Anamorphoses of Piety

Xenophilia: A Symposium On Xenophobia's Contrary Part 6: Religious Exopraxis Benoît Fliche, Manoël Pénicaud, Detelina Tocheva, Katia Boissevain, Christophe Pons, Aude Ayla de Tapia Common Knowledge, Volume 26, Issue 2, April 2020, pp. 251-260 (Article) Published by Duke University Press For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/755583 [ Access provided at 27 May 2020 12:20 GMT from CNRS BiblioSHS ] XENOPHILIA A Symposium on Xenophobia’s Contrary Part 6: Religious Exopraxis Benoît Fliche, Manoël Pénicaud, Detelina Tocheva, Katia Boissevain, Christophe Pons, Aude Ayla de Tapia Introduction: Anamorphoses of Piety Space here is doubly perforated. When crossing it, one has the impression of geographical and temporal continuity, despite the diversity of landscapes—canyons worthy of a great American Western alternate with plains evocative of infinity. The traveler will find it difficult to locate chronological landmarks, as if time had been ironed out of the high plateaus. Travelers who do not abandon the main roads for the paths that lead to poplar-shaded villages will miss seeing how seeming continuities of space are marked by cultural differences acknowledged and accommodated in the past. A pall of silence over genocide mutes the presence of a deeply interred diversity. Other gaps expose a timeline of events different from the history imposed, on schoolchildren and historians alike, by the state.1 The fragment of a Roman column, a slab engraved in Byzantine Greek, the remains of a church, and Hittite tumuli are present signs of repressed chronologies. At the right distance, homogeneous regions appear (“Kurdish,” “Laz,” “Alevi”). Ethnic cartography is a common practice among researchers and servants of the state.2 1. See Copeaux, Espaces et temps de la nation turque. 2. See Andrews, Ethnic Groups in the Republic of Turkey. Common Knowledge 26:2 DOI 10.1215/0961754X-8188856 © 2020 by Duke University Press 251 252 COMMON KNOWLEDGE We will not discuss its political or scientific function but only observe the great diversity between villages located a few kilometers from each other, dividing even groups that are regarded as cohesive. Here, in a community made up entirely of Alevis, for example, neighbors may not observe the same rites, recognize the same religious authorities, or share the same history.3 On closer examination, anamorphoses disclose themselves. In fields beyond the rural villages, in spaces that the villagers refer to as wild (yaban), places of divine presence enable differences to crossbreed. Such places punctuate the landscape. A perforated rock that brings good health to some who pass through it may become numinous to locals, and the trees surrounding it will be adorned with hopes and colorful fabrics.4 Sacred places of this order differ from places of worship: the hope expressed in a wild mountain pass on the branches of an oak tree is of a quality different from the hope expressed in a mosque or church.5 In recent issues of Common Knowledge, its editor Jeffrey Perl and I, anticipating this set of articles on religious exopraxis,6 have been discussing whether “religious practices in places of worship associated with a religion not one’s own” should be regarded as irenic in tendency—regarded, in other words, as forms of admiration or affection (or perhaps envy) and of hospitality (or perhaps tolerance).7 My argument in these discussions has been that exopraxis should be thought of, instead, as devotional “poaching,” made possible by “indifference” to religious boundaries, distinctions, and disagreements. Perl’s response has been that, “if we conceive of indifference as in-difference—that is, a state or sensibility in which differences go unnoticed or, if noticed, are not cared about—then it is fair to say that indifference should rank higher than xenophilia in a hierarchy of irenic affects. No one ever has died a martyr for indifference.”8 In this sixth part of “Xenophilia: A Symposium on Xenophobia’s Contrary,” all but Christophe Pons’s contribution treat the sharing of devotional practices across religious boundaries in ways that a “civilian scholar” like Perl may find promising.9 As for me, my interest here is in the resistance of orthodox religion to what I will call heteropraxes. These are religious practices, shared by practitioners of more than one religion, that diverge so widely from the orthopraxy and orthodoxy of the dominant religion that governmental authorities—in this case, those 3. See Fliche, Odyssées turques. 4. See Albert, “Des lieux où souffle l’Esprit”; Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans. 5. See Pénicaud and Moussaoui, “Le rapport aux lieux et à l’espace.” 6. Marc Soileau, in an excellent article on St. Haji Bektash and his followers, offers a definition of exopraxis different from the one that Perl and I accept. Soileau understands exopraxy (the practice of exoterism) as in opposition to esopraxy (the practice of esotericism). We will not repeat the Soileau distinction here (Soileau, “Conforming Haji Bektash”). 7. Fliche, “Xenophilia, Difference, and Indifference: Dialogical Introduction I,” 219. 8. Perl, “Xenophilia, Difference, and Indifference: Dialogical Introduction II,” 235. 9. See Perl, Peace and Mind. 253 Xenophilia: Par t 6 • Fliche Figure 1. Hacı Duran Alpyıldız in front of the abandoned “miraculous” fountain, 2007. Photograph by Benoît Fliche; © 2020 Benoît Fliche. of the Turkish Republic—make strenuous attempts to suppress them. In Turkey, a growing proportion of the supporters of Sunni orthodoxy regard the veneration of certain trees, stones, natural springs, and resting places of saintly persons and relics as forms of idolatry (şirk), heresy (bid’at), or hurāfe (superstition), in view both of Muslim reforms undertaken since the eighteenth century and, in recent years, of the rise to power of the Islamic AKP party.10 Although in the past there has been tolerance of the cults of saints—expressed, for example, by the erection of mausoleums—the greatest firmness may also be brought against such practices, usually by the Diyanet, the state directorate of religious affairs.11 My example here is Sorgun, a subdivision of the Yozgat prefecture, where, between 2000 and 2007, I was able to immerse myself in the local ethnographic context. In 2007, Hacı Duran Alpyıldız, the mayor of Büyükkışla, and I examined forty-nine holy places distributed among ninety-three villages. The dates of our investigation turned out to be of more than usual importance because, though most of the observed sites were stable over time, some were not—for instance, a miraculous spring said to cure diabetes—and appeared only to disappear a few years later (fig. 1). Discovered in 2003, between Araplı and Yukarıoba, the spring was completely abandoned as a site for devotion only three years later. In 2007, ruins were all that remained of various facilities that had been set up by the Araplı town council, including a prayer shelter (mescid) and a place to store food. Judging from the proliferation of love declarations inscribed on the walls, we may assume that the site had been abandoned to local young people. The distribution of the forty- 10. Mayeur-Jaouen, “Pèlerinages.” 11. See Fliche, “Les frontières de l’‘orthodoxie’ et de l’‘hétérodoxie’.” 25 4 COMMON KNOWLEDGE nine sites was irregular. Of the ninety-three villages, only thirty-one had a place of worship. Three villages had three sacred places each; eight of the villages had two each. We also categorized these villages according to whether they enjoyed access to (good or bad) arable land, according to electoral behavior (whether they leaned Right or Left), religious orientation (whether they were Alevi or Sunni; there have been no Christians in the region since 1915), according to their migratory history (whether their populations were nomadic or composed of Muslim refugees from imperial territories lost in the nineteenth century), and according to their ethnicity (whether the villages were predominantly Turkish, Kurdish, or Armenian). We found that, among these conceivably significant factors, the most reliable predictor of where we would find places of “wild piety” (tekke) was religious orientation: the sacred places are located predominantly around Alevi villages, from which we may infer that the location of sacred places is not random. Given the fundamental religious differences between Sunnis and Alevis— Alevism is a syncretic local form of Islam, incorporating elements of Shi’ism, Sufism, Christianity, and a Buddhist-influenced Turkic form of shamanism—we may conclude that Alevi heteropraxis at these sites of wild piety is accompanied by Sunni exopraxis. Heteropraxis and exopraxis do not everywhere or completely overlap, but exopraxis is generally tolerant of, if not drawn to, heteropraxis.12 The Sorgun subdivision seems to verify this structural relationship, which was confirmed as well by my daily observation of visits to three sacred rocks (the “pierced rock,” the “rock with the oak tree,” and the “camel neck”) that overlook the Alevi village of Büyükkışla, which was at the center of our research perimeter. While the “camel-neck” rock has no particular therapeutic property, the other two are known throughout the region for such. Passing through the opening in the pierced rock is reputed to cure respiratory and other diseases. The stagnant water on the summit is said to be effective against the most traumatic illnesses, as is soil collected on the rocks. Judging from the number of strips of fabric and ribbons attached to the branches of the oak tree that adjoins the main rock, the quantity of visits to the site must be considerable, with Alevi devotees arriving from more than just the three neighboring villages, and with Sunni visitors showing up as well. Sunnis are not the only exopractitioners of this region. The Alevis, too, visit sacred places associated with other sects. Thus, the Durali Baba tekke, located in the neighboring Sunni village of Büyükkışla, is highly prized by local Alevis, particularly by pregnant women and people suffering from rheumatism. Nestled among trees reputed to be protected by the saint Durali Baba, this ancient Hittite tumulus is located on the top of a hill. It is one of three tekke, located on three aligned hill tops, said to be the final resting places of three brothers: Durali, Burhan, and Ali Baba (figs. 2 and 3). 