TRANSFORMATION OF A SUFI TRADITION IN CONTEMPORARY

ISTANBUL: THE CASE OF CEMALNUR SARGUT’S GROUP

Thesis submitted to the

Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

in

Sociology

by

Azize Aslıhan Akman

Boğaziçi University

2007
 This thesis by Azize Aslıhan Akman

is approved by

Assist. Prof. Ayfer Bartu Candan -----------------------------------------------

(Committee Chairperson)

Assist. Prof. Biray Kırlı -----------------------------------------------

Assist. Prof. Ali Murat Yel -----------------------------------------------

October 2007

ii
 Thesis Abstract

Azize Aslıhan Akman, “Transformation of A Sufı Tradition in Contemporary

Istanbul: The Case of Cemalnur Sargut’s Group”

This thesis analyzes the transformation and the newly-emerging forms of Sufism or

tasavvuf and dervishness in contemporary urban field of Turkey by focusing on the

murids of a Rifai shaykh, Kenan Rifai, and his murid, Samiha Ayverdi. The group’s

contemporary leader is Cemalnur Sargut. I investigate the way the group imagines

and practices Sufism, the way these imaginary and practices are related to the past

and present of Turkey as a nation state, which has been subject to modernization and

secularization projects, and to the global context. I also analyze the subjectivities and

identity construction processes of the group members. I gathered my data through

fieldwork, which involved participant observation method and in-depth interviews,

and the analysis of the group’s publications. In the study, I suggest that the group sets

an example for the complex religious identities in the secularized order of Turkey.

The group members regard and experience tasavvuf as the ‘true,’ ‘proper’ and safer

form of Islam and define “religiosity” and “secularism” as parts of modernity. They

reverse the modernist gaze which has equated Sufism with backwardness and they

associate it with enlightenment and profundity. The case undermines the ongoing

dichotomies such as religious/secular and my analysis calls for a new conceptual

space that transcends these dichotomies. Moreover, the literature on the language of

late modernity is operational in grasping the content and the form of the message the

group tries to spread and the subjectivities of the group members.

Keywords: Sufism, spirituality, modernization, secularization, subjectivity

iii
 Tez Özeti

Azize Aslıhan Akman, “Günümüz İstanbul’unda Bir Sufi Geleneğinin Dönüşümü:

Cemalnur Sargut Grubu Örneği”

Bu tez Türkiye’nin çağdaş şehir alanında Sufizm’in ya da tasavvufun dönüşümünü

ve yeni ortaya çıkan formlarını İstanbul’da bir Rifai şeyhi olan Kenan Rifai ve

müridi Samiha Ayverdi’nin bugün son derece faal olan müritlerine odaklanarak

incelemektedir. Grubun bugünkü lideri de bir kadın mürşittir. Grubun Sufizm

tahayyülünü ve pratiklerini, bu tahayyül ve pratiklerin modernleşme ve sekülerleşme

projeleriden geçmiş bir ulus devlet olarak Türkiye’nin geçmişi ve bugünü ve küresel

bağlam ile ilişkisini incelemekteyim. Aynı zamanda grup üyelerinin öznelliklerini ve

kimlik inşa süreçlerini de ele almaktayım. Çalışmanın verileri, katılımcı gözlem ve

derinlemesine mülakatları içeren bir saha çalışması ve gruba ait yayınların

incelenmesi yoluyla toplanmıştır. Bu çalışmada, grubun Türkiye’nin

sekülerleştirilmiş düzeninde karmaşık dini kimliklere bir örnek teşkil ettiğini öne

sürmekteyim. Grup üyeleri tasavvufu ‘doğru’, ‘gerçek’ ve güvenli bir İslami form

olarak görmekte ve deneyimlemekte ve modernitenin katılımcıları olarak “dindarlık”

ve “seküler” kavramlarını tanımlamaktadırlar. Sufizmi gerilik ile özdeşleştirmiş

modernist bakışı tersine çevirerek aydınlanma ve derinlik ile özdeşleştirmektedirler.

Bu örnek, dini/seküler gibi süregelen ikiliklerin altını oymakta ve analiz, klişeleri

aşan yeni bir alanı gerekli kılmaktadır. Ayrıca, geç modernitenin sağladığı dil ve

araçlar üzerine var olan literatür, grubun yaymaya çalıştığı mesajı ve grup üyelerinin

öznelliklerini kavramada işlevseldir.

Anahtar sözcükler: Tasavvuf, tinsellik, modernleşme, sekülerleşme, öznellik

iv
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to many people for their support in the writing process. First of all, I

would like to thank the members of my thesis committee. I owe much to my advisor,

Ayfer Bartu Candan, for her guidance, stimulating suggestions and criticisms. I could

not have started and finished writing without her constant control. Ali Murat Yel

encouraged me about the field of study, shared my enthusiasm for the project, shaped

my views and advised me about the relevant literature. I am grateful for his advises

on how to conduct a fieldwork. I thank to Biray Kırlı for her valuable comments on

the main points and organization of the text. I would like to express my deepest

gratitude to Nükhet Sirman, who encouraged me to study the case, shaped my

outlook, listened to my fieldwork experience with interest and made crucial points

that shaped this work. Derin Terzioğlu read the first draft of the text and criticized it.

Our discussions were extremely valuable for me to comprehend the contemporary

situation. She also suggested me valuable sources. I also thank to Nazife Şişman for

reading early drafts of the work, her insightful comments and encouragement.

I am indebted to Cemalnur Sargut, who never refused to talk to me, and to the

people around her, whose names I can not mention here for protecting privacy. They

welcomed me in Türkkad, in the gatherings and in their houses generously and

politely.

It was an extraordinary opportunity to meet another student of anthropology

working on exactly the same field and the same topic. I met Anna at the beginning of

my fieldwork and we have always kept in touch from thenceforth. She shared her

fieldwork experience, observations and most importantly, her friendship. She read

the earliest and the latest copies of the text and made detailed and valuable comments

on it.

v
 My friends… I cannot find enough words to express my gratitudes to them.

First of all, I would like to thank to Feyza. Despite the kilometers between us, she

was always with me thanks to the internet. She shared every instance of the study

and supported me in my most difficult days. Yasemin was always a very special

friend, always altruistic, sensitive and caring. She guided me with her extraordinary

views and experience on thesis writing. The level of her emotional support is beyond

her guesses. I got a similar support from Fatma. I could not even continue my

graduate studies without her encouragement. She also read the drafts and made

insightful criticisms. Gülperi, Öznur, Nihal, who are my friends since high school,

took a deep breath when they heard that I had finally finished writing. They shared

all my distress and sought to comfort me. Ahsen, whom I see as my friend of destiny,

abided all my complaining and comforted me. I also felt the support of my “Bert,”

Gülsüm, in my heart. I am grateful to Dilek for her patience and support. She

prevented me from giving up with her professional social worker sensibility. It was

also a pleasure to exchange ideas with Ali, whose critical approach stimulated my

lazy mind. I also thank to my relaxed friends, Sertaç and Ramazan, who prevented

me from taking things too seriously. Gülsüm, Yasemin, Şamil, Feyza and Ahsen

helped me with the translations.

The last, but not the least important was the support of my parents. They were

extremely patient, compassionate and supportive. My mother tolerated my temper all

the time. I should also admit that I owe my interest in Sufism to my father, who has

answered my curious questions about the world since my infancy.

vi
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………1

2. THE TRANSFORMATION OF A TRADITION IN A SECULARIZED

ORDER.......................................................................................................................18

Sufism in the Ottoman Era...............................................................................18

The Roots of the Rifai Order...........................................................................22

The Modernist Rupture and the Transformation of the Gaze at Sufism..........24

Kenan Rifai: “Şeriat is the Law of the Day”...................................................32

The Sacralization of the Secularist Elites........................................................38

Ritual Forms in Traditional Tarikats..............................................................40

Tarikat without Tekke: Persistence of Sohbet and Zikir through Hymns.......46

Blurring the Boundaries Between World Rejection and World

Accommodation..........................................................................................................59

3. TOWARDS A UNIVERSALIST DISCOURSE

Publicizing the Secret in the “Age of Irfan”...................................................74

Spreading Sufism through “Academic” Ways................................................79

4. BETWEEN MODERN SUBJECTIVITY AND NORMATIVITY OF TASAVVUF

The Disputes on “Secularization or Sacralization” Question.........................87

Subjective Turn and the Search for Meaning................................................93

Ehl-i Tasavvuf: The “Middle Way”..............................................................109

On the Path Towards İnsan-ı Kamil..............................................................118

5. CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................126

BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………….133

vii
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This study is about a group of people who claim to be on the Sufi path in Istanbul

under the guidance of a woman spiritual master or a mürşit (murshid), whose name is

Cemalnur Sargut. My first encounter with Cemalnur Sargut was through the internet

site established under her name.1 When I first looked at the site in the year 2006,

there was the following paragraph just below her photograph:

This site is prepared by the students of Cemalnur Sargut Hanımefendi.2

Our purpose is to present the speeches, conference and radio speeches
and similar efforts which are the fruits of her Sufi works to the benefit of
the ones that are interested in. C. Sargut Hanımefendi uses the works of
Ahmed-er Rifai, Abdülkadir-i Geylani, Muhiddin-i Arabi, Cili, Mevlana,
Mısrı-i Niyazi, Yunus Emre, Kenan Rifai, her teacher Samiha Ayverdi
and Meşkure Sargut as sources. The mistakes and faults in the
presentation of the drops flowing from the Sufi sea are under the
responsibility of the ones who prepare.3

I did not have any information on Sargut and her group. I was surprised to see so

many different names from the Sufi tradition in one paragraph. I knew that each Sufi

order or tarikat (tariqa) had a shaykh, who is a spiritual guide on the developmental

path of Sufism, and had a silsile (silsila),4 which is the chain of initiates reaching

back to the Prophet Muhammad via the historical line of shaykhs. I had no

knowledge on whether Cemalnur Sargut was a member of a Sufi tarikat, or a person

giving speeches on Sufism as an independent lecturer. If she had a spiritual guide, a

1
www.cemalnur.org
2
Hanımefendi is a term that features women in a polite way. It is composed of the words hanım and
efendi, meaning lady and gentleman respectively.
3
www.cemalnur.org, 1 April 2006. Translation is mine.
4
For a more detailed explanation of the term, see Chapter 2.

1
shaykh, who was that person? What did the names of the Sufis above mean to her?

Did she and her followers have anything to do with the phenomenon of the

popularization of Sufism? Was her interpretation of Sufism a response to the

urbanites’ search for meaning and quest for inward journeys, or a safe form of

religion in the secularized order of Turkey? Did Cemalnur Sargut have

commonalities with the Sufi masters in the Western societies, who repackage Sufism

for the needs of the Westerners? The present study is a result of my curiosity with

these questions and focuses on the way Cemalnur Sargut and her disciples imagine

and practice Sufism in the urban sphere of Turkey and the way their imaginary and

practices of Sufism are related to the past and present of Turkey as a nation state and

to the context of globalization.

Soon, I participated in one of her conferences which was open to the public on

April 2006. This first gathering I participated in was in the Erenköy district, which is

on the Anatolian side of Istanbul. I found the place on a silent street of Erenköy

around which there were lots of places given the name of Kazım Karabekir:5 a school,

a street, a museum and a cultural center. I remarked the plate of Kazım Karabekir

Museum established in the first floor of a high apartment building. The tidiness of the

buildings with small gardens ranging on two sides of the quiet street was the clue of a

district of middle and upper middle class. Kazım Karabekir Kültür Merkezi (Kazım

Karabekir Cultural Center)6 was very close to the museum. I arrived in the center

twenty minutes late and found people sitting at the door of the room and even standing

due to the shortage of chairs. Demand seemed to be higher in number than I had

5
Kazım Karabekir was one of the famous military commanders of the Independence War of the
Turkish Republic. He was a member of the Union and Progress Party and among the soldiers that
supressed the so-called 31 March Revolt, which is represented as an obscurantist rebellion movement
in official history.
6
During the fieldwork I learned that the place belonged to the daughter of Kazım Karabekir. As the
mürits indicate, she loves Cemalnur Sargut and allocated the place for Sargut’s programs.

2
supposed. As I approached the door, I began to hear a tremulous, plaintive, rapturous

voice, the voice of Cemalnur Sargut. I tried to find a place close to the stage, among

the crowds filling out around 200 chairs of the room. I surprisingly found an empty

chair at the first row and sat down. The majority of the people in the room consisted

of middle aged and old people, but there were also a few young ones. There were both

men and women, but women constituted the majority. Except a very few people, the

women were not covered. I found Cemalnur Sargut a bit older than her photograph on

the internet site. She was smiling and the tone of her voice was increasing and

decreasing to give a feeling of the content and sometimes reached the limits of

sobbing. She spoke with such enthusiasm that the audience could not blink back the

tears from time to time. She was dark skinned and very thin. Her straight hair dropped

onto her shoulders. Her blouse, the collar enriched by beads, left her filmy arms naked

up to the elbows. The bright orange color of her cardigan did not escape my attention.

I found her like an Indian guru or a meditation expert at this first encounter with this

energetic outlook and groomed appearance. After I started to see her more often, I

understood that she liked clothes with bright colors, which made her look energetic. In

this gathering, she mentioned the Prophet Muhammad, his companion Ali, Mevlana,

İbn Arabi, Ahmed er Rifai and Kenan Rifai with enthusiasm. The main theme of the

speech was the love of God. The first clues about her discourse that I got from this

first experience were her effort to articulate the meaning of şeriat (sharia) by saying

“When it is said şeriat, everyone is badly frightened, but şeriat means to love Allah,

what Allah wants from us.” At the end of the meeting, most listeners did not leave

before kissing her hands and putting their arms around her. She responded with warm

hearted words, affection and modesty. I was one of the last persons greeting her in

order to get permission for my research in the group and she answered me with a

3
similar warm hearted, modest manner and the sentence “We are at your disposal.” I

was glad to get such an encouraging answer.

After this first encounter, we organized a meeting in Türk Kadınları Kültür

Derneği (Turkish Women’s Cultural Association- Türkkad), which is managed by

Cemalnur Sargut. The association was on the last floor of a high apartment building

again on the Anatolian side of Istanbul.7 It was a residential apartment. The

apartments in Erenköy are quite expensive, occupied mostly by the middle/upper

middle class families in Istanbul. I arrived at the door after getting the elevator and a

kind girl opened the door. The flat was an ordinary residence with three rooms,

kitchen and bathroom. She invited me to the living-room where she asked me to wait

for a while. There were three young girls in the room. Cemalnur Sargut came in her

casual clothes and we had our first interview. I soon learned that the young women

were from the core group around Cemalnur Sargut. By the term core group, I mean

the people from ihvan, who yield to the spiritual mastery of Cemalnur Sargut and

have attachment to Kenan Rifai and Samiha Ayverdi as their spiritual masters. Some

of the people in the core group have attachment with the group since their childhood,

while some are relatively new. The close group members are different from others

who participate in the public sohbets (suhba) of Cemalnur Sargut in that they

participate in the closed activities of ihvan such as the commemoration rituals in the

anniversaries of Kenan Rifai’s death, the grand sohbets organized by the elders in

one of the ihvan’s house or the travels abroad mostly with the aim of spreading the

message of Sufism. She aims at disciplining the youngsters around her in accordance

7
The association moved to another building in the summer of 2007. We had our last interview in
September, 2007 in this new flat. It is on the Anatolian side, in an apartment on a reputable avenue
with private firms, cafes and houses of the people from the upper middle class on both sides.
Cemalnur Sargut finds this flat more suitable as an office for the association than the previous one,
which she thinks resembles more a house than an office. She has a smart private room in this new
place.

4
with the tenets of Sufism. Some family members of the youngsters are also from the

group and they spend most of their time together. I did not know that the youth

gatherings would mostly be organized in one of these young women’s house and I

would even stay overnight at her house since my house was quite far from hers. I

would see them in these programs, sohbets and other organizations. This first

meeting became in a way an introduction for me to the group activities.

Cemalnur Sargut is an heir of the tradition of Kenan Rifai, a Rifai shaykh who

lived during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the formative periods of the

Turkish Republic. He was born in Selanik (Salonika), came to Istanbul and established

a dergah8 at the beginning of the twentieth century. Besides men, he had a lot of

women mürits (murid),9 to whose spiritual training he gave great importance. Samiha

Ayverdi, who is known as a famous literary figure with her thirty five books on

various topics ranging from history to spirituality, was one of his most prominent

mürits. We get information about the life of Kenan Rifai in detail from the book

written by his women mürits.10 Meşkure Sargut, who is Cemalnur Sargut’s mother, is

also a mürit of Kenan Rifai. After the death of Kenan Rifai, Samiha Ayverdi inherited

the tradition and guided ihvan.11 The group was more closed in the era of Ayverdi

when compared to the present situation. As Schimmel (cited in Helminski, 2003)

suggests Ayverdi tried to convey the principles she learned from Kenan Rifai to ihvan

who loved her and called her Samiha Anne (Mother Samiha). She established Türk Ev

Kadınları Derneği (Turkish Housewives Association) in 1966 and it was renamed

8
Dergah is another word used for tekke. See footnote 14.
9
The term mürit (murid) means disciple. Throughout the text, I use the word as it is written in
Turkish.
10
Ayverdi, S. & Erol S. & Araz N. & Huri S, Ken’an Rifai ve Yirminci Asrın Işığında Müslümanlık
[Ken’an Rifai and Understanding Islam in the Light of the Twentieth Century]. Istanbul: Kubbealtı
Neşriyat, 2003.
11
Ihvan is a plural Arabic word which means faithful, sincere and close companions. It is commonly
used for the mürits of the same tarikat (Devellioğlu, 1993). This usage indicates that they are close
companions, brothers and sisters on the same Path.

5
Türk Kadınları Kültür Derneği (Turkish Women’s Cultural Association). She also

established Kubbealtı Cemiyeti (Kubbealtı Society) in 1970 and it gained the status of

an endowment in 1978. Cemalnur Sargut and the people in ihvan define Ayverdi as

their mürşit, as an insan-ı kamil (insan al-kamil) who sets an example of the perfect

human being on the Sufi path. During her lifetime, Ayverdi had charged Cemalnur

Sargut with the duty of giving sohbets on Mesnevi12 of Mevlana13 to the youngsters

when Sargut was twenty-five years old. After the death of Samiha Ayverdi in 1993,

old members of ihvan such as Meşkure Sargut have perpetuated authorities and given

sohbets in the gatherings. However, Cemalnur Sargut leads especially the new

generations and conduct a policy of opening to the public.

Kenan Rifai and Samiha Ayverdi were among the elites of the Ottoman

society and practiced Sufi tradition in the urban field. After the republican reforms

that conducted the secularization project in Turkey, Sufi tekkes14 were prohibited by

laws. Kenan Rifai closed his dergah without any opposition to the state regulations.

The group sets an example of the continuation of a Sufi tradition in the secularized

context of Turkey among the elite segments. Today, the context in which Cemalnur

12
“Mesnevi” (Masnavi) is a type of poetry in Persian, which consists of staves that have rhymed with
each other and unity of meter. Before Mevlana, this type of poems have been written in Persian since
very long ago. However, Mevlana is remembered when it is said Mesnevi today because it is the name
of one of his most famous works. It consists of his mystic poems written in Persian in six volumes. A
last seventh volume is attributed to Mevlana, but it is argued that this volume is not written by
Mevlana (Füruzanfer, 2005, pp. 186- 188). There is controversy on the number of the lines in
Mesnevi. Franklin Lewis (2000) shows that late pre-modern manuscripts and nineteenth century
printings contain anywhere from 27,700 to as many as 32,000 lines, an accretion of between two and
seven thousand lines that do not come from the pen of Rumi (p. 296).
13
Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi is one of the greatest Sufi mystics. He lived in the thirteenth century. As
Schimmel (1992) argues, his name Mevlana Rumi, which means “Our Master, the Byzantine,”
indicates that he lived in Byzantium of the day (p. 11). Afghan and Persian admirers are said to prefer
“Balkhi” instead of Rumi, since his famiily lived in the city of Balkh, in today’s Afghistan, before
migrating westward (Schimmel, p. 11). In the end, his family came to Anatolia via Mecca, Damascus
(Syria). His followers established Mevlevi Order, which is famous for its sema ritual today. For
details see, Schimmel, 1997; Lewis, 2000; Füruzanfer, 2005.
14
Tekkes, or lodges, were the buildings of the Sufi tarikats. Lifchez (1992) argues that in the
nineteenth century Ottoman society, most of the tekke buildings were ordinary family houses where
the tekke’s shaykh lived with his family and some spaces were set aside for tarikat functions,
including the formal and informal reception of those who followed the shaykh’s teaching. The tarikat
buildings are referred to by a variety of names: tekke, hanekah, asitane, zaviye, dergah. For more
detail, see Lifchez, 1992.

6
Sargut operates is different from that of Kenan Rifai and Samiha Ayverdi. The

ongoing characteristics of the group is its appeal to middle and upper middle class

urbanites and avoidance any conflict with the secular order of the nation state. What

differentiates Sargut from her mürşits is her policy of openness on the basis of the

specific characteristics she attributes to the contemporary era and the people living in

it. She uses the universalist and inclusivist potential of Sufism in general and of

Kenan Rifai tradition in particular to adapt to the conditions of the day.

Studying Religion and Sufism in Turkey

I try to contextualize this study within the larger framework the studies on Islam and

Sufism both in the world and in Turkey. The acceleration in the popularity of

religious movements in the closing years of the twentieth century increased the

scholarly interests in religion. One of the characteristics of the studies on Islam is

their emphasis on the so-called resurgence of Islam, which is frequently used with

the expression of ‘Islamic Threat’ (Mohammad, 1993; Esposito, 1992). Especially

after the events of September 11 in the United States, the so-called political Islam

and Islamism as an ideology of the twentieth century became the subject of so many

studies. The global rise in the visibility of Islamic practices such as veiling, gender

segregation and the new public spaces that Muslims are said to arrange in conformity

with an Islamic life-style in the last twenty years are shown as a demonstration of the

Islamic resurgence (Göle, 2006). On the basis of this outlook, Berger, who had

previously advocated that modernization would necessarily lead to secularization

(Berger, 1969a, 1969b), mentions the process of “desecularization” in the urban

fields of countries like Turkey or Egypt today (Berger, 1999). He also gives the

7
visibilities such as veil and other accoutrements of Islamic modesty as a

demonstration of the “desecularization” process. In Turkey, there are people who

define themselves Islamists, who are claimed to put Islam to the center of their

political practice. These groups become objects of anthropological studies from time

to time (Saktanber, 2002; Tuğal, 2006). The covered women, who are represented as

prominent symbols of rising Islamism in Turkey, are also studied (Göle, 1996;

Ewing 2000a; Saktanber 2002). The hybrid character of ‘Islamists’ are sometimes

emphasized (Göle, 2000) and the outlook of ‘secularists’ vis-a-vis the perception of

an ‘Islamic threat’ is also studied (Navaro-Yashin, 2002). Another field of study is

Alevis in Turkey, although it is a controversy among both the scholars and Alevis

themselves whether Alevilik is a sect in Islam or a separate faith (Es, 2006). Some of

the studies on Alevis represent them as the collaborators of the authoritarian state’s

secularization policies or as people who are easily adapted to modernity, secularity

and democracy (ibid.).

Another field in religious studies is Sufism. There are some anthropological

studies on Sufi groups in Turkey and they analyze the transformation of those groups

in the modern, secular context of the country (Silverstein, 1997; Raudvere, 2002;

Karaatlı, 2006). Sargut’s group again faces us as a specific case in that it is the

continuation of Kenan Rifai’s tradition, which is categorized separately from other

tarikats and Islamist movements and named “intellectual Sufism” by Şerif Mardin

(2006). This differentiation is made due to the movement’s emphasis on subjective

experiences rather than state politics for living Islam properly. Another area that

needs investigation is the interaction of Sufi movements with the present global

trends. As Sinha (2006) puts it, religious communities are necessarily embedded

within the boundaries of the modern nation-states, grounded upon the principle of

8
secularism, and the emergent religious networks across national boundaries today.

There is a growing literature on the new hybrid forms of Sufi groups in the Western

and non-Western societies and most of them have a transnational character (Atay,

1996; Hermansen, 2000; Howell, 2001; Werbner, 2003; Westerlund, 2004; Howell,

2005; Genn, 2006; Malik and Hinnells, 2006; Howell, 2007). Sargut’s group should

especially evaluate in relation to the Sufi movements which primarily address

educated urbanites in different parts of the globe.

I also analyze the case in relation to the discussions in the literature of

anthropology. Contrary to the modernist expectation in the classical literature of the

anthropology of religion, this group is a good example of the continuation of the Sufi

tradition in the urban context among the educated upper classes. As Atay (1996)

argues, until very recent times, the dominant thesis of the studies made on Sufism in

the West was that Sufism is an Islamic understanding suitable for tribal life. It is

argued that Geertz, Evans Pritchard and Gellner represent this view (Atay, 1996;

Howell, 2001). The history of this group undermines this thesis and support theorists

like Gilsenan, Eickelman, Fusfeld and Vergin, who are against the above mentioned

thesis on Sufism (Atay, 1996). The history of Sufism in the Ottoman society in

general and the history of Kenan Rifai tradition in particular also undermine the

thesis with their urban character. Moreover, Sargut’s group undermines the

modernist discourse, which regards Sufi orders as relics of the past.15 This modernist

discourse is not unique to Turkey, but common to other postcolonial contexts such as

Pakistan (Ewing, 1997) and Indonesia (Howell, 2007). Far from becoming extinct in

the modern urban field, the group uses the tradition in order to spread their message

in the modern context of the day.

15
For a critique of this modernist discourse, see Mardin, 1981; Atay 1996; Ewing, 1997.

9
 This study problematizes the ongoing categories such as Islamist/secularist in

analyzing the complex religious field of Turkey. Although I do not think that these

categories are totally useful, I argue that they are insufficient and misleading in the

case of Cemalnur Sargut’s group. The group seems a modernized and secularized

version of Islam at first glance, but the picture gets complicated as one becomes

more familiar with the group. The case at hand demonstrates that the religious groups

in Turkey should be analyzed in their particularities and historicity, without inducing

religiosity or secularity to certain visibilities and practices.

Methodology

From the beginning, my encounter with the group was uneasy for me. I found myself

in the tension of an insider-outsider relationship. It was sometimes difficult to put a

critical distance to the group because I was so familiar with and had sympathy to

tasavvuf (tasawwuf). Most of the time, I felt a kind of emotional attachment to the

leader of the group, Cemalnur Sargut, and had friendship with some of the group

members. We shared a common language with the group members due to the

similarities in our levels of education and religious sentiments. When I shared the

preliminary copies of this study with the group members, I got detailed feedback

from them. Their acquaintance with social sciences and high level of consciousness

regarding their own identity complicated the relationship between me, as a

researcher, and them further. However, there were some other factors putting a

distance between the group members and me. First of all, there were some

differences in my practice of Islam, such as the fact that I was wearing headscarf.

Cemalnur Sargut and the women around her do not cover their heads and are

10
frequently criticized for not doing so. The significance of the headscarf is due to the

controversies around it in Turkey. The clothing style of women has been constructed

as an important symbol of the secular republic in the hegemonic discourse and

headscarf is represented as a threat to the secularism (Navaro-Yashin, 2002).

Although Cemalnur Sargut claimed to give no importance to clothing, headscarf was

definitely differentiating them from most other religious groups in Turkey and they

also differentiated themselves from other groups with their modern outlook. The

second factor was the issue of class and status. I had not witnessed the practice of

tasavvuf in an upper-middle class urban setting before. Most of the activities took

place in upper-middle class districts of Istanbul. Moreover, despite that I was a

Muslim and my familiarity with tasavvuf, I had no adherence to a tarikat. They

sometimes treated me as an outsider to their world of meaning, or sometimes I felt to

be so. For instance, when I put the book of Mevlana on the ground just beside my

bag, one of the youngsters saw it and put it on the table in order to show her respect

to Mevlana symbolically.

During my research, I used participant observation and in-depth interviews as

my primary method. I participated in Wednesday sohbets of Cemalnur Sargut in a

cultural center in Erenköy district, her youth sohbets in Kadıköy on Saturdays and

occasionally in the gathering of the youngsters on Wednesday evenings from April

2006 to April 2007. The programs were interrupted in the summer of 2006 since

most group members were on holiday. I went to Türk Kadınları Kültür Derneği

(Turkish Women’s Cultural Center) three times; I conducted interviews with

Cemalnur Sargut and the women from the group and got information and materials

about their activities. However, I could not participate in most of the closed activities

of ihvan. The group members in different ages gather together frequently. Men and

11
women sometimes come together for various activities ranging from sohbets, visits,

and prayings to social activities and projects. For instance, they go to morning

prayings on Saturday mornings. They visit other cities for religious reasons like

Konya, or they go abroad to countries like Germany, India, and Syria. Cemalnur

Sargut and group members never refused to talk to me and welcomed the fieldwork.

My limitations in the fieldwork have two grounds: personal limitations and

sometimes the group’s restrictions upon me. The sohbets that Cemalnur Sargut’s

mother recites is an example of the latter. I was politely refused to listen her sohbets

and Cemalnur Sargut told me that they are people of a different era and do not want

outsiders in their sohbets. So, I wrote the thesis based on the interviews and the

activities I could participate in. During the sohbets and Wednesday evening

gatherings, men and women were together, but I did not conduct interviews with

men. So the data mostly come from women, while I could also talk to men in the

gatherings. I made five interviews with the women mürits and two with Cemalnur

Sargut. The interviews were unstructured but I interspersed three main questions into

the conversations. One was on the way they were engaged with ihvan, the other on

the transformations on their lifestyles after they became a member of ihvan, and the

last one was on their perceptions of other religious groups in Turkey and the way

they situate themselves with regard to them. They were always ready to explicate

their feelings and ideas and our conversations were always fluent. Besides

participating in the activities and making interviews, the documents I got from

Türkkad, which include booklets, books, CDs, DVDs, became very useful in

analyzing the language of the group.

