ASST. PROF. DR. RAHMI ORUC GUVENC

ASST. PROF. DR. RAHMI ORUC GUVENC

THE ETERNAL SHEIKH

Aziz Serhat Kural

Copyright © 2021 - Aziz Serhat Kural

Published by Tektime

Cover and book design by Emre Basaran

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I owe a debt of gratitude to Yasar Guvenc, Andrea Azize Guvenc, Kanikey Guvenc-Akcay and Emre Basaran for their material and spiritual support during the preparation of this book.

HOW I MET ORUÇ GÜVENÇ

Believe me, it never occurred to me that I would write this book. In fact, when the thought of writing a book about Oruc Guvenc first came to my mind, I asked my friend Emre Basaran, a close associate of Mr. Oruc Guvenc in his musical and spiritual endeavors, whether he might carry out such a project. In reply, he told me that it would be more appropriate if I took care of the matter.

That is why I would like to start with how I met Oruc Bey. It was either 1979 or 80 and I was playing in a chess tournament. A long time has passed since then, so I don’t remember exactly which tournament it was, but I think it was the Musa Tebi Memorial Tournament, where I finished among the top three and received a small monetary prize. At this tournament, I was playing against Ali Ipek, who later went on to win the FIDE Master title1.

Ali made a sidelong attack from his King’s side, deftly capturing my Castle with his Bishop. At that point, I believe he thought he had won the game. But after he captured my Castle, I was able to retrieve the pieces I had lost and improve my position with a particular pawn move. Ali, surprised by my pawn maneuver, had to think long and hard as to what to play next. In the end the game was adjourned. In the late 70s and early 80s there was no internet or personal computers, and smart phones were not yet available. In those days, if a chess game took too long, it was adjourned and continued at a later date determined by the referee. However nowadays, since it is possible to analyze a game with computers, with a few modifications the ‘Guillotine’ or ‘Sudden Death’ system is applied, whereby a player who exceeds the time limit immediately loses the game. Anyway, the game was adjourned, and I was one pawn up. I went home and realized that, despite being a pawn up, I was losing in a problematic fashion. However, I was aware that my opponent might not be able to see this because any normal analysis would have indicated that I was winning.

With many thoughts in my mind, I arrived at the chess center on the day the game was to resume. Ali had also come. We talked and decided between us that the game should end in a draw, without further play. Afterwards, when Ali commented that I could have won, I showed him the intricate moves he could have made to win. He was amazed and sat lost in thought for a while. He then said he wanted to take me somewhere. On the way, he told me that he wanted to introduce me to a Sufi Master.

At that time, I was totally unaware that the ensuing interaction would totally and profoundly affect the rest of my life. On the bus, Ali explained that this person was a great Master and an expert in Sufism, Music and Turkhood. Finally, we arrived at Oruc Bey2’s 3-storied timber villa in Kadirga. If I remember correctly, Ali had a key. We went inside. There was a wooden staircase to the left of the entrance that went up to the first and second floors. The first floor was used most of the time and the rooms on the upper floors were used for specific purposes. We stayed on the first floor where musical instruments were hanging from all the walls, some of which I had never seen before. Some instruments that I found most intriguing lay on the floor looking like mere boxes covered with lots of taut strings, which I later learned to be Indian instruments. It was there, on the first floor, that I first met Oruc Bey.

During a conversation with Oruc Bey

I shall never forget how, on reaching the first floor, we entered the room on the right where I saw him playing ‘El Condor Pasa’ to me on a Shakuhachi (a Japanese flute made from bamboo). I immediately warmed to him and that has continued to increase to this day. It would be no exaggeration to say that our Sheikh-disciple relation started at that very moment.

That evening, or in the following days I don’t quite remember, Ali explained why he took me to meet Oruc Bey. He said that, after the match I mentioned earlier, he had experienced a chronic headache for which aspirin and similar medication did little to help, so he had gone to consult Oruc Bey. According to Ali, Oruc Bey had explained the reason for the headache as follows: “A knot formed in your mind when you thought you had lost your Bishop while playing chess against a long-haired boy with a light beard. This is the reason for your headache. Bring that boy to me, whenever it is convenient for you.”

