“Why doesn’t our dear baba keep the
Ramazan fast?” The Baba replied, “By Allah I
would, but my condition doesn’t allow it.”
One of the men asked, “If someone who was
fasting invited you to an iftar would you go?”
“Ah! Without doubt!” responded the baba.
Another in the group exclaimed, “My God!
You don’t follow any of Allah’s regulations
yourself yet you are so eager to accept an
invitation to eat from one of Allah’s obedient
servants?” The baba countered, “Why do you
reprimand me? You all know that Allah is the
Most Merciful of the merciful. He forgives
with ease all those who spurn His call. But are
the human beings like that? For the least of
reasons, they are insulted and dishonoured.
Because of that it’s necessary to accept their
invitations immediately!”
this question, “Tell me Baba, does God really exist?”
Taken aback, the Baba answers, “Of course He exists.”
“But how can you be so sure?” replies the man.
Baba answer, “You see, I am eighty years old, and for eighty years I have argued and
argued with Him and as always, its He that ends up with the last word!”
and the good wishes of those considered god-fearing and pious.
In a despaired state, a man whose son was very sick called on a nearby Bektashi Baba;
he asked the Baba to come to recite prayers in order that his boy be cured.
The Baba, who cannot get out of this duty, accepted the plea and soon arrived at the
door of the townsman. Standing near the child, he opened his hands towards the sky
and prayed, “My God, make it so that this boy dies immediately.”
The horrified father grabbed the Baba and threw him out of the house.
Many days later the man came across the Baba on the street and said, “Do you
remember when you came to recite prayers for my son and, contrary to what I asked of
you, you asked God to take his life? Well God did not listen to you and, El-Hamdulillah,
my son is cured!”
The Bektashi started to laugh and responded, “It’s for that reason that I cursed the lad.
I have been on bad terms with God lately and He has been giving me the opposite of
what I ask for!”
his region. With the warden at his side he visited all the inmates in their cells. He made
a point to ask each of them why they were imprisoned. All of them maintained that they
were innocent of the crimes they were charged with and that it was because of slander
and false witness that they were behind bars. Only a Bektashi among them said, “The
fault is with me and I am guilty for sure. I committed my crime because I could not
control myself.”
The governor turned immediately turned to the warden and said, “Release this fellow
immediately before he undermines the decency of the others!”
pillars of Islam?”
The Bektashi answered, “There’s only one!”
The hodja replied angrily, “Hah! You don't even know the pillars of Islam and still you
brag you're a dervish!”
“Hold on! Let me explain hodja,” replied the Bektashi. “You see, I’ve noticed that all
you Sunnis don't go on the Hajj and all of you don't pay the Zakat. Well, not all of us
Bektashis fast in Ramazan and most of us don’t even pray Namaz. Between the both of
us, what’s left of the five pillars except the Shahadah?”
Almost every evening, he went there. One day, while drinking at the tavern, the Bektashi
met a Greek youth of extraordinary beauty. He had never seen such a beautiful young
man, so unsullied, so attractive, and so affable. Moved by the beauty of this youth, who
was named Apostolis, the Bektashi left the tavern drunk, and while conversing with God
said, “But Allah, this young man is not a Muslim, and You say that those who are not
Muslim will be thrown into Hell. How on earth can You burn such beauty, such
brightness, such elegance, such a refinement?"
After these heartfelt thoughts, the Bektashi left the town for many years. When he came
back, he decided pay a visit to his friends at the tavern. On his way he suddenly
remembered that beautiful young man from years before. When he arrived, he struck up
a friendly conversation with the old bartender. During the course of their reminisces,
the dervish asked, "There used to be a young man named Apostolis here. Where is he?”
The bartender pointed to an unattractive man at the other end of the room, a man with
a bony face, broken nose, scraggly beard, and thinning hair. “That is Apostolis,” said the
bartender. This shocked the Bektashi, who exclaimed, “O Allah! Forgive me! I should
never have questioned your eternal wisdom. Now I understand! Before you throw
people into the Torment of the Fire, You make them so ugly that they deserve it!
s time to pray namaz!” and he started to pray. Rakat after rakat, prostration after
prostration.
The Bektashi finally lost his patience, and when the hodja finished, he asked, “What
was with that long prayer?”
The hodja replied, “I wanted to make some extra credit prayers (nafile)!”
The Bektashi dervish then said, “Leave me alone so I too can pray,” and he started to
pray. But the dervish’s prayer did not finish, and the hodja could not hold himself any
longer. “Eren!” he exclaimed, “your prayer has lasted really too long!”
“Look, I finished the prayers of last week!” said the Bektashi.
The hodja grew irritated and said, “This type of thing isn’t valid!”
The Bektashi began to laugh, “Hah! If they accept your extra credit up there, why won’t
they accept my cash?”
found themselves in the middle of nowhere. They decided to tie their donkeys to a
nearby tree and then climb up it to sleep the night in safety. Before the climbed the tree
the hodja prayed, “O Allah! Please protect this donkey of mine which you made.”
