Nietzsche said: “We interpret ourselves as a unity in a world of images, which we created”. Do I think this statement can be used to interpret Ali’s life experience before he starts his journey as told in Deserts and Mountains?
There was a degree of contempt in Ali’s heart that caused him some uneasiness toward others. This in many ways created his suspicious character that possessed an inability to trust other human beings or value contrary ways of being. Ali was plagued by Turkish and Islamic dogmas, which imply that one should not criticize the established order, the penalty of which could be very harsh. These ways of being are largely unquestioned and very much an embedded way of thinking, but we witnessed Ali struggle under the weight of these burdensome and poisonous beliefs. Going through this schooling of indoctrination, this type of perceived “unity in a world of images, which we create” can turn a person into a very strange being. It is a process of being imprisoned for the rest of one’s life, if somehow the means cannot be found to challenge what has been taught.
The personal emotional stress that comes from a relationship breakdown along with all the other issues, which had been going on the background for Ali became too much to bear. At that point in his life, he felt trapped, comparable to living in a prison cell without any light, very little possibly of imagining better conditions of the heart and mind, without an apparent exit door in sight. It was an excruciating, daily pain from which Ali needed to liberate himself, in order to live a freer and more fulfilling life.
I can relate to Nietzsche in many ways and believe that he may have been a disguised eccentric mystic who could not be understood by his countrymen of the time—unfortunately even now. He had interesting connections to Sufi poets like Hafiz and I admired his works during my university years. He had profound thoughts and at the time I was not able to comprehend most of them, as they were too complex and unconventional.
I am happy that a person like Nietzsche stepped on the face of this earth. I believe he would be very much disoriented after discovering what was going on in his culture, especially with people of great intelligence and of religious persuasion in our time. He did what he had to do and he could have done better. Unfortunately he could not find a balance and eventually collapsed under the burden of painful experiences. We might also imagine that Ali could have easily shared this same fate, given the level of anguish he experienced in his soul and the difficult questions that he sought to find answers.
This is an ancient story, constantly retold in everyday life. Everyone knows that we have lost our beauty. It is so obvious that many people refuse to consider the idea that there is any such thing. No, they respond, human beings are rotten to the core, heartless and soulless, besotted with egotistic illusions, indifferent to […]
I come from there and I have memories
Born as mortals are, I have a mother
And a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends,
And a prison cell with a cold window.
Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,
I have my own view,
And an extra blade of grass.
Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
And the bounty of birds,
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before the swords
Turned its living body into a laden table.
I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
When the sky weeps for her mother.
And I weep to make myself known
To a returning cloud.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
So that I could break the rule.
I learnt all the words and broke them up
To make a single word: Homeland…..
Mahmoud Darwish
…in the Presence of Absence
Mahmoud Darwish is the winner of 2001 Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom. The prize recognizes people whose extraordinary and courageous work celebrates the human right to freedom of imagination, inquiry, and expression. As defined by the foundation, cultural freedom is the right of individuals and communities to define and protect valued and diverse ways of life currently threatened by globalization.
Darwish is considered to be the most important contemporary Arab poet working today. He was born in 1942 in the village of Barweh in the Galilee, which was razed to the ground by the Israelis in 1948. As a result of his politi-cal activism he faced house arrest and imprisonment. Darwish was the editor of Ittihad Newspaper before leaving in 1971 to study for a year in the USSR. Then he went to Egypt where he worked in Cairo for Al-Ahram Newspaper and in Beirut, Lebanon as an editor of the Journal “Palestinian Issues”. He was also the director of the Palestinian Research Center. Darwish was a member of the Executive Committee of the PLO and lived in exile between Beirut and Paris until his return in 1996 to Palestine.
His poems are known throughout the Arab world, and several of them have been put to music. His poetry has gained great sophistication over the years, and has enjoyed international fame for a long time. He has published around 30 poetry and prose collections, which have been translated into 35 languages. He is the editor in chief and founder of the prestigious literary review Al Karmel, which has resumed publication in January 1997 out of the Sakakini Centre offices.
He published in 1998 the poetry collection: Sareer el Ghariba (Bed of the Stranger), his first collection of love poems. In 2000 he published Jidariyya (Mural) a book consisting of one poem about his near death experience in 1997. In 1997 a documentary was produced about him by French TV directed by noted French-Israeli director Simone Bitton. He is a commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters.
Sufi music… A deeply inspired performance of remembrance …composed sometimes between 1640 – 1711 AD by Buhurizade Itri. He was a follower of Mevlana Rumi. He was a prolific composer with hundreds of works. This is one of the main spiritual compositions frequently used at Turkish Sufi center gatherings. His real name was Mustafa (1640-1712), […]
- With déjà vu we see US cruise missiles being launched from the sea, Libyan AA firing helplessly into the night sky at invisible B-2 heavy bombers, and the burning wreckage of armor and vehicles on desert roads. Here we go again! It’s Iraqi-style shock and awe for Libya. Let’s get that nasty Saracen, Muammar Gadaffi, […]
Dictatorships are never more vulnerable than when they first try to reform. By that rule of thumb, Syria may be on the brink of a political transformation that could redraw the face of the Middle East. Bashar al-Assad is said to be poised to announce sweeping reforms in a bid to end two weeks of […]
The Stoner Arms Dealers: How Two American Kids Became Big-Time Weapons Traders And how the Pentagon later turned on them By Guy Lawson, Rolling Stone Magazine The e-mail confirmed it: everything was finally back on schedule after weeks of maddening, inexplicable delay. A 747 cargo plane had just lifted off from an airport in Hungary and […]
Imam Abd Allah ibn Alawi al-Haddad born in 1634. He lived his entire life in the town of Tarim in Yemen’s Valley of Hadramawt and died there in 1720 CE (1132 Hijri). In Islamic history, he was considered one of the sages. His works revolve around the attainment of certainty (yaqin), the degree of unshakeable faith in God and Muhammad. Imam ‘Abdallah al-Haddad was the renewer, or Mujaddid, of the twelfth Islamic century. He was renowned, and deservedly so, for the breadth of his knowledge and his manifest sanctity. The profundity of his influence on Muslims is reflected by the fact his books are still in print throughout the Islamic world.