Due to the limitations of my fieldwork, the study has some apparent

shortcomings. First of all, I could not have enough access to everyday lives of the

12
group members. Moreover, I only had limited observation of their relationships with

their spiritual master, Cemalnur Sargut that also limits my discussion of the power

relations between the group members. Other than the interviews, I had a close

relationship with some of the young women. I have been in the houses of two women

during the youth gatherings on Wednesday. I even stayed overnight in the house they

gathered most of the time. This experience gave me an insight to their lives, practices

and meaning worlds.

Sequential Order

In order to analyze the group, I start with the historical and contemporary context of

Turkey that is needed for the historical contextualization of the group whose root

goes back to the twelfth century. So, the second chapter is the brief overview of the

history of the Rifai order. I also dwell on the role of religion and Sufi tarikats in the

Ottoman society in order both to grasp the continuities and the ruptures of the Sufi

tradition in the Turkish context and situate the case in the anthropological literature

on Sufism. Then, I turn to the mild response of Kenan Rifai to the secularization

project in Turkey. I argue that to a great extent, the adaptation potential of Sargut’s

group to the conditions of the day lies in this tradition to a great extent. Cemalnur

Sargut comes up with further commentaries on religion and secularism, which

facilitate the accommodation of a religious lifestyle in the secular context. The group

continues its activities outside the tekke institution. How do they carry on their

tradition today and what kind of activities does the core group do? Since they do not

continue traditional tekke practices, they give priority to sohbets and reciting hymns.

Music was already a common means in the practices of Kenan Rifai and they regard

13
ilahis (hymns) as a substitute for zikir, which they avoid to perform due to the legal

restrictions. However, what facilitates their accommodation of the idiom of Sufism in

modern life is the understanding of ritual. Since the tenets of Sufism do not restrict

ritual to practices such as praying and fasting, they think that they can live tasavvuf

regardless of where they are: in work life, academy… etc. This perception is

epitomized in the saying “You can go anywhere you like as long as you put on the

crown of edeb.” All experiences in subjective life, all the happenings one encounters

are interpreted through the eyes of the sacred and are regarded as means of

approaching to Allah. At this point, we again face an intersection with the new age

tenets: there is no longer any point in dividing our experience into ‘this-worldly’ or

‘other-worldly’ categories. The sacred starts to spill over into everyday thinking and

the lines between the sacred and the secular are becoming blurred (Davie, 1999, p.

41).

The global context of the day is also a factor in the transformation of the

group practices. As Hermansen (2006) puts it, Sufi movements give a wide range of

responses and adaptations to the hybrid contexts in which they operate. At first

glance, the group displays considerable similarities with the so-called Western

Sufism or global Sufism of the recent era (Hammer, 2004). In the third chapter, I

analyze Sargut’s group with respect to the transformations both in content of their

message and the forms they choose for spreading it are influenced by the global

context. Cemalnur Sargut does not make a new interpretation, but makes

assumptions for the contemporary era and the needs of the individuals and uses the

potential of the Sufi tradition to address her audience in the late modern context. I

give examples from the means they use for spreading the message of Sufism. They

organize open lectures, conferences, public organizations, prepare books, CDs and

14
participate in television and radio programs... etc. They also operate through civil

society, which is a very effective means for social movements. They are organized

under Türk Kadınları Kültür Derneği (Turkish Women Cultural Association-

Türkkad). Türkkad gives the group the opportunity to present themselves as activists

in the field of civil society organizations, rather than the ones who work for

spreading their religious ideas. Sargut persistently emphasize that they would like to

spread the message of Sufism through “academic ways”. This anxiety with

prioritizing the intellectual character of the group is related to the audience they

would like to appeal to: the modernized, secularized segments of the urban sphere.

What can we say about Cemalnur Sargut’s group in the context of debates on

secularization and the project of secularization implemented in Turkey? Are they

secular with their compromise with the modern secularized order or religious due to

their perception of everything in life through the lenses of the sacred? In the fourth

chapter, I analyze the group of Cemalnur Sargut in relation to the debates over the

new forms of religiosity and the religion/spirituality dichotomy in the literature

(Heelas and Woodhead 2006, Davie, 2006). The debates on religion and spirituality

are useful in the case of Sargut’s group, because the literature helps me to analyze

their search for meaning in the late modern context of the day within a theoretical

framework. They have some common features with the Western individuals who

quest for meaning in the modern world. However, this does not mean that they are

modern individuals. Rather, they have a complicated relationship with modernity. I

observe that they undergo a significant transformation after they yield to a mürşit.

They experience conflicts, ambivalences towards modernity and modern life and

Cemalnur Sargut has a crucial place in resolution of these conflicts. I compare the

tenets of modern individualism and the doctrine of insan-ı kamil in tasavvuf and the

15
reflections of the conflict between the two on the mürits of Cemalnur Sargut.

Moreover, they mark their distinction through the construction of the ‘middle way’ in

the conflictual religious field of Turkey. There are two attitudes that they otherize in

their identity construction process: ‘taassub’ (bigotry) and ‘materialism.’ They claim

to be in the middle way, which they characterize as the way of Kuran and the

Prophet, hence ‘true Islam.’

Since this study is on a group in Turkey, I use the words as the group

members use them in their everyday language. So, I write the religious terms that are

common to both Turkish and Arabic in their Turkish versions and in italics. The

word shaykh is an exception among them. I prefer the English version of this word,

which is written as “şeyh” in Turkish, since the word shaykh is commonly used in

the relevant literature in English. In the first time I use these words in the text, I give

the Arabic versions of the words in parenthesis with their English spellings, if they

are originated from Arabic. I used some of the terms interchangeably, such as Sufism

and tasavvuf. I generally prefer the term tasavvuf, because Sargut and her mürits do

not use the term “Sufism” in their discourse. As Ernst (2005b) argues, “’Sufism’ is

by its nature an outsider’s term, belonging to the Enlightenment catalog of ideologies

and creeds identified as ‘isms’” (p 8). So, “it inevitably stands in tension with the

insider vocabulary of spiritual vocations and ethical ideals of the Sufi tradition”

(ibid., p. 9). Nonetheless, I sometimes use “Sufism” due to its common usage in

social sciences literature. There are some other terms I use interchangeably such as

order and tarikat, gathering and sohbet, disciple and mürit, spiritual guide/master and

mürşit. I qualify the group members as mürits, disciples or students of Cemalnur

Sargut. Sargut prefers the term student, but she had a mürit-mürşit relationship

between the people surrounding her, something that her students also express. When

16
it comes to the name of the tarikat, the term “Rufai” is used more frequently to

address the branches of the tarikat. So, I predominantly used “Rufai” for the

historical accounts. However, I prefer the term “Rifai” for Kenan Rifai tradition,

since Sargut’s group uses this term while they mention the tradition. Demirci (2006)

indicates that the distinction between “Rifai” and “Rufai” appeared after 1970s in

Turkey to differentiate the milieu around Kenan Rifai with their urban character from

Rufais, who continue traditional popular rituals of the order and is widespread in

various regions of Turkey, “Rifai” refers to the milieu around Kenan Rifai.

17
 CHAPTER 2

THE TRANSFORMATION OF A TRADITION IN A SECULARIZED

ORDER

In this chapter, I will evaluate the historical background and contemporary context of

Sufism in Turkey, without which the hybrid character of the group cannot be

understood. I will discuss the role of Sufism in the urban sphere in the history of

Turkey. In order to understand Sargut’s group in Turkey today, we need to understand

the role of Sufism in the cities during the Ottoman era and the history of the Rifai

order. In the light of this information, I will focus on the forms of ritual Cemalnur

Sargut’s group perpetuates in Istanbul, in a context where tarikat as an institution is

officially prohibited. What were the traditional rituals of the Rifai order, how were

they transformed by the Kenan Rifai tradition? How did the group respond to the

secularizing reforms of the republican elites? What can be said about the modernist

gaze on Sufism, where does the hegemonic modernist discourse situate Sufi tarikats?

In what forms does the group practice Sufism? In what ways and why does Cemalnur

Sargut’s group seem attractive to the upper class residents of Istanbul, most of whom

come from modernized families?

Sufism in the Ottoman Era

Islam, with all its diversity, was at the core of Ottoman society and Sufism was an

indispensable part of the social life (Lewis, 1968; Mardin, 1971; Trimingham, 1971;

Lifchez, 1992; Muslu, 2003; Kara, 2004). The Ottoman Empire had the institution of

18
the Caliphate since the sixteenth century. The society was organized through the millet

system. As Behar (2003) argues, the residential patterns of the nineteenth century

Istanbul were divided on the basis of ethnicity and religion, not of social class.

Mahalle (neighbourhood) was the basic unit of the society and the center of social and

economic life (Duben and Behar, 1991). Religion was at the center of social life and

everyday practices and conducts were regulated according to religious norms.

The administrative structure of the Ottoman Empire also reinforced religion as

the core of the society (Mardin, 1971). Kadı, or religious judge, was at the lowest rung

of the Ottoman administration and there was no authority other than kadı at the

mahalle level.16 (Mardin, 1971; Duben and Behar, 1991). The authority of the kadı

was mediated by the religious leader, the imam, priest, or rabbi (Duben and Behar,

1991). Kadıs were closely involved with the day-to-day problems of individuals

(Mardin, 1971). Kadıs were part of the larger ulema (ulama) class, who had

considerable authority in interpreting şeriat (shari’a) rules. The Şeyhülislam (Shaykh

al-Islam) was at the top of the ulema class. The ulema were educated in medreses to

become experts in religion who made legal decisions regarding religious practices and

various areas of social life. They were integrated into the state organization and used

to work to control social life in the name of the state (Mardin, 1971, p. 40). These

examples indicate that religion was at the center of the social organization and the

social imaginaries of the Ottoman subjects.17

Right along with the ulema, as a common feature of the Muslim world, Sufi

tarikats were always influential. The Sufi figures were sometimes seen as a threat by

16
For details, see Özer Ergenç, “Osmanlı Şehrindeki Mahalle’nin İşlev ve Nitelikleri Üzerine,” The
Journal of Ottoman Studies, vol. 4, 1984, pp. 69-78, and Cem Behar, A Neighborhood in Ottoman
Istanbul: Fruit Vendors and Civil Servants in the Kasap İlyas Mahalle, Albany: State University of
New York Press, 2003.
17
As an example of the role of religion in regulating social life in the Ottoman Empire and the way
religion shaped the regulations regarding women and non-Muslims in the sixteenth century, see
Ahmet Vefik, On altıncı asırda Istanbul hayatı (1553-1591), İstanbul: Devlet Basımevi, 1935.

19
some of the şeriat-oriented ulema and some of the Sufi tarikats were accused of

heresy and of being against the şeriat.18 However, we cannot say that there were clear-

cut boundaries between the two groups. On the contrary, there were so many orthodox

ulema who were affiliated with a mystic order (Mardin, 1989). Sufi orders were

widespread and effective both in rural and urban life and in different segments of

society (Lewis, 1968; Trimingham, 1971; Mardin; 1989; Kara, 2004). When it came

to the eighteenth century, Sufi orders were present in every corner of the Ottoman

territory (Lewis, 1968). They had supporters from every segment of the society

including the ruling elite.

In addition to his arguments about the influence of Sufism on the ruling elite,

Mardin (1971) argues that “dervish religion functioned more as a community-

reinforcing and identity-forming process among the lower classes” (p. 206). He

proposes that a few dervish orders appealed to intellectually sophisticated officials and

notables, but the function of the orders for the middle and lower classes was more

fundamental than for the upper classes (1971). Historically, there appeared a kind of

differentiation in the followers of the tarikats. While some of the tarikats had a greater

number of followers from the elite segments of society, some were more popular

among the population at large. Trimingham (1971) gives some information on the

mentioned division in Ottoman society. He says:

Orders came to be associated in various ways with different strata of

society. They frequently had a special relationship with social classes,
regions, clans, or occupational groups. Some were aristocratic, favored
by the court and ulama, like the Suhrawardiyya in the Sultanate of Delhi
in the thirteenth century and the Mawlawiyya in relation to the
authorities of Seljuk and Ottoman states. Others had a popular following,

18
Kadızadeli Movement in the seventeenth century is an example of the polarization and conflict
between the ulema and Sufis. For a detailed account of the Kadızadeli movement, see Derin
Terzioğlu, “Man in the Image of God in the Image of the Times: Sufi Self-Narratives and the Diary of
Niyazi-i Mısri,” Studia Islamica, No. 94, 2002.

20
 as with the contrasting types of Bektashiyya and Khalwatiyya in Turkey.
They might be urban (Mawlawiyya) or rural (Bektashiyya), or
occupational (according to local circumstances like the association of
fishermen in Egypt with the Qadiriyya), linked with trade-guilds or the
military class, like the relationship of the Janissary corps and the
Bektashiyya (p. 233).

The dervishes were organized around the institution of tekke, which can be translated

as lodge. The number of tekkes in Istanbul gives an insight to the prevalence of

institutionalized Sufism in the city. It is estimated that the total number of tekkes was

209 in 1834, 259 in 1840, 307 in 1889 and 254 in 1918 in Istanbul (Kara, 2004).

There were many different tarikats among them, Mevlevi, Nakşibendi, Kadiri, Halveti

and Bektaşi orders being the major ones. When it comes to the number of Rufai

tekkes, it was 20 in 1834, 18 in 1840, 25 in 1889 and 38 in 1918 (Kara, 2004)19. To

give an idea about the prevalence of tekkes, we need to take the population of Istanbul

into account. The total population of Istanbul was approximately 560,000 in 1850

(Duben and Behar). Since the population fluctuated from the last two or three decades

of the nineteenth century until the first several of the twentieth (Duben and Behar,

1991, p. 23), the population which was 500,000 in the late 1850s jumped to 874,000

in 1885 and to over a million at the turn of the century. The Muslim population was

385,000 in 1885 and 500,000 in 1914 (Duben and Behar).

Rifai order was a widespread one in the Islamic world and in the Ottoman

Empire. Lewis (1968) informs us that Arab leaders of the Rifai order were close to the

Ottoman Sultan together with the leaders of other orders. Rifai orders entered Istanbul

in two subsequent periods (Muslu, 2003). Some Rifai shaykhs came to Istanbul

starting from the end of the sixteenth century. However, the spread of the tarikat took

19
For more detailed information on the Rifai tekkes in Istanbul during the Ottoman era, see Ramazan
Muslu, Osmanlı Toplumunda Tasavvuf (18. Yüzyıl) [Tasavvuf in the Ottoman Society (18th Century)],
Istanbul: İnsan Yayınları, 2003.

21
place at the beginning of the eighteenth century after the establishment of a Rifai tekke

in Üsküdar (ibid.).

Under the guidance of these historical accounts, it is misleading to present the

popularity of Sufism in the urban field as a new phenomenon.20 The presence of

Sufism in various segments and spheres in society has a long history in Islamic

societies including Turkish society. So, Sufi orders are impossible to classify either as

rural or urban institutions. However, the gaze at Sufism transformed dramatically

together with the modernization projects in non-Western societies and the modernist

hegemonic discourse constructed Sufism as the remains of a “traditional society” that

should be left in the past.

The Roots of the Rifai Order

Cemalnur Sargut’s group is a variation of the Rifai order today. It is even problematic

to call them “Rifai” anymore, because they prioritize a unificatory discourse, which

they claim to transcend the limits of just one tarikat.21 Nevertheless, the roots of their

tradition go back to the formation of the Rifai order.

Sufis started to be organized around the institution of tarikat by the twelfth

century. Tarikat (tariqa) is an Arabic word and means “way” or “path” and gives

reference to the journey the mürit or disciple experiences under the guidance of the

spiritual guide, who is called “mürşit” or “shaykh.” Mürşit is a person whose lineage

goes back to the Prophet Muhammad along the line of a silsile. Silsile means lineage

20
For further information on Sufism in the Ottoman Empire, see Raymond Lifchez, The Dervish
Lodge: Architecture, Art, and Sufism in Otoman Turkey, California: University of California, 1992;
Suraiya Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire, London; New
York: I.B. Tauris, 2000; Robert Dankoff, An Otoman Mentality: The World of Evliya Çelebi, Leiden;
Boston: Brill, 2004.
21
For an account of their unificatory style, see Chapter 3.

22
or chain. The chain consists of shaykhs of different epochs. There are two lineages

reaching Prophet Muhammad: one goes back to Ali22, the other to Ebubekir (Abu

bakr)23. Some tarikats go back to the Prophet through the first way and are called

Alevi and some through the second one and called Sıddıki due to the title of Ebubekir.

His title was Sıddık, which means faithful or a man of his word. There are also some

tarikats whose silsiles go back to both of these persons (Öngören, 2000).

The tarikat of Rifai was established by Ahmed er Rifai, who lived in twelfth

century. There are different historical accounts about his life. There are two

alternative explanations behind the title “Rifai.” According to one account, it stems

from the name of the clan he belonged to: Rifaa. Another explanation is that one of his

ancestors’ name was Rıfaa (Küçük, 1976). The silsile of Ahmed er Rifai’s skaykhs

goes back to Cüneyd of Baghdad (d. 909), who is one of the early Sufis and whose

lineage goes back to the Prophet and Ali through Imam Musa Kazım, who is the

seventh imam in Shi’a belief.24 The silsile of his shaykhs is as follows from the

earliest to the last one: Cüneyd of Baghdad, Ebu Muhammed Rüveym of Baghdad,

22
See footnote 24.
23
Ebubekir is one of the companions (sahabe) of the Prophet Muhammad and the first caliph that led
the ummah after the Prophet’s death.
24
Sunnis believe that after the Prophet Muhammad the right to rule the ummah belonged to the caliph
that would be elected by consensus. However, according to Shi’a doctrine, the function of guiding
men and preserving and explaining the Divine Law continued through the line of Imams (Momen, p.
147). Imamate is believed to start with Ali and continue with his descendants. Although it differs
according to the sects of the Shi’a, there are twelve imams. As Momen (1985) elaborates, most of the
silsiles of Sufi orders traditionally go back through various intermediaries to Ali who is considered by
Sufis to have received initiation into mystical truth from Prophet Muhammad. Thus, certain Sufi
orders have a tendency to glorify Ali (p. 209). These Sufi orders have great respect for both ehl-i beyt
and the imams. Ehl-i beyt (people of the house) designates the Prophet’s more intimate family, which
includes Ali. In the Sunni doctrine, it consists of five people: the Prophet, Ali, Fatma (the daughter of
the Prophet and the wife of Ali), Hasan and Huseyin (grandsons of the Prophet) (Uludağ, 2001, p. 37).
As for the Bektaşi and Mevlevi orders (Uludağ, p. 38), the respect for ehl-i beyt and the twelve imams
is significant for the Rifai order. The respect for ehl-i beyt and twelve imams continued its
significance in Kenan Rifai tradition and both Samiha Ayverdi and Cemalnur Sargut inherited the
sensitivity. Kenan Rifai wrote poems for expressing his love of ehl-i beyt. (See Kenan Rifai, İlahiyat-ı
Ken’an [The Hymns of Kenan], Istanbul: Baha Matbaası, 1974). In her sohbets, Cemalnur Sargut says
that although they are Sunnis, they are Alevis, which she explains as being from the door of Ali. She
tries to eliminate the ongoing struggle between Sunni and Alevi groups on the true conception of
Islam and there are Alevi people among her listeners.

23
Ebu Said Yahya, Neccari el Vasıti, Ebu Mandur et Tayyib, Mansur el Betayihi er

Rabbani (İz, 2000). He took his icazet (ijaza), which means “permission” and refers to

the spiritual permission of the mürşit to become a mürşit himself, from Vasıti. He is

said to have acquired another icazet from his uncle, become the head of the tekke in

his home village and to have made there the center of his tarikat, Rifaiyya (Okumuş,

2003)

The Rifaiyya order diffused throughout the Middle East, Anatolia and Balkans.

The diffusion of tarikats takes place through the spread of the mürits of the shaykhs to

different areas. The mürits, who gain permission to be mürşits from their shaykhs,

sometimes establish another branch of the main tarikat. In this way, the tarikat of

Rifaiyya divided into almost fifteen subbranches: Haririyye, Keyyaliyye, Sayyadiyye,

Aziziyye, Cendeliyye, Aclaniyye, Fazlıyye, Vasıtıyye, Cebertiyye, Zeyniyye, Nuriye,

Mağrufiyye can be counted among these branches (Okumuş, 2003; İz, 2000).

The Modernist Rupture and the Transformation of the Gaze at Sufism

The nation state formation in Turkey started after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire

and the War of Independence (1919-1922) and religion became a central theme on the

agenda of the nationalist elites (Lewis, 1986; Esposito, 1991; Kasaba&Bozdoğan,

1997; Davison, 1998; Mardin, 2006). The aim of the nation state elites was to create

Turkish “citizens” out of the “subjects” of the empire (Saktanber, 2002) and reforms

on religion constituted an inalienable part of this project. As Esposito (1991) argues,

the nation state elites frequently equated the beliefs of the people with superstition,

which was thought to be an obstacle on the path of modernization. After the

establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, one reform followed the other: The

24
Caliphate was abolished in 1924, the chief religious office of the state, Şeyhülislam,

and the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Pious Endowments were terminated. The

Sharia court system was abolished in 1924 and substituted by the secular legal system.

Sufi orders were proscribed in 1925 (Esposito, 1991). As Esposito (1991) puts it, the

ulema were seen as medieval obscurantists, and “Sufi leaders as purveyors of

superstition and backwardness, the causes of passivity and fatalism” (p. 98). The

result of secularism was the disestablishment of the two major wings of the religious

establishment: the ulema and the Sufi orders (Esposito, 1991). These reforms went

hand in hand with the accommodation of the modernist discourse, which aimed to

exclude tasavvuf and tarikats from the modernizing urban life, although they were

part of the urban culture in the Ottoman era. A similar orientation can also be seen in

other postcolonial societies with Muslim majorities. This depiction displays

similarities with the depiction of Sufi pirs25 in the 1961 census of Pakistan (Ewing,

1997). In a passage of the census report in Pakistan, Sufi pirs were depicted as part of

the dying “tradition” that still stood between the population and the modern

development of the country, setting up the dichotomies of “tradition versus

modernization,” “rural versus urban”. Ewing (1997) describes the message as a

manifestation of a modernizing discourse that has pervaded most public policies

within the “developing” countries in the postcolonial period. This view displays

similarities with the view of Muslim reformists, who see Sufi orders as heterodox

forms and accuse them of being ‘polluted’ by non-Islamic elements. Gellner and

Geertz even pointed out that the most serious challenge to Sufism across the Muslim

world is Muslim reformism (cited in Howell, 2001, p. 705). Howell (2001) informs us

25
The Persian word pir literally means the old person. In Sufism, it is used as the Persian equivalent
of shaykh or mürşit (Uludağ 2001, p. 282; Renard, 2005, p. 220). Pir also refers to the founder of a
tarikat (Lifchez 1992, p. 1). The plural of the word (pirs) is piran. For a detailed explanation on the
role of shaykh or mürşit in Sufism, see Chapter 4.

25
that there was a similar expectation in Indonesian society, which is undermined by the

recent developments in the urban sphere of the country. In the middle of the twentieth

century, there was an expectation coming from both Muslim reformists and modernist

scholars that mystical practices would become extinct as the impact of education

spread in Indonesian society. Geertz was one of the scholars who foresaw that Sufism

would fade from the social landscape, along with traditional rural religious scholars,

as Indonesian society modernized (cited in Howell, 2001).

We can see a similar trend in classical anthropology, which foresaw the

gradual extinction of Sufism in modernizing societies. Atay (1996) gives examples

from the adherents of this trend in anthropology such as Gellner and Evans-Pritchard.

What lies behind this theory was the equation of Sufism with rural populations and the

theory proposed that Sufism would lose its power of mobilizing people and become

less important in social and cultural life as a result of modernization and

secularization. Sufism was seen as an Islamic understanding suitable for tribal life

(cited in Atay, 1996). Therefore, the people living in the rural segments were claimed

to prefer a shaykh, pir or veli26 who was ascribed sanctity. (Atay, 1996)

On the other hand, Atay (1996) counts another group of scholars who are

against this thesis: Gilsenan, Eickelman, Fusfeld and Vergin. According to them, there

is no direct relationship between Sufism and tribal life. They emphasize that Sufi

orders and shaykhs have also been as influential in cities, towns and villages as in

26
Veli (wali) literally means “friend of God.” As Renard (2005) explains, veli is second only to
prophets in the hierarchy of spiritually advanced individuals (p. 90). His explanation continues as
follows: “The Arabic wali, is from a root meaning ‘close to, near,’ thus suggesting in this usage divine
protection or patronage; it is related to the terms often used for ‘sainthood’ and ‘saintly (or religious)
authority,’ walāya and wilāya.
…
In addition to being regarded as conduits of blessing, Friends of God are often attributed with powers
of healing, walking on water, clairvoyance, and other wonders, whereas the extraordinary powers
bestowed on prophets are known as evidentiary miracles” (pp. 90- 91).

26
tribes (Atay, 1996). These arguments transcend the equation of mystical beliefs and

practices with “traditional” and “nonmodern” segments of Islamic societies.

This orientation in theory is a reflection of the “great tradition” and “little

tradition” distinction in anthropology.27 Robert Redfield (quoted in Lukens-Bull,1999)

came up with this distinction for the first time in 1956. According to Redfield, all

world religions and some local religions could be divided into a “great tradition” and

“little tradition.” The great tradition, the orthodox form of the cultural/religious center,

is that of the urban elite. The little tradition is the heterodox form of the

cultural/religious periphery. The little tradition is claimed to incorporate many

elements of local tradition and practice. The little tradition is the religion as it is

practiced in daily life by ordinary people (Lukens-Bull, 1999). Though this distinction

has been criticized by scholars like Dale Eickelman (1982; quoted in Luckens-Bull

1999), who suggests that the great and little tradition dichotomy neglects the complex

interrelationships between various religious traditions. Hamid El-Zein (1977; quoted

in Luckens-Bull 1999) also argues that this dichotomy is fruitless and is part of the

Islamic elites’ attempt to dominate the discourse about what constitutes real religion.

Modernization and secularization, as political goals, appear to have been

hegemonic in the state discourse during the republican era in Turkey. The image of a

modern West was vital for the modernization ethos of Turkish state elites. As Talal

Asad (2003) puts it, despite the heterogeneity of the West and reasonable critiques

claiming that modernity is not a verifiable object, the modernization project appears as

a project of certain people in power in non-Western societies and aims at

institutionalizing a number of principles, one of which is secularism. According to

Asad (2003), “modernity is not primarily a matter of cognizing the real but of living-

27
For a brief analyses of a related discussion on the notion of hybridity, see Chapter 3.

27
in-the-world. Since this is true of every epoch, what is distinctive about modernity as

a historical epoch includes modernity as a political-economic project” (p. 14). He

argues that the modern nation as an imagined community is always mediated through

constructed images, representations and dichotomies (p. 4). For the dichotomy of the

secular and religious, Asad declares that

What interests me particularly is the attempt to construct categories of

the secular and the religious in terms of which modern living is required
to take place, and nonmodern peoples are invited to assess their
adequacy. For representations of ‘the secular’ and ‘the religious’ in
modern and modernizing states mediate people’s identities, help shape
their sensibilities and guarantee their experience (p. 14).

Shaping the sensibilities and constructing the identities of Turkish people was vital for

the modernist elites in Turkey. The program of cultural Westernization was an

important part of the Westernization program beside secular laws (Mardin, 2006). The

modernizing elites tried to shape the sensibilities and experiences of the society at

large. In his article called “Culture and Religion towards the year 2000,” Mardin

(2006) talks about secular Turkish elites whose culture consists of building stones

from the West. According to Mardin,

“This culture consists of an effort oriented to plastic works of art in the

Western model, the development of the novel which depicts everyday life,
polyphonic music, knowledge of Darwin’s evolution and the creation of the
museification of Turkish folklore. The unique features of this culture rest in
the signposts it brings to the practitioners. The best examples are among
academic personnel, jobs that necessitate diploma and bureaucracy. This
culture represents the extension of the republican elites’ cultural ideals” (pp.
214-215).28

Turkish state elites’ understanding of “the secular” was very much related to their

struggle with the religious imaginary of the old order. So, an important part of the

28
The translation is mine.

28
construction of “the secular” appeared to be the struggle against Sufi shaykhs and

local religious authorities, which were an important part of the reforms. As Mardin

(1981) proposes:

When one reads the law of 1925 abolishing these orders, it is clear that
what Atatürk had in mind was to disallow the influence of local
charismatic leaders who were either notables with local political power
or appeared as ignorant and cunning figures exploiting the lower classes.
Turks would in the future be ruled not by corrupt sheikhs but according
to the way set out by science. Their personality would not be determined
by the counsel of a religious mentor but by immersion in Western culture
(pp. 216-217).

The level of success of the secular elites’ politics on religion in Turkish society is an

ongoing dispute. Mardin (2006) thinks that while this new elite pushed religion into

the realm of personal belief, this was not valid for rural populations and even lower

classes of the urban populations of Turkey. Mardin (2006) also proposes that although

the new secular elite culture became influential through the use of modern means and

technologies and primarily of education, the symbolism of the republic was so

superficial that it was impossible for it to take root in Turkish society. Therefore,

Mardin (2006) argues that this is one of the reasons behind the intensity of religious

beliefs in large segments of Turkish society. Then he (2006) claims that although

religion continued to exist in very different forms at imaginary, discursive and

practical levels in the everyday life of Turkish society, the secularization project

opened a gap between the rural masses and urban elites, or the “periphery” and the

“center.”

