Those of you who have been avidly reading my posts about my Turkish adventures should remember the post when I was in Kars about the Turkish man I met. A few weeks had passed and it was time for me to go to his home to interview him for our Turkish politics project. I can honestly say the story I am about to relate to you is probably one of the best and post powerful experiences I had while I was in Turkey.
Eda, one of my group members, her friend Ozge, and I drove from Istanbul to a small town outside of the city center known as Gebze. It was considered the next province over, but still metro Istanbul. The traffic in the evening was so so and I think the drive ended up taking about an hour and fifteen minutes. Once we got to Gebze, I handed the phone to Eda so that Cemil could explain to her exactly how to reach his home. Cemil was the Alevi worker I met in Kars who had promised to let me interview him about his experiences for our paper.
We went inside and I was greeted warmly. Cemil invited us into the living room so I could explain exactly what the protocol was for the interview. I also had the pleasure of meeting his wife and his infant son. They were a lovely family. Cemil constantly told me that he didn't think his English was sufficient for the interview, but in reality it most definitely was. He spoke English better than a lot of the Turkish people I had met, so I didn't understand why he was so shy about it.
His wife and his child went into the other room, along with Eda, so that we could complete the interview. I set up the tape recorder and began. Through the interview, I learned so many interesting things about both Cemil and the status of Alevis (admittedly a people I had never even heard of until we got this project for my Turkish Politics class). For example, when his family moved from the village to Istanbul in the late 1960's, some of his relatives moved to Switzerland, France, and Germany for political reasons. As a child, he had to hide his identity, even pretending to be Sunni by going to the normal mosque. He even told me that when his friend found out in high school that he was an Alevi that he was shocked because Cemil was "too good of a guy" to be an Alevi. It is amazing what sort of prejudices Cemil had to deal with in his own community. He also talked about his feelings during the Sivas Masssacre of Alevis in 1993 and how he has tried to become more observant of Aleviism but not so religious. In general, I think he had come to terms with his identity and he is very proud of it which I really respected and admired about him.
An interesting point about Cemil is that his family is a member of the Dede sect of Alevis. Most Alevis are actually of a different title (which I cannot remember). Basically, these are the commoners. The Dedes on the other hand are people who are charged with leading the Alevi community and it is passed down from generation to generation. So his father is actually the current Dede of their community in Gebze. Cemil and his brother will both have the ability to be a Dede (and Cemil's brother had already taken over that role to an extent).
After the interview, we had dinner. Cemil's wife also knew English but she was pretty quiet because she wasn't sure if her English was good enough. It was, but she was still embarrassed. The dinner was very delicious (I wish I could recall exactly what we had, but it was very good). So because we were so interested in Alevi traditions, we came on a Thursday night, the night that they have their religious services. Cemil invited me and Eda and her friend to come watch the service.
I rode with Cemil over to the cem evi. We had a really interesting talk on the way over. He asked me about my religion and stuff (which was only fair because I had been asking him questions all night). I told him that I was Jewish and then I told him about some of the hardships I experienced during my time in South Georgia (granted these hardships were nothing compared to what Cemil had to go through...and I told him that). Nevertheless, we bonded over our surprise and disappointment over how close-minded people can be sometimes in our respective communities. It seemed that even though he was Alevi (which was a type of Muslim) and I was Jewish, we had a lot in common with respect to our pasts. It was really neat to share that with him.
We finally arrived at the cem evi and I was introduced to Cemil's father. Eda had almost finished her interview and I went inside the actually sanctuary to see the cem evi and get ready for the service. Cemil introduced me to a younger boy close to my age. Unfortunately for me, he did not know very much English. Cemil told me to stay there while he prayed in a different place. I later found out that the reason Cemil left me was because he was afraid that I would ask him questions the entire time and interrupt the service. He was probably right...
