Abstract
Religious groups are social structures that is consisted of by people sharing the same beliefs. While performing their own rituals, they have interacted with other institutions as a result of necessity to live in a social world. Specially, the relations with the political institution and the results of these relations are being extensively discussed by the public opinion today. The point that we have recently experienced has shown us how crucial the problem is. The events of nowadays are not social events that did not take place within the history but the same events each event has its historical pass and background. So, the political relationship observed between religious groups today is very reflection of done and experiences that have occurred over hundreds of years.
Knowing the principle ‘today cannot be interpreted without understanding past’, analyzing and examining the relations of the sects of the major religious groups in our history with the political structure will help us to analyze and understand the events that has taken place recently. For this purpose in this article, we will examine the interrelationship of Khalwati Tradition an important religious sects in social structure of Ottoman empire with other political groups and political role it played. By understanding this structure. We will reveal what political groups expect from religious groups and relationships of religious groups with political structure by holding projection from past to today.
Summary
The relationship between religious groups and political structures is one of the important issues in the field of social sciences, and both today's and history's relations are approached with interest by scientists. The reason for this interest is the emergence of the effects of interactions between religious groups and political structures affecting large communities and creating significant changes in political structures.
The fact that Mystic religious groups, who are considered to accept a far-off, ascetic lifestyle as their philosophy of life, have problems that require the analysis of the questions of which social reasons they are in such a relationship, or from which rational needs of rulers who hold the elements of worldly power, are the main reasons that intensify the research in this field
Examining interaction between the religious group observed in the backgrounds of societies and political structures helps to determine the characteristic behaviors of existing groups that are not independent of the past, and also helps to understand the actions they develop and will develop. In this sense, examining such interactions that occur in the history of societies, revealing the relationship between cause and effect, helps to analyze the functioning of religious groups, which are an element of social structure, and to understand the preferences of political structures in decision making.
The undeniable authority of the charismatic leaders of religious groups over the masses and the organizational formation of religious groups reinforced by spiritual motivations have always caused hesitation and fear in those who maintain the political structure. This concern resulted in the political authority developing two types of measures against the religious group: firstly; abolish the authority by declaring the religious group as an illegitimate structure or use the military force it holds to reduce its influence. Secondly; to think that the military power will cause greater reactions, to recognize the religious group politically and to take control of it by keeping it within the system, and to make use of it in order to continue its existence.
The public power and the interests gained by the political structure have always attracted the attention of other structures of the society, and the ability to capture the opportunities to benefit from it has strengthened the social structures and provided them with advantages over their competitor. As such, social structures have been in competition with other similar structures in order to maintain what they have achieved and to move themselves to an even more advantageous position.
Although religious groups have inculcated the opposite to their affiliates within their structures, they have not been able to ignore the advantages of being side by side with representatives of political structures and have even been jealous of the political connections of other religious groups. This was perhaps a consensual relationship in order to make the group led by the religious leader more institutional and to eliminate the negative actions of its competitors, perhaps as a result of the different expectations of the group's affiliates, which compelled the leader to accept, beyond these, the natural and human expectations of the leader could be a result.
The relationship of the Ottoman state structure with religious groups, which has a strict and uncompromising form of decentralized administration and which has an overreactive behavior regarding actions and thoughts that would harm the central government, has an aspect worth examining. The prospect of the emergence of small or large alternative powers in a country ruled by a charismatic and absolute-authority Sultan has been an issue to follow and has always unsettled the rulers. As a result of this unease, religious groups and their influence on the masses, which have the power to make the political power of the administration debatable, have led to the close follow-up of unquestionable charismatic leaders and, when necessary, to be called to the center and questioned.
The above findings on the relations between religious groups and political structures are not only the facts observed in history, but also the events we are watching, living and observing today. The process that Turkey went through on July 15th shows how important it is to understand the sociology of religious groups and to analyze their relations with the political structure. Social sciences, especially in the field of Sociology of religion related to this subject by using their own scientific methods to analyze, a reality of the Society of politics and religious institutions in the past and today should be able to reveal the relationships. This will help minimize the conflicts observed between religious groups and the political structure, but also minimize the social tension in society.
In this article, we will discuss the relations of religious groups with political structures within the framework of the facts we have revealed above. As an example, the relations of the Halveti sect, which emerged as an active religious group in the fifteenth century, with the political structure of that period will be examined and discussed and the above-mentioned thoughts on the relations of the political structure of the religious group will be discussed.