Sunday, December 21, 2008

Wishing salaams for the season...

Hu, Erenler. as-salaamu aleykum!

Sorry it's been quite a while since I have posted. It's been a busy time, and full of transitions. I've been somewhat lost in the scramble, yet it has in many ways been a very productive and enriching time. A lot of papers have been graded, a lot of music has been created, a lot of ideas have been pondered. Another 'Eid (Kurban Bayram) has passed. We just passed the Urs of Hazreti Mevlana. I am preparing for a visit to Myrtle Beach with my family-- I am a Muslim, my sister and her family are Jewish, and our parents are more-or-less nominal Christians. Every year from Thanksgiving until Christmas, I like to listen to the Dar Williams song "The Christians and the Pagans". I highly recommend it to anyone who has a religiously mixed family, particularly one in which the parents have had a difficult time with the religious choices of their sons or daughters.

Selma and I just returned from a lovely day trip to Charleston-- where we had a very refreshing long conversation with Sermet. I am guessing that many readers of this blog know him. It is so nice to speak with Muslims who have challenging and interesting interpretations, who are deeply Muslim yet also have an inclusive spiritual vision. Mashallah! We had a wonderful time. Elhamdullillah.

Well, I'm back to packing for a week long trip and hoping to get at least a little sleep tonight, inshallah.

I pray for all a time of renewal and contemplation, of a reconnection to the deepest parts of our humanity. May we all become beautiful human beings, inshallah.

Huuuu....

Nedim

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

the places of our pirs

Hu, Erenler.
I hope that everyone is having a wonderful Ramadan. Selma and I recently got back from a very nice retreat at Shaykh Ahmed Abdur Rasheed's community in Virginia, with Shaykh Rasheed (Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi) and Shaykh Nooruddeen Durkee (Shadhili). Elhamdullillah. We could seriously use another one of those! ;)

I found some pictures that may be interesting. I have not been to either of these places yet, so if anyone has please fill me in on any information or corrections. But I was very happy to find these...



The top two are from the tomb of our pir, Hz. Ahmad el-Kabirul Rifa'i in Iraq






The bottom two are masjid and tomb of Hz. Mehmet Fethel Ma'arifi (Muhammad Fethel Marufi), in the Kartal district of Istanbul. He was the "second founder" of the order, who established this particular branch within the larger Rifa'i tariqa.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

A nice version of "Bugun Bize Pir Geldi". This is probably the best known Alevi song-- with the chorus "Eyvallah Shahim Eyvallah, Hak la illaha illallah"



Another version of it, that I may have even posted before--



Illahi-- Abdul-Qadir Geylani:



And another illahi by the same 'ud player:


A beautiful video of a nice medley by my aquaintance Latif Bolat. I played a couple of concerts with him when I was part of a group called Turku-- and that was when I first learned a some of the illahis that are common in Turkish tarikats, including Rifa'i Marufi.


Qadiri-Rifa'i Dhikr from Nevshehir:





A nice look at how selpe playing is done-- this is a young student, but he does it slow enough that you can see the technique. Selpe is a fingerpicked tapping style that is common among Alevi baglama players. It was particularly popularized by Arif Sag, and later developed even further by people like Erdal Erzincan and Erol Parlak.




Some beautiful dutar playing by a Uyghur musician-- probably an instrument that influenced the development of the saz--

Friday, September 5, 2008

I hope that everyone is having a blessed Ramadan, inshallah.

I'm currently amazed at how many people stop by here from EVERYWHERE. Elhamdullillah. We've now had visitors from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Singapore, you name it. A couple of people have left comments but no emails, so I wasn't able to write to you, but I'd like to.

Anyway, on with the show...

Here is a vid from the ISRA Convention. Mashallah! Qari Abdul Qadr is bringing the house down! I love his recitations. The choral refrain from the crowd could use a little direction however ;)




And some Rifa'i music, from where I'm not sure... but it's great:

Monday, September 1, 2008

Look up! It's Ramadan!

As-salaamu aleykum!


Just a quick note for now to say Ramadan Mubarak to everyone! I hope that you all have a blessed month and I thank you for reading this site.

May we all become beautiful human beings...
Hand in hand, and hands in Haqq---

Huuu....

Nedim

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

ISRA convention

Elhamdullillah!

Selma and I just got back from the ISRA convention in North Carolina. Mashallah! They did a wonderful job putting together a great convention that featured reciters and Sufi shaykhs talking about the Miraj. Shaykhs Haroun Faye, Nooruddeen Durkee, and Abdelhadi Honerkamp were among those who spoke. By far the best parts for me were Shaykh Haroun's dhikr in the hotel room and reading Qur'an with Shaykh Nooruddeen and some of his murids. Mashallah, I really respect him very much and admire the work that he and Hajja Noora are doing. I think that Selma and I both needed that little charge before the new semester begins and this conference provided it. I would highly recommend any of the ISRA conferences, because they have that delicate balance of providing a Sufi perspective within a traditional Islamic framework.
Here is their website:

http://www.israinternational.com

The other best part of the conference was actually eating pizza with some friends ;) Since we live in a city with a fairly small Muslim community, it's refreshing to be with others who share our traditional-yet-progressive approach to Islam. What a nice trip, elhamdullillah.

--Nedim

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Request for stories about Baba plus some videos.

Hu, Erenler! Sorry I haven't posted in a little while. It is so nice to see that some people are actually reading this, and to my great happiness, they are all over the world. Alhamdullillah. So thank you so much for your comments. Cok tessekur ederim! Shukran jazilan! Jazakallah khayr.

so, onto the posting for today.


This is the turbe of Ummi Sinan in Turkey:



The Sinani are a branch of the Halveti tarikat, founded by one of Sherif Baba's favorite saints, Ummi Sinan. As many of you know, the current guide of that order is a woman. I have not, so far, been lucky enough to travel to the Ummi Sinan tekke, but I've heard stories of wonderful experiences from people who went there with Baba. I'd love to hear anything like that. So if anyone has nice stories about Baba, please feel free to post them in comments.

Here's a nice video of a Kadiri dhikr-- you can see several different styles in it:



for those of you who have never attended a dhikr before, I would like to just mention that though some of the practices may appear a little odd from the outside, much of the physical action involved has to to with breath control. It is in this way somewhat similar to some techniques in certain styles of yoga. The more important element, however, is certainly the repetition of the Names themselves. Sufis of various orders have many different styles of doing this, individually and collectively. In addition to these kinds of group ritual dhikr, most Sufis also recite the Names silently throughout the day.
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Here is some of a small Rifa'i dhikr somewhere--- you can't really see anyone but the main singer, but these are nice salawats (praises of the Prophet, p.b.u.h).

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Hu...