Not wanting to be out done, the dervish prayed, “O my shaykh! Please protect this
donkey that you let me borrow for this trip.” The hodja was infuriated by this. “What is
this?” he scowled. “You ask your shaykh to protect your donkey? Surely this is
paganism! Ask Allah to protect it you reprobate! Don’t you know that everything
belongs to Allah?” The dervish just shrugged his shoulders and they both climbed the
tree and slept.
The next morning they awoke. Climbing down the tree they found that the hodja’s
donkey had been half eaten by wolves while the Bektashi’s donkey was still in one piece
and very much alive.
“I don’t understand this,” said the hodja scratching his head. “How is it that Allah let
my donkey be eaten by wolves yet this dervish’s is unscathed?”
“What’s so hard to understand hodja efendi?,” interjected the dervish. “Allah simply
took His donkey from one of His creatures and gave it to one of His other creatures.
However my shaykh only has this one donkey, so he had to look after it!”
I
would like you to give me a bottle of raki.” Next to him was praying a pious Sunni who
upon hearing the request exclaimed, “Don’t you have anything other than this to ask of
God? You know very well that raki is prohibited by the Shari'ah!
“But what should I ask for then?” exclaim dervish candidly.
“Well,” said the man, “you could start by asking for Allah’s forgiveness.”
The dervish got up and called out, “Aren’t people supposed to pray for what they don’t
have? As for me, I have Allah’s Mercy and Compassion. But what I don’t have is a nice
bottle of raki!”»
pray the Friday prayer. As he took his seat in the congregation the hodja spotted him.
Wanting to embarrass the dervish, the hodja began to lecture on the evils of alcohol. He
began describing in detail all of the natural and religious reasons why drinking any
alcohol at all is bad. To prove a point that even animals won’t drink liquor the hodja
asks “If you put a bucket of water and a bucket of raki in front of a donkey, which will it
drink?”
Someone in the crowd answered, “The water of course.”
“Why so?” enquired the hodja.
Unable to hold himself, the Bektashi exclaimed “Why so? Because it’s a donkey!”
had reached the open sea a storm rose and caused the ship to rock violently to and fro.
The Bektashi became petrified. Of all the passengers on the ship he was perhaps the
most afraid. Also on board was a hodja, and as is their habit, he began to engage the
Bektashi in a conversation about faith.
“Why do you fear my friend?” asked the hodja. “Don’t you know Allah is the Most
Generous of the generous?”
“That’s exactly why I’m terrified,” cries out the Bektashi. “He’s so generous that He can
feed the fish with our corpses!”
Mehmet IV who had a great passion for hunting, so much so that history remembers
him as Mehmet the Hunter. He spent his time chasing rabbits and other game. Early one
morning, this Bektashi passed in front of the palace right as the sultan and his party
was leaving for the hunt. His warriors, his horses, his servants, and a great number of
knights all passed in front of the unsightly Bektashi’s eyes. By chance the sultan came
back empty handed later that day. It was, in fact, the first time that the sultan had ever
returned from the hunt without quarry. Furious he tried to understand the reason for
this failure. At long last one of his viziers remembered the unsightly Bektashi who stood
at the entrance of the palace that morning. He called to the sultan, “Your Majesty, do
you remember that vagabond who stood and watched our hunting party leave the
palace this morning? Perhaps he is a cursed man and his gaze put a hex on our
hunting.” Convinced of this, the sultan sent his men to arrest the Bektashi. After a while
the dervish was brought before the sultan. They explained to him the reason for his
presence in the palace and then they condemned him to death, saying that he was a
cursed man.
Upon hearing this dreadful news Bektashi threw his a glance on the sultan and said
“Tell me your majesty, who is the more cursed of us two? My glance cost you the heads of
some rabbits while your glance is costing me my head!” The sultan was so taken by this
answer that he let the man go.
look for a place to tie his donkey. He made for the mosque thinking that would be the
most secure place to leave a donkey. “O my God, I entrust this animal to You,” he said
while tying his donkey to the hitching post, “You know how precious it is to me.” With
that he quietly went about his errands. When he came back to the mosque later that day
he found his donkey gone.
“My God!” he shouts, “I really can’t comprehend this! If you can’t even keep my donkey,
how can you run the whole universe?!”
bathing, but it was also a place favourable to solitude and contemplation. In the middle
of the hammams there was typically a huge marble slab beneath which the water was
heated. This marble slab stayed hot and it caused men to perspire. While stretched out
on such a hot marble slab, the baba was reflecting, “O my Lord! Your work is so
ingenious and refined that it is certain that human beings cannot comprehend all of it.”
Suddenly a cockroach appeared. “For example,” though the baba, “this cockroach
which I now see. Of course you created it, but why have you made it crawl in such places,
wedged here in between marble and stone? Why have you made cockroaches crawl in
dampness whereas the other bugs crawl in the fields, on trees, or among flowers? And
moreover, while one can say that other insects have a purpose that justifies their
existence, this cockroach, what’s it really useful for?”