Though this approach can be explanatory for Turkish society to some extent,

the group I study forces us to rethink these categories of “religious periphery” and

“secularized center”. Kenan Rifai and his prominent student Samiha Ayverdi, and the

29
other people around them were among the urban elites during the demise of the

Ottoman Empire. As an heir of the Rifai order and as a mürşit, Kenan Rifai did not

conflict with the republican elites and continued to practice Sufism in Istanbul. They

exemplify how a group of urban elites found a way other than adopting a “Western

culture” in a complete contrast to “religious tradition.” The “citizens” of the young

nation state did not only become passive recipients of the projects, but they

participated in the definition of the religious and the secular. Kenan Rifai, Samiha

Ayverdi and their heirs transformed their Sufi baggage within the secularized context

of the nation state. They themselves call their path a “middle way”. I will try to

elaborate the meaning of the “middle way” for the group in the fourth chapter.

Responses to the secularization project have been studied in Turkey. However,

these studies mostly focused on the groups that define themselves or are seen as

“Islamists” and as against Kemalism (Göle, 1996; Ewing, 2000a; Saktanber, 2002;

Tuğal, 2006). These exemplify that the secularization project led to negative reactions

at the level of society. This may be valid for some groups reacting to the

secularization project with their definition of a “true Islamic way of life.” However, I

claim that the religious field of Turkey is intricate and it is problematic to classify

them in lines with the dichotomy of “religious” and “secular.” Although Turkish

society has experienced a break from its past with the secularization project and it was

impossible for religious practices to continue in the same way, as Talal Asad (2003)

argues for the Western experience, it was not a total break which excludes the sacred.

He takes the secular to be “a concept that brings together certain behaviors,

knowledges, and sensibilities in modern life” (p. 25). Religious actors, who are the

participants of modernity and modern politics, come up with different interpretations

of religion. Different interpretations lead to different practices and sensibilities which

30
should be investigated in their own particularities without being labeled simply as

“religious” or “secular.”

As Davison (1998) argues;

Like modernity, secularism as an idea and secular institutional relations

as practices make no sense apart from the understandings that people
have of them, and many who participate in the politics of modernity do
hold various secular understandings. As such, secularism is a constantly
evolving and reinterpreted tradition in modern politics, as religiously
conceived participations are. In the same way that the tradition/modern
dichotomy has been too narrow to capture the plurality of traditions and
modernities, so too the religious/secular dichotomy is too narrow to
understand the religions and secularisms (p. 47).

The orientation of the studies on religion in Turkey creates the danger of equating

religiosity with being against Kemalism and secularism. There are religious groups

who situate themselves within this dichotomy. Since this is a sensitive issue, religious

groups and primarily Sufi groups avoid making comments on Kemalism and secularist

policies. Some Sufi groups can make negative comments on the issue out of the

Turkish context. For instance, we can see a group that defines itself on the basis of an

opposition between Kemalism and Islam in the study of Tayfun Atay (1996) on the

Nakşibendi branch of Shaikh Nazım of Cyprus, who is an active Turkish Sufi shaikh

in England. Atay elaborates how this religious order claims that Kemalism is against

Islam. Shaikh Nazım and his mürits think Atatürk is an enemy of religious orders and

Islam. They even avoid mentioning the name of Atatürk and use the word “fetish” for

him when they have to mention him (Atay, 1996). Nazım thinks that Atatürk killed

the şeriat by prohibiting the religious orders, which are supposed to be the protectors

of the şeriat (p. 250). According to him, Turkish society is seen similar to a tree that is

separated from its roots as a result of the secularizing reforms.

It is not possible to determine objective criteria for detecting “secular” or

“religious” identities. As the secularization thesis in Western societies is tested not

31
only through the criteria of a certain kind of religious practice such as church

attendance but it is argued that all forms of religiosity and spirituality are taken into

consideration in the sociology of religion, the same should be done for the groups in

Turkey. One needs to look at the imaginaries and practices of the subjects to see how

they construct their identities. Cemalnur Sargut’s group, with its roots in the Rifai

tradition and its influence on today’s urban field in Turkey, is an example of the

hybrid forms. She and her group is one of the participants of the intricate religious

field of Turkish society and their understanding of religious and secular is worth

analyzing. In order to understand Sargut’s formulations and articulations, one needs to

turn to the era of Kenan Rifai first.

Kenan Rifai: “Şeriat is the Law of the Day”29

Kenan Rifai is the mürşit of Samiha Ayverdi, of Meşkure Sargut (the mother of

Cemalnur Sargut), and of Cemalnur Sargut. Although the group claims access to

Ahmed er Rifai through the silsile of Kenan Rifai, Kenan Rifai’s branch is a unique

one whose history is in a way the adventure of religion from the Ottoman Empire to

the Turkish Republic. Cemalnur Sargut and the group members frequently refer to

him as Hocam (my teacher) and Efendim (my master).30 He gained his icazet

(permission) for being a Rifai shaykh from a Rifai Shaykh, Hamza Rifai, while he was

working in Medina as the director of a high school before the collapse of the Ottoman

Empire (Ayverdi, Erol, Araz and Huri, 2003). As I will explain later, this is not the

29
Interview with Cemalnur Sargut, October 7, 2006. Sargut said that Kenan Rifai uttered this sentence
in one of his conversations with her mother, Meşkure Sargut.
30
The following parts about Kenan Rifai reflect the way his mürits (Samiha Ayverdi, Safiye Erol,
Nezihe Araz, Sofi Huri) narrativize his life, choices and reactions. Since there are not many resources
on the details of Kenan Rifai’s life, I preferred to use his mürits’ accounts. So, the text is also about
the mürits’ representation of Kenan Rifai and their own ideas on the historical period at hand.

32
only icazet of Kenan Rifai. His mürits claim that he had icazet from four tarikats. His

first icazet is claimed to be from a Kadiri shaykh, Ethem Efendi. Ethem Efendi is also

said to be the mürşit of Kenan Rifai’s mother. His icazet from the Rifai order is

important, because Kenan Rifai opened his tekke, or dergah as a Rifai shaykh. His

mürits explain this process of getting icazet only as a formality. According to them, it

was specified in the icazet given by Hamza Rifai that he had been ordered to give an

icazet to Kenan Rifai by the Prophet Muhammad (ibid.). After the permission, he

opened his own tekke in Istanbul in 1908, the dergah of Ümmü Kenan (the mother of

Kenan). His mürits strongly emphasize that then, being a mürşit, an educator, was

only possible through opening a dergah (ibid.). They anachronistically claim that

Kenan Rifai would probably have opened an academy instead of a dergah, if he had

had the opportunity of spreading his tenets in an academy in that era (ibid.). They

emphasize that his dergah became a place of scholarship and enlightenment in a short

time and the enlightened people of the era, poets, scholars, scientists, and even

şeyhülislams, priests came to the center (ibid.).

The response of Kenan Rifai to the secularization project of the nationalist

elites and the way his mürits convey it are noteworthy. According to them, Kenan

Rifai was aware that the age of orders had ended and institutions of orders were mere

form and ritual. They claim that the duty of Kenan Rifai did not end with the closure

of religious orders, but an academy formed around him naturally (ibid.). They say that

Kenan Rifai used to see the will of Allah in everything, so he saw the commandment

of the closure of religious orders as a manifestation of Allah and tolerated it (p. 123).

They explain this as follows:

When all religious training and educational institutions were closed

down by the state in 1925, he accepted this without any appeal or

33
 displeasure. As such, one can almost feel the pleasure of a chief whose
order is put into practice, in this exceptional espousal. Did he not say that
the voice of society is the voice of God, is it possible to neglect it once
he saw it within the very conditions of daily life? (p. 120).31

They say that his respect towards the prohibitions of the state was to such an extent

that he did not even give theoretical information about the rituals of the tarikat such as

sema32 or zikir (dhikr), let alone their practice (p. 120). There are some anecdotes that

exemplify his ease about the events. For instance, when one of the people around him

expressed his despair after one of the Rifai dergahs had become a dance saloon, he is

said to have uttered these sentences:

Why do you feel sad? There was also dancing formerly, and this is the
case now, as well. There is no difference between devran33 and dance...
It is just the latter is material, one holds a beautiful woman who will
loose her beauty; while the former makes sema by spectacle and
amusement of Cemalullah,34 who is eternal (p. 123).35

In another instance, he encounters a Mevlevi shaykh in the year 1930. The shaykh

again voices his worries about the reforms. He is claimed to say that they became

pipes, with reference to the ney they played. Kenan Rifai is said to answer like this:

Why do you think we have turned into pipes? We are what we are,
erens36! Formerly, we were companions in the tekke of zahir37, we are
31
The translation is mine. “1925’te tekmil dini talim ve tedris müesseseleri devlet eliyle kapatıldığı
zaman o bunu en küçük bir itiraz ve hoşnutsuzluk göstermeden kabul etmişti. Öyle ki, bu fevkalade
hüsnü kabulde adeta bir amirin kendi emrinin tatbik edildiğini gördüğü zamanki hoşnutluğu
seziliyordu. Öyle ya, madem ki halkın sesi Hakk’ın sesidir, demişti, bunu günlük hayatın şartları
arasında gördüğü zaman biliş çıkmaması kabil miydi?”
32
Sema (Sama) is the zikir performed while standing to the accompaniment of music; especially the
ceremonies of the Mevlevis (Lifchez, 1992, p. 329).
33
Devran is the zikir performed while rotating in a circle, as practiced by Halvetis, Cerrahis and some
Kadiris (Lifchez, 1992, p. 324)..
34
Cemalullah (jamal al-Allah) means the beauty of God.
35
The translation is mine. “Niçin canın sıkılıyor? O zaman da dans ediliyordu; şimdi de öyle.
Devranla dansın farkı yok ki... Yalnız biri cismanidir, kaşı gözü solacak bir dilberi aguşuna alıp döner;
öteki ise baki olan cemalullahın seyir ve temaşasıyla sema eder.”
36
In the quotation, eren is used as a form of addressing the other Sufis. The word eren literally means
the one who arrives in and reaches. In Sufism, it means veli (the friend of God) or insan-ı kamil, who
achieved the union with God (Uludağ, 2001, pp. 124-125).
37
For an explanation for the term zahir, see Chapter 4.

34
 the people of the heart in the tekke of the heart now. Allah wished the
affairs to be like this, and did it. Since it comes from Him, all is nice.
There is no reason for being pipes... Today, the body has become the
tekke and the heart is now the makam,38 the hearts are again filled with
the light of God’s beauty (p. 124).39

This actually was not the only reaction in this direction. The function of Sufi orders

was discussed even at the beginning of the twentieth century in the Ottoman Empire

and it was accepted that Sufism had ceased to function as it had done in the past. It

was already an existing argument that tekkes deserved to be closed due to their

malfunction (Kara, 2002). However, this does not mean that there were no reactions to

the secularist reforms and the closure of tekkes. The establishment of the

Independence Tribunals (İstiklal Mahkemeleri) in March 1925 and the following

events demonstrate this. The reaction against secularizing reforms was suppressed by

both legal and violent means. As Zürcher asserts, secularizing measures such as the

closure of shrines (türbes) and tekkes were met with “stubborn resistance” from the

population (Zürcher, 2004, p. 173). The Independence Tribunals played an important

role in suppressing the resistance. Under the Law on the Maintenance of Order (The

Law of Takrir-i Sükun), nearly 7500 people were arrested and 660 were executed

(Zürcher, 2004). After the Shaykh Sait Revolt in February 1925, he and his twenty

nine companions were executed (Kara, 2002). The unrest continued through 1926.

Sufi tarikats gave different responses to the developments, ranging from intensive

resistance to silent resentment. For instance, the Nakşibendi order in Istanbul was

among the first tarikats to react to the closure of tekkes (Karaatlı, 2006). A lot of

shaykhs and dervishes of the Nakşibendi order were executed and their supporters
38
Makam (maqam) refers to stable stations or phases of spiritual development on the “Path” in Sufism
(Frager, 2005, p. 32). For a more detailed explanation, see Chapter 4.
39
The translation is mine. “Niçin düdük olalım? Neysek yine oyuz, erenler! Evvelce, zahir tekkesinde
demsaz idik, şimdi kalp tekkesinde dilsazız. Allah böyle istemiş, böyle yapmış. Madem ki ondan
geliyor, hepsi hoş. Düdük olmaya bir sebep yok ki... Şimdi ten tekke oldu, gönül de makam, yine
kalpler cemal nuruyla doldu.”

35
were imprisoned (ibid.). The shaykh of Halveti Cerrahi order in Istanbul did not react

to the state authorities. He tried to reach as many people as possible within the

existing laws through the use of Sufi music as an effective means. In a secret fashion,

he strove to gather his followers on ritual days and to perpetuate the traditional rituals

of the Cerrahi order (Karaatlı, 2006).

In the middle of this unrest, the lack of reaction by Kenan Rifai and his

positive attitude towards the new reforms guaranteed the safety of his group. His

attitude was even milder than that of the Cerrahi order. While most Sufi orders and

their followers were worried about the reforms, Kenan Rifai did not see the reforms

as an obstacle to arranging their lives on the basis of the doctrines of tasavvuf. His

main concern was to demonstrate and indoctrinate that faith in and love for Allah had

very little to do with forms, but with the love one feels and experiences. As it will

appear in the idiom Cemalnur Sargut uses and the practice of the mürits around her,

this kind of an interpretation gives the group considerable flexibility and the capacity

of articulating discourse and practice according to changing contexts.

Secularizing reforms were not faced with a similar attitude in all segments of

the Turkish society. Although it is not possible to talk about a unified or popular

resistance to the secularist reforms, it can be said that the secularist reforms led to

tensions within the larger population (Çiğdem, 2004). It can be claimed that although

there are not enough resources for documentation, the experiences of the Progressive

Party (Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası) and the classification of “accepted” and

“unaccepted” reforms give significant clues of the resentment of some Muslim

groups, regardless of the strength or form of their response (Ibid.). Çiğdem claims

that Islamism in Turkey did not continue its relationship with the republic through a

process of marginalization. The symbols, concepts and terminology of Islam were

36
given consent implicitly or explicitly especially by the conservative right. However,

the distinctive line has always been the sanctity of the Republic and any religious

attitude or resentment towards it has been brutally suppressed (Ibid.) This tension is

exemplified by Tuğal’s research (2006) in Sultanbeyli. He argues that various

agencies of the state incorporated religious elements as democratization started in the

mid-1940s and the military intervention in 1980 institutionalized religion further. He

states the introduction of standard religious lessons to public schools’ curriculum and

the religious references in the definition of the constitution of 1982 as examples. As

the state began to incorporate religious elements to maintain legitimacy, Islamists

increasingly expected a singular interpretation and protection of Islam by the state.

However, they expected the Islamist party to do so and continued to perceive the

secularist state as a threat to Islam (Ibid.). They situated their definition of an Islamic

way of life in opposition to the secularization project. Some scholars claim that a

moral ethos has been attributed to the state in Islamic political thought since the

Middle Ages. This perception of the state eliminates possible conflicts with the state

(Duran, 2004). Duran (2004) argues that this is why Said Nursi and the Milli Görüş

(National Outlook) movement Islamist party refrained from clashing with the state.

The response of Kenan Rifai can be summarized with his sentence: “Şeriat is

the law of the day and our duty is to obey it.” The separation between the state

regime and the Islamic way of life and the insignificance of the regime for

experiencing tasavvuf is at the heart of the group discourse, which provided a safer

ground for the group and comprised a safer form of religion in such an uneasy

milieu.

37
 The Sacralization of the Secularist Elites

Cemalnur Sargut follows the way of her mürşits, Kenan Rifai and Samiha Ayverdi.

Sargut sees no conflict between an Islamic way of life and the secularizing reforms.

She goes further in order to provide the appropriation of tasavvuf by her audience:

she sacralizes Atatürk and his reforms. In one of her speeches for the youth in the

Saturday gatherings, the topic was the Kerbela events40 and the killing of the

Prophet’s grandchildren due to the conflicts over succession. She declared that the

Kuran definitely prohibits aggressive war, Islam cannot attack for jihad, but for

defense. She says “It is very interesting that this is the declaration of Atatürk after

Kocatepe War. He said ‘We do not have right to make war for attack, but we only

make war for defense.’ This demonstrates that Atatürk used to know Kuran very

well.”41 These accounts also serve another purpose. Is this what they claim or your

interpretation? They aim to defeat the perspectives that accuse Islam of breeding

terror and giving way to aggressive practices.

In another instance in the Wednesday gatherings, she proposed the relevance

of “the miracle of 19,” which was introduced by a book called Kuran, İslam, Atatürk

40
Ali’s second son and the Prophet’s grandson, Huseyin, was killed in Kerbela city on the 10th day of
Muharram according to the Hijri calender (in the year 680) and this is called Kerbela events in the
history of Islam As Cemalnur Sargut mentions, Samiha Ayverdi used to feel worried on the week of
Muharrem 10. She says that though it was not mourning, ihvan used to fast and relinguish in the life
of Ayverdi. Sargut tries to continue this tradition. In her sohbet for the youth on the week of
Muharrem 10, she gave a speech on Karbala events in tears. She wrote passages from Kenan Rifai
which described the events. She suggested to the listeners to fast and renounce their pleasures, though
not to mourn. As I observed in the youngesters, they obeyed Sargut’s advises. They tried to eat and
entertain less. As I learned from one of the women, they gathered in the house of an ihvan in the hour
they believe Husayn was killed and drank water in midafternoon to symbolize “his drinking the
baverage of shahada.” (Shahada means being a witness to and affirming the belief in God at the time
of dying.)
41
The translation is mine. The quotation is from the youth sohbet on January 20, 2007. “Çok
enteresandır, Atatürk Kocatepe Muharebesi’nden sonra der ki, bir beyanattır bu biliyorsunuz, biz
hücum için savaşma hakkına sahip değiliz. Biz ancak savunma savaşı yaparız. Buradan da anlaşılıyor
ki Atatürk Kuran’ı Kerim’i çok iyi biliyordu.”

38
ve 19 Mucizesi (Kuran, Islam, Atatürk and the Miracle of 19).42 Number 19 refers to

the date of Atatürk’s landing in Anatolia to start the War of Independence in Samsun

on May 19. According to the book, number 19 can be calculated in the Kuran

through a calculation called ebced.43

This kind of an interpretation by a Rifai woman mürşit opens significant

space for the appropriation of Sufism by secularist segments of society. In order to

emphasize the appropriateness of the separation of religious and state authorities, she

anachronistically establishes a link between the Prophet’s doctrines and secularism.

While explaining the reluctance of the Prophet’s grandchildren for capturing state

authority, she indicates:

You will see that Ummayyads and Abbasids were always frightened.44
Because the twelve imams were loved. Be very careful with this point. I will
like to give you a secret, a very important secret: Actually our Prophet was
secular, if this is secularism. Why? He has a command to the four caliphs that
would follow him. He said to them ‘You that will succeed me, if you are
going to govern the state and gain temporal power, do the spiritual governing
secretly. If you are the spiritual leader, please do not attempt to govern the
state.45

She claims that political authority was offered to Huseyin, the grandchild of the

Prophet, against the possibility of Yezid’s gaining power, but he refused it.

42
The book was written by Cenk Koray, who is not a theologian. It was published in 1999 and had a
lot of repercussions in the popular media.
43
In Arabic, there are several mnemonic formulas designed to help one learn the numerical values
assigned to the letters of the alphabet. On the basis of these formula, numerical values of the words are
calculated and ebced calculation is made. Sufis extract meanings from some verses and hadith through
ebced calculation and believe that these are esoteric information expressed by signs (Uludağ, 2001, p.
114).
44
She means that Umayyads and Abbasids were afraid of the family of the Prophet, ehl-i beyt. For
further informationon ehl-i beyt and the imams, see footnote 24.
45
The translation is mine. The quotation is from the youth sohbet on January 20, 2007. “Emeviler ve
Abbasiler, göreceksiniz, hep korkmuşlar. O kadar çok seviliyor ki on iki imam... Buraya çok dikkat
ederseniz çok büyük bir sır vereceğim sizlere, çok mühim bir sır vereceğim. Aslında Peygamber
Efendimiz laik bir insandı. Laiklik oysa eğer. Neden? Peygamber’in emri var. Kendinden sonraki dört
halifeye diyor ki, benden sonra kim geçecekse, hiç biriniz, maddi idarede olacaksanız devleti idare
edecekseniz, manevi idareyi gizli yapın. Manevi başkansanız, yani benim manamın idarecisiyseniz,
lütfen devleti idare etmeye kalkmayın. On iki imamın hiç biri devleti idare etmeye kalkmamıştır.
Fakat hep korktu Emeviler yani başa geçerler diye.”

39
 With this rigid separation between spiritual and temporal authorities, it is

claimed that the regime of Turkey is constructed as the ideal regime for living

tasavvuf in a proper way. As opposed to the hegemonic dichotomy of Islamist versus

secularist, Cemalnur Sargut says that they would like to destroy apparent

dichotomies. She says they would like to substitute tevhid46 (tawhid, unification)

instead of mere form.

Cemalnur Sargut’s group is a good example of the continuity of a Sufi

tradition without any conflict with the institutional secularization of the republic.

Their interpretation of the secularist reforms deconstructs the dichotomy of

Kemalism versus Islam as a widespread stereotype for the religious orders in Turkey.

This adaptation transforms the practice of tasavvuf. What do they practice as ritual

and as a religious group without a tekke? I will focus on this question below.

Ritual Forms in Traditional Tarikats

There are two kinds of activities that are vital for the Sufi groups in Turkey today:

sohbet and zikir. Sohbet is a word that comes from the Arabic word Suhba. It can be

translated as friendship, friendly chat, companionship or friendly conversation

(Uludağ 2001; Cebecioğlu, 2004). It is also defined as “keeping the company of the

shaykh and one’s fellow disciples to derive spiritual benefit” (Lifchez, 1992, p. 330).

Sohbet is said to have had prominence even among the early Sufis and was be the

basic component of training (Uludağ, 2001). Sohbet is particularly among the

principle practices of Mevlevi and Nakşibendi orders (ibid.). It is also indicated that

all Sufi ecoles are based on two principles: sohbet and hizmet (service) (Cebecioğlu,

46
For an explanation of the term, see footnote 71.

40
2004). The abilities in the spirit of the mürşit are claimed to transfer to the mürit in

sohbets, so the friends of Allah make much of them. Sufis see the justification of

their sohbet method in the Prophet’s training his friends (sahabe) through sohbets

(ibid.). Sohbet is said to consist of keeping the company of the shaykh and of one’s

fellow disciples in accordance with precise behavioral norms (Silverstein, 1997).

Sohbets constitute a crucial part of the practices of not only Sufis, but of

various religious groups in Turkey. While sohbets can be recited by shaykhs, they

can also be organized by the caliphs or stand-ins (vekil) of Sufi shayks or the

prestigious members of religious groups and even by people who would like to read

religious sources with their own efforts without a leader. These sources may be the

interpretation of the Kuran, hadith, or the books of leading Islamic figures. Sohbets

are also an important practice of the followers of Said Nursi in Turkey. The leading

members of the groups occasionally organize sohbets in private houses. Women and

men generally participate in separate groups. Sometimes they are segregated by a

curtain or they listen to sohbets in different rooms. When it comes to Sufi groups,

sohbets are important means for Sufi orders in Turkey due to the illegality of the

tekke institutions.

Zikir, whose meaning is remembering, naming or mentioning, is among the

basic elements of all Sufi tarikats. Zikir is repeating certain names of Allah (esma’ül

hüsna- the beautiful names of Allah) and some prayers (dua) at certain times and

amounts, loudly or silently (Kara, 1990). Schimmel (1975) acknowledges that Sufis

would agree that the heart of the faithful must be “perfumed with the recollection of

God.” Recollection is the spiritual food of the mystic (p. 168). Zikir is seen as the

first step in the way of love; for when somebody loves someone, he likes to repeat

his name and remember him (ibid.). The principle technique for establishing a close

41
relationship with Allah, through forgetting other beings and existence, is said to be

zikir. Zikir can be performed alone or in a group and depending on the custom of the

Sufi order, standing, sitting, or dancing, with or without music. It can be vocal (cehri,

jahri) or silent (hafi, khafi) (Kara, 1990). After the institutionalization of the tarikats,

group zikirs have become widespread and certain rules appeared according to the

tarikat customs. For instance, the zikir ritual of the Mevlevi order, which is called

sema, is performed by standing and whirling. Hatm-i hace is the zikir of the

Nakşibendi order and is performed silently by sitting in front of the shaykh. The zikir

of the traditional Rifai order is called zikr-i kıyam, which means standing zikir (Kara,

1990).

Sohbets and zikir rituals are still an important form of worship of Sufi groups

in Turkey, whether in tekke buildings, in endowment buildings under which Sufi

groups conduct their activities or in private houses. As Kafadar (1992) argues, as

tekkes were closed down by legal regulations in 1925, “since many Sufi

congregations do not depend on a central organization, they have continued to

function as independent cells by keeping within certain limits of secrecy and by

exploiting selective ties of allegiance with members of the police, the military, and

the parliament” (p. 310). Silverstein (1997), who conducted fieldwork among the

Gümüşhanevi branch of the Nakşibendi order in Istanbul, says that sohbet is a

devotional practice of particular prominence. He says that during his fieldwork in the

late 1990s, members of the order gathered after asr prayers47 on Sunday afternoons

in the main area of the Fatih mosque to attend a sohbet recited by a stand-in (vekil)

for the shaykh (p. 5). He gives the general form of the sohbet and says:

47
Asr prayer in the namaz prayer performed in the midafternoon. It is called ikindi namazı in Turkish.

42
 The sohbets were structured around the reading and discussion of two or
three hadith (accounts of exemplary sayings and deeds of the Prophet).
The hadith were first read aloud by the vekil in Arabic, translated, and
then interpreted, giving examples from daily occurrences and historical
anecdotes. The exercise generally lasts about an hour and a half, with
very little coming and going, no talking on the part of listeners, and
almost no note taking. At the end of the sohbet, supplicatory prayers
(du`a) were said, asking God to accept the efforts of the sohbet and the
prayers of its participants. This became seamlessly an abbreviated
version of the khatm-i Khwajagan, an invocation of the memory of
earlier pious personalities, with special emphasis on figures in the
Naqshbandi order’s chain of initiation (silsile). It was followed by a zikir
(dhikr), invocations and remembrance of the Divine names and attributes
(p. 5).

Additionally, he gives a pattern of the zikir: “The dhikr was commonly 100 Istighfar,

100 Kelime-i Tevhid, 100 Lafza-ı Celal (‘Allah’), 100 Salavat-ı Şerife and

‘Allahumme sally wa Allahumme Barik’ followed by 100 Sura al-Ikhlas, and

sometimes 100 Sura al-Inshira.”

Another work is that of Raudvere’s on the Gönenli Mehmet Efendi group,

which informs us that zikir is the dominant ritual of the group (Raudvere, 2002).

Contrary to the lessons and sohbets in local mosques and the endowment’s center,

there were never open invitations to participate in the zikir organized by the vakıf

(ibid.). This ritual is said to be performed exclusively by the inner circle of the group

and the front door is said to be locked by the women during the ritual. Raudvere

indicates that though extensive and exhaustive, zikir was nevertheless a moment of

relaxation for the women involved.

Zikir has a prominent place in the Rifai tradition, too. Traditional Rifai groups

are known with their standing zikir (kıyami zikir) or burhan in the literature, which

was translated as “Howling Dervish ritual” in the European literature (Kafadar, 1992,

p. 312). İzzeti (2004) summarizes the Rufai zikir with following words:

43
 The ceremony starts with the sura of Fatiha in the Rifai order. After
Fatiha, dervishes, who take their places within the crescent-shaped zikir
circle, recite evrad-I şerif48 with its special melody. After a short prayer,
they stand up and form into ranks facing one another. Shaykh Efendi
indicates the esma (names of Allah) that will be recited and the person
called reis49 begins to manage the zikir performance. The ones making
zikir recite hymns and Arabic panegyrics in harmony with the tempo of
the zikir. The Rifai standing zikir is very rapturous and fervent. When the
zikir gains speed, the performance of burhan starts. Burhan is unique to
the Rifai order and symbolizes the Prophet’s elongating his hand from
his sarcophagus and the tarikat’s founder’s50 kissing the Prophet’s hand.
The word burhan means the evidence eliminating doubt. This
circumstance, demonstrating that the knife does not cut but Allah, fire
does not burn but Allah, and laws of physics are not in force in some
special circumstances, with the performance of movements such as
sticking tools like swords, skewers, knobs into different parts of the body
like the cheek, belly, throat or eye, licking and touching a hot anchor
called ‘rose’ is the most famous and distinguishing feature of the Rifai
zikir (p. 212).51

Although not frequently, similar zikir rituals are performed in the Rufai tekke in

Istanbul. Karaatlı describes the Rufai zikir which she participated in a tekke during

her fieldwork with the Cerrahi group in Istanbul (Karaatlı, 2006). The shaykh of the

group (R. Baba) has close ties with Cemalnur Sargut and he frequently comes to her

sohbets in Erenköy. His group is a closed one but on some occasions they perform

zikir with the participation of the mürits of different orders (ibid., 2006). Like in the

Cerrahi zikir, women participate in the zikir upstairs. They use the distinctive feature

of the Rufai order, burhan. Karaatlı describes the Rufai zikir as follows:

After a fairly long wait, R. Baba (Father R.) and the people that seemed
close to him took their places. While the zikir which started with tevhid52

48
Evrad (awrad) means litanies, which consist of some verses of the Kuran, hadith and other rosary
(tesbih). In Sufi orders, the zikir that the mürit does is called vird and its plural form is evrad. There
are different evrad attributed to the pir of each Sufi tarikat (Kara, 1990, p. 202). As Raudvere (2002)
explains, the term şerif (sherif) indicates descendent from the Prophet, and it is used with a double
meaning in order to emphasize or honour the position of a person or an event. It supplies a hint that
contemporary zikir follows a chain of tradition that goes back to the Prophet himself (p. 182).
49
Reis means head, chief or leader.
50
The tarikat’s founder is Ahmed er-Rifai.
51
The translation is mine.
52
Tevhid is the zikr of “lailaheillallah” with the meaning “There is no God, but God.” (My
explanation).

