THE HAMZEVIYE: A DEVIANT MOVEMENT IN BOSNIAN SUFISM Author(s): HAMID ALGAR Reviewed work(s): Source: Islamic Studies, Vol.

36, No. 2/3, Special Issue: ISLAM IN THE BALKANS (Summer/Autumn 1997), pp. 243-261 Published by: Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, Islamabad Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23076196 . Accessed: 21/01/2013 16:07
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Islamic

Studies

36:2,

3 (1997)

THE HAMZEVIYE: SUFISM

A DEVIANT

MOVEMENT

IN BOSNIAN

HAMID ALGAR

INTRODUCTION Despite being permanently intermingled with Christian populations, the Muslims of Bosnia showed little inclination to syncretic or antinomian forms of religion during their centuries of association with the Ottomans. The Sufi orders that
established themselves soon after the Ottoman

fifteenthcentury the Mevlevs, the Nakibends, the Kadiris, and the Halvets
were the same as those deemed legitimate of the and acceptable Turks also in the Ottoman

conquest

in the second

half

of the

capital, and the symbiosis of 'alim and eyh, of medrese and tekke, that
characterized the religious culture Ottoman prevailed among

the Bosnians.1 As a result, the Bekta order, which may be described, in its tenets and rites, as an amalgam of antinomian, pseudo-Sh'T and Christian elements, was never accorded in Bosnia the welcome it enjoyed from Muslims
elsewhere in the Balkans, form an especially Albania and Macedonia.2

To this general pattern of jera-observant Sunn Sufism in Bosnia, the

Hamzeviye appeal Serbia and interesting the Hamzeviye minor one Its adherents suppression where exception. in parts Evidently of Bosnia possessing but also as widespread albeit of for several decades, not only in Ottoman-ruled a threat

Hungary, and State. after its

a localized the Ottoman but even

relatively

came to be perceived to the and political accordingly the combated Hamzev of secrecy

religious with order and

cohesion great had a

were in

rigour, certain outward

Bosnia,

prolongation into

in Istanbul, the early

a combination

at least

modification of doctrine permitted it to survive, on the margins of Turkish

Sufism, years of the twentieth century.

I of the be traced to Haci Bayram Veli (d. can ancestry Hamzeviye of of the Ankara, 833/1429-30) eponym Bayram? order. Through his master, Hamidiiddin Aksaray (d. 815/1412), Haci Bayram was suspected of links to the Safavid order, then in the process of transition to ShT'ism as a preliminary to its The
conquest of political power.3 Because of these suspicions, as well as a

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hamid algar/The

Hamzeviye:

A Deviant

Movement

in Bosnian

Sufism

menacingly large following, Haci Bayram was summoned to the Ottoman court at Edirne for interrogation by Sultan Murad II. He survived the ordeal by
convincing Murad of his doctrinal rectitude, but nonetheless saw fit to conform

his order unambiguously to the Sunn! norms becoming increasingly a pillar of Ottoman policy. the Bayramiye by Akemsettin of Gynk, a following in 830/1426. Akemsettin was close
whom he accompanied of the branches on the conquest of the Bayramiye of demonstration house. Two acceptability of the reformed

emphasis upon which was He was succeeded as head of Syrian who had joined his to Sultan Muhammed Fatih,
in 857/1453, to the a clear Bayramiye from Ottoman the

Istanbul

descended

Akemsettin,

Tennuriye and the Himmetiye; they differed from each other only in their initiatic lines, not in their beliefs and practices.4
A more significant division was that caused by a certain Omer Dede

Biaki (or Sikkin, "the Cutler"; d. 880/1475-6) of Bursa, who disputing Akemsettin's succession to Haci Bayram Veli effectively brought into being a separate and independent order, based in part on the revival of antinomiari elements suppressed in the first Bayram congregation. This order is known in the historiography of Turkish Sufism as the Bayramiye-Melamiye. The second half of this compound designation refers to Omer Dede's claim to have revived the traditions of the Melametiye of 3rd/9th century Khurasan, a group that laid
emphasis appurtenances on sober and and anonymous ceremonies devotion favoured then and as rejected later the outward Sufis.5 In public by many

fact, the similarities between the classical Melametiye and the Bayramiye Melamiye were few and superficial; it might even be justified to describe the
latter as a caricature of the former.6 It is true that Omer Dede renounced the tac

(dervish turban) and hirka (cloak) of the Sufis, but more characteristic for him and his initiatic descendants were a rejection of the conventional forms of zikir;
a cult of nominal devotion to the Twelve of Shi'I Islam; Imams and that excluded all a crude, Dede all awareness hyperbolic was of, and or adherence ecstatically by Bnyamin to, the Fikih proclaimed from Aya above

version near

of vahdet-i Ankara.

viicud.1

Omer of planning

succeeded in Central

Suspected occasion

a revolt

Anatolia, he was imprisoned for several years in the citadel of Kiitahya before
benefiting from an amnesty on the of Sultan Siileyman's

Rhodes in 929/1523 (although he is also said to have died in 926/1520).8 Aya's successor, Pir Ali Aksaray (d. 935/1528-9), permitted claims of Mahdlhood to be advanced on his behalf, as a result of which he may have been put to death,

conquest

of

for he is described on his tombstone as e-ehid, "the martyr".9 The story of his gaining the favour of Sultan Siileyman by suggesting to him that he, not Pir Ali, might be the MahdT, must be dismissed as apocryphal. One element in the story, that Pir Ali was required to send his son, Ismail Mauk, to Istanbul, most likely as a hostage for his father's good behaviour, is nonetheless plausible, although Bayram-Melam sources interpret this as a sign of Siileyman's devotion to Pir
Ali.10

Also known as Oglan eyh, "the boy shaykh", for he was only nineteen at the time of his death, Ismail Mauk is said to have had his followers adopt

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Studies

36:2,

3 (1997)

245

as their form

of zikir

the expression dance

Allahim,

a deliberately this zikir

ambiguous as an

utterance

which might mean either "my God!" or "I am God". Not content with this, he
proclaimed On account the gyrating of this, as that accompanied as other "utterances integral part with of

the eriat, not simply a permissible (miibah) form of supererogatory worship.

well deemed incompatible the

obvious sense of the eriat", and despite repeated warnings to flee, Ismail Mauk was put to death in 935/1529 in accordance with a fetva delivered by the eyhiilislam of the day, the eminent scholar Kemalpaazade (d. 940/1534)." The Bayram-Melams thus acquired their firstgenerally acknowledged
"martyr". His elimination may have been made more urgent in the eyes of the

Ottoman authorities by his transfer of the movement from a peasant milieu in Central Anatolia to the capital and its acquisition there of a literate following.
The execution appears, years later indeed, it was to have found aroused persistent to issue discontent a further fetva in Istanbul, declaring for several necessary

that anyone who proclaimed Ismail Mauk to have been killed unjustly was himself deserving of execution.12 Pir Ali's principal initiatic successor was Ahmed Sarban, "the
Cameleer", under of Hayrabolu his in Thrace. His career marked the first presence to the Twelve Imams of the

Bayram-Melams in Europe, and it is possible that their doctrines first reached

Bosnia auspices. Despite a fervent devotion and

an ecstatic understanding of vahdet-i viicud, both themes being copiously expressed in poetry of reasonable quality, Ahmed Sarban was spared the hostile
attention of Ottoman authority.13 Such was not the case with Husameddin

Ankarav (d. 964/1556-7), his main successor in the Bayram-Melam line. Without moving from his native village of Kutlu Han near Ankara, Husameddin gathered (or inherited) a large following which was galvanized into near insurrection by the proclamation of him as MahdT in the little town of Haymana. He was accordingly imprisoned in the Ankara citadel and after a
while put to death.14 The doctrinal Bayram-Melam a line virtually had acquired by this point its of leading vahdet-i

characteristics:

incarnationist

understanding

viicud and an attribution to its leaders of the twin functions of qutb ("pole of the universe", in Sufi terminology) and MahdT.15 This was a potent mixture, for the
Bayram-Melams, the very "form of the of regarding God" Ottoman themselves (suret-i sultans. and more had only particularly little reason for the their to leaders respect compound as the Rahman), It remained

authority

igneous

they had brewed to be lit by Hamza Bali, the Bosnian. II is known of Hamza Bali before his appearance in the definite or precise Nothing circle of Husameddin Ankarav as a Sufi remarkable even among the Bayram Melams for the extent of his ecstatic distraction. The Ottoman sources, whether Bayram-Melam or official, tell us nothing of his early life or exact place of birth in Bosnia.

