The Tradition of Zakir in Alevism Belief and Being a Female Zakir: Zakir Türkan Akbıyık

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine what female zakirs live through while serving their purpose within the tradition of zakirs, their awareness and the changes brought about by urbanization. The service of Zakir is one of the twelve important elements of Alevi cem rituals. In cem rituals, a zakir holds as important a place as the Dede who conducts the cem ritual. Zakirs enable the community to reach the common feeling created by faith with their instrument ( saz) and the sayings uttered. Besides its religious significance, this practice also helps hand down oral cultural elements. This study also aims to make clear the fact that this job has been conducted more actively by female zakirs. The changes that have taken place in the process of practice within the context of rural-urban, and old and new are also included in this study. Having witnessed these changes in person, Türkan Akbıyık, directly conveys her experience during the process, which reveals the originality of the study. In addition to use of written literature in the study methodology, a resource person and the data containing a face to face interview with a female Zâkir Türkan Akbıyık, her experience and knowledge were used. Since Akbıyık is a member of the hearth (ocak), she has the knowledge handed down to her from the previous generation. The tradition of zakir has also been the subject of master and doctoral theses, the examples of which are Deniz Güneş’s Zakir Tradition in Alevi-Bektashi belief in Tokat region, unpublished doctorate thesis, and Derya Akışkan’s Music and Female Identity in Zakir tradition: Central Ankara Sample, unpublished master thesis. Although tradition is evaluated from a musical perspective in these theses, the differences in its local applications in Alevism are dealt with. Information about the tradition is available in the written sources obtained from the observations on field studies. However, in the main titles of these studies, information about gender mainstreaming within Alevism, Alevi women or an Alevi hearth prevail. The subject of zakir is included as a subheading in these sources. The data obtained included people from the the differentiation. The experience of Türkan Akbıyık, who witnessed the changes in tradition brought about by busy city life and also helped pass them on to future generations, was shared.