4
Not only Albanians but all of the Balkan Muslims, including a wave of Balkan Turks, has Bektashi origin but later Sunnified. For example, my mother doesn't know what Bektashism is but still using Bektashi greetings which she learned from her mother. When I ask her about the sect she says she is Sunni, but this is something recently developed. She actually doesn't even know what is the difference between sects despite being very religious. This is a pretty common case in the Balkans.
Alevi Albanians and Alevi Bosniaks(Alevi Pomaks are still present and of Macedonian Pomak origin, but no sample so far. Gorani Sunnified totally, I don't know about Torbeshi) have no difference from the Sunni ones and they show none Turkic admixture. This is something expected as a possible mix between locals and dervishes resulted in the child being Turkish and the descendant probably merged into the Balkan Turk community afterward. On the other hand, it might just be washed out, too.
In the sense of Balkan Turks, there is either none or negligible difference between Sunni and Alevi. I can say that Alevi's has a slight West Asian pull while Sunni's has a slight Mediterranean pull in some cases, but such differences occur within groups as well, and can not suggest a difference between the two. What can be said for sure that both groups processed the same external factors during the ethnic-creation phase. Alevi's and Sunni's probably mixed to some degree. Furthermore, Alevi's probably has more than one source of origin. Some might be just the descendants of some Dervish groups, and some can be Kızılbaş, for example. To sum it up, sectarian isolation did not cause a genetic drift in terms of averages, but sometimes such shifts can be seen at individual levels. As the mentioned drifts occur within Sunni's too, it can not suggest a difference between the two groups.
Bookmarks