All Kinds of Magic: One Man's Search for Meaning Across the Material World (27 page)

Dr Kilic greeted me warmly at the door and we sat down in his elegant office, overlooking the Hippodrome. Tea arrived in miniature glasses, and a silver bowl of powdered sugar. The morning light came in streamers through the windows. ‘A donnish appearance,’ I wrote surreptitiously in my notebook. ‘Wire-rimmed glasses, an indoor pallor, but also a great sense of ease.’

‘So you have come to look for Sufis,’ he said, exhibiting just the traces of a smile. ‘Did you find any?’

I shook my head.

‘They are not whirling in the streets. No, they keep themselves quiet. That, given the times we live in, seems wise.’

While Dr Kilic poured the tea, I asked him about Atatürk: had he known what a death knell his actions would sound upon the achievements of Ottoman culture?

‘Atatürk was a revolutionary,’ he explained. ‘And like all revolutionaries he wanted to cut off
all
ties with tradition. On November 13th, 1925 he issued a declaration to ban the
tekkes
. He was a modernist, and he wanted change not through
cultural
revolution but by force. A revolution of the hat. A revolution of the script. His, alas, was a Maoist approach to changing culture.’

‘Before Atatürk?’ I asked. ‘What percentage of Turks practised Sufism?’

He considered for a moment. ‘At that time Istanbul had a population of about 500,000 people. For that number there were some 360 dervish lodges open. Based on what we know, approximately 90 per cent of the city’s population were affiliated to a
tekke
! Those
tekkes
created sublime music, they created art. An Ottoman was a kind of chevalier, you see: virile but with a romantic heart. These days, I think you will find few cultured people here in Istanbul.’

‘What about other parts of the world then? Has there been a diaspora?’

He described a wide parabola with his hand. ‘Sufis have sought refuge all over the globe. Aleppo, Cyprus, Albania. After Atatürk, some Sufi masters hid themselves here, never once leaving their houses until they died. Not even accepting guests! Can you imagine such a thing? To stay inside your house for ever.’

What of the performances one saw advertised around Istanbul, I asked. Were they really cheap theatre?

He chuckled. ‘This is registered as “Turkish classical folk dance”. According to officials, this is not Sufism. But, although some of the performers consider this a job, others do take it seriously.’ His face took on a sombre aspect. ‘One must feel for them deeply. Perhaps this is a difficult scenario for a Westerner to grasp.
You
can belong to any club or religion you wish: yoga, meditation, tai-chi. Here in Turkey, we are not free to do this. There is one, however, which I consider authentic. I’ll give you the details.’

‘But it’s the UNESCO Year of Rumi,’ I pointed out. ‘I mean, he’s being recognised around the world as one of the most celebrated poets in human history. And his poetry is
meaningless
without considering the mystical states he’s trying to convey. Why is this so threatening to the state?’

Dr Kilic shrugged. ‘Old habits die hard. And there are new threats in the world, some of them from fundamentalism. No politician is going to risk his seat, in a country trying hard to be European, by trying to make life easier for Islamic mystics. It’s just not going to happen.’

‘Do you know any Sufi masters?’ I said finally. ‘They must be here still.’

He looked uncomfortable. ‘This is not like India,’ he said, ‘where the gurus are public figures. Here, if you do find a Sufi, he may be wearing a suit and tie. And,’ his eyes twinkled, ‘he may not announce himself.’

‘Would they really arrest someone?’ I said. ‘Or is it merely a threat?’

‘It depends. I doubt they would arrest a man for whirling. But for
teaching
Sufism – the
practice
, not the history – certainly. Last year, a seventy-year-old Sufi master was arrested for just this. We are living, despite appearances, in a kind of Communist regime. In fact,’ he laughed wearily, ‘we have a kind of joke here in Turkey. We say there are two Stalinist regimes left in world, North Korea and Turkey.’

