The Hamzeviye a Deviant Movement in Bosnian Sufism

THE HAMZEVIYE: A DEVIANT MOVEMENT IN BOSNIAN SUFISMAuthor(s): HAMID ALGARReviewed work(s):Source: Islamic Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2/3, Special Issue: ISLAM IN THE BALKANS(Summer/Autumn 1997), pp. 243-261Published by: Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, IslamabadStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23076196 .

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Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1997)

THE HAMZEVIYE: A DEVIANT MOVEMENT IN BOSNIAN SUFISM

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 conquest in the second half of the

fifteenth century — the Mevlevîs, the Nakçibendîs, the Kadiris, and the Halvetîs — were the same as those deemed legitimate and acceptable in the Ottoman

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

the Bosnians.1 As a result, the Bektaçî order, which may be described, in its tenets and rites, as an amalgam of antinomian, pseudo-Shï'T and Christian

elements, was never accorded in Bosnia the welcome it enjoyed from Muslims elsewhere in the Balkans, especially Albania and Macedonia.2

To this general pattern of jeríaí-observant Sunnï Sufism in Bosnia, the

Hamzeviye form an interesting exception. Evidently possessing widespread

appeal for several decades, not only in parts of Bosnia but also in Ottoman-ruled

Serbia and Hungary, the Hamzeviye came to be perceived as a threat — albeit

a localized and relatively minor one — to the political and religious cohesion of

the Ottoman State. Its adherents were accordingly combated with great rigour,

but even after its suppression in Bosnia, the Hamzevî order had a certain

prolongation in Istanbul, where a combination of secrecy and at least outward

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

Sufism, into the early years of the twentieth century.

I The ancestry of the Hamzeviye can be traced to Haci Bayram Veli (d. 833/1429-30) of Ankara, eponym of the Bayram? order. Through his master, Hamidiiddin Aksarayî (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

conquest of political power.3 Because of these suspicions, as well as a



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 emphasis upon which was

becoming increasingly a pillar of Ottoman policy. He was succeeded as head of the Bayramiye by Akçemsettin of Göynük, a Syrian who had joined his

following in 830/1426. Akçemsettin was close to Sultan Muhammed Fatih, whom he accompanied on the conquest of Istanbul in 857/1453, a clear

demonstration of the acceptability of the reformed Bayramiye to the Ottoman

house. Two branches of the Bayramiye descended from Akçemsettin, the

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

Biçakçi (or Sikkinî, "the Cutler"; d. 880/1475-6) of Bursa, who disputing Akçemsettin'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 Bayramî 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 on sober and anonymous devotion and rejected the outward

appurtenances and public ceremonies favoured then as later by many Sufis.5 In

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 Imams that excluded all awareness of,

or adherence to, the Fikih of Shi'I Islam; and above all a crude, hyperbolic and

ecstatically proclaimed version of vahdet-i viicud.1 Omer Dede was succeeded

by Bünyamin from Aya§ near Ankara. Suspected of planning a revolt in Central

Anatolia, he was imprisoned for several years in the citadel of Kiitahya before

benefiting from an amnesty on the occasion of Sultan Siileyman's conquest of

Rhodes in 929/1523 (although he is also said to have died in 926/1520).8 Ayaçî's successor, Pir Ali Aksarayî (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, 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 Maçukî, to Istanbul, most likely as a hostage for his father's good behaviour, is nonetheless plausible, although Bayramî-Melamî 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 Maçukî is said to have had his followers adopt



Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1997) 245

as their form of zikir the expression Allahim, a deliberately ambiguous utterance

which might mean either "my God!" or "I am God". Not content with this, he

proclaimed the gyrating dance that accompanied this zikir as an integral part of

the §eriat, not simply a permissible (miibah) form of supererogatory worship. On account of this, as well as other "utterances deemed incompatible with the

obvious sense of the §eriat", and despite repeated warnings to flee, Ismail

Maçukî was put to death in 935/1529 in accordance with a fetva delivered by the

§eyhiilislam of the day, the eminent scholar Kemalpaçazade (d. 940/1534)." The Bayramî-Melamîs thus acquired their first generally 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, indeed, to have aroused persistent discontent in Istanbul,

for several years later it was found necessary to issue a further fetva declaring

that anyone who proclaimed Ismail Maçukî to have been killed unjustly was himself deserving of execution.12

Pir Ali's principal initiatic successor was Ahmed Sarban, "the

Cameleer", of Hayrabolu in Thrace. His career marked the first presence of the

Bayramî-Melamîs in Europe, and it is possible that their doctrines first reached Bosnia under his auspices. Despite a fervent devotion to the Twelve Imams 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

Ankaravî (d. 964/1556-7), his main successor in the Bayramî-Melamî 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 Bayramî-Melamî line had acquired by this point its leading

doctrinal characteristics: a virtually incarnationist understanding of vahdet-i

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

Bayramî-Melamîs, regarding themselves and more particularly their leaders as

the very "form of God" (suret-i Rahman), had little reason to respect the

authority of the Ottoman sultans. It remained only for the igneous compound

they had brewed to be lit by Hamza Bali, the Bosnian.