Friday, July 4, 2008

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Orientalist painting of a Rifa'i dergah in Istanbul



I love this painting-- I think it's my one of my two favorites in the world. (the other is the Lyn Ott painting in the Meeting Place at the Meher Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach). This is a 19th Century Orientalist painting of a Rifa'i tekke in Istanbul. In the picture, one sees a visiting Mevlevi turning sema. I think it's also interesting that there are Africans, likely slaves brought through Egypt. As a person who's professional interests are in American slavery, this is a useful reminder that the African slave trade was not solely a transatlantic phenomenon-- some left Africa to the North and East, rather than to the Americas. Aziz Nessin describes in his autobiographical work Istanbul Boy about how many people of African descent used to be present in Turkey in the earlier part of the 20th Century. Today, they have become thoroughly mixed with the rest of the population but their descendants are still around. Though they do not really form a distinct community, there are certainly still Turks of partially African descend who retain both oral histories and physical features. Someone really should work on this topic.

Alevi semah and Rifa'i recitations, plus some beautiful selpe baglama songs

Semah from an Alevi Cem












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note that in this one, the dede is wearing the takke like Rifa'i Marufis wear, wrapped in a black turban as Sherif Baba does. It's a little hard to see, but he's in the middle at the beginning of the video.

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lovely selpe playing

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more nice selpe-style playing-- this time with a twist!

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this one cracked me up-- but so good! Yes, he is playing the tune from a Nokia ringtone...


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More Bosnian Rifa'i dhikr:

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Bosnian Rifa'i recitations

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A video from a Qadiri-Rifa'i musican from somewhere in Eastern Europe. You can certainly see very clearly a very intense Ehli-Beyt focus, much stronger than in most tariqas. This particular branch is also apparently very involved in the practices with fire, swords, etc. which can be seen in the related videos from the same source.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Qawwali, etc.

Abida an amazing singer, mashallah. She's a Chisti from India singing Qawwali music. This is the music made popular in the West by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, also a Chisti. A nice thing about this video is that some of the lyrics are translated into English. I love the part at the end-- it reminds me of Alevi idea of human beings as the true Kaaba and that the real pilgrimage we must make is to the human heart.



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Next is an interesting video of a Qawwali group with a very active audience singing a song (well-known to Nusrat fans) about Lal Shahbaz Qalendar, a Chisti saint. There is also an elderly man with one gigantically long dreadlock who is for some reason being showered with large quantities of cash. I have no idea about all of that. But the music is great.


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Another great Qawwali singer-- Aziz Mian.

Wow, this guy clearly eats a lot of betel. Check out those lips!


Before he started chewing paan. And with a wonderful almost Klezmer clarinet.

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and my favorite these days... Sain Zahoor!


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This is nice-- street qawwali


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I love this guy-- Qari Saeed Chisti





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Tala al Badru Alaina--




Thursday, June 19, 2008

This is some of the most beautiful selpe-style saz playing I've heard. Selpe (pronounced "shell-pay") is finger-picked and uses tapping techniques similar to those of guitarists like Eddie Van Halen, Tuck Andress, Stanley Jordan, or Michael Hedges. The host on the show is a little goofy, but Erdal Erzincan is sublime.



This guy is really incredible-- more of him:


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Ozlem Ozdil is also very good, and you can see what she is doing quite well.


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This is interesting-- aerial views of semah from the urs in Haci Bektash Koy.


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Musa Eroglu is still my alltime favorite...


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Youtube is also filled with footage a great amateur saz players. You'd be amazed at just how good some of these highschool kids can actually be. This one struck me with his maturity, subtlety and attention to tone.


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This is beautiful.. this time nothing to do with Alevi music



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This is cool too-- disciples of Shaykh Ibra Fall of the Baye Fall Order in Senegal. They are a branch of the Mourides of Ahmadu Bamba. Because of their dreadlocks, they are often confused with Rastas. Even more interestingly, they themselves began to see connections and started using the red, gold, and green colors and started reggae bands! But their main music is drumming



Here is one of their dhikrs... with men and women together.



They are among the few orders left where most the dervishes still wear patched robes all the time.
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The last one for tonight-- I've seen dhikrs that involved sitting, standing, and even dancing. I've seen people slam up against each other. Going into a trance is commonplace. I've even seen people eat broken glass and stick knives in their head.
But for a great Sufi workout routine, I've gotta go with the Mokashfiya brotherhood in Sudan. They run laps in dhikr! ;)

Monday, June 16, 2008

Medet ya Ali

One of my favorite Alevi songs... Medet ya Ali



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This one is kind of interesting-- this is Yildiz Tilbe, who is mostly a pop singer, but she is Alevi. This is her singing a song from that repertoire, and mashallah... she is so good on it, I think.


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This is interesting-- another Alevi song with some intriguing imagery. Note the juxtaposition of Catholic imagery with the Ehli Beyt images. I think that may have resulted from a search for Fatima that landed on pictures related to Our Lady of Fatima! I love the one with Hazreti Ali merged with the image from the Catholic icon of the Divine Mercy, with the red and blue beams of light coming from his heart. It's a really weird world we live in.


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Beautiful Kurdish Alevi singing-- as a tribute to one of the Alevi martyrs of Sivas.


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this one is great-- Rifa'is in former Yugoslavia explaining about different parts of the dhikr. They're Gypsies as well. Notice that the shaykh also uses the 3 part Alevi/Shi'a shahada (with "Ali'un veli Allah"), or as I like to call it, "putting the Shah in SHAHada" ;)



more from the same folks-- I'd hate to be defined as an "insolent dervish" in this dergah! ;)


More from this... and anyone who knows me well knows that I have a total fascination with Gypsy culture and music-- so how much does finding a film about Rifa'i Gypsies make my day?



There is also another film by the same Youtube user of these folks doing the piercings, etc. Not for the squeamish, but interesting.

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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Qadiri-Rifa'is in Turkey

It may be illegal to have a dergah in Turkey, but it's really hard to make a law prohibiting a Sufi shaykh from having a living room. ;)

the Helvetis meet the Mevlevis



Another example of how tariqas interact and sometime merge forms-- here is a Helveti-Ussaki dhikr with a visiting Mevlevi semazen and a ney-player. This is not uncommon-- much like you saw in the last video with Rifa'i and Mevlevis joining for a dhikr/sema.

Rifa'i Marufi/Mevlevi video-- Aziz



This is Aziz-- a student of Sherif Baba (Rifa'i Marufi) and Jalaluddin Loras (Mevlevi) in the interview. The dhikr and sema footage if from the Rumi Festival that used to happen every year in Chapel Hill, NC. This was hosted annually by the Rifa'i Marufi Order, but visiting Mevlevis would come and turn also. In the video, the loud rambunctious stuff is from the Rif'ai dhikr, the slow and graceful one is more of the Mevlevi style (though people from both participated in each). Aziz also sometime turns with lit torches-- which perfectly expresses his dual connections with the Mevlevis and the Rifa'is-- Fire being the ultimate symbol of the Rifa'i tariqa (hence the name of this blog) and the Mevlevis being known for whirling.

This could so be one of those nights at Silk Road or the Rumi festival... but isn't.

