars in Ankara. Looking at religion-state relations in Turkey, David Shankland has noted that the state has been much more open to conflicting opinions and influence from diverse groups than is commonly realized.³⁴ In the resulting situation, the state's power has been diffused between people of different sympathies, creating rival zones of patronage and making it appear to pursue contradictory policies at times. The example of Ahunt Malik and the Yeni Mahalle mosque illustrates that, in Turkey, laws and restrictions on Shiʿi Islam and religion, more generally, have rarely been clear-cut and, for this reason perhaps, constantly contested, modified, and navigated by different groups. With Diyanet permission and the active support of local political figures, the founding of the mosque set a precedent: Shiʿism would be tolerated locally despite not being officially recognized or directly supported by the state.

Entering the Public Sphere

Wider social and political changes in Turkey from the mid-1980s brought about a gradual liberalization of the public sphere, which led to the increasing visibility of autonomous Islamic practices. The growing number of men and women assuming Islamic identities and gaining salient public visibility related to the emergence of political Islam.³⁵ By the 1990s, Turkey's social political landscape had changed radically and the dramatic ascendance of Islam as a “public religion”—one no longer determined solely by state design—was hugely impacting both Sunni groups and a wide range of communities, including Alevis, sufi orders, and other Islamic movements including Shiʿa.³⁶

As with the Alevis, migration to urban centers and the liberalization of state policies towards religion led to the founding of associations, media, and more conspicuous places of worship.³⁷ In the 1980s, after the founding of the Zeynebiye mosque in 1978, Istanbul became the main center of Shiʿi activity. Emboldened by Turkey's changing social and political atmosphere, and the success of the revolution in Iran, Selahattin Özgündüz and Hamit Turan, two clerics from Iğdır province who studied together in Iraq, organized and led a social and religious movement with Azeri migrants in Istanbul's Halkalı district.³⁸ After the relaxing of laws on the publication of religious material in the early 1990s, various Shiʿi media outlets and publishing houses were created that reached Shiʿa across the country.

The development of Shiʿi activities in the metropolis had multiple effects on communities in Eastern Anatolia. Until the end of the 1980s, Muharram mourning rituals in most parts of the country were still carried out within the confines of private houses and the few Shiʿi mosques. Migration had stimulated new debate and discussion around how to commemorate Muharram, and Zeynebiye became the first place to hold public processions and gatherings in republican Turkey. After news and images of these events reached the provinces, there was increased demand to follow the lead and take commemorations outside the mosque in Kars. In 1994, community leaders in Kars received permission from the mayor, who was also an Azeri Shiʿa, to organize a public procession.

Following the February 28, 1997, military intervention and in response to the emboldening of Muslim identities, groups, and political Islam, a decree was issued on July 31, 1998, requiring all mosques built without permission by associations, foundations, and individuals be transferred to the Diyanet within three months.³⁹ The law was not directed at Shiʿi mosques in particular, but the entrance of Shiʿi religious expression to the public domain and increasing media coverage of ʿAshuraʾ rituals in the mainstream press meant the status of Shiʿi mosques was an issue under debate. One such report published in the Hurriyet (Freedom) newspaper on March 3, 1998, under the headline “300 Mosques Under Iran's Command,” included an interview with Abdülkadir Sezgin, the Diyanet's chief inspector, who claimed that Shiʿi mosques in Turkey were under Iran's influence due to the fact that Iran paid some imams’ salaries; an accusation often levelled at Jaʿfaris but fiercely rejected by the community.⁴⁰ Sezgin asserted the need to bring these mosques under Diyanet control, proposing the possible solution of Jaʿfari jurisprudence being taught at the Faculty of Theology in Ankara University, potentially attracting Shiʿi students also from Iraq, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Afghanistan. Despite the rhetoric, such an initiative never materialized and mosques managed to preserve their independence, as talks between Shiʿi leaders and state officials during this period led to an informal understanding of “good will” that prevented most state interference.⁴¹

