Hakkında Geri
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The Rose of Istanbulby Ayeda Husain Naqvi
And so Cemalnur gracefully floats from one task to another: from her spiritual counseling to her teaching of the Masnavi, from her open conference each week at the cultural center to her radio program to her daily TV program in Ramadan, it all seems so effortless.
She is also the Chair of the Turkish Women's Cultural Association's Istanbul branch, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that develops projects to prompt literacy, prevent illegal drug use, provide scholarships to needy students, increase computer use among physically challenged people and provide support to strengthen family ties.
I meet her the day before conference, "Women and Tasawwuf (Sufism)."This is the first conference of its kind in Turkey with scholars and academics from across the world flying into Istanbul to celebrate the one hundredth birth anniversary of Samiha Ayverdi (1905-1993), Cemalnur's teacher and the first Turkish woman murshid (spiritual master) known to the world.
Mobile are ringing and there is talk of picking up people from airports. And yet Cemalnur is calm.
"I want the world to hear the voice of the Muslim woman,"she says slowly. "And I want the Muslim woman to realize who she is. By saluting women like Samiha Ayverdi, we are paving the way for more Samiha Ayverdis to be born."
At the conference, Rabia Brodbeck, a modern dancer and author from Turkey, speaks about sainthood in the twenty-first century from a female perspective. "I study female saints to learn from them, to recognize myself within them and to try walk in their footsteps,"she says. "We should be enslaved to their eternal beauty."
She talks about different women saints in Islamic history, discussing the famous prayer of Rabiá al-Adawiyya, whom she describes as the most revolutionary woman saint of all times, "O God, if I worship You for fear of hell, and if I worship You in hope of paradise, forbid it to me. But if I worship You for You, do not hold back from me Your everlasting Beauty."
Dr. Karim Douglas Crow, from the Catholic University of America and the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, talks about the women in the life of Prophet Muhammad as individuals whom he held in the highest regard.
He begins with Amina, the mother of Prophet Muhammad, and Halima, his milk nurse. He describes the funeral of Fatima bint Asad b. Hashim, his aunt, and mother of 'Ali, whom he was so close to, he buried with his own hands, going down into her grave to wrap her body in his shirt.
He speaks of Baraka, Prophet Muhammad's Abyssinian maid, the person in his life with whom he had the longest association. From the time he was born the time he passed away, she was a part of his household, so close to him that she was eventually married to his adopt son, Zayd b. Haritha. She is famous for reciting the moving verses lamenting the end of revelation with his passing.
His wife, Khadija, is the woman best known for her crucial role in supporting him in his prophetic mission. After her death he had a number of wifes, 'Ayisha and Umm Salama being the most well known. His daughters were Zaynab, Ruqayya, Umm Kulthum and Fatima. He loved Zaynab's daughter, Umama bint al-Rabi', so much that he carried her upon his camel during the campaign of Fath Makka in 8 H. Fatima was his closest child. She died of sorrow about six months after his passing.
"The closest individuals to Muhammad during his prophetic mission may well have been these women,"says Dr. Crow, describing the nurturing role played by them in his life.
He quotes the Qurán (7:189): "It is He who created you from a single soul and made a mate of like nature, in order that the soul and may find tranquility in her (in love)." Reiterating that while "the inner person within our bodies is neither a man or woman,"he points out that the soul (nafs) in Arabic is feminine, equating the role of a Sufi guide to a mother.
"The guide nourishes our soul as a mother gives milk to her child,"he says, describing the guide as a mother who raises us up and helps us understand our shortcomings, watching over us until we can walk on our own two feet.
The conference is drawing to an end an Cemalnur is the last speaker. She stands behind the podium, a living example of Sufism at its best. "I love my students,"she had said to me the day before. From the applause she gets, I can see this feeling is mutual.
She speaks in Turkish. With the translator struggling to translate her emotions in to English, I finally remove my head phones. She is by far the most animated speaker of the fifteen we have heard today. I put down my pen and close my eyes. I do not speak a word of Turkish. And yet something in her voice says more than any lecture could.
