The Akhi associations of Anatolia (akhism)

The Akhi associations were young men's guilds in Anatolia in the 13th and 14th centuries. They took the ideals of futuwwa, and their members came mainly from the craftsmen. Each association was led by an akhi. ¹

Ibn Battuta connects the name with the Arabic word for "my brother", but the Encyclopaedia of Islam treats this as at most an accidental likeness, though the Akhis willingly accepted it. The word is Turkish: it already appears in Uyghur as akt, "generous", and in Middle Turkish, in al-Kashgari's Diwan Lughat al-Turk, as aki, "be generous", with a related abstract noun for generosity. ²

Each association had a head called the akhi and a grade of shaykh, which seems to have had little active role. It probably referred to the leader of a dervish settlement with which the members felt themselves linked. Such associations seem to have had ties with the Mawlawis, Bektashis, Khalwatis and probably other orders. Ordinary members were divided into hawlis, "word-members", who made a general profession only "by way of speech", and sayfis, "sword-members", who were probably the active members. Their symbol, according to Ibn Battuta, was a knife. They covered their heads with white woollen headgear (kalansuwa), from the end of which a piece of cloth hung down. ³

Members met every evening in the house of their leader, bringing him their daily earnings, which paid for the club premises and the communal meal, to which guests, especially travellers, were invited. Lodging and entertaining travellers was considered the akhis' main function. According to Ibn Battuta they also played a political role, fighting tyrants and killing their supporters; the article suggests this may echo the revolts and demonstrations that akhi groups had staged in earlier times. ³

The akhis accepted the general rules of futuwwa (fütüwwet), and in their practice the initiation of novices was central: the girding with a belt, the cutting of the hair, the passing round of a cup of salted water, and the putting on of the trousers. Their religious and political position was not fixed. Some elements of their custom and theory, such as the intense cult of 'Ali, have a Shiite colouring, but they considered themselves Sunnis and, like all Turks, followed the Hanafi rite. Ibn Battuta, a Maliki, was suspected of being a Rafidi at Sinop over a minor difference in the prayer ritual. ³

Information about Akhism becomes rarer in the 15th century and then stops. The word akhi survives as a proper name, as in a molla Akhawayn named under Mehmed II, and in the family of Akhi-zade, whose members held high judicial posts into the 17th century. Place names with akhi are common in Anatolia and Rumelia. The article concludes that Akhism disappeared during the 15th century, but its tradition survived in some elements of the Turkish guilds (see SINF). In the Great Futuwwat-name of Sayyid Mehmed b. Sayyid 'Ala al-Din (composed in 1524), the guild organization had nine grades, with the akhi, also called khalife, in the seventh. The akhi tradition was especially cultivated by the tanners, whose patron was Akhi Evran, a semi-mythical figure who lived, if historical at all, in the first half of the 14th century. ⁴

The word akhi occurs sporadically outside Turkey, but the evidence is too scanty for conclusions about its meaning. The most striking case is Akhidjuk, "little akhi", an amir at Tabriz after the decline of the Ilkhans, who is treated in his own entry. The word also appears in a weakened sense among the followers of Shah Isma'il in the poems of Khata'i. ⁴