II

Nothing definite or precise is known of Hamza Bali before his appearance in the circle of Husameddin Ankaravî as a Sufi remarkable even among the Bayramî Melamîs for the extent of his ecstatic distraction. The Ottoman sources, whether

Bayramî-Melamî or official, tell us nothing of his early life or exact place of

birth in Bosnia.




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 nowhere encountered in the Ottoman sources. The

confidence of these scholars derives from the existence at Orlovici of a tekke

founded in 926/1519 by a certain §eyh Hamza (or Hamza Dede), formerly a

sipahi, who renounced a timar (military fief) of 7000 akças in exchange for all the lands and cattle attached to the shrine being made tax-exempt in perpetuity.17

One recent writer, Alexander Lopasic, has gone so far as to speculate that

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 a relatively uncommon name might indeed be taken as a

possible sign of veneration for a recent ancestor. It is, however, to Husameddin

Ankaravi that the bestowal of this name on BalT is reliably attributed: in thus

naming him after the uncle of the Prophet martyred at Uhud, his 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 Çelebî (d. 1095/1684), noted the existence in Konjevic of a Muslim hamlet of some hundred families, of a shrine dedicated to "the famous Hindi Hamza Baba", who had died while

accompanying Sultan Muhammed Fatih on the conquest of Zvornik.21 Despite

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 that the tekke mentioned by Evliya Çelebî was indeed that established

by §eyh Hamza, and that "towards the middle of the sixteenth century it must

have been transferred from an otherwise unknown Hindi order to the

Hamzeviye".22 It goes without saying that no order by the name of Hindi is

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 Çelebî might occasionally be, it is unlikely that he would have remained silent on a connection between the shrine at

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




seek his fortunes in the Ottoman capital, for it is said that he was initially in the service of a vizier, possibly Pertev Paça the Albanian (d. 982/1574).23 Before

long, as it was phrased by a later Bayramî-Melamî writer, La'lízade Abdülbakí

(d. 1165/1752), "he became drunk on the wine of love as a result of extreme

ascetic practice",24 and he transferred his loyalties from the vizier to

Husameddin Ankaravî. Under Husameddin's tutelage, he continued to mortify

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

asceticism and was now enjoying a most luxurious diet. After the death of

Husameddin, he returned to Bosnia, where he began frequenting the taverns in

search of followers. His standard line of appeal is said to have been: "O son!

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

attraction; as it was put by Sari Abdullah Efendi (d. 1071/1660), "whoever came into his presence, whether from the elite or the common people, would be

drawn involuntarily to him".26

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 (ir§ad)", and petitioned the authorities in Istanbul to intervene in the matter.27 In response, on 19 Zilhicce 980/22 April 1573, a firman was

issued calling for Hamza Bali, then living in Gornja Tuzla (Upper Tuzla), to be arrested and handed over to the bearer of the firman, the çavu§ Mustafa, for

transfer to Istanbul.28 A second firman issued the same day instructed the

sancakbey of Bosnia-Herzegovina to apprehend the followers of Hamza Ball and

dispatch them too to the capital.29 Four months later, a similar firman was sent

not only to the sancakbey of Bosnia but also to his counterpart at Pozega in

Slavonia and even the beylerbeyi of Budin in Hungary calling for the arrest of

Hamzavis.30 This suggests unmistakably that the Hamzeviye had already spread

beyond the confines of Hamza Bali's native Bosnia. Once Hamza Bali had arrived in Istanbul, his case was brought before

the §eyhülislam, 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 capital. "He is an ignorant and deficient person", they told him, "apart

from which he is on the same path as Oglan §eyh, who was put to death in

accordance with the fetva of Kemalpaçazade". Apparently without interrogating

Hamza Bali himself, Ebussuud Efendi then delivered the following fetva·. "The execution of Oglan §eyh Ismail Maçukî in accordance with the fetva of my teacher, the late Kemalpaçazade, was on account of his heresy and irreligion (zandaka ve ilhad). If §eyh Hamza is on the same heretical path, it will be

legitimate to put him to death".31

A somewhat different account of the reasons for Hamza Bali's

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




Balkans and their principal shaykhs in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. According to Münirí, 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, Hamza Bali was sentenced to death.32 Münirí asserts having heard this

version of the matter from persons present at an interrogation of Hamza Bali,

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 the formally stated reasons for the execution may have been

— for the relevant archival documents have not yet come to light33 — Hamza

Bali was put to death in front of the Deveoglu fountain near the Süleymaniye mosque, most probably within six weeks of his arrest in Gornja Tuzla.34 A stone

that still stands purports to mark the exact spot; it has the form of a grave

marker, briefly describes Hamza Bali with the sentence quoted above from Sari

Abdullah Efendi, and erroneously gives 969/1561 as the date 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 master's agony and slit his own throat, "as if he were slaughtering a cow".

