The Ottoman Empire, historically and colloquially known as the Turkish Empire, was an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe and, with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed II.
Sultan is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun سلطة sulṭah, meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who claimed almost full sovereignty without claiming the overall caliphate, or to refer to a powerful governor of a province within the caliphate. The adjectival form of the word is "sultanic", and the state and territories ruled by a sultan, as well as his office, are referred to as a sultanate.
In Islam, the ulama also spelled ulema are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious knowledge in Islam, including Islamic doctrine and law.
The Alawites, or pejoratively Nusayris, are an Arab ethnoreligious group that live primarily in the Levant and follow Alawism, a sect of Islam that originated from Shia Islam. The Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, revered as the first Imam in the Twelver school, as the physical manifestation of God. The group is believed to have been founded by Ibn Nusayr during the 9th century. Ibn Nusayr was a disciple of the tenth Twelver Imam, Ali al-Hadi and of the eleventh Twelver Imam, Hasan al-Askari. For this reason, Alawites are also called Nusayris.
Alevism, Anatolian Alevism or Qizilbashism is a heterodox Islamic tradition, whose adherents follow the mystical Islamic teachings of Haji Bektash Veli, who is supposed to have taught the teachings of the Twelve Imams. Differing from Sunni Islam and Usuli Twelver Shia Islam, Alevis have no binding religious dogmas, and teachings are passed on by a spiritual leader as with Sufi orders.
A caliphate or khilāfah is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph, a person considered a political-religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of the entire Muslim world (ummah). Historically, the caliphates were polities based on Islam which developed into multi-ethnic trans-national empires. During the medieval period, three major caliphates succeeded each other: the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), and the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258). In the fourth major caliphate, the Ottoman Caliphate, the rulers of the Ottoman Empire claimed caliphal authority from 1517 until the caliphate was abolished as part of the 1924 secularisation of Turkey. Throughout the history of Islam, a few other Muslim states, almost all hereditary monarchies such as the Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo) and Ayyubid Caliphate, have claimed to be caliphates.
Islam is the most practiced religion in Turkey. As much as 90% of the population follows Sunni Islam. Most Turkish Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence,The established presence of Islam in the region that now constitutes modern Turkey dates back to the later half of the 11th century, when the Seljuks started expanding into eastern Anatolia.
The Khilafat movement (1919–22) was a political campaign launched by Indian Muslims in British India over British policy against Turkey and the planned dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire after World War I by allied forces.
Haji Bektash Veli was a mystic, saint, sayyid, and philosopher from Khorasan who lived and taught in Anatolia. He is revered among Alevis for an Islamic understanding that is esoteric, rational and humanistic. Alevi and Bektashi Muslims believe the path of Haji Bektash is the path of Haqq-Muhammad-Ali since they were the source of Bektash's teachings. He was one of the many figures who flourished in the Sultanate of Rum and had an important influence on the culture of Turkish nomads of Asia Minor. His original name was Sayyid Muhammad ibn Sayyid Ibrāhim Ātā. He is also referred to as the "Sultan of Hearts" and the "Dervish of the Dervishes". Haji Bektash Veli was a descendant of Musa al-Kazim, the Seventh Imam of Twelver Shi'a Islam.
The caliphate of the Ottoman Empire was the claim of the heads of the Turkish Ottoman dynasty to be the caliphs of Islam in the late medieval and the early modern era. During the period of Ottoman expansion, Ottoman rulers claimed caliphal authority after the conquest of Mamluk Egypt by sultan Selim I in 1517, which bestowed the title of Defender of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina upon him and strengthened the Ottoman claim to caliphate in the Muslim world.
Qizilbash or Kizilbash were a diverse array of mainly Turkoman Shia militant groups that flourished in Azerbaijan, Anatolia, the Armenian highlands, the Caucasus, and Kurdistan from the late 15th century onwards, and contributed to the foundation of the Safavid dynasty in early modern Iran.
Shaykh al-Islām was used in the classical era as an honorific title for outstanding scholars of the Islamic sciences. It first emerged in Khurasan towards the end of the 4th Islamic century. In the central and western lands of Islam, it was an informal title given to jurists whose fatwas were particularly influential, while in the east it came to be conferred by rulers to ulama who played various official roles but were not generally muftis. Sometimes, as in the case of Ibn Taymiyyah, the use of the title was subject to controversy. In the Ottoman Empire, starting from the early modern era, the title came to designate the chief mufti, who oversaw a hierarchy of state-appointed ulama. The Ottoman Sheikh al-Islam performed a number of functions, including advising the sultan on religious matters, legitimizing government policies, and appointing judges.
In Turkey, secularism or laicism was first introduced with the 1928 amendment of the Constitution of 1924, which removed the provision declaring that the "Religion of the State is Islam", and with the later reforms of Turkey's first president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which set the administrative and political requirements to create a modern, democratic, secular state, aligned with Kemalism.
The composite Turko-Persian, Turco-Persian or Turco-Iranian tradition was a distinctive culture that arose in the 9th and 10th centuries in Khorasan and Transoxiana.
The History of the Shī‘ah Imāmate Alevī Ṭarīqah or The History of the Alevism is that of a community of Muslims of Anatolia and neighbouring regions.
Religion in Istanbul covers the issue of religion in the city of Istanbul, Turkey. More than 90% of Istanbul's population are Sunni Muslims and Alevism forms the second biggest religious group. A 2019 survey study by KONDA that examined the religiosity of the voting-age adults in Istanbul showed that 47% of the surveyed had a religion and were trying to practise its requirements. This was followed by nonobservant people with 34% who identified with a religion but generally did not practise its requirements. 11% stated they were fully devoted to their religion, meanwhile 4% were non-believers who did not believe the rules and requirements of a religion and 4% were atheists who did not believe in religion at all. 24% of the surveyed also identified themselves as "religious conservatives".
The Ottoman persecution of Alevis is best known in connection with the Ottoman sultan Selim I's reign (1512–1520) and his war against the Safavids in 1514. But there are examples that indicate that there already existed problems with Alevi groups in the Ottoman Empire since the 14th century, The Alevis were generally persecuted for sympathizing in the negative role of Safavids.
Schools of Islamic theology are various Islamic schools and branches in different schools of thought regarding ʿaqīdah (creed). The main schools of Islamic Theology include the extant Ashʿarī, Māturīdī, and Aṯharī; the extinct ones include Qadariyah, Jahmiyya, Murji'ah, Muʿtazila, Batiniyya,.
The Ottoman Caliphate, the world's last widely recognized caliphate, was abolished on 3 March 1924 by decree of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The process was one of Atatürk's reforms following the replacement of the Ottoman Empire with the Republic of Turkey. Abdulmejid II was deposed as the last Ottoman caliph, as was Mustafa Sabri as the last Ottoman shaykh al-Islām.
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