CHAPTER 7
“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;” — Hebrews 10:16
I was in heaven. Well at first it seemed that all my wishes and dreams had come true.
My arrival to the dervish community had marked the start of my real enlightenment, or so I thought. From the first moment I set foot on the little community that I would call home for a while, there seemed to me to be an energy of expectation in the air.
I first met friendly Nadim, the friend of imam Mohamed. He was a kind man and his family all seemed happy and as if they were somehow in contact with Allah in a way that I had never seen before.
The few dervish enthusiasts and seekers I met prior to this, now reminded me of lost souls wandering through a desert, but here among the dervishes I found a rich oasis in the stormy desert.
So there I was learning the ways of the Sufis and the dervish path to enlightenment. For the most part they are all kind-hearted and good people, by worldly standards. The give to the poor, always aim to act in a way that helps them move closer to Allah, they sing and meditate together with music, have meals together and have philosophical arguments about the unseen world.
To my young mind this was exactly what I had been craving since I first found out that my father’s way of practicing Islam was not the only path.
The second month I was with the Sufis, I was introduced to the Dergah.
Dergah is considered to be the place you become ripe. Beforehand this you are unripe. It’s a type of mystic theological school where you, besides the religion, in this case Islam, study poetry, philosophy, mathematics, algebra and social sciences; and through this process it is said that you become ripe as the fruit that grows on the trees. Little did I know it at the time, but each tree brings forth fruit after its own kind but the fruit from this tree was not the good fruit mentioned in Mathew (“Even so every good tree bringeth forth good. fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.” — Mathew 7:17).
While at the dergah, one way or the other, either as a whirling dervish, a musician, a ritm teacher or a wing, carrying the supplies, kitchen help, cleaner etc, one gets involved with the Sema.
Sema is widely, and misleadingly, referred to as the Dance of the Whirling dervishes. But as dervishes either from Iran or Egypt or Turkey will insist, it’s not a dance, it is a spiritual meditation with the help of Sufi music that aims to reach and be one with your creator.
It is performed to unite with the being that created everything. All the movements they go through from the beginning to the end represents the body of the dead person being left on this world, while the spirit frees itself and flies to join Allah.
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The black clothes they appear in represent death. The white that appears after they drop their over coats represents the pure, clean soul having shuffle off this mortal coil, so to speak.
The way they raise their arms from the folded position on their chest is opening their hearts, letting love find its way out.
The right hand opening to the sky is receiving the blessings of the Mighty one and the left arm parallel to the body fingers pointing to the ground is sharing the blessings and wisdom of Allah with those children of him on earth.
So I stayed, studied, and slowly started to improve all these practices in order to come closer to Allah. As I was young and passionate, I quickly became well versed in the practices. This did not go unnoticed.
Some time passed and around the fourth month I was there, still as a young apprentice, I started to take to the floor as a substitute during Sema gatherings and live performances that were held to help raise funds for the community as well as educate people.
We traveled a lot during those times, taking our message far and wide. As I already had a passport, it worked well in my favor and I was one of those picked to go to Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom to help show the world that there is another way to follow Islam. A happy and peaceful way.
We usually traveled for a week or two at a time and then returned back with many stories to tell. When not on the road we were spending a lot of time in the Turkish city of Konya, the headquarters of the Sufi dervishes, where their spiritual founder, the great poet Rumi, is resting in peace.
Towards the end of the year, just before marking the one year anniversary since I left home, we had exciting news. Our mentor informed us that we were going to the United States of America for a session. We were to be performing for the viewing pleasure of the members of a Muslim American society, collecting donations for the construction of a new mosque in Washington DC.
This was all good and well, but something inside me still did not feel completely at peace in this community of peaceful Muslims.
Today I can see how our heavenly father has written his law onto each of our hearts. Some religions or communities will follow his Laws unknowingly, but his Law is there in each of us bearing witness to the true Creator.
The apostle Paul writes about this in his letter to the Romans, in which he says:
“For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)” — Romans 2:14–15
So we each have the Law of God in us and all that remains for us to bring that Law to ripen is to accept His ultimate sacrifice. God sent His only begotten Son to save us from a lawless existence on a path that leads to Hell. Jesus came not to destroy the Law of his Father, but to bring us to the point where we will be ripe enough to accept it and follow God’s True Path to Salvation.
Mathew 5:17 states, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or. the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”