I made some interesting observations about the room and about the environment. My first observation was that at the front of the room. Behind where the Dede sat was a picture of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. In Islam, normally, it is not permitted to have images of any person inside the mosque. I guess the idea is that one would focus too much on the picture of that person and it would distract one from praying to God. This is why you find that mosques generally have mosaics. It is a form of art that does not need the image of a person (or other distracting images) for its admiration. The second surprising thing was that the picture was of Ataturk. The Alevi religion is obviously much older than the early 1900s. Why is it that a picture of the founder of modern Turkey is on the wall? What was there before Ataturk? Also, Ataturk was definitely not an Alevi. The reason that his picture was there, and why Alevis loved Ataturk so much, was because of his commitment to secularism. Secularism was the only way in which Alevis would even have the possibility to practice their religion and they are huge believers of it. In fact, they vote for the Republican People's Party (the founding party of Turkey) religiously (yes, pun intended). Still, despite their reasons for loving Ataturk, it was so interesting for me to see a picture of him in such prominence in a religious building. There was a picture of someone else in the cem evi, but I didn't know who it was.
My second observation was that, as people filed in, we were in the same room as the women. The women could see us and make eye-contact with us. I thought this was very strange considering how in a normal mosque, there is strict separation between men and women during prayer because the opposite sex may cause you to think impure thoughts or be generally distracting while you are praying to God.
My third observation was also related to the women (perhaps this is precisely why the women should be separated from the men during prayer). The women were wearing head coverings. However, the head coverings were not completely covering their hair. For each of the women their hair (as much as 2 or 3 inches) was actually showing in the front of their headcoverings. Not only were they not covered but in a place of worship! It was very surprising.
So after I had studied the room for a bit, the Dede came in and it was time to start. Unfortunately for me, the entire service was conducted in Turkish, limiting my ability to truly understand what was going on (not that I expected it to be in English anyway...). However, some of the observed rituals were just as interesting to me. There were no chairs or anything like that...only a carpet. The custom was the same as at a normal mosque where you had to remove your shoes to enter. At the start of the service I sat on my knees with the bottom half of my legs under me just like you see on TV when Muslims are praying and bowing in the mosque. I don't understand how they do it because after a few minutes my legs started hurting a lot. Maybe it takes years of practice to build up the endurance to sit on your legs like that...or maybe I wasn't doing it right. Who knows?
I made several observations that I wrote in an email to Cemil asking what they meant but never got a chance to find out (still they are interesting and I want to share them with you all). Towards the beginning of the service, a semi-circle was formed and different people would stand up and go to the front. There seemed to be some sort of circular dance going on (but I didn't know the symbolism or what it meant). The circle got bigger until there were enough people. When the people stood up randomly to join the circle, they did it in a certain way, standing up on the side of their feet with each foot tilted slightly inward. When people stood up, it seemed to be at random and I have no idea if they were selected beforehand or if there was some rhyme or reason to it. Luckily, not everyone stood up to join the circle and so I did not feel pressure or fear of embarrassment at not knowing what to do.
Also in the main part of the ceremonies, there was a lamb rug, water, candles (symbolizing Allah, Muhammad, and Ali), and the bottom of a broom. I could tell that they symbolized this trinity because when each pair (it was a boy and a girl) went up to the Dede, they would say while walking in rhythm, "Ya Allah, ya Muhammad, ya Ali." The random objects were very interesting. Also interesting about this was that the men and the women stood right beside one another. So there was close contact between men and women throughout the service. After they said some stuff, they went through the same motions that brought them there backwards (walking backwards but saying the same things...it was very interesting).
Later in the service, a few people formed a circle and danced. There seemed to be more girls than boys. I think there were other interesting/peculiar things but I don't remember them as this happened about a year ago now. I spoke to Ozge and Eda and they both said it was interesting for them. They said that at one point when the guitar was being played (over the call to prayer which is actually considered to be extremely disrespectful in Muslim culture), they said in Turkish that they were doing it to symbolize their ability to worship in their own way or something like that.
The service ended up lasting about 2 hours. Afterwards, when I left the cem evi, swarms of people came up to me. Cemil found me again and translated for me. They were very curious to know how I liked the service and what I thought. I wasn't quite sure what to say because I was still taking it all in. I told them that it was very interesting and I learned a lot. The answer seemed to satisfy them. I asked Cemil why they were so interested in what I thought (and interested in me in general). He told me that I was the first non-Alevi ever to attend the cem evi before and so people were very curious. I was surprised and honored. No one had ever attended and Cemil asked me to come. It was certainly an evening that I will never forget.
No comments:
Post a Comment