Dervish is a word that means poor, destitute one. Even though it is used for the poor and helpless in worldly terms, in Sufi terminology it is used for those who are aware of their poverty and helplessness before God. Although poverty and helplessness in worldly terms are associated with beggary, travelers to God are not poor and helpless in that they do not ask anyone for anything. Heroes of truth, who have dedi­cated themselves to God, are content with what He has given them and are indifferent to all other things. Even in hunger and thirst they unburden themselves to God, without revealing their need to others.

A dervish is also regarded as being the threshold to a door. This does not mean that dervishes humiliate themselves before people; rather, it means that they are humble and in their aware­ness of their nothingness before God attribute to Him whatever they may possess that is worthy of appreciation. They are also humble among people because of the Creator and because they are precious works of God’s Art with all the Divine gems inher­ent in their nature.

Sometimes perfect people are mentioned as being the dervish­es of a certain guide. This is because it is important to stress the place of a dervish, both in the sight of God and of people. Besides, sometimes simple, humble, content, and lenient people are called dervishes, while there are some great, sagacious persons with a deep knowledge of God who are known as “a poor one with the heart of sultan,” in that they are magnanimous even though poor.

The leading scholars of Sufism describe a true dervish as one who is abstinent, pious, righteous, patient, loving, tolerant, and steadfast, severing relations with all else save God from the heart, and devoted to His service with the intention and effort of reaching Him.

A dervish takes his or her first step by holding back from sins and by fulfilling obligatory and supererogatory religious duties. The second step is to be loving and tolerant toward everyone, to see the universe as a cradle of brotherhood/sister­hood, and to try to represent the nature and morals of Muham­mad, and the truth of his being Ahmad, upon him be peace and blessings. The third step is to reach the horizon of sincerity and perfect goodness and to develop their theoretical knowledge and belief based on imitation into experience and verified truths.

At the first stage, dervishes are at the beginning of piety, and demonstrate that they are ready to understand the Qur’an and Islam and to start the journey to meet with the Almighty. They are awarded in proportion to their sincerity and purity of inten­tion and advance toward piety and the summits of being pleased with God and finally into the Gardens of Paradise.

God Almighty says: The great among you are those who are God-revering, pious. The last abode of the God-revering, pious will be Paradise and their drink will be the drink of Paradise.

In the second stage, they build relations with all existence, living or non-living, (without, however, assigning their heart to any other than the Almighty) and appreciate each according to its position. They love and embrace everything, repel hostilities with love, and evil with good. Thinking that the road that they are to follow is the road of not showing resentment, but rather that of patience and tolerance, they run toward the rank of being pleased with God, and whisper like Yunus:

You should be voiceless against those who curse, and handless against those who beat. A dervish should have no heart to resent: Therefore, you cannot be a dervish.

In the third stage, dervishes are persons of peace and spiritual vision, having entered the way of seeing, feeling, and know­ing only Him, and being faithful friends of Him. It makes no dif­ference to them whether good comes from friends or evil from enemies. This is even more so if they have heard the voice of the Friend, then they will no longer feel breaths other than His, and will be freed from interest in and worries about any other than Him, acquiring a second nature that is determined by “secret.” They know what they really should know and are freed from bearing a burden of unnecessary information.

Everyone can enter the way of being a dervish. No one who has taken a step on this way is denied. However, entering such a way has some requirements which one who is ready to take the first step on this way is expected to fulfill. Tokadizade Şekip states that the door to being a dervish is open for everybody, but warns that this is the way of offering the soul to the All-Beloved and therefore requires sincerity and perfect goodness:

The door to the Truth is open to a wakeful person, But those who know how to sacrifice their souls can reach God. I have seen many who have come to this dervish convent, Willing and ready to sacrifice themselves on the way of truth.