12. See Fliche, “Une ethnographie de l’indifférence.” 255 Xenophilia: Par t 6 • Fliche Figure 2. The three rocks, village of Büyükkışla, 2007. Photograph by Benoît Fliche; © 2020 Benoît Fliche. Figure 3. The tekke of Durali Baba, Durali Köyü, 2003. Photograph by Benoît Fliche; © 2020 Benoît Fliche. Though the Alevi and the Sunni are both Muslim, their sacred geographies differ, especially with respect to the great religious centers. Thus, an Alevi villager asked for help in locating the local tekke might give directions to Hacı Bektaş (a historical center of Alevism and Bektachism). Half an hour later, a Sunni shepherd asked for help, as well, might give directions to Konya and the mausoleum of Mevlana. There is conscious antagonism between the devotees of Mevlana and those of Hacı Bektaş. I remember the icy reception from my colleague Hacı Duran’s mother on my return from Konya, which I had visited for the Mevlana festival in December 2001. She asked me, with some annoyance, what I had been doing at Mevlana’s shrine when the true—the Alevi—saint was Hacı Bektaş Veli. She then went on to tell me a story to illustrate the superiority of Hacı Bektaş Veli to Mevlana. Unthinkingly, I had betrayed my host’s spiritual patron. To confessional boundaries of this sort must be added those arising when 256 COMMON KNOWLEDGE practitioners of another religion or Muslim sect enter an Anatolian village. Entering a village is neither a neutral nor a trivial act if the object is to honor a local saint. Tensions may sometimes be intense. Traditions of hospitality (misarfirperveliği) play an important role in moderating such tensions: hospitality—welcoming others into one’s home—is a religious duty in all Muslim sects, especially when hospitality is extended to a “guest of God.” But Alevism, which emerged during the turbulent production of “syncretisms” in Anatolia during the Seljuk and early Ottoman periods,13 is regarded by Sunnis as, at best, a “heterodox” Muslim sect. The Diyanet, while it recognizes the faiths of the remaining Jews of Istanbul and the last Christians of Anatolia, does not acknowledge that Alevism is a religion at all, let alone a form of Islam.14 The Alevi population is drawn from a constellation of minority groups, so it is hard to extract a common element of identity; exceptions confound every attempt to generalize a rule. The position of Alevis in Turkey is one of difference without alterity, which has fueled a ferocious stigmatization, still operative today. It is not uncommon for Sunnis to say that Alevis are “beyond [worse than] even nonbelievers.” Deemed “bookless” (kitapsız) and impure, Alevis are accused occasionally of participation in sexual orgies, in which the bonds of kinship, mother or daughter, are not recognized. Alevis are also subject to violence, for example in Sivas on July 2, 1993. Demonstrators set fire to a hotel where an Alevi association had organized an event for Aziz Nesin, translator into Turkish of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. The death toll was thirty-seven.15 Other such acts of violence occurred in 1938 (the Dersim rebellion), 1979 (the Maraş massacre), 1993 (at the Hotel Madımak in Sivas), and 1995 (the Gazi Mahalesi riots). The “coup d’état” of July 15, 2016 nearly led to more pogroms against the Alevis, who constitute anywhere from 10 to 25 percent of the Turkish population. On a daily basis, the state has labored, since the 1990s, to “Sunnicize” the Alevis. Thus, they are required to build mosques—although the Alevis refuse to pray in them—and all Alevi requests for infrastructure (roads, telephone lines, even electricity) are rejected if that requirement is not fulfilled. Sunni imams are sent to Alevi villages, where often they are told explicitly to mind their own business. The imam of the village neighboring one where I worked had understood the message well: he tended his own garden, was not offended that his mosque was empty on Fridays, and made no remarks about the local consumption of alcohol. The Alevis grow vines at an altitude where viticulture is a real feat, and their very precise knowledge of distillation and wine-making techniques plays an important role in the Alevi-Sunni relationship: the Sunnis come to drink among the Alevis. For a Sunni Muslim, drinking demands tactical thought, even 13. See Barkey and Barkan, Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites. 14. See Massicard, L’autre Turquie. 