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hamid algar/The

Hamzeviye:

A Deviant

Movement

in Bosnian

Sufism

A number of modern Bosnian scholars, beginning with Safvet Basagic in 1895, have nonetheless been confident that Hamza Bali was born precisely in the village of Orlovici, not far from the old fortress of Kuslat on the road between Vlasenica and Zvornik in north-eastern Bosnia.16 They thus style him
Hamza Orlovic, a designation scholars nowhere derives encountered from the in the Ottoman at Orlovici sources. of The a tekke confidence of these existence

founded in 926/1519 by a certain eyh Hamza (or Hamza Dede), formerly a sipahi, who renounced a timar (military fief) of 7000 akas in exchange for all
the lands One and cattle writer, attached Alexander to the shrine Lopasic, being has made gone tax-exempt so far as to in perpetuity.17 speculate that recent

Hamza Bali, eponym of the Hamzeviye, may have been a grandson of eyh Hamza or a son of his slave, Hasan b. Abdullah (the patronymic suggests this
Hasan may have been a convert).18 The fact that Hamza Bali had in common

with eyh Hamza

possible sign him

a relatively uncommon name might indeed be taken as a

for a recent ancestor. It is, however, at Uhud, his to Husameddin

of veneration

Ankaravi that the bestowal of this name on BalT is reliably attributed: in thus
naming after the uncle of the Prophet martyred master is said

to have predicted the martyrdom that would befall him as a result of his uninhibited propagation of the Bayrami-Melami path.19 The identification of Hamza Bali as a descendant, whether biological or spiritual, of eyh Hamza and of Orlovici as his birthplace must be regarded as unproven. Similarly speculative is the assumption that the tekke at Orlovici
became, at a certain point, a centre of Hamzevi activity.20 Passing through

Bosnia in 1075/1664, the great Ottoman traveller Evliya eleb (d. 1095/1684), noted the existence in Konjevic of a Muslim hamlet of some hundred families,
of a shrine accompanying dedicated Sultan to "the famous Hindi Fatih on Hamza Baba", who had died while Despite Muhammed the conquest of Zvornik.21

the fact that Zvornik was taken in 866/1460, sixty years before the foundation of the tekke at Orlovici, and despite the disparity in the place names, it has been
suggested by have eyh been that the tekke Hamza, and mentioned "towards from without an by Evliya middle eleb was indeed that established century order of name it must to Hindi the is that the of the unknown no order by sixteenth Hindi the

transferred It goes

otherwise that

Hamzeviye".22

saying

known to the annals of Sufism, and the Hamza Baba of Konjevic was, in any event, by no means the only "Hindi" on whose resting place he reported; he noted another near Vukovar in Slavonia. More importantly, however capricious and idiosyncratic an observer Evliya eleb might occasionally be, it is unlikely
he would have remained silent on a connection between the shrine at that

Konjevic and the Hamzevi movement, traces of which must still have existed in Bosnia at the time of his visit. In addition to all this, there is no certainty that the Konjevic of his account is indeed identical with Orlovici. III When and for what purposes Hamza Bali first left Bosnia is unknown. It may, however, be conjectured that like so many other Bosnians he did so in order to

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Studies

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3 (1997)

247

seek his fortunes in the Ottoman capital, for it is said that he was initially in the service of a vizier, possibly Pertev Paa the Albanian (d. 982/1574).23 Before
long, (d. ascetic as it was phrased "he and by a later became he Under drunk Bayram-Melam on the wine his writer, of love loyalties tutelage, time he as La'lzade a result the Abdlbak of extreme vizier to 1165/1752), practice",24 Ankarav.

transferred Husameddin's

from

Husameddin

continued

to mortify

himself by subsisting on scraps of food thrown in the streets for dogs to eat and
chickens to peck he on, proclaiming at the same that he had in fact abandoned

asceticism and was now enjoying a most luxurious diet. After the death of
Husameddin, search returned His to Bosnia, standard where line he began frequenting to have the taverns been: "O in son! of followers. of appeal is said

What pleasure can you gain from wine, this piss of Satan? Repent and come to me, and I will give you the wine of love of the All-Compassionate One; drink of it, and you will be drunk until the Day of Resurrection".25 In addition to the
force of this argument, Hamza Bali seems to have exerted a strong personal would be

attraction; as it was put by Sari Abdullah Efendi (d. 1071/1660),

into drawn his presence, whether to him".26 from the elite or the common involuntarily

"whoever came

people,

Disturbed by the growth of Hamza Bali's following, the established ulema and $eyhs of Bosnia declared him "an ignorant person, unfit to bestow spiritual guidance (irad)", and petitioned the authorities in Istanbul to intervene
in the matter.27 In response, over A on 19 Zilhicce 980/22 April the same 1573, a firman was

issued calling for Hamza Bali, then living in Gornja Tuzla (Upper Tuzla), to be
arrested transfer sancakbey dispatch not only Slavonia Hamzavis.30 and to handed Istanbul.28 to the second bearer firman of the issued firman, the avu day Mustafa, instructed Ball was for the and sent in of

of Bosnia-Herzegovina them too to the capital.29 of the beylerbeyi suggests to the and

to apprehend Four months but also Bosnia

the followers later, to his

of Hamza firman

a similar counterpart calling had

sancakbey

at Pozega for the arrest already

even This

of Budin

in Hungary

unmistakably

that the Hamzeviye

spread

beyond the confines of Hamza Bali's native Bosnia. Once Hamza Bali had arrived in Istanbul, his case was brought before the eyhlislam, Ebussuud Efendi (d. 982/1574). He reviewed the material sent by the ulema and $eyhs of Bosnia, and consulted the leading Sufi $eyhs of the
Ottoman from capital. he with "He is on is an ignorant the same path and as deficient Oglan person", eyh, who they was told put him, "apart in which to death interrogating

accordance

the fetva

of Kemalpaazade".

