In Search of the Truth
by Azar Mirza-Beg Azar Mirza-Beg was born in the Soviet Union in 1951 and
spend his youth in search of spiritual knowledge and Masters He lived the largest part of his life in various regions
of the colossal Soviet empire. But, after the fall of the
Iron CONTENTS 1 The Guides Appendix
‘Absorbing’. – Maria Johnson,
Manager and Founder, World Peace Foundation, London. ‘Revelation… there will be a multitude of readers of this rare beneficent work’. – Father Alexis, Greek Orthodox Bishop, Athens. ‘A must read…Fascinating… the most damaging evidence yet compiled about satanic intrigues of our times’. – Father Georgy, Russian Orthodox deacon, Moscow. ‘Sheikh Azar Mirza-Beg…has produced a gem sparkling with insight, clarity and persuasion’. - F.Mironov, Director, Eurasian Institute, Moscow. ‘Hazrat Azar Mirza-Beg has given us the most comprehensive and authoritative account of religious landscape of the 20th century yet to appear in print’. – Omar Temir, Sheikh of the Naqshbandi Order, Berlin.
APPENDIX Recently, I unsuccessfully tried to find a place, where I could conduct my Sufi activities without interference by the state or the local authorities. But in the modern times it is difficult to find any country with a friendly regime where one could set up an independent religious charity. The unsavory truth is that in all modern states religion is under inhibitive, restrictive control of the state, the establishment and their secret services. So Sufis (ahli tasawwuf), as independent-minded people, find it arduous to conduct their traditional activity in such atmosphere. So, to my opinion the only country, which could be favourable for the revival of the traditional Sufism, is Turkmenistan. The information that I received makes me to think that, your leadership style, your person, Sir, is my only hope to find a suitable place for my religious work. Therefore, I want to make an appeal to you, Sir, to allow me to come to Turkmenistan and to set up, a traditional khanaka (a Sufi study centre). So, the project can be either the revival, reactivation of an old Turkmen khanaka, a Sufi mausoleum or building an all-new khanaka. Naturally, I don’t mean the academic, the secular approach to study, but holy, standard Sufi institution. There exist a lot of hostile propaganda criticizing your leadership style. They claim that it is not democratic enough, not liberal enough, that it is an authoritarian rule. To all this unfair propaganda I will say that on my travels abroad I could never find any democratic, free or just country in the East nor in the West. It is true that in the West there is an economic prosperity. But all this is built at the expense of the natural resources, the raw materials of the third world countries. So the West is as undemocratic, unjust and unfair as any brutal, ancient tyranny. In the modern world the prosperity of the West is built on the misery of the East and the South. All the rest is just the Radio Liberty propaganda and misinformation. What the world and the mankind need is not an immoral libertine society, not the chaos of multi-party system, not “human rights ” demagogy, not phony internationalist ideology, but a party that will speak for the people, stand for their rights and needs; justice and peace for the majority. Society needs a leadership that will be representative of the nation (millet), of the majority population, but not of the temporary settlers or the migrating, cosmopolitan minorities. As an ordinary citizen, as a fair person I dislike the bureaucracy, this self-serving, faceless, egoistic class. I don’t trust them. They are totally irresponsible people. To organize the work properly I would need special conditions. These special conditions cannot be provided or granted to me by any modern bureaucratic authority, since it would be against their practices, their rules. That is the reason why I am making this appeal to you, Sir, as a powerful leader, Turkmenbashi, the father figure for all Turkmen, to issue an exceptional permission, a document giving the special status of a holy place to the khanaka, so that its normal work could be conducted without any interference by the local authorities, police or the secret services. There is no other way that Sufis can organize any true Sufi work, a society (jamiat), a centre (markaz) or a group (halga), unless the leader, the head of the state issue a certain kind of lasting paper, an exceptional protection document that will allow us to conduct, peacefully, useful spiritual activity within the centre. It can be some kind of certificate, a license or a special privilege document. The document, as much as I care, can be totally unconstitutional or symbolical (sic). What we need is that the authorities to respect the society, not to harass us, not to conduct any forceful entries into our premises, under any pretext and so not to desecrate the site. The holy place should remain at all prices as the holy place. The authorities should behave respectfully of the religious feelings of the people. But of cause I can’t demand extension of the holy status to my person. Respect toward his religious teacher, religious leader is a matter of personal faith, sensibility and individual commitment. In case you, Sir will issue such kind of special status document to my centre, you are free to revoke the document any time Your Highness pleases. It is natural, that the society will seek the extension of the validity of the document from your predecessor. He also will be free to extend it or to declare it invalid. In case I will be asked about my national commitment, I will answer that I am a Muslim and it is my true identity, not my being Azeri, Turkic or anything else. My slogan is – I am a Muslim and proud of it. Today I have no partners, followers. I am, totally independent person, not connected to any group, party or organization. So, the khanaka will remain in Turkmenistan and will belong to the local Muslims. Nobody can organize the Sufi work unless he has a God-given talent, which is a rare gift. Very few individuals have such qualities. Today, nowhere in the world there can be found a true teacher (murshid), nor any true Sufi society. There are a lot of charlatans and imposters, a lot of phony, false Sufi centres, but none of them is real, true thing. So nobody can conduct this job of spiritual leadership by an appointment of the authorities or be chosen by the people, by the followers. He must be a God-chosen man and he himself should choose his followers, appoint his deputies or heir (heiress). The leadership of