[lg policy] Reviving Sufism with Yunus Emre

Wed May 15 16:20:38 UTC 2019

Religion and media in TurkeyReviving Sufism with Yunus Emre
The TV series "Yunus Emre: The journey of love" was a massive hit in Turkey
when it was first aired four years ago. But this popular television
spectacle is not the only evidence of a renewed interest in Sufi
spirituality in Turkey. Marian Brehmer reports from Istanbul

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Yunus Emre stands in the dark, candle-lit prayer room of a Dervish
monastery, immersed in thought; his arms folded, his head slightly bowed,
his eyes closed. He wears the long patchwork coat and turban of an Islamic
mystic. His brow beaded with sweat and his voice trembling with passion,
the poetry rushes off his tongue like an unstoppable tide: "The heart of
the one who loves is the Creator's throne / God adopts it as his own /
Woeful and miserable / is he who breaks a heart."

In an attempt to capture the fleeting words and prevent them from fading on
the air – as was the case with the world-famous mystic Rumi,
<https://en.qantara.de/content/interview-with-islamic-scholar-and-philosopher-abdolkarim-soroush-the-sufis-were-prophets-of>
who
is said to have composed his rapturous love poems from the Divan-e Shams in
a state of ecstasy in Konya – a second dervish is standing at a writing
desk, frantically trying to scribble down all that he hears. The place is
Nallihan, a village one hundred kilometres west of Ankara; the time,
towards the end of the thirteenth century.

It took many years of education and training for poet Yunus Emre to
overcome his ego. Under the instruction of Tapduk Emre, a charismatic Sufi
master, Yunus Emre transformed from a proud and extremely self-satisfied
Sharia legal scholar into a Sufi wholly dedicated to God and searching for
unity.

*Opulent television production*

This is what the television series 'Yunus Emre: The journey of love' was
all about. Over the course of two seasons, it told the story of the popular
Turkish saint Yunus Emre. With meticulous attention to detail, outstanding
actors, beautifully delivered dialogues, a hint of drama and a soundtrack
built around the Ney, a flute-like instrument favoured by the Sufis,
Turkey's public broadcaster TRT invested a lot in this opulent production
<https://www.trt1.com.tr/arsiv/yunus-emre>.
[image: Poster advertising the Yunus Emre TV series produced by Turkeyʹs
public broadcasting company TRT (source: TRT)]
Nimbus of a saintly figure and TV icon: the 44-part series, which was
broadcast in 2015 and 2016, proved a massive hit with millions of Turkish
viewers. Indeed, so popular was the series that it is now available on the
American online television service Netflix

The 44-part series, which was broadcast in 2015 and 2016, proved a massive
hit with millions of Turkish viewers. Indeed, so popular was the series
that it is now available on the American online television service Netflix.

This means that Yunus Emre – who, unlike Rumi, is virtually unknown outside
Turkey – is coming to the attention of an international audience for the
first time.

"Yunus Emre" is also the name given to the Turkish language and cultural
institute (the equivalent of Germany's Goethe-Institut) established by
President Erdogan in 2007, which is now represented in about 40 countries.

Over the course of the past century, Yunus Emre has had a major influence
on the forging of a national identity for the Turkish Republic. Even though
Ataturk banned the Dervish orders in 1925, Emre's poetry was often held up
as exemplary of the Turkish language.

Unlike many poets of the Sufi genre – including those from later centuries
– his poems are composed in simple Turkish, which is easily understood by
those living in Turkey today.

*Sufi poetry as a key part of Turkish national identity*

Emre's poetry is not peppered with Arabic and Persian words, as Ottoman
poetry typically is, and this is why it has for decades been viewed as a
classic example of Turkish poetry and is an inherent part of the state's
school curriculum. The fact that the poetry is marbled with Sufi symbolism
was not as relevant in the early twentieth century as its value for Turkish
language policy.

But the success of the series about Yunus Emre highlights another
development too. Over the course of several weeks, especially during
Ramadan, the parables and stories of Yunus Emre's Sufi teachings and his
sheikh were broadcast into countless Turkish living rooms.

While eating their evening meal, whole families watched dervishes in period
costume serving in the kitchen or cutting wood, talking to their spiritual
masters, or taking part in the *dhikr*, the mantra-like group devotional
recitation practiced by Sufis.

As viewers watched, a spiritual world that has largely been lost since the
1920s unfolded itself before their eyes. Something that had been an
integral part of everyday society in Anatolia for many, many centuries was
in this way brought back to life for millions of viewers.

[image: The likeness of Yunus Emre and two famous lines of his poetry adorn
the wall of a teahouse in the Uskudar district of Istanbul]
Undiminished popularity in the public and private sphere: "over the course
of the past century, Yunus Emre has had a major influence on the forging of
a national identity for the Turkish Republic," writes Marian Brehmer

In the early years of the Turkish Republic, Ataturk considered the Sufi
orders to be a brake on progress: too conservative were the attitudes, too
great the social and political influence of the Sufi order leaders in the
Ottoman Empire, rendering them an obstacle to modernisation in the eyes of
the Kemalists. For decades, the Sufis practiced behind closed doors,
functioning as cultural associations rather than spiritual orders.

*Revived interest in Sufi spirituality*

But the renewed interest in Sufi spirituality in Turkey is not restricted
to television series alone. This is the result of the AKP government's
liberal policy towards the different branches of Sufism in Turkey: people
are once again being invited to public ceremonies, Sufi teachers are
teaching people who are hungry for meaning in municipal culture centres,
Sufi music is being reinterpreted, and Turkish authors like Elif Shafak
<https://de.qantara.de/inhalt/elif-shafaks-roman-der-geruch-des-paradieses-zwischen-den-stuehlen>
are
popularising Sufi figures such as Rumi and Schams-e Tabrizi in celebrated
novels.

The interest in Sufism is also due to the fact that it is an alternative to
politicised Islam, with which many young Turkish people in urban areas can
no longer identify. After all, one important Sufi principle is to give
precedence to the inner dimension of religious rituals over external dogmas
and rules. This creates a flexibility and openness for which many yearn in
the hardened social climate of modern Turkey.

Whether it be in front of the television or in active contemplation of his
verses, the freedom-loving, mellifluous Yunus Emre speaks of this kind of
world, which grows from within, and invites us to: "Seek not God in the
distance, no! / In our hearts does he reside / Renounce being you
completely / and he shall shine in your heart!"

*Marian Brehmer*

-- 
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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