Atlas

Chains of transmission from the Prophet, read as the sources give them.

About this atlas

The atlas holds the chains of transmission from the Prophet as the standard references and the classical sources record them: the Sufi orders, the chains of Qurʾān recitation, the teachers of the schools of law and ḥadīth, and the lines of the Prophet's family, with the places they spread and the living houses and teachers who carry them today. Every link shows its sources; where they differ, both readings are shown, and we do not rule on any community's claims. Ibn ʿArabī's own life, teachers and readers are on their own page.

Change chain set

Bektāshiyya البكتاشية

Sufi orders · Ḥājjī Bektāsh Walī (Hacı Bektaş-ı Velî) · 13th c. · Hacıbektaş (Sulucakarahöyük) · 6 routes to the Prophet recorded

Anatolian order named for Ḥājjī Bektāsh (d. c. 1271). TDV credits Balım Sultan (d. 1516) with organising it; Trimingham calls him its first true leader. Çelebi and Babagan branches diverged. Banned 1826, closed in Turkey 1925; its world headquarters is at Tirana, Albania.

How to read the marks

Two sources: a solid rule. Two independent references give the same link.
One source: a lighter rule, so labelled.
The community's own account: a dotted rule. The order tells it; we have not yet read it against a reference source.
A gap in the rule: the sources omit names between the two. The label says which.
The sources differ: tap the ≠ to read each reading with its source.
A ring: a spiritual link, without a meeting (uwaysī).

Route 1 of 6, the best-sourced: other routes (5)

Routes are ordered by how many steps rest on two sources, then by how few rest on the community's own account or on another chain set's record, then by length. The best-sourced opens first.

Route

Dates are given where the sources give them. Years are CE; the Hijri year is in each name's detail.

two sources
one source
the community's own account
names omitted
sources differ

632
one source · this step is recorded in Naqshbandiyya, not in Bektāshiyya
Sources: TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 'Sıddîkıyye'
Sources differ (1): Naqshbandī tradition: Maslak al-ʿārifīn (early 8th/14th c.) cites a report attributed to the Prophet, 'whatever God poured into my heart I poured into Abū Bakr's heart'; al-Qazwīnī (978/1570) adds that the Prophet taught Abū Bakr the dhikr of the heart three times in the cave of Thawr (as reported by TDV). (TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 'Sıddîkıyye')
Sources differ (2): TDV Sıddîkıyye: the Thawr-cave narration is not found in hadith and history works, the Sufi classics or the earliest Naqshbandī sources, though later Naqshbandī circles largely accepted it. (TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 'Sıddîkıyye')
Sources differ (3): The Naqshbandī shaykh Shihāb al-Dīn al-Marjānī of Kazan said the chain said to come through Abū Bakr has no scholarly basis (as reported by TDV). (TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 'Sıddîkıyye')
Sources differ (4): Buehler: three of the first six links of the Bakrī silsila are historically impossible (n. 14); Dina Le Gall, cited by him, finds 16th-17th c. Naqshbandī chains often give parallel Bakrī and ʿAlid derivations. (Arthur F. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet (Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1998), ch. 4, pp. 88, 90 n. 28)
634
one source · this step is recorded in Naqshbandiyya, not in Bektāshiyya
Sources: TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 'Sıddîkıyye'; naqshbandi.org, 'Origins' (Naqshbandi Haqqani Order's own golden chain)
656
the community's own account · this step is recorded in Naqshbandiyya, not in Bektāshiyya
Sources: TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 'Sıddîkıyye'
Sources differ (1): Muḥammad Pārsā (Risāla-yi Qudsiyya) inserted Qāsim b. Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr between Salmān and Jaʿfar. (TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 'Sıddîkıyye')
Sources differ (2): The order's own chain (Haqqani) lists Salmān, Qāsim, Jaʿfar in sequence. (naqshbandi.org, 'Origins' (Naqshbandi Haqqani Order's own golden chain))
Sources differ (3): TDV Sıddîkıyye: from the 6th/12th century, amid Sunni–Shiʿi debate, some orders declared chains reaching ʿAlī, and in the 16th century some Kubrawīs in Samarqand implicitly objected to the Abū Bakr chain by saying the well-known orders came through ʿAlī. Naqshbandī chains through ʿAlī are not detailed in the sources read. (TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 'Sıddîkıyye'; TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 'Nakşibendiyye')
Sources differ (4): Algar (Iranica 'Jaʿfar al-Ṣādeq iii'): from the 8th/14th century the main Naqshbandī initiatic line places Jaʿfar al-Ṣādeq between Qāsim b. Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr and Bāyazid. (Encyclopaedia Iranica, 'JAʿFAR AL-ṢĀDEQ iii. And Sufism' (Hamid Algar))
765
two sources · this step is recorded in The Prophet's family: descent and imamate lines, not in Bektāshiyya
Sources: TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, İsnâaşeriyye
Sources differ (1): Ismāʿīlī account: the imamate passed through Ismāʿīl b. Jaʿfar and his son Muḥammad. TDV İsmâiliyye gives the reasons reported for Mūsā's designation instead of the elder Ismāʿīl: a report that Ismāʿīl died three years before his father, and a report about his conduct and his ties to Abū l-Khaṭṭāb. (TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, İsmâiliyye)
Sources differ (2): Daftary (modern historian of Ismāʿīlism), reporting the Twelver position: the Twelvers claim a designation (naṣṣ) of Mūsā by al-Ṣādiq, supported by ḥadīths. Daftary adds that it is not certain al-Ṣādiq named anyone after Ismāʿīl. (ch. 3, p. 88) (Farhad Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines (Cambridge UP, 2nd ed. 2007))
799
one source · omits: all generations between Mūsā al-Kāẓim (d. 799) and Ḥājjī Bektāsh (d. c. 1271); the Vilâyetnâme gives no generations
Sources: TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Hacı Bektâş-ı Velî
c. 1271

