Dervish Divinity

Both...and...neither...nor...

A study of the 99 most beautiful names of God demonstrates the contradictory character of Dervish divinity--for which the Dervish makes no apology.

That-which-is is always already both approaching and receding, both present and absent.

"God" or "Allah" are but syllables that point towards this confounding state of affairs.

They are poetic syllables on the edge of speech that say "nothing" and "everything" simultaneously.

So the Dervishes typically substitute the pronoun hu ..."it"... Knowing full well that "it" is not it.

Theology is nothing but pretense: whistling in the graveyard after dark to reassure a frightened soul that all is not lost.

The Dervish casts only a side-glance at theology, preferring to recite poetry instead.

She enters the ruined tavern and takes her seat in the red leather chair facing the window, looks out, and sings.

"A dog taught me all I needed to know about being a Dervish," Shibli announced. "I saw him dozing in the courtyard of a house. The owner came out and drove him away. The dog returned unperturbed. 'What a foolish beast,' I thought to myself. The dog, perceiving my thoughts, addressed me thus: 'Tell me, O Shaykh, where else can I go, when he is my master?'"

[See Nurbakhsh, Spiritual Poverty, 59].