Introduction

The Alevis are one of the lesser-known Muslim immigrant communities in Europe; on a political front they constitute an organised movement at a European level. The word ‘Alevi’ refers simultaneously to Ali, Mohammed's cousin, and to Ahl al Bayt, the family of the Islamic prophet. In this context, Alevism is defined as ‘to adore Ali and his family’ and to follow in his footsteps (Yaman 2006: 101). Due to the origin of the word, Alevism is frequently confused with Shi'ism. Today, although they have certain beliefs in common with the Twelver Shiites, Alevi rites of worship are wholly different from other Shia practices (Zarcone 2007). During the period of conversion to Islam in Anatolia, the Turcomans who were nomadic and semi nomadic Turkic tribes, did not completely abandon all of their previously held religious beliefs such as Shamanism, Animism, and Buddhism, which subsequently became the cultural and confessional framework within which the newly adopted religion evolved (Melikoff 1998). The origin of the Alevi religion is therefore a syncretic type of Islam generated by the superposition of the previous belief systems that the Turcomans practised between the tenth and fourteenth centuries (Zarcone 2004). Thus Alevism can be defined as a result of religious and cultural interactions between nomad groups from Central Asia to the Middle East and to the Balkans during this period.