Yes, that is how I met Oruc Bey, but this book is about Oruc Bey. If this book attracts attention and if there is demand, I would very much like to write about my apprenticeship with him. But my aim in this book is to outline the life and works of Rahmi Oruc Guvenc and provide insight into his teachings. I have no wish to crowd the book with details like dates, places and names.

1 A Master Title of the International Chess Federation (FIDE)

2 ‘Bey’ is used as ‘Mr.’ or ‘Sire/Sir’ in Turkish. However, note that it follows the first name instead of the surname, as in the West.

ETHNIC ORIGINS AND CHILDHOOD

“One side of my family lineage is from Kazan Turks, the other side from Kyrgyz Turks. We would listen to music performed by our family from early childhood and this music (pentatonic music) became essential for me.”3

Before moving on to the musical aspect of Oruc Bey’s life, I want to tell you a little about his ethnic origins. As the above quotation says, Oruc Bey had Central Asian ancestry. His father, Ahmet Kamil Guvenc, was born into a family that migrated from Tatarstan to Tavsanli/Kutahya during the 93 war4. A short biography of Ahmet Kamil Guvenc, written by Yasar Guvenc, elder brother of Oruc Bey and Ahmet Kamil Guvenc’s other son, provides some important details:

“Ahmet Kamil Guvenc was born into a family that had migrated during the 93 war and settled in Hamitabat Village close to Tavsanli5. His father Abdussukur was martyred in the war of the Dardanelles, which was why his they came with their mother to Tavsanli. As a young man, Ahmet Kamil repaired watches and gramophones and he sold bicycles, gramophones and watches. In 1948, he brought out the ‘Tavsanli Post’ (Tavsanli Postasi) newspaper, which was published daily and weekly for over 40 years.

“In 1952, Ahmet Kamil Guvenc established the first printing house in Tavsanli and trained many typographers. He put a lot of effort into developing Tavsanli and started a campaign for the reforestation and reorganization of an area called Mulayim Dede6. He published 2 books, ‘Garden of Thorns 1‘and ‘Garden of Thorns 2’ (Dikenli Bahce-1 and Dikenli Bahce-2), which depicted the residents and workers of Tavsanli. Later, he published a book called Old-New Riddles and Turkish Poems7’. In 1978, he built and moved into a house on the road to Dedeler Village, which was later named Kamil Guvenc Avenue, and he would walk to Tavsanli and back every day to keep fit. He was awarded certificates of gratitude by the Kutahya Journalists Association and the Tavsanli Municipality. In 1990, he went with his sons Oruc and Yasar to live in Istanbul, where he died on 24th Januar 2001, exactly 2 years after his wife Urkiye Guvenc, next to whom he was buried in Karacaahmet Cemeter.“

Kamil and Urkiye Guvenc

I encountered Kamil Bey personally a few times. One time was at a photography exhibition by Oruc Bey’s wife’s at Hikmet Barutcugil’s Ebru Centre (Ebristan8) in Uskudar9. I had a conversation with Kamil Bey over tea and snacks and he told me stories of his family’s migration from Central Asia. On another occasion, a television channel interviewed Kamil Bey and his wife Lady Urkiye at Oruc Bey’s place in Cerrahpasa (the Ethnomusicology Center) about their experiences during the War of Independence.

Kamil Bey displayed a humorous side to his character with his intolerance towards Oruc Bey’s diet10. One time when he came to Cerrahpasa, I accompanied him to the bus stop for his return journey and noticed that he was taking home a nylon bag of Knorr tomato soups, which made me smile inwardly. I heard from others that he would sometimes visit fish restaurants and feast on fish until late in the evening. I should mention here that fish and tomatoes are foods that Oruc Bey never ate.

(From Left to Right) Oruc Bey, Kamil and Urkiye Guvenc, his father and mother) Nejat Guvenc ( his younger brother) and Yasar Guvenc ( his elder brother)

Rahmi Oruc Guvenc, the second son of Ahmet Kamil and Urkiye Guvenc, was born in 1948. Urkiye Guvenc was a housewife and Oruc Bey was the middle of three siblings. Oruc Guvenc completed his primary and intermediate level education in Tavsanli, and his high school education in Kutahya.

