Ahmet Karamustafa.
Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press, 1994.
ISBN: 0-87480-456-6

Ahmet T. Karamustafa introduces us to the phenomenon of Dervish groups in Medieval Islam with two representations of their appearance, the first in Ghazna in Eastern Afghanistan, and the second in Syria. His first citation is from `Abd Allâh Ansârî Haravî's Risâlah-i Qalândar'nâmah:
"In the mid twelfth century, a peculiar-looking ascetic visited the palace of the Ghaznavid ruler Mu`izz al-Dawlah Khusraw Shâh(r.1152-60). . . He had bare feet and was dressed in black goat's skin. On his head he wore a cap of the same material, ornamented with horns. In his hands he carried a club adorned with rings, pierced ankle bones, and small round bells."
His second, from `Abd al-Qâdir al-Nu`aymî's Al-dâris fî ta'rîkh al-madâris:
      "More than a century and a half later, ascetics of very similar appearance gathered around Barak Baba(d.1307-8) in Asia Minor and Iran. Barak Baba arrived in Syria in the year 1306 at the head of a group of about one hundred dervishes, naked except for a red cloth wrapped around his waist. He wore a reddish turban on his head with a buffalo horn attached on either side. His hair and his moustache were long, while his beard was clean-shaven. He carried with him a long pipe or horn(nafir), as well as a dervish bowl. He did not accumulate any wealth. His disciples were of similar appearance, carrying long clubs, tambourines and drums, bells, and painted ankle bones, with molar teeth attached to strings suspended from their necks. Wherever they went, the disciples played and Barak Baba danced like a bear and sang like a monkey..."
     Included, as well, are several black and white portraits of different dervishes by Nicholas Nicholay Daulphinois made during his travels in Turkey. Plate No. 3 of a "Calender aReligious Turke" -whose upper half is presented on the cover of the book, shown above-- is to my mind particularly striking. It shows a man dressed in hat and long shirt, ordinary enough. But take a look at the "larger" picture, and one observes that the lower part of his garment is open, revealing his penis adorned with a huge, presumably iron, ring!
      According to the author such personalities and their followers represented an attitude to society that emerged in 1200-1500, which on the one hand elevated the ascetic principles of mendicancy, itinerancy, celibacy, and self mortification through a radical interpretation of the doctrine of poverty, and on the other, welded asceticism with social deviance, asserting such behavior to be the ultimate measure of renunciation.
      Unfortunately, the antinomian nature of these dervishes apparent in their open disregard for prescribed Islamic ritual, together with their patently scandalous anti-social behaviour and conspicuous use of intoxicants and hallucigens, had resulted in a misunderstanding of their essentially renunciatory practices. Treated as marginal phenomena they were intentionally ignored, and inevitably came to be misrepresented as "unenlightened" and "populist". As recently as in 1989, the renowned scholar Fazlur Rahmân, for instance, was seen to condemn their behaviour, declaring: "This phenomenon of popular religion very radically changed the aspect of Sûfism. . . . Sûfism was now transformed into a veritable spiritual jugglery through auto-hypnotic transports and visions just as at the level of doctrine it was being transmuted into a half delirious theosophy. . . This, combined with the spiritual demagogy of many Sûfi Shaykhs, opened the way for all kinds of aberrations, not the least of which was charlatnism.. . Islam was at the mercy of spiritual delinquents."(page 8-9).
      Hoping to correct such lack of understanding and ignorance, Karamustafa carefully unveils the practices of three derwish groups in particular,- the Qalandars led by Jamâl al-Dîn Sâvî(d. 1232-33); the Haydars led by Qutb al- Dîn Haydar(d. 1221-22) and the Abdâls led by Otman Baba- to explain and clarify for the reader the true nature of these unique Muslims, who by their very extraordinary behaviour attempted to provide a strong, if not harsh, criticism of generally accepted Islamic mores.
      The way Karamustafa sees it, the judgment of Fazlur Rahmân is to a large extent based on his "Sunni" prejudices. Islam as it was first presented to the world, was not so clearly enunciated by either Quran or Tradition. The Sunni may like to emphasize the this worldly nature of the creed, demanding that institutions of marriage and employment be established and maintained by law. But a more careful examination of the demands of Islam makes it difficult to understand where exactly the priorities lie: whether the ideal was to live by the norms set by a Sunni `ijma or rather, turned away, towards a private rapport with God. According to Karamustafa, Sûfism emerged as a bridge between individualist renunciatory piety and community oriented legalist world affirmation. Antisocial dervish piety emerged from within Sûfism to emphasize not only its ascetic roots, but as well, an "uncompromising and often fiercely unconventional individualism." Importantly, the basis of new renunciatory piety was a deliberate and provokative rejection of the social order. As the author explains: " Anchoritism was never a serious option. Instead the dervish had to test the salvational efficacy of their renunciatory spirituality through action within the world. Rejection of society functioned as an effective mode of piety only when it was conspicuously and continuously targeted at society. Significantly, members of such dervish groups were not restricted to the lower and uneducated social strata of society, either. Many had arrived from the upper classes, and the presence of poets, scholars, and writers suggests that it held a certain attraction for the intellectuals of the day. These were essentially motivated individuals.
      In this study entitled God's Unruly Friends, Karamustafa, investigates the development and growth of what appeared to be a "a confused and amorphous dervish movement." He persuasively argues that it was, in fact, a set of clearly differentiated religious collectivities that maintained their distinct identities throughout the 13th. to 16th. centuries, in the heartlands of Islam, from Turkey to India. The raison d'etre of these dervish groups was primarily "a new renunciation;" undertaken in significant urban centers of the empire and inevitably protesting the existing this worldly interpretations of Islam.
      What's my verdict? A very well done study which makes a fascinating read.

Reviewed by Rizwi Faizer
Date: Jan., 2000.