The spontaneity, the devotion, the chaos, the men and women together, the mix of American and tradition Islamic cultures... a spontaneous free-form chanting of the Shahada accompanied by pots and pans and a water-cooler. for some Muslims, this kind of thing is a nightmare brought to life. For me, it's hope itself.

beautiful salawat with Shaykh Ninowy, Shaykh Durkee, Shaykh Ahmad Abdur-Rasheed and others. Mashallah!

a rather interesting talk by Shaykh Nooruddeen Durkee--this is him a little more fired up than usual, but the message is like Sherif Baba's message in my last post. Those of you who are familiar with Meher Baba may recognize the part about love being self-communicative! I wonder if the shaykh was deliberately quoting Meher Baba or not? He definitely knows about him and has read his works-- we talked about that a few years ago. He gives two sentences that are essentially from Meher Baba, verbatim. I'd love to know if they had just seeped into Shaykh Nooruddeen's consciousness or if he was deliberately quoting from him. Again, this is something of an example of what I wrote about a few posts ago-- here's a shaykh who is quite rigorous in his sharia, knowledgeable in Maliki fiqh, and very definitely a mainstream Sunni, yet even he demonstrates the influence of a teacher who comes from not even the edges of Islam, but actually from just outside of town. Again, it's because he was a seeker-- before finding the Shadhili tariqa of which he is a part, he looked into all kinds of spirituality. In someone like Meher Baba, he didn't find his path, but he did find useful ideas from a person he respects. Elhamdullillah. It's nice to see someone as solidly Islamic as this shaykh quoting from Meher Baba and getting resounding cries of "Allahu Akbar" every two seconds from the crowd.


Something just passed along from a friend of what Baba told him about his blog--

SHERIF BABA SAID: THE ONLY THING YOU NEED TO WRITE ON YOUR WEBSITE IS THIS:

"WHOEVER FOLLOWS THE HUMAN BEING, FINDS THE BEAUTY. OUR PURPOSE IS HUMAN BEING, TO LIVE THE DEPTH OF A HUMAN BEING."
As a quick follow-up to my last post-- I will, at some, point go into the differences between semah, dhikr, hadra, and some of the differences in style of dhikr between the different orders. I do want to make it clear that I am not suggesting that this is all one tradition-- there are certainly very important distinctions to be made. And, in terms of the political climate of Turkey today and in the past, the interests of the Alevi/Bektashi and the Naqshbandi couldn't be more different, so lumping it all together as Sufi doesn't do the situation justice. There's a bit of a difference in a Rifa'i saying, from a certain comparative point of view, that the Naqshibandis are a bunch of Wahhabis vs. actually thinking that the Naqshbandis literally have nothing to do with Sufism at all. It is important to realize that there are some commonalities between tariqas in general and that there has always been considerable dialogue and sometimes even influences between them. More on all of this later, inshallah.

It's a sliding scale. Some Sufis are extremely liberal, some are mid-level conservatives by world standards. Not all Sufis are sweetness and light, Rumi-reading hippies like myself! ;) Some, though admittedly few, can be quite intolerent. On the other hand, it is astonishing to me that there are many in Turkey today who believe that connection to a tarikat or the practice of zikr are actually signs of fundamentalism. When I hear things like that, I tend to think... wow, you should meet some of these dudes at the masjid I used to go to!

Balkan Rifa'i Videos, and the changing meaning of the word "tarikat" in post-1980's Turkey



Here's another one-- notice the hand motions (especially of the guy in the white shirt and jeans) that are similar to those in some of the Alevi semahs. The line here between a devran (a kind of dhikr that is standing, known in most Arabic countries as a hadra) and semah (the Alevi dances) is a little blurred-- though clearly this is dhikr and not semah. In fact, in contemporary times, I think many Alevis would actually be appalled by this. For much of contemporary Turkey, the very word tarikat (tariqa) suggests fundamentalist, an Islamic state, and even outright brutality toward the Alevi (even if the Bektashis are, in fact, a tarikat). Part of the issue here is one of the largest tarikats in Turkey is the Naqshbandi who, at least in Turkey, are hyper-Sunni, very shari'a- oriented, and quite political. The leaders of the so-called "fundamentalist" parties have actually been rather conservative Sufis-- Naqshbandis. By the 1980's in the Turkish media, this led to something of a redefining of the meaning of tarikat into almost any kind of Muslim organization-- especially extremist ones. As but one rather bizarre example demonstrates, a group like Hezbullah is commonly referred to as a tarikat in Turkish. Yet, in any other Muslim country, involvement with a tariqa
might put one one the fringes of even being Muslim in the eyes of a large part of the population (with a few exceptions, in places like Senegal and Morocco where majorities share a Sufi orientation). As the Turkish media developed the association between the word "tariqa" and fundamentalism, an odd association even began to develop in the eyes of the secularist population between fundamentalism and dhikr-- an association that would make no sense in any other part of the country. In the largest masjid in the city where I live, the imam literally fired his muezzin and asked him not to return even for prayers because he attended a mawlid that included dhikr... now that's actual Islamic fundamentalism. It's interesting to me that a friend from Turkey said, in a discussion regarding the Naqshbandi, "They are a tarikat! They do dhikr! What in the world does that have to do with Sufism? Nothing! That's fundamentalism!" That statement, which many in Turkey today would agree with (because to them the Mevlevi are NOT are tariqa, but al-Qaeda is from their point of view) would make no sense in any other country, nor would it have made sense to their great-grandparents. Anywhere else, or 50 years ago in Turkey, people would see a continuum with Bektashis on the far liberal end and, Naqshbandis on the conservative end in terms of Islamic practice, and most orders somewhere in between the two. Rifa'is and Qadiris, depending on the branch, occupying all of the places on that axis too. Then you would also have another axis in which there are orders who do extreme practices like eating glass, swallowing hot coals, piercing with skewers and the like. Again, the Rifa'i and Qadiri are famous for this (but in many branches of these orders those practices are outright forbidden), while in other tariqas, such as Bektashi, Mevlevi, and Jerrahi, those practices have never been a part of the tradition at all.

The Rifa'i are quite often referred to as a Sunni tariqa, and that's true in the sense of typically being followers of Hanifi or Shafi'i fiqh, but as some of the other videos from this source demonstrate, some branches of Rifa'iyya are intensely Ehli Beyt-oriented (Ahl-ul Bayt, the family of the Prophets, s.a.w.s) as to certainly fringe on Shi'ism. I suspect that this is primarily influence from the Alevi and Bektashi traditions in Turkey. Sherif Baba's Rifa'i Marufi Order is very much along those lines, to the point of self-defining as "tarikat Alevi". See my post-- "Interview with Sherif Baba" for more about that. In Rifa'i Marufi, the lines between dhikr and semah are actually clearer, though dhikr is done with men and women in the same circle (which is found in no Sunni dhikr tradition I know of) and apparently has been the practice of this branch since the 18th Century. Nevertheless, as discussed in the interview, semah did occasionally occur in Rifa'i Marufi (though taught by an Alevi/Bektashi).