Returning to the quotation at the start of this section, Oruc Bey frequently talked about how they grew up listening to pentatonic music and melodies. According to his beliefs and research, children should listen to nothing but pentatonic music until the ages of 9 or 10. As we will see in the following section ‘Oruc Bey and Music’, pentatonic music is the basic tonality of Turkish music. Before the transition to ‘makam11’ music, there was pentatonic music, a structure which is still being preserved especially in Central Asia. Pentatonic music is used in the therapy system applied at the Nordoff Robbins Centre in London, where it is held to induce feelings of self-confidence and self-determination.

3 TRT Vision magazine, August 2017, p.12

4 Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-1878, which was known as the 93 War because it corresponded to the date of 1293 in the Rumi Calendar

5 A township in the province of Kutahya in Western Anatolia.

6 An area in Tavsanli

7 These are poems formed of stanzas (M’ani) - a Turkish tradition

8 A marbling center

9 A neighbourhood in the Asian side of Istanbul

10 I will give detailed information later about the strict diet followed by Oruc Bey .

11 In pentatonic music there are 5 tones whereas in ‘makam’ music there are 7 tones

ORUC BEY’S ACQUAINTANCE WITH SUFISM

If I am not mistaken, we were at Gokcedere for a Sema12 lasting 99 days and nights. I was asked to help with the English sections of a literary work that was later to be sold, in spiral binding and trilingual format, under the title “Dr. Rahmi Oruc Guvenc, Compositions and Lyrics”. I translated 30-35 poems into English for that work. In one of the poems, Oruc Bey poetized and encapsulated his entrancement by a blond, green eyed lady, who was one of his pupils. While Oruc Bey was sitting in his place at the Dergah13, I referred to this lady with a few rather humorous words. My intention was to tease him a bit and create a jolly atmosphere – that is how intimate we were with Oruc Bey. Realizing that my intentions were quite innocent, he added that it was in the same period of his life that he had become “acquainted with Sufism (Tasavvuf)”.

To be acquainted with Sufism, to become informed about these subjects, is a gift that isn’t granted to just anyone. Years ago, in either 1976-77 or 78, when the former head of the Turkish Metapsychic Investigations and Scientific Research Association Ergun Arikdal was still alive, I attended a few of his significant conferences there. At that time, there was no social media, no videos and no smart phones. You could only learn new things through books, magazines or by gathering together somewhere. At one of these conferences, Ergun Arikdal iterated that many people are born, grow up and die without ever knowing or even encountering Sufism, or other such subjects that deal matters beyond the scope of physical cognition. That is why to be acquainted with Sufism means to be bestowed with a gift and it is a significant milestone in one’s life. I have reached this conclusion from my own experiences.

Oruc Bey had already become acquainted with spiritualism through a magazine called ‘Soul and Matter’14 magazine to which their father Kamil Guvenc subscribed. They began their first attempts at hypnosis in Tavsanli with a photographer called Ilhan Birlik. They would either gather in Ilhan Birlik’s photography studio or, if convenient, at his father’s printing house, and carried out hypnotism, spiritism and regression15 practices. These practices went on for approximately 3 years. Oruc Bey’s elder brother Yasar Guvenc, from whom we have acquired these details, was also attending these practices. One day, Yasar Bey took a largish walnut table, that needed at least 4 or 5 people to lift, to the practice of a dentist called Ferhan Bey. The session operator Ferhan Bey, the mediums and other attendees took their seats around the table. The session started. An entity arrived, lifting the walnut table a little and then letting it bang on the floor. The legs of the walnut table were suddenly rising 2 hand spans above the floor and then banging back down to the floor. This was how the entity was making its presence known and answering questions. One strike meant ‘yes’, and two strikes meant ‘no’. When writing words, one strike was taken to be an ‘A’, two strikes a ‘B’, three a ‘C’, and so on. When asked who he was, the entity gave the name of ‘Neyzen Tevfik’16. After a period of questions and answers, a message came from the entity, saying ‘ Compose’. When asked ‘Who should compose?’, they received the name of Neyzen Hayri Bey, who was present at the seance. When asked ‘What should he compose?’, three loud knocks came from behind a portrait of Neyzen Tevfik that hung on the wall. The picture, which depicted him in a trance with a stanza that he had purportedly received while in the trance, shook violently. I give the stanza below:

