Urdu,Hindi,and Sanskrit

[Stephen Hodge]

This is moving away from Indology very rapidly but my last word on the
matter:

Aditya, the Cheerful Hindu Skeptic wrote:

> This seems to be your personal opinion in your attempt to discredit
Kamal
> Pasha's legacy which I do not share.

Sorry, but it is not my personal opinion but based on testimony from
many people I have met in Turkey.  As far as I have been able to
ascertain, their statements are an accurate account of the facts.
Why, for example, were there no tekkes in Turkey until the Uskudar
Tekke was re-opened in the 80s whereas there had been hundreds in
pre-Ataturk days ?  Why was Sema only legally performed once a year in
Turkey, at Konya, and then as a tourist attraction ?  Why was one old
man arrested in the early 60s after the Sema there because he was
praying while whirling ?  Have you actually been to Turkey and spoken
to many people ?  I doubt it very much.

> I suspect that they are really fundamentalist Islamists masquerading
as
> sufis since Turkey is even to this day is the only secular country
whose
> population is predominantly muslim.

You suspect wrong and insult my friends -- they are leading Mevlevi
and Naqshabandi Sufis, including some of the most famous Sufi
musicians alive.  They are certainly not fundamentalists whom they
dislike since they know that they would also be banned under a
fundamentalist Islamic regime -- after one all night session of ilahis
in the early 80s, one of them remarked, "Of course, you realize we
would all be locked up if we were in Iran now".  Another said with
sadness that perhaps the only good that would come out of Iranian etc
fundamentalism might be highlight for the world the gulf between it
and true Islam.  hardly the views of "fundamentalists masqerading as
Sufis".  BTW:  I personally am not a Muslim nor even a Sufi and hold
no brief for them beyond personal friendship -- my contact over many
trips to Turkey with such people was based on a love of the music.
.
I shall not comment on the remainder of your msg since it is a red
herring and irrelevant to my point.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge