In Turkey, Alevi social and religious identity is often constructed in conscious opposition to institutionalized Sunni Islam. Sound is an important medium by which the relationship of violence and resistance between Alevis and the Sunni state is produced and perpetuated. This paper focuses on the ways in which Alevi aural dispositions and spatial constructions constitute and reinforce one another. These auralities and spacialities are rehearsed and disciplined within the context of collective

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... rship rituals [cem or muhabbet], but play a broader role in molding and thus preserving the Alevi community as a religious minority under the threat of assimilation. In particular, I v examine how Alevis map space by cultivating listening habits based on oppositions of interior and exterior, private and public, and esoteric and exoteric. Two Alevi concepts play especially prominent roles in regulating the relationship between sound and space. Dem refers to the divine power which resides in the words, voice, and breath of spiritually mature individuals. It is also the name for the alcohol Alevis may drink as part of their collective worship services. With the idea of dem, Alevis draw a link between listening and the acquisition of knowledge on the one hand, and drinking and interiority on the other that is embodied in the phrase "dem is drunk by the ears" [dem kulaktan içilir]. Just as tea is said to steep [demlenmek], Alevis steep-discipline themselves as Alevi subjects-during muhabbet by listening to words of wisdom spoken or sung by spiritually mature individuals. Meanwhile, dem is emplaced through its association with a face, or didar. The Alevi fixation on didar creates spatial orientations also experienced as listening vectors linking people together. Instead of facing towards Mecca while praying, Alevis face towards one another because they see God as the human being him/herself, and the beauty of God as reflected in the beauty of the human countenance. As a result, Alevi spiritual landscapes strikingly different from those of Sunni Islam, in which prayer is oriented towards a single, remote point. May the Hak erenler 1 grant us all [the ability to] understand and listen. 2 -prayer said by Dertli Divani Many studies address the call to prayer and its role in Islamic-majority nation states in both constituting Muslim national subjects as well as destabilizing and violating the subjectivity of religious minorities or non-believers (Spadola 2013; Bandak 2014; Larkin 2014). 3 Brian Larkin ( 2014 ) notes that such minorities develop "techniques of inattention" in order to protect themselves in the potentially threatening sonic encounters of daily life. I found this to be the case among the Alevis I worked with in Turkey as well. 4 However, to focus exclusively on modes of non-listening would be to ignore the complex ways in which Alevis negotiate a listening praxis in the positive sense, or what we might call an aural ideology-Alevi conceptions regarding the act of listening and its ideal function within their broader spiritual and humanistic project. In this paper, I will 1 Spiritually mature individuals who have contributed to the longevity of Alevi religion, e.g. by writing poetry. 2 Hak erenler cem-i cümlemize anlamak ve dinlemek nasip eylesin. 3 Other studies address the role of the call to prayer in constituting Muslim minority subjectivity in non-Muslim majority nations (Bohlman 2013; Eisenberg 2013).