"Not even an animal would slaughter itself thus", comments Ata'i 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 Pa§a, follower of a Mevlevî shaykh, Osman

Salaheddin Dede, who had conceived a veneration for the slain Sufi.37

IV The execution of Hamza Bali, far from marking the end of his influence, seems

to have invigorated his followers and hastened their development into a fully

insurrectionary movement. The assassination in Istanbul of the great minister

Mehmed Sokollu Pa§a in 987/1589 may well have been the work of a

Hamzevî,38 but it was primarily in Bosnia that the rebellious potential of the movement unfolded. This process may have begun as early as 975/1567, for a firman dated 1 Cemaziiilevvel 990/24 May 1582 alludes to 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.

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




entrusted primarily to Bali Efendi of Sarajevo, the supreme kadi of Bosnia. After interrogating the Hamzevîs of the Two Tuzlas (Gornja

— Upper, and

Dolnja — Lower), Bali Efendi "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 first two, 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 put on trial in Gornja Tuzla (where,

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 Hamzevîs mixed promiscuously with women in the course of

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 Hamzevîs, 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 Hamzevîs, but stresses the necessity of pursuing 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

Çevval 990/4 October 1582 which laments the escape of ten leading Hamzevîs

from Gornja Tuzla. Among them were the following members of the shadow

government set up by the Hamzevîs: Mehmed b. Hasan, the "Sultan"; Hüseyn

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 the

Hamzevîs and had their property confiscated. It was the personal responsibility of the beylerbeyi of Bosnia to ensure their grievances be redressed.45 This firman

is one of several indications that care was exercized from Istanbul to prevent the

struggle against the Hamzevîs from degenerating into a witchhunt which could

have destablized the area more than the Hamzevî movement itself.

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




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

remarks, at the conclusion of his notice of Bali Efendi: "Even now, those

arrogant, mentally deficient heretics of corrupt belief (the Hamzevis) are 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 to the survival of at least scattered remnants of the

Hamzeviye into the early part of the 11th/17th century. Attempts have been made to link these remnants with a far later

insurrectionary movement, led by a certain §eyh Muhammed of Uzice in Serbia,

who in the middle of the 12th/18th century encouraged his followers both there and across the Drina in Bosnia to refuse payment of the allegedly extortionate

taxes levied by the Ottoman authorities.48 However, this movement appears to

have been a simple protest against fiscal injustice with no overtones of doctrinal

nonconformity; Ottoman documents accuse the shaykh only of inciting

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

an army of Hamzevis?50 This rhetorical question makes it plain that for §eyh Muhammed the Hamzevis were to be regarded as unbelievers, on a par with the

Austrians, and as potential foes of his movement, not allies. The most that can

be surmised is that some latter-day Bosnian Hamzevis may have rallied to the

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

ν Also unproven is the assumption made by a number of scholars, Bosnian and

other, that a Bayramî-Melamî from Bosnia living in Egypt was the grandson of

Hamza Bali.51 This self-exiled Sufi was §eyh Ibrahim b. Teymurhan b. Hamza

b. Muhammed er-Rumî el-Hanefi, concerning whom our sole source of

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

uncontrollably ecstatic character, as might be expected of a Bayramî-Melamî. He was born and grew up in Bosnia (no precise location is given) before

travelling to meet the great saints. He adopted a different name in each city where he alighted; he was 'All in Istanbul, Hasan in Makkah, Muhammad in Madïnah, 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, including the realatively well-known Muhriqat al-Qulübfí Ί-Shawq li 'Alläm al

GhuyübP He died in Cairo in 1026/1617-18. His line of initiatic descent was: Haci Bayram Veli; Omer Dede Biçakçi; Seyyid Cafer; §eyh Muhammed Rumî. The last two names in this line, implausibly brief and designated by al-Muhibbï as Gilanî-Bayramî (an inexplicable compound, unless it implies a merging of Kadirî and Bay rami lineages), are not to be found in any source on the Bay rami




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

Bali, one would expect the grandfather or one of his teachers or associates to be

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

Hamza Bali and his putative grandfather, Hamza Dede, the founder of the tekke at Orlovici.