Apparently

without

Hamza Bali himself, Ebussuud Efendi then delivered the following fetva. "The execution of Oglan eyh Ismail Mauk in accordance with the fetva of my teacher, the late Kemalpaazade, was on account of his heresy and irreligion (zandaka
legitimate A

ve ilhad).
to put him somewhat

If eyh Hamza is on the same heretical path, it will be

to death".31 different account of the reasons for Hamza Bali's

execution is provided by Mniri Belgradi (d. 1026/1617) in his Silsiletii 7 Mukarrebin ve Menakibu -Mttakin, a description of the Sufi orders of the

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hamid algar/The

Hamzeviye:

A Deviant

Movement

in Bosnian

Sufism

Balkans and their principal shaykhs in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. According to Mnir, no accusation of heresy or irreligion was raised against Hamza; he was simply asked whether he had indeed claimed that he could repel the plague from Istanbul if he so wished. When he confirmed that
he had, version Hamza of the Bali matter was sentenced persons to death.32 present Mnir asserts having heard this Bali, from at an interrogation of Hamza

but it seems unlikely that such a vainglorious boast, hardly a rarity in the history of a certain kind of Sufism, should have sufficed to encompass his destruction.
Whatever for the relevant the formally archival stated reasons have for the execution not yet come may have been documents to light33 Tuzla.34 form above of Hamza

Bali was put to death in front of the Deveoglu

mosque, that still most stands briefly Efendi, probably purports describes and within to six weeks mark the Bali exact with

fountain near the Sleymaniye

in Gornja it has the A stone a grave Sari

of his arrest spot;

marker, Abdullah

Hamza

the sentence as

quoted the date

from

erroneously

gives

969/1561

of the event.35

It is possible that some of the disciples of Hamza Ball were executed together with him. According to the chronicler Nevizade Ata'i, one of his followers, a halberdier iri the janissary corps, drew his dagger after witnessing
his "Not master's even agony an animal and slit his own throat, itself "as if he were comments slaughtering Ata'i a cow". would slaughter thus", in a sarcastic

line of verse, "he sacrificed himself to his shaykh!"36 Other followers of Hamza Bali kept their heads about them and bribed the executioners to release his body to them. They buried it in the cemetery lying next to the road that runs outside the city walls of Istanbul between the Mevlevihane Kapisi and the Silivrikapisi. Here, too, the site is still marked by a stone, as well as a railing erected in
1281/1864 by one Mehmed Ali Paa, follower of a Mevlev shaykh, Osman

Salaheddin Dede, who had conceived a veneration for the slain Sufi.37 IV
The execution of Hamza his Bali, far from and marking hastened in the end their of his influence, into great the seems a fully minister to have invigorated followers The development of

insurrectionary

movement.

assassination

Istanbul

Sokollu Paa in 987/1589 may well have been Hamzev,38 but it was primarily in Bosnia that the rebellious movement unfolded. This process may have begun as early as firman dated 1 Cemaziiilevvel 990/24 May 1582 alludes to a

Mehmed

the work of a potential of the 975/1567, for a trial of Bosnian

Hamzevls that had taken place fifteen years earlier.39 The firmans issued in 981/1573 convey, moreover, a sense of urgency inspired by more than concern
for the maintenance of doctrinal rectitude.

Bosnia and their inhabitants, and invoking the Path (tarikat) and the Innermost Truth (hakikat), they rent the veil of the Law (tarikat) and entered the expansive realm of libertinism (ibahat)". The work of uprooting the Hamzevis was

It was, however, in about 990/1582 that the situation in Bosnia appears have to become truly critical. Referring to this time of danger, the chronicler Ata' wrote: "The rebellious Hamzevis gained control of certain regions of

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249

entrusted primarily to Bali Efendi of Sarajevo,

After interrogating the Hamzevs of the Two

the supreme kadi of Bosnia.

Tuzlas (Gornja Upper, and

Lower), Bali Efendi Dolnja "performed the valuable service of causing, with the artery-severing sword of the $eriat, the heads of twelve of the misguided to roll".40 He was aided in the task of uprooting the Hamzeviye by Hasan Kafi of Akhisar (=Prusac; d. 1024/.1615), possibly the greatest scholar of the Islamic sciences produced by Bosnia in the Ottoman period.41 Relatively detailed information about these events is provided by a cluster of firmans from the year 990/1582. The firsttwo, dated 1 Cemaziiilevvel 990/24 May 1582 and 8 Cemaziiilevvel 990/1 June 1582 respectively, are both addressed simultaneously to the kadis of Zvornik, Gracanica and the two Tuzlas.
They record that seventeen people had been

it will be recalled, Hamza Bali had been arrested nine years earlier), including a certain Mehmed b. Hasan, who had proclaimed himself sultan in place of "Sultan Hamza". Witnesses had also come before the tribunal in Gornja Tuzla
to testify that the Hamzevs mixed promiscuously with women in the course of

put on trial in Gornja

Tuzla

(where,

their gatherings, and that when reproached for this by their neighbours they would reply, "it may be forbidden for you, but it is permitted to us". These accusations had been denied by the Hamzevs, and the tribunal had ordered them
to be investigated further.42

A third firman, dated 24 Ramazan 990/12 October 1582 and addressed both to the governor of Zvornik and to Ball Efendi in Sarajevo, expresses gratification at the apprehension and execution of nine leading Hamzevs, but
stresses the necessity 990/4 Gornja October Tuzla. set up of pursuing 1582 Among which them all the active members of the heretical sect.43

The identity of some of those being sought can be found in a firman dated 6
evval from laments were the the escape following b. Hasan, of ten leading members the Hamzevs shadow Hseyn of the "Sultan";

government

by the Hamzevs:

Mehmed

Aga, his vizier; Memi b. Iskender, his defterdar (treasurer); and Ali Hace, his kadiasker (military judge).44 Another firman of the same date is of interest in that it concedes a
number of innocent people have been caught up in the campaign against This the

Hamzevs and had their property confiscated. It was the personal responsibility
of the beylerbeyi is one struggle have of several against of Bosnia indications the Hamzevs the area more to ensure that care from than their grievances was exercized be redressed.45 from into Istanbul firman the to prevent which

degenerating the Hamzev

a witchhunt itself.

could

destablized

movement

The campaign of 990/1582 seems to have been decisive in its effects, at least in destroying the insurrectionary potential of the Hamzeviye, for there is a note of finality and self-congratulation in a listing, sent to Istanbul already in a'ban 990/August-September 1582, of all those who had participated in the suppression of the movement. Their petitions to be rewarded either with fiefs or promotions were endorsed by the kadis of Sarajevo, Gracanica, and the two
Tuzlas.46

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hamid algar/The

Hamzeviye:

A Deviant

Movement

in Bosnian

Sufism

Nonetheless, writing not long before his death in 1045/1635,

remarks, arrogant, at the conclusion deficient of his notice of of corrupt Bali Efendi: (the "Even Hamzevis) now, mentally heretics belief are

Ata'
those not

lacking in those regions (Bosnia); may God destroy them"!47 The fact that a polemical treatise against the Hamzevis soon to be discussed was written
in 1023/1614 must also point been to the survival of at least scattered remnants of the

Hamzeviye into the early part of the 11th/17th century.

Attempts insurrectionary and taxes have across levied been the by have made to link these remnants with of Uzice a far later movement, Drina led by a certain to refuse authorities.48 against fiscal eyh Muhammed in Serbia, extortionate appears of doctrinal of inciting to

who in the middle of the 12th/18th century encouraged his followers both there
in Bosnia payment However, injustice accuse with the of the allegedly this movement no overtones shaykh only the Ottoman protest Ottoman

a simple

nonconformity;

documents

disobedience, not ofheresy.49 Moreover, in a defiant letter written in 1161/1748 to Mehmed Paa, the governor of Belgrade, eyh Muhammed mockingly asks
him what army he intends to send against the rebels: an

an army of Hamzevis?50 This rhetorical question makes it plain that for eyh
Muhammed Austrians, be surmised the Hamzevis and as potential some were foes to be of his regarded movement, Bosnian as unbelievers, not allies. may Hamzevis on The have a par most rallied with the that can to the

army

of Austrians

or

is that

latter-day

cause of eyh Muhammed, despite its lack of doctrinal congruity with their own
movement.

