Review of I. Mélikoff's Hadji Bektach: un mythe et ses avatars

Abstract

Scholarly research on the Bektashis and Alevis, which for a long time was a somewhat esoteric branch of turcology, has rapidly gained momentum in the past two decades -- paralleling a remarkable resurgence of Alevism in Turkey and the European diaspora, where the Alevis were giving up the low profile they had long kept and assumed a sudden new prominence in public life.