Anyway, back to Rifa'is in the Balkans-- but do notice the hand-motions that suggest the kirklar semahi. Look at the guy in the white shirt and jeans.

the mazar of Hafiz Shirazi




This is the ceiling of the tomb of Hafiz...

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Mevlevi




This is a photograph I took a few years ago of Hasan Dede and one of his dervishes at the Nurman Dede Tekke in the Uskudar section of Istanbul. That was a wonderful experience. That dergah is still very much a working dergah, versus the performances that these same dervishes do at the famous (and much easier to get to)Galata Mevlevihane. The semas are open to the public, and it does have a bit of an odd feel-- the tension between functioning dergah and tourist attraction is intense. Nevertheless, they do what they have to do to keep the Mevlevi tradition going. Mashallah.

Notice the Edep Ya Hu sign in the background-- Edep is a Turkish pronunciation of Adab (literally manners). This is a common phrase in Turkish Sufism, essentially indicating that the best service to God is how we treat people.

a Qadiri-Rifa'i film

Bosnian Rifa'i footage-- illahis and dhikr.







Meher Baba/ Hazrat Babajan

This is a video about the recently published book by Meher Baba entitled "Infinite Intelligence" and some interesting images of Meher Baba's early period.



This is something I was fascinated to see-- footage of the shrine of Hazrat Babajan, the Afghan murshida (Chisti tariqa, it appears) was was Meher Baba's first master. I've always been interested in Baba's Sufi connections.



I really love Meher Baba, even though I see him in a rather different light than most of his followers do. Most view him as a kind of God incarnate, and this is based on a series of statements he made. However, I tend to think many inflect a kind of post-Christian mentality into these statement-- I see him speaking within both a Hindu tradition that accepts such manifestations as normal (seeing God constantly manifesting in the world, since God is the ultimate reality) and also within a Sufi tradition in which certain advanced souls reach a point where they simply cease to have an identity of their own and express only a reflection of the identity of Allah. References to this in Sufi tradition tend to point to people like Mansur al-Hallaj and Beyazid Bistami. Astaghfirullah if I have misinterpreted on this point, but in any case, he was the one who first taught me to love Allah by introducing me to a different way of religion. Secondly, he's the one from whom I first encountered Hafiz Shirazi and Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, so even if 90% of his community believe some clearly non-Islamic things about him, he was perhaps the most crucial link to Islam for me. As one friend of mine expressed it, "I don't know who he was, but he was definitely SOMEBODY!" and another said "I don't know what to make of some of these statements, but I love him anyway". His effect in my life has always been to remind me to love Allah, to recognize Allah's many revelations to different communities, to serve others, and to remember that none of our concepts and organizations-- even the names of religions-- can ever be bigger than Allah. All religions belong to Him, rather than Allah being the property of those who call themselves Christians or Muslims or whatever. Though Meher Baba (not to be confused with Sherif Baba, about whom I have often posted) was a Zoroastrian by birth and had disciples of all religions (including many Muslims) he has always been a guidepost to Islam in my life, even though he was not himself a Muslim in the usual sense. Baba expressed, from what I have been told, a particular love for Sufism as the path with which he felt closest., and if you read certain passages of him, he writes within a throroughly Sui point of view. So in any case, he was certainly one whoh knew a great deal about Sufism and his clearly brought many to read Sufi writers like Rumi. In particular, he had a special love for Hafiz Shirazi, whose tomb in Iran he had restored (in the 30's, I believe). Because of this particular connection with Hafiz (even to the point that on his deathbed, he asked for a board to be painted with a passage from the saint-- making Meher Baba's final message essential a quotation from a Sufi poet) the two most outstanding translations of Hafiz into English in recent times have both come from followers of Meher Baba. So, however one should correctly view Meher in the light of Islam, there is no question that he had a beautiful impact on the continuation of the message of one of the most beloved Sufi mystics, preserving his memory in Iran and making his words available to seekers in the West. Allah alone knows what to make of one like this-- but I wouldn't be saying that without Meher Baba.

Early footage of Meher Baba

Gnawa music--an Algerian gimbri player

This is one of my favorites-- so bluesy.

a nasheed by the group Shaam, from Brittain

Shaykh Ninowy of Atlanta

Mashallah, quite a nice video. Shaykh Ninowy is a graduate of the al-Alzhar, and has ijazat in the Naqshbandi, Rifa'i, Shadhili, and Qadiri tariqas. This is from an ISRA (Islamic Studies and Research Association) conference.







Very nice Jeffrey Lang video from MeccaCentric



The issue, I think, is that Muslims so often assume that enforcing Islamic rules of behavior will automatically result in a beautiful ahlak (morality), yet for many (including myself) it is actually learning about the potential for developing one's ahlak that makes one wish to go to the trouble of observing shar'ia in the first place. If we see the potential of how the shar'ia can help us to develop these qualities we admire, we are drawn in. Yet we are so often presented with more about the appropriate length for a mustache or the correct foot with which to step into a restroom that we forget the central themes of Islam-- the love of Allah and service to humanity. I love this video-- though surely some would object that he can't possibly speak about Islam without a beard. ;) I think, from my experience with music, that in addition to perfect examples, you also need to see something that's attainable. I've learned a lot about the 'ud from Hamza el-Din-- frankly more than I've learned from Munir Nureddin Beken or Farid al-Atrash. They're both technically better players, no doubt about it. But Hamza el-Din demonstrated to me a level of playing that was possible for me to attain, and he did it with a lot of heart. I think that shaykhs are like this too. Baba made it clear to me that what matters is La Illaha Illallah, the rest is just details. Even things most Muslims (including myself) would see as absolutely essential (like salat) could come later. But those things are between you and Allah. When I finally heard Islam presented in this way, my first question was "How do I start?" and it's because in the Qur'an Allah says that "There is no compulsion in religion". It has to be from the heart. I do not doubt that some people need a shaykh who guides them in rigorous shari'a. Others need one who accepts such practice as a given, but seeks to explain it and make it more meaningful. Others go to a Sufi shaykh for additional practices that will add to the basic Islamic requirements. Some seek simply the baraka from a particular lineage. We all have our various needs, and there are many different shaykhs and tariqas (or other approaches) that can help us to fulfill those purposes. It's not only a question of ending up with the right or wrong shaykh-- it's also one of who gets you to the next step of the journey. What do you need right now to-- at the first stage, become a complete human being-- and then later, become a better Muslim. Someone like Baba is not the kind of shaykh everyone needs. Some need a Nuh Ha Mim Keller, who is incredibly scrupulous about fiqh. Mashallah. That's beautiful, too. Just because we might love a more open approach doesn't mean we write Keller off as a Wahhabi. Hell, I don't even write the Wahhabis off as Wahhabis. Anyway, different shaykhs for different flakes. Allahu 'Alim.

and LA ILLAHA ILLALLAH.
Hu....