Prophet Abraham is an excellent example to remind one that reaching God is possible by sacrificing one’s soul on His way. He breasted the fire of Nimrod [1] on this way and, leaving his home and native land, set up his tent in the desert—may our cas­tles and palaces be sacrificed for that tent. In utter submission to God, he took his wife and son and left them in a desolate valley. He offered the “fruit of his heart”—his son who had been bestowed on him in return for many years of desiring a son—to the Ultimate Truth, as a sacrifice [2] In short, he showed such resolution, power of will, and determination at every step, that except for the pride of humankind, upon him be peace and bless­ings, he has no equal in human history. It is as if Seyyid Nig­ari [3] uttered the following couplet about him:

Does one who seeks the Beloved struggle for his own life? And can another who seeks his own life be in quest of the Beloved?

So, being a dervish means aspiring to be a hero of meeting with the All-Beloved, which signifies devoting one’s life to acquiring God’s good pleasure and approval in the conscious­ness of the meaning and purpose of the religious command­ments. It has also been described as being in quest of the Ulti­mate Truth under the guidance of love and zeal and by dominat­ing one’s essence, voice, and carnal soul. This description is also significant. Riza Tevfik, a late Turkish poet and philoso­pher, presenting the characteristics of being a dervish, enlight­ens this point as follows:

Being a dervish means dominating one’s essence; one who is a captive of his ego is not a dervish. It is adopting love as a guide and finding God; it is not sweets, an axe, a staff, a needle or a skewer. Do not sit absentminded in the name of devotion; do not shout, nor dance violently, nor beat your breast! Nor foam by crying “O He, O the All-Living!” Mentioning God is not a part of digestion. Learn the secret about God from your heart; it is the heart which sees the Beloved through love. What causes a wakeful one with knowledge of God to feel that pleasure, is not henbane, nor wine, nor opium, nor anything else. Do not expect wonder from the stone of Najaf, [4] nor separate from human beings, your brethren. You cannot see the Ultimate Truth from graves or tombs; a true man of God is a sultan, not a hermit. Everywhere are heaps of crude souls, what is your relation with them? Take refuge in your heart that tends to seclusion! The world is not as spacious as the heart.

In the beginning, a dervish is a student who studies theoreti­cal knowledge; his or her practicing what is learned is represen­tation; then, feeling and experiencing more deeply what is known and practiced—by each according to his or her capaci­ty—is certainty. The first stage can also be regarded as theoreti­cal Shari‘a, the second as practical Shari‘a, and the third as Shari‘a experienced in truth. A traveler is a dervish during the whole of the journeying, through all of its stations, from the beginning to the end.

Some exacting scholars of Sufism regard being a dervish as an essential condition on the way to meet with God. According to them, being a dervish has the same meaning and importance for the purification of the carnal soul, the refinement of the heart, and the spirit’s acquiring transcendence as treatment, diet and abstention from harmful habits, food and drink do for health. As a doctor’s advice is essential for the cure of diseases, spiritual diseases also require the advice and direction of a spiri­tual guide. The character of an individual is important in the diagnosis and treatment of bodily diseases, which is why mod­ern medicine advises that every patient requires individual atten­tion. This is also true for spiritual diseases and treatment. Each patient may require a treatment which is different, at least, in its details.

For example, for an initiate who cannot be saved from the pressure of corporeality or bodily desires, or reach the level of life lived in the heart and the spirit, austerity is essential. A guide who knows the person and can diagnose his or her disease well, will advise renunciation of the world and whatever in it relates to the pleasures of the worldly life. If the initiate has fully concentrated on the pleasures of the other world without consid­ering the Truly Desired and Sought One, the guide will urge renunciation of the other world with its pleasures and concentra­tion on the Ultimate Truth. If, on the other hand, neither the world nor the Hereafter can keep an initiate from the main goal of the journeying, if both serve to improve concentration on eternity, the guide will open the doors on the world and the Hereafter wide for the initiate. Concerning this, Jalalu’d-Din Rumi says:

The world means heedlessness of God; it does not mean possessing silver coins, clothes, or a family. Our Prophet praised wealth earned in lawful ways and used for the revival and uplifting of Islam, and said: “How good is any wealth earned in lawful ways for a righteous one!” If enough water finds its way into a ship, it causes it to sink, but if it is under the ship, it causes it to float. If you do not put the love of wealth in your heart, then you can swim safely in the ocean of spiritual journeying and initiation.

