Confession

The author, Kosova, 1999.

Bektashi teqja, Gjakova, Kosova.

Et'hem Beu mosque, Tirana.

The day I was fired by the government

I smoked a joint and drank three pints of cider.

"God is good. It is a beautiful night."

I walked home, after reading Wallace Stevens,

Kryegjysh Reshati -- ejvallah.

To stare at a photo of Baba Reshat Bardhi

Grand World Dede of the Bektashi order,

Beloved teacher of two million Albanian Sufis,

Standing beside the country's heroic Mufti

Hafiz Sabri Koci -- fatiha

Hafiz Sabri Koci, whose hands blessed me

After his 28 years in a Communist prison.

I looked in Baba's eyes and saw California.

For there are three worlds: generous Africa

Which I have yet to know, Europe with America

As far east as Kansas City, Missouri –

And then the rest: the earth of ecstatic dreamers

Indians, Siberians, Muslim dervishes

Westward from the Rockies to the Albanian mountains.

Hafiz stands in black with his martyred face

In the white-draped fez of an imam

While Baba stares from under his high green turban

His beard wide, his sash decorated in gold

Befitting the wild priest of an ancient faith.

And that's what he is: sending the light of wisdom

Across the mountains, the steppes, and even an ocean

To me in California and in exile

In Washington, where dervishes go unknown.

I'm a shamanic child, I'll never be other

Than the Uwaysi Sufi, the epileptic

Who learned to cure himself through words alone,

Through poetry, and through the love of others.

God is great. It's beautiful tonight.

In Wallace Stevens' universe, and Allah's world.

Washington 2002

Author's notes 2020:

The reference in the fourth paragraph to the geographical direction "Europe with America/As far east as Kansas City, Missouri" may seem incorrect. This reflects my view of Eurasia and Western North America as a single "Shamania" – a cultural unit extending from the Balkans to the Mississippi, with its womb in Siberia.

This perspective is elucidated in my volume The Other Islam, published in English, Albanian, and Bosnian. See http://www.islamicpluralism.org/documents/2035.pdf.

Penultimate paragraph: I am not epileptic.

Related Topics: Albanian Muslims, Alevism, American Muslims, Balkan Muslims, Bektashi Sufis, Bosnian Muslims, Central Asia, European Muslims, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kurdish Islam, Montenegro, Shiism, Sufism, Turkish Islam, Uighurs, Uzbekistan receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free center for islamic pluralism mailing list