Monday, June 9, 2008



If anyone knows the story about the taj that Baba is wearing here, I would really like to know. It is made of four pieces of felt, reminiscent of an old style of Bektashi taj, but has a rainbow band at the bottom. Does anyone know what this is?


This is Baba with Kaygisiz Ashik, who travels the country in his van selling Turkish groceries. The van is covered in passages from the Qur'an, Sufi symbols, images of saints, pictures of the 12 Imams and so on. He is quite a talented baglama player, mashallah, who plays primarily in the Central Anatolian style.

Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba



This is Senegalese Sufi street art of Ahmadu Bamba, one of the most popular Sufi shaykhs of 20th Century West Africa. The image was inspired by a famous photograph of the shaykh, the only one of him in existence. I was in Senegal a few years ago, and it is virtually impossible to find a restaurant, shop, or taxi that does not have his image.

Abdel-Qadir Geylani and Ahmed er-Rifa'i

some videos you may enjoy, insha'allah.













Mashallah! This girl from Iran is so impressive at a Qur'an recitation competition:








The best dhikr video of all time:




More later...

Shaykh Nooruddeen Durkee




All of the prophets who are in possession of the Divine Light of Muhammed, all of the Aziz, the saints, all the evliyas, the friends of Allah, have attained the attribute of Kerim.
Ya Rabb, we ask of you, do not separate us from their footsteps. Make it our nasib, our lot, to walk their beautiful path and let us live among each other with this love. Always increase the ashk, the Divine Love, in our hearts. Ya Rabb, do not separate us from one another. Make it our nasib to have the Nur of Muhammed, the Divine Light of Muhammed, born in our hearts. These come from the attribute of Kerim. With His attribute of Kerim Allah is offering to all things He has created. To work is up to us. To give comes from Allah. However much we work that is how much offering we will get in exchange. Allah says, "Surely, I will give you what you have worked for."
Allah Kerim, Allah Hu
(Sherif Baba)

Sherif Baba discusses Huzur (tranquility)



It doesn’t matter how much of a sinner a person is, Allah says in the Quran: “Do not cut your hope from Me. My rahmet, My compassion, is wide.” It includes everything. That is why we have to believe in His goodness and beauty, and we are going to learn that this goodness and beauty works inside of ourselves. Then wherever we go we will live with huzur, peace and tranquility.

The trouble with people today is that there’s no huzur, but there is comfort. They have villas. They have palaces at the side of the sea. They have yachts to sail on the water. They have their comfort. They sit in a cool air-conditioned room in the summer, and in the winter they sit in their nice heated places. They have money in their pockets. But where is the huzur? If you ask them, they will say that they are at peace. But there’s no huzur; there’s only comfort.

Comfort is one thing; huzur is another. Huzur is a fire burning with the ashk, the Divine love, of Allah. Inside of that fire is the love of human beings. There is service towards human beings. There is humbleness. There is no arrogance. When humbleness, service and love live in the heart, even the name of that heart changes and becomes gönül. That’s when huzur comes. And then with that huzur, if you want, go and sit on top of a fire. Nothing will happen. Now, for example, we sat here with huzur. The ground is wet. It’s not really comfortable. But we sat. We don’t want to get up and leave. You were going and you came back and sat. Maybe you had something to do. Why didn’t you go? Why did you sit here instead? That means that there was huzur here. You abandoned your comfort. You came and sat down here. And so huzur is the love of human beings and the ashk of Allah that sits in the heart…

The matchstick is made of wood, and the head of it is iman. You are not aware of that. What happens? You strike it on its opposite. Then it begins to burn, and when it burns it becomes ashk. It becomes the ashk of Allah. Burning up, there’s no woodness left, only ashes. All people, like the match, have their faith, but because they don’t strike it on the mirror of knowledge, they can’t get that fire. If you strike the earth with the head of that match it won’t burn. You have to strike it on the mirror of knowledge that is its opposite, and when you strike it there, it burns.

Every person has this ashk. It’s inside iman. What suits the human being best is sincerity, seriousness, correctness. As long as we have these, then we will never lose. And to what will we not lose? We won’t lose to the negativities inside of ourselves. You know that negative energy is represented by Shaitan, Satan. Positive energy is represented by Rahman, compassion, and Rahim, beneficence, by the existence of Allah. If you look at this side, Shaitan is giving negative energy. If you look at the other side, Rahman is giving positive energy. Between these two energies the human being is confused, standing between two opposites. The human being is learning the knowledge so that he can bring these opposites together and find the beauty of Allah. In the sohbet a little while ago we quoted a great Sufi saint, Hazreti Juneydi Baghdadi, who said, “I have found Allah in the place where opposites unite.”

Let me give an example. Man and woman. Physically they are opposites. But when they become one, what happens? A being comes into existence. The beauty of Allah comes. A child is born and grows and is testament to the existence of Allah in this world as a human being. When the opposites join together in this way, then the beauty of Allah is seen.
Earlier we gave the example of electricity. One wire is negative and the other is positive. If they are not connected together, then they can cross and blow a fuse, start a fire. But when the negative and positive are connected together, then the light burns. In Turkish this is called ishik, in Tasawwuf it is called ashk, in Farsi it is called zia, and in Arabic it is called nur.

You have understood huzur and comfort now, right? Look, you have huzur and that attracts like a magnet. A little while ago we were talking about how the electricity in magnets attracts minerals. It doesn’t attract wood. Sometimes people are like wood and not attracted, but those who are like minerals are attracted. They do not come for me because my eye is beautiful or my brow is beautiful or my face is beautiful. It’s not my words but the Beautiful One who is inside of me. Say that that One gets up and leaves and I just fall down here. What happens then? You’ll pick me up and bury me in the graveyard. You won’t sit at my bedside waiting for me to speak.

What people are looking for today, what they have lost, is humanity. And what is this humanity? Peace. Love. Respect. Serv-ice to one another. People have lost this, and now they are looking for it. Where is the humanity to be found? In the instructions that Allah has sent us by way of the prophets. This first started with the prophet Ibrahim, Abraham. Ibrahim saw this existence of Allah and knew that it worked in the human being. Then he surrendered to the one Allah. And this surrender is Islam. It comes from the Arabic verb salamat. He said, “Oh, my God, I have surrendered myself to you. I am the first of those to submit, the first of the Muslim.” So Allah then named all the people who followed after Ibrahim Muslims. The road that shows the goodness and beauty of humanity, the road that gathers together all of the religions, is Islam. It is the road of Ibrahim. That’s why Allah says in the Quran that Ibrahim was on the path that was cleansed. And He says that he is not of those who live duality.
Because people are looking for this goodness and beauty in the world, they examine the Quran and they look at how humanity has been lost and they discover how they can find it again. That’s why Islam is growing in the world today. Islam is not just the religion of the Muslim. It is a religion that speaks to all people. The Quran is not a book that just connects Muslims. It’s like the sun that speaks to all people. It’s like the sun. People research this and when they find this goodness and beauty, they go onto the road of humanity.