AKP and the “Jaʿfari Opening” and Closing

With the rise of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in the early 2000s, relations between the Diyanet and Shiʿi community came to the fore once again during the government's period of “democratic opening” (demokratik açılım) following its second victory in the 2007 general elections, purportedly aiming to address the demands and problems of the country's various ethnic and religious communities. While much was said about the “Alevi opening” launched by the AKP in 2007 being a step toward Alevis’ official recognition, some commentators also spoke of a possible “Jaʿfari opening” (Caferi açılımı).⁴² Indeed, the head of the Diyanet at the time, Ali Bardakoğlu, expressed an interest in bringing Shiʿa into the fold in 2005, saying: “We must win the Jaʿfaris” (Caferileri kazanmalıyım).⁴³ Bardakoğlu acknowledged the prayer leaders of Shiʿi mosques as “honorary imams” (fahri imam), inviting them to receive training and join the Diyanet to receive state salaries.

However, many Shiʿi leaders rejected the idea of Diyanet-trained Shiʿa as an assimilationist move, with Selahattin Özgündüz, the leader of the Zeynebiye movement, replying directly to Bardakoğlu's call: “We are not the loss of this country” (Biz bu ülkenin kayıpları değiliz).⁴⁴ At the 2009 ʿAshuraʾ ceremony in Zeynebiye, attended by opposition political figures including the then CHP leader, Deniz Baykal, Özgündüz reiterated his suspicion of government intentions, stating that this so-called opening had thus far not been sincere, as it had occurred without community consultation or attention to the rights they demanded.⁴⁵

In the following years, the Diyanet and AKP politicians made several symbolic moves towards the Shiʿa. Perhaps the most significant was then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's attendance at the 2010 ʿAshuraʾ ceremony in Zeynebiye, where he gave a speech echoing the tone of the democratic opening, emphasizing national “unity and solidarity.”⁴⁶ At this same event, Özgündüz took the opportunity to spell out some of the Shiʿi community's key demands: mosques’ independence from the Diyanet, inclusion of the Jaʿfari perspective in public school religious textbooks, and official representation in parliament.

At this time, Diyanet rhetoric had shifted to acknowledging Shiʿa by reframing them as followers of Imam Jaʿfar al-Sadiq's jurisprudence and making gestures of catering to these differences as jurisprudential rather than sectarian. In 2010, the Diyanet announced the intended publication of a series of books covering Shafiʽi and Jaʿfari jurisprudence, which were to be sent to (Hanafi) Sunni imams and muftis where these communities lived.⁴⁷ School religious textbooks were also updated to ambiguously include Caferilik (Jaʿfarism) as a fifth mezhep (school of jurisprudence) alongside the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence; a move that both angered many Sunni groups and also failed to satisfy Shiʿi demands for representation of their beliefs and practices.⁴⁸ For many Shiʿa, the Diyanet's ambiguous positioning of Shiʿism as a mezhep alongside the four main Sunni legal schools was an assimilationist move aimed at reducing their beliefs and practices to jurisprudential differences subsumed within a dominant Sunni framework.

Like the “Alevi opening,” this period of symbolic gestures towards the community ended soon after 2011, as Turkey became increasingly involved in the sectarianized conflict in Syria.⁴⁹ Perhaps most alarmingly for Shiʿa at this time, was the growing sense of Diyanet efforts to monitor and control their mosques and community. One incident appeared to justify these fears in 2013, when a leaked report prepared by the provincial mufti of Iğdır, Cüneyt Kulaz, the Diyanet's official representative in the province, and signed by the governor and general of security, angered Shiʿa throughout Turkey. The two-page report addressed to the General Directorate of Security, gave figures on the number of Shiʿi mosques in the province (80 of the total 226), and stated that Shiʿa in the area were unwilling to enter Diyanet-controlled mosques. The report stated that “Shiʿi ideology” was developing amongst the youth and should be closely monitored by the state. The report, which also noted the differences in the community's practices, including the timing of their ezan and religious festivals, ended with the mufti's recommendation that Shiʿi mosques be brought directly under Diyanet control. Shiʿa across the country were infuriated and held press conferences and demonstrations, feeling as though they had been depicted as “terrorists and traitors.” The Diyanet, perhaps surprised by the outrage, suggested it was all a misunderstanding. To calm tensions, the then president of the Diyanet, Mehmet Görmez, declared: “Everything that offends and upsets our Shiʿi citizens also upsets and offends us.” However, this statement only further stoked the anger, as it was seen to imply, once again, that Shiʿa were indeed outside the “us” of the nation.

