Would you give your Head?

“During my early youth, while studying Qur’ān interpretation at the Aya Sofya Mosque in Istanbul, I dreamed one night of the Prophet, on him be peace. He was riding his camel, led by Imām °Alī, may God be pleased with him, who was holding in his other hand his famous sword, the two-edged Zulfikar. Addressing me, the Prophet asked if I had faith and if I was a Muslim. When I said yes, he asked if I would give my head for Islam, Again I said yes. Then the Prophet told Imām °Alī to cut my head off in the name of Islam. Imām °Alī asked me to stretch my neck out, then struck me with all his might, severing my head from my body. I awoke in terror.

When I saw my Qur’ān teacher next morning, I told him my dream and then told him who my father was. I knew he was a close friend of my late father, but I had never mentioned it before. He shook his head and said: “Ah, so you are the son of my fellow exile, are you?” My father and my teacher were among the seven hundred Sheikhs and theologians who were banished to the port of Sinop on the Black Sea by the revolutionaries of the Committee of Union and Progress, for having supported the Sultan. The exile of these religious dignitaries had continued until the First World War in 1914.

My teacher then interpreted my dream and said that I was going to join the Sufi path of °Alī and that I would become the Sheikh of a particular order. Many years after that incident, when I had opened my store of rare books near the Beyazit Mosque and become a well-known Imām and preacher, I had another dream. I was in the middle of the Bosphorus between the Topkapi Palace and Uskudar, in a small sailing boat whose sails were torn and whose mast was broken. A terrible storm was raging. Someone handed me a sheet of paper and told me to read it so that I would be saved from the calamity.

When I came back to my shop next morning, I saw the very person who had given me the paper in my dream, passing in front of my shop. I could not gather the courage to call him. A couple of days later I dreamed about the same person. He was walking on the other side of the street and beckoned to me with his walking stick. The next morning, in amazement, I again saw him passing in front of my shop. I felt that there was a spiritual meaning to these dreams, but I did nothing about it. A short while later I saw the same man again in a dream in which he hugged me so hard that I felt my bones about to break. Then he let me go, held up the crown of the Halveti Order, and put the turban on my head. I felt crushed under the weight of the turban. It was as if the seven heavens were sitting on my head.

As soon as I came to open my shop in the morning, I saw the man walking by, stick in hand. I told myself: “There is a mystery and a spiritual message in this situation. I am not going to call this man. Let him come to me. He walked by, my eyes following him, then he stopped and came and stood in front of my shop, stuck his head through the door, and said: “You bigot, three times you have seen me. When are you going to start having faith?” “Right now,” said I, grabbing and kissing his hand. This holy person was Seyyid Sheikh Ahmed Tahir ul-Marashi, the Sheikh of the Halveti-Shabani.

I became his dervish, and he would come to my shop every day. Some days he would speak, on others remain silent, but in either case he would be teaching me. This continued for seven years. During this time I met a friend of my master, Evranoszade Sami Bey, who belonged to the same order. It was he who clad me in the dervish cloak. In that ceremony, I knew so little that I objected to the cloak being put on my shoulders: “O Master, how can I permit someone like you to hold my cloak for me?” I was told that my mind did not yet grasp the subtle meaning, but that they were giving me the dervish cloak to wear. Sami Bey left this world one Night of Power.

Three years later my master Tahir Efendi fell and broke his hip as he was walking from my shop. As I was trying to lift him up, he said: “They have been trying to destroy me, and now at last they have succeeded.” He lasted three months. When I visited him before his death, he once showed me the crown of the Saint Ibrahim Kushadali and said, “If I go, let Mustafa Efendi keep this crown.” This Mustafa Efendi was one of his khalifas. Then one day my master called me and told me his last wishes. He died the next day, which was a Saturday, and we buried him in the graveyard of the Fatih Mosque, next to Sheikh Turbedar Efendi, who had been his Sheikh.

That night, having submitted to God the question whether I should become the dervish of Mustafa Efendi, I dreamed that he was laughing at me boisterously. I could not ascribe a meaning to this, so I submitted my question a second time. That night I dreamed that he was shouting at me angrily and calling me “softy.” Under these circumstances I could not become his dervish. I was left for a while without a Sheikh, waiting for a spiritual message. During that time I visited the tekke of the Kadiris in Beyoglu and then the Rifais in Kasim Pasha. The Halveti tekke had burned down. These two places were the only centers where the dhikr ceremony was held.

