A Commemoration Program for Sâmiha Ayverdi Held on the Occasion of International Women's Day…

The “Sâmiha Ayverdi and Those Reflected Today” program was organized in collaboration with Üsküdar Üniversitesi Institute of Sufi Studies, the Turkish Women's Culture Association (TÜRKKAD), and the Kerim Foundation. Two panels were held within the scope of the program. The program emphasized the diversity and richness of Sufi literature, thought, and culture. It was noted that Sâmiha Ayverdi touched many lives with her works both during her lifetime and in the present. Üsküdar Üniversitesi Rector's Advisor and Kerim Foundation Founder Cemalnur Sargut said; “Sâmiha Ayverdi taught us that Sufism is an infinite source.” 

The program, held at Üsküdar Üniversitesi Nermin Tarhan Conference Hall, was simultaneously broadcast live on Üsküdar Üniversitesi Television and YouTube channel.

The opening speeches of the program were delivered by Üsküdar Üniversitesi Institute of Sufi Studies Deputy Director Prof. Dr. Emine Yeniterzi, Turkish Women's Culture Association (TÜRKKAD) President Emine Bağlı, and Üsküdar Üniversitesi Rector's Advisor and Kerim Foundation Founder Cemalnur Sargut.

Prof. Dr. Emine Yeniterzi: “We will have the opportunity to get to know Sâmiha Ayverdi much more closely”

Üsküdar Üniversitesi Institute of Sufi Studies Deputy Director, Head of Sufi Culture and Literature Department Prof. Dr. Emine Yeniterzi, in her opening speech, stated; “Our meeting today has two distinct beauties. We will have the opportunity to get to know Sâmiha Ayverdi much more closely, a thinker, Sufi, educator, spiritual guide, brilliant writer, and a very distinguished Istanbul lady who truly holds an exceptional place like a star on the horizons of this country. Those who provide us with this opportunity will be our students who have completed their master’s theses at this institute. Our thesis topics have touched upon many individuals, focusing on their lives, works, and thoughts. At the institute, works of our Anatolian wisdom covering approximately 1200 years of history, including each of the 12 centuries, have been examined, starting with Ibn Masarra in the 10th century, Ebû’l Hasan al-Harakani in the 11th century, Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, Azīz-i Nasafī in the 12th century, Mevlânâ, Yunus Emre, Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli, Muhyiddin Ibn al-ʿArabī in the 13th century, Âşık Paşa in the 14th century, Kaygusuz Abdal, Eşrefoğlu Rûmî, Cemal-i Halvetî, Kemâl-i Ümmî, Yazıcıoğlu Mehmed, Ahmed-i Bîcân, Ni’metullâh-ı Velî in the 15th century, are some examples… Süleyman Çelebi’s Mevlid, Erzurumlu İbrahim Hakkı Hazretleri’s Marifetname, divans, Muhammadiye, Envârü’l-âşıkîn, Müzekki’n-Nüfûs, Hüsn-ü Aşk are among the works examined, and theses have been written on these subjects. Our Sufi culture and literature, Turkish thought, and Turkish culture possess great diversity and richness.”

Yeniterzi stated that the strength of the Institute lies in the diversity of its student profile, saying, “Successful students who have achieved their professional goals are in the majority. We have students with academic work experience, who are academics themselves. Professionals and academics bring depth, richness, and dimension to the subject by contributing their field-specific perspectives. For example, with one of our students who is the Mufti of Xanthi, we had the opportunity to study the Mawlid Tradition in Western Thrace on-site; we examined Sufi culture in Kosovo. An economics student studied the 'Concept of Sustenance' in Âşık Paşa’s Garîb-Nâme, which demonstrates interdisciplinary research methods when a work like this is studied by an economist. We gather these studies under the 'Business and Work Ethics' study group. Some theses completed within this scope include 'The Impact of Spiritual Values in the Business World: The Example of Far Eastern Production Systems,' 'The Positive Contribution of Sufism to the Formation of Occupational Safety Culture,' 'Communication and Conflict Management in the Workplace: An Islamic Perspective,' 'Re-establishing the Value System in the Turkish Business World in Light of Anatolian Wisdom,' and 'Comparison of New Leadership Approaches with Sufi Teachings.' Our professors at the Institute have put in tremendous effort as advisors for these theses. I offer my endless gratitude to our Lord who has given us the opportunity to carry out these studies with a limited academic staff."

