Samples of Translated Texts 501
the taxes on it] for the benefit of the sultan’s slaves, are in fact driving the sultan
down the path of vanity and filling the treasury with such [corrupt] actions. I
am confident that they are not sincere in their actions and that this dirty thing
does not bring even one akçe to the treasury; on the contrary, it ruins it. I say that
if our sultan abolished [this tax] and asked from the “Hidden Ones” something
less in its place, the treasury would benefit more. His Excellency our Prophet
said: “If someone closes a door to the unlawful, God will open to him a door to
the lawful”.
... If there is a trace of hypocrisy in a behavior, this is a vice or even polytheism
[infidelity] according to people of knowledge and of the Sharia. Even if it is taken
lightly, as a joke, it is blasphemy; hypocrisy depends on the heart, even if it taken
lightly ... Things being thus, and since there is no Quranic verse or Prophetic
tradition related to the dance of the dervishes, to say that the sema [the dervish
dance] is canonically lawful or unlawful, either in order to permit it or to pro-
hibit it, is wrong for people of the external reality, who have avoided the chain of
knowledge and do not enter the field of the heart ... So, pronouncing the sema
lawful is fit for the rule “when there is no Quranic verse stating authoritatively
that something is unlawful, this must be rendered lawful”. As al-Ghazali has said,
“both analogy and [the absence of ] an authoritative Quranic verse show that
sema should be rendered lawful”. But if there is carnal desire in the movements
of someone performing sema, it is unlawful. Perchance someone’s ecstacy is
genuine and provokes a truthful move, as water turns the water-wheel, making
him involuntarily move as if he trembles from cold; then one cannot ask whether
these movements are involuntarily and it is not right to act against those who do
not know their situation, as if they were sound in mind.20 Hasan Dede (See Chapter 6)
From Nasihatnâme (“Book of advice”):23
Two groups of people make this world either destroyed or built. One is oppres-
sive judges, the other oppressive beys. After reforming these two groups, reform-
ing the world is easy. Whenever my sultan wishes, the reform of these groups is
at his hand, with God’s order, yet on one condition: they must not be dismissed
for five or ten years. There is no other solution for the reform of the beys and
the judges. If you execute 50 of them everyday, beys and judges who (now) fear
dismissal will be reformed and abstain from tyranny.23 Terzioğlu 2010, 292.