‘It all seems so depressing,’ I said. ‘All over the world people are rediscovering mysticism. Rumi himself is selling
thousands
, if not millions, of books. And yet in his own country he remains effectively underground.’

‘You are quite correct,’ said Dr Kilic. ‘Rumi, our greatest poet, our Shakespeare, is not even taught in high school in Turkey. It’s a disgrace, a calamity really. But this is the new Turkey. A place where the Sufi culture no longer exerts its positive influence on our young people. Because of this, murder is on the rise, smuggling, rape – all those criminal things are going on. They have no religion now . . . except football, perhaps. Or rock music. I mean, have you seen the way young people
worship
footballers and musicians? One must see the parallels! It’s beyond sport or music now, they spiritually annihilate themselves . . .’

‘And then there are the fundamentalists,’ I pointed out. ‘Because those hungry for spiritual things are easy prey for the radicals.’

‘Yes.’ Dr Kilic slapped his hands together passionately. ‘Paradoxically, they complain of the radicalisation of Islam, but the
only
solution for this is Sufism! When they ban Sufism they are
opening
the gates for radicalism. Sometimes I feel the sword of Damocles hanging over us.’

After my meeting with Dr Kilic, I took myself to a café on Divanyolu Street to reflect on what I had learned. The infamous Pudding Shop remains one of the best-known travellers, haunts in Istanbul, despite seemingly not having changed a bit since its golden days. It was here that the steady stream of travellers East would stop for espresso and gossip, and to check the cork notice board for errant friends and free rides to Goa. Here, too, Billy Hayes, whose autobiography
Midnight Express
was later made into an Oscar-winning film, bought the hashish he intended to smuggle out of the country. The scenes of his many years’ incarceration in Sagˇmalcilar prison remain the strongest deterrence imaginable for would-be smugglers, even thirty years after the film’s release.

The Turks, however, considered the film an abomination, deeply resenting its harsh portrayal of their culture. Sitting in the musty confines of the Pudding Shop, writing my notes, I mused upon this, as well as the equally clichéd alternative offered by my guesthouse in Sultan Ahmet. Were all cultures so beleaguered by stereotypes? Where
was
the real Turkey, beyond the harems and the hammam, beyond the formulaic depictions of
Midnight Express
, but equally not entirely expressed by the business people, clutching their mobile phones and laptops like the aspirational class the world over?

Slicing my cake, I decided that clearly the real Turkey was to be found somewhere between all these things, and perhaps Dr Kilic was right in suggesting that Sufis offered a good example. Aside from the flowering of high culture which the
tekkes
had fostered, Sufism, in itself, represents a notably liberal and pluralistic interpretation of Islamic doctrine, much needed in a post-9/11 world. In recent years, even Turkey’s staunch founding principles of secular government have come under attack from fundamentalists, who urge a return to Islamic law. Even during the past week in Istanbul, thousands were taking to the streets to protest against the possible election of a hard-line Muslim government.

Once again my thoughts returned to Rumi. ‘Love’s creed is separate from all religions,’ he wrote. ‘The creed and denomination of lovers is God.’ Certainly, Rumi’s own path to the divine was Islamic, and yet he excluded no one on a different route. This, after all, was why I had come on this journey in the first place: to investigate the different mystical paths that reconnect us with the Absolute. And yet nowhere to date had seemed so fraught with contradictions, nor any path so feared by the state.

Leaving the café, I strolled back through Sultan Ahmet. It was early evening and a muezzin was making the call to prayer. Thin strips of sunlight brushed the dome of the Blue Mosque, taunting the rainclouds which, even now, gathered overhead. An old man holding a tray of cigarettes, sun-bleached postcards and miniature Turkish flags in cellophane, approached me; I waved him away. On the corner, a shop sold crimson fez: cheap renderings of the felt caps which were once worn by almost all Ottoman men, favoured for their ability to allow their wearer to touch his crown towards Mecca.

