Bilgehan Uçak wrote: An evening in the lodge

A dervish was trying to tell me something with all his politeness, distilled from a manner inherited from hundreds of years of history.

It was obvious that he was afraid of disturbing me.

He was having a hard time.

Another dervish who came to his aid, addressed me directly without making his friend feel embarrassed, and said, “I beg you, I would like to take you to the seat next to me…”

His voice, full of compassion and mercy that enveloped one, did not match the youthful expression of his face.

With his white skullcap and black vest on his back, he appeared to me as a cultural ambassador dedicated to carrying the past into the future.

It was my first time in the Surgery lodge behind the Canfeda Hatun Mosque in Karagümrük.

When I passed by the coffins in the graveyard and entered the courtyard, it was as if time had changed.

I was both here and not, the time was this time and it was not.

I entered while the skullcap-wearing dervishes were eating their meal together.

The dervish who invited me to a seat asked me if I was hungry. I said I was not hungry; at that very moment I realized that I had committed my first great crime.

Actually, before I arrived, I had learned that the food at the lodge was very delicious, but for some reason, I still thought it would not be right to go hungry.

The dervish, who wanted to offer me liver and bulgur, decided that I was really full and settled for tea.

Ahmet Özhan was eating around a tray with the teachers next to him.

Unaware of what would happen next, I was examining the lines on the walls, the photographs, and the tile in the far corner.

With the recitation of the prayer announcing the end of the meal, a feverish activity resembling a beehive began in the lodge.

The plates were cleared, the tables were cleared, tea service began; as the hall prepared for Ahmet Özhan's speech, the dervishes began to fill in one or two.

It was the first time I saw Ahmet Özhan addressing the dervishes in the lodge.

Moreover, I was among those dervishes.

Özhan's speech was a defense of "urban piety" that has now been almost forgotten.

When he said that Sufism was not separate from Islam, but was the essence of the religion, he reminded his dervishes of something I had not thought of before.

"Who is called a disciple? A person who has free will. He who has free will can become a disciple. Discipleship is not as we understand it. On the contrary, a disciple is someone who enters this path with his free will."

Before coming, I had read Ahmet Özhan's river interview called Ayr ı l ı k Yaman Kelime .

There, too, he explained perfectly how misunderstood the concept of "allegiance" was.

"Allegiance is a concept that places responsibility on the one to whom allegiance is made rather than on the one who makes it. The one who makes allegiance may object to or object to the actions of the one to whom allegiance is made. There is no such thing as blind loyalty."

He devoted his speech to the importance of "mind" as he emphasized the concepts of discipleship and allegiance.

He said that the phrases such as “Do you not use your mind?” and “Do you not think?” which are frequently used in the Quran are not just used by chance, but are actually religious requirements.

What really impressed me was the expression “self-sacrificing servant” that he used in his speech to remind me of how dangerous it is for a person to make a bad judgment about someone else.

For example, when he said that a woman with a bad reputation might not actually be considered bad, because she might be tasked with “self-sacrificing servitude,” he was opening a door that required humanity to be treated with compassion no matter what.

Then he brought up the subject of “infidelity” and explained that the person addressed there was no one other than “the infidel among us.”

The infidel was not a stranger, he was not far away at all.

There was no need to look elsewhere for the enemy to be fought, because that enemy was within us as the self.

When Özhan said that half of us are Muslims and the other half are infidels, he was extending the compassionate hand of religion, which I have not seen for a long time, to all of humanity.

After the speech, as he went to his room with the dervishes chanting “Hoo!” in unison, I was thinking about how impressive the human voice was, echoing in harmony, with goosebumps on my skin.

After a while, signs appeared and it was time for music.

Among the traditional instruments there was also a cello.

A joyful, ecstatic music that combined the East with the West, religion with urban culture, and that splashed a spoonful of water from the sea of ​​peace on the listener began.

Dervishes wearing skullcaps sat cross-legged and chanted hymns in unison.

The worst part of meeting Ahmet Özhan alone in his room was being deprived of music.

Özhan did not hesitate to say that he was against an understanding that denied modernity, and he emphasized the importance of an urban piety and that the only way to peace and peaceful resolution of problems was through it.

I'll be honest, I left the lodge a little sad because I didn't come hungry and I couldn't listen to that soothing and generously peaceful music for hours.

It was an evening between surgeries.

I was both here and not, the time was this time and it was not.