They say that the language of the heart has no barriers and knows no bounds. As Cemalnur stands on stage, surrounded by flowers, the sound of sobbing growing increasingly louder in the auditorium, I realize the frivolity of language.
A chemical engineer by training, Cemalnur taught chemistry at a highschool for twenty years before embarking on the Sufi path. "I was born into a Sufi family," she says, "but I had to find my own way. So I began with philosophy. I read Sartre and Nietzsche. I loved both but was disappointed. All these philosophers were so unhappy because they did not practice what they preached. Then I discovered Rumi and my life was never the same again."
Today, Cemalnur has been studying and teaching Rumi's Masnavi and Fihi ma fihi for thirty years and the Qurán for ten years. Her lectures abroad have taken her all over Europe and the United States where she speaks about Rumi and his message of love, peace and tolerance. "People understand the message of Sufism,"she says. "It has what it takes to unite the world."
I am neither from the east or the west," wrote Rumi once. "[My] place is the placeless, a trace of the traceless, neither body or dole. I belong to the beloved. I have seen the two worlds as one and that one I call to and know."
It is this message that Cemalnur carries, dissolving differences between nations, religions and sexes. Inspired by Rumi's unique message, Cemalnur seeks the universal not by abandoning her faith but by finding the essence of all faiths within hers.
A devout Muslim who respects the public dimensions of her faith, Cemalnur believes that the devotion to one faith, when practiced truly and deeply, is the most eloquent manner of paying homage to all other faiths. Her philosophy is all about balance--between essence and from, spirituality and pragmatism, masculine and feminine. "To be a woman mystic today no longer means you have to renounce the world," she says.
It is all too easy to give up world. Sufism teaches the importance of din and dunya--of balancing the divine and the worldly. To be in the world but not of it, to receive wisdom and knowledge from the heavens and pass it on to the world is, after all, the essence of Sufism. "There are many who say that they cannot combine tasawwuf into their material lifestyle," says Cemalnur. "I beg to differ. My teaches have shown me that tasawwuf is a way of life that can be lived by everyone."
While holding onto the basics of Islam, Cemalnur breaks away from many conventions, including Sufi traditions. For example, she does not believe in separate tariqas (orders) but says that "We must belong to all tariqas."
Similarly, she challenges traditional views about murshids and the belief that disciples are like passive corpses in the hands of their teachers. "In my group," she says, "we learn not only from the murshid but from everyone. Whoever can make us beautiful from the inside and give us lessons on tasawwuf is a murshid." And for those who do not get the point, she clarifies: "I do not like to be called a teacher. We are all teachers here."
Most radically, in a society that still judges women by how they look and what they wear, she refuses to be typecast. For many of the pious, she is too visibly westernized to be acceptable. And yet, peep who actually make the effort of talking to her soon find out that she is far more rooted in convention and tradition than many who purport to be religious.
A few days after the conference, I am invited to a Rifa'i zikr (ceremony of remembrance) in one of those "underground" dergahs (Sufi lodges) in the Fatih district. I learn that Sufism is still officially banned in Turkey. What a losing battle this fight against Sufism is, I think. How can you stop people from feeling love for God?
Inside the dergah is a central courtyard in which men stand in a line, chanting the attributes of Allah. And as they do so, they bend at the waist and the knees, swaying from side to side. In the wrap-around veranda, the women sit--not silent spectators but extremely vocal participants. I think of some of the segregated zikrs I have attended in Pakistan in which the women remain silent.
Then I look at Cemalnur surrounded by her students. Holding hands with them, she is rocking from side to side. Images of women mystics go through my mind--silent, stoic and covered. Then there is Cemalnur, eyes closed, big smile on her face as her jet black hair falls onto her shoulders, literally dancing with joy. If fana' (mystical absorption) had a face, this would be it.
I remember her saying that people care too much about how women look and what they wear. Her words echo in my ears: "It's all about what's in your heart."
It is snowing outside, but there could not be a warmer, cozier place inside. I think of the yellow rose. No wonder it survives.
*-*-* This article was published in Elixir, Issue 2, Spring 2006 |