Emine Bağlı: “A faithful lady devoted to her homeland, nation, and country…”

Following Yeniterzi, Emine Bağlı, President of the Turkish Women's Culture Association (TÜRKKAD), took the podium for the opening speeches. Bağlı stated; “Especially after the coup of May 27, 1960, certain ideological currents began to spread among our youth, especially university students, in the country. I was a university student at that time. We understood and saw so clearly that they were being manipulated, used, and they were doing this thinking they were doing very beneficial work, something good for Turkey. Those young people were sincere, but unfortunately, those who used them had malicious intentions. Games were being played on us, and we had elders who were extraordinarily saddened by this. They presented the situation to our mother Sâmiha, saying, 'Where is the youth going, what will become of us, what should we do?' She felt great sadness. A faithful lady devoted to her homeland, nation, and country. She said, 'We must do something.' 'Complaining won't solve this; organize, get informed, get so informed that you can help your children, learn the truth of the matter.' She emphasized that Sâmiha Ayverdi, who established many important organizations like the Turkish Women's Culture Association, which she founded in 1966, directly influenced hundreds of people during her lifetime, and her influence continues today through her works written to raise morally upright individuals.

Cemalnur Sargut: “We saw the Holy Quran in its ethics and state in Sâmiha Ayverdi…”

Üsküdar Üniversitesi Rector's Advisor and Kerim Foundation Founder Cemalnur Sargut said, “The hardest thing is for a person to describe their teacher. It is truly not easy to describe a teacher, a perfect human being, in whom one has seen and experienced that manifestation. In the words of Professor Emin Işık, 'the living Holy Quran.' We saw the Holy Quran in its ethics and state in our mother Sâmiha. Our teacher was a very great teacher. She was a teacher by her state. She was a teacher through her absence and her presence within that absence. She was like the pen in the hand of her teacher, Kenan Rifâî Hazretleri, of whom she always said, 'If I have any respect in this world, it is from you.' She wrote him, she spoke him, she explained him; she herself was absent. She drew a vision for us and was a teacher who lived by that line. Sufism is an infinite science. All sciences end, even theology is graded, but Sufism is infinite. This is what she taught us. One must be knowledgeable in every science so that Sufism can be explained more beautifully. Now, Sufism teaches ethics in business life, how we should work in economics. Now, Sufism teaches Mevlânâ’s philosophy in psychology and psychiatry. Sufism is a way of life; it teaches us how to live.”

Following the opening speeches, the panels began. During the panels, papers prepared from five master’s theses on Sâmiha Ayverdi, conducted at the Institute, were presented. 

The first session of the panel was chaired by Üsküdar Üniversitesi Institute of Sufi Studies Deputy Director and Asst. Prof. Dr. Cangüzel Güner Zülfikar. She shared an excerpt from Sâmiha Ayverdi’s work titled Hancı (The Innkeeper). 

“You know, as I began to find myself a crawling child of the realm of meaning, I lived with an irresistible excitement to mediate with you in the midst of this world, as much as my tongue could express and my strength allowed. Many times I said, 'Let me be silent, let me be silent now… let me never open my mouth again…' But just as the child who makes the mistake of blocking the fountain's water with the palm of his hand gets soaked from head to toe by the waters rebelling against this resistance, whenever I wanted to silence myself, I was overwhelmed by the flood of reproach from that irresistible fervor. 

My Sovereign! What am I amidst horizons, amidst the beyond? Within the threshing floor of time, scattered from eternity to eternity, a vetch… A seed sometimes sown, sometimes reaped, sometimes sprouted, sometimes gnawed… 

This seed, once eager to know you, thought it would know. As time passed, it learned that it would know nothing, that one comes to this world simply to admire. 

The highest degree of knowing is not knowing, and the ultimate goal of knowledge is ignorance. If we do not believe in this, who will? Tell me, who will?” 

At the panel, Şehvar Tükek, a PhD student from the Institute’s “Islamic Civilization, Thought, History, and Literature” program, in her presentation titled “Second Birth and Spiritual Revival in Sâmiha Ayverdi,” stated, “Sâmiha Ayverdi is an educator who raised her children in harmony with matter and meaning, a mother who generously offered her knowledge to her children on every subject and wished them to benefit from it. She educated her children for a free life, liberated from the bondage of the ego, from attachment to matter, and from troubles and difficulties. She enabled the children she raised to break free from human bonds and be born into a free realm. Everyone, under all circumstances, can be beneficial to themselves and their surroundings. Whatever work you intend and are capable of doing, commit to it with full and most sincere effort… do not say, 'What will happen, this is worldly work… we'll just do something.' Whatever work you do, be the best at it. Gratitude to Allah is not merely with the tongue; the limbs and senses also have their gratitude; which is to use the power and might He has given us in the best way and not to allow our spiritual dignity to be slandered, said Ayverdi. While rebuilding the personalities of all her children and students who followed her, she brought them into the realm of malakut (the spiritual world) with the spiritual birth mentioned in Jesus Christ's saying, 'Unless one is born twice, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.'”

