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RELIGIOUS ORDERS TRANSFORMATION OF DERVISH LODGES INTO TAVERNS AND BROTHELSWhen the Prophet was incontestably the unique spiritual guide, the only institution of Islam was the mosque. Prayers, education and all kinds of social activities took place in the mosque. Even the dervish lodges and the inmates of dervish convents acknowledge that during the lifetime of the Prophet and the reign of the Four Caliphs there had been no lodges or convents other than the mosque. It is generally acknowledged that the first order had been established circa 760 AD somewhere in the vicinity of Damascus. Yet, the sprawling over a vast area of lodges was to take place hundreds of years later. It is a fact that lodges served a variety of purposes, among others as an academy of sciences, a military headquarters, infirmaries, etc. It is also a fact that, in the terms of Kuþadalý Ibrahim, a day came when they served as brothels and taverns; and practices not related in any way to the injunctions and prescriptions of the Quran took place here in the name of religion. Kuþadalý, who witnessed this, refused to re-erect the lodge burned down and said that the lodges that had been established hundreds of years ago should be closed down, that the entire surface of the earth could be used as a single lodge and that, with the exception of the mosque, just as in the lifetime of the Prophet, all religious institutions other than the mosque should be closed and that the special prayers conducted in lodges should be abandoned leaving the place only to the reciting of the Quran.Lodges may have started to be erected in 150 AH, but their spread as institutions took place actually circa 600 AH. It is generally acknowledged that the first institutionalized religious order was the Khadiriya; the founder was Abdulkadir Gilani, d. 562 AH. To quote only a few more: Rýfaiyah, founder Ahmad ar Rýfai, d. 578; Baktashiyah, founder Hacý Bektaþ Veli, d. 669 AH; Mawlawiyah, founder Mawlana Djalal al-din Rumi, d. 672 AH; Khalwatiyah, founder Amaladdin al Khalveti, d. 750 AH; Nakshibandiyah, founder Bahauddin Nakshiband, d. 791 AH. WHOSE SPIRITUAL LEADER IS SATAN?Tarik is an Arabic term meaning ‘path, road, and way.’ There are sheikhs, leaders of religious orders, and their followers who preach that the path in question is just one of the ways to God and to follow it is not a binding duty. However, there are many dervishes who claim that the Prophet had said ‘Satan is the guide of those who have no spiritual leader’ (sheikh, murshid). If such is the case, the Muslims of old must have been imperfect Muslims. During the period when the number of sheikhs was not so great, the guide of Muslims must have been Satan then. Did Muslims who lived before the proliferation of religious orders live as imperfect Muslims? Many sheikhs, products of religious orders, were declared infallible; those who assembled around them were judged eligible for paradise, while the destination of the remaining Muslims was hell. Therefore, it was indispensable to become the devotees of such figures. That a good many sheikhs were announced in history to be the Mahdi or Jesus Christ is a fact. These figures may be encountered nearly in every town and district. Most of these people suffer from paranoid delusions and have a harmful effect not only on their spiritual world but also on the purse. These are the counterparts of the hypocritical Jewish rabbis and Christian anchorites mentioned in the Quran.BLIND OBEDIENCE TO SHEIKHSOne of the most important principles of religious orders is the complete abandonment of the novice to the sheikh in the state in which his dead body would be at the mercy of the person who will wash him. Despite the fact that it explicitly states in the Quran that we must use our intelligence and revert to our discourse of reason, the religious orders are categorically about the blind obedience to one’s sheikh. The person who is willing to adopt such an attitude is easily convinced that his sheikh is the Mahdi or Messiah awaited, and that he is an all-powerful superman. The novice often becomes an object of material exploitation and candid enough to believe whatever he is told about religion disregarding all additions and removals made to and from the invented religion. Once a person accepts leaving reasoning aside, there is no longer any difference between a university graduate and an illiterate.These people have abandoned their will indiscriminately to their sheikh. Deception instead of intellectual curiosity, slavish imitation instead of reasoning would certainly render all novices the exact replica of their sheikhs in the interpretation and practice of religion and in their outlook on life in general. It often happened that a person who had been willing to abandon reason in total disregard of his intellectual background readily denied his learning and acknowledged the erudition of his sheikh in all matters. An instance of this may be the case in which the novices proudly claimed that their sheikh, furious at the USA, had caused the space-shuttle to come down. A second incident was the inexplicable noise heard in Cyprus, which the sheikh had declared to come from a monster to which all his novices had given credence. There was another sheikh who had his penis kissed by novices under the pretext of training them in self-mastery. It is inconceivable to see that even the learned intellectual novices, who do not know the philosophy of dependence on a sheikh and the makeup of the orders, believe in such absurdities. However, if one considers that these novices had from the very start been willing to forego the reasoning faculty and preferred to remain mere imitators, such acts may be understood. You have below a list of seven principles that a novice is required to abide by: 1- To pledge unswerving allegiance to one’s sheikh and to acknowledge the superiority of no one over him. 2- To be intelligent and perceptive. 