Hafez And Rendi: The Practice Of Ambiguity

Frank Lewis weighs in.

It's Time To Choose Sides

Capitalism is killing us.

Lines From Hafez

The Sultan and his fighting men, in love/With jewels and crowns--the dervish with his peace/Of mind and nook fit for a vagabond. ~ Divan-i Hafiz, ed. Khanlari, ghazal 442, tr. L. Lewisohn.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

How Wolves Change Rivers

Lonesome Traveler

Shiraz

Wayfaring Stranger

Portrait of a Dervish.

Like The Prophet, I Am Neither...Nor...

Le Marabout Errant: Do you follow a madhhab, Dervish Baba? Dervish Baba: Like the Prophet, I am neither Sunni nor Shi'a; like the Prophet, I follow Abraham, the Hanif. LME: I'm not sure I understand... DB: It's really quite simple. You see, the madhhahib are all part of the history of Sunnism and Shi'ism, which is to say, the history of Islamic sectarianism. But none of that history is my history; none of that history belongs to me. I have deep affinities with the history and traditions of Islam (i.e., Sunnism and Shi'ism), but I am myself ghayr muqalid; not a blind follower. Emphatically not. I am not a practitioner of taqlid, thanks be to god. I am religiously unaffiliated beyond millati Ibrahim.

The Shaykh

Le Marabout Errant: Dervish Baba, can you tell us about your Shaykh? Dervish Baba: I suppose so...What would you like to know? LME: Well, to begin with, who was he? DB: My Shaykh was not a "he." LME: Oh, you had a Shaykhah? DB: Yes, Shaykhs and Shaykhahs... LME: So there have been many? DB: Many...But, in a sense, all one. LME: Would you care to elaborate? DB: My "Shaykh", if you will, is al-Hayat al-Dunya. And if you listen to that Shaykh with intelligence, with discrimination, you will never need another.

The Way

Le Marabout Errant: Tell us, Dervish Baba, about your Way. Dervish Baba: My Way? I have no "Way" save the Way of Abraham, the Hanif. LME: Fine. Then tell us about that. DB: Don the khirqa of disillusionment, seek what is hidden in plain sight, and be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Requiem

Under the wide and starry sky/Dig the grave and let me lie:/Glad did I live and gladly die,/And I laid me down with a will./This be the verse you 'grave for me:/Here he lies where he long'd to be;/Home is the sailor, home from the sea,/And the hunter home from the hill. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson (d. 1894).

Competing Desires

Whirl Is King

Front Porch Music

Roots matter.

Music Of The Silk Road

Bosnian Postcards

THE EAGLE HUNTRESS (2016) - Official HD Trailer

Qiyan Music Of Al-Andalus

Music Of Persia And Armenia

Danza Sufi: On The Earth, Beneath The Sky, A Mortal Whirls Before The Divinity/-ies

New Agrarians

Back to the land.

Error

"One does not understand the essence of things through art and religion, although nearly everyone is of that opinion. Error has made man so deep, delicate, inventive as to bring forth such blossoms as religions and arts. Pure knowledge would have been incapable of it. Whoever revealed to us the essence of the world would disappoint us all most unpleasantly. It is not the world as a thing in itself, but the world as idea (as error) that is so rich in meaning, deep, wonderful, pregnant with happiness and unhappiness. This conclusion leads to a philosophy of the logical denial of the world, which, by the way, can be combined just as well with a practical affirmation of the world as with its opposite." ~ F. Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, remark 29.

Muhammad: A Revolutionary Life

Nothing is more infuriating to the revolutionary, or to the reformer even, than the complacency of the establishment: its assumption that good consists in its own continued existence and in that of its time-honoured habits, its unawareness of the dangers threatening the world it holds dear and its contempt for all warnings. It is against such people, who take their own strength for granted and who, having amassed great wealth, believe they can do just as they like regardless of anyone else, that the earliest revelations [of the Qur'an] are directed. ~ Maxime Rodinson, Muhammad, 84.

A Portrait Of The Dervish As A Dialectical Materialist

Br. Marx Muhammad, Urban Eremite. [Image: Bosnian artist Damir Niksic].

He Comes To Us As One Unknown

He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, he came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same words: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which he has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey him, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who he is. ~ Albert Schweitzer, The Quest.

Dialectical Materialism Rightly Understood

While we recognize that in the general development of history the material determines the mental and social being determines social consciousness, we also--and indeed must--recognize the reaction of mental on material things, of social consciousness on social being and of the superstructure on the economic base.

