English
TürkçeThere are three kinds of love according to Mawlana:
1- Real Love
2- Figurative Love
3- Bestial Love
Real love is the love for the Absolute Beauty and it is endless. Figurative love is for the reflection of the Absolute Beauty in nature and in objects and it has an end. The signs of real love and figurative love are two:
a- An open (obvious) love: For example, the love of a nightingale for a rose
b- Secret Love: For example, the love of a butterfly (a moth) for light
Bestial love is also two kinds:
a- The love for eating (the pleasure of eating and drinking)
b- Sexual love (sexual pleasure)
A bestial love in fact, cannot be called love. It is more proper to define it as corporal pleasure.
Love is natural, spontaneous. It is one’s passion towards beauty or corporality or it is a kind of spontaneous passion like the addiction to cigarette and alcohol. Love has nothing to do with philosophy. The sayings such as, “conscious love and similarities of it” are exceptions. They are concerned with the Wise people and very rare. They are not natural either and they are very superior.
For example: A person who loves yoghurt does not love it because he knows what it is but he loves it as he likes it. However, there are some people who like yoghurt and know it in details. This can be called as conscious love. Nevertheless, what the fact is that he likes the yoghurt and he gets a pleasure from it. This is a spontaneous, natural liking.
Love means to fall in love with the beloved. It is a tendency towards him or her spontaneously. This is a strong feeling of love or worship.
“Ereeyte menitteheze ilahehu hevahu - (O Muhammad!) Have you seen the man who has made a god of his own carnal desires?” (Al-Furqan, 43)
Carnal desires mean sensuality, one’s strong passions. Whatever a person desires strongly is his god. There is also a narration of a hadith:
“Your beloved is your god (idol).”
Then, man will either taste the pleasure of worship by worshipping his Creator (worshipping means here strongly desiring, liking because love is excessive liking (*) or he will taste the pleasure of worship by strongly desiring the beauties that are reflected to the world and the objects in the world (to the man also) by his Creator, who is the Absolute Beauty. The love towards the reflections is Figurative Love.
You cannot call the love towards carnal pleasures as love because this exists in animals excessively. The pleasures such as eating, drinking or sex and lust do not content the pleasure of worship. They are the bestial, nasty pleasures that last five or ten minutes. They love neither the Creator, who is the Absolute Beauty, nor His reflections in the world. They do not have an idol-god either. They are the creatures deprived of the pleasure of worship both in this world and in the hereafter. They look like a log or a piece of stone.
“Kasiyetil Kulubuhum -Their hearts are hardened.” (Al-Hajj, 53 / Al-Zumar, 22) They do not have a constant and passionate pleasure, excitement (dynamism). They lead a passive, static, dirty life. They are like half-dead. They worship neither God nor the beauty in creation.
I send my kind regards to lovers presenting some lines as a meaning, on this subject:
“Figurative love is the bridge of real love,
He who does not pass from it cannot be perfect!
He who never loves looks like a wild beast!
I asked what this pleasure is in everyone,
What is the divine wisdom of it?
He said it is a fine pleasure for the intelligent
It is eating and lust for the ignorant!
Hacı Bey from Filipe (Philippopolis)
The writer of Amakı Hayali
Since the loves apart from corporal, sexual pleasures are for the beautiful or the beauty, the sex of the beloved does not make any difference. Love is for the beauty in nature and in objects not to flesh. For example, a nightingale is an animal but a rose is a plant. A moth is an animal but it is in love with light.
Those who do not fall in love with the Absolute Beauty of Allah or His beauties that are reflected in the world, in creation and in humans do not have worship to Allah or His beauties in nature because worship means to love the beloved passionately and spontaneously. Those who cannot find this love have neither a person to love nor the pleasure of worship.
Our Prophet (a.s.v.) says:
“He who does not have a rapture or ecstasy does not have religion.”
Ecstasy is intense excitement or emotion. In other word, he who does not have excessive love for beautiful Allah and the creation in nature that reflect His beauty does not have anybody to worship. He does not have an esthetic pleasure either. He has not attained the pleasure of worship in this world. What they worship is eating and lust that are corporal and last for a short time. They are limited pleasures that continue in a limited time and they are temporary but love is everlasting and infinite. They have made their corporal desires their idols EVEN THOUGH THEY SPEND ALL THEIR TIME IN PLACES OF WORSHIP UNTIL THEY DIE.
In addition to these, the beauties in nature, the beautiful voices of birds, of human, of breaths and the beautiful tunes and songs in strings are the sweet, life-giving, soul reviving voice of the Creator. Therefore, beautiful voices, breathings and tunes are liked very much.
