Musahiplik or ''Müsahiplik'' (roughly, "Companionship / Spiritual brotherhood") is a
covenant relationship between two men of the same age, preferably along with their wives. In a ceremony in the presence of a
dede the partners make a lifelong commitment to care for the spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of each other and their children. After the ''
Hijra'', the
Islamic prophet
Prophets in Islam () are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God's message on Earth and serve as models of ideal human behaviour. Some prophets are categorized as messengers (; sing. , ), those who transmit divine revelation, mos ...
Muhammad
Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
instituted brotherhood between the emigrants, ''
Muhajirun
The ''Muhajirun'' (, singular , ) were the converts to Islam and the Islamic prophet Muhammad's advisors and relatives, who emigrated from Mecca to Medina; the event is known in Islam as the '' Hijra''. The early Muslims from Medina are called the ...
'', and the helpers, ''
Ansar'', and he chose
Ali as his own brother.
This early Islamic practice has survived and continued to exist only in the
Alevi sect of Islam. This early Islamic practice ceased to exist in all other Islamic sects .
Mânevî Kardeşlik
The ties between couples who have made this commitment is at least as strong as it is for blood relatives, so much so that müsahiplik is often called spiritual brotherhood ''(manevi kardeşlik)''. The children of covenanted couples may not marry.
Four Doors and Öz Verme Ayini
Krisztina Kehl-Bodrogi reports that the identify ''musahiplik'' with the first gate ''(
ÅŸeriat),'' since they regard it as a precondition for the second ''(
tarikat).'' Those who attain to the third gate (''
marifat'', "
Irfan
In Islam, irfan (Arabic/ Persian/Urdu: ; ), literally 'knowledge, awareness, wisdom', is a concept in Islamic mysticism akin to gnosis, or spiritual knowledge.
Sunni mysticism
According to the founder of the Qadiriyya Sufi order, Abdul ...
") must have been in a ''musahiplik'' relationship for at least twelve years. Entry into the third gate dissolves the ''musahiplik'' relationship (which otherwise persists unto death), in a ceremony called ''Öz Verme Ayini'' ("ceremony of giving up the self").
Âşinalık, peşinelik, and cıngıldaşlık
The value corresponding to the second gate (and necessary to enter the third) is ''aşinalık'' ("intimacy," perhaps with God). Its counterpart for the third gate is called ''peşinelik''; for the fourth gate (''
hakikat'', Ultimate Truth), ''cıngıldaşlık''.
[See again "The significance of ''musahiplik'' among the Alevis" in ''Synchronistic Religious Communities in the Near East'' (co-edited by her, with B. Kellner-Heinkele & A. Otter-Beaujean), Brill 1997, p. 131 ff.]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Musahiplik
Alevism
History of Islam