44
 continued with esma’ül hüsnas used by Rufais, e few people whirled
sema in the middle of the zikir circle. However, they did it with their
quotidian clothes. The most interesting part of the zikir was ‘Burhan,’
which is a Rufai tradition. It aims to demonstrate the superiority of
‘meaning to material’ through practices such as stabbing oneself, licking
fire... etc. This ritual is a very interesting experience for the ones who see
it for the first time. R. Baba’s stabbing himself, touching his belly with
the hot mace with speedy motions increased his mürits’ ecstasy. The
mürits of other tarikats were also watching the zikir enthusiastically.
Actually, it is undeniable that it was a kind of ‘performance’ for the
others (p. 116).53

However, the group does not perform burhan frequently. Once I participated in the

zikir in this tekke, men and women just sat in the same room in a circle, made the

Rifai zikir under the leadership of R. Baba’s son and did not perform burhan.

The Rifai order established a strong tekke organization in Anatolia and the

Balkans. It is generally in congruous with the stereotypical equation of Sufi tarikats

with rural populations with its burhan ritual. It is because of the kind of ritual Rufais

performed that European travel literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

commonly depicted visits to Rufai ritual as encounters with the wild and irrational

religiosity of the Orient (Kafadar, 1992). For the same reason, contemporary

researchers also associate Rufai order with lower classes. For instance, Biegman

(2007), who conducted fieldwork among a Rifai shaykh and his mürits in Macedonia

between years 2002 and 2004, claims in a perky manner that “in the Balkans and

Egypt, and no doubt elsewhere, the followers of the Rifaiyya have always been

drawn from the lower and lower middle classes and the tarikat’s unbridled practices

hold little appeal for the Muslim bourgeoisie” (p. 35). Therefore, it can be said that

53
The translation is mine. “Uzunca bir beklemeden sonra, R. Baba ve ona yakın olduğu anlaşılan
kişiler yerlerini aldılar. Tevhid ile başlayan zikir Rufailerin kullandığı ‘esma’ül hüsna’larla sürerken,
burada da birkaç kişi zikir halkasının ortasında sema döndü. Ancak bunu gündelik kıyafetleriyle
yaptılar. Zikrin esas ilgi çeken noktası ‘Burhan’dı. Bir Rufai ıstılahı olan Burhan, şiş vurmak, ateş
yalamak vb. uygulamalarla ‘mananın maddeye üstünlüğünü’ kanıtlamayı amaçlıyordu. Bu ritüel ilk
kez görenler açısından oldukça ilginç bir deneyimdir. R. Baba’nın zikir halkasının ortasında bir
hareket yoğunluğu içerisinde kendini şişlemesi, karnına topuzun ucuyla dokunması özellikle müritleri
arasında kendilerinden geçmesini çabuklaştırmaktaydı. Diğer tarikatların müritleri de zikri heyecanla
izliyorlardı. Aslında, diğerleri için biraz ‘gösteri’ havasına büründüğü de reddedilemezdi.”

45
Kenan Rifai’s branch within the Rifai tradition is a unique one with its educated,

middle and upper class mürit profile. Their differentiation from other branches of the

tarikat is also manifested in Rufai-Rifai distinction, which appeared after the 1970s

in Turkey (Demirci, 2006). Demirci says that while the term “Rufai” refers to the

branch of the order which continues the traditional popular rituals of the order and is

widespread in various regions of Turkey, “Rifai” refers to the milieu around Kenan

Rifai. In other words, the Rifai group is said to be adapted to urban life and

modernized, while Rufais commonly appeal to rural segments.

Tarikat without Tekke: Persistence of Sohbet and Zikir through Hymns

Cemalnur Sargut’s group has two gatherings that are open to public: the gatherings in

Erenköy and the gatherings for youth in Sahrayıcedid.54 However, there is a “core

group” comprising men and women, some of whom have been in the group for a

long time and some who are new. I could get information about the history of this

core group in my interviews and during the Wednesday evening gatherings of

youngsters. Before Yağmur, who is one of the young mürits of Sargut and my

interviewees, nobody gave me a detailed description of the group’s history. This is

due to the fact that Yağmur, who is 30 years old and one of the young members of

the group, is “ihvan by birth.” This means that one’s parents already had connections

with the group. In Yağmur’s case, only her mother was from the group. She told me

that her mother used to take her to the activities when Samiha Ayverdi was alive.55

Yağmur was living in Ankara in her childhood and she told me that she used to come

to Istanbul with her mother for the commemoration of Kenan Rifai’s death on the

54
For a description of an Erenköy gathering, see Chapter 1.
55
Samiha Ayverdi died in 1993.

46
seventh of July each year. She said that her uncle (mother’s brother) lived in the flat

just below Samiha Ayverdi’s flat in Fatih and narrated the memories of her personal

history with a feeling of nostalgia, as I asked questions about her earliest encounters.

As pieces of blurred memories about their visits from Ankara to Istanbul, she

remembered trips on the ship on the Bosphorus accompanied by mehter56 marches

and tears of the young people. She said the group was small enough to fit into a ship

in those days. They used to recite mevlit57 after midafternoon prayers (ikindi namazı)

and meet in Kubbealtı in the evening. The Kubbealtı Association (Kubbealtı

Cemiyeti) was established in 1970 by the leading group members and primarily by

Samiha Ayverdi and turned into the Endowment of Kubbealtı (Kubbealtı Vakfı) in

1978. It still continues its activities in Çemberlitaş in its original building. All the

books of Samiha Ayverdi were published by Kubbealtı Publishing (Kubbealtı

Neşriyat) and the endowment still continues its activities.

The death of Samiha Ayverdi marks a significant event for the group. This is

a story most of the group members are reluctant to voice. Other than Yağmur, Anna,

who is a young anthropologist conducting fieldwork with the same group, was the

second person giving a hint about the matter to me. The opening policy of Sargut is a

controversial issue among the heirs of the Samiha Ayverdi group. Indeed some of

them do not support this tendency. As a result of this division, Yağmur told me that

there are two branches now: one that is against Cemalnur Sargut’s policy of openness

and the other is that Cemalnur Sargut’s group. The first group’s members mostly live

and conduct their activities on the European side of Istanbul, while the other group

resides on the Anatolian side. Yağmur looked worried about the division and

56
The word mehter is a word in Ottoman Turkish referring to the musicians playing marches in
Ottoman military bands. The plural word is mehteran. Mehter groups perform for the commemoration
of Ottoman events, such as the celebration of Istanbul’s conquest. Here, mehter marches appear as the
indicator of the group’s appropriation of the Ottoman heritage.
57
Mevlit (mawlud) is the poem describing the birth of the Prophet Muhammad.

47
indicated that she could not mention this without a pain in her heart. Although there

is no apparent conflict or rivalry, this is the untold story. However, she told me that

they still come together during the commemorations of Kenan Rifai. Cemalnur

Sargut does not even mention this story and she does not mention conflicts as a

principle since she claims to eliminate differences and accommodate unity instead of

conflicts. Most of the students of Cemalnur live on the Anatolian side. They told me

that since most of them lived on the Anatolian side; they carried Türkkad’s building

from Fatih to its present building in Sahrayıcedid in the year 2005.

How do they come together, with what kind of groups and activities do they

continue today? Except the activities that are organized for “everyone,” I could only

participate in the Wednesday gatherings that young group members organized. Some

of the mürits participate in the group as a whole family. To give an example, Ceren,58

one of the young persons that I spent a lot of time with during Wednesday gatherings

and interviewed, participated in group activities with her mother and grandmother,

while her father did not even have information about their involvement. Her parents

are divorced. She started to listen to Cemalnur Sargut while she was in high school.

After school, she used to go to sohbets. İpek, one of the women who are very active

around Cemalnur Sargut, is her uncle’s wife. She told me that her first encounter was

thanks to İpek. She also used to come to the Saturday sohbets of Meşkure Sargut, the

mother of Cemalnur Sargut. All of them call her Meşkure Anne (Mother Meşkure).

After entering university, Ceren started to be more active in the group and to “shape

her lifestyle” in harmony with the tenets of the order. One of the young mürits,

whom Ceren mentions as a “dervish girl,” was her close friend and in a way she

became an intermediary for making Ceren closer to the group. Cemalnur Sargut sent

58
Other than the names of the mürşits, all the mentioned names of the group members are
pseudonyms for the purposes of protecting anonimity.

48
some messages that she could not tell Ceren directly through this friend and Ceren

asked some questions with the intermediacy of this friend since she could not ask

Cemalnur Sargut due to her “edeb.”

Due to the existence of different age groups, there are different types of

sohbets. Ceren gave me some accounts about these different groups in an interview

we made in her home. I went to her home for two occasions after this interview for

Wednesday gatherings. One of the sohbet groups belong to the old people, who

mostly became mürits of Kenan Rifai. Ceren indicated that they call this group

“Team A” informally among themselves in order not to be impolite by featuring

them as “the elderly.” However, there is no clear cut distinction between the groups.

Ceren gave me an example: A sohbet of Mother Meşkure had taken place in the

house of Ahsen, a middle-aged mürit, the text was recited by Cemalnur Sargut,

everyone could participate, she herself went there, but could also take her

grandmother there. She informed me that the age group determines the subject of the

sohbets and does not indicate strict age segregation. For instance, the topic of the

sohbet given to the young people is not the same with the sohbets with group A.

Ceren said that Cemalnur Sargut recites some basic books such as the Mesnevi of

Mevlana, but the old mürits do not need to hear same things because they already

read and know Mesnevi in their youth. Cemalnur Sargut gives speeches according to

the level of the audience. Ceren told me that Sargut sometimes mentions the

complicated issues in her sohbets and sometimes makes an introduction to the

audience which is not familiar with Sufism. Ceren informed me that this sohbet with

the participation of the old people in one of the mürits’ house takes place almost once

a month and the next one was approaching. They call these monthly crowded sohbets

as the “grand sohbet.” I asked her whether I could participate in it and she suggested

49
that I ask Cemalnur Sargut. The sohbet would again take place in the home of a

prestigious family within the group and they called the host abi (brother). After her

suggestion, I called Cemalnur Sargut and asked her whether it was possible for me to

come to the brother’s house. She politely told me that the owner of the house did not

want the house to be “crowded.” I understood that they did not want me to come to

the grand sohbets and I had to draw my boundaries during the fieldwork. I was

invited to the morning prayers on Saturday in our first interview in Türkkad by

Cemalnur Sargut, but grand sohbets were not such a field for me. I was upset when I

learned that the boundaries were less strict for Anna. She had the advantage of

writing her project in a European country, not in Turkey. I faced this fact when I

wrote a paper for a presentation in a symposium. I used the word mürşit for

Cemalnur Sargut and mürit for the people who are under her guidance within the

lines of the Rifai tradition. I sent the article to Cemalnur Sargut and Ceren. They read

it together and Cemalnur Sargut told me that I should not have mentioned her

spiritual role in the group, but their “legitimate” activities in Türkkad in line with the

laws in Turkey. I insisted that it would not be meaningful to ignore her group’s

identity as a Sufi order and her role as a spiritual guide. As a result of my insistence,

she allowed me to use the phrase “teacher” for “mürşit” and “student” for “mürit.” I

felt worried about this restriction and was afraid that the paper would discredit my

position as a researcher. We had a telephone conversation with Ceren on the issue.

She said that Sufi orders are closed in Turkish legislation and although their activities

are “open” and “known” by everyone, I could make them suspects with mürit-mürşit

relationship. They did not want to be associated with the terms or the rituals of

traditional tarikats. However, Anna told me that she could use the words “mürşit”

and even “shaykha” for Cemalnur Sargut and they had not restricted her use of this

50
terminology. I relate this restriction to the sensibility of the Turkish context with

regard to religion, peculiarly to tarikats. As Silverstein puts it, after the legislation

punishing Sufi orders, it has technically been a punishable offence to be involved in a

Sufi order as a shaykh or devotee, and the orders continue to function in a somewhat

“public secret” fashion (Silverstein, 1997, p. 1). Cemalnur Sargut has another sohbet

group on Mondays, in which the core group reads the Kuran and interprets it. This

sohbet takes place in Dilek’s house, who is a young woman I know personally from

Wednesday evenings. Dilek is also ihvan by birth, although she participated in the

group during her university years. Ceren told me that Dilek’s mother hosts the Kuran

sohbets on Monday.

The only core group activity I could participate in was the program organized

by the young generation of ihvan. However, middle aged ihvan occasionally came to

the events and I had the chance of having conversations with them and of following

the group activities. The sincere encounter I experienced on Wednesday evenings

with the young members of ihvan helped me so much in understanding their

conception of Islam and tasavvuf. Some of the youngsters were relatively recent

members, while others were ihvan by birth. Regardless of when they joined the

group, all were active in the group. They spent most of their time left from school or

work with Cemalnur Sargut.

The first feature of the group that attracted my attention was their level of

education. This was something I had realized even in the Erenköy sohbets. Cemalnur

Sargut presupposes a knowledgeable audience. She reads and explains difficult texts

from prominent Sufis and sometimes gives examples from science, particularly from

chemistry since she is a retired chemistry teacher. They gather in the house of one of

them every Wednesday evening, unless they have to cancel the program because of

51
the last minute changes in their programs. Most of the time we gathered in the house

of Irmak in Kadıköy near the former building of Türkkad. She lives in Erenköy, close

to Türkkad, whereas her family lives in a remote district on the European side of the

city. It was a simply-decorated, cute house with three rooms. We had the meetings in

the relatively larger living room with a divan, an armchair, a small dining table, a

vitrine with open and closed shelves and a television cabinet. There were musical

instruments which are frequently used in Sufi music such as ud and bendir59 in the

room. It is easily grasped that she has some acquaintance with classical Turkish and

Sufi music. In the gatherings, she plays the ud and bendir and also recites hymns

with her nice voice. There were photographs of Kenan Rifai and Samiha Ayverdi on

the walls. I even saw the photograph of Cemalnur Sargut on the desktop of her laptop

computer. She is a theology teacher working in a private college. I was a bit anxious

when I was invited to her house. Only three young girls that I had met in Türkkad,

Irmak, Dilek and Öznur had information about my fieldwork and I did not know who

I would meet in this first close gathering. Irmak met me at the door on my first visit.

She called me “sevgilim” (my darling) like she did on the phone before. Cemalnur

Sargut uses the same phrase while calling people around her. As I guessed, there

were two people I had never met before in the room: Ceren and Eren. They were

having the soup, flan and salad Irmak had prepared. Irmak introduced me as someone

“investigating” them, while bringing food for me from the kitchen. She added that

they were very glad of being “investigated.” I did not know whether the others would

be irritated by being “investigated” by a woman with a headscarf. I saw the only

source of my credibility as being from a reputable university. However, a middle-

aged man who participated in the gathering a few weeks later explained to me their

59
Ud and bendir are widely used instruments in Sufi music. Ud is a kind of lute which is commonly
used in Turkish and Arabic music. Bendir is a frame drum which is also commonly used in the North
Africa.

52
outlook on my work and made me feel comfortable. He said that I could not write

anything without the permission of their master (Efendi), meaning Kenan Rifai.

According to him, I had no opportunity and will of writing something without the

permission of Allah and their master. This comment reflects their belief that there is

no good or bad, but the will of Allah in this world. This is the way they interpret

events even if they do not like them at first sight.

After a while, Öznur joined the dinner. It was comforting for me to see

another person I had met before. She is ihvan by birth and her family, living in

Konya, already had contact with the group before she was born. After studying

industrial engineering in Konya, she found a job in Istanbul in the private sector and

now spends most of her time with ihvan. Ceren is an undergraduate student at the

department of psychology at a private university. She is well cared in her external

appearance and looks self confident like the other group members. She is living in an

upper class district of Istanbul. Her mother is also a psychologist, who worked as a

clinical psychologist for years and is now working in the business sector. During the

conversations we had after dinner, she told me that she did not want to stay in the

academy, but to work in the private sector. She said that theories are Eurocentric and

are mostly invalid for Turkey. She thought she could be more influential in the

private sector than in the academy. She said “I would like to be someone working in

a private company like Coca Cola, setting an example for the people actively and

also having time for my family. This looks more meaningful to me.”60 However, she

criticizes consumer culture at the same time. She says that one cannot be satisfied

even if s/he is the richest in the world and the message of the advertisements that

pretend to ensure peace and happiness terrify her. From her speech, I got the point

60
Conversation with Ceren during the Wednesday gathering, November 1, 2006. “Ben, örneğin Coca
Cola gibi bir şirkette çalışan, aktif bir şekilde insanlara örnek olan ama aynı zamanda ailesine,
çevresine de zaman ayıran biri olmak isterim. Bu bana daha anlamlı geliyor.”

53
that she has been to different countries like the USA and Italy. She worked in New

York and went to Italy as an exchange student. We also had a conversation with

Eren, who is a professor at the technical university. I thought he was a musician,

because they began to solfege with the ud after dinner while we were talking with

Ceren. Soon I understood that Eren was the indispensable member of sohbet groups

with his beautiful voice and ability to play the ney, ud and bendir, which are

important instruments of Sufi music. As I learned from Anna, Eren was reciting

prayers and hymns on many occasions, ranging from their collective morning prayers

to travels to other cities and abroad. This means that women do not lead prayers

loudly, but they prefer a man to do so. Another boy, Burak, participated in the

evening. He is in his second year at the department of management at a private

university. He is ihvan by birth and as far as I learned from their conversations, his

mother is also an active member of ihvan. I later learned that he went to Austria to

study management, but found it difficult and returned to study in Istanbul.

In this first evening gathering of these four young people from the group, they

decided where to meet on Wednesday evenings and what to do. The tradition of the

evening gatherings was reading books and reciting hymns. They read Samiha

Ayverdi’s book called Türk Tarihinde Osmanlı Asırları (Ottoman Centuries in

Turkish History), which analyzes Turkish history from the Seljuks to the Ottomans in

line with its relationships with Islam. They recited various hymns, some of which

were written by Kenan Rifai. They said that when they did the reading after the

hymns, some people might leave early, so decided to read Samiha Ayverdi’s book

first and then recite the hymns. When it came to selecting the house in which they

would come together, they decided to gather in the house of Irmak. Ceren wanted to

54
host them, but they all found it difficult to return to their houses from Ceren’s house

on the European side. Burak, Eren and Ceren have cars, but Irmak does not have one.

This first evening gathering of the year was an introductory one for me. I had

brought them pastry since I was going there for the first time. After dinner, Irmak

told her friends that I had brought pastry for them, she served me a piece, but they

did not eat. They explained to me that they tried not to eat artificial sugar. They made

an effort of eating natural foods as much as possible and I brought fruit or fruit juice

on the following occasions.

The number of the youngsters with whom I gathered was around six. It

increased when other, sometimes elder members of the group participated. Other

people occasionally coming to the evenings were Yağmur and Zeynep. Yağmur,

about whom I introduced before, is a designer and also a professor at a technical

university. Zeynep graduated from the school of law and is studying Islamic law in

her graduate studies.

The general pattern of the gatherings did not change over the weeks. They

firstly have dinner prepared by Irmak. They all see each other as close friends, as

members of ihvan, which indicates that they are brothers and sisters. They make

heart-to-heart conversations, nestling all the joy and energy of their age. One joke

follows another side by side with the frequent theme of their love for their mürşits,

Cemalnur Sargut, Samiha Ayverdi, and Kenan Rifai. They frequently review their

everyday life choices according to the normative criteria of their mürşit during these

conversations. They discuss every detail of life, ranging from intimate matters,

interpersonal relations to important choices such as the selection of a school, a job.

For instance, Ceren asked Cemalnur Sargut about going to a journey before finishing

a group work in a course at university. She needed Sargut’s advice before leaving the

55
task of completing the work to her friends. In another instance, she mentioned that

she had again asked Cemalnur Sargut before having an operation that would remove

the deficiency in her eyes.

The reading of Samiha Ayverdi’s book, Türk Tarihinde Osmanlı Asırları, and

the recital of hymns follow the dinner. Hymns have always been an important

component of Sufi tarikats. Yağmur is one of the mürits who loves music and

reciting hymns. She indicates that she strongly feels direct access to Allah through

music. Hymns have a special prominence for Kenan Rifai and the group, because

Kenan Rifai has a lot of lyrics and compositions. His poems and hymns are published

in the book called İlahiyat-ı Kenan (Hymns of Kenan). They adopt the tradition of

Turkish Classical Music and Turkish Classical Music chorus studies and instrument

courses still continue in Kubbealtı Cemiyeti. Some of the people around Cemalnur

Sargut participate in the chorus there. They sometimes recite songs and hymns after

the Erenköy gatherings of Cemalnur Sargut. The recitals on Wednesday evenings

were preparations for programs such as Kutlu Doğum Haftası (Prophet Muhammad’s

Birthday Week). After reading some parts from Ayverdi’s books, they recite hymns.

This is not a formal ceremony, but youngsters do this in whatever fashion they like.

Sometimes with only one instrument, sometimes with ud and bendir, sometimes

accompanied by ney. They occasionally gave out papers on which lyrics were

written, so everyone could follow the sentences and sing. When the gathering took

place in Ceren’s house and Irmak and Eren were both absent, they could not sing

hymns but only read Ayverdi’s books.

Young dervishes have prominence for Cemalnur Sargut. She has been

organizing sohbets for young people since she was twenty-five years old. Samiha

Ayverdi is said to have given her the duty to address youth since she is supposed to

56
speak the language of youth. The youngsters, together with their activities abroad,

appear to be part of their plans for the future. They seem to advocate the claim that

the world is on the eve of a spiritual revolution. They interpret the world’s

orientation towards spirituality as a sign to increase their activities worldwide and

addressing the youth, who are important for this project, is an important step.

When I participated in the Wednesday evening gatherings for the first time,

they had not organized where to do Cemalnur Sargut’s youth sohbets for the year

2007 yet. They were a bit upset about it, because they had started to these sohbets

earlier in the previous years. The sohbet used to take place in one of their friends

house with the participation of almost a hundred young people. They needed a larger

place and Eren gave the information that they could find a place near Türkkad’s

building again. Due to the delays, they started the youth sohbets of Cemalnur Sargut

in December. I went to this first sohbet comfortably since I thought I was somewhat

close to them by now. However, I encountered the crowd of strangers in the one

room flat on the apartment’s first floor. The room was so crowded and there were

even people standing at the back of the door that I entered the room with difficulty. I

took my place among six people standing just in front of the door with a bulk of

shoes just behind me. There was a range of sofas leading to the walls of the room and

a few people were sitting there. The others were either sitting on the chairs lined side

by side or sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of the chairs. Although the

majority of the listeners were youngsters, there were also middle-aged and old

people. There were a lot of men, though women seemed to be the majority at first

sight. Cemalnur Sargut was sitting on the table in front of the crowd. Her

enthusiastic, emotional voice and manners had influenced the audience. As usual, the

main theme of the sohbet was love for Allah. She was quoting epics from the

57
Prophet, Mevlana, Ahmet er- Rifai and talking about Kenan Rifai and Samiha

Ayverdi. After a while, I noticed the people from the Wednesday gatherings in the

middle lines: Irmak had bowed her head and tears were flowing down her cheeks.

Ceren and Burak were sitting side by side. There were some other people crying.

According to Cemalnur Sargut, these sohbets have significance for addressing

a large segment of the audience and spreading the doctrines of tasavvuf. She also

perpetuates her influence on ihvan through these sohbets, as a religious actor who

does not carry on institutionalized rituals of the tarikat.

In her sohbets, Cemalnur Sargut tries to explain the basic concepts of tasavvuf

and to propagate its basic tenets, such as love of Allah and perceiving one’s

weakness in front of Allah. She indicates that all tarikats and Sufis give the same

message. However, she also discusses the doctrines of the Rifai order. For instance,

she often emphasizes the three principles of the Rifai order: Not to accumulate

property, not to reject when someone offers something and not to expect anything

from anyone.

After the sohbet, most of the people left the room and the core group

remained. Eren and another woman I had familiarity with from the Erenköy sohbets

began to play bendir, while Eylül accompanied them with her singing. In the

meantime, Cemalnur Sargut was signing her newly published book, Kenan Rifai ile

Aşka Yolculuk (Journey to Love with Kenan Rifai), that they had just delivered. The

singing group simultaneously formed a circle with the others and began to recite

hymns. This pattern of reciting hymns after sohbets was repeated in all the programs

I participated in.

As we can see in the descriptions above, the traditional tekke practices

including Rufai rituals such as burhan are very different from Kenan Rifai’s

58
tradition, which perpetuated tasavvuf in harmony with the institutional secularization

in Turkey. In line with Kenan Rifai’s way, ihvan, the close group around Cemalnur

Sargut, continues its solidarity and claims to experience dervishness in the form of

gatherings, sohbets, with the activities they perform together, the hymns they recite.

These activities do not enclose them in the society of ihvan and do not disrupt their

active participation in other spheres of the modern life. Some forms like the open

gatherings even disclose previously closed activities to the public.

Blurring the Boundaries Between World Rejection and World Accommodation

The group’s survival and success in modern life is mainly related to the group’s

perception of religion, tasavvuf and dervishness. They think that religiosity is

embedded in one’s perceptions towards all life experiences. In order to grasp this, I

would like to their understanding and experiences of ritual.

Cemalnur Sargut strongly emphasizes the importance of ritual prayer (namaz)

as the foundation on the path of tasavvuf. Ritual prayer is regarded as one of the

fundamental rituals of Islam in the path of tasavvuf by most Sufi groups. It is

performed five times a day at prescribed hours. Schimmel (1975) informs us that

early Muslim ascetics and mystics regarded ritual prayer as a kind of ascension to

heaven, as a miraç (ascension)61 that brought them into the immediate presence of

God. Thus, prayer became the time of connection, the moment of proximity to God.

Ritual prayers have great importance in the daily lives of Sargut’s mürits. They

61
Miraç literally means “ladder” and it refers to the Prophet Muhammad’s night journey to the
Heavens, which is mentioned in Sura 17 of the Kuran. It is controversial whether it was a physical
journey or was experienced in a dream. Schimmel argues that miraç, which she qualifies as the
experience of the Prophet Muammad as a repitition of the joy of ascension, has a connection with
daily prayer, namaz. This connection is said to make such an ascension into the divine presence
possible for every sincere Muslim. The mystics are said to apply the ascension terminology to their
own experiences in the rapture of ecstasy (Schimmel, 1975, pp. 218-219).

59
perform ritual prayers in Saturday mornings every week. When it comes to their

daily lives, they say that Cemalnur Sargut tries to make ritual prayer an ordinary and

easy part of their lives. They do not wear some special clothes; they just cover their

heads loosely over their daily clothes. For some groups in Turkey, it is important and

even indispensable to wear abounding clothes during namaz. Cemalnur Sargut

appreciates wearing clean and smart clothes while meeting with Allah during the

ritual prayer. She mentioned a woman applying make up in order to meet “her

darling,” Allah, looking beautiful. Despite the significance they attribute to the ritual

prayer, it is not easy to perform it on time due to the working conditions. There are

no places for worship in most of the private firms or universities. Moreover, they

may or may not expose their religious identities in their work lives, or sometimes

even to their close friends. For instance, Yağmur told me that she cannot mention

that she is in a Sufi group and performs prayers in the academy even to her closest

friend, who has no familiarity with tasavvuf. She told me that she compensates her

ritual prayers at home later. Yağmur also compares the behaviors of the young

people from ihvan and the young students around her at university. She says that she

becomes aware of the students’ selfishness and the primacy of their nefis (nafs) in

their dominant norms of behaviour.

Apart from the women who left work and are involved in other activities such

as the ones in Türkkad, the people I met in sohbets mostly study or work with people

who have no acquaintance with tasavvuf and experience difficulties in practices such

as ritual prayer. However, Cemalnur Sargut does not advise them to break off their

ties with their existing milieu. On the contrary, she appreciates the works they

undertake in professional or academic life. This flexible attitude of Sargut facilitates

the orientation of youngsters from diverse formations and circles to her sohbets. The

60
youngsters sometimes express that they find some mürits like Ahsen and İpek, who

spend most of their time with Cemalnur Sargut. In one of the sohbets, Ceren, who

wants to become active in work life, asked Sargut what the ideal position was. Sargut

said that it was very enjoyable to be together all the day but also difficult. If they

could bear this difficulty, they could leave work and become like Ahsen or İpek.

According to them, the mürit should be in a place best fitted to her/his meshrep,

meaning the inborn characteristics.

Then, in line with Kenan Rifai’s tenets, they say that “You can go anywhere

you like as long as you put on the crown of edep (adab).”62 One component of this is

to see oneself in relation to Allah and in a test for one’s demonstration of love for

Him all the time. All experiences in subjective life, all the happenings one

encounters, are interpreted through the eyes of the sacred and are regarded as means

of approaching Allah thanks to the tenets of tasavvuf.

Therefore, the group members think that they can walk on the path of

tasavvuf regardless of where they are: work life, academy or Türkkad. Their

activities are highly appreciated by their mürşit. Öznur expressed their outlook in the

following way:

We try to make everything Cemalnur Abla told us a state of living, and

realize them in our whole life, during daily life, business life, private life,
in buses, ships, everywhere. It is not that we read a book and close it and
then return to our affairs, this is not the case. It is about refraining from
displeasing others as a state of living. Say, I tell you lies for twenty four
hours of the day, and then come and advise you not to tell lies, is it
convincing? Everyone tries to form a state of living according to his/her
capacity and destiny. Sohbet never bores you. Because you check out
what is going to affect your life, what your destiny is. You wait for your
destiny, indeed. We try to apply it to our business life, or while walking
on the street, whoever you come across, be it a beggar, or somebody who

62
“Edeb tacını giy, nereye gidersen git.”