Also other, Hamza b. unproven Bali.51 is the assumption from Sufi made by a number living of scholars, was b. Bosnian the grandson b. Hamza of sole source and of that a Bayram-Melam This self-exiled er-Rum Bosnia was in Egypt whom

eyh

Ibrahim

Teymurhan our

Muhammed

el-Hanefi,

knowledge is a brief notice in the Khulsat al-Athar of al-MuhibbT.52 A man of

uncontrollably to ecstatic character, saints. as

concerning be

He was born and grew up in Bosnia (no precise location is given) before
travelling meet the great He

might

expected

of

a Bayram-Melam. name in each

including the realatively well-known Muhriqat al-Qulbf -Shawq li 'Allm al GhuybP He died in Cairo in 1026/1617-18. His line of initiatic descent was: Haci Bayram Veli; Omer Dede Biaki; Seyyid Cafer; eyh Muhammed Rum. The last two names in this line, implausibly brief and designated by al-Muhibb as Gilan-Bayram (an inexplicable compound, unless it implies a merging of Kadir and Bay rami lineages), are not to be found in any source on the Bay rami

where he alighted; he was 'All in Istanbul, Hasan in Makkah, Muhammad in Madnah, and finally Ibrahim in Cairo (which leaves open the possibility that his original name might have been none of these). Despite his predilection for cemeteries and frequent lapses into wild ecstasy when he would roam through Cairo "like a savage lion", eyh Ibrahim enjoyed enough mental repose to write a number of treatises on Sufism,

adopted

a different

city

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Melami order. Moreover, if this Ibrahim were indeed the grandson of Hamza
Bali, one would

included in the initiatic line. As it is, all that permits us to link him to Hamza Bali is Bosnian origin; affiliation to an unknown Bayrami lineage; and a
grandfather called Hamza. The connection is no stronger than that between

expect

the grandfather

or one

of his

teachers

or associates

to be

Hamza Bali and his putative grandfather, Hamza Dede, the founder of the tekke at Orlovici. VI
From the appeal it, of the is not, his the it exerted Hamzeviye and the energy to have displayed been a by the Ottomans of in some combating nature repulsion of appears that movement

importance in Bosnia and contiguous territories, at least for a time. The precise
doctrinal however, incomplete elements immediately and in the inspired apparent. both The extent the accounts attraction of Hamza and no verse and the Bali's unlike from

condemnation many

are

to a certain Bayram-Melam

contradictory, he left

which an approximate understanding of his teachings might be derived. All that can be said with certainty is that, given his ecstatic mode of conduct, there is
little reason

predecessors

line,

Ismail Mauki the proclamation of vahdet-i vilcud in a manner difficult not to interpret as pantheistic in view of its explicit rejection of all ontological
distinction between God and man. As for the literature produced exact by the

to dispute

the

verdict

that

he

was

on

the

same

heretical

path

as

Bayram-Melams of Istanbul who identified themselves as Hamzev, it cannot

be taken to reflect with any accuracy or completeness the teachings of

Hamza Bali. There is, however, another source of information on the teachings of
the Bosnian

himself: a handful of contemporary writings intended in whole or in part to refute the Hamzev heresy. One such piece consists of sixteen lines of anonymous Turkish verse entitled Ta 'rif-i Rical-i Hamzeviye (A Description of the Hamzevs). For the author, their principal error lay in rejecting the Sufi
consensus nearness that to God: discipline and prolonged self-denial are essential for attaining

Hamzeviye,

whether

or

not

they

emanated

from

Hamza

Bali

The people of perfection are all agreed, that approaching God and attaining His presence/depend on renunciation, solitude and effort, the
endurance of hunger in forty-day retreats /without asceticism and

restraint,the vile soul can never be ennobled./But Hamza Bey,54 would be guide on the path of righteousness, allegedly guides through the effusion of the divine essence alone./ "The way of hardship", he says, "is forbidden; why should one going toward God endure any pain?/ What links retreats and true knowledge, how can zikir aid in pure understanding?/ God bestows His secrets on His slave, and His slave in turn gives them to the whole world.55/ With a single glance he can make anyone a true man of God (er); if this is what you need, seek and

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hamid algar/The

Hamzeviye:

A Deviant

Movement

in Bosnian

Sufism

you'll find!/ In short, without requiring any exertion, God makes aware of the secret of His essence"./ The Hamzevs call him Hamza Sultan;
enter not on their path of lying deceit.56

Somewhat more detailed is a treatise written in 1023/1614 by a certain Mehmed Amik with the aim of dissuading the son of a sipahi presumably a
personal friend from succumbing to the allurements of the Hamzev

teachings. Here, too, Hamza Bali is depicted as rejecting the need for devotional acts and ascetic striving, and he is additionally reproached for disputing the relevance of dreams and their interpretation to the Sufi path. When the sipahi's son recounts that a Hamzev had displayed to him "the eighteen thousand
worlds", Amik retorts that this apparent miracle must have been the result of

satanic inspiration (istidrac). As for the divine love the Hamzevs profess, "look with the eye of fairness", Amik advises, "and see what station must be reached for this love to become attainable; the empty and painless sighs (ah-i serd ve b
derd) of the Hamzevs are certainly not enough". Most telling of all, when the

young man cites the Qur'nic expression, "I inhaled in him (Adam) from My own spirit" (15:29 and 38:72), in defence of Hamzev doctrine, Amik refutes his pantheistic interpretation and states flatly that "vahdet-i viicud is contrary to
the belief of the Ahl al-Sunnah".57

A third text of relevance is a treatise by Yigitbai Ahmed Efendi, an

otherwise unknown author, which is in its essence an exposition as of the true

nature of visionary knowledge (marifet-i uhudi). In its opening sections, it

warns against mistaking every paranormal phenomenon a keramet

(charismatic deed), particularly the wondrous feats attributed by the Hamzevs to their eponym. Yigitbasi stresses additionally, as Mehmed Amik had done, that vahdet-i viicud is contrary to the Sunni creed: "It is impossible that the
Creator be a creature or that a creature be the Creator".58 and anonymous were as still text that appears doctrine in Bosnia, heretics active to and the and Finally, be part of a book written are in a fragmentary, of ilmihal at a time (an when paired undated elementary the Hamzevis with the

summary Hurufis

of Islamic

practice), Hamzevs

significantly

subversive

unbelievers.

The Hurufi movement, established by Fazlullah Astarabad (d. 796/1394), taught a curious amalgam of doctrines of which the most significant was a correlation of the letters of the Arabic alphabet with the human form, both the alphabet and the body being complete divine manifestations. Fazlullah advanced through a series of claims culminating in his self-proclamation as "the Lord of the Age and the Sultan of the Prophets".59 Drowned in blood in Iran by the Timurids, the Huruf movement was able to transmit its influence to both Anatolia and the Balkans. The principal vehicle of this Huruf influence was the Bektas order, which, as noted at the outset, never found much favour in
Bosnia.60 There can be little doubt, however, that Huruf teachings also

influenced other Sufi orders, albeit less noticeably in some cases. The Hurufi inclinations of several Bayram-Melam shaykhs are unmistakable. Ismail Mauk proclaimed in one of his poems, "my body is

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253

identical with God" (ayni Hak oldu viicudum), a sentiment echoed by Ahmed Sarban in unambiguously Hurufi form: "O you who desire to see the Beloved,
look with care on each person a you see!/ Know that the human mirror is the very to be

form of the All-Compassionate;

King"!61 in another Idris-i Muhtefi,

come, look in the mirror, and see in it that

Bayram-Melam of the "Seven of Istanbul

post-Hamza

discussed below, openly invoked Fazlullah Astarabadi in one of his poems, and
celebrated the Hurufi concept it would Lines", i.e., seven lines

of facial hair that are the physiognomical analogue of the Ftihah.62 Even in the
absence affinity of such between textual Hurufis evidence, and be permissible the respective to deduce doctrines an essential of the two Hamzevis from

groups; the Hurufi belief in the substantial divinity of the human person amounted to the same as the incarnationist interpretationgiven to vahdet-i viicud by the Hamzevis. It is therefore entirely credible that Hurufis and Hamzevis should have allied together in Bosnia, as the anonymous author of the ilmihal alleges. Together, he reports, "they spread out in the world, and broadcast among the people of Bosnia that their ulema did not act in accordance with their knowledge (that is, they were hypocrites), in order to attain their goal of disseminating heretical doctrine".63 The execution of Hamza Bali did not go unnoticed by a number of
European envoys present at the time in Istanbul. They, too, purported to give

an account of his teachings. Thus a certain Stefanus Gerlach, member of a Habsburg delegation to the Ottoman court headed by David Ungnad, recorded in his diary for 1573: "Two months ago, a new teacher was beheaded here,
because he taught that Mahomet was a false prophet, and moreover professed

the eternal divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit (I am uncertain of all the details). He won to his side a thousand Turks, a large contingent of Janissaries, who form the core of the Turkish army. I am informed that he
began his preaching in Budapest". The sultan then sent a avu to arrest him,