In the same way that people search for bread and water, because they have been created as beautiful, they have to search for this goodness and beauty. By searching they are going to find it, because everything attracts its own kind. I gave the example of the magnet. What is it? It’s metal and it attracts metal. If you put the magnet up to wood it won’t attract it. Because Allah allows His goodness and beauty to live in the human being, this goodness is also searching for goodness. And where do you find this goodness, this beauty? They see that the place to find this is on the road of surrender to Allah. The prophet Ibrahim was the first who surrendered. In the Quran there are many words written about Ibrahim. The religion of humanity is the religion of Islam. People are understanding this and turning in this direction today.

The foundation of Islam is good ahlak, behavior and conduct. The Prophet Muhammed said,”I have come here to complete the good ahlak.” When you find this good ahlak, all religions are going to unite, and only the Existence of the one Allah is going to be left. And that is the love and respect of human beings. That means that Islam is a system of service to humanity. That’s why it’s growing in the world from day to day. Everywhere it is the same. People are thirsty and hungry, and they are looking for this. We have to find this and live it with good ahlak. This is a very wide subject. If you want to learn it well, you’re going to have to do some research. And you have to serve Tasawwuf. It is not some-thing that can be learned with one or two words. It is unlimited knowledge.

Audience: When you say that people are searching for it because of the loss of humanity, what caused this loss of humanity?
Baba: People deviated from the path of the Prophet.
Audience: I find it strange that you call it humanity when it seems that the qualities that you’re talking about in humanity, like peace, are actually those which come from Allah.
Baba: What is it that reflects this divinity? It’s the human being who does this. In the sohbet a little while ago we mentioned that the human being is the halife, the representative, of Allah in this world. Allah said, “Be,” and He created, and left everything in the hands of the human beings. He gave us a mind. He gave us thoughts. Look around you. Everything that you see here was arranged and made by human beings. Allah says, “We have created ships to take you over oceans. We have created palaces for you to live in.” Who made these? Is Allah a carpenter? Did He come down here and build these buildings?

In the Quran, Allah doesn’t say “I.” He doesn’t say, “I did it.” He says, “We did it.” Think of this. Then you’ll understand what the human being is, because He says so Himself: “I am the secret of the human being, and humanity is My secret.” Because people don’t know this, they are confused. Instead of going down this road, they’re going down that road. And because Allah loves these people, He sent recipes through the prophets so that they will walk on the sirat ul mustakim, the straight path. The prophets were human beings, weren’t they? Whose mouths did these laws of Allah come out of? They didn’t fall down from the sky. They came out of the mouths of human beings. That is the manifestation of Allah working through the human being.

Let me explain this to you with a story. The human being is the halife, the shadow of Allah on the world. Tasawwuf compares a human being to a tree. Now think of this tree. The sun has come from behind and the shadow of the tree is on the ground. Now the shadow is looking up and between the branches of the tree he can see the sun. But he is having difficulty seeing it. He says to the tree, “Get out from in between. Get out from in between so I can see the sun with comfort.” And the tree says, “If I move away, you’ll disappear.” So if you kill off people. . . now there’s a knife that can kill people, and bad ahlak can kill people. When humanity is dead, then it is the same as that tree having been torn down. Where’s the shadow? That’s why we have to allow humanity to live. And how do we allow humanity to live? Through human beings. Then the Divine power will be visible, and the Divine beauties and goodnesses will be visible. These cannot be separated from each other.

Sherif Baba asks his students....


________________________________________________________________________
This is a sohbet that I transcribed when I lived in Chapel Hill in 1999.

