Being a guest of the Sheikh Nazim

I have a soft spot for headscarves and I actually quite often cover my head with a piece of coloured cloth from my collection. Of course I lack the religious disposition which prevents me from letting it fall back on my shoulders rather often. These headscarves do not even fit in with the rest of my clothing style I must say, but I do find them beautiful and comfy. Especially I love large, thick Pakistani scarves, no textiles are more beautiful to me than these.
So, even though I am definetely not Muslim, it did feel a little weird to be the only woman in the room without a headscarf. I simply had not taken one with me in my backpack on this trip, and so there I was, the odd one out at the the 'dergah', the spiritual centre around the house of the Sheikh Nazim in the small town of Lefke on the island Cyprus.
I had just arrived and I was enjoying an evening of music surrounded by other visitors. And as already noted, I was the only woman showing my hair.

I must say life has blessed me (or cursed me, more like it) with enough practice in being the odd one out, so I took things in my stride. But I began wondering about the society I had entered. Were all those present fervently religious? No, in the midst of the group I noticed two girls, who, despite their long skirts and hidden hair, were clearly the backpacker-type thirsty for an unusual experience, rather than people committed to a chosen spiritual path. I imagined that at least some of the young Central Asian women sitting next to each other, laughing and sharing tea like best friends do, also did not wear a headscarf in their every day lives, even though they were of an Islamic background. When I started realizing that the women here had donned the thing regardless of how they held it with covering their hair elsewhere, I started to be thankful for the fact that I had none with me. On the accounts of most, only in the mosque a headscarf is proscribed, so why should I now swathe one round my head, just because the others did? I do not need to bind my head into one, then pull it off a week later, along with all religious inclinations.

My friends had warned me, I might feel like in a sect if I went to the community around Sheikh Nazim. If someone had asked me at that point, on that first evening, I might have graced them with the secret thought spooking about in the back of my head which was that 'to call them a sect would be bestowing a compliment on them, they seem to lack all seriousness'. That evening, as well as the days after I got the vibe from some of the people that they had arrived  less to immerse themselves in faith than to simply enjoy the conviviality.
I had seen my friend the Joker's pictures from when he had visited the dergah. Photos of the bearded, charismatic men in long cloaks and green turbans looked exotic and intriguing to me. Now that I watched the spectacle with my own eyes, it all seemed so more mundane. The parade before me seemed in fact to lack that pinch of authenticity whose effect is so embellishing. It  all looked more like some sort of nativity play where everyone wanted to be one of the Three Wise Men. The Sheikh's local shop must be making good business selling those pine tree-green rough felt cloaks and emerald-bright turban-slash-hats. Interestingly, the Joker was surprised to hear that in no other Islamic country I visited, I had actually seen people walk around like that!

Among the group listening to to the music that evening was one guy with dread locks complacently lying back in his chair, next to another hippy friend of his in corduroy trousers and a cardigan. They seemed to belong to the same group as those backpacker traveller girls I had noted earlier. The woman playing the saz took a break to introduce the two young men: ''Tonight we are celebrating for these two! It is their birthday. They became Muslims today. Happy Birthday!'', and she intoned the following song. I must say I objected to her wording. First you say we will all go to hell, if we do not accept your faith, then you do not even grant us that we are alive down here on earth.

In any case, I was going to talk about the two guys' conversion the day after with one of their female friends in the women's guest-house, Albina. I asked how come that her friends became Muslims so quickly. ''When they tell the story, they say it was a bit like they had no choice. They were pushed into the mosque and asked to pronounce those words, the sh...'' -''The Shahada'', I filled in the gap, 'shahada' being the phrase which, if pronounced three times with conviction, will make you a Muslim. ''It was more like a ceremony to welcome them to the broherhood than anything else'', she finished off. ''Do they know that the death penalty is proscribed for apostasy?'', I could not hold back. A temporary puzzled look flashed over the girl's face before she commented ''I don't think so! But you seem to know a lot about Islam!''
Well, it's not rocket science to have heard of that little factlet.

In any case, that same evening, Albina was lolling in one of the arm-chairs, and told the gathered women of the deep, loving relationship that connected her with her two boy-friends in particular and about the empowering benefits brought by free love more generally. The day she left, she kissed me goodbye on the mouth. I admired her guts that evening to speak her mind given the setting. It is difficult to speak frankly about one's views in the face of those who shows you such hospitality (you can stay ten days at least and the food is bounteous and delicious). As we will see shortly, I myself do not stand up to that task.