VI From the appeal it exerted and the energy displayed by the Ottomans in

combating it, the Hamzeviye appears to have been a movement of some

importance in Bosnia and contiguous territories, at least for a time. The precise nature of the doctrinal elements that inspired both the attraction and the

repulsion is not, however, immediately apparent. The accounts of Hamza Bali's

condemnation are incomplete and to a certain extent contradictory, and unlike

many of his predecessors in the Bayramî-Melamî line, he left no verse from

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 to dispute the verdict that he was on the same heretical path as

Ismail Ma§uki — 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 by the

Bayramî-Melamîs of Istanbul who identified themselves as Hamzevî, it cannot

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

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

the Bosnian Hamzeviye, whether or not they emanated from Hamza Bali

himself: a handful of contemporary writings intended in whole or in part to

refute the Hamzevî heresy. One such piece consists of sixteen lines of

anonymous Turkish verse entitled Ta 'rif-i Rical-i Hamzeviye (A Description of

the Hamzevîs). For the author, their principal error lay in rejecting the Sufi

consensus that discipline and prolonged self-denial are essential for attaining

nearness to God:

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




you'll find!/ In short, without requiring any exertion, God makes aware of the secret of His essence"./ The Hamzevîs 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 Amikî with the aim of dissuading the son of a sipahi — presumably a

personal friend — from succumbing to the allurements of the Hamzevî

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 Hamzevî had displayed to him "the eighteen thousand

worlds", Amikî retorts that this apparent miracle must have been the result of

satanic inspiration (istidrac). As for the divine love the Hamzevîs profess, "look with the eye of fairness", Amikî advises, "and see what station must be reached for this love to become attainable; the empty and painless sighs (ah-i serd ve bî

derd) of the Hamzevîs are certainly not enough". Most telling of all, when the

young man cites the Qur'änic expression, "I inhaled in him (Adam) from My own spirit" (15:29 and 38:72), in defence of Hamzevî doctrine, Amikî 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 Yigitba§i Ahmed Efendi, an otherwise unknown author, which is in its essence an exposition of the true

nature of visionary knowledge (marifet-i çuhudi). In its opening sections, it warns against mistaking every paranormal phenomenon as a keramet

(charismatic deed), particularly the wondrous feats attributed by the Hamzevîs to their eponym. Yigitbasi stresses additionally, as Mehmed Amikî 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

Finally, in a fragmentary, undated and anonymous text that appears to

be part of a book of ilmihal (an elementary summary of Islamic doctrine and

practice), written at a time when the Hamzevis were still active in Bosnia, the

Hamzevîs are significantly paired with the Hurufis as subversive heretics and

unbelievers. The Hurufi movement, established by Fazlullah Astarabadî (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 Hurufî movement was able to transmit its influence to both Anatolia and the Balkans. The principal vehicle of this Hurufî influence was the

Bektasî order, which, as noted at the outset, never found much favour in Bosnia.60 There can be little doubt, however, that Hurufî teachings also

influenced other Sufi orders, albeit less noticeably in some cases. The Hurufi inclinations of several Bayramî-Melamî shaykhs are

unmistakable. Ismail Maçukî proclaimed in one of his poems, "my body is



Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 ( 1 997) 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 you see!/ Know that the human mirror is the very

form of the All-Compassionate; come, look in the mirror, and see in it that

King"!61 Idris-i Muhtefi, a post-Hamza Bayramî-Melamî of Istanbul to be

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

of facial hair that are the physiognomical analogue of the Fâtihah.62 Even in the absence of such textual evidence, it would be permissible to deduce an essential

affinity between Hurufis and Hamzevis from the respective doctrines of the two

groups; the Hurufi belief in the substantial divinity of the human person amounted to the same as the incarnationist interpretation given 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 çavu§ to arrest him,

Gerlach affirmed, but the "new teacher" voluntarily came forth to meet the

çavus 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 Hamzevï

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 Hûbmesihîs.66



hamid ALGAR/The Hamzeviye: A Deviant Movement in Bosnian Sufism

Despite these flaws in Gerlach's account, it has at least the merit of

drawing attention to the political aspect of the matter, to the Ottoman

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

times, to earn execution, but it was a different matter when 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 Bayramî-Melamî line.

Attempting to exculpate the Hamzevîs, Münirí 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 Hamzevîs, however, the title "sultan" was more than an

emotional honorific; it conveyed a rejection of Ottoman authority and the

recognition of Hamza Bali as a counter-sultan. The Hamzevî will to power was

apparent, too, from the succession to the counter-sultanate of Mehmed b. Hasan

and his appointment of all the principal officers of state. The messianism of the

early Bayramî-Melamîs had been translated into a recognizable political structure.