In 2014, the following year, the earlier “Jaʿfari opening” and sincerity of Erdoğan's 2010 speech at the ʿAshuraʾ ceremony was called into question when the prime minister made disparaging remarks about Shiʿa in a televised interview. While criticizing the Gülen movement's “infiltration of the Turkish state,” he suggested that Gülenists had surpassed the Shiʿa in three features: “lying, slander and taqiya (dissimulation).” These comments enraged Shiʿa, who demanded an apology, but such never came.⁵⁰ A few months later, two separate Shiʿi mosques in Istanbul were set on fire in arson attacks that closely followed each other.⁵¹ Although the Diyanet and local authorities strongly condemned the attacks, opposition MPs and community leaders drew attention to their timing, after Erdoğan's comments against Shiʿa, claiming that such rhetoric was increasing sectarian tensions.⁵²

These attacks and the “closing” of dialogue around the Jaʿfari community's status, following Erdoğan's support for Sunni groups in Syria and the change in rhetoric towards the country's minority communities, echoed the wider growth of sectarianization across the Middle East in the wake of the 2011 Arab uprisings. Changes in the AKP's attitude towards Shiʿa during this period reflected the increased securitization of minorities deemed a potential fifth column.⁵³ Subsequently, the community has viewed attempts to bring Jaʿfari mosques under state control with increased suspicion, questioning the state's sincerity and motives.

Expressions of Difference and Allegiance to the Nation

In the context of this increased “sectarianized securitization,” Diyanet authorities in 2013 once again reasserted the claim that, in accordance with the laws and regulations of the Turkish Republic, all mosques should come under government control and all prayer leader be employed by the state. This proposition has only been accepted by a small handful of the country's Shiʿi mosques, most of which are affiliated with the Turkey Jaʿfari Foundation (Türkiye Caferileri Vakfi, TÜRCAV), an association claiming to be the first and only official Jaʿfari foundation in Turkey with the Ministry of Interior's official support.⁵⁴ The Shiʿi imams I interviewed from the few mosques affiliated with this group claimed they are allowed to preach freely and follow the requirements of Shiʿi jurisprudence in full. However, they have received much opposition from within the country's wider Shiʿi community, often labelled as “sell outs” willing to compromise their religious freedom for a state salary. Despite attempts to prove their allegiance to Shiʿi jurisprudence when joining the Diyanet—even seeking approval from ayatollahs in Iran and Iraq for their status within Turkey—the majority of Shiʿa continue to regard the Diyanet's position as assimilationist, insisting that, within the Shiʿi tradition, a prayer leader cannot be a government employee as this compromises their independence. As one Istanbul prayer leader put it to me:

I don't mean to criticize the Diyanet; they provide an important service to those whose jurisprudence they serve. Whether that institution continues is up to our Sunni brothers to decide. We respect the institution the same way we respect all state institutions. But under this condition: it should not interfere in our worship and our mosques. This is our constitutional right, our individual and social freedom. It is one of the essentials of our belief. According to our jurisprudence, a civil servant who receives a salary from the state cannot be an imam! It doesn't matter if that state is the Turkish Republic, the Islamic Republic of Iran, or Saudi Arabia, it makes no difference. Sunni may see this differently, but it is not possible in our jurisprudence. Let me give you an example: on February 28 [1997] the Diyanet said that according to the Qur'an there is no headscarf in Islam. If I had been a Diyanet imam then I would have had to say this too. When you are a civil servant you must follow state policies and when the government changes these policies also change. This is not accepted in our jurisprudence and that is why we cannot pray behind a civil servant.⁵⁵

In 2016, in an interview with the current leader of the mosque founded by Ahunt Malik in Kars, Sayyid Ahmet reasserted the importance of Shiʿi prayer leaders’ independence to me:

Our mosques are independent and will continue that way. They tell us that if we join the Diyanet we will receive a share of the budget. They say they will accept us, but we must be like them. We built our mosques ourselves without any support from the state. The Diyanet should treat all religions equally, it is not right to serve only one mezhep. They should fix this issue; we are secular and mosques should not be connected to the state. We put our labor to build our own mosques. We selected are own prayer leaders. We are part of this country's mosaic and have never had ambitions of separatism. We live here as brothers and will continue living this way. We see these attempts with suspicion.⁵⁶

These comments exemplify the stance of most Shiʿa community leaders, who assert the need for Shiʿi mosques to remain independent from the state while simultaneously emphasizing the community's allegiance to the Turkish Republic. The state's interest in incorporating these mosques into the Diyanet often raises suspicion, as such suggests that the state views Shiʿa as a problem or outside the fold of the nation. Diyanet attempts to control Shiʿi mosques or classify Caferilik as a mezhep are seen as attempts at assimilation through the direct or indirect erasure of differences in beliefs and practices that Shiʿa consider sine qua non to their faith. Similar concerns over state assimilation are shared by non-Hanafi Muslims in Turkey, alongside Alevis, most recently due to the government's 2022 announcement of the creation of the Presidency of Alevi-Bektashi Culture and Cemevis within the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Kurdish Shafiʽi's, who have also faced similar attempts to bring their religious leaders and places of worship under Diyanet control, also share these concerns.⁵⁷

Alongside demands for religious independence and despite decades of uncertainty regarding their status as a religious community, the majority of Shiʿa, like Sayyid Ahmet, continue to assert their loyalty and sense of belonging to the Turkish Republic. The Turkish flag is omnipresent at Shiʿi mosques across the country (Fig. 2). Muharram processions held annually act as important public events in which Twelver Shiʿi Muslims can express elements of their religious identity and difference, particularly their loyalty and devotion to Imam Husayn and the Ehl-i Beyt (the Family of the Prophet), while also reaffirming their commitment to Turkish nationalism and a shared Muslim identity. This is done by incorporating symbols such as the national flag and anthem at events. While these displays can be seen to demonstrate the “paradox of pluralism” highlighted by Kabir Tambar in relation to Alevis in Turkey, in which apparent displays of difference are limited by and reassert Turkish nationalism, displays of Shiʿi difference have arguably been equally framed by dominant forms of Sunni Islamism in the public sphere.⁵⁸ An example of this is shying away from using the title “Shiʿa” in favor of the title “Jaʿfari” in public, as well as the centering of devotion to the Family of the Prophet as something shared by all Muslims—Sunni, Shiʿa, sufis, and Alevis. Mosques are mostly named after members of the Ehl-i Beyt, who are known and revered by Sunni Muslims as well. In Kars, for example, the second largest mosque is named the Hazreti Ali Mosque, using the common honorific for respected Muslims, hazret, rather than Imam, which more clearly marks it as a Shiʿi place of worship. Public speeches by Shiʿi clerics and displays during Muharram utilize discourses and slogans that emphasize a shared mourning, such as “Ey müslümanlar! Bu matem hepimimizin” (Oh Muslims! This mourning is all of ours) (Fig. 3). The public expression of a distinct Shiʿi identity is articulated in ways seeking to reemphasize the community's belonging within both a Turkish nation and wider Muslim community, beyond sectarian boundaries.

Figure 2. The outside of Hazret Ali Mosque during Muharram. The only mosque in Kars with a large Turkish flag hanging between its minarets. The sign on the front side of the mosque reads “Kars mourns for Imam Husayn.” Photo by author, October 2015.

Figure 3. “Oh Muslims! This mourning is all of ours…” A banner displayed on the streets of Kars during Muharram. Photo by author, October 2015.

“We Are Not a Minority. We Are the Original Owners of This Country”

Today, there are three mosques in Kars that function independent of the Diyanet. From the outside, there is little that distinguishes them architecturally from the neo-Ottoman style of contemporary mosques in Turkey.⁵⁹ However, the sound of the distinct call to prayer (ezan), three times a day, marks them out in the religious landscape, announcing the Shiʿi community's presence in the city. Indeed, when mentioning my research on Shiʿi Islam to both Shiʿi and Sunni friends and interlocutors in Kars, the ezan was often the first topic of conversation. Visitors and migrants from other parts of the country are often struck by its presence in the city's soundscape.