3- To serve his sheikh actively with might and main. 4- To be honest and reliable. 5- To put one’s assets at the disposal of his sheikh. 6- To keep his sheikh’s and his order’s secrets and divulge them to no one. 7- To be ready to sacrifice his life for his sheikh. EXPLOITED DISCIPLESWe understand the rationale of all these points except for the second point. How is it that orders that require absolute dependence on the sheikh stipulate intelligence and perceptiveness in their novices? This may be due, however, to the need for intelligence that would be instrumental in increasing the wealth already in possession of the disciples foreseen under point 5!Muhammad Ikbal called this pirizm (adulation of the master). The enquiring mind that poses the question ‘What exactly is the wish of God? What does the Quran have to say about this?’ Thus the sheikh supersedes God and the question is put accordingly: ‘What may be the desire of our sheikh? How is this point dealt with in our order?’ Ikbal explains this in the following manner: “Development of selfhood in lodges has become an impossibility. This humid flame gives no spark.” On the other hand, not every order and sheikh is the replica of the other, of course. What we are against is the mentality behind the orders. The Quran states that we must not follow things we know nothing about, since otherwise we would be held responsible for our act. Even in the best organization the disciples are strictly dependent on their sheikh who subjugates them. Personality is obliterated; men are no longer masters of themselves, but mere imitators. Once the logical reason is set aside, deterioration and corruption are inevitable. LEGENDSUnconditional surrender to the will of the sheikh being mandatory, many legends are told in order to realize this. For instance, a sheikh tells his disciple to go and cut off his father’s head and to bring it to him. And the disciple performs such an absurd act believing that there is something beyond his comprehension known only to his sheikh. Then he realizes that the head he had cut off while he was by his mother’s bed was not his father’s but a man’s, a man in an adulterous relationship with his mother. The sheikh, in his hindsight, had seen the event and to try his disciple orders the disciple to perform such an act. This parable aims at illustrating the unconditional obedience to one’s sheikh, since what he does is the consequence of the mysterious dispensations of providence. Under normal circumstances, a Muslim would retort to the person giving this command: “How can you ordain me such a thing since murder is a major sin?” In religious orders such objections would be interpreted as a lack of faith.Let us illustrate this situation with another well-known story. One day the powers that be, grown restless because of the crowd of disciples gathered round Hacý Bektaþ Veli, come to tell him of their discontent. Whereupon Hacý Bektaþ says: “Do not worry, I have merely one and a half disciples.” Then suiting the action to the word he goes inside and slaughters a sheep, draining its blood to the outside. Then he calls his disciples and tells them that he has to cut them and that they should come one by one. All of them scatter away with the exception of a man and a woman -she being counted only as a half, the result was one and a half as he had declared. This parable shows that the true disciple has to submit unconditionally to the will of the sheikh. Even though a sheikh may unreasonably demand something unlawful, the disciples will obey him without question. The way they are expected to embrace Islam is then decided by their sheikh. Thus they pledge allegiance to their sheikh instead of to the Quran. A parallel may be drawn to other religions reflecting the same mood: FUNNY LINKThe relation between the sheikh and his disciple is established through a strange link (rabýta). In the Nakshibandiyah, this link between the disciple and the sheikh is established as follows: the disciple, canonically cleansed, sits facing the direction of Mecca. Focusing in his imagination on the point between the two eyebrows of his sheikh, he begins to repeat the name of God. This process establishes a link between the sheikh and his disciple. There are modern Nakshibandiyah members who perform this ritual by merely looking at a photograph of their sheikh! Another awkward application is as follows: “Repeating God’s name disregarding the link (rabýta) is preferred to the link without having to repeat God’s name. If either the repeating of God’s name or the link has to be foregone, repetition of God’s name may be abandoned. For a link without the repeating of God’s name will enable the disciple to attain heavenly bliss, but repetition of God’s name would fall short of this.” All of this has, of course, nothing to do with the teaching of the Quran.It is interesting to note the different concepts in the Quran of certain basic words. Namely, the word sheikh