At the women's guest house, the temporary inhabitants included a group of students from Kirgistan, a couple of Russian-speakers, a lady from Indonesia, three generations of Londoners of Sri Lankan origin, and an American, daughter to converts to Islam. Permanent residents are an amiable Lebanese and an imposing and intelligent German woman. The wider community in the small town includes a handful of German women, and a number of American men. These two last-named nationalities outnumber all others.
''Why do you think so many Germans and Americans become Muslims?'', my friend whom we nickname the Joker, the guy who told me about the Sheikh to start with, had asked me. I did not have to think long:
''I think it is because of shame. Growing up in Germany, in the media, in school, everyone constantly confronts you with what your ancestors did, with how much diligence and technology they went about their cruelty. For how many deaths they were resposible. Of course you are going to feel ashamed, you will start to seek distance to who you are. And how else to create distance between yourself and the history of your people, than to turn to the 'other'? Of course these are subliminal processes most converts are not in the slightest aware of, and would certainly not cite as one of their reasons, but to me it makes perfect sense.

And as for Americans, I can imagine the underlying, subliminal psychological processes are much the same. Their government has been going around the world, attacking Muslim states, causing the deaths of millions. Many American citizens also feel ashamed for what their state is doing to the world. And how better to take a step back from those who kill in their name? It is easy, you do this by turning to the 'other'.''

The next morning, a group of six of us got up very early to hike to a praying place on top of a mountain above the village immediately after the fajr prayer. Still in the dark, with only a strip of grey to be seen on one side of the horizon, we had to take off our shoes and socks and walk ankle-deep through the ice-cold water of a stream outside the village, before scaling up the slope through a bit of forest and over fertile meadows.
The construction up there, which for lack of the correct word I would name a "chapel", was a hexangular wood building with something of a large Chinese hat for a roof.

After we walked around enjoying the fresh air, we sat down inside only to discover it was crawling with spiders, some white, long-legged and hairy, some black, tiny and shining. These animals, of course, are holy in Islam. One time they protected the prophet when he hid himself in a cave, fleeing from a mob of unbelievers out to lynch him. The spiders spun their webs very swiftly, concealing the entrance completely.
We did not mind the arachnid company, and settled down quietly, preparing to chant a zikr together. In our case a zikr meant we rhythmically repeated god's name as well as some phrases in arabic to the sound of a recording on a mobile phone. It was a sweet moment to share so early in the morning, with the sun coming up around us.
Before leaving -now in the full daylight- our new backpacker friends, who had also come, made some yoga exercises. When seeing them end the Sun Greeting with a 'Namasté', the Indian greeting and gesture of respect, I was reminded of its etymological similarity of this Hindu term with the Turkish term for the five daily prayers, 'Namaz'. The word 'Namaz' seems to have entered Turkish from Hindi via Farsi. It was used in Persia in the times of Zoroastrianism to mean 'to bow before the fire'. 'Namasté' apparently means simply 'I bow before you', the 'te' particle meaning 'you'.

We trotted down the mountain to join the rest of the women for breakfast. That morning, Saima, the Lebanese cook made an amazing  Lebanese yoghurt soup to be eaten with rice. The handmade Baba Ganoush, with tiny pieces of spicy pepper cut almost to dust inside the aubergine puree, was simply legendary. Mariam, the indefatiguable Russian from the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk provided the dessert in the form of pancakes, so exquisitely thin as to be practically see-through, with little holes everywhere, as if they were woven. After the feast, I could hardly move my limbs anymore, let alone go on another walk.

On that second evening of mine at the dergah, when we were sitting with many women at the dinner table, an enterprising twenty-something came along with a few colourful headscarves on offer. A German lady offered to buy me one. I have already made mention of the love I have for headscarves and here I did see a couple I liked, but I did not want to take advantage of her kindness. At that particular moment I did not even notice the fact that it was also a gesture of trying to assimilate me to the community!
Later in the day the younger one of the women from London taught me how to pray. I wrote down a transcription of the first seven lines of prayer uttered in Arabic in the Latin alphabet in my own, scribbling hand, and noted a rough translation in English next to it. After she showed me the movements to make, she said it would be her pleasure if I kept the headscarf I had used during prayer. Again, I declined modestly.
But when the morning after her mother  with an actually quite pretty one, I could not help but accept.
I thought if I ever wanted to try praying in a mosque without feeling too silly, I might as well do it now. However, when I arrived just after the call to prayer at sunset, the crowd in the mosque was missing. My intention had been to take my queues for praying movements from others, so now that there was no one in the women's part, I tried to peek down at the men. I could not see any of them, although I could see that the imam send a text message in the quiet moments between chanting, laying the mobile phone on top of the Koran that was opened on his knees.

Then, the next day, as I walked  into the dergah building to help prepare breakfast, having wrapped the headscarf I was given round the back of my head, then, only then, the thought dawned in me that the community here did in fact have something of a sect. Just look at my transformation in a few days!

(First Part, second one to follow in January.)