During that time Gavsi Efendi, the Sheikh of the Kadiris, tried to persuade me to become his khalifa, using as intermediaries Ismail Efendi, the Sheikh of the Bedevis; Jevat Efendi, the Sheikh of the Sadis; and Colonel Salahettin Efendi, the Sheikh of the Sunbulis. I told them that although my Sheikh was dead, I was a Halveti; thus I could not decide by myself, but would have to submit the matter and wait for a spiritual message; if I received a positive answer, I would not need to be a khalifa, but would gratefully accept to be a humble dervish of the Sheikh. Sheikh Gavsi Efendi kept pressing me, and finally insisted that I should come to the dergah (Sufi meeting place) unshaven the next Friday, which was the holy day of Ragha’ib, the first Friday of the month of Rajab.

That night I submitted my problem and dreamed that I was performing dhikr at the tekke of the Halveti-Jerrahis in Karagümrük, bareheaded, barefoot, and half-naked, while the Sheikh, Seyyid Fahri Efendi, was sitting by the window, in an ordinary suit but wearing a white prayer cap. He was singing the eulogy by Sheikh Galip: “Your sermon is read from the pulpit of eternity; your verdict is given in the court of Judgement Day; your chant of praise is sung on earth and in Heaven. You are my beloved Ahmad, Mahmud, Muhammad.” I woke up. Everything was clear.

But how was I to present myself to Fahri Efendi? As far as I knew his tekke was closed. I had known him slightly, when I used to take Hadith lessons from Mustafa Efendi, the “Walking Library.” He used to take me by the hand to see the Sheikh, complaining to him that I had become too rigidly dogmatic, then make me kiss his hand and ask him to pray for me. But so many years had passed. Perhaps I had seen him a few times at his house during Ramadan, when we were invited to break the fast. I was merely a child at that time. Since then I had become a preacher of some repute. I had a lot of followers. As the tekkes were officially closed, the Sufis gathered clandestinely. I did not even know whether he was still teaching and had followers.

Nevertheless I decided to go to his house late one night after the night prayer, telling myself that the Sheikhs are gracious and that he would not turn me away from his door. The door was opened by a young dervish, to whom I introduced myself, asking permission to see the Sheikh. I was invited into a small room where I saw the master with three other men. He paid me the honor of standing to receive me, and asked me to take a seat. I was ready to abstain from my usual cigarette, but he offered me one and said smilingly: “Don’t be embarrassed. Smoke, and have a cup of coffee too. Coffee without a cigarette is like sleeping without a blanket in winter.” He added: “Among ourselves we attach more importance to love than to respect.” When he asked me the reason for my visit, I told him what was going on between me and the Kadiri Sheikh Gavsi Efendi, and about the result of my meditation and the dream. Then I told him who I was, where I was born, who my father was.

He laughed and said: “Who doesn’t know the famous preacher to women?” I responded: “If I could find some men, I would preach to them too.” In religion, of course, there is not fundamental difference between men and women. I was in fact preaching to both sexes, but I understood the point he was making: Real men would not be prevented from remembering and calling upon God at every moment. Then he told me: “Indeed your dream points to us, but let me also submit the matter and see what message I receive.” He asked me to come back on Monday. Then I took my leave.

That Monday, Sefer Efendi,* who was a young dervish then and who is now my khalifa, brought a letter delaying my meeting with the Sheikh to the following Friday. That Friday, having received a positive message from the Unseen, Sheikh Fahri Efendi accepted me as his dervish. Thus I preferred to become a dervish of the Halveti-Jerrahis rather than a khalifa of the Kadiris. I followed my duties as a dervish to the last detail, and visited my Sheikh two or three times a week. A happy man with a great sense of humor, he was brave, intelligent and prudent. He was a master of dream interpretation, a faculty given especially to the Halved Order. He was a man whose conversation was a delight, whose miracles were well known. Loved and respected by everyone, he was a man who made us taste the love of the Prophet, the mysteries of the Saints; a compassionate man and a generous one who protected the poor and bound everyone to himself.

Sometimes he used to joke with me so much that he pushed me to the verge of anger, hoping to get a reaction from me. Then he would publicly declare that I was invited by our Saint Nureddin Jerrahi and no one could touch me. Later I was told that the master had often mentioned my name six months before my coming to the tekke. Six months after my becoming a Jerrahi dervish, I dreamed that three men came to examine me. From the questions and answers I clearly felt that two of them wanted me to pass this test and one of them did not. This was an examination to qualify as an Imām. I was able to convince the third man that I was an Imām already, and was therefore accepted by unanimous vote. Although I knew that dreams should be told immediately, I could not do so the next day because I was too busy.

That night, I went to sleep after praying for three or four hours, and dreamed an extremely ugly and shameful dream. When I woke up, I was revolted with myself and said to myself: “That is your reward for praying three or four hours.” Somehow I was not able to see my Sheikh that day either, and even if I had seen him, how could I have told him the shameful dream? The third night I dreamed that I went to the tekke and saw the dervishes praying in a very strange way, not reciting correctly and not doing the movements properly. I passed through in astonishment and met my Sheikh in the garden. He caught me by one ear and lifted me off the ground. With his other hand he kept slapping my left side as if he were dusting a rug. Then he pulled me into a room which was full of garbage.

