Arrived Sudan in a business trip, yesterday after a lonely Eftaar and watching couple of TV programmes, I sat on my chair reading one of the books that I traveled with – I read a lot!
It was almost mid night, very quite streets and I heard as somebody is Singing or reading Quran, muted the TV and rushed to the window, opened it and started listening the voice. It was very nice, melodious and touching, a mix of an Arab and African rhythm, a blind Sufi who was walking alone with his stick, no one was in the street and no other voice could be heard but his fascinating recitation.
A spiritual breath overwhelmed the whole area; I found myself totally captivated by this charming and fascinating voice chanting around the area, walking just alone as they used to be always walking and facing this strange world alone, people call them Dervish and what is nice about the Dervishes is they maybe highly educated and well-known people but they dress very humbly and live as any poor guy live, they show no interest in life but to spend most of their time worshiping Allah and in total adoration and you may know after they die they were something very special and examples are just many in the Islamic history
I recalled the Sufi singers back home in Iraq who used to gather and sing occasionally, I personally adore listing to the Iraqi Sufi singings; -and I am not pro mysticism. I managed last year to get some CDs but they turned to be Syrian singers –not Iraqi.
Back to the mysticism in Sudan, they has a great followers in Sudan yet I don’t know which Sufi school they follow but I think I am going to explore this bet while I am here or at least buy a book before leaving Sudan.
The voice started fading and getting weaker and weaker and I couldn’t see that guy any more, I felt at that moment that I should have thanked him; he turned me from that loneliness moment to a cheerful one. The street turned empty and nobody else walked in, closed my window, and sat on the chair resumed reading my book hoping to write something in the morning about my late night visiting Dervish.
Lesson I learned: while you are lonely and don’t know what to do, there could be some one walking around that can add a value to that sad moment, you should open that window and see who is passing by.
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2 comments:
This is a nice post Sinan,
I can understand how U felt that night
I was alone & lonely in some country this summer & I used to stand behind the window at night to see the rain drops.
Hope U return home soon.
BTW I wish to know more about Sufi people in Iraq.
Here is a post I red about them but this in Eygpt
http://jarelkamar.blogspot.com/2005/10/blog-post_112853433487379652.html
Salam Tara, happy that you enjoyed reading this post, Sufisism in Iraq is old as the Sufi school itslef, and as far as I know there are three main Sufi schools: Qaderi, Naqshbandi and Refa3ee plus other Sufi schools.
I personaly like the Naqshbandi tareeka, its very close to the correct sunna and they way they perform theker is wonderful.
As for the Sufi shekhs you can find a lot of their graves in Iraq.
such as shekh Abdul qader, Ahmed el refa3ee, el Hallaj I guess and many others. Let me try and find our more details and see I f I can post something about it.
A book that I would recommend reading is called "Madarej el Salkeen" it dosent talk about Sufies in particular, but it tells alot the theker and 3bada.
Thanks for the post about the mowlloeies I enjoyed reading it.
Sinan
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