Body, Mind and Beyond in Hacı Bayram: Three different perception and

practices of Islam
Hacı Bayram is a complex of a tomb and a mosque in the centre of Ankara, Turkey. It struck
and fascinated me with its multiple faces the first time I went there. It is a captivating place
for many to do their “worldly” and “otherworldly” activities and also for people like me who
have zeal to study and understand in what ways Islam is interpreted and lived in Turkey, as
various tariqahs, movements, formal and informal approaches are represented and want to
be represented here. It is also a kind of Islamic conglomerate where people practice and
produce political and religious discourses in their own way, coinciding, associating and
dissociating with each other. And this is what I want to focus on in this paper.

I concentrated on three shops each having their own distinguished perceptions and practices
of Islam akin to their different points of departure which is the body in the first shop, the
mind in the second one and beyond the mind and body in the third one. These points of
departure are also their domains of discipline and pleasure.

At the beginning of my research I realised two obstacles which hindered me to mingle in the
field. First I adapted my outlook wearing a head scarf and a long skirt to remove the distance
between me and the informants to some extent. Second I tried to stop the projection of my
previous knowledge effecting the perceptions I confronted here as much as possible. Further
I tried to make myself pliant, letting the shopkeepers draw me into the style of each shop.

The first shop I will invite you in is run by a father and daughter who are followers of Said-i
Nursi (died in 1960) who was a religious activist leader proclaiming to combine rationality,
science and Islam and believed it was the time to “save the belief”. They have been serving
the movement for a long time selling, disseminating and interpreting books of Nursi as
understood by Fethullah Gülen’s followers - I have been told in the next shop that there are
1000 ‘houses’ arranging these kinds of meetings in Ankara alone, and six million followers of
him around the globe.

In this shop I hardly asked any questions, I was a kind of “semi-insider” - a role chosen for me
by the shopkeepers as they treated everybody entering the shop as someone to be won for
the cause or to lecture in the sense of the community. Although the community propagates
that they represent the tolerant, open and liberal face of Islam, I found them the most
disciplining, practicing strict surveillance of regulations about clothing, food, social
intercourse and sexual intercourse to name just some. Differences are allowed only with
purpose i.e. serving the cause, which in my case they saw as “disseminating the word of God
in METU (the university which I am involved with)”.

The father moved to the area some 40 years ago when he was a child and worked as a tailor
then started this pseudo bookshop. He has memories of suppression against religious and
anti-revolutionary activities of his time and a groan of persecutions and executions operated
by “The Independence Tribunals”. A little boy of one of the customers was wearing a cap to
protect against the sun; the mother was warned and told to take the cap off. It was not
welcomed by the followers to put on hats or caps as some dozens of people had been
executed because they refused to wear hats in 1926.

Serap Avanoğlu, Conference paper, Haci Bayram, May 24 th, 2010 Sayfa 1
The shop is very well frequented by women from teenagers to elder ones; I sat squashed
amongst women most of the time. They have a structure consisting of reading and
interpreting Said-i Nursi’s books which have a heavy Ottoman language -the reason why the
audience was dependent on the interpretations of the shopkeeper-; warnings about clothing
and other regulations, and asking and getting advice on various problems such as problems
with partners, sons’ and daughters’ marriage issues or financial problems. The readings were
called “lessons” and they consisted of tips for “salvation” which was the main discourse. The
father and daughter were the “saviours” giving them a hierarchical higher position. The
“saviour” is assumed to have the capability and knowledge to save others and can invite
others to resemble him/her; they also have the right to criticise defective behaviour and
exercise control. In the face of the high aim of saving others, the methods are justified such
as selling small cards of prayers for inadequate prices to people who ask for help for their
troubles. The “saviour” is at the same time the sacrifice; he or she sacrifices him/herself for
the others in that he or she has no other private life except serving there in the shop which
makes him/her very sensitive to criticism.

The second one is a real bookshop, run by two younger men with a rich variety of religious
books including classical Koran interpretations, commentaries, Hadith and Islamic law. The
shopkeepers also put much value on practising the doctrines and religious rules. They often
have visitors and they are quite well read in such literature. They had no formal higher
education; some of them were auto-didactic, some others have been to madrasas which
officially do not exist but run undercover especially in the East of Turkey. In stark contrast
with the first shop I was challenged from the beginning to demonstrate my opinions, discuss
with them on various religious themes, and also about anthropology. I had thought that they
would think of women having less value, at least intellectually, however they did not let me
take a passive role as I had intended to and looked at me directly in the eye when talking.
They had a yearning for understanding what people really thought. I found them vigorous
and direct in style.

