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.