61
 is angry with you, who shouts at you and insults you, you always feel in
a test. We shouldn’t be careless, we are trying to be careful about it.63

What is important is the way you interpret everything around you then, not where

you are. This is again related to the definition of ehl-i batın (ahl al-batın) or ehl-i

tasavvuf (ahl al-tasawwuf), who see Allah everywhere. Cemalnur Sargut (2006)

proposes that their mürşit, Kenan Rifai, taught them to reach Allah even through the

smallest events, even through the ones which look undesirable at first sight. Sargut

relates the happenings in the world to the tecelli (manifestation) of Allah with his

cemal (jamal, beauty) and celal (jalal, supremacy)64 at the same time. So, one should

bear the difficulties of life. Sargut (2006) gives reference the famous story of Leyla

and Mecnun in Sufism and says “By seeing or feeling His revelation in the

difficulties He gave us, or in our quarrels with other people, if we can say ‘How nice

that He acts distinctively towards me,’ ‘How nice that He believes that I am strong

enough to endure, so that He acts distinctively towards me,’ we gain salvation.

Thenceforth, we acquire personality”(p. 24).65 She makes an allegory between the

affairs in the world and gölge oyunu (shadow play) and says we get angry with the

63
Interview with Öznur, October 7, 2006. “Cemalnur Abla birşey söylüyorsa bunu bütün hayatımızda,
iş hayatımızda, özel hayatımızda, otobüste, vapurda, her yerde bunu bir şekilde yaşamaya, hal etmeye
çalışıyoruz. Kitap okuyalım, sonra kapatalım gidelim işimizi yapalım, bu değil. Birbirini kırmamayı
hal etmek. Yirmi dört saat yalan söyleyip sonra sana gelip yalan söyleme diyorum, ne kadar inandırıcı
sana? Herkes kendi kapasitesi, nasibi neyse onu hal etmeye çalışıyor. Sohbet seni hiçbir şekilde
sıkmıyor. Çünkü orda senin nasibine ne düşecek, sen neyi hal edeceksin ona bakıyorsun. O nasibini
bekliyorsun aslında bir yerde. Bunu iş hayatımızda uygulamaya çalışıyoruz, yolda yürürken
uygulamaya çalışıyoruz, bir dilenciyle olabilir, sana kızan, hakaret eden, karşı çıkan birisine karşı
olabilir, kendini her an, her alanda, her yerde imtihanda olarak görüyorsun. Gaflette bulunmamamız
gerekiyor. Bunlara dikkat etmeye çalışıyoruz.”
64
Cemal means beauty. In Sufism, it refers to the attributes of God which results in grace, mercy and
blessing. It is believed that when God manifests Himself with cemal, it leads to the acceptance,
protection and favour of God (Uludağ, 2001, p. 87). Celal means supremacy and greatness. Sufis
believe that God, who is the Loved One, manifests His greatness to show that He is never in need of
His subject, who is the lover, the seeker. With His attributes of celal, He is believed to demonstrate the
lover his desperation by destroying his pride. The attributes of celal are believed to result in revenge,
torment and pain, which disciplines the nefis (nafs) of the subject (Uludağ, p. 86).
65
The translation is mine. “Allah’ın verdiği sıkıntılarda ya da bize kızan insanlarda O’nun tecellisini
görerek ya da hissederek... ‘Ne güzel farklı davranıyor, ne güzel benim tahammül edip dayanacağıma
inanıyor, onun için bana farklı davranıyor’ diyebilirsek kurtuluruz. O zaman da şahsiyet sahibi
oluruz.”

62
figures since we cannot see the person articulating them behind the scene, but the one

who knows the truth laughs at us (ibid., 2006) Therefore, she thinks that the truth is

that the ropes of all of us are in the hand of a “supreme stage manager,” which is

God. “That stage manager has given us various duties but it is he who plays out and

talks in all” (ibid., 2006, p. 25).

The Sufi path has displayed different interpretations and practices vis-a-vis

“worldly” activities since its earliest days. The formative centuries of Islam

witnessed the appearance of ascetic modes of life. Some of them are said to express

their faith in Allah by refusing to make a living, expecting Allah to nourish them and

detaching themselves from the productive circles of society (Hurvitz, 1997, p. 50).

Milder forms of asceticism also appeared in various degrees. Regardless of the

degree of asceticism, tasavvuf had an integrative cosmology relating human beings to

the universe and to Allah. Terzioğlu (2002), in her work on the diary of Niyazi Mısri

in seventeenth century Ottoman Empire, observes the shift that took place in the

modes of self-representation in Sufi narratives in that period and the entrance of the

temporal and the mundane to Sufi personal narratives as the Sufis became

progressively more integrated into the social, political and economic structures of

“this world.” The aspect relevant to the argument is that there are many accounts in

the diary of Mısri giving heavenly explanations of mundane events and finding

divine meanings even in political events. The blurred boundaries between the earth

and the heavens is claimed to make everyday life of mystics more enchanted than

ever (ibid., 2002). The infiltration of meaning to the micro processes of life and the

reenchantment of the world overlap with the language of the new age teachings of

our times. The increase in the interest in Sufi cosmology and teachings is also related

to the trend of holistic outlook on existence. Davie (1999) advocates that in the last

63
decade of the twentieth century the sacred has become more integral to the well-

being of the individual and it is thought that no healing can take place while mind,

body and soul remain fragmented. With reference to Robertson (1991), she indicates

that there is no longer any point in dividing our experience into “this-worldly” or

“other-worldly” categories. The sacred has started to “spill over into everyday

thinking” and the lines between the sacred and the secular are “becoming

increasingly blurred” (p. 41). The idiom of Sufism accommodates the contemporary

holistic milieu and addresses a wider audience.

Kenan Rifai came up with an interpretation and practice of tasavvuf which

did not conflict with the secularization project. As the heirs of this tradition,

Cemalnur Sargut and her disciples reconcile the existing order with the life style of

Muslims. As participants of modernity, they try to articulate the meanings of

“religious” and “secular” and they also try to practice tasavvuf within the secularized

order.

64
 CHAPTER 3

TOWARDS A UNIVERSALIST DISCOURSE

In this chapter, I will try to explicate Sargut’s group in the historicity of the present

era, for which the global trends are determining to a considerable degree. The global

context leads to various forms of hybridization, which influence both the form and the

content of the social and religious movements.

Sufis have always been mobile in order to spread Islam to the remote parts of

the globe. Their high level of mobility has increased the encounter of Sufism with

different cultures, which triggered cross-fertilization. As Werbner (2003) examplifies,

Sufis have followed the trade routes and paths of imperial quest into the remotest

corners of the globe, from the Near East to North Africa, Iran, Central and South Asia,

Indonesia, and Africa (p. 4). After the tarikats emerged as institutional forms of

Sufism at the end of the twelfth century, the spread of Islam to Anatolia, Central Asia,

India, Southeast Asia and Africa was accomplished (Atay, 1996, p. 44). Although

there have been also more closed tarikats, there are historical examples which

demonstrate the high level of mobility and cross-fertilization. One example is the

study of Ernst (2005b) on the interaction of Sufis and yogis66. He shows us how

different Indian Sufi groups, particularly the Chisti and Shattari orders, incorporated

certain practices of yogis into their techniques from the fourteenth century on and

argues that Sufi groups did not fundamentally alter the character of existing Sufi

practices (p. 30). He tells the story of a book called The Pool of Nectar, which consists

66
Yogi is a term that refers to the practitioner of yoga.

65
of Islamized versions of materials giving information about certain practices

associated with Nath yogis and the teachings known as hatha yoga.

The high level of cross-fertilization resulted in debates among both Muslims

and the scholars that make studies on Islam. The controversy of Muslims has mostly

had a normative character, which discussed the “true forms of Islam” around

orthodoxy/heterodoxy dichotomy.67 This has been a continuing debate in the religious

field and some forms have been accused of ‘heresy’ and labeled as “non-Islamic.”

Sufi tarikats have frequently been subject to these debates and have been criticized for

being polluted by “non-Islamic” elements from the periods in which they were

institutionalized up to the modern era. We can find examples in the execution of

Hallac in the tenth century, in the rejectionist position of Wahhabis in the eighteenth

century in accordance with the teachings of Ibn Taymiyya and in the opposition of

Salafis from the nineteenth century to present (Sirriyeh, 1999). In the face of the

opposition of Muslim groups, Sufis have insisted on the Islamic roots of their beliefs

and practices. Both Muslim scholars and the scholars who study Sufism have

endeavored to demonstrate that Sufis remain inside the fold of Islam. For instance,

Trimingham (1971) thinks that Sufism owes little to non-Muslim resources and was a

natural development within Islam, although it received radiations from the ascetical-

mystical life and thought of Christianity, neo-Plotanism, gnosticism and other systems

(p. 2). The works of scholars from different traditions also stress the Islamic roots of

Sufism. The works of Burckhardt (1973), Schimmel (1975), Chittick (2000) are

written on this direction.

The aim of this study is not to discuss the “Islamic” and “non-Islamic” roots of

Sufism. I think that cross-fertilization is at work most of the time in any cultural

67
I discussed the relevance of this dichotomy for the anthropological literature in Chapter 2.

66
milieu, though the speed and extent may differ. My reference to the issues of

hybridization and cross-fertilization here does not assume that there are non-hybrid,

pure forms of Islamic practice anywhere in the world. I also see the history of Sufism

as a history of cross-fertilization. Nevertheless, I argue that the form and level of

globalization today facilitate the process of hybridization, since the interactions

between different cultures reached an unprecedented level. So, contemporary

(religious) movements cannot be analyzed independently from today’s global context.

While elaborating the spread of Said Nursi’s influence in Turkey, Şerif Mardin (1989)

analyses this phenomenon within the context of the “communication revolution” of

the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A more tremendous change occurred at the

demise of the twentieth century with the new phase of globalization. There is a

general agreement on the fact that the extent and the form of globalization today is a

distinguishing trend of the present (Cvetkovich, Kellner, 1997). Giddens (1990)

defines present globalization as “the intensification of worldwide social relations

which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events

occurring many miles away and vice versa” (p. 64). Globalization brings about the

intensification of worldwide political, economic and sociocultural relations. This

process has serious implications for the issues of culture and identity. On the one

hand, emphasis on national and individual identity has emerged as a form of

resistance to homogenizing global forces, while globalization produces new

configurations of identity at national, local and personal scales (Cvetkovich, Kellner,

1997, pp. 9-10). The responses of religious movements and of Sufis in particular can

be evalutated in this direction. Contemporary religious movements can not remain

indifferent to the forces of globalization and even when their responses are negative

and foster isolation. Beyer (1994) gives the example of the Rushdie affair to show that

67
even where religion appears as a negative reaction to globalization, this does not mean

that religion is simply a regressive force (p. 3). He claims that “events like the

Rushdie affair, and indeed the Iranian Revolution as a whole, indicate that religion can

be a proactive force in the sense that it is instrumental in the elaboration and

development of globalization: the central thrust is to make Islam and Muslims more

determinative in the world system, not to reverse globalization. The intent is to shape

the global reality, not to negate it” (p. 3). While mentioning Muslim societies which

are exposed to processes of globalization and regard hybridities as sinful and

dangerous, Werbner (2001) says:

New religious fundamentalist movements of purification, whether Jewish,

Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim are, somewhat paradoxically,
themselves hybrids of modernity. They are regimented and bureaucratized,
scripturalist and procedural. They take to a new modernist extreme the
inherent tendency of all religions to classify right and wrong, good and
evil, the acceptable and the unacceptable, the normal and the transgressive.
They allow for no exceptions, no anomalies, no betwixt-and-betweens (p.
142).

When it comes to the Sufi groups, they can be differentiated on the basis of their

responses to globalization and the global trends. It is argued that globalization

engenders two main kinds of ideological responses: a retrenchment to local and

traditional identities or an embrace of universal tendencies already found in the

tradition (Ernst, 2005a). Ernst adds that there are many examples of the latter kind of

universalistic response in modern Sufi movements (p. 12). In order to situate hybridity

which both influences the form and the content of the message of the Sufi groups and

of Cemalnur Sargut in particular, I would like to turn to the global trends I have

mentioned above. What is the conjuncture that drives Sufi groups to spread their

message to a larger audience and to use the universalist potential of the Sufi tradition?

Is there an audience ready to hear their message?

68
 There is a global phenomenon of a rising scholarly and popular interest in

spirituality in general and in Sufism in particular. Nasr (2000) mentions an expanding

field of scholarship in Sufism both in the Islamic and Western societies. He gives

examples from works on Sufism in relationship with different branches of art such as

poetry and music. Besides, there is a growth in the number and visibility of Sufi

tarikats in the West. Though this is a global trend, it can be said that it is more

widespread in the West and in the metropolitan centers of the non-Western societies.

In the preface of his introductory book on Sufism, Chittick (2000) epitomizes the

situation in contemporary West as follows:

Nowadays, everyone seems to have heard of Sufism, and the name is

mentioned in daily newspapers, best-selling novels, and popular movies.
Back then Rumi was hardly known outside university courses on Middle
Eastern Studies, but today his poetry is found in any bookstore and recited
on television by celebrities. The “whirling dervishes” were a piece of
exotica left over from nineteenth-century travellers’ accounts, but today
people learn “Sufi dancing” in health clubs and New Age centers.

As Ernst (2005a) elaborates, this trend can be observed in the bestseller English

translations of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi and the interest of celebrities in the US in

his poems68, the widespread production and distribution of sound recordings of Sufi

music, the effective use of the internet by Sufis, the use of Sufi shrines and rituals as

sources of tourist revenue by the governments and so on. Ernst (2005a) calls the

process “the publication of the secret” and “commodification of Sufism” (p. 5). He

asserts that the introduction of print and lithography technology made possible the

distribution of Sufi teachings on a scale far beyond what manuscript production could

68
Mevlana became the best-selling poet in the United States of America in 1997. Lewis (2000) asserts
that devotees of Sufism, adepts of new age spirituality and those with a mystical orientation toward
religion all revere Mevlana as one of the worlds great spiritual teachers. Some people in New York
even do yoga and spiritual aerobics with a mixture of rock music and readings of Mevlana at the
background (p. 1). He even calls this orientation as “Rumi-mania” (p. 1)

69
attain and Sufi material in America and Europe has joined the shelf of new age

teachings in a veritable market of spirituality (p. 6). Comaroff and Comaroff (2000)

handle the issue in the larger framework of religious and spiritual movements and

define the process as the commodification of the occult-related activities and objects

in relation to the millennial capitalism. They argue that there is an explosion of occult-

related activities in many parts of the world, ranging from Africa to the United States

and they come up with the concept of “occult economies” (p. 310).

When we consider current developments in Turkey, a similar process of

commodification can be traced in various examples such as the commodification of

the dervishes who perform sema, which has become the symbol of the tarikat of

Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, the Mevlevi order, in popular culture. They are even

invited to the openings of shopping centers in big cities. Besides, there is a

tremendous rise in the number of publications on Sufism, including books and

periodicals. Various publishing houses such as İz, İnsan, Kaknüs, Gelenek, Sufi Kitap,

Keşkül publish books and periodicals on topics related to Sufism and these books

reach a considerable number of readers. The interest in Sufi music and the merging of

Sufi music and the ney sound with new age sounds in the works of musicians like

Mercan Dede69 is another area manifesting the interest in Sufism.

These phenomena go hand in hand with the appeal of Sufism to a growing

number of middle class urbanites and “repackaging Sufism” (Howell, 2007) in new

forms, which transform the tradition. There is a growing literature on these newly

emerging universalist articulations of Sufism in the modern urban contexts of the

69
Mercan Dede is a ney player who combines Sufi music with electronica and is famous for his works
that consist of different styles ranging from fusion-jazz and etno-trans to world music. He performes
both in the sema rituals and in underground parties as a DJ. He has an underground style, he wears
earings, dyes his hair blond, or sometimes appears with a pinch of hair on his head. His style is
sometimes subject to criticism, but he attributes his style that merges various cultural backgrounds to
his commitment to Sufi tenets. He is qualified as a “dervish of modern times” in the popular media in
Turkey.

70
Western and non-Western societies, being more visible in the former (Hermansen,

2000; Howell, 2001; Westerlund, 2004; Ernst, 2005a; Malik and Hinnells, 2006;

Genn, 2006; Howell, 2007). The common characteristic of these movements is their

adaptation to the modern contexts in a hybrid way and appealing mostly to the

educated, upper and middle class urbanites. These movements come up with

innovatory discourses and methods by using the potential of their traditional roots.

The so-called neo-Sufism or Western Sufism (Hammer, 2004) prioritizes the

universalist tendencies of the tradition. Hammer (2004) argues for the Sufi

movements in the United States that the most appealing part of Sufism for the

Western audience is the element of spirituality, not social ties with other Muslims (p.

139). He establishes a dichotomy between “traditional Sufi movements,” which

mostly attract Muslims in the diaspora, and “Western Sufism,” which is said to

predominantly attract Westerners. He characterizes the latter more individualistic,

egalitarian and as prioritizing spirituality to religion.70 Western Sufi movements are

also said to be more egalitarian in gender relations. Ernst (2005a) claims that the

increasing role of women in Sufism is an aspect of the adaptation to globalization (p.

14). He says that women have positions of leadership with the title of shaykha in

many Sufi groups in Europe and America. Prioritizing spirituality to religious bounds

is a common feature of the popularizing Sufi movements in the Western world (Ernst,

2005a; Malik and Hinnells, 2006; Genn, 2006). Hazrat Inayat Khan, who is an Indian

master associated with Chisti order, is an example of presenting Sufism to Europeans

and Americans as a spiritual path not necessarily tied to Islam (Ernst, 2005a; Genn,

2006). Mehmet Sherif Catalkaya, who is a Rifai shaykh in the United States, is

another case of presentation of Sufism beyond religions (Ernst, 2005a). He declares

70
For a discussion of the dichotomy of religion versus spirituality in the literature, see Chapter 4.

71
that “What brings people together, what allows the love of God to enter the hearts of

people is morality.... All religions are the same” (Ernst, 2005a, p. 12). He even says

that Sufism is not a religion, but love of humanity. Nevertheless, this group is said to

combine universalism with recognition of the primacy of Islamic themes. Hermansen

(2000) calls these movements as “perennial,” meaning that they emphasize the unity

of religions. Hermansen (2000) also makes a distinction between the perennial

movements in the West on the basis of their stance towards şeriat. She says:

Some of the other perennial groups who call themselves “Sufi” in the West
have taken another position, which is that spiritual practices from various
religious traditions may be combined since they all emerge from the same
true source, which is, in fact, primarily esoteric and Gnostic rather than
exoterically religious. Thus it is necessary to differentiate the strain of
perennialism that maintains adherence to the Sharia from other “perennial”
Sufi-inspired movements in the West, which take a more “universal
wisdom” approach to spirituality (p. 160).

Western Sufi movements also come up with unconventional methods for spreading

their message. Hermansen (2004) argues that Sufi activities in America are

characterized by fondness for public performance, extensive use of the media such as

computer networks, exploitation of radio and newspaper coverage, Sufi dancing, and

the use of vehicles such as lectures, seminars and conferences (p. 45).

These examples do not only come from the West, but also from the non-

Western contexts. The account of Nasr (2000) is meaningful in grasping the context of

the non-Western societies:

In comparison with the older generation there is a notable rise in the

number of youths attracted to Sufi orders and to a study of Sufism in
countries as diverse as Egypt, Syria and Persia. In the Indo-Pakistani sub-
continent interest continues to be strong, never having diminished in a
noticeable manner as was the case in the Arab world and Turkey. In
Turkey interest in Sufi writings among university students has increased
immensely since the years following the Turkish revolution (p. 3).

72
Although there are not many case studies of the new forms in which Sufi tarikats

appear in non-Western societies, we can find an example from the work of Howell

(2005, 2007) on Indonesia. She says that some of the Sufi movements are said to

repackage Sufism for Muslim cosmopolitans in the urban field. Howell (2007)

elaborates the open lecture in a newly upgraded Islamic studies center in Jakarta,

Indonesia. The center was formally constituted as a charitable foundation. She argues

that the elimination of the shaykh-mürit hierarchy, the use of modern methods such as

discussion and practice are well-suited to the interests and preferred learning styles of

well-educated, globally “connected” urbanites (p. 22). It can be said that this style

addresses the spiritual growth demands of modernized segments in the urban field.

Howell (2001) shows that traditional Sufi orders, namely tarikats, have image

problems with the secularly educated middle classes in Indonesia. According to her,

tarikats have authoritarian images that recall traditional hierarchies. In response to the

unmet need of the middle and upper classes, Sufism has been adapted to a variety of

new institutional forms in urban settings. Most of the Sufi orders modify themselves

substantially and utilize international forms such as foundation, institute, seminar

series and even spiritual workshops (p. 718). The movements in Indonesia have also

perennial aspects. Howell (2005) gives examples of Salamullah, Kumaris and Anand

Ashram, saying that all three organizations have contributed to the popularization of a

new understanding of religious “universalism” (p. 475). She says that Salamullah and

Ashram have even championed the concept of “perennialism,” which means that they

think there is a common core experience of the divine, accessible through the esoteric

traditions of the great religions (p. 476).

73
 I would like to evaluate some aspects of Cemalnur Sargut’s group in the light

of the above-mentioned processes. Is the Western Sufism/traditional Sufism

dichotomy useful in understanding their methods and language? Does the group have

similarities with the popularizing Sufi group in the West? If they are part of the

“publication of the secret,” how do they contribute into the process and use their

traditional roots to legitimate it?

Publicizing the Secret in the “Age of Irfan”

“Our age is the age of irfan, in which meaning is revealed to everyone.”

Cemalnur Sargut

One of my observations about Sargut’s group is that, they have some similarities with

the Sufi movements popularizing in the urban fields of different contexts. First of all,

they take what Ernst (2005a) calls “publication of the secret” as an axiomatic

phenomenon of this era and interpret it with reference to the tenets of Sufism and the

Kenan Rifai tradition. Relating the process to the new technologies, Ernst (2005a)

defines publication of the secret as “the use of new technologies to publicize the

previously esoteric teachings of Sufism” (p. 5). Sargut and her mürits are highly

conscious of the era in which they live in. They attribute specific features to

contemporary era and the people of the age. They characterize the era as the “age of

irfan.” According to them, the main characteristic of the age of irfan is the

manifestation of the previously hidden “meaning.” In the Sufi doctrine, irfan, or

marifet, is the inward, experiential or mystical knowledge, which the dervish seeks for

on the Path. The dervish needs a shaykh, or the spiritual master, to walk on the Path so

74
s/he is initiated to a tarikat by the shaykh. As Schimmel (1975) elaborates, this is a

difficult process, in which the spiritual master tests the seeker’s willing and ability to

undergo the hardships before accepting him/her as a murit. She asserts that usually

three years of service were required before the adept could be formally accepted in a

master’s group (p. 101). The seeker is required to display an absolute trust and

obedient to the master. As Schimmel summarizes, after three-year service to the

master, the seeker might be considered to receive the hırka, which is the patched frock

(ibid.). The relation of the disciple to the master is threefold: by the hırka, by being

instructed in the formula of the zikir, and by sohbet, service and education (ibid.). The

most difficult part starts with the initiation and the disciple walks on the Path under

the guidance of the master and passes through certain spiritual states.71 In a way, this

is the way to acquire irfan in Sufism and the disciple has to enter the closed sphere of

the tarikat for that. Cemalnur Sargut has also a master-disciple relationship with the

ihvan, although the disciples do not receive a hırka anymore. The significant point is

that Sargut does not restrict her activities in the group and reveals the previously

hidden meaning to the public. She indicates that they work for contributing to the

manifestation of the previously hidden meaning with their activities. Thus, they situate

themselves within the framework of a larger project of spreading the divine message.

What does she do in order to achieve this and how does this perspective influence her

language and methods?

The group has a universalistic and perennial character in harmony with the

language of the day to address a larger audience. They use the potential of the Sufi

literature and the Kenan Rifai tradition in formulating a unificatory language. First of

all, they emphasize the sameness of all Sufi paths. Rather than prioritizing their Rifai

71
For an account of these states, see Chapter 4.

75
roots, they emphasize the unity of all tarikats. They frequently express that the tenets

of one tarikat are not enough for the individuals of contemporary era. So, both Sargut

and her mürits reminded me that they read the writings of all Sufi pirs. Cemalnur

Sargut mentions and refers to the sayings and anecdotes of Sufis like Mevlana, İbn

Arabi, Abdulkadir Geylani, Yunus Emre, besides Ahmed er Rifai and Kenan Rifai.

She claims that one of her biggest desires is to eliminate differences and collates the

sayings of different Sufis, which they regard as the same. This emphasis on the unity

of the message of all Sufi tarikats and already exists in the Sufi tradition. What is new

is the way Cemalnur Sargut uses the potential of the tradition today: they attribute

specific features to contemporary era and to the people living in it, whose needs they

represent differently from the people of the previous eras.

Right along with their emphasis on the unity of all tarikats, they emphasize the

unity of the messages of all religions and remind the perennials of the Western world

and Indonesia. Cemalnur Sargut frequently emphasizes the sameness of the

underlying meaning of all religions. She thinks that ehl-i tevhid (ahl al-tawhid)72 see

Allah everywhere regardless of the religion they have adherence. She gives an

anecdote from Ali73 to reveal the sameness of the meaning in all religions. In her

speeches, she says that when Ali heard the sound of church bells, he said “Look, how

beautifully they say ‘Allah, Allah!’”74

72
Tevhid literally means unity. The religious concern of every Muslim is the affirmation of the divine
transcendent unity, tevhid (Renard, 2005, p. 96). It is to seclude the essence and essential character of
God from everything that one’s mind can imagine. In Sufi cosmology, tevhid is seeing the unity in all
existence. This means to see God everywhere and in everything. It is said that the Sufi sees just the
One and knows the One and forgets everything other than the One, which is God (Uludağ, 2001, p.
353). In Sufi cosmology, this state of the Sufi is expressed in the Arabic expression vahdet-i vücud,
which means existential monism. Renard (2005) explains the term as follows: “… The individuality of
the mystic is ultimately annihilated in the being of God. Developing the concept elaborated most
prominently by Ibn al-‘Arabi, some Sufis adopted the metaphor of drop losing itself compeletely in
the ocean of the divine unity” (p. 245).
73
Ali is the forth caliph. For his significance in tasavvuf, see Chapter 2.
74
The group’s stance towards other religions is actually a complicated one, which needs elaboration.
Alhough Sargut emphasizes the unity of religion in the name of tevhid, she also indicates that other
religions become invalid when Islam is revealed. She says that she sees the people who have a strong

76
 The basis of their claim of uniting the “eternal and unchanging” message of

Sufism and all tarikats is the personality and commentaries of Kenan Rifai. They

continuously emphasize that Kenan Rifai addresses everyone, every religion and

every way and everyone finds something from himself/herself in Kenan Rifai (Sargut,

2006.). As we learn from Kenan Rifai’s mürits, he has permission (icazet) from Rifai,

Mevlevi, Kadiri and Şazeli tarikats. Sargut (2006) formulates his personality with

reference to this background in the following words: “Kenan Rifai unites the humility

of the Rifai order, the wisdom of the Kadiri order, the proper way between this and

the other world and the pleasure of living with enthusiasm of the Şazeli order and the

love of the Mevlevi order in his personality” (p. 148). She suggests similar qualities

for the school of Sufi branch she comes from:

I think it is the age of the mystics (mutasavvıfs) that my teacher (Kenan

Rifai) brought up. I believe Semiha Cemal75 is also going to be manifested.
Therefore, the selling of the books of my Mother Samiha in D&R shops
today and the appearance of not only her historical and literary aspects but
of her mystic side demonstrates the magnitude of the need for Mother
Samiha today. I believe that this age is the age of Samiha Ayverdi. It may
be the age of enlightenment with the light of Kenan Rifai. It is not
necessary for him to be alive. We need his understanding of tevhid (p.
227).76

faith in God and whose personalities she likes as Muslims. During our interviews, while mentioning
some Christian friends whose personalities she admires, she said that they were actually Muslims, but
they did not know themselves. Therefore, this aspect of the group can be evaluated better in the context
of the interfaith dialogue. Nevertheless, they have common characteristics with the perennials in the
West.
75
Semiha Cemal is the cousin of Samiha Ayverdi and a mürit of Kenan Rifai. She lived between 1905
and 1936. They were known to be close friends with Samiha Ayverdi since their childhood. She was a
teacher and also one of the first philosophers of Turkey.
76
The translation is mine. “Zannederim ki bu devir hocamın yetiştirdiği mutasavvıfların tanınma
devri. Ben Semiha Cemal Hanım’ın da artık yavaş yavaş aşikar olacağına inanıyorum. Dolayısıyla
Samiha Annemin kitaplarının şimdi D&R’larda satılmaya başlaması, sadece tarih ve edebi yönüyle
değil de mutasavvıf yönüyle de bilinmeye, tanınmaya başlanması, Samiha Anneye ne kadar ihtiyaç
olduğunu da gösteriyor. Bu devrin Samiha Ayverdi devri olduğuna inanıyorum. Belki de Ken’an-er
Rifai’nin ışığıyla aydınlanma devridir. İlla yaşadığı devir olması gerekmiyor. Onun tevhid anlayışına
ihtiyaç var…”

77
Thanks to these characteristics, Sargut thinks that the tradition which she inherited

addresses the individuals’ search for meaning in the modern world and she comes up

with projects for addressing the people in Turkey and in different parts of the world.

Through spreading the message, they want to be part of the movements that become a

bridge between East and the West. Their imaginary of the “West” is important in their

project of revealing the meaning. They again look like the Sufi movements of the

West with their desire of being a bridge between the two worlds. Cemalnur Sargut and

her students frequently emphasize the lack of spirituality and morality in Western

countries. They see the “East” as the home of spirituality and meaning, while seeing

the majority of the “West” as “cold” and like a “nightmare”. This perception

constructs the West as a lack and reverses the relationship between the East and the

West. Thus, they think that they have a lot to give the West and a mission to struggle

with “materialism” of the West. On the other hand, the East appears as the sphere of

peace. In one of the youth sohbets, Cemalnur Sargut mentioned the visit to India they

recently came back from. She told the story of their visit enthusiastically and qualified

India as a place of tevhid. Making a comparison between East and West, she said

“Everywhere was very cold in Europe except three churches. There is tevhid

everywhere in India, young people smile. However, young people are very unhappy in

Europe. Let Allah give them salvation. Let Him grant the peace of the East to the

West.”77 Taking advantage of the opportunities provided by globalization, Cemalnur

Sargut and her students frequently go abroad for various programs and organizations.