15. See, for a detailed description of this day, Susam Sokak, sketch 68. Sivas, July 2, 1993—Atheist Aziz Nesin (www .susam-sokak.fr/2017/06/esquisse-n-68-sivas-2-juillet-1993 -l-athee-aziz-nesin.html). 257 Xenophilia: Par t 6 • Fliche Figure 4. “Drinking alcohol in the fountain and the mausoleum is forbidden. For the pleasure of God, let us be clean. Burhan Yazar.” Durak Abdal Türbesi, 2007. Photograph by Benoît Fliche; © 2020 Benoît Fliche. cunning. In Sorgun and Yozgat, there are a few places where it is possible to smoke and drink away from prying eyes, even during Ramadan. As Nicolas Elias has observed, drunkenness is a test of self-control in Alevi ritual, while Sunnis refrain from alcohol as a proof of self-control.16 Sunnis in Sorgun who wish to drink rely on Alevis, by virtue of their inverse relationship to alcohol, to authorize their prohibited enjoyment. Heteropraxis is found not only in private homes here but also in public votive rites at which, in some places, at some times, alcohol is also consumed. Located in the communal territory of a Sunni village, the mausoleum of Durak Abdal is a popular place for the people of the neighboring Alevi village, Tulum. A local Sunni scholar financed construction of a fresh water spring, and when I visited there were tables laid out for us. The mausoleum was frequented by Alevis as well as Sunnis until 2007, when the Sunni patron of the spring posted signs (“to please God”) prohibiting the consumption of alcohol there (fig. 4). The mayor of Tulum was very angry when he saw the signs and, fulminating against “bigots,” took us instead to a sacred ivy tree growing in the midst of a mountain stream. The site was revered as well for the perfect temperature of the water in which bottles of raki were placed before serving. 16. Elias, “La discipline de l’ivresse dans une confrérie musulmane de Turquie.” 25 8 COMMON KNOWLEDGE It would appear, then, that heteropraxis leads to exopraxis: one does at the other’s place what one cannot do at home. In Sorgun, the enjoyment of difference—whether for Alevis among Sunnis or Sunnis among Alevis—is at the heart of religious practice generally. It can seem that one must go through others to make one’s appeal to le tout autre—God. While this need for otherness is discreetly manifest in Anatolia, it is best attested by Muslim requests in Istanbul to be blessed by Christian priests and in the written votive prayers that Muslims leave in Christian shrines and churches.17 Orthodox Christians likewise ask the Muslim religious instructors known as hocas for intercession.18 Moreover, as Aude Aylin de Tapia has shown with regard to nineteenth-century Cappadocia, such requests were to be made in the sacred language of the other’s clergy. Christians would address the hocas in Arabic, and Muslims would speak in Greek to Orthodox priests. Thus, the effectiveness of the blessings requested does not rely on the register of meaning: Turkish Christians do not understand Arabic, any more than Turkish Muslims understand Greek—and neither group wants to express itself in Turkish, the only language in which meaning resides for both groups.19 The efficacy of the other’s blessing depends on linguistic difference and thus solely on the symbolic register. Immersion in the place of signifiers, where the organization of difference occurs, seems to enable hope—to enable wishes to be heard and granted in Anatolia. Religious rifts (between Christians and Muslims, Alevis and Sunnis) and a language gap (between sacred Greek and sacred Arabic, in a country where neither is spoken) make possible, for some, a hope of divine intervention. Approaching the divine by forsaking briefly the religion and language of one’s own sect renders one’s devotion different enough from one’s readymade and conventional expression to touch le tout autre. Exiting the Empire of Difference, as Karen Barkey calls the Ottoman polity, was a murderous process because the elimination of these hope-enabling differences was vigorously pursued.20 Having tried to destroy the cultural and religious differences on which its peoples’ hopes depend, Anatolia is now condemned to a fullness of despair. This installment of “Xenophilia: A Symposium on Xenophobia’s Contrary” probes the moral of that story for cultures facing analogous choices. —Benoît Fliche 17. See Fliche, “Xenophilia, Difference, and Indifference: Dialogical Introduction I.” 19. de Tapia, “Villages et villageois grecs orthodoxes de Cappadoce,” 623. 18. de Tapia, “Villages et villageois grecs orthodoxes de Cappadoce,” 620, and de Tapia, “Calendars of Exopraxis.” 20. 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