True dervishes, from the time of Prophet Adam, upon him be peace, until today, have thought and acted in such a way. Even though they were not called dervishes, we can regard the People of the Suffa—the poor Companions who stayed in the antechamber or hall adjacent to the Prophet’s Mosque in Madina—as the first dervishes of the Muslim Umma. They observed both the balance between the world and the Hereafter and the Divine rights to a degree that no one else has ever been able to except the Prophets, and they became heroes of resignation (to God’s will).

After the Companions, all the people of journeying and initiation who have journeyed on the way to God under different titles, such as asceticism or Sufism or being a dervish, have per- formed great tasks, as if they were the soul and blood in the veins of the society, so long as they have had no interest in politics and concentrated all their efforts on belief in God’s Unity and maintaining the Islamic life in this belief. When they have acted to the contrary, they have both harmed society and ruined themselves.

Using being a dervish, which, in fact, is a state based on humility and a feeling of nothingness, for worldly benefits is such a means of contamination of the spirit that nothing other than a special Divine grace can clean it.

Let Mawlana Jalalu’-Din Rumi have the last word:

A luxurious life is a shame on dervishes; a burden in their hearts. How nice is feeling destitute before Him; and being in need of Him on His way. For pomp and luxury on the way to the Beloved are like thorns; they hurt the feet of dervishes.

O God! Make full of blessings my religious life, which is the guarantee of my innocence, and my other life, to which I am bound to go, and my world, in which I can be perfected. And bestow blessings and peace on our master Muhammad, and on his Family and the Companions, all of them.

Notes

1. Nimrod was the title that was given to the Chaldaean kings in Iraq. (Tr.)
2. Prophet Abraham, upon God’s command, left his elder son Ishmael in the valley of Makka together with her mother Hagar. (Tr.)
3. Seyyid Mir Hamza Nigari was a Sufi poet from Azerbaijan. He wrote lyrical poems to express God’s love. (Tr.)
4. Najaf is a city in the southern Iraq, which bears holiness for the Shi‘te Muslims. (Tr.)

Between February 5 and February 7, I had an opportunity to join approximately 400 other faith leaders at a conference in Washington, D.C. entitled “Alliance of Virtue for the Common Good.” The organization “Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies,” whose president is His Excellency Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah, sponsored the conference. In January 2016, Shaykh bin Bayyah issued “The Marrakesh Declaration,” a document signed by more than 250 Muslim leaders and scholars, as a way of supporting efforts towards building peace and coexistence with minority populations living in Muslim-majority lands. At that initial document signing, a handful of leaders from other faiths were present.

The recent conference in Washington brought more of us for two days of speakers, breakout sessions, shared meals, and further dialogue. A partner in the process was the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, whose Director Emeritus, Rabbi David Saperstein, a former United States Ambassador for Religious Freedom, tried to ensure that there would be a large contingent of Reform rabbis present for the occasion. Given our synagogue’s involvement in the past few years regarding multi-faith dialogue with members of the Muslim community, and our award winning in “Muslim-Jewish Dialogue for Teens” shared with Peace Islands Institute in 2015, we received a humbling invitation to attend and participate.

At the conclusion of the conference, the “Washington Declaration” was affirmed and signed, representing an effort by the Abrahamic faiths to work together amidst our differences to engage in activities that collectively bring healing to the world. Each of the speakers acknowledged that religion can and should be used as a force for good, not evil. It was very rewarding and heartening to meet people from Israel, the United Kingdom, Mauritania, Italy, Finland, Algeria, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, elsewhere internationally and throughout the United States, who are engaged in various multi-faith initiatives including dialogue, retreats (for example, between evangelical pastors and imams), aid organizations, academic work, social justice projects, and national organizations who are responding to acts of religious extremism (throughout the Islamic world, too).

A few of the speakers offered some poignant words. Speaking in Arabic through a translator, Shaykh bin Bayyah taught, “Religious leaders are obligated to search their sacred texts to find stronger sources for tolerance. We need to develop and promote a narrative and vision of Islam that calls for peace and tolerance. The distorted perspective of extremists goes beyond the pale of our tradition. Literal interpretation does not employ figurative understandings and results in alternative perspectives. There are irrefutable proofs that our religions are not causes of hate and violence.”

