Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Turk Kulturu ve Haci Bektas Veli - Arastirma Dergisi, cilt.96, ss.201-227, 2020 (SCI-Expanded)
© 2020 Ankara Haci Bayram Veli University. All rights reserved.In almost all religions, sects have emerged as different forms of comprehension and lifestyles. Even though sect is a subgroup within a religion and believe in the same religion, sects have been a source of conflicts that caused afflictive results among their members. There are many bloody and painful memories of the conflicts between the members of different sects in the world history and these are wanted to be kept alive by the members of those religions and sects. In some cases, political powers induce these conflicts in order to maintain their political existence. There are sects in the religion of Islam. In the course of time, prejudices and conflicts based on these prejudices have been emerged among the members of different sects. These prejudices sometimes came to the fore in the historical process, but in some periods they lost their importance. The relations between Sunni and Shia sects in the religion of Islam continue today in a climate where differences and conflicts subsist. Unfortunately, this situation fosters prejudices among Muslims and keeps conflicts alive. Denominational minorities -in terms of the denominational distribution of the population- are marginalized, and the prejudices against others are fed through oral and written culture. Although there are sectarian differences among Muslims in Turkey, established discrimination and related conflicts are very limited. Prejudices, misinformation and rumours that are based on false claims are at the root of the events that occurred in the past. It is important to identify the source or sources of prejudices and misinformation that occur in social memory so that such events, which are remembered with sadness in social memory, do not happen again. In this study, based on the idea that encyclopaedia and dictionaries still continue to be important written cultural products of the past century despite the spread of digital culture, the concepts of Alawism and related concepts were examined in encyclopaedias and dictionaries that published throughout the history of Republic of Turkey. This study seeks for an insight on the issues such as whether a bias is constructed over the definitions written in encyclopaedia and dictionaries and whether they lead to social polarization and separation. Encyclopaedia articles related with "Alawism", "Bektashism", "Shiism", "Qizilbash" and "Hazrat Ali" were examined with regards to language usage, tone and content. Moreover, in encyclopaedias, a small number of items that describe the "Battle of Siffin", which is important in terms of Islamic history and sects, have been examined. A similar study was carried out on dictionaries. While Alawi, Bektashi, Qizilbash and Shiite concepts were found as general definitions in dictionaries, Ali and the Battle of Siffin entries were found only in one dictionary. The analyses were carried out through the Framing Theory, and it was investigated whether the framework of Alawism and related concepts drawn in encyclopaedias and dictionaries is the source of existing sectarian conflict, separation and prejudices. In relation to beliefs and sects, it is aimed to reveal whether encyclopaedias and dictionaries can shape people's perspectives and whether they have a positive or negative effect on sectarian separations.