How to read the marks

Two sources: a solid rule. Two independent references give the same link.
One source: a lighter rule, so labelled.
The community's own account: a dotted rule. The order tells it; we have not yet read it against a reference source.
A gap in the rule: the sources omit names between the two. The label says which.
The sources differ: tap the ≠ to read each reading with its source.
A ring: a spiritual link, without a meeting (uwaysī).

Branches (2)

Each opens as a side-chain from the founder, with the same marks.

Çelebi (Bel evladı) linefrom 16th c. · Hacıbektaş (Sulucakarahöyük)

No chain is recorded for this branch in the sources read.

Babagan (Yol evladı) linefrom 16th c. · Hacıbektaş (Sulucakarahöyük) · 2 names

حاجي بكتاش وليc. 1271
two sources · omits: roughly two centuries of lodge heads between c. 1271 and 1501, none named in the sources read
بالم سلطان1516

Dedebaba of Albania (World Headquarters)1930-present · Tirana · 8 names

one source
one source
one source
one source
one source
one source · omits: any office-holder 1958-1993; the list shows none (the order was suppressed 1967-1990)
two sources

Living today

Public roles only, as the communities and the press report them, dated.

Head, Dedebaba of Albania (World Headquarters) · as of Oct 2026 · two sources
World Bektashi Grandfather (Dedebaba), elected 11 June 2011, by the order's account by its High Judicial Council with the Clerical Council; from Brataj, Vlorë; Wikipedia counts him the 8th Dedebaba
the community's own account: Bektashi World Headquarters (Kryegjyshata), official site Wikipedia, Bektashi Order (tertiary; cites Algar 1989, Elsie 2019)

How to cite

Mashraba Reader, Atlas of transmission, “Bektāshiyya”, https://www.mashraba.org/atlas/bektashiyya (data of 31 October 2026).

Not yet confirmed (0)

These links are told by an order or a secondary source and still have to be read against a primary or reference source.

Where the sources differ (3)

(Bektāshiyya)
- TDV: earlier sources (Elvan Çelebi, Eflākī, Aşıkpaşazade) show him as a khalīfa of the Vefāʾī leader Baba İlyas of the 1239-40 Babaî revolt; TDV argues he probably did not found the order that bears his name.
- Trimingham: relation of Hājjī Bektāsh to the order named for him is 'tenuous'; the Bektāshī system proper derives from Balım Sultan.
(Bektāshiyya)
- The identity of Hacı Bektaş's successor is debated between the Çelebi and Babagan branches to this day (Gümüşoğlu 2022 abstract excerpt). Çelebis claim descent from Hacı Bektaş and an office hereditary at least from 1750 (Trimingham); Babagan (Yol evladı) dedes derive from Balım Sultan, an apostolic head chosen by council.
(Bektāshiyya)
- No rival claimant to the Tirana headquarters was found. The Çelebi line at Hacıbektaş (Ulusoy family per a METU dissertation excerpt) is a separate lineage whose present head was not located.