Timo Soini, Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs explained, “How we practice our religion holds a mirror in front of us.” He reminded his audience, “Freedom of religion belongs to everyone, to people of all faiths. Freedom of religion also entails the freedom to not believe or share in a particular faith. Finally, freedom cannot exist without responsibility. There is no freedom to be intolerant of the faith of the other. On the contrary, we have an obligation to be vigilant in preventing any kind of discrimination on religious grounds. If religion is part of the problem, then it also must be part of the solution.”

Admittedly, this was my first time in the presence of numerous Christian evangelical clergy. Pastor Bob Roberts, who has partnered regularly with Shaykh bin Bayyah, instructed us that to discover common ground, can yield common actions, and ultimately result in a common good. Pastor Roberts has been involved in efforts to build bridges with the Islamic community focusing on clergy becoming acquainted with one another. After a relationship is forged between pastor and imam, the circle expands to include the clergy member’s family (if they have one) and their congregation. In due course, knowing one another leads to opportunities to stand up for another. Going on dialogue retreats together and participating in projects in underdeveloped neighborhoods deepens the process. “We all bleed the same,” he said. “If we quit the hatred, we might learn to love each other.” As Pastor John Jenkins, Pastor Roberts’ colleague, offered, “The imam has the same thing in his heart that I do, but the media won’t tell you that story. We need to get the media to tell the other story.”

While the event predominantly featured Muslims, Christians, and Jews, as well as a few people of other faiths, I am hoping that those who identify as secular, atheist, or do not identify as religious, will eventually be welcomed at this table, too. Thinking that religion has cornered the market on “virtue,” “being a good person” or can speak to everyone’s “common good” is simply not true and this notion of “virtue” needs to also include voices from those who do not identify with a religion or with a faith practice.

Still, it was interesting to be involved, to be a fly on the wall – and even more enlightening to gather awareness of others who are deeply involved in the work of trying to improve our world, day by day. The most critical piece to emerge from the Alliance Conference is making sure that what was discussed in Washington becomes actionable in our own communities.

How remarkable and how disappointing is it that in 2018 we are still preaching lessons and holding conferences on how to talk to one another, how to be in relationship with one another, and how to see the Divine in other human beings and in other communities beyond our own.

If the Washington Declaration is a piece of paper that is ultimately just filed somewhere, then this was nothing but a talkfest. If the experience continues to translate into action, there’s a lot of healing that can be done.

Time to get to work.

As an Australian citizen who has been enriched by the years of interfaith engagement in his local Sydney community, I immediately accepted an invitation to attend my first interfaith gathering after living in the USA for nearly two years. Three things stood out for me. 

First, I was moved by a very special moment when a choir of young Muslim children was called up onto the stage (after they had already performed) to sing the famous “Qasida Burda” (a traditional poem sung in praise of the Prophet Muhammad, pbuh) in order to welcome the respected Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah into the synagogue. This taking place on a Shabbat night in a Synagogue made it even more special. I would love to see more such examples of this, perhaps such as when a senior priest or rabbi enters a mosque and a song praising Moses and Jesus (peace be upon them) is sung for them.

Second, after the speech of Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah and its translation by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf (both of whom I was privileged to see for the first time), there was a very symbolic song sung for Jerusalem, that describes three brothers (representing the three Abrahamic faiths) worrying about their inheritance shares whilst forgetting their sister (which represented faith or the holy city itself). The song was “Three Brothers” by David Wilcox. Overall, I remember a genuine feeling of tranquility and I think it was due to the sincerity of the organizers and participants.

Finally, I happened to wander into a room before the program began (later I realized it was for the panelists only) and the Rabbi was going through the procedures and protocols with the guests. Before doing so however, he thanked them for coming, knowing that by doing so they will be subjecting themselves to negative criticisms or worst (God forbid) from sections of their communities who don’t support such interfaith work. I truly appreciated that thank you, as it reminded me the core duty of faith leaders – to represent the values taught by their faith traditions and the Prophets of their faiths despite the risks they may incur. Indeed, if a faith leader is not willing to advocate and represent the core ethical values of their faith (regardless of which faith it maybe), they are no leader in my eyes.