Don’t judge by looking at the image

That image is contemplating God

So what if you always see Neyzen drunk

He is constructing the Kaaba in the tavern

Oruc Bey’s meeting with his first Master took place around the age of 18. He was informed of the matter at a spiritism session similar to the one I described above and actually met his first Master Fazyl Bey (His Holiness Fazyl Guvey) a few days later. Fazyl Bey was an Imam17 who had undergone special training and worked as an Imam in various neighborhoods, including Dedeler Village. Fazyl Bey provided spiritual guidance to Oruc Bey and Yasar Agabey18 with lengthy narrations. We learn from Yasar Agabey that, after a certain point in their spiritual education, they stopped asking questions and simply listened. Oruc Bey and Yasar Agabey received spiritual instruction from Fazyl Bey for approximately 3 years. Fazyl Bey, was a disciple of His Holiness Seyyid Ahmed Husamettin, a grandson of our Prophet (mPbuH) 40 times removed. His Holiness Seyyid Ahmed Husamettin came to Istanbul with his father from Dagestan during the reign of Sultan Abdulmejid (1839-1861).

His Holiness Seyyid Sheikh Ahmed Husammettin

You might be asking why from Dagestan and not from some Arab country. It is a very long story. I would like to recommend reading works on the life of His Holiness Seyyid Ahmed Husamettin, but I don’t want to cut corners here without giving some important information. First let’s answer the question why Dagestan19?

It was the era when Arabs were conquering Central Asia. The Transoxiana region (the area between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers which today covers parts of Turkmenia, Uzbekistan and Kazakstan) was being conquered by Arabian armies. But some cruel Arabian rulers were badly mistreating descendants of our Prophet (mPbuH), who were being imprisoned, ostracized and even killed. As a result, some groups of these descendants of the Prophet (mPbuH) (ehlu’l-beyt) managed to join the Conquest Caravans without being perceived and migrated to Transoxiana, where they changed into Turkic clothing, referred to their villages with Turkic names and mixed with the local people in order to erase any trace of who they were. This plan was successful and apparently was also unnoticed. These people were the ancestors of His Holiness Seyyid Ahmed Husamettin.

Here I want to go into the science of genetics a little. As you know, people who are descendants of His Holiness Hasan , Grandson of our Prophet (mPbuH), are called Sharifs and descendants of His Holiness Huseyin, His other grandson, are called Seyyids. During the development of modern genetics, the family tree of Seyyids has been investigated. The Y-DNA haplogroup can determine a paternal ancestor who lived ten thousand or so years ago. The Y-DNA haplogroups are formed through thousands of years of mutations of the Y-chromosome that is transferred from father to son. Haplogroups are identified with letters. The J1e haplogroup and some of its subclades belong to the Seyyids20. The J1 haplogroup is the main haplogroup in the Middle East and - yes you are not mistaken - it is also very common in Dagestan. Genetic research is verifying the journey taken by the ancestors of His Holiness Seyyid Ahmed Husamettin. In Dagestan, where Tatars21 comprise a very large portion of the population, the J1 haplogroup has been very clearly identified as over 90% 22 in some clans.

The family tree of His Holiness Sheikh Husamettin is given below:

The family tree of Seyyids, who form the genealogy of our Prophet and are known as Ehl-i Beyt (the Household of the Prophet (mPbuH)), is depicted below with birth and death dates up to His Holiness Seyyid Ahmed Husammetin, 40th grandson of our Prophet (mPbuH):

Returning to our story, His Holiness Fazyl Bey was called up for his military service and sent to join a unit in Balıkesir along with hundreds of other soldiers. The moment he got off the train, someone came up to him and asked, “Are you Fazyl?”. When he answered “Yes”, this person said, “Let’s go!”. Because Fazyl Bey was a dervish, he followed this person without asking any questions. They went together to His Holiness Seyyid Ahmed Husameddin, from whom Fazyl Bey received spiritual guidance throughout his military service.