They had an idea of going to the roots and origins. They practiced a critique of present day
Muslims. The shopkeeper commented; “The religiosity is being reduced to the desire to go
to the heaven via the easiest way. This emphasis on paradise is not an original Islamic idea
but a distortion. People have been brought to think only about feeding and clothing
themselves”, which he ascribed to the hollowing out of the culture through the impact and
indirect rule of the West in the Islamic states. He thought these would lead to Turkey’s
collapse as it was in the case of the Ottoman Empire and the result would be a long term war
such as in Afghanistan and Iraq. They criticised Atatürk because of abolishment of Ottoman
language and put it as the cause of why we were estranged from the culture and traditions
of our ancestors.

There was a well cultivated tradition of discussion in the shop; I was really impressed by how
they were able to listen to each other without interfering and put across their ideas when
they were in conflict, too. The shopkeeper said the only rules for discussion were not being
rude or too loud during the debates. He told me he was reading Said-i Nursi’s Risale-i Nur in
the original and what was being read by the Fethullah Gülen community had had many
additions. He went to a bookshop of the community to discuss this. The man got very angry,
and a quarrel nearly began. He advised me not to tell my opinions to them, as they would
not tolerate any different opinions and could be dangerous.

Serap Avanoğlu, Conference paper, Haci Bayram, May 24 th, 2010 Sayfa 2
Another contrast with the previous shop was that people were considered self-responsible
to find the remedy for their problems. The shopkeeper said; “People sometimes come here
and talk about their problems, say in marriage and ask for help. Am I a ‘saviour’?! They
should work a way out for themselves”. He put a special emphasis on salaah and one hour of
scrutinizing each day.

I didn’t observe any hierarchical relationship among them; even people like Hacı Bayram –a
venerated Sufi mystic of 14th century whose tomb is in the area- were not considered of a
higher rank by the shopkeeper as it couldn’t be known if anybody was “saved” i.e. approved
by God as being on the right path though the others in the shop did not share his opinion.

The Islamic way of life as it was lived in the time of the Prophet Mohammed was the remedy
to all the diseases of modern life that has been indoctrinated by the West. For the
shopkeeper sharia was the application of God’s justice whose rules were determined in the
Koran, for him it was not something to be afraid of. He also remarked; “Terrorism doesn’t fit
into Islam. A Muslim wouldn’t do any harm to women or children but protect them and fight
only with men in a direct confrontation”.

The third shopkeeper is a watch and rosary seller and repairer who is attached to a Kadiri
tariqah in Istanbul –stemming from Abdulkadir Geylani who lived in the 12 th century. His
presence is very pleasant and soothing. The atmosphere in his shop is kind of timeless. He
found the technique of anthropology, gathering the knowledge from people directly as they
live it, very appropriate as this is also his method of acquiring knowledge, whereas I was
advised to read the Koran, Hadith and well known commentaries if I wanted to get
information about Islam in the previous shop.

The shopkeeper expresses himself a lot with “menkibe” –stories; this is a method prevalent
among sufis as besides being elaborative they are also open to interpretation. For him there
are “planes of existence”; the first plane being sharia which is the world of physicality and
rules; you can only step into the second one which goes beyond physicality by being
attached to a great person- ‘evliya’ (a saint). These evliya have overcome themselves, their
own will has died and they live in “hakikat” which can be translated as ‘essence’ or ‘truth’
where the meaning behind forms can be seen. This plane of “hakikat” is where all evliya
living or dead are one and they are also one with God. According to the shopkeeper reading
and studying does not enable one become an evliya. These evliya who are chosen by God
can see what lies in hearts and lead their “sons and daughters” according to the knowledge
of hearts without criticising them for their failures. They are marked with great endurance
and patience for they know that the cause of everything is “Hak” or “Allah”, not other
people. He pointed to the 6th basic pillar of faith saying “Believing that good and bad is from
Allah. We chant this but then when something bad happens, we relate it to a human being,
not to God. This is ostensible faith”. Ordinary people like us existed in the world of sharia,
i.e. forms and norms. In talking with, and following such people, we will have our share of
this knowledge reflected in our hearts. He resembles evliya to magnets and ordinary people
to pins which get magnetised for some time when coming in touch with those magnets.