Deniz Yağlı, in her presentation titled “Sâmiha Ayverdi’s Novel Human and Satan: The Role of Satan in Human Evolution,” stated, “In Sâmiha Ayverdi’s novel Human and Satan, it is said that every being distant from Allah is Satan. In Sâmiha Ayverdi’s thought, Satan is described as a mirror to distinguish between good and evil. This mirror, which shows beauty as beautiful and ugliness as ugly, has no power to make beauty ugly or ugliness beautiful. If Satan had not been created, rebellion and disbelief would not have emerged, and thus it would not have been possible to speak of servitude and obedience to Allah. From this perspective, Satan is a necessary being for human evolution and a powerful actor in the divine system. He is not the creator of evil, but merely a mirror reflecting evil. Although it is Allah who permits our actions, what is fitting for a servant is always to maintain propriety and acknowledge one’s helplessness.” With these words, she evaluated Ayverdi’s ideas in the novel.

Serkan İçtem, in his presentation titled Sâmiha Ayverdi and Cemîl İnsan (The Beautiful Human), stated, “The beautiful human seeks the source, the reason, the Creator in all the beauties he sees. The question of who empowers these beauties, which exude so strongly with their scent, color, and splendor as to overwhelm, contains its own answer. Sâmiha Ayverdi likens this situation to great rivers splitting into thin and humble branches, or to people drawing water to their fields with artificial means and canals. All these thin canals ultimately connect to the great river; the issue is not to mistake this thin branch for the river itself, but to follow it and reach the source.”

The second session of the panel was chaired by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zeyneb Çağlıyan İçener, a faculty member at İstanbul Ticaret Üniversitesi Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. İçener stated that she closely followed the studies conducted at the Institute of Sufi Studies, which pursue the trio of “knowledge, wisdom, and insight.”

In the second session, Filiz Kavaklı presented ‘Sâmiha Ayverdi’s Creative Freedom,’ and Elif Titrek presented ‘The Principle of I‘lā-yi Kelimetullah: Remembering What is Forgotten, Seeking What is Lost.’

Filiz Kavaklı stated, “Sâmiha Ayverdi’s perception of freedom is divinely referenced and Sufi in character. She believes that in addition to egoistic bondages, luminous veils such as the desire for goodness, reward, and paradise can only be overcome with the help of Divine Love. From this perspective, she finds freedom in moral perfection achieved under the guidance of Divine Love. She equates the state of being free with being human, and the state of bondage with Satan. In a free human, all aspects of the ego deemed ugly have been abandoned. The free human, adorned with very precious moral qualities such as altruism and generosity, has been able to actualize the attributes of Allah within themselves. Therefore, the free human is the most perfect, superior, and complete example of the human species. It can be said that Ayverdi’s 'creative freedom' builds both personality and civilization, meaning that as a person creates their own personality, they also create civilization.”

Elif Titrek, a PhD student from the Institute of Sufi Studies’ “Islamic Civilization, Thought, History, and Literature” program, stated, “With the intention of examining the trajectory of the principle of i‘lā-yi kelimetullah (exalting the word of Allah) across past, present, and future, we wanted to understand the place of the goal of i‘lā-yi kelimetullah in Turkish Islamic civilization. When examined within a Sufi framework, we identified the connection of the fervor for i‘lā-yi kelimetullah with the concepts of tawhid (oneness of God) and adab (propriety). We believe that the examination of the concept of i‘lā-yi kelimetullah in Sâmiha Ayverdi’s works from a Sufi perspective can play an illuminating role in determining the relationship between personality and civilization in terms of spiritual values and virtues. We hope that future research on this topic will inspire contemplation by raising the question of how twenty-first-century human beings can live by the principle of i‘lā-yi kelimetullah.”

Elif Titrek concludes Sâmiha Ayverdi’s treatise titled Kölelikten Efendiliğe (From Slavery to Masterhood), which she began by inviting the Islamic world to the goal of i‘lā-yi kelimetullah, with another invitation, stating:

“I call you all, all of us, to unite around a single understanding, a single harmony, a single purpose. Again, I call all of you, all of us, under a tree of tawhid whose branches extend to the heavens. I call you to the ethics of the Quran, Allah’s unparalleled gift to all creation. I call you to truth. I call you to the Messenger of Truth. I call you to the oneness of Truth. I call you to Allah, to earning Allah’s pleasure” (Ayverdi, 2009: 108).
With their call, we hope, Allah willing, to witness baʿth baʿda al-mawt (resurrection after death) and pray for the principle of i‘lā-yi kelimetullah to permeate all souls in the world as we remember what we forgot and seek what we lost.”

Sûzidil Mevlevi Ayini concert held

After the presentations and Q&A session, the Sûzidil Mevlevi Ayini concert by Zekâi Dede was performed by the İstanbul Türk Ocağı Ömürlü Mûsikî Topluluğu under the direction of Elif Ömürlü Uyar.
The concert was watched with great interest by the guests.