Sidi Stages a 'Divine Marriage' -- Then Directs An 'Adam & Eve' Love Scene?

Within many schools of Sufism is an allegory of the relationship between God and Man as that of mutually-yearning lovers.  The Sufi Rumi is famous for his  love-drunk poetry on this subject:

https://www.rumi.org.uk/love_poems/#LastNightYouLeftMeAndSlept

It's a captivating analogy that enables us to use our experiences of loneliness, lost love, and sometimes personal desolation as allegories for the Primordial Loss of a Relationship with God, the Eternal Beloved.

In Islam, man is NOT, as in Christianity, the inheritor of the Original Sin from the progenitors, Adam and Eve.  (I always rather liked that).  

In what would become my most peculiar and life-defining Moment, Sidi compelled Aisha and I to wed in his presence--even though we barely knew each other!

Was it Sidi's attempt to bring that old Adam and Eve Story to life? 

Whatever Sidi's motives were, I assumed that his zawiya was strictly for spiritual purposes and intended to focus solely on spiritual matters.  

"Aisha WAS a single female about my age"

However, I did notice that Aisha was a single, attractive female about my age. Her passion for God and Sidi's Teachings was intriguing and inspiring.  

She seemed so confident she was in the Right Place with the Right Guide.  

I longed to be as sure about spiritual things as Aisha seemed to be. 

However, I hadn't been working on any path or depth psychology system to acquire a similar confidence in my spiritual abilities.

(Although I later considered hers a  false confidence born of  her capacity for self delusion).

The last thing I had in mind was initiating any kind of relationship.  In the first few days, I was still recovering from the effects of my habitual  drinking,  

I was usually unhappy, doubted myself, and lacked a vision of my future. Although I had seriously pursued Buddhism to the point of residing for weeks on end at a local Chinese Buddhist monastery, I hadn't really decided whether to arrange my life around it.

I did not consider myself ready for even a casual relationship. I had never considered marriage, and I had never had a long-term, live-in relationship. 

Nor did I see Aisha as anything other than a supportive fellow-traveller.

Nevertheless, two weeks after I moved in and a few days after I took his bayat*, Sidi came down in the evening, as usual.  This time, however, he sent everyone but Aisha and me outside the room. 

He asked us to approach him and take each other's hand.  Which we did.

Sidi Suggests We Get Married at Once

He then launched into an Arabic version of what I quickly understood to be an impromptu marriage ceremony.  I stopped him when he got to the "I do" part.

I told him I could not think of marrying Aisha because I barely knew her and had not introduced her to my parents.  

To be honest, the idea of this sudden marriage was shocking to me.  I felt trapped - cornered! 

Sidi  changed tactics and abruptly told us both, 

"Take off all your clothes!"

I was shocked,,, AGAIN!! 

On the other hand, this new demand was almost a relief compared to the stressfully-presented marriage I'd just escaped.

And admittedly, there was -- WAY in the background --  a bit of the curious male sexual predator stirring in me.

"This might be interesting," that predator snickered to itself, wolfishly.

And I didn't think much about Aisha's mental state at all.

Her willingness to begin to disrobe fed into mine. Sidi then indicated we were to begin making love.

I had come to admire Sidi. He seemed to be a respectful, spiritually adept gentleman who was beyond reproach.  

Although his methods were unorthodox, perhaps they were some specialized techniques for our unique spiritual and psychological issues. 

I wanted to believe that I had actually found the answers to all my questions about Life, the Universe, and Everything—and where my place was in it all.  

I didn't want to lose what SEEMED LIKE my chance of a lifetime, so  I consented.

I tried to imagine it all positively.  Perhaps we were putting aside our separateness and joining with what formerly was Two.  

"I didn't want to think it was a cheap sex show!"

Something like that, anyway...

I DIDN'T want to think we were merely pathetic actors in some cheap sex show put on for some horny old man. 

 The experience felt simultaneously carnal and otherworldly.  Sidi repeatedly urged, "Be the true Eve for him," and "Drink her wine!" 