It was, of course, unlikely that a movement like that of the Hamzevîs

could seriously threaten the Ottoman State, then at the apogee of its power and

territorial expansion. Equally, however, there was no reason to tolerate the

Hamzevî agitation, particularly in Bosnia, Slavonia and Hungary, the sensitive borderlands of the Ottoman State with the Christian world. Even the branch of the Hamzevî movement that survived in Istanbul functioned as something of a

state within a state: it punished its members for infractions such as drunkenness

and slander, without recourse to the established judicial authorities, by

imprisoning them in the basement of the Peçtemalcilar Hani that functioned as

its headquarters in the Ottoman capital.69

VII In a work on the history of the Sufi orders first published in 1920, Mehmed Sadik Vicdanî 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

Gölpinarli, 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-á-vis the main body of the order by initiatic descent from Hamza Bali, but that the Bayramî-Melamîs as a whole occasionally used the title Hamzevî as an alternative designation for their order. Strong in the immediate

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



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 interpretation of vahdet i viicud that had been traditional in the Bayramî-Melamî 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, kendüdür)".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), whose more nuanced and scholarly understanding of vahdet-i viicud

found expression in a masterly commentary on Ibn 'Arabi's Fusüs al-Hikam; and

Hüseyn Lamekanî (d. 1035/1625-26), who was born in Pest but lived and died in Istanbul and laid heavy stress on the necessity of adherence to the §eriat,

whether by way of precaution or out 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, better known as Idris-i Muhtefi on account of his ability to frequent

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

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

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

Bayramî-Melamî/Hamzevî order and the practitioners of this trade.74 The

basement of the Peçtemalcilar Hani where delinquent members of the order were

incarcerated seems also to have fulfilled more general functions, for according

to a letter written by §eyh Muhaammed of Uzice to the governor of Belgrade,

the Hamzevis of Istanbul were popularly known as podrumh, "people of the

basement".75

This literally subterranean existence of the order did not suffice to

ensure the safety of its members. In 1073/1662-63, Siitçû ("the Milkman") Bejir Aga, a nonagenarian Hamzevî, was strangled, together with forty or so

followers, and thrown into the Golden Horn near Fenerbahçe.76 He was,

however, the last of the Bayramî-Melamî/Hamzevî martyrs, and by the early

twelfth/eighteenth century the order had gained such respectability that we find even a §eyhulislam, Paçmakzade Seyyid Ali (d. 1124/1712), and a sadriazam,

§ehid Ali Paça (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 Hamzevîs: "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




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 Hamzevîs 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 Hamzevîs

are 40,000 in number, they will come forth in open insurrection (huruc edeceklerdir)71 The gate of Hamzevi insurrection had, however, long since been closed in Bosnia, and in Istanbul it had barely ever been inched open.

The renunciation of extremist doctrine, originally a matter of outward

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. (A similar

process many centuries earlier had made possible the absorption of Mansür al

Hallâj into the common patrimony of Sufism). More significantly, the order's

understanding of vahdet-i viicud became modified to such an extent that reconciliation with the §emsîs and an effective restoration of Bayramî unity were

achieved. This took place under the auspices of two §emsî shaykhs, Hafiz

Seyyid Ali Efendi (d. 1254/1838) and Ibrahim Efendi (d. 1316/1898).80 The last notable figure of the Bayramî-Melamî/Hamzevî tradition was Seyyid Abdülkadir Belhî (d. 1339/1921), an immigrant from Balkh in Afghanistan who somewhat

incongruously combined an inherited affiliation to the Nakçibendiye with a

loyalty to a Hamzevi shaykh of Bosnian origin resident in Istanbul, Seyyid Re§ad Bosnevî.81 Abdülkadir was succeeded by his son, Seyyid Ahmed Muhtar (d.

1352/1933), but the organized existence of the Hamzevîs of Istanbul was already at an end, for in 1908 their headquarters in the Peçtemalcilar Hani at Kirkçe§me

had burned to the ground. Thereafter, as Gölpinarli 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 Hamzevî movement and to exalt it as an expression of Bosnian "national spirit". The perceived need to assert a trans-historical Bosnian essence, with roots in the pre-Ottoman past, is

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 gnostic views associated with the

Patarene doctrine",83 Patarene being a term sometimes used to designate the

Bosnian Church of pre-Ottoman times which was neither Catholic nor Orthodox.84 The Hamzeviye thus become a bridge between pre-Muslim and



Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1 997) 257

Muslim Bosnia, an element of "national" continuity. Citing, like Balie, the

suspect report of Gerlach on the alleged Christian inclinations of Hamza Bali,

the late Dzemal Cehajic goes so far as to congratulate Hamza on having

elaborated a "balanced synthesis of Islam and Christianity, typical for Bosnia", and thereby contributing to "the absorption of Islam into the popular

consciousness". He further attributes to him a courageous although unsuccessful

attempt to confront "the formalistic concepts of the ulema and the ascetic

orientation of the Sufi orders, the pedagogical methods of which were based on

fantasy and dream".85 The notion of the Hamzeviye as a stubborn refuge of

Bosnian spirit is also encountered outside the realm of scholarship. Mesa

Selimovic, best known for his novel Dervis'i Smrt, summoned up the ghost of the Hamzeviye to serve as the centrepiece of another historical novel, Tvrdava

(Sarajevo, 1970), the fortress of the title serving as a metaphor for national tradition.