Gerlach affirmed, but the "new teacher" voluntarily came forth to meet the avus even before he reached Budapest. Once he had been brought to Istanbul, the sultan had him executed in front of the prison gates instead of the usual location for beheadings, the Atmeydani, for fear of provoking a rebellion by his
military followers.64 Many parts of this account are questionable. None of the Ottoman

sources mention any activity on the part of Hamza Bali in Budapest, although it is conceivable that he did travel there and probable that there was a Hamzev
presence in Hungary.65 The execution did not take place surreptitiously, for it

was witnessed by at least one Janissary, whose reaction was suicide, not rebellion. More significantly, the attribution to Hamza Bali of a belief in the distinctive divinity of Jesus and a rejection of the messengerhood of the Prophet is highly unlikely; had he preached such doctrines, the fact would certainly have been mentioned in the Ottoman sources. It is overwhelmingly likely that Gerlach has confused Hamza Bali with a certain Molla Kabiz, executed in 933/1527, who did indeed preach the superiority of Jesus to the Prophet and who may have
headed the obscure movement known as the Hbmesihs.66

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hamid ALGAR/The Hamzeviye:

A Deviant

Movement

in Bosnian

Sufism

Despite drawing attention

these to

flaws the

in Gerlach's political aspect

account, of the

it has

at least to

the the

merit Ottoman

of

matter, when

government's fear of sedition. Pantheistic effusions rarely sufficed, in Ottoman

times, to earn execution, but it was a different matter extravagant spiritual

claims were conjoined with political ambition.67 The attribution to Hamza Bali by his followers of the title "sultan" was a clear signal of danger, particularly in light of the record of his predecessors in the Bayram-Melam line. Attempting to exculpate the Hamzevs, Mnir Belgradi claimed that their grant to him of the title "sultan" was a simple expression of love and devotion, devoid
of political meaning.68 It is certainly true that a number of Turkish shaykhs were

called "sultan" without this implying any claim to political power, in just the same way that their colleagues in the Persian-speaking world were often styled
"shah". For the Hamzevs, Bali however, the title "sultan" was more than an

emotional honorific; it conveyed

recognition apparent, of Hamza too, from the succession

a rejection of Ottoman authority and the

The Hamzev will to power b. was Hasan to the counter-sultanate of Mehmed

as a counter-sultan.

and his appointment of all the principal officers of state. The messianism of the early Bayram-Melams had been translated into a recognizable political
structure. It was, could seriously territorial of course, threaten unlikely that a movement then there like that of the Hamzevs and the

the Ottoman Equally,

State,

at the apogee was no reason

of its power to tolerate

expansion.

however,

Hamzev agitation, particularly in Bosnia, Slavonia and Hungary, the sensitive borderlands of the Ottoman State with the Christian world. Even the branch of
the state and Hamzev within slander, movement a state: that survived in Istanbul functioned as such something authorities, that functioned of a it punished recourse its members to the for infractions established Petemalcilar as drunkenness by as

without them

judicial Hani

imprisoning its headquarters

in the basement

of the capital.69

in the Ottoman

VII In a work on the history of the Sufi orders first published in 1920, Mehmed Sadik Vicdan dismisses as baseless the belief that Hamza Bali originated a branch of the Bayramiye-Melamiye known after him as the Hamzeviye.70 Writing a decade later, the great historian of Turkish Sufism, Abdiilbaki

Glpinarli, points out, however, that leading figures of the Bayramiye-Melamiye deliberately styled themselves HamzevI out of loyalty to their martyred predecessor.71 It seems possible to reconcile the two statements by saying that outside the Balkans there was no separate branch of the Bayramiye-Melamiye defining itself vis--vis the main body of the order by initiatic descent from Hamza Bali, but that the Bayram-Melams as a whole occasionally used the title
Hamzev as an alternative designation for their order.

aftermath of Hamza Ball's death, this tendency declined as the order discarded
its extremist and aberrant aspects.

Strong

in the

immediate

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Islamic

Studies

36:2,

3 (1 997)

255

The

followers

of Hamza

Bali

in Istanbul

gathered

after his death

around

Hasan Kabaduz ("the Tailor"; d. 1010/1601-2) of Bursa, who like him had been
a disciple of Husameddin Ankaravi. Although, not surprisingly, Hasan Kabaduz

was more circumspect than Hamza Bali in his public proclamations, he gave voice, in letters to his followers, to the same hyperbolic interpretationof vahdet i viicud that had been traditional in the Bayram-Melam line. In one such letter
he wrote: "Know your own soul, for it belongs to God and is a part of His

being (varlik); rather it is identical with His being (belki varligindan de gil, kenddr)".72 Kabaduz had at least two Bosnian disciples, both of whom spent most of their lives outside of Bosnia: eyh Abdullah Bosnevi (d. 1054/1644 in
Konya), found whose expression and by way more nuanced and scholarly understanding on Ibn 'Arabi's of Fuss vahdet-i al-Hikam; viicud and in a masterly laid commentary stress on the

Hseyn Lamekan (d. 1035/1625-26),

in Istanbul heavy whether of precaution or out

who was born in Pest but lived and died

necessity of adherence to the eriat, of conviction.73

Another line of descent from Husameddin identifying itself with Hamza Bali was that inaugurated by Haci Ali Bey (d. 1024/1615) of Tirhala in
Thessaly, he better known as Idris-i Muhtefi on account of his ability such as to frequent

the religious and scholarly circles of Istanbul in utter anonymity. Before settling
there, served travelled extensively as a merchant to places the Belgrade, in

Plovdiv, Sofia, Edirne, and Gallipoli, and one may assume that these journeys
also the purpose of attempting to perpetuate Hamzevi movement

the Balkans. His house in Istanbul was in the same district as the shops of the pedernal "(waist-cloth) sellers clustered near the mosque of Sultan Selim, and it was in his time that a particular association came into being between the
Bayram-Melam/Hamzev basement incarcerated to a letter the of the Petemalcilar seems written of also by order Hani and where the practitioners of this trade.74 The were delinquent more general of Uzice known members of the order

to have

fulfilled

functions,

for according of Belgrade, "people of the

eyh

Muhaammed were popularly

to the governor as podrumh, the order did

Hamzevis

Istanbul

basement".75 This literally subterranean existence of not suffice to

ensure the safety of its members. In 1073/1662-63, Siit ("the Milkman") Bejir
Aga, a nonagenarian and the thrown last of the Hamzev, into the was Golden strangled, Horn together near with forty He by the or so followers, however, Fenerbahe.76 martyrs, and was, early

Bayram-Melam/Hamzev

twelfth/eighteenth century the order had gained such respectability that we find even a eyhulislam, Pamakzade Seyyid Ali (d. 1124/1712), and a sadriazam, ehid Ali Paa (d. 1128/1716), among its luminaries.77 It is, of course, conceivable that this change was due to a sophisticated and rigorous practice of taqiyyah, of prudent dissimulation. In his letter to the governor of Belgrade, eyh Muhammed of Uzice wrote of the Hamzevs: "When they enter the basement they put on hats (apka i.e., specifically Christian headgear) and address each other as Nikola-aban or Jovan-Recep. When day comes, it's again 'aban Efendi' and 'Recep Efendi'. You see some