is used in the sense of old man (see 11 Hud 72; 12 Joseph 78; 28 The History 23; 40 The Believer 67); again the word wali is used in the Quran in the sense of friend and somebody close to him. We have nothing against the whirling of dervishes and the so- called devotional music so long as they are not claimed to be a religious ritual since they are neither ordained nor prohibited by the Quran. Yet, in many, such performances are interpreted as a religious ritual. Otherwise, Muslims may certainly institute foundations, associations and establish a hierarchy in them. Recitation of poems, recitals, ritualistic dances, artistic activities, meetings and demonstrations may be held. What is unacceptable however, is the apotheosis of men and the ascribing to orders a religious character, as this is not contained in the Quran. Another harm done to Islam by these orders has been their giving it an ascetic appearance. Orders claiming they trained their disciples through rituals and performances reminiscent of Indian religious practices - leaving them starving, inflicting torture on them in dark rooms and making them insane. The delusions and hallucinations reported to have been perceived by these people came to be considered signs of sanctity. There is nothing in the Quran suggesting asceticism. According to the Quran, God may, if He so chooses, create difficulties for His servants to test them and to which true believers submit. However asceticism is not proposed in the Quran. DO NOT FOLLOW IN THE WAKE OF THEIR MASTERSThe traditionalist Islamist abides by the criteria he has inherited from his ancestors without questioning. The disciples try to justify their dependence on their sheikh by telling stories about the prominent members of their sect whom they consider endowed with great moral merits. According to these people the sheikhs have organized everything. To accommodate himself to one’s sheikh is what is required; to have to think or call to question something on which the sheikh has pronounced judgment is irrelevant and indecent. To conform to the ways of their superiors is to obey without raising any objection, without questioning the thing they have decided upon and to rely on their wisdom without having recourse of the faculty of reasoning. Yet we see in the Quran that the reason of deviation from the right path is blind obedience to one’s superior. The Quran mentions no master, no sect, no hadith and no religious order as the source of religion. According to the Quran, the path to truth is the individual’s use of his own intellect and reasoning faculty. DISCIPLES THAT CAUSE THEIR SHEIKHS TO FLYStrange acts performed at the tombs of buried sheikhs, tying knots and prostrating themselves are miserable performances. There are sheikhs who bequeath their sheikhdom to their sons, sons-in-laws and brothers, trying to preserve the exclusivity of this institution within the confines of the family members. According to Islam, the thing to be trusted is left with the person who deserves to take custody of it and not with a blood relation. Sainthood granted sometimes to disciples is conferred in a more grandiose fashion to the sheikhs. So many incredible legends have been told about the miracles performed by sheikhs that those mentioned in the Quran performed by certain prophets remain in the shadow in comparison. There is a saying in Turkish: ‘The sheikh does not fly, but the disciple causes him to fly.’ As a matter of fact, there is no end to challenges among the contestants who try to extol their masters. There are sheikhs that resuscitate men and animals; there are those that can walk on the surface of water and those that are everywhere. The hearts of superman sheikhs have knowledge of everything; they have the capacity of remote controlling, a mere look by them suffices sometimes to elevate a man to the heights of religious inspiration; they have the power to send a man either to heaven or to hell or to cause the death of a person or to resuscitate the dead. It falls to the disciples to obey the sheikhs faithfully, without questioning them.Many Islamic people have not been able to break the chain coiling around their intelligence; they remained a captive of such religious orders, preferring to abide subjugated rather than take the trouble to make use of their own reasoning power. Blind obedience, asceticism, lack of interest in developing one’s intelligence are the effects of the teachings of these religious orders. The influence exerted by the restraints that people have imposed themselves all throughout time have continued to this day, thwarting the Islamic people from letting themselves enjoy the innocent pleasures of life. Even smiling has been considered a lack of decorum among the educated class. The orders, that preached asceticism as salvation, have been the major obstacle for man’s development of his nature through the exercise of his reason advocated by the Quran. Unless the hadith books, the books on Islamic catechism and the sermons of religious orders are swept away, the individual shall remain alienated from the Quran’s Islam. Once these obstacles are removed, the Quran will regain with the sovereignty it enjoyed under the Prophet and during the period of the Four Caliphs; and the Islam, divested of the lodges of religious orders, of intercessors like the sheikhs, will triumph once more under the guidance of the Quran, with thanks to man’s eventual exercising of his reasoning faculty. |