A Conversation with Shaikh David Bellak
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...