In my previous post I was apologetic about reducing Sufi spirituality to cinematic experience – but probably I shouldn’t feel too guilty about this given that cinema as form of creative imagination can reach quite high levels of subtlety, so that Sufi writer and critic Sadık Yalsızuçanlar not only elevates directors such as Akira Kurosawa ...
Slowly making my way through Elif Şafak’s Pinhan I’ve come across these lines, in which the protagonist’s favourite Sufi teachers are described thus: ‘Kul Hüseyin ile Budala Tosun dudaklarından tebbesüm eksik olmayan, ağızlarından bal damlayan, kimsenin kusurunu görmeyen dervişlerdi. Adeta tüm ömürlerini, dâr-ül hayal ile dâr-ül hakikati birbirinden ayıran hatt-ı fasılı silmeye vakfetmişler.’ (Şafak 2001: ...