MEVLANA JALALUDDİN RUMİ and SUFISM (A Dervish’s Logbook) Mim Kemâl ÖKE 1 Dr. Mim Kemâl ÖKE Mim Kemal Öke was born in Istanbul in 1955 to a family with Central Asian Uygur heritage. Öke attended Şişli Terakki Lyceum for grade school and Robert College for high school. After graduating from Robert College in 1973, he went to England to complete his higher education in the fields of economics and history at Cambridge University. He also specialized in political science and international relations at Sussex, Cambridge, and Istanbul universities. In 1979 he went to work at the United Nation’s Palestine Office. He returned to Turkey in 1980 to focus on his academic career. He soon became an assistant professor at Boğaziçi University in 1984 and a professor in 1990. In 1983, TRT (Turkish Radio and Television Corporation) brought Öke on as a general consulting manager for various documentaries, including “Voyage from Cadiz to Samarkand in the Age of Tamerlane.” Up until 2006 he was involved in game shows, talk shows, news programs and discussion forums on TRT, as well as on privately owned channels. He also expressed his evaluations on foreign policy in a weekly syndicated column, “Mim Noktası” (Point of Mim). Though he manages to avoid administrative duties, he has participated in official meetings abroad on behalf of the Turkish Foreign Ministry. Throughout his academic career, Öke has always prioritized research. Of his more than twenty works published in Turkish, English, Urdu and Arabic, his writings on the issues of Palestine, Armenia, Mosul, and the Caliphate as they relate to the history of Ottoman and Turkish foreign policy are considered foundational resources. Aside from non-fiction, Öke has written several novels portraying man’s contradictions throughout the course of history: Günbatımı (Sunset), Kızılelma (Kizilelma), Yaşanmamış Anılar (Unlived Memories) and Duvardaki Kan (The Blood on the Wall). 2 Öke also authored Turkey’s first comprehensive examinations into civil-military and religious relations: “Din-Ordu Gerilimi (Relgious-Military Tension), Derviş ve Komutan: Özgürlük-Güvenlik Sarkacındaki Türkiye’de Kimlik Sorunsalı (Dervish and Commander: The Identity Problematic in Turkey on the Freedom-Security Pendulum), Kılıç ve Ney (The Sword and the Reed), and Gazi ve SuFi (ghazi and Sufi). In two other works, Öke explores music’s role in uncovering post-modern man’s personality, identity and spirit as he evaluates the mystical experiences of Latin American (Kaderle Dans [Dancing with Fate]) and African (İlaHlarla Dans [Dancing with gods]) communities. Over the last ten years Öke has gravitated towards human sciences in his quest to understand mankind, which in the Turkish context rests in Sufi philosophy: Aşkla Dans: Türkler, TasavvuF ve Musiki (Dancing with Love: Turks, Music and Sufism). The author has also published four books with Sufi Kitap: Aşkın Ekolojisi (The Ecology of Love), Yaralı Ceylanlar Kulübü (The Wounded gazelles Club), Dervişin Sema DeFteri (The Dervish’s Sama Notebook), and THe Dervish’s Logbook. Though Öke has won various awards for cultural and scientific studies, he is also an accomplished visual artist. He has shown his charcoal drawings in solo and group exhibitions. He also participates in Sufi and Turkish classical music ensembles with his daughter and enjoys equestrian sports. As an extension of his social awareness, Öke offers rhythm and folk dance classes to disabled individuals. He also put together a family-oriented handbook about Down syndrome called 47. Kromozom (The 47th Chromosome), which includes research and experiences. He is married to his wife, Neval, and together they have two children, Alihan and Nazlı Hilal. They have one grandson, Demirhan Kemal. 3 Table of Contents: Foreword 1. greetings! 2. Come! 3. Seek! 4. Find! 5. Scent! 6. Listen! 7. Invoke! 8. Imbibe! 9. Burn! 10. Love! 11. Think! 12. Read! 13. Endure! 14. See! 15. give Thanks! 4 Translator’s Note on Sources and Translation THe Dervish’s Logbook is heavily rooted in the teachings of Rumi, in particular those from the Masnavi. Every chapter begins with a line from this six-volume work of poetry, with many more to follow throughout the chapter. Therefore, it was critical to accurately translate these lines, as they form the backbone of this book. The English translations of passages from Rumi’s Masnavi that appear in The Dervishes Logbook are my own. They are based on four sources: Reynold Alleyne Nicholson’s English translation, THe MatHnawi oF Jalalu’ddin Rumi; Veled Çelebi İzbudak’s Turkish translation, Mesnevi; Ahmet Avni Konuk’s Turkish translation with commentary, Mesnevi-i ŞeriF Şerhi; and Süleyman Nahifi and Amil Çelebioğlu’s Turkish translation, Mesnevi-i ŞeriF. The