One man’s journey to find his Bektashi roots reveals a spiritual order that suffered centuries of oppression.
Bektashism is a Sufi mystic Islamic order that was based in present-day Turkey within the thirteenth century.
Bektashi fortunes rose and fell in parallel with the Ottoman Empire and Bektashis had been exiled to the Balkans, Albania and Egypt.
Historical past repeated itself within the Nineteen Twenties when the brand new Turkish republic outlawed all Sufi orders, together with Bektashi Sufism. Then, in 1967, Albania’s chief Enver Hoxha banned all religions, together with Bektashism. But, by some means, the order has survived and now claims some seven million followers worldwide.
On a private journey exploring his Bektashi roots, an Albanian man discovers that his religion has a stunning historical past which incorporates purges, expulsions, sacked monasteries and baby slavery.
