Over the last decades of the 20th century, Alevi identity, religion and culture have gained an increasingly public character in both Turkey and Western Europe. This book analyses the ongoing efforts of negotiating common cultural denominators and shared repertoires of texts, sources, practices, or musemes, which are to represent Alevism across its ethnic, social, political, and regional differences. Bringing together international contributions from a wide range of disciplines, such as Islamic and Religious Studies, Musicology, Anthropology, and Islamic Theology, this book focusses on the processes of negotiating an Alevi ‘Cultural Heritage’ between standardisation and plurality—processes in which Alevis and non-Alevis, politics and scholarship partake.

Benjamin Weineck is Research Assistant in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Bayreuth. Johannes Zimmermann is Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Near East at Heidelberg University.