passages that appear in the original Turkish version of THe Dervish’s Logbook come from this last source. I chose to consult four different sources because concealed within each line of Rumi’s poetry are many layers of meaning, allowing for numerous avenues of interpretation. The volume and verse listed in the footnotes correspond to Nicholson’s version as it appears on Masnavi.net. Izbudak’s Turkish version is also found on this site. If you wish to read a certain passage in its broader context, you may easily do so by visiting this site, which also contains the original Persian. I translated the passages from Rumi’s Rubaiyat and FiHi Ma FiHi using solely the text found in the original Turkish version of this book. The translations of songs, poems, prayers and commentary, such as that by Hüseyin Top and A. A. Konuk, are also mine. The verses from the qur’an, however, appear verbatim from the Sahih International edition, which is also available online. February 2017 5 FOREWORD The book you hold in your hand is a logbook, similar to the kind kept by sailors at sea, who after weighing anchor record the voyage of their ship. But this is “a dervish’s logbook,” in which we will be charting the course for the ship of humanity as it sets sail on a spiritual sea. As there are seven seas, there are seven stages of the soul. A dervish is a person in the Sufi tradition who sets out on a metaphysical journey to reach a higher spiritual level. The maritime metaphor embodied in this book’s title is in fact rooted in the Sufi readings and teachings. A person who embarks on such a journey is traditionally addressed as “salik,” an Arabic word for wayfarer. The salik is a disciple, an initiate to a dervish – or Sufi – order. The spiritual journey they undertake is referred to as the seyr-u suluk “the wayfarers’ voyage.” This book charts that extraordinary journey towards God, the Beloved, towards Oneness with the Universe. I hope to set out on this mystic journey with you to attain yaqin, or certainty. To reach a state of certainty means to feel and perceive Him and His Oneness, to possess intimate knowledge of the Beloved. We can say that we are boarding the Ark of Noah, but that the port from which we embark on this journey lies deep within us. This is a voyage undertaken within the heart and by the heart. After all, the heart – the soul – is God’s house. It is the home in which His proof manifests itself. If God is reflected – humbly so – in the soul, that soul then becomes the Kaaba, the focal point of ritual worship.1 A person who manifests the Creator’s light in his heart becomes a family within the Ahl al-Bayt, the People of the House. He becomes equipped with the tradition of the Prophet, and is dyed with the color of God. This journey’s destination is the awareness and comprehension of God’s glorious manifestations. The breast of that fortunate servant splits open, his heart expands, and he finds courage. He draws a deep breath and reaches felicity. He is elated and satisfied. The captain on this journey is the murshid, the mentor. He is a knowledgeable guide who has already sailed these routes. He provides the dervish with companionship and know-how. Without him, this journey would not be possible. 1 The Kaaba is the black cubic structure at the center of Islam’s holiest mosque. It is the House of God, around which Muslims on the hajj circumambulate. 6 This book is a dialog between the guide and the murid, the aspiring disciple. It is a simulation of the Sufi spiritual conversation known as suhbat, wherein the mentor imparts advice, inspiration and instruction on the disciple. The passages we will soon read explain how the murshid leads the disciple, step by step, towards the Beloved. This book works through all the stages of the Sufi process, offering a full account of the dervish’s “formation.” Sufism provides an “education in love,” the love of God, the Beloved! The objective of this education is to make the heart swell, in stages, with the spirit of the Prophet. In a word, we are concerned with the soul’s “enlightenment.” This enlightenment is crucial because people who fail to reach their own spiritual capacity become unhappy and anxious. They burden themselves as well as the community in which they live. It becomes a problem and escalates. Twenty-first-century man is suffering, and without even knowing why. In this sense, Sufism is a salve, a remedy, a medicine for the heart, a prescription for inner peace. Sufi culture is a living tradition. Legends and shrines exist to shed light on our present and on our future. But that tradition, and the heirs to that tradition, have always carried on. Perhaps they are right here within our midst. Right here, of course, for those who can see.