This moment of meditation soon finished, and the Bektashi, being washed, put his
clothes on and went back to his tekke. The following morning, he started to feel itching
on his buttocks. Eventually the more he itched the more the area became inflamed and
it soon became so sore it was impossible for him to sit. He called upon the local doctors
and the ointments they gave him did nothing. After several days on his belly, the baba
was in really bad shape, since not only did his buttocks hurt but he was completely
incapacitated by the pain. News of his plight spread throughout the neighbourhood.
Many friends of baba came to visit him. Among them was a close friend who asked, “How
did this irritation start?”
“A while back,” answered the baba, “I went to the hammam. The next day I started to
itch and here I am.”
“But you called for the doctor didn’t you,” asked the friend.
“Of course” responded the baba, “but it was of no use.”
At this moment, his friend said to him, “Well I know a drug that can certainly cure this
itch.”
“What is it?” pleaded the baba, with tears welling up in his eyes from the pain.
“Have somebody go to the hammam you were at and collect all the cockroaches he can
find; then mash them in a bowl to make an ointment. Rub this ointment on your
buttocks and you will see that the sore will pass, inshallah,” explained the friend.
The baba immediately called one of his disciples and said to him, “Go in that hammam
and bring back to me all the cockroaches you can find!”
After the disciple returned with the cockroaches they made the ointment and applied it
to the buttocks of the baba. Immediately his itching and soreness vanished.
A few months later the baba took a boat to visit a Bektashi tekke which was on an island.
Half way through the boat ride a storm blew up and all the passengers panicked. As
everyone was beseeching God to let the storm pass, the captain saw the baba sitting at
the back of the boat drinking a glass of raki. Astonished by this captain approached
baba and shouted, “You scoundrel! Do you not fear God! Everyone on this boat is
praying that Allah put an end to this storm and you! You sit here and drink this cursed
liquor!”
After the baba took note of the captain’s irate words he smiled and said, “Listen to me
brother. I interfered once in Allah’s business, and it cost me many pains and sorrows,
without even mentioning that I had to sit on my ass for several weeks. This vast sea
belongs to Him, in fact, everything belongs to Him. If He wants to sink this boat or not,
that’s His business! I, for one, am not going to interfere in that again!”
buy a watermelon with some change he took out of his pocket. With watermelon in hand,
he found a beautiful shade tree to sit under where he proceeded to slice up his
watermelon with great appetite. However, after putting the first piece into his mouth, he
found it so sour that it was difficult to eat. He began shouting complaints to the Creator,
“Alas my God! Are you so stingy that you can't even put a little sugar in this watermelon.
You always bestow favors on Your servants, but never with what is really needed!” Thus
swearing, he finished off the watermelon in spite of its tartness and threw the rinds to
the side.
After a while he saw a poor waif, half dead with hunger and thirst, approaching. Not
wishing to be bothered, the Bektashi sat still and pretended to be asleep. The poor man
came close, saw the watermelon rinds and began to eat them. Discreetly, the Bektashi
observed the poor man out of the corner of his eye. He saw with astonishment how each
time the poor man took a bite of rind he exclaimed, "My God, many thanks to You! You
nourish me in spite of everything with this watermelon rind. You have ensured my
subsistence!"
Hearing this, the Bektashi became furious and rose up. He shouted, “Enough of this! I at
the inside of that melon even though it was bitter and torturous and believe me, I let
Allah know it. But you! You eat the foul-tasting rind and you thank Him for it? It’s this
kind of cheap flattery that encourages Him to keep making poor quality watermelon!”
acts with prostitutes. The baba decided one day to follow his disciple to surprise him
and catch him red- handed in the act, as it were. By doing so he hoped to make the lad
promise not to commit the deed any further.
So he set out and he caught his disciple in the surroundings of an exquisite whorehouse
while the man was in a really awkward situation. The disciple, thus surprised, could not
deny his actions and exclaimed, “Forgive me baba! It was Shaytan that brought me
here.”
Annoyed the baba said, “My son, you lie! That Shaytan, who thought himself so high
that he refused prostrate in front of our father Adam, would certainly not stoop so low
as to be your guide to a brothel!”
donkey or somebody with whom he could entrust it, he left it in front of the mosque
saying: “My God I entrust my donkey to You.” When he came out of the mosque, he
could not find his donkey.
“Alright!” he shouted, “who just prayed for a donkey? Cause Allah gave him mine!”
level?” asked the man. “There are hills and valleys, mountains and fertile plains, and
boulders that block our way. In certain places it snows, in others it’s dry; and still other
places are covered with jungles.”
The baba answered, “What do you expect for six days work?”
beating a dog with a stick.
The Bektashi asked him why he was beating the dog and the imam replied, 'I am beating
this dog because it set foot in the mosque!"
To which the Bektashi replied, "O hodja! The poor animal doesn't know right from
wrong for God's sake. Look at me.... do you ever see me entering a mosque?"
asleep when the hodja began talking about the pure virgins that awaited the faithful in
heaven.
When he heard the word heaven, the Bektashi came to himself and asked the hodja
excitedly
" Hodja efendi will wine and raki be served to the faithful in heaven?"
The hodja became furious and shouted back,
" You pagan, what do you think heaven is... a tavern?!"
The Bektashi replied likewise,
" Hah! What do you think heaven is... a whorehouse?!"