khanaka is not the worldly position, but something natural, something subject to the otherworldly rules and demands. Besides, it can be that in case the khanaka would be established, I would like the site to be given to me as a permanent endowment, so that after me, possibly my family members to inherit the society from me. Otherwise, it will look strange and silly if somebody else, some stranger, a useless person will benefit from it all, get in the control of the institution created by my mind and thought. Who is going to finance this project? It can be done in three ways. It can be financed by the Turkmen state; by the people through the contributions or by bringing money from abroad. I know a couple of sultans who might be interested in financing of such projects. I think that the financial matters are the easiest side of the project. In case Turkmens will let me to set up the centre I can promise that after some time our khanaka will produce the holy people (awliya) of Najm ad-Din Kubra and Abu Said al-Meyhani caliber. These men were and still remain the world’s leading spiritual thinkers. Does Turkmenistan today, have scientists of such prominence as them? But in the case that, Turkmens will agree to set up a khanaka on their territory, very soon they will acquire the leading spiritual giants of the modern times. It can be that the Turkmen state has no money for the construction of the khanaka and foreigners will turn down our requests to provide the funds. In that case there within the country will come out people offering their skills as builders, as engineers, as painters to work free of charge for the project. There will come out people who will offer their old books in Arabic, Persian, and the old manuscripts for the library of the centre. Many years ago I saw a Turkmen, who was boasting by saying that he, in his yurt in the remote kishlak organized a public cinema, where on a home video, nomads could see the American porno-films. At that time I saw in it an omen that the days of the futile Communist system and ideology are counted. As the God-fearing Muslims, we are not against the Western technology. But we oppose, cannot accept their vain, materialistic, greedy, wicked ideology and the ways of life. Many years ago, I wrote a play about Mulla Nasrudin. I think it was the most complete and authentic play ever written about our sage, who was a holy man, a Sufi thinker. I offered the play to a theatre director in Ashkhabad. I think that his name was Alo Alolovitch. But unfortunately, nothing came out of it. Then, later I lost the other copy in my possession. In an Indian book it was written that clever men would never make a home in the land, where scientists (alims) are not respected. Probably, it was for this reason that Tamerlane invited to his capitol and offered a work to Nasrudin at his palace. Several years ago, when I was doing business in England, I found out that Turkmenistan has no embassy in London, in this important capitol city. So I decided to offer my services as a go-between to the Turkmen state to find an official, residential house for their ambassador. I went for the top houses and at last found the best, the most suitable house in town. It was a wonderful property situated in the most exclusive area of London, near the central mosque, in Regent’s Park, next to the residence of the United States Ambassador. I met the director general of the Crown properties, who supervised the entire estate of the Queen, to discuss the matter, whether they are willing to sell it to Turkmens. I thought at the time, that by securing the property for us, by flying our flag in the front of Americans we could help, how to say it, to put Turkmenistan on the map and to rub Americans’ noses. These arrogant Americans are used to look down at us, Muslims. I tried to send a letter, to make a contact with Ashkhabad, offering my services as an estate agent, but my faxes never went through and so nothing came out of it. I hope, that this project will be more successful and will be accepted by the Turkmen government; by You, Sir and as the outcome of it Turkmens will get in a possession of a unique, truly spiritual centre. It should be mentioned here that these days the Islamic world has no true Sufi masters, but mostly shallow pretenders only. In the Arab lands if I will tell there that I am a Sufi teacher, a religious worker, Arabs will not accept it. They will say, that they are better specialists in religious matters, since their Arabic is better, their pronunciation is better and so their knowledge of the sacred language of Islam is more superior. So they think that only an Arab can understand, properly the Quran and Islam. In the case of Persians, all Persians I met in Iran told me that I never could know Sufism better than them, since Persian is their mother tongue. So every Iranian these days are trying to give himself away as a Sufi or even as a Sufi master, because he read several Persian poems. Today, the mystical verses are a part of the school curriculum in Iran, as it always was. But it can never make every Iranian a mystic or mysticism specialist. So, what I mean is that it is impossible to teach an ignorant, who thinks that he is a man of knowledge or a scientist (alim). The world is full with the people who want to teach, but there are very few people who wants to learn or who can learn. Besides, they think that it is impossible that somebody, who came from the former Soviet republic, the land of infidels (kafirs), knows religion better than them. Additionally, in these countries religion is a commonplace thing, the ordinary thing, while in the former Soviet lands it is something exotic and exiting. Here, they have a religious thirst, which is an essential factor. On my first visit to Ashkhabad at the beginning I was wondering where are the ethnic Turkmens, the Muslim population, they could not be found anywhere in the town centre. But at last I found them at the market place (bazaar) selling the countryside products to the Russian-speaking city dwellers. The bus terminal was built, conveniently next to the market, so the buses could bring in the early morning Muslim peasants to the city to sell their produce and to take them away by the evening. I found Ashkhabad city dwellers as unsympathetic, snobbish people. I don’t think that they will like the idea of building the khanaka. But I want to establish the khanaka not for these cosmopolitans, for these strangers, but for that poor Muslim people, the true Turkmens. A. Mirza- Beg
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