I felt suddenly very low, caught, somehow, in the very place I try to avoid above all others: a tourist trap, a place where commerce has become the overt method for understanding. If I went home with a fez would I comprehend Turkey? If I bought one of the kitsch renderings of a whirling dervish one saw glinting in improbable technicolour through the windows of all these shops?

It was time to get out of Istanbul and to head towards the heartlands of central Anatolia. There, I imagined, the contradictions would be fewer, the tourist trade negligible. It was in Konya, on the central Anatolian Plateau, that Rumi had spent his life. For the pro-European, Western-facing Turks, Anatolia is often described as ‘backward’ these days. I imagined a patriarchal, Islamic-centred place, deeply rooted in the rhythms of village life. From where I was standing that didn’t sound too bad . . .

Back at my guesthouse, Salik looked morose when I told him of my departure. ‘But next week the band is playing,’ he said, sadly. ‘You could have seen me destroying my guitar at the end of the show.’

Regrettably, I told him, that pleasure would have to wait until my return.

But before I left, there was one more thing to do. Dr Kilic had spoken of a particular performance of dervishes which he felt to be authentic. And there was no way I could leave without seeing, in some form or another, the slow whirling dance of the Sufis. On a downcast Saturday afternoon I walked to the Galata Mevlevihanesi, a former
tekke
now a museum, at the southern end of Istiklal Caddesi. It lies on a street full of music shops, and I stopped for a while to gaze through the windows at rows of Stratocasters, gleaming cymbals, many tiered keyboards. Inside one, a novice was thrashing out a guitar riff which would have made Salik proud.

Further down the street, a stone archway marked the discreet entrance to the Dervish lodge. Unless you knew what you were looking for, you might pass it unawares. It seems designed to avoid attention behind its tall Ottoman stone wall. But inside, I felt myself immediately in a sanctuary. The courtyard was filled with cypresses, roses, a fig tree, a fountain no longer offering water. For a moment I imagined it as it had once been: a place where man could aspire towards something more than himself. Calligraphers, musicians, poets and astronomers would all have paced these flagstones.

I stopped to talk to one of the attendants who was showing people inside for the performance, a fat man, with darkly hooded eyes.

‘It says this Galata Mevlevihanesi is now the Museum of Court Literature? But it was a
tekke
, yes? Is it still a
tekke
?’

The attendant gave me an amused smile. ‘This is now a museum. But it was originally constructed as a
tekke
in the fifteenth century. Then it burned down in a fire in 1766 and was rebuilt.’

Was he being evasive? ‘But are they
performers
, or Sufis?’

His face betrayed nothing. ‘Performance, my friend, is something one does to entertain others.
Sema
is something one does to become one with God. It is not for me to decide which you will see today.’

I moved inside. A large octagonal hall spread out before me, dimly lit and filled with a crowd of about fifty people. On the first floor, ornate balconies overlooked the central ‘whirling’ area – an empty space of varnished boards. Despite the fact that most people here were tourists, the atmosphere was sober, expectant. Certainly, this felt like a church or temple, the soft light pouring through the glass. In here we were far from Istanbul; it was difficult to imagine the commerce and the struggle taking place out there.

Some minutes later, even the faint chatter fell away and, from a side door, the dervishes began to file out. They wore jet-black cloaks over their distinctive white robes, and on their heads tall camel-coloured fez, supposed to resemble tombstones. I wondered what their professions were – executive? cobbler? optometrist? – and how they reconciled the world outside with what they did here.

Standing before the
semazenbashi
(master), the dervishes lined up. Above us, musicians, similarly dressed, filed forward on to the balcony, and, in low, rich voices, the sound of chanting commenced: a prayer to Mevlana (Rumi), followed by a
sura
, or chapter, from the Koran. Then the first haunting note cut through the silence, the sound of a
ney
, a reed flute, which was Rumi’s favourite instrument, and an often used metaphor in his poems. For Rumi, the reed cut from its river bed was a symbol of the human condition, and the plaintive sound of it like a human voice, crying for return.