Architecture and Hagiography in the Ottoman Empire: The Politics of Bektashi Shrines in the Classical Age

Based on a thorough examination of buildings, inscriptions, archival documents and hagiographies, this book uncovers the political significance of Bektashi shrines in the Ottoman imperial age. It thus provides a fresh and comprehensive account of the formative process of the Bektashi order, which started out as a network of social groups that took issue with Ottoman imperial policies in the late fifteenth century, was endorsed imperially as part of Bayezid II's (r. 1481-1512) soft power policy, and was kept in check by imperial authorities as the Ottoman approach to the Safavid conflict hardened during the rest of the sixteenth century.

This book demonstrates that it was a combination of two collective activities that established the primary parameters of Bektashi culture from the late fifteenth century onwards. One was the writing of Bektashi hagiographies