He said: “Clean this room, it is going to be yours.” Later I saw that the room of which I had dreamed was the room of the head khalifa. When I woke up, I knew that this was my punishment for not telling my dream to my master. I rushed to his house and told him the first and last dreams, leaving out the shameful one. He smiled and told me: “You could not have had those two dreams without a shameful one in the middle.” I begged to be left alone with him to tell him the ugly dream. When I told him, he declared me his khalifa. For nine years we stayed very close together. One year before he died, he became ill in the middle of the dhikr and put me in charge. I led the dhikr that whole year while he was sick. At the end of that year, on the 5th of Shaban, which is the day of the martyrdom of Imām Hasan, a Wednesday night at ten minutes to ten, he went to the eternal abode, to the gardens of high heaven, and received the gift of being close to the Messenger of God.

The next day, in accordance with his last wishes, I gave him the ritual ablution, while Sefer Baba and Kemal Baba poured the water. On Friday I led his funeral prayers at the Fatih Mosque. Followed by thousands of lovers we brought his coffin on our shoulders to his room in the tekke, which he had built seven years before his death, and buried him close to our Saint Nureddin Jerrahi. The prayers at his tomb were recited by the famous Shemseddin Yeshil Efendi. Acting upon another dream I had dreamed, and although the activities of the Sufis were forbidden and the tekkes were closed by law, the very day after his departure I opened the doors of the tekke to the public, to friends and enemies alike. Having occupied the sheepskin throne of our Saint Nureddin Jerrahi for fifteen years now, I humbly continue teaching my Turkish dervishes, as well as many lovers of truth from all parts of the world.

I am the nineteenth Sheikh and eighth khalifa since the creation of our branch of the order. With the strength received from the will of God, the wish of His Messenger, the good pleasure of my Saint, the spirituality of all the Sheikhs before me, and the blessing involved in the spiritual guidance of lovers till the day I die. I have only two children born of my blood, but God knows the number of my spiritual children.

I have had the honor of seeing the Prophet, on him be peace, seventeen times in the world of dreams. I have seen Moses, Jesus, John, and Khidr once. I have seen both the venerable Abū Bakr and °Umar twice, and in one these dreams I kissed their hands. I have seen both the noble Fātima and Imām °Alī twice, and Imām Hasan and Imām Hussein once. I have seen my Saint Nureddin Jerrahi twice, receiving his compliments. I have traveled to Germany six times, twice to England, and twice to Holland and Belgium, and have seen Paris four times. I have met many good and interesting people during these travels. I have also visited Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Greece. I have been to America many times, where my dervishes and I performed the dhikr and held talks in many cities. Only God knows what will happen next. I pray that the love of lovers may increase from day to day. Success comes only from God.
****************************************************************************************     It was in the New World that Sheikh Muzaffer’s special destiny revealed itself. “During my visits to the United States,” he wrote, “I have met with thousands of people, among them priests, rabbis, spiritual teachers, professors, students, artists, musicians—people from all walks of life, men and women of all ages. Some came from far corners of this great country, from California, Texas and Alaska. I have observed these people one by one: they are all lovers of God, Glorified and Exalted is He. In heart and form they are as pure, as clean, and as beautiful as their faces show. The Lord has granted them the blessing of wisdom. Their character is manifest in their appearance. They turned our every meeting into a garden of paradise, watered by the rain of Divine Mercy.

Without exception they wanted to know about the True Beloved. They were longing to speak with me of God and Love …” It was indeed a great Love Affair, and one that did not end when Sheikh Muzaffer’s triumphantly loving spirit was called—in the language of the Irshād—to emigrate from this lower world to the Realm of Divine Beauty. Many Americans, whose hearts he had stolen, were among the vast throng attending his funeral rites in Istanbul in 1985. Their love for “Efendi”, shared by countless others who met him even briefly, continues to enrich their own lives, and the lives of those around them.”

~ Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak al-Jerrahi, Irshad: Wisdom of a Sufi Master
Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak Ashki al-Jerrahi (1916 - 1985) was the 19th Grand Sheikh of the Halveti-Jerrahi Order of Dervishes, a traditional Muslim Sufi order (tarika) from Istanbul (Turkey). He was Grand Sheikh of the Order from 1966-1985. Muzaffer Ozak was well-known in Western countries because of his visits to Europe and the United States of America, where he celebrated public dhikrs (Remembrance of God; in Turkish "zikrullah") with his dervishes. He is also well known in Turkey for his ilahis (Sufi religious hymns). Muzaffer Ozak also ran a bookstore in the Sahaflar Çarşısı in Istanbul.