Whırlıng through Konya

Though I arrived in Istanbul I can hardly say I’ve seen the city. I was picked up by the driver of a good friend I met in Iraq last year and shuttled to his beautiful apartment on the “Asian” side of Istanbul. The other side of the Bosphorus, the strait that connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, is what they call the European side – and no one will let you forget it. Ahmet’s wife Dilek and I formed an instant friendship and I didn’t leave her apartment much after that, aside from a whirlwind tour of the Aya Sophia, Blue Mosque, Topkepi Castle and the Cistern (my favorite). Any descriptions will have to wait. Because the Rumi Festival in Konya, Turkey is the real purpose of this trip and from this everything else follows.

Come, come, whoever you are
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come even if you have broken your vow
A thousand times.
Come, yet again, come, come.
--Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi
It’s the refrain I’ve been hearing all week, words from Rumi, the 12th century Persian mystic poet whose death and life I’ve traveled across land and ocean to celebrate. They say 200,000 of us – pilgrims, tourists and the just plain lucky -- come to Konya every year to mark Rumi’s death on December 17th, 1273, a very holy day in the Sufi religion when Rumi united with God.
To followers he is Mevlana, The Guide, and his body lies in the Mevlana Museum, formerly a Dervish lodge, in the center of town. More than a million visitors come to pay respects at the enormous tomb, which is shrouded in gold cloth and has a turban like covering marking the headstone (similar to the hats that dervishes wear). Muslims from around the world, but primarily from Persia and Turkey, pray at the holy shrine. Hundreds were seated along the hall, some crying, praying and others reading his poetry. Another room holds his relics. And yet another held modeled dervish scenes and art. Even passing by the closed door at night garners a bow and a prayer from worshipers.

There are concerts and lectures every day but I found them practically impossible to find until late in the week, and then the famous whirling dervishes who dance nightly and often in the afternoons. This latter performance is purely tourism as people from Konya will tell you, as the dancers “all come from Istanbul.” But who can complain of commercialism when it’s all about spreading the word of universal acceptance and love? Even I made my way to the “show” every chance I got. Plus the merchandising is fabulous: There are tchochkes touting poetry of love and God, mugs with the image of Rumi, Shams and whirling dervishes; banners with poems hang from the street lamps and pilgrims can be found singing and reciting poetry in the street (at least the group I found!). Even a cabbage patch was planted in the image of a whirling dervish.

They say that Rumi was born in Afghanistan but at the time of his birth in 1207 that site, Balkh, was actually a part of Iran. And they say that Rumi died in Turkey but that site, Konya, was also part of Iran. He wrote in Persian and claimed himself as Persian but still Turkish and Afghanis (I am told) claim him for their own. But come, come everyone, it’s the phrase of the day, the night, or during afternoon tea. Be you Christian or Muslim, Jewish or Atheist. There is room for everyone, friend.

I’ve been adopted for several days by a group of young Iranians, one of whom even speaks English. It’s amazing to land in a city where it’s incredibly difficult to find an English speaking person. I’ve judged people in the past for landing in a country without knowing a word of the mother tongue and yet here I am. Nada. The rug dealers are the most multi linguistic so I spend a lot of time visiting with them. Otherwise interviews have been a challenge, to say the least, much less finding a bathroom or ordering a bottle of water.

My quest to find one organizer to interview in English about the festival resulted in an hours long adventure to get me a press pass. The task involved no less than 11 “tourism police” officers, five culture officials, four others from the governor’s office and finally the governor’s own press chief who was ultimately taken away from preparations with the prime frinkin minister to come and grant me an “all access” press pass to all dervish events. I love being a journalist! My favorite moment, a surreal scene that anyone who has traveled will appreciate, was while waiting in the governor’s office for some official to figure out what to do with this random American – seemingly the only one in Konya - who was sitting before them. It appeared all the officials (including my three police escort team) were at wits end when we finally decided to take a rest, drink some chai and watch a bit of the movie Three Amigos, with Steve Martin and Chevy Chase, in Turkish. I finally got my press pass but the funniest part is that I never found an organizer who spoke a word of English! Still the experience was worth its weight in gold.