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hamid algar/The

Hamzeviye:

A Deviant

Movement

in Bosnian

Sufism

of them putting on the turban of the kadi, some you will find at the gate of the
vizier, and some are in the office of the treasurer" .78 In no other Ottoman source

is there, however, any hint that the Hamzevs cultivated a syncretic Christian Muslim identity, something that would surely have figured prominently in any accusation against them. It is probable that eyh Muhammed was seeking merely to raise the intimidating spectre of a heretical conspiracy reaching the highest
levels of the Ottoman bureaucracy. He goes on to warn that once the Hamzevs

are 40,000
closed

in number, they will come forth in open insurrection (huruc edeceklerdir)71 The gate of Hamzevi insurrection had, however, long since been
in Bosnia, The and in Istanbul it had barely doctrine, ever been inched open. of outward renunciation of extremist originally a matter

precaution, seems ultimately to have been interiorized. One consequence of this was a blurring in the memory of the actual teachings of Hamza Bali and his
predecessors and immediate successors; this permitted him to be honoured as "a

martyr of divine love" revered by Sufis of various allegiances. process many centuries earlier had made possible the absorption of Hallj into the common patrimony of Sufism). More significantly, understanding of vahdet-i viicud became modified to such an
reconciliation with the emss and an effective restoration of Bayram

(A similar Mansr al the order's extent that

unity were

achieved. This took place under the auspices of two ems shaykhs, Hafiz Seyyid Ali Efendi (d. 1254/1838) and Ibrahim Efendi (d. 1316/1898).80 The last notable figure of the Bayram-Melam/Hamzev tradition was Seyyid Abdlkadir Belh (d. 1339/1921), an immigrant from Balkh in Afghanistan who somewhat incongruously combined an inherited affiliation to the Nakibendiye with a loyalty to a Hamzevi shaykh of Bosnian origin resident in Istanbul, Seyyid Read
Bosnev.81 1352/1933), at an end, Abdlkadir was succeeded existence by his son, Seyyid Ahmed Muhtar was (d. but the organized for in 1908 of the Hamzevs of Istanbul Hani already

their headquarters

in the Petemalcilar

at Kirkeme

had burned to the ground. Thereafter, as Glpinarli wistfully tells it, the Hamzeviye survived "only as an impulse in the heart, a memory in the mind".82 Vili
It remains only to assess the role played by this memory in the minds of certain

Bosnian scholars who have written on the Hamzeviye in recent decades. Sound archival research on the topic has, in some cases, gone hand in hand with a desire to exaggerate the duration and significance of the Hamzev movement and
assert a trans-historical Bosnian essence, with roots in the pre-Ottoman past, is

to exalt it as an expression of Bosnian "national spirit". The perceived need to no doubt comprehensible in light of the genocidal ambitions of Serbs and Croats alike. Hamza Bali is, however, a poor recruit for this campaign of cultural self affirmation. Smail Balie, a Bosnian scholar residing in Vienna, has remarked of
him: "It can be assumed that he represented a term gnostic sometimes views associated to with the the Patarene doctrine",83 Patarene being thus used designate

Bosnian
Orthodox.84

Church
The

of pre-Ottoman times which was

Hamzeviye become a bridge

neither Catholic
pre-Muslim

nor
and

between

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Islamic

Studies

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257

Muslim suspect the late

Bosnia, report Dzemal

an

element on goes

of the

"national" alleged so far

continuity. Christian to

Citing,

like

Balie, on

the Bali,

of Gerlach Cehajic

inclinations

of Hamza Hamza

as

congratulate of Islam

having

elaborated a "balanced synthesis of Islam and Christianity, typical for Bosnia",

and thereby to contributing He confront of the Sufi and dream".85 further "the to "the absorption to him of into the popular ascetic on of consciousness". attempt orientation fantasy attributes formalistic a courageous the methods Hamzeviye although ulema of which as a and unsuccessful the

concepts of the

orders, The

the pedagogical notion

were

based refuge

stubborn

Bosnian
the

spirit is also encountered outside the realm of scholarship. Mesa Selimovic, best known for his novel Dervis'i Smrt, summoned up the ghost of
Hamzeviye to serve as the centrepiece of another historical novel, Tvrdava

(Sarajevo, tradition.

1970), the fortress of the title serving as a metaphor for national

Nothing specifically Bosnian can, however, be discerned in the ideology and teachings of the Hamzeviye. There is no evidence that Hamza Bali added anything of his own devising to the doctrinal compound elaborated by his
predecessors in the Bayram-Melam line, and all the elements contained in that

compound were of Turkish or Iranian origin. Precisely the lack of distinctively Bosnian features in this, the most significant deviant movement in the history of Islam in Bosnia, serves to underline the thoroughgoing cultural integration of
Bosnia into the Ottoman pattern; that even its heterodox elements were of Ottoman

derivation.
It may aspects be argued it was tradition in Bosnia came alone closest that the insurrectionary presumably outside of the Bayram-Melam and the most substantial to fulfilment, take

as a result of Hamza Ball's personal impact. However, not only did both the
genesis prolongation of the movement place

Bosnia; in Bosnia, it was the Bosnian ulema themselves who both instigated and energetically pursued the suppression of the Hamzeviye, as a matter of religious duty as well as fealty to the Ottoman sultan. A second distortion of the historical identity of the Hamzeviye is attributable to the ideological climate of Yugoslavia during the Tito years. The
Hamzevis goals were depicted a mask of eyh disturbances as rebels against deviance; feudalism in this, but who they also hid were their progressive not only Baba Kaim beneath of religious Muhammed linked

to the movement

of Uzice,

to Hasan

(d.

1102/1691),

a Kadir shaykh with rebellious

of the mid-eighteenth

inclinations, as well as
Thus in an article

miscellaneous

century.86

published in 1970, Muhamed Hadzijahic went so far as to lament the absence of Hamza Bali from Josef Leo Seiferd'sz'e Weltrevolutionre von Bogomil ber Hus zu Lenin (Vienna, 1930), a work describing the contribution of the Slavic
peoples hardly words to the development be of remarked the that of revolutionary there is no hint and collectivist either or in thought.87 in the the record It need surviving of the of collectivism themselves

Bayram-Melam/Hamzevs

charges raised against them by their adversaries.

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hamid algar/The

Hamzeviye:

A Deviant

Movement

in Bosnian

Sufism

These ideologically coloured depictions of the Hamzeviye have been the sole echo of the order in modern times.88 It is other Sufi orders, more truly representative of Bosnian Muslim tradition and ethos, that surviving down to the present in however attenuated a form, are now participating in the Bosnian struggle for survival.