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 Bayramî-Melamî 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; even its heterodox elements were of Ottoman

derivation. It may be argued that it was in Bosnia alone that the insurrectionary

aspects of the Bayramî-Melamî tradition came closest to fulfilment, presumably

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

genesis and the most substantial prolongation of the movement take place outside

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 were depicted as rebels against feudalism who hid their progressive

goals beneath a mask of religious deviance; in this, they were linked not only

to the movement of §eyh Muhammed of Uzice, but also to Hasan Kaimî Baba

(d. 1102/1691), a Kadirî shaykh with rebellious inclinations, as well as miscellaneous disturbances of the mid-eighteenth century.86 Thus in an article

published in 1970, Muhamed Hadzijahic went so far as to lament the absence of Hamza Bali from Josef Leo Seiferd'söz'e Weltrevolutionäre von Bogomil über

Hus zu Lenin (Vienna, 1930), a work describing the contribution of the Slavic

peoples to the development of revolutionary and collectivist thought.87 It need

hardly be remarked that there is no hint of collectivism either in the surviving

words of the Bayramî-Melamî/Hamzevîs themselves or in the record of the

charges raised against them by their adversaries.




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 äehajic, Derviski Redovi

u Jugoslovenskim Zemljama sa Posebnim Osvrtom na Bosnu i Hercegovinu (Sarajevo, 1986). ■

Concerning the rarity of Bektaçîs in Bosnia, see Jasna Samic, "Où sont les Bektachis de

Bosnie?" in Bektachiyya: Études sur l'ordre mystique des Bektachis et les groupes relevant de Hadji

Bektach, eds. Alexandre Popovic and Gilles Veinstein (Istanbul: 1995), pp. 381-91.

3In his encyclopaedic survey of the Sufi orders, Tibyân Vesâili Ί-Hakaik ve Selâsili 't-Tarâik, Kemalettin Hariri classifies the Bayramiye simply as "a branch of the Safeviye" (ms. Ibrahim Efendi

430, I, f. 174a). "On Haci Bayram Veli and the Bayramiye, see Mehmed Ali Aynî, Had Bayram Veli (Istanbul:

1343/1924); Abdiilbaki Gölpinarli, Melâmîlik ve Melâmîler (Istanbul: 1931), pp. 33-9; idem,

"Bayramiye", islam Ansiklopedisi, vol. II, pp. 423-6; idem, Tiirkiye'de Mezfiepler ve Tarikatler

(Istanbul: 1969), pp. 236-41; Hans Joachim Kissling, "Zur Geschichte des Derwischordens der

Baijramijje", Südost-Forschungen, 15 (1956), pp. 237-68; Fuat Bayramoglu, Haci Bayram-i Veli, 2 vols. (Ankara: 1983), idem and Nihat Azamat, "Bayramiye", Türkiye Diyanet Vakfi islam

Ansiklopedisi, V, 269-73; Hamid Algar, "Bayramiye", Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Modem Islamic

World, vol. I, pp. 206-7.

'See Hamid Algar, "Mälamatiyya 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

interconnected periods the second of which comprises the Bayramiye-Melamiye, was first put 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 Gölpinarli, the eminent historian of Turkish Sufism, in his Melâmîlik ve Melâmîler. It is nonetheless questionable whether

anything more than the name Melami (or Melameti) links together the Melametis of Khurasan, the

Bayramiye-Melamiye, and the "third stage Melamis", the Melamiye-Nuriye established in 19th

century Macedonia by Seyyid Muhammed Nur el-Arabî. Insofar as there is any long-term transmission of the original Melameti principles, it must be sought in the early Nakjibendi tradition

of Transoxiana. See Hamid Algar, "Éléments de provenance Malämafl dans la tradition primitive

Naqshbandi", forthcoming in the papers of the conference on the Melamiye held at the Institut

Français d'Études Anatoliennes, Istanbul, in May 1987.

7See Vicdani, Tornar, pp. 42-7; C.H. Imber, "Malamatiyya in Ottoman Turkey",

Encyclopaedia of Islam (new edition), vol. VI, p. 226. Gölpinarli'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) is not completely convincing.

"Gölpinarli, Melâmîlik ve Melâmîler, pp. 42-3.

*Ibid, pp. 43-5.

'"Vicdani, Tomar, pp. 50-51.

"Gölpinarli, Melâmîlik ve Melâmîler, pp. 48-54; Vicdani, Tornar, p. 52; Imber,

"Malamatiyya", p. 227.

l2See M. Ertugrul Diizdag, §eyhiilislam Ebussuûd Efendi Fetvalari (Istanbul: 1983),

pp. 85-6, 196.

''Gölpinarli, Melâmîlik ve Melâmîler, pp. 55-67; Vicdani, Tornar, pp. 52-3.

