After the ethnic cleansing of the Greeks and the Armenian Genocide, Turkey seemed like a uniform country, but there's lots of stuff going on. The Kurds we all know about for years, but I only heard about the Alevis for the first time maybe 3-4 years ago, I haven't heard about the Zazas (small fry, only 2-4 million people) till 5 minutes ago. One also shouldn't forget the millions of Turks of non-Turkish origin, who were ethnically cleansed from the Crimea, the Caucasus and the Balkans as the Ottoman Empire started losing ground. And let's not get started with the crypto-Jews.

My understanding is that the various sects called "Alevi," "Alawite," etc. refer to Ali. That is, belief in the generally Shiite order of succession for the early Caliphate. In other words, just local flavors of Shia.

That is, belief in the generally Shiite order of succession for the early Caliphate. In other words, just local flavors of Shia.

shia are recongized as muslim by all but the must nutsos of sunni. so, there is a strong incentive for heterodox cults to identify as shia, or, for authorities trying to head off bureaucratic headaches to classify them as shia. granted, alevi and alawite beliefs seem to have a strong shia tinge, but many of their practices and ideas would seem outrageous and non-muslim to most shia. finally, their religions have a strong "crypto" element. in part this was because of sunni intolerance, but it seems likely that their religious elites (at least the alawites) have the same tendency as the druze to have a core set of esoteric beliefs only accessible to elite initiates. my point is that sunnis might have reason to think they aren't quite as muslim as their identification as shia might suggest.

"Sunni in Turkey tend to refer to all Shia as Alevi. In actuality, Alevi constitute but one of four Shia sects in the country. But Alevi are by far the largest Shia sect in Turkey, accounting for at least 70 percent of the country's Shia."

This seems to represent a consensus of information found after a Google search.

Alevi men and women worship together, and, as the article you linked to indicates, they dance together in their religious services, which excites some criticism among conservative Sunnis.

Some Turks propagate the rumor that Alevi men and women dance holding candles, and that, when the music stops, they blow out their candles and, in the darkness . . . some activity begins. I remain skeptical.

One article I looked at indicate there was a kind of pogrom against Turkish Alevis in 1978. I believe it said that around 118 were killed.

In Turkey, Alevis often wear a necklace with a small pendant in the form of a split sword. This symbolizes the sword of Ali, and indicates that the wearer is Alevi.

Razib you are wrong, alevitism is not a kurdish sect but a Turkish. The origins of the alevis start with the ascension of the Safevid Turks in Iran. The safewis were originally a sunni Turkish sect from the black sea region of Turkey. Later they immigrated to erdebil in Iran where in 1460-1470 they converted to alevetism. Young Ismail and his sufi followers conquered iran and declared himself the shah. The alevetism of the safevides were very hostile against the sunni. During that time iran was majority sunni, the safewids forcebly converted iran to shiism. About 2 million Turks especially from eastern anatolia emigrated to Iran, to their shah which they worshiped as a divine figure. Safewide power was based on Turkmen tribes mostly from Turkey. The sunni Ottoman Turks declared war on them and defeated the shah later the Ottomans invited the sunni kurds from Iran to settle in eastern anatolia and made an agreement with them, to protect that area from the shiites. Only 10% of the Kurds in turkey now is alevite the vast majority of the alevis is Turkish. After shah ismail the later shahs moved religiously closer to shiism abondening the extreme alevitism.
There is no unity within the alevi now in Turkey, they are divided. Some alevis see themselves not as muslims while others do, and others see themselves as shii and send their children to kum in iran to educate in shiism. Their numbers are exagerated, alevis do not make 20% of the popluation in Turkey. I doubt there are more then 6-7 million of them. There is only one province where alevis are a majority and that province has a population of some 500000. In the rest of Turkey they make only small minorities everywhere.

Danny
the vast majority of the Turkish population is Turkish. The crimean tatars are turkic and speak Turkish and spoke Turkish when they still lived in crimea. There are also many tatars from kazan and white tatars from central russia living in Turkey.The people that came from the balkans were already majorty Turkish, they were the decendants of the Turks who were settled there by the ottoman Turks. In 1700 AD half the balkans was muslim and the majority of them were Turks and the rest bosnian, albanian and serbian muslims.
There are also many Turks living in the caucasus like the daghestani who still speak Turkish and avars, azerbaijani's. Not all people from the balkan are non-turkic like the cicissians.
The crypto jews you talk about were a a few hundred jews that converted to islam with their leader sevi. Some people use this to claim that Turkey is ruled by them, as a Turk I can say that this is nonsense, the neo-nazis also claim that US is ruled by jews.