Zeliha’s Durga
I’m fortunate that in Turkey there is a common name very similar to mine: Zeliha, which is what all the Turkish people now call me. (It’s a huge leap from Zulig, or something, that I got in Iraq so I’m happy being Zeliha - pronounced Zelie-ha).
I met my Iranian friends when I interviewed them at the Sema, which is the celebration of Whirling dance. They were so extraordinarily passionate I instantly fell in love and knew I had to see more of them. Take Babak, for example, who is the most passionate of the bunch and eager to share his spiritual examination. He is beautiful and loving and breaks into tears each time he recites Mevlana’s poems, which Iranian children learn in school. A discussion, say over breakfast in the hotel, goes something like this:
“But who IIISS Shems?” said in a desperate, pleading voice with hands raised, fingertips clenched together. “The answer? He is so, so big,” he says grasping for an appropriate English word, but I’m not sure he would find one even in Farsi. Shems (Mehmet Shemseddin Tebrizi) literally was Rumi’s teacher, companion and his greatest inspiration. Persians believe that Shems surpasses Rumi in the spiritual hierarchy and that Rumi alone saw Shems’ greatness. To followers, Shems is everything, and everything is compared to him. Babak’s friends tease him and try to help with the explanation. They point to his eggs and joke, “This breakfast is nothing compared to Shems.” But they’re only half joking because they too are here with God – and Shems - on their minds. Shems was supposedly killed by Rumi’s followers who were jealous of their relationship. But according to Babak, many believe that Shems never died, much in the same way that Jesus is said to have moved to southern France and shacked up with Mary Magdalene. In fact a professor Babak knows in America swears he saw Shems on the street in Seattle. The man took himself to the Hospital he was so overcome with love, Babak said.

That night they invited me to a real life version of ecstatic prayer meeting in the Sufi religion. There must have been 200 of us smashed into a single hot, sweaty airless room, beating drums, singing, screaming, crying and dancing to the point of total ecstasy - or passing out, which in many cases is the same thing. It was a profoundly powerful experience and one that I hope to repeat.

In another hotel the next night, Iranians played drums, a kind of guitar (whose name is a complete mystery to me) and created their own kind of prayer meeting until late midnight.

This week has included a mystic music festival with a group from a different part of the world playing each day. One day was Azerbajan, the next day Turkey and another – by far the greatest juxtaposition – a French/African gospel group. They say it’s the first gospel to play in Turkey, but maybe they meant Konya, as the Konyans certainly didn’t know what to do with them. Imagine a 13-member rocking gospel group singing their hearts out to Jesus and the audience for the most part sitting in stunned silence. There were of course the exceptions: a group of European Sufis in the front row who all held hands and furiously rocked back and forth in their seats. And then there was us, a motley group of westerners doing our own Baptist revival of sorts just behind the Sufis. Turkish television couldn’t get enough of us and I’ve heard from more than one person that they saw us on the evening news.
Now for those of you who may think we were going against custom here, I will beg to differ as I’ve seen a side of Konya I didn’t think existed.
I was convinced to attend a concert of a Turkish/Canadian trance music star named Marchan DeDe. He played in a ballroom at the Hilton hotel outside of town because, ok, there aren’t many music venues around here. The friend who talked me out of another night of dervishes said I needed to see how the young people were celebrating Rumi. Indeed the fusion of generations was worth a night of study.
The Hilton Hotel shoots out of a barren landscape about a half hour outside of town. It’s a four star complex with a lounge, bar, discoteque and even bowling alley for those who can’t to be away from indulgent western amenities while visiting Konya. The place was packed with young, hip kids sporting tight jeans, halter tops and all with a cell phone/camera attached to an ear. There also were a lot of Muslim girls with their heads covered and a handful of boys who were flat out drunk as alcohol was being sold in the hotel lobby.
The concert was an amazing mix of drums, horns and electronic music with the ney, a flute, video imagery and a female dervish from Canada whirling on stage. As the music thumped, the crowds started dancing, screaming with excitement as the beat quickened. One of the most interesting mixtures was during a trance song with the strangely sexual chorus “feel my drum” beating hypnotically. The crowd started jumping up and down like a single amoeba, and two girls wearing scarves next to me started yelling “Allah! Allah” to the sound of the beat. Thirteenth century Sufism was indeed meeting 21st century youth.

I must say, I LOVE Konya. I think I expected a small village of wandering shamans in the mountains, but in fact Konya is a bustling town of a million people with a university and lively street scene. To all those who described the town as conservative and fundamentalist I’d have to argue that it’s pretty secular. Which doesn’t mean beer flows from local taverns; it’s a dry town where alcohol is available only in select stores and any public consumption is forbidden. And the only disco is at the Hilton (where we heard a pretty rousing Turkish version of Gloria Naylor’s I Will Survive the other night). But the people are exceptionally kind and I feel completely safe wandering the streets at just about any hour. The Iranians have also been so kind and generous I’ve taken to calling them the freaky friendlies. They’re so nice it’s eerie (yes, It’s been a while since I’ve left the US).
Photos wıll follow but thought you all should know that my health is holding steady despite a steady intake of bread of chicken fat and my teeth haven’t yet turned black from the dozen cups of black tea I’m offered every day.