'■"Gölpinarli, Melâmîlik ve Melâmîler, p. 71; Vicdani, Tornar, p. 53; Ahmed Refik, Onaltinci

asirda Rafizîlik ve Bektafilik (Istanbul: 1932), pp. 24-5.




"See Ahmet Ya$ar Ocak, "Les réactions socio-religieuses contre l'idéologie officielle ottomane

et la question de zendeqa ve ilhad (hérésie et athéisme) au XVIs siècle", Turcica, 21-2 (1991), p. 74.

"'Safvet Basagic, Kratka uputa u proüost Bosne i Hercegovine (Sarajevo: 1895), p. 39; idem,

BoSnjaci i Hercegovci u islamskoj knjiievnosti (Sarajevo: 1912), p. 25; Muhamed Hadiijahic,

"Zapostavljene revolucióname tradicije: Hamza Orlovic i Hamzevije", Pregled, 60:6 (November

December 1970), pp. 591-5.

l7Adem Handzic, "Jedan savremeni dokumenat o Sejhu Hamzi iz Orlovica", Prilozi za

orijentalnufîlologiju, 18-19 (1968-9), pp. 205-215. A document dated 940/1533 confirming this

privilege 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 dervi§a 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

custody of the same family; see Muhamed Hadzijahic, "Tekija kraj Zvornika— Postojbina bosanskih

Hamzevija?", Prilozi, 10-11 (1960-61), pp. 195-6; and Cehajié, DerviSki Redovi, pp. 203-4.

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.

"Vicdanî, Tomar, p. 54.

■"'Hadzijahic, "Tekija kraj Zvomika", pp. 220-21. Apart from coincidences of name and

approximate location, Hadiijahic cites in support of this hypothesis the fact that the tekke lacks a

semahane, a structure for the performance of zikir. See also éehajic, DerviSki Redovi, pp. 204-5.

21Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatname, ed. Ahmed Cevdet (Istanbul: 1318/1900), vol. VI, p. 490.

"Hadiijahic, "Tekija kraj Zvornika", p. 203.

"Joseph von Hammer, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches (Pest: 1834), vol. II, p. 594.

24Cited in Vicdanî, Tornar, p. 54.

"Gölpinarli, Melâmîlik ve Melâmîler, p. 72.

"Sari Abdullah Efendi, Semerätü Ί-Fuäd (Istanbul: 1288/1871).

"Vicdanî, Tornar, p. 55.

2"Adem Handzic and Muhamed Hadzijahic, "O progonu Hamzevija u Bosni 1573. godine",

Prilozi, 20-21 (1970-71), p. 53.

mIbid, pp. 53-4.

MIbid, p. 54.

"Gölpinarli, Melâmîlik ve Melâmîler, p. 72.

32Mûnirî, Silsiletii Ί-Mukarrebin, ms. §ehid Ali Paja 2819, f. 140a-b. See also Tayyib Okiç,

"Quelques documents inédits concernant les Hamzawites", Proceedings of the Twenty Second

Congress of Orientalists (Istanbul, 1951), Leiden, 1957, II, p. 283, n. 4; and Gilles Veinstein and

Nathalie Clayer, "L'Empire Ottoman", in Les Voies d'Allah, eds. Alexandre Popovic and Veinstein,

(Paris: 1996), pp. 335-6.

"Ahmet Yaçar Ocak reports having searched for them in vain ("Les réactions socio

religieuses", op. cit., p. 79, n. 24). "Hamza Balî was for long thought to have been executed in 969/1561, this being the year

assigned to the event by Nevîzade Atâ'î in his Hadaiku Ί-Hakaikfi Tekmileti 's-$akaik (Istanbul:

1268/1852), p. 70. The publication by Handiic and Hadiijahic of the firman of 980/1573 calling

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

von Hammer 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 Ebusuûd Efendi, the issuer of the

fatal fetva, passed on from this world.

"Gôlpinarli, Melâmîlik ve Melâmîler, op. cit., p. 73.

"■Atâ'î, Hadaik, p. 70.




"Gölpinarli, Melàmîlik ve Melâmîler, p. 73.

'"See Muhamed Hadzijahic, "Udio Hamzevija u atentatu na Mehmed-Paäu Sokolovica",

Prilozi, 5 (1954-5), pp. 325-30.

39Okiç, "Quelques documents", p. 282.

""Atâ'î, Hadaik, p. 283.

"'Okiç, "Quelques documents", p. 286.

nlbid., pp. 283-4.

"Ibid., p. 284.

"Ibid., p. 284.

"Ibid., p. 285.

"'Ibid., p. 285.

"Atâ'î, Hadaik, p. 283.

""See Spaho Dz. Fehim, "Jos nekoliko dokumenata o uzickom sejhu", Prilozi, 18-19

(1968-69), pp. 267-84.

"'See the firman of the governor of Rumeli dated 1162/1748 in ibid, p. 281.

