Muslim religion has three major interpretations. Sunni, Shia and Alevi interpretations. Naturally all of these distinctions have arisen and taken their shapes after the prophet Hz.Mohammed.
All interpretations take Koran as base, however as Koran is a thick book with 6666 verses and many references to different aspects of life, Sunni interpretation has designed a set of rules according to what they understand from Koran but mostly giving weight to obedience to the practices as they were experienced during the time of the prophet (SUNNAT) , Alevi interpretation has accepted humanitarian advices of Koran as base and designed its rituals accordingly with few differences, Alevi ‘s have followed the family of Prophet as religious and spiritual leaders (Twelve Imam) and accepted their interpretation of the rules (ICTIHAT), while SHIA have accepted Twelve Imam’s as holy persons, they have mainly followed Sunni rituals with few differences..
Alevi name comes from the son-in-law of prophet St. Mohammed, st. ALI. Who is also the first IMAM (clergy) of the Alevi belief system. Alevi means people who behaves like ALI, or who follows ALI.
After this start now I want to give you some historical information about Alevis. UMAYYAD ‘s who were heavily opposes to Muslim had accepted Muslim religion after some years of internal clashes. It took about 12 years until Mohammed was able to establish MUSLIM as ruling understanding in the area of MECCA – MADINAH, todays Saudi Arabia and South Iraq area. Afterwards Mohammed moved back to MECCA and Muslim state started growing rapidly for another 11 years, while Prophet was alive.
However just after prophet passed away, the friction that was under the rug came to surface again ana a KHALIF was appointed rather than being elected. Many people believed that Khalif should have been ALI, so in reality the first crack came with this event and this crack became a main gap when after .. years grandson of Mohammed and his family was massacred in KERBELA by Umayyads. After the massacre descendants of Prophet moved to Northern parts to Iraq and to central Asia, taransoxiana. At this area the 12 IMAM established the philosophy that we call MYSTIC ISLAM or SUFISM now. In our opinion Muslim religion have presented this philosophy and its ideology to human life.
The outline of this philosophy could be summarized with following points:
- Religion is not a set of rules that human has to obey, religion is a tool to allow human beings to live in peace and happiness.
- God is not there to punish us, God has created human because God wanted to see human, so GOD loves human being, does not hate from them.
- All creatures of GOD are blessed, human is the most honorable of the GOD’s creatures, there is a verse of Koran which says “ Return to your lord as consented and be consent.” A Khadis of Prophet. Mohammed says and “Everything may be forgiven except sin against other human’s rights. ” In another point Koran reads “ Persecution/ tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter,”
These guidelines have allowed Alevis to establish a philosophy and life style which shows a highly interactive religious- social life relation. In other words an Alevi tries to live together with his/her God always not only during at the prayer times or rituals. Our 3rd. Imam has said “ Find a place where Lord will not see you, than do whatever you want.” As we do not believe that such a place exists we try to behave in all aspects of life accordingly.
Now let us come to history again descendants of Prophet took the vision of Muslım and views of Hz. Ali as base and developed a moral, philosophical school in Taransoxiana, where Turkish population were the highest predominant population in the area. Over there this school have started forming itself as of 8th century and Sufism (tasavvuf) took its shape slowly. The main recorder of this thought and a very important person is Hodja Ahmad Yasawi (1093 – 1166) who has formulated the belief system as an integral part and guide to daily life. His dervish lodge is in YESI - TURKISTAN which is today in borders of KAZAKHSTAN.