An anecdote:
One day, a person loses his donkey and he cannot find it. It is Friday and he goes to the Friday prayer. He sees the Hodja Efendi before the prayer and he says:
-“Hodja, my donkey is lost and I cannot find it. After the sermon, would you please ask the people in the mosque if anybody has seen or found my donkey?”
Hodja Efendi tells him that he would. (The Imams in the past were old and mature people.) After the sermon, he asks the people from the pulpit:
-“Men! Is there anybody who does not like beautiful voice and the people among you?” There is a silence in congregation but a man calls out among people:
-“Hodja, I do not like them.” Hodja Efendi tells him to stand up and he stands up. Hodja Efendi keeps looking at this person from head to feet and he turns to the crowd and tells the person who says his donkey is lost to stand up too and he also stands up. Hodja Efendi says:
-“My son! Your donkey is found. Bring the halter and put it around the neck of this person who says he does not like the beauties and the beautiful voices! The donkey has been among us all the while.”
Thus, there were such divine-lighted faced, wise, loving hodjas like
him in our community.
Since this subject of “love” is brought up, I would like to share some passionate love poems of our mystic poets from our immense world of Mysticism.
I am starting firstly with a wise poem of Poet Azmi Yaman Bey from Tokat, who is not known by most people.
“The happy ones keep desiring more and more
The people of words sleep in the corner of his sect or his family,
The ascetic people have been obsessed in this dervish convent of good manners,
Have a look at the lovers! They have neither ambition nor grief,
They have come with love and left declaring love….”
That is true! Does he, who has no ambition, have a grief?
One line from Sheikh Galip, the writer of Hüsn-ü Aşk:
“Ask the wine of love from the person who constantly drinks it by
the hand of the Perfect Man!”
Then, love is an elixir having spell.
A couplet from Niyazi Mısri:
“He who is drunkard by the wine of beauty of the beloved
understands us.”
Here, wine refers directly the beauty of the face of the beloved.
Interesting lines from Aydi Baba from Antep, the caliph of Kuşadalı İbrahim Efendi, one of the spiritual masters of Khalwatis:
“Your love made me forget asceticism,
Ritual prayer, mosque and worship,
What a state is this? Your love made me whirl and whirl
What will I do with honor? It made me forget dignity…”
Pay attention to the following lines of Muallim Naci, who was a great writer but shown as a conservative person because he was against the western Literature like Mehmet Akif:
“I made the cup bearer an architect for my heart in a wine bar.
Allah! Allah! I built a Kaaba in the wine bar.”
What can we say to the following confession of Urfalı Müftü Halis Efendi?
“I have never seen a true love in madrasas,
Therefore, I sacrificed what I know to love.”
A passionate couplet of Hazreti Fuzuli:
“The fire of love keeps looking for the moth,
He wants to give his soul to his friend,
I do not know what refraining is.”
What can we say for the longing of Çeraği Baba from Adıyaman, an enraptured Pir, a spiritual teacher that lived 400 years ago:
“I have been waiting for a long time, that beautiful heart-captivating will come,
She, whose hair like hyacinth, whose lips are wine and whose
spirit is a companion of mine,
Woe to he who fell in love with her gazelle like eyes,
He will love her passionately, enchanted and amazed by her.”
See how the great poet Ziya Pasha, the Pasha of Pashas gives the order:
“Cup bearer! Bring the wine that is the means of liveliness!”
And how the great man of the poets, Bağdatlı Ruhi, a Turkoman poet of us, shows the way of the wine bar fearlessly:
“Let us be ruined with this trouble of love,
Let us go to the wine bar and be happy,
Let us lay an old mat in a corner of the wine bar,
Let us hold the wine glass and be free from the sorrow!”
And what our Head Mufti, he is a sheikhulislam as well: Şeyhül İslam Yahya Efendi is saying and giving fatwa:
“In mosques, hypocrisy has been a habit, leave it!
Come to the wine bar, there is neither hypocrisy nor a hypocrite.”
And Sheikh Saffet from Urfa, the Master of Kadiris, is more passionate:
“We would guide the fanatic (sofi) in a wine bar,
Let him stay in the mosque for along time and die there!”
What would you say to this? A poet of us, he is wonderful:
See what he says for the rosy face of Divine Light Muhammad (S.A.V.), who is the most beautiful, our soul and our master:
“O the Prophet of Allah! The divine light of your eyes is flowing from your eyelashes like the Kawsar.
