‘Watching myself in the mirror, I saw ʿAlī in my eyes’: On Sufi Visual and Material Practice in the Balkans

Kuehn, Sara

doi:10.1017/9789048535422.009

Religious Materiality in the Early Modern World 2019

DOI: 10.1017/9789048535422.009

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‘Watching myself in the mirror, I saw ʿAlī in my eyes’: On Sufi Visual and Material Practice in the Balkans

Sara Kuehn¹

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2023

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“…After the nevruz ritual, there was an exceptional opportunity to enter this sacred space for a brief moment and take a photo. © SaraKuehn, 2019.…”

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confidence: 99%

Bektaşi Female Leadership in a Transnational Context: The Spiritual Career of a Contemporary Female Dervish in Germany

Kuehn

2023

Religions

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In this article, I bring premodern and contemporary Bektaşi perspectives to the current ethical debate on gender equality in the Bektaşi Sufi order. While there is tremendous potential in the historical legacy of Kadıncık Ana, the spiritual successor of Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli (d. ca. 1271), and her peers who served as female spiritual leaders in the proto-Bektaşiyye, the institutionalization of the Bektaşi order resulted in the marginalization of women and their exclusion from certain opportunities and positions in religious practice and leadership. This article explores the spiritual journey of Güllizar Cengiz (today also known as Neriman Aşki Derviș after becoming a Bektaşi “dervish”), including her foundation of an Alevi-Bektaşi cultural institute in Cologne, Germany, in 1997 and the opening of a Bektaşi Sufi lodge (dergah) in the Westerwald near Bonn in 2006. I explore the impact of Hacı Bektaş’s teaching that both men and women have the same spiritual potential to become the ultimately ungendered insan-ı kamil, or spiritually and ethically completed human being. I also discuss the time-honored Bektaşi principle of “moving with the times and staying one step ahead of the times” and how it can inform contemporary understandings of ethical and spiritual prerogatives within Bektaşism.

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“…After the nevruz ritual, there was an exceptional opportunity to enter this sacred space for a brief moment and take a photo. © SaraKuehn, 2019.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Bektaşi Female Leadership in a Transnational Context: The Spiritual Career of a Contemporary Female Dervish in Germany

Kuehn

2023

Religions

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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‘Watching myself in the mirror, I saw ʿAlī in my eyes’: On Sufi Visual and Material Practice in the Balkans

Cited by 1 publication

References 0 publications

Bektaşi Female Leadership in a Transnational Context: The Spiritual Career of a Contemporary Female Dervish in Germany

Bektaşi Female Leadership in a Transnational Context: The Spiritual Career of a Contemporary Female Dervish in Germany

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