Ernst (2005a) mentions one of her journeys to the United States with her women

disciples from Turkey. They also travel to countries in the East like Syria, Egypt,

India, Pakistan and more frequently to Mecca and Medina. They prepare their

77
Youth sohbet on December 16, 2006. “Avrupa’da üç kilise hariç her yer soğuk. Hindistan’da her
yerde tevhid var, gençlerin yüzü gülüyor. Allah hidayet versin. Allah Batı’ya da Doğu’nun huzurunu
nasip etsin.”

78
materials for the global audience; the CD called Dinle (Listen) is a good example with

its English translation. These are part of their investment in the spiritual market of the

day. One of her students gave me the clues of their awareness about the global

orientation towards spirituality. While we were talking about Cemalnur Sargut’s

students’ travels abroad to countries ranging from Europe to the Far East, she told me

that Cemalnur Sargut was shooting the right points and the results of her shoots would

be tremendous. She was very hopeful for seeing the returning result, which they all

hope will meet their efforts exceedingly. Nevertheless, one cannot qualify them as a

global Sufi movement, because they are very different from the movements labeled as

global. Shaykh Zindapir from Pakistan (Werbner, 2003) and Shaykh Nazım of Cyprus

(Atay, 1996) are such movements with their considerable number of adherents in

multiple sites. For the case of Shaykh Zindapir, his Sufi cult is truly a transnational

movement with its extension to Europe, the Middle East and South Africa in his

lifetime and his disciples and his order has a mosque in Britain, lodges and disciples

in different countries (Werbner, 2003). Shaykh Nazım is a Turkish shaykh, who is

active in London and has mürits from migrants from various countries (Atay, 1996).

What I am arguing about Sargut’s group is that, the specific qualities of this

movement cannot be understood devoid of any effects of globalization on Sufi

movements.

Spreading Sufism through “Academic” Ways

Cemalnur Sargut claims to spread the tenets of Sufism through academic ways and

relate this method to her mürşits, Kenan Rifai and Samiha Ayverdi. Since tekkes are

legally prohibited, the mürits of Kenan Rifai anachronistically claim that he would

79
have opened an academy instead of a dergah if the conditions of his era were

different (Ayverdi, Erol, Araz and Huri, 2003). Cemalnur Sargut (2006) indicates

that “What I learned from Mother Samiha and my mother is that the rituals (zikir and

sema) are formal (şekli) worships and the distance that traversed in a hundred years

with zikir can be passed in one second with sohbet”78 (p. 160). According to Sargut

(2006), Kenan Rifai and Samiha Ayverdi established the “tarikat of heart” and taught

them how to educate people within it. She qualifies this as an innovation. She sees

this as spreading tasavvuf through academic ways and teaching the Prophet’s

morality through one’s attitudes or hal and sohbets. The academic ways appear as a

safer form of spreading the message in the context of Turkish society.

The rapid changes that Turkey experiences give religious movements various

new channels for spreading their messages. Sufi movements, which were restricted

by the state in the formative years of the republic, find new areas for maneuvering

especially with the neoliberal state politics of the 1980s. Kuru (2005) asserts that the

result of neoliberal policies of the Özal period led to the gradual elimination of state

monopoly over the media, education and economy in Turkey. Economic

liberalization and the transfer of communication technologies went hand in hand. In

the early 1990s, the state monopoly on television and radio stations ended, the use of

computers and the internet dramatically increased (Kuru, 2005). Yavuz and Esposito

(2003) argue that the historically excluded groups benefited from the new political

opening and activated their indigenous networks in the 1980s. They indicate that

between 1983 and 1990, religious networks were mobilized to offer welfare services,

communal solidarity and mobility to the newly educated classes and businesses in

Turkey. Özal’s expansion of the freedom of association, speech and assembly

78
The translation is mine.

80
removed the state monopoly over the broadcasting system and further facilitated the

communication and dissemination of local and global idioms. As a result of these

factors, Islamic movements started to benefit from these opportunities to shape the

sociopolitical landscape of Turkey (Yavuz and Esposito, 2003). Sufi movements, as

well, take the advantage of this emerging context. Istanbul is particularly a fruitful

ground with the opportunities it presents to Sufi movements, since it has become a

global city where global flows of money, capital, people, ideas, signs and

information have intensified (Keyder, 1999). Sargut’s group uses similar methods to

those of Western Sufi movements in this context. The majority of their audience is

from educated middle class urbanites and Sargut’s method is successful in addressing

them. Below, I will give examples of what they mean by the term “academic.”

The opening of her sohbets to the outsiders who are not from ihvan is a good

indicator of the group’s policy of opening. Sargut conducts sohbets like lectures. She

did not organize lectures for ‘outsiders’ until year 2005. In a two-year period, the

group organized a lecture in Erenköy and a lecture for young people. By the term

outsider, I mean the people who are not from the close circle of the group. As I

learned from the interviews I conducted with the people from her close circle, the

policy of opening is quite new in the history of the group. They told me that they had

to get permission before bringing an outsider to the gatherings two years ago.

However, there are two gatherings open to the public now. Though there is not a

clear-cut distinction, the Erenköy sohbets are primarily open to middle aged people

and there is another group for the youngsters (Gençler Sohbeti). One characteristic of

these groups is that while they were previously organized in one of the group

members’ or sympathizers’ house previously and were not known widely, they had to

find bigger places as the number of participants escalated day by day. Her students

81
indicate that Cemalnur Sargut sees this gradual increase in the demand for her

speeches as a sign from Allah, affirming that they should expand the scale of their

activities and declare them to the public. They said that the Erenköy sohbets were in

an apartment building, but they had to leave since the residents were disturbed by the

crowd. Before I started my fieldwork, the sohbets for the youth used to take place in

one of their friend’s (the word “friend” is used by Cemalnur Sargut) home. However,

as the group became crowded, they moved to a bigger flat that belonged to an

association near the building of Türkkad.

One of the means her group uses effectively is the media. First of all, they

have an internet site whose design was updated in 2007. This is a trend among the

popularizing Sufi movements of the West. Ernst (2005a) observes that there are

dozens of websites representing the Sufi traditions from all over the world today.

Cemalnur Sargut’s website does not merely addresses the audience in Turkey, but the

global audience with its English version. General information about Cemalnur

Sargut, the “elders” of the tradition such as Kenan Rifai, Samiha Ayverdi from

whom Sargut claims to continue the tradition, and information on the key terms of

Sufism can be found on the website. Some articles, publications, parts of her lectures

and conferences and future programs are accessible. Moreover, there is an interactive

“questions and answers” forum on which one can find questions from different cities

of Turkey. Cemalnur Sargut answers these questions with short sentences in basic

and clear language.

During her accounts about their activities in our first interview, Cemalnur

Sargut gave priority to the television and radio programs in which she had

participated. She told me about the lessons on the Mesnevi of Mevlana in Expo

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Channel in 2006. Her lectures are broadcasted in another website about Sufism.79 She

participated in the programs of two different radio channels, one belonging to the

Alevi community, the other to a group of Said Nursi’s followers, in 2006. She

appeared on other TV channels, including the state television channels of TRT. She

continued to take part in television programs during 2007. In the Ramadan, which is

the fasting month for Muslims, she continued to participate in programs organized for

Ramadan.

They organize most of the activities that they call “academic” through

Türkkad. Sargut wants to prioritize what she calls “academic” for their public image

and Türkkad has an important function for this purpose. Although it is an association

established by Samiha Ayverdi in 1966, it increased its activities significantly under

the leadership of Cemalnur Sargut since 2000. This is also related to the opportunities

created by the neoliberal government policies. Today, civil society organizations are

promoted since they are regarded as indispensable elements of contemporary modern

societies. As İpek (2006) argues, we are in the midst of a global “associational

revolution” that may prove to be as significant to the latter twentieth century as the

rise of the nation state was to the latter nineteenth. The last decade witnessed a rise in

the number of civil society organizations in Turkey. Religious groups tend to organize

activities under the umbrella of civil society organizations. Türkmen (2006) argues

that Islamic actors in Turkey conceive foundations (vakıfs) and associations (derneks)

as shelters where they construct themselves as subjects and re-emerge in the public

space. They are seen as instruments for the Islamist social project to integrate into the

system in a legitimate manner. It needs further discussion whether Sufi movements

can be seen as Islamic projects or not. However, Cemalnur Sargut strongly

79
This website is www.semazen.net.

83
emphasizes the “academic” nature of their activities in Türkkad in order to remain

within the limits of the laws that prohibit the institutional practice of Sufism in

Turkey. They effectively use the new space opened for civil society organizations.

An important part of the activities of Türkkad are large-scale international

conferences they organize in collaboration with other civil society organizations and

even with government institutions. The one I participated in and observed was an

international conference with the title “Mevlana and Women” in May, 2007, in

collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and two civil associations called

Uluslararası Mevlana Vakfı (International Mevlana Endowment) and Ailem Derneği

(My Family Association). The theme of the program was Mevlana since the year 2007

was declared “Mevlana Year” by UNICEF. The program took place in Atatürk Kültür

Merkezi (Atatürk Cultural Center-AKM) in the Taksim district of Istanbul. Professors

were invited from universities in Turkey and abroad. Cemalnur Sargut and her

students were active at every phase of the organization. They welcomed the audience

at the tables set in the entrance and presented the materials prepared for the program.

The design of the card on which the program details were published was made by one

of the students of Sargut, whom I knew personally. Sargut mentioned this detail and

expressed her pleasure with the skill of her student during her speech. The figure

designed by the student, which depicted semanzens in an innovative way, was also on

the poster hanging at the back of the scene. I saw the same figures in a film they made

during my last visit to Türkkad. They distributed a ceramic rosette with an illustration

of Mevlana. Cemalnur Sargut was one of the speakers who talked on the issue. In the

middle of the program, a whirling dervish, who was said to be invited from the United

States, appeared on the scene and displayed some parts of the sema ritual of Mevlevi

dervishes.

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 Another international program was organized in 2005 before I started my

fieldwork under the name “Last Prophet’s Birthday” and they repeated a similar

program in 2006. Although I have not been there myself, I could get a good idea by

watching a DVD of the evening Cemalnur Sargut gave me after our first interview.

Accompanying the DVD was a booklet with the transcriptions of the main speeches of

the evening and some pictures. It was published on couchette paper. With this booklet,

they gave me two other books prepared by Türkkad. One was prepared in the name of

the Prophet again and consisted of passages from various Sufis’ interpretation of the

verses of the Kuran. Mevlana, Shaykh Galib, Ahmed er Rifai, Kenan Rifai,

Abdulkadir Geylani, İbn-i Arabi are among these Sufis. There are also passages from

the Bible which are believed to declare the coming of the last Prophet with the words

of Jesus. The other book was written about the life of Mevlana and came with a CD

called Dinle (Listen) that comprises passages from Mevlana with Sufi music. It has

subtitles in English for the international audience.

Cemalnur Sargut also works with another civil society organization established

by the grandchild of Kenan Rifai. He established an endowment called Cenan Vakfı,

which is named after Kenan Rifai’s mother, Hatice Cenan. Sargut indicates that it is

an endowment that aims at “improving Sufism.” She says that the endowment serves

the purpose of spreading Sufism in academic ways, which they think is the way Kenan

Rifai preferred. When I first interviewed Cemalnur Sargut on 7 October 2006, she and

the grandchild of Kenan Rifai had recently started the restoration of Kenan Rifai’s

tekke in Fatih, out of which they wanted to make a museum for Kenan Rifai, and had

raised the dome of the building. The restoration of the semahane80 was finished a

short time before my interview and is claimed to be one of the most famous

80
Semahane is the room or structure where sema ritual takes place.

85
semahanes of its era. The museum is also established to spread Sufism in “academic”

ways. Cemalnur Sargut told me that she wanted the museum to be an open place also

used for sohbets, but the decision was not made by the head of the Cenan Vakfı yet.

Sargut informed me that publications were significant in terms of their

purposes. In our first interview, she told me that they wanted to open a publishing

house in order to publish the writings of many Sufis, regardless of their orders. In my

last interview with her in September 2007, I learned that they had recently opened

the publishing house, which is called Nefes Yayınları. A book called Kenan Rifai ile

Aşka Yolculuk (Journey to Love with Kenan Rifai) was published by another

publishing house called Sufi Kitap in 2006. It consists of the interviews made with

Cemalnur Sargut about Sufism and her mürşit, Kenan Rifai.

In her sohbets, Sargut emphasizes that one should obey a master for being on the

Path. However, she defines tasavvuf as an inward journey and reveals what a person

should do on this Path with the above-mentioned activities. She works for spreading

the tenets of tasavvuf to the public audience. She writes books, appears on television

channels, and answers the questions via her website. Thus, in a way accepts everyone

as her disciple, although not in the conventional way.

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 CHAPTER 4

BETWEEN MODERN SUBJECTIVITY AND NORMATIVITY OF TASAVVUF

The previous chapters focused on Cemalnur Sargut’s group’s public appearance,

image and efforts to survive and address as many people as possible within the

secularized order of Turkey without conflicting with the nation state discourse. This

chapter will elaborate the way the mürits experience tasavvuf in the late modern

context of the day. Firstly, I will discuss the mürits’ subject positions in the context

of the debates around the secularization thesis. Then, I will elaborate on the mürits’

construction of self as a unified religious identity, as well as their subject positions

within the religious field in Turkey. I will give examples from the mürits’ transition

from late modern subjectivity to their submission to the normativity and the truth

regime81 of tasavvuf.

The Disputes on “Secularization or Sacralization” Question

The secularization thesis can simply be defined as the claim that modernization

necessarily leads to a decline of religion both in society and in the minds of

individuals (Berger, 1999, p. 2). Though the thesis was proposed for the experience

of the West, it has relevance for both Western and non-Western societies because the

secularization thesis has always been descriptive and normative (Asad, 2003) It is

descriptive for Western history, and normative for the rest of the world that is

81
I use the term “truth regime” as Foucault uses it. According to Foucault (1980), each society has a
“regime of truth,” which is defined as “the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as
true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the
means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition
of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true” (p. 131)

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supposed and encouraged to desire modernization and westernization. Modernization

and secularization projects make the discussions over the thesis relevant for the

discussions in Turkey. Moreover, thanks to the questioning of the thesis, which

constructs the dichotomy of religious and secular as mutually exclusive categories,

different forms in which the sacred is experienced today began to be questioned.

The roots of this thesis go back to the theories of classical sociologists such as

Durkheim and Weber. Durkheim’s conception of religion is related to his distinction

between mechanical and organic solidarity. What Morris quotes from Durkheim’s

work, Elementary Forms of Religious Life, is meaningful to understand his

conception of the transition from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity. He says:

But if there is one truth that history teaches us beyond doubt, it is that
religion tends to embrace a smaller and smaller portion of social life.
Originally it pervades everything; everything social is religious; the two
worlds are synonymous. Then, little by little, political economic,
scientific functions free themselves from the religious function,
constitute themselves apart and take on a more and more acknowledged
temporal character. God, who was at first present in all human relations,
progressively withdraws from them; he abandons the world to men and
their disputes (1964; cited in Morris 1988, p. 108).

A similar tendency appears in Weber’s work with the concepts of “rationalization”

and “disenchantment of the world.” According to Weber, “The faith of our times is

characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the

‘disenchantment’ of the world. Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have

retreated from public life” (cited in Morris, 1988, pp. 68- 69). As Morris (1988)

elaborates, an increasing systematization of religious ideas and concepts, the growth

of ethical rationalism and the progressive decline of ritual and magical elements in

religion accompany rationalization process in the thought of Weber.

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 This idea about the retreat of religion in the face of secularization and

modernization gained popularity in the 1960s. Bryan Wilson (1966, 1989) and Steve

Bruce (2002) are among the advocates of the secularization thesis. According to

Bryan Wilson (1989), new religious movements are the last ruins of religion and in

reaction to secularization. However, he thinks that these movements serve the

process of secularization since they rationalize understanding and commitment

(ibid.).

Another advocate of the secularization thesis has been Peter L. Berger in the

1960s with his books called A Rumor of Angels (1969a) and The Sacred Canopy

(1969b). However, he criticized the thesis in his recent works. Berger (1999) argues

that the assumption that we live in a secularized world is false. He now thinks that

despite the secularizing effects of modernization, more in some places than in others,

secularization at the societal level is not necessarily linked to secularization at the

level of individual consciousness. He supplements that certain religious institutions

have lost power and influence in many societies, but both old and new religious

beliefs and practices have nevertheless continued in the lives of individuals,

sometimes taking new institutional forms (ibid.). What seems to be the most

significant in his argument is that he asserts that the relation between religion and

modernity is rather complicated (ibid.). In the 1990 edition of A Rumor of Angels,

which had favored the secularization thesis in 1969, Peter L. Berger tells us the line

of change in his ideas:

I was preoccupied with the problem of secularity, and A Rumor of

Angels was an attempt to overcome secularity from within. The third
world taught me how ethnocentric that reoccupation was: Secularization
is today a worldwide phenomenon, that is true, but it is far more
entrenched in North America and in Europe than anywhere else. A more
global perspective inevitably provides a more balanced view of the
phenomenon (p. 134).

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Thus, he thinks that the secularization thesis, which seemed meaningful to him

earlier, is not sufficient to understand today’s societies. Though he does not see it

simply as a mistake, he acknowledges that both the extent and the inexorability of

secularization have been exaggerated, even in Europe and North America, much

more so in other parts of the world. He thinks that modernization is not a unilinear

process, but a process in ongoing interaction with countervailing forces and we

should look at secularization in the same way- as standing in an ongoing interaction

with counter-secularizing forces (ibid., p. 137). He sees the necessity of exploring the

details of this interaction.

One of the developments undermining the relevance of the secularization

thesis is the global rise of religious movements. Various kinds of religious and

spiritual movements are analyzed and the secularization claim is reviewed with

reference to these movements. The proposition that the secularization process leads

to the extinction of religion in all segments of societies is questioned. Daniel Bell, in

the article he wrote in 1977, anticipates a return of the sacred and the rise of new

religious modes. He supports his argument with reference to Bellah: “To concentrate

on the church in a discussion of the modern religious situation is already misleading

for it is precisely the characteristic of the new situation that the great problem of

religion... the symbolization of man’s relation to the ultimate conditions of his

existence, is no longer the monopoly of any groups labeled religious” (p. 443).

The project of secularization, which has been constructed as a sine qua non of

modernization for non-Western societies by the hegemonic modernist discourse, has

led to hybrid imaginaries and practices in these societies. Despite the fact that the

perceptions and practices of different groups in different societies are not

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independent from the grand narratives of hegemonic modernist discourse and macro

processes, these imaginaries and perceptions should be investigated within their

particularities. The critiques of the secularization thesis point out that religion and

belief are experienced in diverse forms today. The common theme of these critiques

is that the observed decrease in institutionalized forms of religion should not be

interpreted as a decrease in belief. The studies on religion and faith in Western

societies indicate that while Christianity survives outside the institution of the

church, new religious movements and diverse spiritual orientations have commonly

surfaced in today’s societies (Davie, 1999; Luckman, 1974; Heelas and Woodhead,

2006). There are studies arguing that religion has begun to be experienced

individually and in subjective lives outside religious institutions. Though it is

problematic to make a clear-cut distinction between institutionalized and

noninstitutionalized religion, the studies on the so-called new forms of religiosity and

spirituality are noteworthy for seeing the variety of forms in which the sacred is

experienced today. For instance, Grace Davie (1999) comes up with the term

“believing without belonging” for the way English people experience religion in

uninstitutionalized forms. She suggests that despite the fact that the rate of church

attendance decreases among English people, they continue to believe in God.

According to her, the fact that they do not feel attachment to the church does not

mean a decrease in belief.

Luckman is among the sociologists who criticize the identification of church

and religion and expresses his dissatisfaction with the limitations of various

empirical studies in the sociology of religion. Luckman (1974) draws attention to

individual religiosity and argues that “once the sociology of religion uncritically

takes it for granted that church and religion are identical it blinds itself to its most

91
relevant problem” (pp. 26-27). He thinks that religion is increasingly becoming a

“subjective” and “private” reality as a result of the institutional specialization of

modern society (ibid.). According to him, individuals do not abandon their search for

meaning, but look for it outside the church (ibid.).

Together with his critique of the secularization thesis, Peter L. Berger (1999)

comes up with a “desecularization thesis.” While looking at the global scene today,

he also gives examples from Turkey and says that Islamic revival is not restricted to

less modernized segments of society, but it is very strong in cities with a high degree

of modernization (ibid.). He gives the example of many daughters of secularized

professionals in Turkey and Egypt and says that they are wearing “the veil and other

accoutrements of Islamic modesty” (p. 8). I think visible symbols such as the veil

should not be seen as evidence of desecularization. The subjectivities of the group

members should be investigated with their own particularities and the evaluation of

secularization and desecularization should be done for particular cases. Should we

categorize the mürits of Cemalnur Sargut as “secularized” or desecularized”

subjects? At first sight, Cemalnur Sargut’s group seems to be a modernized Sufi

group having no conflicts with modern secular society. However, further analysis

suggests the intricacy in their relationship to modernity, harboring conflicts and

tensions. In a way, they deconstruct the religious and secular dichotomy. In the

following part, I will analyze their religious identities within the late modern context

of the day. Where can we situate Cemalnur Sargut’s mürits, a society of ihvan, in the

secularized order of Turkish society?

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 Subjective Turn and the Search for Meaning

There is a tremendous interest in spirituality, including Islamic mysticism, in today’s

world. However, this kind of an orientation was actually presupposed by sociologists

of religion for decades. For instance, Peter Berger (cited in Şentürk, 2004) had

supposed a return to Christianity and Judaism in the 70s, but not to the esoteric

doctrines of the Eastern world, despite the new religious movements that arose in the

US in the 1960s. Daniel Bell, in The Return of the Sacred which he wrote in 1977,

mentions the “multiplicity of exotic consciousness-raising movements” such as “Zen,

yoga, tantra, I Ching” and regards them as an illustration of the search in this

multiple, discordant world for the authentic “I” (p. 443). Besides, with reference to a

historian, he believes that America, in the mid-seventies, has launched on the

“biggest introspective binge in any society in history has undergone” (p. 443). I will

relate this “introspective binge” to modernity and specifically to the conditions of

late modernity.

Turkey is not exempt from the above mentioned current. One of the most

apparent clues of this trend of the society is the circulation rate of the books which

are recently classified as “spiritual books.” The books classified as “spiritual” are

estimated to constitute half of Turkey’s publishing sector of five hundred million

YTL (Özkartal, 2007). For instance, the book called “The Secret,” which had global

popularity in 2007, sold 125 thousand in four weeks, while a book of Orhan Pamuk,

a writer with the Nobel prize, is said to have sold 250 thousand since 1994. These

books are mostly about the power of one’s thoughts and encourage the individual to

“turn inwards”. A similar trend is observed in books about Sufism. Publishing houses

such as İz, İnsan, Kaknüs, Gelenek, Sufi Kitap, Keşkül have published a lot of books

93
of local or foreign authors on Sufism in recent years. These books can be regarded as

indicators of the rising interest in towards spirituality in general and Sufism in

particular.

How can we explain the interest of modern subjects in inward journeys in the

midst of a social milieu that is expected to be more “rational” and “disenchanted”?

Recent works on spirituality offer an insight to the matter. A recent work conducted

in the town of Kendal in Britain analyzes the tremendous interest in spirituality and

the decrease in the followers of institutionalized religion (Heelas and Woodhead,

2006). The findings of their research indicate that the sacred is experienced in a

subjective fashion in that Western town. In line with the common distinction of

recent years, the authors distinguish between “religion” and “spirituality” and come

up with the “spiritual revolution thesis.” Religion is used for more institutionalized

versions of religion and spirituality is used for the totality of universal values

regarding belief and mostly more individualized forms. Similarly, Heelas and

Woodhead make a distinction between “life-as,” or the “congregational” domain and

“subjective life” or “holistic milieu.” The key value of the former is claimed to be

“conformity to an external authority,” while the latter’s value is said to be “the

authentic connection with the inner depths of one’s unique life-in-relation” (p. 4).

They sum up their idea that “the great historical bond between Western cultures and

a Christianity whose characteristic mode is to appeal to transcendent authority is

rapidly dissolving,” and in its place they are “seeing the growth of a less regulated

situation in which the sacred is experienced in intimate relationship with subjective-

lives” (p. 10). This distinction seems problematic for the case of my fieldwork, since

congregational bonds and subjective spiritual experiences go side by side in this case.

Heelas and Woodhead are also aware of their case’s particularity and shortcomings

94
in claiming the incompatibility between religion and spirituality and they express its

insufficiency for explaining spirituality experienced by mystic Christian circles

having bonds with the church and they call it “life-as spirituality” (pp. 5-6).

Nevertheless, their arguments about the “massive subjective turn of the modern

culture” and the “subjectivization thesis” seem operative in analyzing the rising

interest in spiritual tenets, new age religion and also Sufism in the Western world and

among the urban middle and upper class subjects of modernizing societies.

The argument is that the massive subjective turn experienced by

contemporary modern Western societies, which is becoming increasingly influential,

leads to the prioritization of subjective well-being to material necessities and

securities of life. This culture is claimed to be influential in all fields of life, ranging

from family to business lives. For instance, “the disciplined family of traditional

values has increasingly been replaced by the expressive family of emotional bonds,”

“the hierarchical command structure of the old-style business” has to compete with

“more fluid and individual worker-centered systems” and “educational provisions

have shifted in emphasis from authoritative teaching of the facts of the matter to

‘bringing out’ the abilities of the child” (pp. 79-80). “The ethic of subjectivity” is at

work everywhere with the value attached to self expression and fulfillment, to doing

“what feels right”, “following your heart”, “being true to yourself”, cultivating

“emotional intelligence” (p. 80). They suggest that “the success of holistic spiritual

teachings is linked to their ability to cater for the subjective turn” and that “the

growth of subjective-life spiritualities owes a great deal to the fact that they attract

people who are already involved with the culture of subjective well-being” (p. 83).

Though it is not sufficient to understand all the processes about the sacred in

contemporary Western societies, the subjectivization thesis and the culture of well-

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being explain the attraction of an increasing number of people to spirituality and also

to Sufism. Hermansen (2004) relates the popularity of Sufi movements in America to

Americans’ interest in experiential modes of spirituality and claims that “the

American religious style is increasingly embracing the spiritual” (p. 38). Many

shaykhs in America are said to add psychology and psychotherapy to their spiritual

training. This process is called the “psychologization of religion” or the

“sacralization of psychology.”

The subjectivization thesis should not be taken to explain all religious and

spiritual experiences in all societies today in a general fashion. This kind of an

approach generalizes the experience of Western subjects to other parts of the world

and is misleading. If we talk about Sufism and Sufi orders in Turkey, religion and

belief are experienced in many different forms. Hierarchies and traditional rituals

pervade some of the Sufi orders both in rural and urban spheres. However, the

subjectivization thesis seems operational for the case of Cemalnur Sargut’s group, in

which the majority of the members are from upper middle class segments of the

urban sphere of a country that has experienced modernization and secularization.

Istanbul, like the other metropols of the world, is increasingly witnessing an

inclination towards new religions and subjective spiritual experiences, especially

among the middle and upper middle classes. However, the position of the people

around Cemalnur Sargut should be analyzed together with the spiritual revolution

claim and the conditions of late modernity.

The primary motivation of the people around Cemalnur Sargut appears to be

the search for a meaning in an increasingly disenchanted social field. There may or

may not be a period of depression or deep pain. This is the case for both the people

who are “ihvan by birth” or who encountered Cemalnur Sargut’s group in different

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periods of their life courses. For instance, Dilek and Yağmur stressed their negative

psychological states in narrating their involvement with the group, although they are

ihvan by birth. However, Öznur did not mention a negative psychological state in her

personal narrative. Psychological problems, mostly depression, are factors driving

the subjects towards the mürşit, especially in the in case of subjects that did not feel

attachment to the group even if their families were from ihvan.

I encountered Dilek during my first meeting with Cemalnur Sargut in

Türkkad and I learned her story in my first interview with her and Öznur there.

Irmak, who is one of the people with whom I became close but whom I could never

interview, refused to talk even in the first instance. Both Dilek’s and Öznur’s

families had close relationships with the group in different cities. Öznur’s parents

lived in Isparta and Konya in her childhood and they had a connection with Samiha

Ayverdi and Kenan Rifai through a woman they call N. Teyze (Aunt N.) in the city of

Isparta. They also participated in the sohbets of another man they mention as

“grandfather” (dede) who was a mürit of Kenan Rifai in Konya. Öznur told me that

like Samiha Ayverdi who continued the sohbets of Kenan Rifai as his mürit in

Istanbul, M. Dede (Grandfather M.), who died in 2005, did so in Konya. Like her

parents, Öznur was under the guidance of N. Teyze until she was twelve years old.

When they went to Konya, she was under the guidance of M. Dede until she came to

Istanbul from Konya after university. She did not mention a period when she was not

under the control of a mürşit. Her story is a story of being the member of ihvan by

birth. However, Dilek’s story is different. She told me that during a depression when

she was twenty years old and wanted to leave university, her mother, who had

already known Mother Meşkure and Cemalnur Sargut since her childhood, took

Dilek from Ankara to Istanbul in search of a remedy for her depression. Sohbets were

97
not open to the public that time, in the year 1997, and she participated in the monthly

sohbets of Meşkure Sargut and the youth sohbets of Cemalnur Sargut in the houses

of ihvan. After this event, she says that she encountered some “miracles” which

prevented her from giving up her university education. She indicated that depression

and school were just causes on the surface for her way to the mürşit. She said that

she was not an atheist before this encounter, but she did not “have a good

relationship with Allah” and a deep faith. She said that she started to pray five times

a day, stopped consuming alcohol and gradually quit “undesirable manners” like

gossiping, arrogance, criticizing others. She told me that she experienced the feeling

of giving up everything with the “love of Allah”. Her primary emphasis was on this

love that they claim Cemalnur Sargut introduces to the youth.

