F. W. Hasluck
(Christianity and Islam Under the Sultans, -Ed. By Margaret M. Hasluck, Oxford 1929, vol: 1, p. 158-159.)
"The Kizilbash of Lycia (the province of Tekke) are as already stated, numerous and generally known as Takhtaji (woodcutters) on account of their employment, but like the Kizilbash elsewhere they call themselves Alevi and are connected with the Bektashi order of dervishes, whose local centre is at Elmali. They are said to owe their conversation to Shia Islam to missionary sheiks dispatched from Konia in the fourteenth century. This woodcutter caste of Takhtaji exists in Cilicia also, where it has embraced a form of the Shia faith and therefore would be reckoned Kizilbash by the Turks.
Although we have little exact information on the religion of the Lycian Takhtaji, what we have confirms the idea of their close religious connexion with the Kizilbash farther east. Thus, every Lycian Takhtaji tribe, however small, has a Baba or Dede, whose office is hereditary. Again, confession and absolution ceremonies exist among them as among the Kizilbash, (6) while Kizilbash and Takhtaji alike claim to have a sacred book...."
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