This does not go against materialism; on the contrary, it avoids mechanical materialism and firmly upholds dialectical materialism. ~ Mao Tsetung

Steeped In Solitude

The Way of Eremitic Arts and Tea.

Putting On The Suf

The Monastery Of St. Katherine, Mt.Sinai, Egypt

Be Persuaded Of This...

"In your heart be persuaded of this: it is impossible for a man to achieve good through evil means." ~ St. Isaiah the Solitary

LIGHT IN BABYLON - ''Hinech Yafa''

LIGHT IN BABYLON

FARAN ENSEMBLE

An Observation

Dervish Baba: I don't think that I've ever met anyone who would not have crucified Christ. Myself included.

A Strange Request, A Stranger Reply

Le Marabout Errant: Tell me about God. Dervish Baba: Tell you about God? That is a strange request. LME: I just want to know what you believe. DB: Why? LME: Because I find you interesting and want to know more about you. DB: I see. Obviously, you're not interested in God; you're interested in me. LME: Well, I'm interested... DB: I don't wish to be rude, but this line of inquiry bores me. Let's talk about something that might prove beneficial to both of us. LME: Alright. DB: There was a Sage by the name of Muzaffar al-Qaramasi--you'll find him mentioned in the Risalah of al-Qushayri. He said something that I have pondered now for many years. Perhaps we can think about it together. LME: OK. DB: He said, "The Faqir"--meaning, "the poor," as in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3)--"the Faqir is the one for whom there is no need of God Most High." LME: Ah... DB: A strange thing to say, don't you think? LME: Yes. DB: At least on the surface. What can it mean? LME: On the surface, it would seem to mean that the poor--or "poor in spirit" if we accept the allusion to Matthew 5:3--have no need of God. DB: Indeed. And if we accept the allusion to Matthew 5:3, we should finish the line. LME: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." DB: Yes! LME: I'm confused. DB: Think on it.

Dervish Baba's Silsila

Le Marabout Errant: Dervish Baba, can you recite your silsila [authoritative lineage]? Dervish Baba: I don't see why not. How much time do you have? LME: Is it long? DB: I should say so; it goes back to Adam.

The Dervish Difference

Le Marabout Errant: How did you become a dervish? Dervish Baba: I don't remember a time when I wasn't a dervish. LME: What are your earliest memories? DB: Wandering in the Wilderness of Stars and then finding myself in this Ruined Tavern. LME: How did you become a Baba? DB: By marrying and having children, like anyone else. LME: So what makes you different from other people? DB: Nothing.

Keep The Doubt

Dervish Baba: People say, "Keep the faith," as if that were a difficult thing to do. But human beings are creatures of habit and walk most naturally by faith, not sight. "Keep the doubt," is what I say. For that is a narrow and difficult way that requires intense concentration, vigilance, and rigorous thought.

A Conversation With Dervish Baba

Le Marabout Errant: Dervish Baba, how would you like to be remembered once you've shuffled off this mortal coil? Dervish Baba: Must one be remembered? LME: No, of course not. But if you are remembered... DB: By whom? How I wish to be remembered will change depending upon the rememberer. LME: Fair enough. Let us say by public reputation. DB: I suppose it is kind of you to imagine that I have such a thing--or will have such a thing by the time I pass on. In any case, I doubt I could do better than to be remembered as Lionel Trilling remembered the Roman historian Tacitus: for his "power of mind" and "stubborn love of virtue maintained in desperate circumstances."

Wander With The Dervish...

Now sit and rest awhile...

Off-Grid Tiny House In The North Carolina Mountains

Dervish Vincent

God's Unruly Friends

An interview with Ahmet Karamustafa.

Tumult, Son Of Thunder

... if one has the stomach to add the breakages, upheavals distortions, inversions of all this chambermade music one stands, given a grain of goodwill, a fair chance of actually seeing the whirling dervish, Tumult, son of Thunder, self exiled in upon his ego... ~ James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, 184.

Rebel Music

The Vocation Of The Dervish

"We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O'Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land. These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes." ~ James Joyce, "Araby," Dubliners.

Wild Democracy

Dervish politics from The Simplicity Collective.

Discourse De La Servitude Volontaire

Candle In The Window

Safe houses on the Underground Railroad would leave a single candle burning in the window as a signal to those who were seeking refuge.