May God forgive: Man is worshipping you saying “This is Allah.”
Now another couplet that may make you leave your religion and faith, God Forbid!
“The chat with the heart-captivating is the leftover from my religion,
Let there is beloved in my heart but no faith!”
Look at this lover! He wants it from Allah. He means to say: “The heart-captivating are the murshids (the Perfect Men) who have divine lighted faces. The beloved is the beautiful face of Allah and His reflector.
Here are the two lines from Hayali Hazretleri:
“The beautiful of the world is in the world but they do not know the beautiful,
Those fish are in the sea but they do not know the sea.”
And our great lover, the Friend of God, Yunus becomes a slave at the door of the beloved:
“At the dervish convent of Taptuk Emre,
I became at his door a slave.”
Then, one must be a slave of the beloved, Taptuk Emre Hazretleri (The Perfect Man). There are hundreds, thousands of passionate love poems of our lover poets. In an assembly of love, 35-40 years ago, the following extempore lines came from the tongue of this humble person:
“Making me addicted to his fire of love with the separation of two Ahmed,
I am; a love-stricken nightingale of Rufai and a moth of Bedevi.”
The real meanings of the metaphorical expressions that Sufi writers and Sufi Masters used in their poems are as follows:
Wine: love, affection, adorning
Wine bar: the dervish convent where the Perfect Man resides
Heart captivating: the beloved, the divine Light Muhammad that reflects the Absolute Beauty.
Cup bearer: He is the spiritual master of the spiritual masters, the most perfect spiritual teacher Hz. Ali, who is in love with the rosy face of Hz. Muhammad, and Ali’s sons and his heirs who are all Perfect Men. The mystic poets of that time used metaphorical symbols, the reason why is not known, may be due to the conditions of that time. They had hidden their real love by metaphorical words.
I SEND MY KIND REGARDS TO ALL LOVERS FORE THE SAKE OF THE LOVE OF MUHAMMAD…
(*) “Vellezine amenu eşedde hubben lillahi- Allah must be loved strongly.” (The Sura of Baqarah, 165)
A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: ATTENTION!
A couplet from Sheik Galip:
“Treat yourself kindly, you are the essence of the world,
You are Adam - the man, the eye (pupil) of the source of existence.”
Think about the following lines in the Nativity Poem written for the Holy Prophet:
“I made your person a mirror to My person
and I wrote My name with your name.”
Now, O Man (HUMAN)!
You are the child of Hz. Adam, who was the caliph and the Prophet of Allah and who was prostrated before by all the beings even by Gabriel. The spirit breathed to Adam is a great piece of Muhammadi Spirit, the greatest Spirit of Allah; like the moon compared to the sun. The sun symbolizes the Spirit of Muhammad in the Universe and the moon symbolizes the spirit of Adam. The following line is very interesting:
“HIS (Muhammad’s) SPIRIT IS PURE AND MANIFESTED FROM THE HOLIEST PERSON: ALL HOLY GOD.”
The most holy person is the merciful Allah. Now I am repeating again: Man (human), whose father of his body is Adam, who is a Prophet, and whose father of his spirit is Hz. Muhammad! Know yourself;
If you stand up, you write Elif (a letter in Arabic Alphabet) so you are Adam and you become Muhammad when you prostrate. The word Muhammad is written with connected Arabic letters and the form that man takes in prostration is like the writing Muhammad and it means to be a slave of Allah, the highest rank. In order to be a slave of Allah, you must prostrate and write the word Muhammad with your body.
It is written on both sides of the face of a human: “Ali-Ali” Ali means the Most High-exalted, Muhammad means praised by Allah as a word meaning. Therefore, you are both Adam, Muhammad (praised highly) and Ali (exalted).
It is written Adam while you are standing up, while prostrating or worshipping God it is written Muhammad; and Ali (exalted) is written on your face with the hand of the powerful.
O! Human! With these natural structure and states of you, you are both Muhammad, Ali and Adam. O MAN! KNOW YOURSELF! KNOW YOUR VALUE! IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF REALITY, MUHAMMAD IS YOU! ALİ IS YOU! ADAM IS YOU!
MY HUMAN BROTHER WHO IS VERY EXALTED!
THEN, KNOW YOUR VALUE! KNOW YOURSELF (Human)!
If you do not know yourself, you are nothing. If a person dies without knowing himself, they say after him: “He was born ignorant and died ignorant”. Moreover, they say: “He was not able to know human, he lived like an animal and died like an animal.”