"Text in Omer Music, "Poslanica Sejha Muhameda Uzicanina beogradskom valiji Muhamed

Pasi", Prilozi, 2 (1951), p. 188.

"See Gölpinarli, Melàmîlik ve Melâmîler, pp. 76-7; Okiç, "Quelques documents", p. 285;

Cehajic, Derviîki Redovi, p. 206; H.T. Norris, Islam in the Balkans, Columbia (South Carolina:

1993), pp. 118-19.

52A1-Muhibbï, Khuläsat al-Athar (Cairo: 1284/1867), I, pp. 16-17.

î3See Kâtib Çelebi, Kashf al-Zunûn, 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 Hamzevî teachings, bestows His

secrets is, of course, Hamza Bali himself.

i6Text and translation in Ibrahim Mehinagic, "¿etiri neobjavljena izvori o Hamzevijama iz

sredine XVI vijeka", Prilozi, 18-19 (1968-69), pp. 219-20.

"Text and translation, ibid, pp. 233-48. See also Gölpinarli, Melàmîlik ve Melâmîler, p. 76, and Okiç, "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

Ottomans; see Michel Chodkiewicz, Un océan sans rivage (Paris: 1992), pp. 35-6.

5"Text and translation in Mehinagic, "Cetiri neobjavljena izvori", pp. 249-66.

59See Hamid Algar, "Astarâbâdî, Fazlallâh", Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. II, pp. 841-44.

"'See Hamid Algar, "The Hurüfi Influence on Bektashism", in Bektachiyya, pp. 39-53.

"Cited in Gölpinarli, Melàmîlik ve Melâmîler, pp. 53 and 59.

''-Ibid., p. 100, and Imber, "Malâmatiyya", p. 226.

"Text and translation in Mehinagic, "Cetiri neobjavljena izvori", pp. 221-32.

"Stefanus Gerlach, Tagebuch (Frankfurt am Main: 1674), p. 22. Joseph von Hammer also

attributes to Hamza Bal! belief in the divinity of Jesus, citing unpublished reports made by Ungnad

(Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, vol. II, p. 594). Concerning the mission to Istanbul of Ungnad and Gerlach, see Szalay László, Ungnád Dávid Konstantinápolyi Utazásai (Budapest: 1986).

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 Hamzevîs 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: Europas Brücke zur islamischen Welt (Cologne: Weimar and Vienna, 1992),

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 réactions socio-religieuses", p. 77, η. 19,




and on the Hûbmesihîs, see Hamid Algar, "KhúbmesíhTs". Encyclopaedia of Islam (new edition), vol. V, p. 41.

"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 Belgradi, Silsiletii Ί-Mukarrebin, f. 140a.

"Vicdani, Tomar, p. 66; Gölpinarli, Melâmîlik ve Velâmîler, pp. 202-3.

7"Vicdanî, Tomar, pp. 55-6. It is remarkable that Hariri, otherwise exhaustive in his

enumeration of orders and suborders, makes no mention of the Hamzeviye, either as a subject in its

own right or under the heading of the Melamiye (Tibyân Vesâili Ί-Hakaik, III, ff. 130a-146b). This

may be on account of his devotion to Seyyid Muhammed Nur el-Arabî, 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.

"Gölpinarli, Melâmîlik ve MelâmUer, p. 74.

nIbid„ p. 78.

73See Hazim Sabanovic, Knjizevnost Muslimana BiH na Orientalnim Jezicirm (Sarajevo:

1973), pp. 216-19, and Gölpinarli, Melâmîlik ve Melâmîler, pp. 79-84.

1AIbid., pp. 123-8; Imber, "Malâmatiyya", p. 227.

"Music, "Poslanica Sejha Muhameda", p. 188.

76Gölpinarli, Melâmîlik ve Melâmîler, pp. 158-61.

"Gölpinarli, Tiirkiye'de Mezhepler ve Tarikatler, p. 266.

7"MuSi¿, "Poslanica Sejha Muhameda", p. 188.

nIbid., p. 189.

""Gölpinarli, "Bayramiye", p. 426.

"'Gölpinarli, Melâmîlik ve Melâmîler, pp. 181-9.

"2GöIpinarli, 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, see J.V.A. Fine, The

Bosnian Church: A New Interpretation (Boulder, Colorado: 1975).

"'Cehajic, Derviski Redovi, pp. 204-5.

"'For a careful study of Kaimi Baba, see Jasna Samic, Divan de Kaimî: Vie et oeuvre d'un

poète bosniaque du χ vii' siècle (Paris: 1986).

"Hadzijahic, "Zapostavljene revolucióname tradicije", p. 591.

"*Okiç remarks quite categorically that "the people of Bosnia have not preserved the slightest

memory of their (= the Hamzevis') existence" ("Quelques documents", p. 285).



The Hamzeviye a Deviant Movement in Bosnian Sufism

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