The Notion of "Ahl al-Bayt" in the Traditional Alawi Thought an Instance From Tokat Region

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This paper aims at disclosing the notion of "Ahl al-Bayt" in the traditional Alawī thought which takes "vision" (kashf) and "inspiration" (ilham) as primal modes of knowledge. The notion of "Ahl al-Bayt" is of second order significance after the triology "Divinity-Prophecy-Sainthood" (which is reflected also as "Haq-Muhammad-Ali"). In the course of history, Alawīs developed many issues according to central notion of Ahl al-Bayt. For instance, all the following technical notions and beliefs such as Imāms, hilāfat, tawallā-tabarrā, sayyid and silsilah, mahdī, shafā‘a, some distinctive believes in the next world are related to and formed according to the notion of "Ahl al-Bayt".