Yağmur also narrates her story as a story of escape from depression and

search for a meaning in life. While she was living as a child in Ankara, she had

problems with her father, who was also a religious man but from a more strict, şeriat-

oriented group according to the description of Yağmur. She was sometimes in

depression during the elementary school years and her mother, who already had a

relationship with Samiha Ayverdi’s group, read the Mesnevi of Mevlana, and Samiha

Ayverdi’s book Dost (Friend), which is about Kenan Rifai’s life and consists of parts

of his sohbets. She told me that she did not experience a radical rapture and already

had relationships with the group since her childhood, but she became more active for

the last four years after coming to Istanbul for her academic career. She was also

taken to a psychologist, but she characterizes her encounter with the group and

reading the basic texts of tasavvuf as a turning point in her life.

What attracted my attention in the interviews was the stress of the people on

their search for meaning and their inward journeys while narrating their life stories.

98
The way they narrate their stories overlaps with the language of late modernity. They

assert that they found the meaning of life thanks to the tenets of Sufism, sometimes

during a depression and a life crisis. This is a pattern I witnessed both in youngsters’

and middle-aged people’s accounts. Giddens (1991) claims that “What to do? How to

act? Who to be? are focal questions for everyone living in the circumstances of late

modernity” (p. 70). He acknowledges that the search for self-identity is a modern

problem having its origins in Western individualism. He claims that although

attributes relevant to identity already existed in medieval Europe, the various stages

of life were “governed by institutionalized processes and the individuals’ role in

them was relatively passive” (pp. 74-75). He quotes that therapy and significantly

self therapy are crucial parts of the so-called self-realization, and self-therapy is

grounded in the individual’s own reflexivity and continuous self-observation, which

includes the individual’s asking “What do I want for myself?” in each moment of

life. This continuous self-observation necessitates one’s listening to his/her inner

wishes constantly. Therefore, the individual self is constructed as a “reflexive

project, for which the individual is responsible. We are, not what we are, but what we

make of ourselves” (p. 75). These accounts overlap with the concept of the massive

subjective turn and the “culture of wellbeing” Heelas and Woodhead (2006) came up

with. The significant value of the culture of wellbeing is to be “treated as a uniquely

valuable person, finding out about oneself, expressing oneself, discovering one’s

own way of becoming all that one can (reasonably) be” (p. 81). This is also in

harmony with the merging of religion and psychology, or the psychologization of

religion. These questions of the self facilitate the orientation of late modern subjects

towards various forms of religion and spirituality. Self questioning, questioning of

the nefis, and self-reflexivity have always been a part of Islamic and Sufi tradition.

99
However, it can be said that the idiom of Sufism and its tradition successfully

address the imaginaries of late modern subjects, who are already a part of the culture

of wellbeing and a cultural field naturalizing self-reflexivity. The religious

understanding of the people around Cemalnur Sargut is entangled with their search

for psychological wellbeing and inner peace in the initial period of their relationships

with the group.

The search for meaning and constant self observation are the primary themes

of the middle-aged women I talked to. The other important emphasis is the lack of

morality in today’s society and their search for people of good moral character. I

encountered with three middle aged women who do not work anymore and spend

most of their time with Cemalnur Sargut in Türkkad or for other activities they

organize or participate in. I interviewed two of these women and conversed with the

other one at the end of the sohbet for the youngsters. I conducted interviews with

Ahsen and İpek, the aunt of Ceren, during my second visit to Türkkad. They were in

the middle of a crowded meeting with Cemalnur Sargut as part of Türkkad’s

activities, so we had the interviews in a small room of the flat. They notably dwelled

on their existential searches before becoming mürits. Before Samiha Ayverdi and

Cemalnur Sargut, they seemed to display the features of late modern subjectivity in

urban life. When I asked them their stories with the group, they divided their life

courses into two periods: before finding their spiritual guide, their mürşit, and

afterwards.

Like most of the group members, İpek was a very polite, elegant, smart and

well-groomed woman with smooth motions and a velvet voice. Her appearance

reminded me of the advice of Cemalnur Sargut Ceren had mentioned to me. The

women were supposed to be well-cared for and nice. My following observations

100
showed me that most of the women around Cemalnur Sargut were following the

polite Istanbulite woman style, which was common among the old urbanite women

of Istanbul, and this was the upper class style of Samiha Ayverdi. İpek is forty four

years old and married with two children. İpek’s story is not one of deep sorrows or

conversion from atheism. Her father was a religious man of tarikat, a mürit of the

Nakşibendi order. İpek said that she used to have a good moral character, was not a

naughty person, but she did not have the concept of a spiritual guide, a mürşit, and

was “looking for something”. She told me a story of education in finance in the

United States and a distinguished career in the stock exchange in Istanbul during its

initial periods of institutionalization. However, that sector seemed wrong to her:

It did not look appropriate for my moral outlook. For things that are not
much related to money, there may be approaches that are not so honest. I
was working as a manager and I was signing many documents. My time
was up there and my heart may have felt like that. Also there is love for
ilim. After giving a break, I took an Executive MBA degree. I was not
the type of person that sits alone at home. One could have become a
[high rank] manager. But that was not it either; I did not have such
desires. So many business offers from various friends. When you get into
the finance sector early, you are promoted very fast. Many people
became firm owners. When I wanted to leave that time, many said, come
and manage our firms, they wanted to hand their firms over. I realized
that I had nothing to do with money. My feet went backwards.82

She was not working and her child was not very young anymore. She seems to have

felt a satisfaction with material wealth and had an orientation towards her inward

world. She had a neighbour from ihvan. She had told her neighbour about her search

for something that she herself did not know and was invited to Mother Meşkure’s

82
Interview with İpek on December 29, 2006. “Ahlak anlayışıma çok uygun delmedi. Parayla iç içe
olmayan şeylerde çok dürüst olmayan yaklaşımlar olabiliyor. Yönetici olarak çalışıyordum, çok da
imza atıyordum. Benim orda miadım dolmuş ve gönlüm öyle hissetmiş de olabilir. İlim aşkı da var.
Biraz ara verdikten sonra executive MBA yaptım biraz kendimi dinledikten sonra. Evde oturacak
insan değildim. Yönetici olur insan dedim. O da değil, öyle bir isteğim de yoktu. Bir sürü iş teklifleri
arkadaşlardan. Finans sektörüne erken girince çok hızlı yükseliyorsunuz. Bir sürü insan şirket sahibi
oldu. O dönemde ayrılmak istediğimde gel bizim şirketimizi yönet dediler, şirketlerini teslim etmek
istediler. Para falan hiç işim olmadığını fark ettim. Ayaklarım geri gitti.”

101
sohbet. She was impressed with Meşkure Sargut’s advices to her friend who had

psychological problems those days, chiefly due to the sentence “You will turn pain

into honey.” She said that she was influenced by the similarities between the

psychologist’s and Meşkure Sargut’s methods. She was also motivated by her

friend’s saying “You do not seem so ignorant”. She used this phrase about her

knowledge on religion. She said:

I was curious about what she was filled with. But instead of saying ‘So
what?’ everybody needs some ambition. I wanted to go to her sohbet.
There was a difference in Ahsen’s behaviors. I went there not because I
needed to, but because I wanted to learn what was there. I did not know
what kind of people I was about to meet. There was the sohbet of sister
Cemalnur in the house and you could enter only by her own permission.
After listening to her sohbet for the first time, I said I cannot be at any
other place.83

She said that after the encounter she began to compare the capitalist world and the

new world she was facing:

In the financial sector, relationships are based on interest and they are so
artificial. They approached me since I had knowledge. I felt as if I
wanted to cry out “Hey you, crowds of human beings out there, what are
you doing, the real life is here, come and see!” I changed my ways, I said
welcome to anybody who wanted to continue with me. We still meet
with people that I used to see with my husband but it's not a pleasure for
me, I do it as a task. I feel as if I don't have any relationship with the
people I used to meet and go to cafes with. If I ever have any spare time,
I sit at home and read or write something. I said to myself that the real
life is here, to be alive and fresh.84

83
Interview with İpek on December 29, 2006. “Onun dolusunun içinde ne var merak ettim. Aman
bana ne yerine, herkese bir miktar hırs lazım. Onun sohbetine gitmek istedim. Ahsen’in halinde
tavrında da bir farklılık vardı. İhtiyacım var diye değil, ne var burada diye gittim. Nasıl insanlarla
karşılaşacağım bilmiyorum. Cemalnur Abla’nın sohbeti var, evde ve ancak müsaade ile
gidebiliyorsunuz. İlk kez sohbetini dinledikten sonra dedim ki ben başka bir yerde olamam.”
84
Interview with İpek on December 29, 2006. “Finans sektöründe ilişkiler çok sahtedir, çok çıkar
üzerinedir. Bilgim olduğu için bana yaklaşıyorlardı. Haykırmak geliyordu dışarıdaki insan
kalabalıklarına: ‘Ne yapıyorsunuz, bakın hakiki hayat burada, siz de gelin!’ gibi bir haleti ruhiye
içerisine girdim. Yolumu değiştirdim, benimle devam etmek isteyene buyurun gelin diyordum. Eşimle
birlikte görüştüğüm insanları görmeye devam ediyoruz ama bayılmıyorum, görev icabı gidiyoruz.

102
She told me that everyone was very surprised by her decision to leave work. She said

“How could they understand my reasons for leaving with their material criteria?”

She was a stereotypical upper middle class, well-educated urban woman from

the service sector. With the acceleration of economic liberalization in the 1990’s, she

was saturated with material earnings. Her social field, like most of the people in

ihvan, is the field of late capitalist society. Ahsen is another middle-aged woman

displaying similar characteristics with İpek. She told me about her search for a

meaning in life in her early twenties, while she was a university student in Ankara.

She is forty-two years old and married with one child. She categorizes people into

three groups: The ones that do not question why they come to life and why they live,

the ones that ask such questions but cannot get an answer and the ones who ask these

questions and insist on finding an answer. She situates herself in the last group. The

people in the third group are claimed to find a mürşit if Allah grants and to discover

themselves thanks to the mürşit. She told me that she had a questioning mind. She

said that she was surrounded by people who claimed to fulfill the requirements of

Islam. She said:

In our house, we used to fast and pray but there was no answer for why
you were doing this. Did our Prophet fight for a prayer or for fasting or
was there any other thing behind this? It is the need to go deeper and
that's when you submit to Sufism. I was a university student of 22 and
did not know what I was searching for. I read all the books of all Islamic
scholars but I said ‘No, this is not what I am looking for’. If Islam was
this, it was impossible for me to do what it demanded. I wanted someone
in the twenty first century to explain why did the Prophet come, why was
he sent, what should I do, what I should not do?85

Gezdiğim kafelere gittiğim arkadaşlarımla ilişkim yok gibi. Boş vaktim varsa da evde birşeyler
okuyor, yazıyor oluyorum. Hakiki hayat, canlı ve diri olmak buraymış dedim.”
85
Interview with Ahsen, December 29, 2006. “Oruç tutuluyordu namaz kılınıyordu bizim evde ama
niye yapıyorsun sorusunun cevabı yok. Peygamber efendimiz bir namaz iki oruç diye mi mücadele
verdi, yoksa içinde başka bir şey mi var? Derine girme ihtiyacı, o zaman da tasavvufa giriyorsun. Ne

103
While she was in search of books in a library, she faced the book of Kenan Rifai,

Kenan Rifai ve Yirminci Asrın Işığında Müslümanlık. She said she was ignorant then

although she was praying five times a day and did not know anything about Sufi pirs.

She thought that Kenan Rifai was the person to teach Islam to her in this century and

she “entered the city of the Prophet through the door of their master”. She was

twenty-five years old in 1990 and was married with one child that time. When her

child grew up a little bit, she began to participate in the sohbets of Meşkure Sargut

and the Mesnevi sohbets of Cemalnur Sargut.

These examples demonstrate the persistence of existential questions and the

lack of “fillers” for the feeling of lack that the upper classes in the urban field of

Turkish society feel. This situation resembles the arguments of sociologists on the

return to religion in Western societies. One argument is that science and ideologies

cannot answer the existential needs of the individuals in the modern world, thus

religion returns as an alternative. Peter L. Berger and Daniel Bell are among the

prominent sociologists advocating this outlook (cited in Şentürk, 2004). According to

Berger, the reason behind the return to the sacred is that secular world views cannot

answer deep questions about human existence, “from where, “to where” and “why”

questions because of their intrinsic weakness (p. 99). He sees this return as a

manifestation of the limitations of secularity. Similarly, Bell (1977) also advocates

these limitations and relates his estimates for the rise of new religious modes to his

idea that religion is a constitutive aspect of the human experience since it is a

response to the existential questions. Luckman is among the scholars problematizing

aradığımı bilmiyordum, 22 yaşında üniversite talebesiydim. Bütün İslam alimlerinin kitabını okudum,
‘Yok bunda yok’ dedim. İslamiyet buysa bunları yapmama imkan yok, bunları bana 21 yüzyılda
anlatan insan istiyorum niye geldi peygamber niye yolladı, ben ne yapmalıyım, ne yapmamalıyım?”

104
the relationship of individuals in modern society to the social order. His arguments

about modern society are parallel with those of Weber. According to Luckman

(1974), as the prevalent norms in the various institutional areas, especially economics

and politics, were increasingly legitimated by functional rationality, and the more

autonomous and rational the specialized institutional areas became, the less intimate

was their relation to the transcendent sacred cosmos (p. 101xx). So, the autonomous

institutional “ideologies” are claimed to replace the transcendent universe of norms.

However, Luckman also dwells on the influences of this process on subjective lives.

He further proposes that “This, precisely, constitutes the key problem for the relation

of the ‘modern’ individual to the social order. In the long run, isolated institutional

‘ideologies’ were incapable of providing a socially prefabricated and subjectively

meaningful system of ‘ultimate’ significance” (p. 101). Luckman relates his

arguments to the faith of totalitarianism in modern societies and sees them as

attempts of transforming “institutional” ideologies into encompassing world views.

Another argument for the interest in new religious movements is that these

movements fulfill the desires of the people that remain unfulfilled due to the process

of secularization. Since traditional religions are claimed to fail this function, new

orientations appear (Şentürk, 2004). This seems to be valid also for new forms of

tasavvuf, which aim at attracting a wide audience.

Cemalnur Sargut’s group should not be categorized among the new religious

movements, but it has similarities and intersections with the idiom of new religious

movements. It particularly has similarities with the Sufi movements in the West.86

They also differ from more traditional, şeriat-oriented Sufi groups in Turkey, even

from the ones in the urban field of Istanbul. Cemalnur Sargut makes some crucial

86
For an account of these intersections, see Chapter 3.

105
articulations with the root paradigms87 of tasavvuf in order to address the desires of

the late modern subjects around herself. One of the desires appears to be finding a

meaning in life. They do not claim that they are just performing the necessities of

religion. They constantly refer to the deep meanings they are looking for and

Cemalnur Sargut comes up with batıni (esoteric) interpretations of all events and the

data they have in the vast Sufi literature. The second motivation behind their search

seems to be the desire of finding people of good moral character. They

overemphasize the lack of morality in capitalist society. Yeşim, who is the third

middle aged-woman I conversed with in the group, also had left her hectic work life

behind. After the sohbet and with the hymns in the background, she told me that she

had worked in the department of foreign trade for a long time in an extremely tiring

pace, but now she was following her spiritual needs. She looked for peace in going

from one sohbet to the other. She was also in the chorus of Kubbealtı Cemiyeti and

accompanied the hymns with her well-trained voice. Her main emphasis was the

wearing and consuming nature of modern life. She set her eyes on the wall and

recited a poem on the consuming life and artificial relationships among the people in

Istanbul. It is not only the middle aged members of ihvan who stress the artificial

nature of modern urban life. Ceren also stressed the same theme. While mentioning

her short work experience in New York, she said “I also worked in New York. The

conditions of work are worse there, because you know that they can scheme behind

87
I use the term “root paradigm” as Mardin (1989) uses it for understanding the effect of Said Nursi.
He employs the term “root paradigm,” which is used in order to “characterize clusters of meaning
which serve as cultural ‘maps’ for individuals; they enable persons to find a path in their own culture”
(p. 3).

106
you even when you go to the lavatory. This is inhuman and against the basic needs of

the human beings.”88

The critique of consumer society and of the meaning it pretends to give to the

individual are a part of their common discourse. The institution of the family is also

one of the indispensables of the group. The dissolution of the family institution is

part of their critique of modern society. They also think that tasavvuf leads to the

strengthening of the family institution. They are against extra-marital relations and

see the family as the guarantee of teaching moral values to the new generations. For

instance, Ahsen criticizes the United States for the prevalence of adultery and the

dissolution of families. These accounts show that the group, whose members are

engaged in late modern conditions and the modern capitalist system, are motivated to

join the group by the conditions of their social strata which display similarities with

the conditions of the modern West. Therefore, the reasons purported for the “return

of the sacred” have validity for the case of Cemalnur Sargut’s group. Another

explanation behind the spread of new religious movements is that traditional

religions create the feeling of belonging and close relationships by furnishing

congregational relations and a sincere social milieu. These bonds are claimed to be

broken off because of modern social policies and economic regulations. Therefore,

the need for close and sincere relations are in a way filled by the relational network

of religious groups (Şentürk, 2004).

Another feature of the mürits showing the characteristics of modern

individuality is their emphasis on “choice.” The factor of choice preserves its

significance for the issues of existential questions and the search for meaning.

Luckman (1974) explains this perception with the following sentences:

88
Interview with Ceren, November 28, 2006. “Ben New York’ta da çalıştım. Orada iş koşulları daha
da kötü, çünkü sen tuvalete gittiğinde dahi arkandan bir şey çevirebileceklerini biliyorsun. İnsanlık
dışı bir şey. İnsanın en temel ihtiyaçlarına aykırı.”

107
 Yet, with the pervasiveness of the consumer orientation and the sense of
autonomy, the individual is more likely to confront the culture and the
sacred cosmos as a “buyer.” Once religion is defined as a “private affair”
the individual may choose from the assortment of “ultimate” meanings as
he sees fit-guided only by the preferences that are determined by his
social biography (p. 99).

Grace Davie (1999) comes up with similar arguments indicating the domination of

the capitalist market logic over the lives of modern individuals in all spheres of life.

According to her, “not only do we purchase our material requirements, we then shop

around for our spiritual needs” (p. 39). Besides being the mentality of the capitalist

society, maybe more significantly, it reminds us of the desire which an indispensable

ingredient of modernity triggers: the “freedom of choice” and autonomy in the

private life. This finds expression in formulation of Hervieu Legér (2002):

...the awareness has grown that the concept of modernity takes in more
than the advance of scientific thought and of the technical mastery of the
world. It encompasses affirmation of the autonomy of the individual.
And by degrees in the development of Western democratic societies this
has come to incorporate the demand for individual freedom in private life
(p. 112).

Including Cemalnur Sargut, all of the group members mentioned their initial desire to

“choose” what to believe by themselves. As a young girl, Cemalnur Sargut had told

her mother, Meşkure Sargut, who was a mürit of Kenan Rifai, not to force her for

anything. In the end, she yielded to the path of her parents, but it was crucial for her

to decide by herself. The factor of choice seems to be a prerequisite for a “conscious”

decision. The component of “choice” in the identity construction and a critical

distance towards one’s identity and a conscious identification process are modern

phenomena. This emphasis on “consciousness” in the construction of religious

identities also appears in the narratives of some other Muslim groups on which there

108
are ethnographic studies in Turkey. For instance, Saktanber based her fieldwork on

the residents of a middle class site established by people with the desire of living as

“conscious” Muslims in their own space. The emphasis of these people on

“consciousness” is strong (Saktanber, 2002). We can see a similar emphasis in the

fieldwork of Ewing (2000a) among covered university students in Istanbul. Based on

her fieldwork in Istanbul during the summers of 1993 and 1997, she proposes that the

concept of “consciousness” is central to the articulation of identity among the

covered women she met. The “choice” factor is what they think distinguishes them

from the “unconscious” Muslims. Ewing argues that the “not-self” or the other of

these women is the “traditional.” The covered women, who characterize themselves

as “conscious” Muslims that decide to cover as an act of personal choice, draw a

contrast with women who wear a headscarf out of “habit” and so “unconsciously.”

As conscious Muslims, they claim self-awareness. The comparison of these women

with the students of Cemalnur Sargut seems meaningful, because both claim to have

access to, though not claiming to practice perfectly, ‘true’ Islam in the contested and

controversial religious field of Turkey. All of them claim self-awareness and are

educated individuals. However, their constructed “others” differ.

Ehl-i Tasavvuf: The “Middle Way”

The middle way has broad meanings in Islam. It is said that it is the way of the

Prophet, but the interpretation of the middle way differs for different groups. When I

asked Cemalnur Sargut their understanding of middle way, she said that it is such a

beautiful way since it is the way of the Prophet. However, rather than the broad

109
meaning, I will sociologically analyze what the middle way refers to in their identity

construction in the context of Turkey.

The students of Cemalnur Sargut are members of an urban, educated social

milieu of reflexive subjectivity that triggers a search for meaning and identity. They

criticize the common religious perception of Turkish society at large. They start

criticizing from their families. One aspect of their criticism is the lack of questioning

and self awareness in practicing Islam. In the cases of Ahsen and İpek, we can see

that they are from religious and practicing families and their fathers are from other

Sufi orders and motivated their daughters to adhere to Islamic practices such as

praying five times a day and fasting. However, they do not find their level of

consciousness enough. İpek mentioned her father’s insistence on her praying five

times a day and covering her head. However, she said that she found the meaning she

was looking for when she first listened to the sohbets of Meşkure Sargut.

Then, what is their definition of consciousness? They claim to be in the

“middle way,” which is defined as being in the middle of “materialism” and ehl-i

taassub (ahl al-taassub). Materialists constitute one of the others of their identity.

Cemalnur Sargut frequently criticizes what she calls materialism and lack of meaning

in Western society. They address the source of materialism as “wrong Atatürkism”

(Atatürkçülük). Ahsen told me that these people are enemies of religion in the name

of Atatürkçülük. For instance, she thinks that the Kuran should be taught to children

before the age of twelve, but it is not allowed in Turkey today. She accuses them of

ignorance (cehalet). According to her, Atatürk had the understanding of “true Islam”

but the people who misunderstand Atatürk associate materialism with Atatürkçülük

and cling to material in the name of Westernization. She thinks that Westernization is

not actually materialism and the West has nothing worth imitating today:

110
 In Europe, there are Bibles at the bedsides in hotels. You don't inform
your own children about your religion. Their minds are filled up with
pebbles and sand. Atatürk would dispatch these people who take
themselves as Atatürkists with gun. To be Western is not leaning on
material. There's nothing to be fond of. People commit suicide. People
use churches only for weddings. Europe has become atheist. Leftists say
that they have fallen behind because of Islam. Today the West commits
suicide, it is homosexual, and what are you imitating? It does everything
that is cursed in the Kuran. The West uses cocaine.89

Besides the masses that do not question the deep meanings in Islam and tasavvuf and

materialists who are against belief and religious practices, maybe the chief other of

their identity is ehl-i taassub. This is the extension of an old distinction between ehl-i

taassub and ehl-i tasavvuf. It is also expressed with the terms ehl-i zahir versus ehl-i

batın. Zahir means the outer, external appearance of something or the outlook at the

surface. In Sufism, zahir is used with the meaning of şeriat and its rules (Uludağ,

2001). Batın means to see the truth, the reality and reasons behind the things and

events at the surface via the eyes of the heart. Ehl-i batın are associated with Sufis,

who are the friends of Allah (evliya) and sees the truth behind the appearance. This is

among the stages of nefis in tasavvuf and is called fenafillah, meaning that a man can

see nothing but Allah. It is the stage in which a person finishes himself, he kills

himself in Allah by the heart. In contrast to ehl-i batın, ehl-i zahir do not experience

what the former do, so they accuse the others of heresy, as we can see examples in

history. The hostility even towards early mystics such as Hallac-ı Mansur, who

recited the words “I am God” and gave voice to existential monism (vahdet-i vücud)

is only one of these cases. This is known as the controversy between ulema and Sufis

89
Interview with Ahsen, December 29, 2006. “Avrupa’da otellerde başucunda İnciller olur. Sen kendi
dinini tanıtmıyorsun bu çocuklara. İçi çakılla kumla doluyor. Atatürkçü geçinen insanları Atatürk olsa
silahla kovalardı. Batılı olmak maddeye yapışmak değil. Hayran olacak bir tarafı yok. İnsanlar intihar
ediyor. İnsanlar kiliseleri ancak düğün törenleri için kullanıyor. Avrupa artık ateist olmuş. Solcular,
İslamiyet’ten dolayı geri kaldık diyorlar. Batı bugün intihar ediyor, eşcinsel, neyine özeneceksin?
Kuranda lanetlenen her şeyi yaşıyor, kokain alıyor Batı.”

111
in history, the traces of which can also be encountered in the Ottoman era. The

Kadızadeli movement is an example of the hostility of some powerful figures

towards ehl-i tasavvuf in the seventeenth century Ottoman Empire.90

Cemalnur Sargut and her students think that the understanding of Islam for

the majority of Turkish society is based on a facile perception. The counterpart of

ehl-i taassub in today’s Turkish society is important for the group’s articulation of

identity. In comparison with “materialists”, Ahsen criticized ehl-i -taassub:

And also there's an unbelievably fanatic group, and this group has no
difference from the Atatürkist group. They make five year old kids wear
headscarves in the name of religious hegemony. They make them wear
mini skirts under that and when the child slides from the slide, her
underwear is seen. I am not talking about your headscarf, one wears it or
not according to her wish. The kid’s religious education is not limited to
a headscarf. On one hand she wears a headscarf, on the other hand she is
in disgraceful manners. This is not religion. Leftists are afraid of these
fanatics of taassub (bigotry). As Efendimiz (our master) says, we are
neither from them nor from any other. I am neither a leftist, nor a bigot
rightist. You will take everything necessary from the West, television,
automobile… You will make use of every material possibility. You will
be clean. The sitting of our Prophet on the floor doesn’t mean dirtiness.
You will use a fork and knife. You are making an Islamic synthesis. You
cannot impose on those people that I’m thinking like this, you will think
like this, too.91

As I observed in the close sohbet groups and sometimes heard from the young

women during our conversations, the groups who are in conflict with the secularist

state for zahiri reasons such as the headscarf controversy are regarded as ehl-i
90
For berief information about the controversy between ulama and Sufis and the Kadızadeli
Movement, see Chapter 3.
91
Interview with Ahsen, December 29, 2006. “Bir de inanılmaz bir yobaz kesim var, bunun Atatürkçü
geçinen kesimden aslında hiçbir farkı yok. O da din hegemonyası altında çocuklarına beş yaşında
başörtüsü takıyor. O çocuğun altına mini etek giydiriyor kaydıraktan kaydırıyor iç çamaşırı gözüküyor
çocuğun. Sizin başörtünüze laf etmiyorum insan istiyorsa kapatır istiyorsa açar. Çocuğu küçücük
yaştan yani din sadece başörtüsünde değil. Bu taraftan kafasını kapatıyor öteki tarafta yapmadığı
rezilliği bırakmıyor. Bu din değil. Dolayısıyla ne taassub tarafı bağnazların yaptığı gibi, solcular
bunlardan korkuyor. Efendimin dediği gibi biz ne ondan bundanız, biz hem şundan bundanız. Ne
solcuyum, ne taassub ehli sağcıyım. Batı’dan alınması gereken televizyon, araba. Her türlü maddi
imkandan faydalanacaksın. Temiz olacaksın. Yerde oturuyordu diye peygamberimiz. Çatal bıçak
kullanacaksın. Kendin İslami bir sentez yapıyorsun. O insanlara da ben böyle düşünüyorum sen de
benim gibi düşün diyemezsin.”

112
taassub by the group members. Although Cemalnur Sargut occasionally indicates

that the clothing style has no significance for them due to the conception of unity

(tevhid) they learned from Kenan Rifai, she does not want the women in her close

circle to cover their heads. As I learned in the first interview, Irmak was wearing a

headscarf when she first came to the sohbets. They also criticized the people with

headscarves during the interviews, saying that they excluded me from these critiques.

Though I tried not to be influenced by the issue, I felt that the political tensions over

the issue of the headscarf was influencing my relationship with the group members.

Despite, or may be sometimes due to, Cemalnur Sargut’s explanations that they do

not give importance to whether one covers her head or not, I knew that she asked her

mürits not to cover their heads and it was unsettling to know this from time to time.

The headscarf has been a controversial issue since the 1980s, and the tension

has never settled. The discussions around secularism have perpetuated throughout the

republican era and the contest over the definitions of Islam and secularism continues

around certain symbols. The continuing threat of Islamism has been the constitutive

other of Turkish secularism in the state discourse. This discourse increased its effect

in the 1990s with the rise of the Islamist Welfare Party. The “tales of nightmare”, as

Navaro-Yashin (2002) identifies, about the resurgence of Islam in Turkey which

occupied the minds of many people before the 1994 municipal elections won by the

Welfare Party, persisted during the parliamentary elections in which the Justice and

Development Party won in 2001. The Justice and Development Party was regarded

as an Islamist Party initially, since it was established by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who

was the mayor of Istanbul from the Welfare Party, and his young colleagues who

were also members of the same party. The fear of some segments of society was to

such an extent that after his party won the parliamentary elections of 2001, Erdogan

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had to make a speech which indicated that his party was the guarantee of democracy

and secularism. Although his party’s mostly liberal politics blurred its image as an

Islamist party, the discussions about secularism and the criticisms against the party

members have continued up until today. Discussions pervaded when party members

suggested that secularism should be redefined in today’s conjuncture or when

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer invited only the wives of the parliament members

who did not wear headscarves. This was a long-lasting crisis. This is part of the

wider discussion over Turkishness and Turkish culture, which became more

controversial with the discussions about the EU membership of Turkey. Navaro

Yashin (2002), with reference to Raymond Williams, argues that there are certain

historical periods when the contestation of the concept of culture becomes public.