Although the core of the Shiʿi ezan does not differ from that of the Sunni, it is common to recite an additional line, sometimes referred to as the “third testimony” (üçüncü şehadet), referencing Imam `Ali.⁶⁰ Many listeners in Kars will not necessarily pick up on the inclusion of this extra line, but will notice the distinct characteristics and quality of the voice on the recording relayed through the loudspeakers of minarets, as well as the difference in timing. The Diyanet's training of muezzin and the replay of recordings have led to the standardization of the ezan in the Turkish public soundscape. The ezan from Diyanet mosques across the country is based on an Ottoman melodic style often described as being a Turkish “national” sound.⁶¹ The recording played by the Shiʿi mosques, in contrast, is based on a distinct modal form from the Persian dastgāh (Bayāt-e Tork) and was recorded by Rahim Moezzenzadeh, a famous Azeri-Turkish muezzin from Ardabil, Iran, in 1955. It is the combination of these melodic features, the timing of the ezan, and the inclusion of the third şehadet that mark these mosques in the urban soundscape. For Shiʿa locally, the ezan is described with pride, a sign of their independence and loyalty to the Family of the Prophet as well as a symbol of their public presence in Turkey.

Although the sound of the ezan reverberating from these minarets has been covered by national media in the past, a different sound caught the attention of people across the country in April 2020.⁶² In honor of the 100^th anniversary of the founding of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi), Sayyid Ahmet decided to broadcast the national anthem from the minarets of the Yeni Mahalle mosque. As videos of the event circulated online, viewers from across the country expressed both support and criticism for this act of patriotism.⁶³

Sayyid Ahmet decided to play the national anthem after hearing that the Diyanet had refused a request by well-known writer and journalist Can Ataklı to sound the national anthem from the mosques to honor this occasion, as public celebrations had been canceled due to the Covid pandemic. Free from the constraints of Diyanet control, Sayyid Ahmet made his own decision and, by sounding the national anthem in contradiction to the Diyanet's ruling, claimed to be upholding the essence of the Republic. “Our republic, our homeland, our flag and anthem are our red line,” he declared in a newspaper interview. “Today, if there are mosques and we can worship comfortably, we owe it to the Great Leader Atatürk, his principles and reforms, and our red flag.”⁶⁴

Listening to the sounds emanating from Ahunt Malik's mosque today—i.e., the Shiʿi ezan and national anthem—highlights the precarious position of Shiʿa Muslims in republican Turkey. On the one hand, the community has continuously struggled and negotiated changing social and political climates to assert their distinct identity and right to practice Islam independent of state control. On the other hand, they have also had to demonstrate their genuineness, loyalty, and support for the Republic in ways that reflect and sometimes, as in the case of the amplification of the anthem, go beyond the expected expressions of Turkish nationalism.

The community's attitude towards its minority status was most firmly communicated to me in an interview with a prominent Shiʿi lawyer in Kars in the days following the sounding of the national anthem: “We are not a minority; we are the original owners of this country (biz azınlık değiliz, bu ülkenin asli sahipleriyiz). There is no section [of this country] more closely connected to this homeland, nation, and state!”⁶⁵ By rejecting categorization as a minority, Twelver Shiʿi Muslims reinforce the notion that to be a minority in Turkey—whether religious, ethnic, or other—is to be outside the Turkish nation and open to suspicion. This places limitations on the expression of religious difference, as Shi'ism's entry to the public sphere is accompanied by the need to reassert the community's Turkish and Islamic character. The case of Shiʿi Muslims presents an instance in which the simple binary metanarrative of Islamists versus secularists in Turkey collapses, highlighting the diversity of Muslim experiences in the country and the way actors and communities navigate multiple political, religious, and social currents.⁶⁶ While the decline of early republican policy has seen the increased presence of Islam in the Turkish public sphere and politics, this has not meant that all Muslim groups have benefitted equally. To fully understand Islam in Turkey, it is thus essential to attend to the diversity of Muslim groups, experiences, and relations with both the state and dominant forms of Islam.