Hazret-i Pîr’e Mihmân Olanlar

Abstract

When the question is history and historical sources, states and the official archival materials come to mind at first. In that case, it is possible to hear the voice of the society to the degree of their contact with the state. Today, however, historians seek answers to such more specific questions as to what thesocieties and individuals think and what kind of lives they lead. At this juncture, we discover a new source that would contribute to a new historicism and it has been analyzed under the light of newapproaches. This source is The Visitor Guest Book of the Tomb of Hazrat Haji Bektashi Veli that is registered with the number 2216 in the General Directorate of Foundations and that covers the datesbetween 13rd December 1921 and 29st August 1925. This source is a work in which the guests who came, as a group or individually, to the convent of Hazrat Pīr, who is a cause of a deep meaning and existence for Alawi Bektashi society, freely and sincerely wrote down their feelings and ideas in thisholy place. According to the data, the visitors can be categorized as civil servants and military personnel from various official ranks, ordinary citizens and laymen and even citizens of foreign countries. This varietyis what makes this guest book so important. In this book, it is possible to hear the voices of the representatives of the state and the ordinary citizens together. Furthermore, this source provides us with a rich range of information on the religious, political, military and social life of the period.Especially, this book written in a period that was the end of an era and beginning of another deserves special attention, because it reflects the sentiments, opinions, spiritual, material and social lives of the people and it witnesses the pain of the death of the Ottomans and the pangs of birth of the Republic.In this study, the data from the guest book, with the support of the literature on Alawi-Bektashism, is evaluated with qualitative and quantitative analysis methods.