Istanbul
Gövsa also asserts there is no Sufi order called Dönme, and that the
Dönme religion is something distinct from Islam, saying: “The Vatan se-
ries speaks of a Sufi order and secret society, but there is no Muslim Sufi
order called Shabbatean, nor has there [ever] been such a secret society in
Turkish political history.” In sum, “Shabbateanism is something distinct
from Islam and Judaism. Wouldn’t it be more sincere to say this?” ( 85 ). He
concludes by defining the Dönme as a group similar in form to a commu-
nity that is formed according to beliefs, such as the non-Muslims in Tur-
key. Finally, Gövsa accuses Yalman of trying to protect the Dönme religion
that is still living, while promoting the integration of the Dönme with
the rest of society, although using language that hints at sympathy for his
friend Yalman’s predicament: “One can sense in every sentence of the series
the stress of one who aims to cover up and protect today’s living Shabbate-
anism, and the same time desires to mix with the rest of society” ( 86 ).
Although Dönme belief did persist in the first two decades of the Turk-
ish Republic, not every example that Gövsa cites meant that the Dönme
who engaged in these rites and rituals continued to believe in the mes-
sianism of Shabbatai Tzevi. Continued endogamous marriage also may
have stemmed from a reluctance of Dönme to intermarry with Muslims,
and vice versa, for reasons of class and culture as well as anxiety over racial
degeneration, as well as the fact that being Dönme had a religious as well
as ethnic or identity component. Continued adherence to Dönme cus-
toms may have helped to consolidate their corporate unity in their new
locale and enhanced their ability to continue working together in the na-
tional and transnational economy. Finally, reciting prayers in Ladino may
have given Dönme an emotional sense of grounding amid the upheaval
that marked their lives in the period. It did not mean that they under-
stood what they were saying. As Yitzhak Ben-Tzevi noted a few years after
Gövsa’s book appeared, the Dönme’s ancient prayers had been “converted
into a ‘learned tradition.’ Their contents were forgotten while all that
remained was the holy shell, that is, the words themselves.”^69
Assessing Dönme Strategies
Less than two years after the debate that he had begun, Rüştü com-
pletely reversed himself. He claimed astonishingly that as “a person who
had in actual fact left the Dönme religion and assimilated into pure Turk-
ishness,” he could now attest that “our great spiritual guide Gazi Pasha