He was the most ahistorical of the three. According to him difficulties in life, the injustice are
confronted to improve yourself and to test how sincere you are in your cause, and evliya
have the most difficult tests. This has always been the case. The difference between the

Serap Avanoğlu, Conference paper, Haci Bayram, May 24 th, 2010 Sayfa 3
present and the past, as he put it, is that people are not easily satisfied with what they have
but always ask for more in our time.

He did not clearly differentiate between death and life; he visits the mausoleums of the
“great people” and gets inspiration. He did not have the nostalgia the others had. He said
“Asr-ı Saadet” –the happy time referring to the time in Medina when Mohammad was alive-
could also be lived here and now. He seemed to be able to step outside of time and create
the appropriate circumstances in his inner space which he called his ‘heart’ and this was the
main focus of his way.

So to conclude as it can be followed from the delineations of the discourses and

atmospheres, these three bookshops represent remarkably different approaches which in
debate and combat with each other throughout Islamic history. In the first shop the main
field of occupation is bodies; disciplining the body and its actions. They deal with the
practicalities, society and politics and represent the idea of religion as a pack of rules that
are applied to the physical body, society and politics as parts of them. The rules are dictated
by the elites and are not to be discussed by the common people. There is a strict hierarchy of
“saviours” and the ones to be saved. The only interpretation allowed is the interpretation
of the leader of the community. This is the point of departure for the people to arrange their
actions to lead them to salvation; and the focus of the organisation in building a highly
structured, hierarchical community. There have been discussions whether Fethullah Gülen
Community is a Sufi tariqah or based on Sufism or not. I will rather call it a “leader-based
religious organisation” to differentiate it from the traditional Sufi tariqahs of which the third
shop is an example.

In the second shop the point of departure is the original text which is the Koran and its
interpretations and commentaries by various people who have been admitted to have
enough education and knowledge to be able to do that. Based on knowledge of the sources
which are Kuran, hadith and the literature on them, people apply rational thinking to discuss
topics of social, political, ethical and religious matters. Everybody has the responsibility to
acquire knowledge and to think about and discuss it as a way of sharing and immersion. Self-
scrutiny is highly valued in contrast with the hierarchical organ in the first approach to tell
one what is right and what is wrong. The mind is actively used, and disciplined; it scrutinises
itself and actions as to how far these are in harmony with what is believed. These activities
are considered to be a crucial part of the religious practice. This approach can be said to
follow the tradition of ulama, the learned.

In the third shop the pursuit only with body and mind is considered superficial and another
plane is added which goes beyond these two and is also considered to be the cause or origin
of them. Time and space belong to the physical plane as does the mind which works with the
motives and impulses of the physical world. This approach in contrast to the second one
does not depend on the knowledge of the mind but a more comprehensive source of unity
which is called hakikat, the truth. Although the emphasis is on people as a source of
knowledge as in the first approach, these sources -historical or living- are more of a universal
archetypical one who have overcome the boundaries of time and space and the polarisations
enacted by them. The intuitive contact to the source is through people who have themselves
attained it by getting rid of the constrictions of the “self”. The focus of attention here is on
lifting the barriers to this plane to be able to perceive it, and the heart becomes the focus of
attention. Instead of talking about rules or doctrines a vast collection of stories are told to

Serap Avanoğlu, Conference paper, Haci Bayram, May 24 th, 2010 Sayfa 4
enable people to deal with them in a creative way and to bring them closer to the
perception aimed by Sufism where the self, time and space are loosened of their apparent
concrete limits.

In this field research another aspect which attracted my attention was that the way these
people related to religion was also how they related to pleasure. In the first shop during the
readings and talks about paradise and the Prophet Mohammed or Said-i Nursi there was a
kind of vibration of pleasure which was felt in the bodies, it also expressed itself in the sighs
of some. In the second shop it was obvious that they enjoyed the thinking, reading and
discussions and that it made them alive and energetic. The shopkeeper of the third shop
radiated tranquillity and genuine joy at times. It seems that people are mainly busy with
what they like.

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