IF YOU KNOW YOURSELF, YOU ARE THE GREATEST SYMBOL THAT REFLECTS THE PERSON AND THE BEAUTIES OF ALLAH!
See what a Sufi wise man says:
“I drank the wine of love in the assembly of eternity and came drunkard
I am like a mirror to the beloved.”
(Here the beloved is the Absolute Beauty)
“When the eternal sea (the Creator) rose with the forceful power
(with divine desire),
The waves pounded and two colors manifested from the eternal,
infinite sea of Divine Light.
Allah, who is the definite recognizer of the identities, saw these colors and He said to these personal colors manifested from His Person:
One of My colors is the Divine Light of Muhammad and the other is the Divine Light of Ali.”
The Divine Light (Nur) of Muhammad is green and the Divine Light of Ali is pink. Green symbolizes the beautiful face (the beloved) and pink symbolizes the love. Therefore, to love Hz. Ali and Ahla-l Bayt is an obligatory duty. (The Sura of Shura)
And Osman Kemali from Erzurum says:
“O HUMAN, who became the most noble image while being a drop of semen!
Know your power! The SHAPE OF HUMAN cannot be easily
obtained!”
YES, KNOW YOUR VALUE! O THE EXALTED HUMAN THE ANGELS PROSTRATED BEFORE! KNOW YOURSELF SO THAT YOU CAN LEARN YOUR VALUE!
“A person who knows himself (human) knows his Lord.” (For, the Lord is the essence of man and the universe) Sacred Hadith by Hz. Muhammad (a.s.v.)
IF YOU REALLY KNOW YOURSELF, YOU ARE MUHAMMAD, ALİ AND ADAM WHO ARE THE REFLECTOR OF THE CREATOR, ALL OF THEM ARE IN YOU. ALL THE ANGELS AND THE UNIVERSE ARE PROSTRATING BEFORE YOU.
For, if you had not existed, the Creator, who is your essence, would not have been known. ALLAH would have been secret in His Might (Ceberut) eternally. (*) Nobody would have known Him except Himself. For this reason, He created Adam (HUMAN) -His reflector- so that He would be known.
(*) “Küntü kenzen mahfiyyen fe ahbebtü li yuref - I was a hidden treasure, I liked My manifestation and I created the worlds.” (Sacred Hadith)
“El insanü sırrü ve enesırrıhu - Man is My secret and I am his secret as well.” Sacred Hadith
Some that heard this hadith asked: “We wonder whether the secret of Allah is great or the secret of man is great?”
GREETINGS TO HZ. MUHAMMAD, HZ. ALİ HZ. ADAM AND HIS SONS… I SAY “HUUU” (EDEP YA HU)!
AND I BOW DOWN BEFORE THEM WITH RESPECT AND LOVE…
The following lines are from Niyazi Mısri Hazretleri, a great Sufi and great Muslim Saint:
“In all the creation, the names are seen.
In all the names, the basic name is seen.”
(Every object is a reflector of a name of Allah. Man is the reflector of all the names, one thousand one names of Allah.)
“I taught Adam all My names.” (Sura of Baqarah) Adam (Man) has a universal aspect. In all the names, Allah is seen. The person of Allah is seen in all the names of man and objects.
“İnnallahe haleke Ademe ala suretihi- Surely, Allah created Adam in His own attribute-in His beauty.” (Sacred Hadith)
The above sacred hadith reports that human definitely reflects all the attributes and beauties of Allah. A mystic poet says on this matter:
“You created your own beauty as the heart captivating beautiful
people.
Then You observed it from the eyes of the lover.”
The above lines stress the reality that a beautiful Man (Human) is the reflection of all the beauties of the Creator and all the beauties of human are the beauties of Allah and afterwards the Creator observed His own beauty on the beautiful face of the beautiful human from the eye of the Lover.
The last word belongs to Niyazi Mısri Hazretleri, who is a great wise person and Muslim Saint:
“Prostrate yourself before Adam (Human),
So that you can be a slave of Allah,
He who turns away from Adam
has turned away from Allah.”
Here, Niyazi Mısri Hazretleri alluded to the event that Satan turned away from Adam and he did not prostrate before him. In other word, when he did not like ADAM and did not exalt ADAM, he became away from Allah. This matter is written in Chapter Baqarah and Chapter Sad and in many other chapters.
“You created Your own beauty as the heart-captivating beautiful people
And afterwards you observed it from the eyes of lover.”
Therefore, the lover and the beloved are but God. There is a song: “I love the beautiful as she is a work from You.”
