If you look at commemorative dishes sold by Alevis in Turkey (in Arabic script) you can see quite clearly that they adhere to the Shi'ite Kaliphs, omitting the Umayyad Kaliphs but show the Shi'ite Kaliphs quite definitely. And this is one of the most important aspects of Shi'ism. As both the Turkish "Alevis" and the Arab "Alawites" (also those inside the Turkish Republic) keep their religious thing a bit shrouded in secrecy, details may not be too clear to outsiders, but they defintely share
A) their siding with Shi'ism
B) their giving some relevance to BOTH parts of the Bible
which is the reason why strict Sunnis do not particularly love them

Are you a kurd who is being exploited? If you are we support you to have a choice because you standing up to be individual and do not want to be exploited. If you a Turk and have no affilation with the kurdish movements and you just want to exploit for your own propaganda then nuts to you.

I have some Alevi friends (though no Alawite ones) and have been in some religious discussions, so I think I know quite about them. I think they are quite different from Sunnis, but also from Shias. They do many things differently (e.g. not going to mosque or not fasting Ramadan) just because Sunnis to them. On the other hand Shias do go to mosques and they do fast. And these are very basic things. So I do not think Alevis are Shias. Actually I think on some things they are very on borderline of contradicting Quran.

All what you write about the Alevis is the same in case of the Alawites on the Arab side. Also realize that the Ismaïlites are on the Shi'ite side as well. Similar differences to the mainstream Shi'ism. And "contradicting the Quran" is natural as they accept the two parts of the Bible as being of equal rank as the Quran.

But again, the crucial difference between Sunnis and Shi'ites is the question about the Kaliphs. And Alevis/Alawites (same in Arabic writing) and Ismaïlites share this crucial aspect with Shi'ism.

i am amazed by your application of such exclusive logic: only Kurds (who also happen to support Kurdish movements) can complain about PKK brutalizing Kurds

this is quite bigoted

How many percents of the Kurds inside the Turkish Republic could the PKK get in democratic elections in the Kurdish majority regions in Turkey ?

Actually I do not know any Ismailis personally, so wouldn't be able to make a reasonable judgment. Though if I understand correctly they differ among themselves quite and most do have some form of prayers (I mean salah here).

What I wanted to say is that I think that mainstream Sunnis and Shias are much closer to each other in terms of beliefs than Alevis are to any of these.

Btw, what do you mean by two bibles (actually I don't know anything about Alevism stand on this so can't say anything), but there are many Muslims who refer to Bible on many instances (in which I don't see much point but is irrelevant here ).

I guess I was not clear at what I mean by referring to salah: Alevis do not perform salah. They have some congregations but are disliking the form of salah.

To give an example. If you give an oath as an Allwite

Flag of the Alawi State



To use another group as reference I might point to the Druzes. They as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druze

answer: 100%

PKK's political arm BDP party has participated in recent elections, and got 6% of the total vote. Considering Kurds being 18% of the population in Turkey, you can say only 1 in 3 Kurds support PKK's political arm

thus, it is a big mistake to suggest all Kurds from Turkey are PKK supporters

i wonder why alawi/alevi theological discussion has to do anything with PKK activities in CH (the OP)?

Actually I think the percentage is even lower, as many are forced to vote for PKK. Though I am not sure if it is correct to call BDP as political arm of PKK. Many of its members did show clear support for PKK but still... officially they are not...

Sorry for the Alevi series, it came out of my comparison of situation of Alevis with Kurds in Turkey.

This means it would be around 30%, which means that their party leader in an independent Turkish Kurdistan would have the job to build a new coalition government

i dont think their aims are such an independent state anymore, see Ocalan (PKK's cult leader) has "revised" his goals and now wants to serve to the Turkish state:

http://www.economist.com/node/322313

PKK terrorism targeted civilians; 8 dead, 64 injured in recent car bombing:

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/int...l?cid=33353230

The Allawites are part of the Shi'ite part of Islam, and so rather distant from Sunni Islam.

You speak about "terrorism" while the PKK speaks about "war against oppression" and their "fight for the national rights of the Kurdish people"

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya

and you can expect him to get back to a pro-independence position as soon as times look well

By killing its own people...

This is the weird logic of quite many political activists ! who will tell you that attention is what they need, even if members of their own ethnic group are among the victims