According to her, at certain points in the history of Turkey, culture was transformed

from tacit knowledge into an abstract concept to be discussed, analyzed, and

theorized. The mid-1990s, when the Islamist party won the municipal elections, and

the initial nation-state formation of the Turkish Republic were such periods. In the

mid-1990s, the Islamist Party reproblematized the issue of Turkey’s local culture.

Although the tension, which led to the so-called February 28 military intervention, is

not to that extent today, the discussions on Islam and secularism continue. The

meeting organized in April 2007 against the possibility of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s

becoming the president is an expression of this tension over secularism. The way of

clothing has a significant place in Turkish modernization. As Nilüfer Göle (1996)

puts it, “the official ideology of the republic did not differentiate its utopia of

civilization from lifestyles and clothing habits” (p. 61). Atatürk attributed such

significance to clothing style that he declared the hat law. Göle (1996) argues that

abandoning the practice of veiling further extended the boundaries of mahrem,

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predetermined by the religious authorities and norms. It is still publicly discussed

whether the headscarf symbolizes backwardness, means the submission of women or

a revolt to the values of the secularist republic.

I began and continued my fieldwork with the burden of this tension as a

woman wearing a headscarf and was included in the category of the Islamists on the

basis of the hegemonic categorization of the day. My unease was very much related

to the tension around secularism in Turkey. I had found myself at the center of

controversies frequently in my daily life. I was also a bit scared in my first face-to-

face encounter with Cemalnur Sargut for the first interview. I had always been the

only young woman with a headscarf in the Wednesday gatherings and did not know

their attitude to this kind of clothing. Neither Cemalnur Sargut nor the young women

had headscarves and I realized that my obsession was not groundless since Cemalnur

Sargut referred to the issue of clothing in my presence in this interview and on other

occasions. Both speech and silence about this issue had a meaning both for me, as the

researcher, and for them. At the beginning of the interview, like in our first

conversation in the Wednesday gathering when I got permission for my research, she

emphasized that clothing is not important for them. She said there is no significance

whether one wears a headscarf or not, walks around naked or covers from head to

foot. While talking about the people coming to Erenköy for the Wednesday

gathering, she said “We see everyone coming there as human beings. There are

people from every milieu there”. This emphasis at the first encounter put a distance

between me and the group, while motivating me simultaneously. Another emphasis

she made about clothing was about another group she suggested for me. It was

another Rifai group in the Fatih district, whom she described as “having more edep

when compared to us.” In this first meeting, it was meaningful for us to talk about

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“edep.” She said “We are of poor edep” with laughter, and addressed one of the girls

in the room. She said “Irmak was also very ‘edepli’ when she first came, but now she

is of poor edep.” Laughters followed these sentences. As I became more familiar

with the group, I understood that her usage of the word was ironic. I understood that

she actually does not define edep with covering, but with other tenets and manners.

I do not think that ehl-i taassub is equated with the headscarf by the group. It

has a wider meaning of having a superficial understanding of religion. However, this

side of the coin acquired more importance for me as a covered researcher. They are

also against strict rules for gender segregation. They perform sohbets, travel,

organize programs together, though they pray separately, such as the morning

prayings in large groups. While some Muslim groups are strict about gender

segregation and practices such as women’s shaking hands with men, Cemalnur

Sargut and her mürits do not have such regulations. Women and men can hug one

another. Men can kiss and hug Cemalnur Sargut especially after her sohbets.

Youngsters are also quite comfortable with one another. For instance, Ceren had her

boyfriend with us in sohbets performed in her house. Ahsen gave me clues about

their outlook on relations between men and women. She criticized one of her young

woman relatives who graduated from a reputable university, learned two languages

but changed her lifestyle by wearing a black chador (çarşaf), which is occasionally

represented as the symbol of backwardness and threat to the secular republic by the

media in Turkey. She criticized this woman for pursuing strict gender segregation

and not swimming in beaches, but going to remote places with a boat. She said that

they are against complicating one’s life. She says “Now, have you made life harder

for you, or haven’t you? Allah says, have pleasure. You will not behave immorally

but you will derive pleasure from the blessings of Allah. The mürşit rasps your

116
bigotry if you are inclined towards it.” As they are against the exorbitance of ehl-i

taassub in practices such as covering or gender segregation, they also claim to be

against the other extreme. In one of the crowded sohbets in the house of Irmak, they

talked about the “proper” clothing style for women. They said that they are against

attractive clothes such as a blouse leaving one’s belly open, and applying strange

models to one’s hair.

In this emphasis on hostility towards strict gender segregation, they represent

their interpretation of religion and Sufism as an enlightened one. Ekal (2006) argues

for Alevis in Turkey that woman appears a symbol of group identity, a point of

differentiation of Alevis from Sunnis, where Alevi women are depicted to be side by

side with men and Sunni women as segregated from men, at times associating this

difference with a dichotomy of ‘enlightened (aydın) and forward-looking (ilerici)’

versus backward looking (gerici) and bigot (yobaz)’. The people around Cemalnur

Sargut free themselves from accusations of bigotry with the position of women in

their group. They differentiate themselves from other groups that practice strict

gender segregation. They adopt the republican approach which has seen women as

signs of modernity of the nation.

With these articulations, Cemalnur Sargut’s group reverses the modernist

gaze at and the hegemonic discourse about tasavvuf, which has been seen as a

symbol of backwardness, irrationality and superstition by the ideology of the

enlightenment. Until recently, tarikats had been represented as the enemies of the

secular republic by the media. By otherizeing the groups with this kind of an image,

they reverse the gaze. They narrate the history of the republic vis-a-vis Islam as a

positive one and juxtapose tasavvuf and modern life. They associate tasavvuf with

education, profundity and a deep understanding of religion, which is “true Islam.”

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 On the Path Towards İnsan-ı Kamil

In the previous parts, I gave priority to how Cemalnur Sargut’s mürits display the

characteristics of modern subjectivity and are part of late modernity. As I mentioned

in the first chapter, some of the Sufi groups in urban settings address modernized,

secularized urbanites in big cities like the ones in the United States or Indonesia.

Their tenets approach the new age teachings with their holistic approach to life.

Cemalnur Sargut’s group looks like the so called “tasavvuf without tarikat” with

their stance before the public. It is argued that new forms of Sufism like tasavvuf

without tarikat and their modern-style education suit the modern sensibilities of

educated Muslim urbanites (Howell, 2007, p. 22). With the analysis of ongoing neo-

Sufi movements and practices in the Western world and the urban sites of non-

Western countries such as Indonesia, dichotomies such as “Islamic Sufism” versus

“neo-Sufism” or “global Sufism” are constructed (Hammer, 2004). Substantially,

neo-Sufism is characterized as an individual quest pursued primarily through books.

As I tried to explain above, we witness a similar individual quest in the case of the

educated mürits of Sargut. As I elaborated in the first chapter, the public appearance

of the group displays considerable similarities with the so-called neo-Sufi groups.

They give importance to personal choices, subjective experiences and methods such

as discussions and constant dialogue in their activities. One component of neo-Sufi

groups is claimed to be the decrease of the traditional hierarchy of the mürşits, or

shaykhs. For instance, Howell (2007) gives the example of an Islamic studies center

in Indonesia delivering tasavvuf programs by “teachers and facilitators” instead of a

shaykh or mürşit, which are more resonant of the authority and hierarchy in the old

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time tarikat. Western Sufism, or “neo-Sufism” is represented as a non-hierarchical

form with its non institutional institutionalization. It is situated vis-a-vis the

traditional forms, which are claimed to persist among non-Western societies or

Muslim migrants in Western societies. Can we situate Cemalnur Sargut’s group in

this categorization?

Cemalnur Sargut’s group seems to be a non-institutional tarikat at first sight

in line with its public image. Sargut does not prefer to use the terms mürit-mürşit due

to their traditional connotations of the tekke institution banned in Turkey and she

insisted that they do not perform the rituals of the tekke from our first encounter on.

However, far from being a tasavvuf in the form of lectures, I observed both in the

accounts of Sargut and her mürits that they perpetuate the mürit-mürşit relationship

they inherited from Kenan Rifai and Samiha Ayverdi. Needless to say, they do not

perpetuate traditional forms such as getting permission (icazet) from the shaykh and

opening a tekke. What they continue is the spiritual guidance of the mürşit and the

respectful manners one has towards his/her mürşit. Cemalnur frequently mentions

that she was respectful and obedient to her mürşits. Her mürits also esteem her with

their manners, verbal or non-verbal. This respect for the mürşit is expressed in the

well rounded term, one of the root paradigms of tasavvuf: edep. It is related to the

role of the mürşit in the spiritual path. The definition of the term can be found in one

of the main sources of the group, Sohbetler, in which there are anecdotes from the

life of Kenan Rifai. The book consists of the notes of his mürits about his sohbets

and the times they spent with him. According to the explanations of Kenan Rifai, the

meaning of edep is “to attribute everything to the will of Allah, to see the actions, the

actors, the existing as nothing, but Allah himself” (Rifai, 2000, p. 6). This means to

accept the unity of Allah and all creatures and not to fall into shirk, which means

119
accepting other powers besides Allah. Part of edep is loyalty to Allah and to the

shaikh. This broader and deeper esoteric definition appears in every articulation

Cemalnur Sargut makes in her path, which she constructs in the light of Kenan

Rifai’s and Samiha Ayverdi’s tenets. In the book the group prepared for Samiha

Ayverdi, which is called Hatıralarla Samiha Ayverdi (Samiha Ayverdi in

Memories), Cemalnur Sargut’s mother (Meşkure Sargut) mentions Ayverdi’s

understanding of edep. (Sargut, 2005). She says that the lessons of irfan (insight) that

she made with Kenan Rifai had taught two types of edep to Ayverdi: zahir edep

(outer edep) and batın edep (inner edep). She explains outer edep as obeying the

ethical norms of the society and inner edep as the belief that both benefaction and

evil come from God.

They do not only continue the mürit-mürşit relationship, but also see it as the

sine qua non of tasavvuf. One of the cases Cemalnur Sargut mentions for

demonstrating the necessity of a mürşit is Ebu Hanife, who is the founder of one of

the four sects in Sunni Islam. She says that even a person like Ebu Hanife obeyed to

a mürşit and accepted that he would perish unless he became affiliated with the

mürşit. Then, what is the role of the mürşit on the spiritual path in tasavvuf? The

main theme of tasavvuf is “love of Allah,” which is reached through the “love of the

shaykh.” These are actually the same thing. The mürit wants to reach Allah and as

Werbner (2003) expresses, it is not just a matter of learning from books. The pir has

the secret knowledge and the mürit should learn with his guidance. Tarikat is known

as the path on which the mystics walk (Schimmel, 1975). Schimmel elaborates

further and says that There are three levels, depicted by circles one inside the other:

The outer circle is the şeriat, the second one is the tarikat and the last is marifet. In

most Sufi groups, it is believed that the path, meaning tarikat, comes out of şeriat

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and mystical experience cannot be realized if the binding injunctions of the şeriat are

not fulfilled faithfully. The path is said to be narrower and more difficult to walk and

leads the adept -called salik, “wayfarer”- in his süluk “wandering,” through different

stations (makam) until he reaches his goal, the existential confession that God is One.

The spiritual path is seen as a dangerous way. As Frager (2005) explains, Sufis feel

that they cannot mature on their own and need the discipline of a mürşit. The path is

full of egoism, fake visions, misinterpretation of mystic stages... etc. So, the master

watches every moment of the disciple’s spiritual growth, interprets his dreams and

visions, reads his thoughts, and follows every moment of his conscious and

subconscious life (Schimmel, 1975). Under the guidance of his mürşit, the mürit is

expected to proceed in the stations of the path (p. 104), to become a perfect mirror of

Allah. This relationship may seem irrational when one looks through the lenses of

Western individualism. The dependence of the “self” on a mürşit that tasavvuf wants

to construct has been interpreted as the disappearance of the subject and her/his

personality as an instrument of eternal faith or as an absolute subjectivism because

the human personality is inflated to such an extent that it is considered the

microcosm, the perfect mirror of Allah (Schimmel, 1975). As Ewing (2000b)

connotes, orientalist discourse, privileging the Western individual, labeled the

dependency as a pathology, loss of personality and lack of awareness. In contrast to

this perspective, Ewing suggests handling Sufi discourse without giving any

privilege to the autonomous self of the West. Similarly, Werbner (2003) argues that

what is privileged in Sufism is not common sense “rationality,” but a higher, divinely

inspired rationality, associated with divinely endowed powers (p. 147). Once they

become affiliated with the mürşit and take steps on the spiritual path, they say that

the mürşit brings them face to face with the evils of their nefis and the struggle with

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the nefis begins. They become subject to a transformation in their desires and

gradually adopt the desires that the discourse of tasavvuf constructs. The term nefis is

used to mean the selfish ego, the lower self, the base instincts (Schimmel, 1975;

Frager, 2005). Nefis is the cause of blameworthy actions, sins and base qualities and

the struggle with it has been called “the greater Holy War” by the Sufis (Schimmel,

1975). It is incumbent upon every mürit on the Path to purge the nefis of its evil

attributes in order to replace these by the opposite qualities (p. 112). There are

different stages of nefis. The first is nefs-i emmare, which charges evil, while the last

stage is nefs-i mutmainne, which is peace. Obedience to the mürşit, fasting, praying

are means for taming one’s nefs-i emmare. Praying and fasting are among the most

important advises of Cemalnur Sargut’s mürits. Ahsen narrates her relationship with

her mürşits as follows:

The mürşit corrects your nature as well as your spirituality. The mürşit
discovers some parts of you in your [secret] spirituality that not even you
are aware of. She does not inject something from the outside; she makes
you find the treasure inside you. Not the same system is applied to
everyone. Cemalnur sister and Meşkure sister are controlling us. We are
all in front of Cemalnur sister and we are all conducted by her. The place
all of these take us to is our Prophet. She is a guide in your voyage
towards the Prophet and Allah. A great inner struggle [with nefis] starts.
She holds a mirror to you and makes you see all the hypocrisies,
arrogance, anger, wrath, sloth. You discover yourself and start your inner
struggle. You have to transform anger to softness, arrogance to humility.
It is not killing something, killing your nefis. She takes you from the raw
state and turns you into someone who is at peace with herself, who loves
and knows yourself, an individual who is beneficial to society.92

92
Interview with Ahsen, December 29, 2006. “Mürşit tabiatını da batınını da düzeltiyor. Mürşit senin
bilmediğin batınında olan taraflarını bulup keşfediyor. Dışardan mürşit enjekte etmiyo senin içindeki
hazineyi bulup keşfettiriyor. Kişisel irşat var. Herkese aynı sistem uygulanmıyor. Cemalnur ablayla
meşkure anne kontrol ediyor bizi. Cemalnur ablanın gözü önündeyiz onun tarafından çep çevriliyoruz.
Hepsinin götürdüğü yer peygamber efendimiz. Peygambere ve Allaha yaptığın seyrü sefere yardımcı.
Muazzam bir nefis mücadelesi başlıyor. Sana ayna tutuyor riyaları kibirleri öfke gazap tembelliği
hissettiriyor. Sen kendini keşfedip kendinle mücadele etmeye başlıyosun. Öfkeyi hilme, kibri
tevazuya dönüştürmen lazım. Bir şeyi öldürmek nefsi öldürmek değil burada. Seni çiğ halden olmamış
koruk halinde alıp kendisiyle barışan kendisini seven tanıyan topluma faydalı birey haline getiriyor.”

122
With reference to Foucault, Ewing (2000b) claims that after its institutionalization,

“Sufism constructed a historical subject by creating a discipline and an official

discourse which situates itself between the subject and the human body”(p. 174).93

This discipline and discourse opens a space where the truth regimes of modernity and

tasavvuf intersect and conflict in the mürits’ lives and minds and Cemalnur Sargut

resolves these conflicts and crises with her interpretations. She struggles to turn the

subjects of late modern society who are in search of meaning to subjects searching

for divine love on the path under her and the pirs’ guidance. The characteristics of

Western individualism such as “autonomy, agency, uniqueness, equality” (Werbner,

2003, p. 147) are tried to be replaced by the concepts of tasavvuf. This sometimes

necessitates facing the difficulties of life and abiding by them in contrast to the seek

for pleasure interpellated in modern individualist culture. The difficulties are

declared to be seen as the examination (imtihan) of Allah and misfortune (bela) is

seen as the means of eliminating the believers of Allah. In her book, Cemalnur

Sargut (2006) asserts that every kind of misfortune reveals the beauty the human

being carries inside her/him and the disaster reveals whether the person’s heart is

copper or gold (p. 112). Once the mürşit wishes the mürit to bear the situation, they

do so. There are such examples from Cemalnur Sargut’s life. Once the person

becomes a mürit, s/he submits to the mürşit with all his/her will. They say that is the

reason (akl) is under the control of nefs-i emmare, it frustrates you. They say that

they get rid of the burden when they get the advice of Cemalnur Sargut. If a mürşit

wants them to show patience about something, they believe that they should bear

with it. The group members give examples from Cemalnur Sargut’s life for examples

of her patience towards difficulties. Patience (sabır) and even becoming thankful

93
The translation is mine.

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(şükür) in the face of difficulties, not running from tough conditions are very

important for the mürit’s progress on the Path. Ahsen told me how she bore a tough

period of her life. She wanted to get a graduate degree, but her husband did not allow

her to do so. She was married and pregnant and thought about divorcing her husband.

However, she said that she endured the difficulties and “When I look back, if I was a

university professor, I would be a arrogant woman. I would not have children. I

would be a professor in America, but I would be an unhappy woman.”

Contrary to the modern individual pursuing his/her own choices, the group

members qualify their affiliation as a grant of Allah: nasib. They think that the mürit

does not “choose” the mürşit, but s/he should be chosen by the mürşit. To become a

mürit is said to be a matter of the primordial grant (nasip) of Allah. They think that if

the person feels a deep commitment to the mürşit even at first sight, s/he is the right

mürşit. If the person has no grant determined by Allah, s/he feels nothing for the

mürşit of the tarikat. İpek’s experience set a good example for the matter. İpek is not

“ihvan by birth,” and was taken to the sohbet of Cemalnur Sargut by her friend,

Ahsen. She says:

There was a sohbet of Cemalnur Abla, it was at home and you could only
participate by permission. After I listened to her sohbet for the first time,
I told myself I could not be anywhere else. At the end of the day, I
telephoned my father. I told him that namaz (ritual prayer) or fasting
were not mentioned at all, but I got extreme pleasure. My father said ‘If
you had peace and extension in your heart when you left, it is the right
place for you, go there.’94

94
Interview with İpek, December 29, 2006. “Cemalnur ablanın sohbeti var, evde ve ancak müsaade ile
gidebiliyorsunuz. İlk kez sohbetini dinledikten sonra dedim ki ben başka bir yerde olamam. Gün
sonunda babamı aradım, o gün de namazdan oruçtan bahsedilmedi, kimse örtülü değildi ama ben çok
büyük zevk aldım dedi. Babam dedi ki ‘çıktıktan sonra gönlünde bir huzur ve genişleme olduysa orası
doğru yerdir oraya git’”

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The love one immediately feels for the mürşit is counted among the ways of

becoming a dervish. Frager (2005) mentions this style as “falling in love with the

shaykh,” besides other ways like dreams or demand. Whatever the means is, the

mürit must feel a deep attachment to the mürşit.

Divine love is experienced when the subject feels her/his nothingness in front

of Allah. Paradoxically, the dervish becomes “nothing” and “everything” at the same

time. Frager (2005) asserts that the path of Sufism does not mean anything to the ego

for this reason. He contrasts the Sufi ethos and the desire of the ego in the following

way: The ego is said to demand fame and assets, while the dervish seeks to eliminate

worldly passions despite s/he is extremely active in fulfilling his/her worldly duties.

According to Frager (2005), ego calls for freedom, while dervish wishes to

subordinate herself/himself to a mürşit and a path.

As it can be seen in the examples above, the normative order of tasavvuf calls

the subjects to a different world of desires than the desires that modernity constructs.

Instead of the feelings of uniqueness and autonomy, Cemalnur Sargut claims to teach

her mürits their “nothingness” in front of Allah and the mürits of Cemalnur Sargut

undergo a significant transformation after their subordination to the path.

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 CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

This study focused on a woman mürşit, Cemalnur Sargut, and her disciples in

Istanbul, in an attempt to analyze this group in relation to the growing transnational

interest in Sufism and to the religious identities in the complex religious field of

Turkey. The growing interest in Sufism is manifested in the rise of scholarly works

on Sufism and of the activities of Sufi groups in urban spheres of different countries,

the works on Sufism in relationship with different branches of art... etc. Some of the

Sufi tarikats in the Western and non-Western societies repackage the message of

Sufism in innovatory forms for appealing to the educated middle class urbanites. To

this end, they prioritize universalist and perennial tendencies of the Sufi tradition.

These groups and their followers can be labeled as moderns at first sight due to their

active presence in most spheres of the modern life.

The phenomenon of the popularization of Sufism remains as a tenuous

concept unless it is analyzed through particular cases. I trailed the phenomenon in the

urban field of Turkey and tried to explicate it in the case of Cemalnur Sargut’s group.

There are some studies on Sufi groups in Turkey, but they do not contextualize these

movements within the framework of the newly developing forms of Sufism that

address peculiarly the modernized, educated urbanites. I argue that these new forms

worth analyzing since they undermine certain dichotomies that pervade in the

religious field of Turkey such as Islamist/secularist dichotomy. Especially in

contemporary Turkey, identities are easily categorized as secular or religious on the

basis of certain visibilities which are regarded as symbols. It is not easy to categorize

126
the middle class urbanites that are hailed to the subjectivities that tasavvuf’s regime

of truth constructs.

In the main stream, popular imagination, the term tarikat connotes a

traditional shaykh with a beard and a gown, and men that recite zikir, due to the

modernist imaginary that constructs tarikats and dervishes as relics of the past and

media representations consolidate this image. A parallel representation has recently

represented Sufism and tarikats as a safer form of religion as opposed to

fundamentalist movements that are supposed to threaten the secular order of the

society. In this context, Sufi groups should be studied within their historicity and the

local and global contexts of the day.

Sufism has been a widespread phenomenon in both urban and rural fields in

Turkish society. So, I started my analysis with the role of religion and Sufism in the

urban context in the Ottoman society and the traditional roots of the group that go

back to the formation of the Rifai order in the twelfth century by Ahmet er-Rifai. I

aimed to demonstrate that Sufism is not a new phenomenon in the urban field of

Turkish society. Contrary to the modernist trend within the anthropological literature

which equates Sufism with the rural parts or with the traditional society, Sufi tarikats

have always been important in urban life and even among the elites of the Ottoman

society. However, modernization and secularization processes settled a hegemonic

modernist discourse, which associated Sufi groups with backwardness and

superstition. While Sufi groups that opposed the secularizing reforms were

disqualified sometimes with violent means in the early republican era, Kenan Rifai

and his mürits were among the Sufis who appropriated an obedient stance towards

the state. Kenan Rifai and her prominent mürit, Samiha Ayverdi, imagined Sufism as

a lifestyle that could be sustained in subjective experiences and in the society of

127
ihvan, so did not oppose institutional secularization. In order to emphasize the

possibility of practicing Sufism outside the tekke institution, they argued that the

hearts of the dervishes were tekkes. This interpretation of religion was a secure one in

the secularized context and provided a secure position for the members of ihvan.

The adaptation capacity of ihvan to new conditions of the day comes from

Kenan Rifai. Some Sufi groups in Istanbul continue their activities in tekke

institution around a shaykh, though their practices are also transformed. Although

ihvan still take tasavvuf as the primary reference point in their lives, they do not

continue the istitutionalized Sufi practices such as doing zikir which are illegal in

Turkey and continue the practices which pose no risks for the group. They continue

sohbets, some of which are open to the public, organize close gatherings and recite

hymns that have replaced zikir performance of the traditional tekke.

The group has been going through a significant process of transformation in

recent years. Cemalnur Sargut and people in ihvan try to spread the message of

Sufism to domestic and international audience. They qualify their method as

“academic” and situate it against the old methods of the tarikats which they think

became extinct. Academic activities include an effective use of the radio and

television channels, internet, publications and the programs and projects they

conduct through the hand of Türkkad, which is a civil society organization

established by Samiha Ayverdi in 1966. They aim to address the educated urbanites

and use the means and the language they think are suitable for this purpose. These

means and this language appeal both to the educated upper classes in Turkey and

abroad, although they have a very limited audience in the latter. They form their

language and method on the basis of their assumptions about the contemporary era.

128
They claim that it is the age of irfan and the meaning of Sufism should be revealed to

the public.

One of the main themes of this study is that Sargut and her mürits aim at

reversing the constructions of the modernist gaze. They try to deconstruct the gaze

that associates tasavvuf and tarikats with backwardness and they try to associate it

with education, profundity and a deep understanding of religion. Moreover, they

reverse the hierarchical relationship between the East and the West and regard the

West in need of belief and spirituality, which the wisdom of Sufism in the East can

provide. They base their mission on this kind of an interpretation.

Another point that should be emphasized is their in-between position between

a unificatory language through which they claim to work for tevhid and the

mechanisms of differentiation and the politics of difference they perpetuate. They

claim to work for the elimination of differences at the level of belief and society. One

part of this elimination is their emphasis on the unity of all tarikats and the other is

the unity of religions, which is the perennial side of the movement. Sargut even

wants her disciples to stay away from government politics, which she thinks prompts

conflicts and differences in society. Nevertheless, differentiation and otherization

towards the groups in the religious field of Turkey is at work in the identity

construction of ihvan and their definition of ‘true Islam.’ Deriving from the

traditional dichotomies in Sufism, they define themselves as ehl-i tasavvuf, who are

enlightened and who penetrate into the deep world of Sufism, and situate themselves

against ehl-i taassub, who they think has a superficial understanding of Islam.

Moreover, they define their way as the “middle way,” which is between materialists

and ehl-i taassub. Thus, they participate in the definition of ‘true Islam’ and

129
secularism in Turkey and claim the right understanding of tasavvuf, Atatürkçülük,

Westernization and secularization.

I analyzed the group with respect to the secularization thesis, around which a

lot of discussions have evolved in the sociology of religion. In line with the

modernist outlook, secularization thesis expected the demise of religion both in

society and in the minds of individuals (Berger, 1999). Nowadays, this thesis is

criticized by most of the sociologists of religion, including the early adherents of it

(Luckman, 1974; Bell, 1977; Berger, 1999; Davie, 1999). It is argued that the only

indicator of the level of belief should not be regarded as visible symbols such as

church attendance (Luckman, 1974; Davie, 1999). Moreover, it is claimed that the

rate of belief is increasing in the sphere of the individuals’ subjective experiences in

Western societies. When it comes to non-Western societies, the increase in the

visible practices such as veiling are interpreted as a contrary trend to secularization

(Berger, 1999). These arguments led me to discuss Sargut’s group with regard to

religion/spirituality dichotomy and I dwelled on their subjectivities and the way they

narrate their initiation to ihvan. I suggest that they are late modern individuals in a

search of meaning and they narrated their stories with a late modern language which

frequently gives reference to psychological states, feelings and emotions. In this

sense, they are modernized individuals that experienced the “subjective turn” of the

contemporary era (Giddens, 1991). Moreover, they do not carry Islamic visibilities as

defined by some scholars (Berger, 1999; Göle, 2006). At first glance, they have

considerable similarities with the Western Sufi movements that give priority to

spirituality and individuality rather than religion and spiritual bonds (Hammer,

2004). However, I encountered a different picture when I looked at the subjectivities

of the group members more closely. Although they operate in a late modern field, the

130
people of ihvan challenge what they see as the values of the contemporary modern

society in harmony with the truth regime of tasavvuf both in their language and

practices. Although in a different form, they continue the congregational bonds and

the murit-mürşit hierarchy. The desires of the mürits are transformed by the

discipline of the mürşit, Cemalnur Sargut. The community of ihvan created a space

in the modern secular order, where they think they practice the Sufi way of life. The

group can be categorized neither as a traditional Sufi group, nor a Western one, but

harmonizes the characteristics of these two categories. The case of Sargut’s group

opens a new space for the studies on religion in Turkey, transcending the

religious/secularist and religious/spiritualist dichotomies. I do not suggest that all

dichotomies belonging to the religious field in Turkey are invalid or false

representations. There may be the groups of people who define themselves in line

with the existing dichotomies. What I argue is that these dichotomies make us

overlook the particular cases that incorporate these dichotomies in a different way

and Sargut’s group is one of these cases. In many senses, the group is an in-between.

This study does not claim that all dichotomies belonging to the religious field in

turkey are invalid or false representations, but asserts that they make us overlook the

particular cases that incorporate these dichotomies in a different way. Sargut’s group

attempts to undermine certain hegemonic categories, while substituting new ones,

which are operative in the identity construction of ihvan. Moreover, this study is an

attempt to relate particular subjectivities to the global processes.

This study has been a preliminary attempt to analyze the transformation of a

specific tradition in the late modern context within the conjuncture of the local,

global and historical context. However, there are some other vital aspects excluded

from the scope of the thesis but can be handled in further research. First of all, the

131
influence of Samiha Ayverdi was not analyzed enough. Right along with the

similarities of Samiha Ayverdi era with Cemalnur Sargut’s, there are differences at

the same time. The nationalist discourse of Samiha Ayverdi, which establishes a

Turkish-Islamic synthesis, underwent a transformation in the discourse of Cemalnur

Sargut. Moreover, the group is more disclosed when compared to the time of

Ayverdi. The changes in their discourses can be studied within the changing contexts

of their eras.

Another topic I did not handle in the thesis is the issue of gender. The

guidance of a woman mürşit in the spiritual path of Sufism can be analyzed in many

respects. Their construction of gender identities needs elaboration. The group

dynamics, the mürits’ relationships with Cemalnur Sargut needs further research

further together with a comparison of the experiences of different genders.

132
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