_____________________________________________________________________________________
Baba: Hoshgeldiniz. We welcome all of you. We wish you a blessed year, and we are now wishing from Allah that this upcoming year will be one that will bring goodness and beauty to all humanity. So all together: Hasbin Allah, Rabbin Allah. Tonight I'm going to be asking certain things. You know, the questions that we ask are all of the systems of life that we need for our lives. Who is a happy person?
Audience: [A happy person] knows who he is and what purpose he came for.
Baba: Very good. This is the 1999 model. The 99 Attributes became the 1999 model.
Audience: I say the happy person is Hu. I guess that feeling of being a real human being, the feeling of being aware of that love. Mercy and Compassion. Thankfulness.
Baba: Alhamdullilah. This is good too. So this year has passed well. 1998 passed very well. You tell me, who is a happy person, according to your understanding.
Audience: The one who is moved by love.
Baba: Eyvallah. This is nice too. These are all words which should be recorded, because every human being is a flower and every flower has a different fragrance, but the smell of all of them together is the scent of jennet, paradise. Each answer that is given is like the scent that come from separate flowers. These are all systems that we need in our lives. The first answer was for a person to know himself. The second answer is for increasing the compassion and mercy and thankfulness in a person, and the third is to be given direction, to be moved by love. Does anyone want to add anything to these? Let us add another scent of another flower among these flowers. Yes?
Audience: The one who is content.
Baba: Alhamdulillah. That's a good one too. These are all the same words that the Prophet spoke. This is what the Prophet said. The one who is the wealthiest is the one who has kanaat, the one who has acceptance and complete contentment with his state. This also gives much happiness to a person. What else?
Audience: A person who is attached to God and is detached from all else.
Baba: Very nice. Alhamdulillah. These are difficult to live, but we're going to try to learn them. Which scissors do we need to cut these attachments? You know the umbilical cord that attached us to our mother? They cut that, and there our connection to our mother ends. But still it doesn't end. Then it starts from up here, in the breast. So that means however much you cut, you're still connected from one place.
Audience: One who is submitted to Allah.
Baba: Eyvallah. That's good too. This is our path, anyway. Everyone has said such beautiful answers. All of them. Everyone's dotted their I's and crossed their T's. There's nothing else to say. There's still one more symbol. There's a question mark. Beauty is endless.
Audience: I'll be very happy today if I can control my sweets intake and can control my digestion.
Baba: That's good too, because with that we remain standing on our feet.
Audience: But that's what brings us down too.
Baba: We have to go down, then we go up. If we stay on top always, then they'll throw rocks at us and bring us down. There are those up there who throw rocks down at our heads.
Audience: One whose heart is open all the time.
Baba: Eyvallah. Beautiful.
Audience: It also feels like with all of this feeling you could extend your hand and allow that to live in another human being.
Baba: That's a beautiful thing as well. It's important; in fact, in this time, in our world, it's one of the things that is most important. These questions are the ones that are going to be opening up this year, 1999, because everyone is expecting happiness, and so this is how we caught the key to 99.
Audience: One who has found huzur, peace and tranquillity, in every circumstance.
Baba: That was the second question, because when this happiness ends we are going to go into huzur. So let's fill up happiness now. Is there anyone left? Do you have anything to say?
Audience: Happiness is within - to be happy within the heart.
Baba: You're writing all of these down, aren't you? We're going to be asking you. Do you have something to add? Audience: I'm the happiest when I have only God in my heart.
Baba: Eyvallah. He doesn't go anywhere anyway, and wherever you go He is with you, like a shadow. Sometimes you chase Him, sometimes He chases you. No separation.
Audience: I'll repeat something I heard a very beautiful dervish once say. Someone gains great happiness when he catches the shirt-tail of his inner murshid, teacher, and then every day is bayram, his holiday.
Baba: We just sang, "I am the holiday. Bayram is the holiday." So happiness happens when you find a murshid.
Audience: Before, I was thinking that so many people were happiest when they could recognize grace. Like in the song, when wake from heedlessness. When we feel that we are in His arms whether we know it or not.
Baba: To wake up from that heedlessness is when you find your murshid and start to listen to him and start to follow his path. That's when a person starts to wake up from the heedlessness. I've given you this as an example always. No matter how much you read, no matter how much you know, no matter how wealthy you may be, if you don't know yourself you will not be able to find happiness. You will always be in stress, and you will always live with "I wonder if," in duality, and always there will be complaints. When a person finds his murshid, his spiritual guide, in his mirror he will begin to recognize himself. Then he will look and see that happiness lives within his own self, and then he will stop searching for happiness outside. Today, people are looking for happiness outside. Some say, "Let me make a lot of money, be wealthy, then I'll find happiness." Some say, "Let me study a lot, and be one of knowledge, a possessor of knowledge, know everything, and I'll find my happiness." That's not how you find happiness. Let me give an example to you. The father of Hazreti Mevlana, Jelaluddin Rumi, was a great scholar, a religious scholar. He had studied every kind of knowledge. When his father died, a murshid of the tarikats, of the spiritual path, Burhaneddin, came, and taught him everything. He learned Tasawwuf, Sufism. He became the greatest scholar of his time, but still he was not able to find that happiness inside himself. He was searching for it. But what did his teacher say to him? He said "Go to Damascus. There is a murshid there. He will show you the parts that I have left lacking," because Shaykh Burhaneddin could understand him. He had a lot of knowledge, but no happiness. He was searching for something. There was no complaint in his outer world, but in his inner world, there was constant complaint. And so his teacher said to him, "Go to Sham, to Damascus and study there awhile. There you'll open up." So Mevlana went to Damascus, and stayed there two or three years. He was looking outside in books. He was the possessor of great knowledge; he was a scholar, and he had money. He had everything. In Konya, he had no problems. He was the top man of the Sultan of the Seljuks. So why was there no happiness? Well, he went to Sham, to Damascus, and studied, but still he was searching. Then Shems came to him, and looked at him. There, Mevlana collapsed. What did Shems say to him? He said, "Look for me. Find me." So what was he to search for? What was he to find? He started to think for himself, and he returned to Konya. Time passed, as you know. They met, Shems and Mevlana, and all of the old stuff that he had studied was reduced to zero, as if he knew nothing. He gave his whole being in submission to Shems, and in his mirror began to see himself. And he saw that everything he had been looking for was in himself. This means that happiness is not to be found outside. Only when we find a murshid, when we listen to him, when we see ourselves in his mirror, can we find happiness. Then everything which is said here is inside of this. There the eye of your heart opens, and the rahmet, the compassion, and the mercy increases, and then you become directed by love. Such a love-a love that never ends. Your mother, father, brother and sisters cannot give you the same love. You grew up with them, you drank the milk of the same breast, but the love that you cannot get from your brother or sister, you can get from your spiritual brothers or sisters. This means that when you find a murshid, you are able to find yourself within yourself. This is how it has come throughout history. I'm not speaking this from myself. It is the experience that is speaking. This is how happiness is. As you say, to find yourself is when you find your murshid. When that happiness comes, then you begin to find yourself within yourself, because when you find this happiness, there your thoughts of duality end. "What am I doing?" "Where am I going? "How am I going to live?" "What's going to happen tomorrow?" "I have a lot of sins." " What if Allah doesn't forgive me?" All of these things just make you tired. All of this is darkness. When you find your murshid, when you come to that happiness, there the dark questions end. Then the questions of joy begin. And to whom do you ask those? You ask those to yourself. And let me tell you the first question. You ask yourself, "What did I do today for Allah?" What? Did I say my prayers? Did I fast? Did I do zikr? What? Musa, Moses, went to the mountain of Sinai, and Allah asked him, "Ya Musa, what did you do for Me?" He said, "I worshipped. I fasted. I did zikr." "So what did you bring Me?" "I brought you what I did," he said. Allah said, "I have no need for that. I have no need of any of that. You need those! What did you do for Me?" This is the first question we are to ask. When we find happiness, this is the first question that we are to ask. Then we'll begin to pull ourselves upward. Of course, this is something that will happen in time. It doesn't happen all at once. Yes, all of you gave beautiful answers. I thank you. Insha'Allah, this year, we and the whole world will find this happiness. We're going to be stirring up the garbage a lot, all the way until we find the jemal of Allah, the beauty of Allah. Of course, we are going to find that within our own palace, but we're always going to be stirring. We are not to be afraid. Do not be hesitant or lazy. Work. If someone says something, we're to look and see, is it beneficial to us or not? If it is beneficial to us, fine. If it's not, it'll go just like it came; it won't make us tired. This is how they worked in the old days, and this is how they brought this path thus far, and this is how we're going to work. We're going to give to humanity, constantly. When you find happiness, then you're going to start to share it. Then you're going to give to everybody of this happiness, to the extent that they want. Say that you've made money and you've become wealthy. You're not going to sit on your money. You're going to distribute it. How are you going to distribute it? You're going to give your zekat, your charity; you're going to give help. Then you will have made people happy. This is how spiritual happiness is to be found. When you save one person from darkness, then your happiness will increase and you will also have given that person happiness. This is the greatest of all worship. The Prophet said to Hazreti Ali, "To save one person from darkness is a greater blessing than to conquer the world." When you find your happiness, then you have to give it to people as well. Don't be afraid. Work. Our path is the path of humanity. It's the path of love. It's the path of service. Now it's the turn of huzur, of tranquillity. So let's start with you. Who is the person who has huzur?
