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Syria’s War Impacts Turkish Alevis

Syria’s sectarian conflict is spilling over into Turkey’s Alevi community.
An Alevi woman prays in the women's part of the mosque in Hacibektash, 15 August 2005. The hamlet was named after Haci Bektas Veli, who lived between 1248 and 1337, founder of the Bektashi sect and of the Alevis -- an offshoot of Shiite Islam. He is revered as a manifestation of Ali, the last of the first four Caliphs and the son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed. Haci Bektas Veli, a humanist philospher, fled religious conflict in his native Central Asia, settled and lived and is buried here. The town of 8,000
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A legal complaint lodged recently by a Turkish citizen reveals some intriguing details about a book that contains serious hate speech against Alevis.

The book, the title of which translates as The True Face of Batinites and Qarmatians, refers to Alevis as “perverts” who “consider the illicit to be licit.” It has been in circulation since 1948.

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