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Memories of the Mihrab Gallery

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  Daud Dede asked me to write something about the early days I visited him in his beautiful oriental carpet shop in Edinburgh. Here is a first attempt... Memories of the Mihrab Gallery It was January 1999. I had just returned to Glasgow University in September, after an earlier false start and a three-year incursion into Buddhism, including highland retreats, life in communal houses and theatrical exploits. Looking for books in the university library on Sufism, which I had begun to explore the previous year, I found Shems Friedlander’s The Whirling Dervishes with its darkly evocative pictures of dervishes in white against black backgrounds, and I found a website – searching the internet was still quite a novel experience back then! - for the Threshold Society in the USA, a sufi organisation connected to the Persian mystic and poet Jelaluddin Rumi. They offered a distance learning introduction to sufi thought and practice called the 99 Day Program, which I wrote off to join, and in...
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A Conversation with Shaikh David Bellak

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  Here is a memory of an evening of spiritual conversation, called "sohbet" in Turkish, with Daud Bellak over twenty years ago in his home in the New Town of Edinburgh. It expresses something of his teaching, and a story from his own teacher, Suleyman Hayati Dede... The Conversation It was a pleasant weekend in late Summer 2003. A friend of mine named Lili from Bern in Switzerland was over visiting, and we drove up from Sheffield where I was then living, through the Lake District and on to Scotland, where we spent a couple of nights. The first evening we were invited to dinner with David Bellak, shaikh and whirling dervish in Rumi’s sufi tradition. David lived in a comfortable ground floor flat in Edinburgh’s New Town - which is not new at all, but actually a historic UNESCO heritage district of Georgian and Neo-Classical buildings, constructed from local sandstone. It’s new relative to the medieval Old Town up the hill, famous for the Royal Mile running from the Castle d...
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Daud Dede in Manchester

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  Daud Dede came down to Manchester from Edinburgh this weekend to lead an evening conversation on Rumi's spiritual tradition and to share zikr. He spoke of many things forming the way: gentleness, humanity, silence, intuition, faith, commitment to a simple practice, community, "higher worlds", and especially Unity. Central to his discourse was a Turkish saying, which translates roughly as "Two mountains cannot come to meet each other, but two human beings can." We hope to invite Dede down to Manchester again in December for Rumi's Sheb-i Arus.
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A Letter from Father Francis in Assisi

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Da'ud Dede would like us to share on this blog his memories and letter from Father Francis, a Catholic priest he met in 1974. This post was originally shared on the Rumi's Circle blog, which has many interesting articles from the community of Kabir Helminski: https://rumiscircle.com/2014/06/22/a-letter-from-father-francis/ Notes on the Letter In the Spring of 1978 my journeys brought me once again from London to Claymont Court in rural West Virginia, USA, a 90-minute drive from Washington DC. Claymont, a school of  inner work  based upon the teachings of GI Gurdjieff and JG Bennett, was where, exactly two years earlier in 1976, I had accompanied my beloved sheikh and  murshid  of the Mevlevi Sufi order, Suleyman Hayati Dede from Konya, Turkey, following an invitation for him to visit Claymont during his European and North American travels introducing the teachings of the Master Jelalud’din Rumi. Suleyman Hayati Dede, New York City, May 1976 In 1972, through a se...
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Poem for Ramadan

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  Fasting   Rumi, Ghazal 1739, translated by Bahreinian & Helminski     There’s sweetness hidden in this empty belly. The human is like a musical instrument, no more no less.   If the belly of a lute were stuffed with food would any melodies, either high or low, be possible?   But when your belly and brain are burning in Ramadan, with every breath a song arises in your chest.   A thousand veils are burned away with every breath and you race up the stairs in front of you, level upon level, effortlessly.   Empty your stomach and in your need cry out like the ney. Empty your stomach and secrets will flow from your pen.   If you’re constantly filling up your stomach, come the Resurrection an idol occupies your Kaaba, a shaytan in place of a mind.   But from fasting, good qualities rush to support you, helpers of all kinds, nourishers, dependable friends.   Fasting is the magical seal of Solomon. Don’t give that seal to a demon, don’...
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Remembering Süleyman Hayatı Dede

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  This Friday just passed, 19th January, was the annual commemoration of Süleyman Dede, who passed from this world in 1985. Here are his own strikingly fresh words on Divine Rememberance, the sufi practice of zikr: “In order to become human, we need to always be within the Divine Presence – to be aware of God, to hold Him in our hearts. When a human being performs Zikhr, their spirit – their heart starts to open. Their intelligence becomes more refined and more expansive. Their bodies become healthier. A beautiful condition comes about – similar to the one that is brought about by good music. The whole being opens up like a flower, and the Divine Secret – the things you couldn’t understand or know about before – begin to be revealed to you." Süleyman Hayatı Dede, may his Secret abide with God
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Zikr to pray for all those affected by the earthquake

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David Bellak has arranged with the Imam of Annandale St Mosque, Edinburgh, to have Zikr following afternoon Asr prayers about 1440 Friday to pray for all those suffering and lost in the earthquake in Turkey and Syria. Inşallah there will be a few people coming.
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