One day, under the direction of His Holiness Seyyid Ahmed Husameddin and under the watch of his cousin Hafız Agabey ( who was also in charge), His Holiness Fazyl Bey went up a few steps in the house where they were and entered a chamber in order to carry out a term of seclusion (Halvet)23. On entering the chamber, he realized he was in fact on board a spaceship. He travelled and received guidance on this spaceship for 2000 years. When he returned, he found that no more than 3 days or a week had passed. His accounts of these journeys were very interesting. According to his narrations, there was life on the planet Mars. He also made references to some moon stones and, most interestingly, he stated that on one of the planets they reached, ants had established a very advanced civilization.

Sheikh Ezel Oruc Bey sitting on the Sheikh’s Hide (Post) with His Sheikh Cloak, written ratification (ijazet), he mace of Arslan Bey and other depictive artifacts.

One day during the Eid al-Adha (The Sacrifice Festival), he said “What a shame that we kill and eat these animals”, to which his Sheikh answered: “Their meat ascends in our (human) bodies.”

On another occasion when His Holiness Fazyl Bey and his Sheikh were taking a stroll, they saw two olive kernels thrown by the side of the road. His Sheikh cleaned them with his hands and ate them, saying: “These kernels wait 2 thousand years to be able to pass through a human throat.”

After Yasar Guvenc graduated from his school, he went to Konya on an errand and received news of Fazyl Bey’s death.

When Oruc Bey came to Istanbul for his university education in 1960, he became acquainted with Turgut Baba24 (Turgut Soylemezoglu) through Halil Konuralp. Turgut Baba claimed to be the last apprentice of Ahmed Jelaleddin Dede, who happened to be the last Mentor of the Galata Mevlevihane25 in Istanbul. Oruc Bey had the opportunity of receiving guidance on Sufism (Tasavvuf) from Turgut Baba, with whom he stayed for a year or two. When Turgut Baba stopped teaching Oruc Bey, it left him feeling suspended in a void and of his own accord he embarked on fifty or sixty days of seclusion (Halvet). During this period of Halvet, he had a series of dreams and became acquainted with Ziya Efendi (Ziyaeddin Kudur), also known as Ayar Baba, in whose house he spent five or six months living in a cell that was allocated to him. His Holiness Ziyâ Efendi was a Mentor for the Sâdî Order and had also been granted permission to teach the beliefs and customs of the Kadirî, Ushshakî, Mevlevî, Bektashî and Rufaî orders26. After a while, Ziyâ Efendi granted Oruc Bey permission to teach the paths of these orders and also presented him with an ijazet (written ratification) to teach the path of the Sâdî order. The last section of this icazet contains the following story by His Holines Sadeddin Cibavi, written in slightly different words and in Ottoman script.

“It was rumoured that Saadeddin Cibavi, who had settled in the village of Cebâ between Havran and Damascus, had become involved in local banditry. His father Sheikh27 Yunus esh-Sheybanî, who became very troubled on hearing that his son was even chief of these bandits, went into Halvet and prayed for his son’s redemption. These prayers were answered and Sadeddin gave up his sinful activities, repented and embarked on the path of his father’s order.

According to sources, one night Sadeddin dreamt that eleven men on white horses appeared before him and his friends. One of these horsemen recited the following Ayet (Qoranic verse): “Has not the time come for the believers to chant the name of Allah and feel a deep shudder due to the Qoran that has been revealed through Him?” (Hadid 57, 16). Whereupon Sadeddin and his friends fainted and fell from their horses. Later, when they regained consciousness, one of the horsemen said: “Sadeddin! I am your Prophet Muhammed (mPbuH) and these are my ten companions”, whereupon he anointed Sadeddin’s chest and asked him to repent, suggesting that he should chant to God (zikir). He put a mantle around Sadeddin’s shoulders and brought out three dates sent by His Holiness Ali over which he had exhaled, and gave these to Sadeddin to eat, saying, “Oh Sadeddin! Take these. They are for you and all your descendants until doomsday comes.”