'For the general history of the Sufi orders in Bosnia, refer to Dzemal ehajic, Derviski Redovi u Jugoslovenskim Zemljama sa Posebnim Osvrtom na Bosnu i Hercegovinu (Sarajevo, 1986). the rarity of Bektas in Bosnia, see Jasna Samic, "O sont les Bektachis de Concerning Bosnie?" Bektach, tudes sur l'ordre mystique des Bektachis et les groupes relevant de Hadji Popovic and Gilles Veinstein (Istanbul: 1995), pp. 381-91. 3In his encyclopaedic survey of the Sufi orders, Tibyn Vesili -Hakaik ve Selsili 't-Tarik, Kemalettin Hariri classifies the Bayramiye simply as "a branch of the Safeviye" (ms. Ibrahim Efendi in Bektachiyya: eds. Alexandre

430, I, f. 174a). "On Haci Bayram Veli and the Bayramiye, see Mehmed Ali Ayn, Had Bayram Veli (Istanbul: Abdiilbaki Glpinarli, Melmlik ve Melmler (Istanbul: 1931), pp. 33-9; idem, 1343/1924); "Bayramiye", islam Ansiklopedisi, vol. II, pp. 423-6; idem, Tiirkiye'de Mezfiepler ve Tarikatler der Hans Joachim Kissling, "Zur Geschichte des Derwischordens (Istanbul: 1969), pp. 236-41; 15 (1956), pp. 237-68; Fuat Bayramoglu, Haci Bayram-i Veli, Sdost-Forschungen, Baijramijje", 2 vols. (Ankara: 1983), idem and Nihat Azamat, "Bayramiye", Trkiye Diyanet Vakfi islam of the Modem Islamic Ansiklopedisi, V, 269-73; Hamid Algar, "Bayramiye", Oxford Encyclopaedia World, vol. I, pp. 206-7. 'See Hamid Algar, "Mlamatiyya in Iran and the Eastern Lands, Encyclopaedia of Islam (new edition), vol. VI, pp. 224-5, and the Arabic and Persian sources listed there. 'The notion that the history of the Melametiye is a continuous whole, divisible into three was first put interconnected periods the second of which comprises the Bayramiye-Melamiye, forward by Mehmed Sadik Vicdani in his Tomar-i Turuk-i Aliye (Istanbul, 1338-40/1919-21) and then repeated unquestioningly by later writers, including even Abdiilbaki Glpinarli, the eminent historian of Turkish Sufism, in his Melmlik ve Melmler. It is nonetheless questionable whether anything more than the name Melami (or Melameti) links together the Melametis of Khurasan, the and the "third stage Melamis", the Melamiye-Nuriye established in 19th Bayramiye-Melamiye, Muhammed Nur el-Arab. Insofar as there is any long-term century Macedonia by Seyyid transmission of the original Melameti principles, it must be sought in the early Nakjibendi tradition of Transoxiana. See Hamid Algar, "lments de provenance Malmafl dans la tradition primitive forthcoming in the papers of the conference on the Melamiye held at the Institut Naqshbandi", Franais d'tudes Anatoliennes, Istanbul, in May 1987. C.H. in Ottoman Turkey", 7See Vicdani, Tornar, pp. 42-7; Imber, "Malamatiyya Encyclopaedia of Islam (new edition), vol. VI, p. 226. Glpinarli's assertion that "according to documents in our possession" qualified members of the Bayrami-Melami line were instructed in ShI'T jurisprudence (Tiirkiye'de Mezhepler ve Tarikatler, p. 267) Melmlik ve Melmler, pp. 42-3. *Ibid, pp. 43-5. '"Vicdani, Tomar, pp. 50-51. "Glpinarli, "Glpinarli, Melmlik ve Melmler, eyhiilislam pp. 48-54; is not completely convincing.

Vicdani, Efendi

Tornar,

p.

52;

Imber, 1983),

"Malamatiyya", p. 227. l2See M. Ertugrul pp. 85-6, 196. ''Glpinarli,

Diizdag,

Ebussud

Fetvalari

(Istanbul:

Melmlik ve Melmler, pp. 55-67; Vicdani, Tornar, pp. 52-3. '"Glpinarli, Melmlik ve Melmler, p. 71; Vicdani, Tornar, p. 53; Ahmed Refik, Onaltinci asirda Rafizlik ve Bektafilik (Istanbul: 1932), pp. 24-5.

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259

"See Ahmet Ya$ar Ocak, "Les ractions socio-religieuses contre l'idologie officielle ottomane et la question de zendeqa ve ilhad (hrsie et athisme) au XVIs sicle", Turcica, 21-2 (1991), p. 74. "'Safvet Basagic, Kratka uputa u proost Bosne i Hercegovine (Sarajevo: 1895), p. 39; idem, u islamskoj knjiievnosti (Sarajevo: 1912), p. 25; Muhamed Hadiijahic, BoSnjaci i Hercegovci revoluciname Pregled, 60:6 (November tradicije: Hamza Orlovic i Hamzevije", "Zapostavljene December 1970), pp. 591-5. "Jedan savremeni dokumenat o Sejhu Hamzi iz Orlovica", Prilozi za l7Adem Handzic, A document dated 940/1533 confirming this 18-19 (1968-9), pp. 205-215. orijentalnuflologiju, describes the tekke as serving the needs of travellers, a function often fulfilled by strategically placed tekkes in the Balkan provinces; see Adem Handzic, "O ulozi dervia u formiranju gradskih naselja u Bosni u XV. stoljecu", Studije o Bosni (Istanbul: 1994), p. 95. Remarkably, the tekke at Orlovici retained its tax-exempt status until 1925, and remained for many generations in the privilege custody of the same family; see Muhamed Hadzijahic, "Tekija kraj Zvornika Postojbina bosanskih Prilozi, 10-11 (1960-61), pp. 195-6; and Cehaji, DerviSki Redovi, pp. 203-4. Hamzevija?", Declared a protected historical monument in 1954, it has presumably been destroyed together with all other Muslim monuments in the regions of northeastern Bosnia overrun by Serb forces in 1992. '"Alexander Lopasic, "Islamization of the Balkans with Special Reference to Bosnia", Journal of Islamic Studies, 5:2 (July 1994), p. 169, n. 28. "Vicdan, Tomar, p. 54. of name and "'Hadzijahic, "Tekija kraj Zvomika", pp. 220-21. Apart from coincidences cites in support of this hypothesis the fact that the tekke lacks a approximate location, Hadiijahic semahane, 21Evliya elebi, a structure for the performance of zikir. See also ehajic, DerviSki Redovi, pp. 204-5. Seyahatname, ed. Ahmed Cevdet (Istanbul: 1318/1900), vol. VI, p. 490. Reiches (Pest: 1834), vol. II, p. 594.

"Hadiijahic, "Tekija kraj Zvornika", p. 203. "Joseph von Hammer, Geschichte des osmanischen 24Cited in Vicdan, Tornar, p. 54. "Glpinarli, Melmlik ve Melmler, p. 72. "Sari Abdullah Efendi, Semert -Fud (Istanbul: Tornar, p. 55. 2"Adem Handzic and Muhamed "Vicdan, Prilozi, 20-21 (1970-71), mIbid, pp. 53-4. MIbid, p. 54. p. 53. Hadzijahic,

1288/1871). u Bosni 1573. godine",

"O progonu Hamzevija

"Glpinarli, Melmlik ve Melmler, p. 72. 32Mnir, Silsiletii -Mukarrebin, ms. ehid Ali Paja 2819, f. 140a-b. See also Tayyib Oki, documents indits concernant les Hamzawites", Proceedings of the Twenty Second "Quelques Congress of Orientalists (Istanbul, 1951), Leiden, 1957, II, p. 283, n. 4; and Gilles Veinstein and Nathalie Clayer, "L'Empire (Paris: 1996), pp. 335-6. "Ahmet Ottoman", in Les Voies d'Allah, eds. Alexandre Popovic and Veinstein,

ractions socio Yaar Ocak reports having searched for them in vain ("Les n. cit., 79, 24). op. p. religieuses", Bal was for long thought to have been executed in 969/1561, this being the year "Hamza -Hakaikfi Tekmileti 's-$akaik (Istanbul: assigned to the event by Nevzade At' in his Hadaiku of the firman of 980/1573 calling 1268/1852), p. 70. The publication by Handiic and Hadiijahic for Hamza

Bali's arrest obviously invalidates this dating. According to these two scholars, the only source for the exact date of the execution is the somewhat problematic account of Stefanus Gerlach (to be discussed below): if he is to be trusted, Hamza Bali was put to death on June 6, 1573. Joseph assigns the event to the early days of Murad Ill's reign, which began in 982/1574, citing as his authority a report from David Ungnad, the Habsburg envoy whom Gerlach accompanied to Istanbul (Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, II, p. 594). At all events, the execution cannot have taken place later than 982/1574, for it was in that year that Ebusud Efendi, the issuer of the von Hammer fatal fetva, passed "Glpinarli, on from this world. Melmlik p. 70. ve Melmler, op. cit., p. 73.