“Heme Ost - ALL IS HE (THE CREATOR)”
“THE FIRST AND THE LAST THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN IS HE AND HE KNOWS ALL THINGS” (Chapter Hadid)
“HUU ALLAH HUU” (HE IS ALLAH, ALL IS HE AND ALLAH IS ONE)
SELLU ALA NEBIYYINA MUHAMMAD SELLU ALA VELIYYİNA ALİ
AMAN YA MUHAMMAD MEDET YA ALİ!
“LA FETA İLLA ALİ LA SEYFE İLLA ZULFİKAR - THERE IS NO SOLDIER LIKE ALİ AND NO SWORD LIKE ZULFIQAR” (Sacred Hadith)
“ALİYYEN MİNNİ VE ENE MİNHÜ - ALİ IS FROM ME AND I AM FROM ALİ!”
“ZİKRÜ ALİYYÜN İBADETUN - MAKING REMEBRANCE OF ALİ IS WORSHIP.”
“NEZERU İLA VECHU ALİYYUN İBADETÜN - LOOKING AT ALİ’S FACE IS WORSHIP.” Spiritual connection in Sufism is based on this secrecy.
“ENEMEDİNETÜL İLMİ VE ALİYYEN BABUHA FEMEN ERADEL İLME FEYETİL BAB - I AM THE CITY OF KNOWLEDGE ALİ IS THE GATE TO IT. HE WHO WANTS KNOWLEDGE MUST COME TO THE GATE.”
In the Koran, there is a command as “Enter the houses through its door.”
“HÜSEYNEN MİNNİ VE ENE MİNHU - HUSAYN IS FROM ME AND I AM FROM HUSAYN.”
The above sacred Hadiths are written in “Musned” by Ahmed Bin Hambel, in “Camiussağir” by Suyuti and in the hadiths of Nesei and in other hadith books. They are all genuine and very strong hadiths. There is also a hadith as
“ENE MİNALLAHİ VEL MÜMİNİNE MİNNİ - I AM FROM ALLAH AND BELIEVERS ARE FROM ME.”
The great Sufi Muhyiddini Arabi Hazretleri said:
“Love, lover and the beloved are all Allah.” According to Muhyiddini Arabi LOVE IS ALLAH”. He says that lover, beloved and love are the same or; love, the person who loves and the person who is loved is only one thing. He is Allah and His Absolute Beauty.
According to our Master, the Sultan of the Wise Saints Sayyid Ahmed Er Rufai: “LOVE IS FIRE”. (Divine Love, warmness)
It has also a story:
One day a young man, while he was in the presence of GawsulAzam AbdulKadir Geylani Hazretleri, asked Hazrat Pir:
-O Sayyid! What is love?
The Sultan of the Saints, the Greatest Sheikh Gawsi Geylani said:
-My brother! Go and ask this question to Sayyid Ahmed er Rufai Hazretleri!
The young man went and asked the same question to The Sultan of the Wise, the great Sheikh Sayyid Ahmed Rufai Hazretleri:
-What is Love O Sayyid!
At that moment, Hazrat Pir was standing up. He said: “El aşkınnar - LOVE IS FIRE” and began whirling saying HU. He ascended to sky while whirling until he passed into the unseen and disappeared. While this was happening, suddenly Sultan AbdulKadir Geylani Hazretleri appeared there. He poured rosewater on the spot where Rufai Hazretleri ascended saying HU. They started remembrance with the aspirants ready there forming a circle. After some time, Hz. Rufai appeared in the sky. He descended to the earth saying HU and whirling and he stopped at the spot where he ascended. He met and embraced Shah Geylani Hazretleri. Hz. Gawsul Geylani, the Great Spiritual Master said:
-At this moment, my brother Sayyid Ahmed er Rufai has gone such a place that there are some among the saints who reached there but none of them has returned.
Only one person went and was able to return before Sayyid Ahmed and all the saints know that this person is the Sultan of the Saints, the Great Gaws, their Prosperous Person, Majesty, Holy Sheikh Sayyid Abdul Kadir Geylani Hazretleri (R.A.)
Hz. Rufai says:
“THE SPIRITUAL HEART OF THE SUFI IS LIGHTED WITH LOVE AND IT IS BRIGHT, BROAD WITH WISDOM.”(His bosom is not depressive but comforted)
Mawlana describes love as:
“Aşkest Tariki Rahi Peygamberima-THE PATH OF OUR PROPHET CONSISTS OF LOVE.”
MAY PEACE BE UPON LOVERS!