Audience: The one who has found sirat ul-mustakim, the straight path.
Baba: Eyvallah. Now let's ask again? How are we going to find sirat ul-mustakim?
Audience: By serving the human being.
Baba: Beautiful. We're writing all of these down, right? Look, tonight we're planting a flower garden, and then we're going to open a flower shop. What else? Who is the person who has huzur, who has tranquillity?
Audience: One who trusts Allah.
Baba: Very beautiful, write it down. But we're not going to trust anywhere else, even if we take a beating. Saying that the beating is coming from Allah, we're not going to open our mouths. Just like Hazreti Isa, Jesus, said, "For those who slap on one side, we'll turn the other and say 'slap here too.'" That's a very good one. In a little bit, the beating is going to start. So tell me, who is the person who has huzur? I spoke of this before.
Audience: The one who remembers Allah in all things.
Baba: Eyvallah. Beautiful. In every breath. Because in every breath His Name comes up. Hu. Huuu. We take Him in, we let Him out. All transactions are through Him. Yes, who else?
Audience: A person who is completely relying and dependent upon God.
Baba: Eyvallah. The one who lives independently. Audience: Independent from all except God. Baba: Eyvallah. Yes?
Audience: The one who has the most beautiful eye?
Baba: That's good too. A good eye sees beauty. You know that these are the windows of Allah.
Audience: The one who is at peace with him or herself.
Baba: So how are going to find it?
Audience: Everyone said something. It's beautiful. You're going to smell those flowers. So, teacher, what do you say?
Baba: One who actually can say, "Eyvallah!" One who can actually say it, and mean it, and live it. A murshid says one day to his murid, "Son, whatever you see, you must say, 'Eyvallah.'" And he puts the eyvallah hat on his head, and so he lives with this eyvallah always. He's going to find his huzur, his tranquillity. Time passes. He comes to such an event that there's no place left to say "eyvallah." "What am I going to do?" he says. He comes back to his murshid and he says, "Here, take the eyvallah and give me illallah." This is also huzur. So, eyvallah will bring you to one place. When you find yourself, all problems are solved. And then, as we just said, you begin to live independently. Then eyvallah is no longer acceptable, because then it's illallah that's acceptable. Only Allah. Whenever you find yourself, then you will say illallah.
Audience: Does that mean that all of that difficult stuff that you've got to say eyvallah to has finally disappeared? Because there's only illallah?
Baba: Of course. You use eyvallah just to pass all of your tests.
Audience: Then you graduate to illallah? Baba: So you say illallah and pay the entrance to the turnpike and you drive on!
Audience: Alhamdulillah!
Baba: Alhamdulillah. Audience: Oh, no. . . illallah.
Audience: It seems to come to that place. . . you've talked so much about the zoo that we carry within us, and all of these outrageous animals, and true living and taming this menagerie.
Baba: Of course, then the animals do nothing bad to you. Then the animals protect you, and make money for you! Mashallah, alhamdulillah.
Audience: Illallah! Audience: Eyvallah. Audience: Hu. Inside of the events of this life, in these difficult places that we encounter, can we find the huzur to the extent that we can fulfill the correct actions that our murshid expects from us?
Baba: This is truth. Put a period on this one.
Audience: It seems like one would reach a state of huzur when he is satisfied with Allah. I guess it's the same as seeing the beauty of Allah.
Baba: What else? There's one point you haven't come to yet.
Audience: It might sort of join several points. It seems that when you approach a difficult situation, if you can approach it with the intention and the behavior that your murshid has set out for you and then completely let go of the outcome, then whatever the result is will more naturally be able to be seen as beautiful.
Baba: Exactly. These are the beautiful points of huzur.
Audience: You reach huzur when you, insha'Allah, tame your nefs, your ego self.
Baba: Eyvallah, when you come to nefs al-safiye, the seventh level of the nefs.
Audience: Baba, when I think of tranquillity, huzur, like stillness, quietude, maybe a quite listening inside. . . then we'll know huzur.
Baba: Of course, when we go to the graveyard, we're all going to shut up and listen to ourselves. There, there is no fighting, there is no nothing, there is no eyvallah, there is no illallah. This that you are talking about is very important, but we have to find that in this crowd. Inside of all of this noise, we have to find this silence and this will also bring huzur. Beautiful. Yes?
Audience: One like Merkez Efendi, who is down the center and doesn't want to change anything.
Baba: That's good too. That's the crown that we're going to put on at the end. Hazreti Sümbül Efendi was the murshid of Merkez Efendi. Just before he was to die, he had many dervishes, and all of them were looking to establish themselves in his kingdom, but he was going to give it to Merkez Efendi,whose name was Musa Muslahettin. Sümbül Efendi looked at them all. He was not approaching anyone. The title of murshid was approaching Merkez Efendi, and everyone was jealous of him. So Sümbül Efendi saw this and put everyone to the test. I've told this story before. He said to them, "If Allah would give rububiyat, lordness, to you, what would you do for the world?" One says, "I would make everyone do the namaz, the ritual prayers," and another says, "I would close all of the cafes and the places of gambling," and some say, "I'll do this," and others say, "I'll do that." Everyone has something to do. Sümbül Efendi says, "Ya, Musa, what would you do?" He says, "I won't do a thing, because Allah does what's best. I will go neither one hand-span forward, nor slow down one hand-span. I'll leave everything in its merkez, its center, because this is how His center is established." And to that Sümbül Efendi says, "Do you see now, this Musa? He's found the path of dervishness. He's arrived at the center. So he's the one who deserves to be the murshid." So that means the one who finds huzur becomes murshid. We have to find the center. So who else has an answer? We're talking of huzur, of tranquillity. Yes?
Audience: When we find the center, then there is no separation between ourselves or those around us.
Baba: We're all going to go there together. We have to follow the trail. In the same way that the hunter who goes into the forest to hunt follows the trail of his game, and then when he finds it, the tracks end. The trail ends. So from then on, which trail is he going to follow? He's found what he's looking for. Then he's going to follow himself. So if we find the center, then we'll follow ourselves. How are we going to follow ourselves? We know what we do. Are we going to do jelal, or are we going to do jemal? When we act knowingly, then we follow ourselves. The street of huzur. This is good. So what else?
Audience: Shukur. (Thanks)
Baba: That's beautiful too, and that's also from the layers of worship. Now we're ready to go to the center of huzur. It's from the center that we're going to find huzur. Now, where is our center, the center that gives us life? It's our hearts, and what is the heart connected to? It's connected to this center, the brain. You know that when both of these work, we have life, and when both of these stop, we have death. If your heart stops, but your brain continues to work, you're not dead. The two have to work together. That's where life and death start. The actual heart is the brain. This is our physical heart. It's a blood-pump. It keeps our body on its feet. Whereas this heart holds our spirituality on its feet. This also has a circulation. In the same way that this circulates the blood through its pumping, this is also a pump for the circulation of something. This is the center, so we have to come close to the center. It is from there that we will find huzur. All action, all worship -for example, seeing beautifully through our eyes, our acceptance of everything, our being thankful-all of the words that we have said until now come out of this center. If we're not able to do what we say, that means that the center is not able to circulate that blood in a proper fashion. And what is that blood?
Audience: Our thoughts?
Baba: Correct, and that's where we start from. So that pumps the thoughts. That's more important than this, the physical heart. Because this can die, and its work in the world is finished. But when this dies, it goes into deathlessness. Because it lives. Its physical dies, but its spiritual lives. Look, we're speaking of those who left 4,000 and 5,000 years ago. We say Moses, we say Abraham, we say Confucius, we say Buddha. It means that their thoughts have not died. The center pumped it well. Thousands of years pass; there is still that which has been pumped. It's turning around in our brains. It's from here that we are to find huzur, tranquillity.