"At', Hadaik,

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hamid algar/The

Hamzeviye:

A Deviant

Movement

in Bosnian

Sufism

"Glpinarli, Melmlik ve Melmler, p. 73. "Udio Hamzevija '"See Muhamed Hadzijahic, Prilozi, 5 (1954-5), pp. 325-30. 39Oki, "Quelques ""At', Hadaik, "'Oki, nlbid., "Ibid., "Ibid., "Ibid., "'Ibid., documents", p. 283. p. 286. p. 282.

u atentatu na Mehmed-Pau

Sokolovica",

"Quelques documents", pp. 283-4. p. 284. p. 284. p. 285. p. 285.

"At', Hadaik, p. 283. ""See Spaho Dz. Fehim, (1968-69), pp. 267-84. "'See Pasi", "Text in Omer Music, "See Cehajic, 1993),

"Jos nekoliko

dokumenata

o uzickom

sejhu",

Prilozi,

18-19

the firman of the governor of Rumeli dated 1162/1748 "Poslanica Sejha Muhameda Uzicanina Prilozi, 2 (1951), p. 188.

in ibid, p. 281. beogradskom valiji Muhamed

Glpinarli, Melmlik ve Melmler, pp. 76-7; Oki, "Quelques documents", p. 285; Derviki Redovi, p. 206; H.T. Norris, Islam in the Balkans, Columbia (South Carolina:

al-Athar (Cairo: 1284/1867), I, pp. 16-17. 3See Ktib elebi, Kashf al-Zunn, eds. erefettin Yaltkaya and Rifat Bilge (Istanbul: 1971), II, cols. 1613-14. 54The application to Hamza of the secular title "Bey" is intended as an ironic rejection of his spiritual pretensions. "The "slave" in question upon whom God, in this precis of Hamzev secrets is, of course, Hamza Bali himself. sredine XVI i6Text and translation in Ibrahim Mehinagic, "etiri neobjavljena vijeka", Prilozi, 18-19 (1968-69), pp. 219-20. teachings, bestows His iz

pp. 118-19. 52A1-Muhibb, Khulsat

izvori o Hamzevijama

"Text and translation, ibid, pp. 233-48. See also Glpinarli, Melmlik ve Melmler, p. 76, and Oki, "Quelques documents", pp. 281-2. It should be noted that this categorical rejection of vahdet-i viicud does not negate the high esteem in which Ibn 'Arabi was generally held by the Un ocan sans rivage (Paris: 1992), pp. 35-6. Ottomans; see Michel Chodkiewicz, pp. 249-66. Iranica, vol. II, pp. 841-44. in Bektachiyya, pp. 39-53. "'See Hamid "Cited in Glpinarli, Melmlik ve Melmler, pp. 53 and 59. ''-Ibid., p. 100, and Imber, "Malmatiyya", p. 226. "Text and translation in Mehinagic, "Cetiri neobjavljena izvori", pp. 221-32. izvori", 59See Hamid Algar, "Astarbd, Fazlallh", Encyclopaedia Algar, "The Hurfi Influence on Bektashism", "Stefanus (Geschichte attributes to Hamza and Gerlach, Tagebuch (Frankfurt am Main: 1674), p. 22. Joseph von Hammer also Bal! belief in the divinity of Jesus, citing unpublished reports made by Ungnad des osmanischen Reiches, vol. II, p. 594). Concerning the mission to Istanbul of Ungnad Gerlach, 5"Text and translation in Mehinagic, "Cetiri neobjavljena

see Szalay Lszl, Utazsai 1986). Ungnd Dvid Konstantinpolyi (Budapest: According to Handzic and Hadzijahic ("Progon hamzevija", pp. 63-4), the French ambassador to the Ottoman court, Philippe Canaye, also described Hamza Bali as a believer in the divinity of Jesus. A preliminary scanning of the voluminous and unindexed writings of Canaye (Lettres et Ambassades, Paris, 1635) has failed to locate the relevant pages. 65If there were Hamzevs in Hungary, it is almost certain that they were Bosnians. Conversion to Islam was minimal during the one and a half centuries of Ottoman rule, apart from which much of the civil and military administration of Ottoman Hungary was in the hands of Bosnians. M'The accuracy of Gerlach's account is accepted unquestioningly by Smail Balie, Das unbekannte Bosnien: Weimar and Vienna, 1992), Europas Brcke zur islamischen Welt (Cologne: pp. 104-5. but dismissed as unlikely by Handzic and Hadzijahic ("Progon hamzevija", pp. 66-7). On Molla Kabiz, see the sources cited by Ocak in "Les ractions socio-religieuses", p. 77, . 19,

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Islamic

Studies

36:2,

3 (1997)

261

and on the Hbmesihs, vol. V, p. 41.

see Hamid Algar, "KhbmeshTs".

Encyclopaedia

of Islam (new edition),

"Henry Blount, an English traveller resident in Turkey from 1634 to 4636, justly remarked: "There is seldom any compulsion of conscience, and then not by death, where no criminal offence gives occasion" (A voyage into the Levant, London, 1745, vol. I, p. 548). "Miiniri "Vicdani, Belgradi, Silsiletii -Mukarrebin, f. 140a. Tomar, p. 66; Glpinarli, Melmlik ve Velmler, pp. 202-3. It is remarkable that Hariri, otherwise Tomar, pp. 55-6.

exhaustive in his 7"Vicdan, enumeration of orders and suborders, makes no mention of the Hamzeviye, either as a subject in its This own right or under the heading of the Melamiye (Tibyn Vesili -Hakaik, III, ff. 130a-146b). may be on account of his devotion to Seyyid Muhammed Nur el-Arab, with whom the Hamzevis shared at least the designation Melami, and a desire on his part to exempt his master from even nominal connection with a heretical group. "Glpinarli, nIbid 1973), Melmlik ve MelmUer, p. 74. Jezicirm (Sarajevo: p. 78. 73See Hazim Sabanovic,

Knjizevnost Muslimana BiH na Orientalnim pp. 216-19, and Glpinarli, Melmlik ve Melmler, pp. 79-84. 1AIbid., pp. 123-8; Imber, "Malmatiyya", p. 227. "Poslanica Sejha Muhameda", "Music, p. 188. 76Glpinarli, Melmlik ve Melmler, pp. 158-61. "Glpinarli, Tiirkiye'de Mezhepler ve Tarikatler, p. 266. 7"MuSi, "Poslanica Sejha Muhameda", p. 188. nIbid., p. 189. ""Glpinarli, "'Glpinarli,

pp. 181-9. "2GIpinarli, Tiirkiye'de Mezhepler ve Tarikatler, p. 268. "'Balie, Das unbekannte Bosnien, p. 105. Balie had already made the connection between Hamza Bali and the Patarenes in an earlier work, Die Kultur der Bosniaken (Vienna, 1978), p. 26, where he further attributes to him a cult of love and extreme devotion to Jesus. ""Concerning the Bosnian Church, often misidentified as Bogomil, Bosnian Church: A New Interpretation (Boulder, Colorado: 1975). "'Cehajic, Derviski Redovi, pp. 204-5. pote bosniaque see J.V.A. Fine, The

"Bayramiye", p. 426. Melmlik ve Melmler,

"'For a careful study of Kaimi Baba, see Jasna Samic, Divan de Kaim: Vie et oeuvre d'un du vii' sicle (Paris: 1986). revoluciname tradicije", p. 591. "Hadzijahic, "Zapostavljene "*Oki remarks quite categorically that "the people of Bosnia have not preserved the slightest existence" ("Quelques documents", p. 285). memory of their (= the Hamzevis')

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