A Modern Dervish Story: Sadık Yalsızuçanlar

Abstract

Sadık Yalsızuçanlar is a modern dervish himself, just like his works. He has produced works in many genres such as novels, stories, narratives, and essays. His dervishness also comes from a postmodern and surrealist feature in his works. One of the most important features of his novels is that he includes the lives of himself, his friends, his loved ones, and his environment. Sufi masters, saints, and friends of Allah are especially present in his works. Yalsızuçanlar also includes Sufi elements in his novels. He takes on Sufi masters such as Mevlana, Yunus Emre, Muhuddin i Arabi, and İmam-ı Rabbani. In this study, we tried to look at Yalsızuçanlar's dervish aspect through the novel Ustad: A Dem from Nur. The novel is a work that tells the author's own youth and Sufi development. The author tells his own spiritual development based on his family and close circle. Yalsızuçanlar is a very productive and prolific writer with over 100 works. In many of his novels, he actually tells about himself. The novel Dem is also a novel in which Yalsızuçanlar tells his personal adventure. In the novel, we actually read Sadık Yalsızuçanlar as a dervish. Yalsızuçanlar's whole life changes after he starts reading the works of the Master. The name of the Master of Yalsızuçanlar is never mentioned in the novel. He starts going to a house where books are read. He even stays there on holidays. He has now devoted himself to reading. As he reads, a spiritual bond forms between him and the Master. Gradually, Sadık Yalsızuçanlar's spiritual journey begins. Yalsızuçanlar goes to Ankara to study at university. His bond with his spiritual guide has become even stronger. Now he sees him even in his dreams. He constantly reads where he stays. Sadık Yalsızuçanlar turns into a modern dervish with this spiritual journey.