The poem (Qasida): Qad Kafani Ilmu Rabbi My Lord’s knowledge has sufficed me
from asking or choosing
For my du’a and my agonising supplication
is a witness to my poverty.
For this secret (reason) I make supplication
in times of ease and times of difficulty
I am a slave whose pride
is in his poverty and obligation
O my Lord and my King
You know my state
And what has settled in my heart
of agonies and preoccupations
Save me with a gentleness
from You, O Lord of Lords
Oh save me, Most Generous
before I run out of patience (with myself)
My Lord’s knowledge has sufficed me
from asking or choosing
O One who is swift in sending aid
I ask for aid that will arrive to me swiftly
It will defeat all difficulty
and it will bring all that I hope for
O Near One Who answers
and All-Knowing and All-Hearing
I have attained realisation through my incapacity,
my submission and my brokenness
My Lord’s knowledge has sufficed me
from asking or choosing
I am still standing by the door, so please my Lord
have mercy on my standing
And in the valley of generosity, I am in i’tikaf (solitary retreat)
So, Allah, make my retreat here permanent
And I’m abiding by good opinion (of You)
For it is my friend and ally
And it is the one that sits by me and keeps me company
All day and night
My Lord’s knowledge has sufficed me
from asking or choosing
There is a need in my soul, O Allah
so please fulfil it, O Best of Fulfillers
And comfort my secret and my heart
from its burning and its shrapnel
In pleasure and in happiness
and as long as You are pleased with me
For joy and expansion is my state
and my motto and my cover
My Lord’s knowledge has sufficed me
from asking or choosing
Omar Faruk Tekbilek had been studying Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, with the thought of becoming a Sufi cleric. At 15, he quit school to become a professional musician. “But I never quit studying, though,” he maintains. “In fact, I am still studying; it’s endless. Music for me is not something to show off. It’s my life. It’s the shortest path to God. Playing is prayer for me.”
Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi Poem:
Wheat
If wheat sprouts out of my grave,
the bread you make of it will get you drunk.
The baker and the dough will go insane,
and the oven will recite intoxicating verses.
If you come to visit my grave,
My tomb will appear to dance.
Brother! Don’t come without a tambourine,
for the sad can’t join in God’s celebration.
Though deep in the grave, the chin closed tight,
this mouth still chews the beloved’s opium and sugarplum.
If you tear a piece off that shroud and fasten it round your chest,
a tavern will open up from your soul.
From every direction comes the sound of the harp,
and hue and cry from the drunk.
Every action will perforce give rise to another one.
God has created me from love’s wine;
even if death takes me, I am the same love.
I am intoxication; my origin is the wine of love.
Tell me: what comes from wine except intoxication?
Toward the lofty soul of Shams of Tabriz
my soul is flying, lingering not even a single moment.
Rumi translations courtesy of Reynold A. Nicholson.
Omar Faruk Tekbilek, born in Turkey, has lived and worked in the New York area since 1976. He is a virtuoso on several Middle Eastern instruments and is a capable performer on dozens more. Tekbilek became familiar to many listeners through his work on Brian Keane’s soundtrack to Suleyman the Magnificent and subsequently through two additional collaborations, Fire Dance and Beyond the Sky, that combined the sounds of the Middle East with Western synthesizers and guitar. He has appeared at the Kool Jazz Festival and the New Sounds Live Concert Series, and has performed with Don Cherry, Ginger Baker, and many others.
O Drop
Listen, O drop, give yourself up without regret,
and in exchange gain the Ocean.
Listen, O drop, bestow upon yourself this honor,
and in the arms of the Sea be secure.
Who indeed should be so fortunate?
An Ocean wooing a drop!
In God’s name, in God’s name, sell and buy at once!
Give a drop, and take this Sea full of pearls.
[Mathnawi IV, 2619-2622]
There was a degree of contempt in Ali’s heart that caused him some uneasiness toward others. This in many ways created his suspicious character that possessed an inability to trust other human beings or value contrary ways of being. Ali was plagued by Turkish and Islamic dogmas, which imply that one should not criticize the established order, the penalty of which could be very harsh. These ways of being are largely unquestioned and very much an embedded way of thinking, but we witnessed Ali struggle under the weight of these burdensome and poisonous beliefs. Going through this schooling of indoctrination, this type of perceived “unity in a world of images, which we create” can turn a person into a very strange being. It is a process of being imprisoned for the rest of one’s life, if somehow the means cannot be found to challenge what has been taught.
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