With approximately one third of the population, the Alevis, who were massively persecuted in the Ottoman Empire due to their heterodox beliefs and religious practices, form the largest religious community in Turkey after the Sunnis. Many orthodox Sunnis and Alevis define themselves through religion, referring to Islam, but they each share a different understanding of Islam, which leads them to reject the other as un-Islamic. Although Alevis identify as Muslims, they are considered heretics by many Sunnis because of their unorthodox interpretation of Islam and their seemingly pagan rites. This book reconstructs the 700-year history of the emergence and development of Turkish Alevis from the Ottoman Empire to the modern Republic of Turkey, also as a history of the formation of the minority status of an Islamic-heterodox faith community, which, depending on the era, political-social power dynamics, and prevailing ideology, has been subjected to a fluctuating experience of persecution and partial annihilation on one hand, or promotion and gradual emancipation on the other. In response, they have sometimes reacted with open resistance, sometimes with an assertive advocacy for equality, or by concealing their own identity, or even with loyalty.