I didn't know that Sidi's proposed marriage between us was not a one-time, special thing. 

In fact, it had already happened with couples before and would repeat itself dozens of times in Sidi's long history in America.

However, I still don't know if those other couples experienced the actual lovemaking with Sidi's coaching as we had.  They could have just done the quick, 'drive-thru marriage' part.

In fact, the 'Sudden Marriage' feature became a consistent feature of Sidi's dealings with Westerners.  It also took place in other concurrent Sufi orders. (See the link above).

I had even heard, from one actual victim, that Sidi himself had had sex with her and one or two other of his early female disciples.  I, of course, had no proof that it was true, but why would she lie about it? I might have misunderstood.  But I still consider it at least a 50% possibility.

There was certainly little evidence to suggest Sidi favored restraint in sexual matters.  Much later, perhaps with senility setting in, his behavior in the sexual arena apparently became more and more challenging to contain and/or cover up   (At least according to my memory of a conversation with one of his 'helpers').

Our own  'Tantic Sessions' (as such because they were supposed to be without a 'release'), or whatever they were, continued for several nights.  They always began with the question of whether we were ready to marry.  In each case, I was no further along in accepting this proposal than the first time.   

It was off the table.  I first needed to return to the United States to get my bearings.

In addition, Aisha was Canadian, so any marriage between us would necessarily involve one of us moving to another country—probably her to mine.

But the physical intimacy had begun its work.  I was becoming emotionally enamored with Aisha now, as perhaps Sidi had intended.  Nothing like continuing intimate sexual contact to deliver an emotional experience of connectedness, if not exactly 'love'. 

I wish I could remember what we discussed in the daytime between these sessions.  We must have discussed the possibility of marriage.  I honestly don't know WHY I didn't just PICK UP AND LEAVE!!?  I mean, I KNEW what this guy was trying to do.  I guess I was curious to see what would happen.

Clearly, looking back from my vantage point today, I should have AT LEAST considered the possibility of LEAVING!  

Though I believed, at the time, that these sessions came about through some God-given 'Order' of his, I later saw it as something from Sidi's humanity and/or manipulativeness.

Innocent as I apparently was at the time, I went ahead to base my entire life on this manipulative individual's casual experimentation with us.

And the unhealthy reverberations of those actions continue today.  Our ' Divine Marriage' was a LIE!. 

The Lie that Sidi was somehow 'empowered' by Allah to decide we were destined to be Partners.

BACK HOME TO THE USA AND CANADA

After leaving Jerusalem, we began a couple of back-and-forth visits between Aisha's Winnipeg home and my San Francisco Bay Area home.

We corresponded at great length.  However, since we tended to use abstract, flowery 'Sufi English' as we had studied and written it in the zawiya, it was often more like avoiding direct communication through its abstract metaphors and allegories- lots of vagueness and double-meanings.

One thing is sure—we were not 'in love' in any traditional sense.  Though we were probably excited and had some hope that we were spiritually destined to be together.  

I think we were trying to talk ourselves into it.

Reviewing some of these letters now, and reading thru the lines, I can see that Aisha was also uncertain about what she should do.

And that her decision to marry me had at least as much to do with finally resolving the doubts that plagued her than with any unique attraction she had to me.  (As I, in my arrogant vanity, had blithely assumed she had.)

I later BLAMED Aisha for being on the 'same team' as Sidi and for arranging a marriage neither of us wanted.

It could be that she wasn't.   Maybe she was just the first one to admit that it wasn't working for her. 

But Allah knows best!

At that point in my life, I had few confidants.  My parents were my primary ones.

I didn't tell them about all that had happened in Jerusalem or that we were so close to getting married.  I inherently realized that marrying her so early would strike them as madness.

'Catatonically Depressed in Big Sur'

I would have agreed with them if I had been honest with myself.  

Even with some short visits back and forth, I was FAR from sure what to do with the relationship.

One of the visits included a romantic weekend in the romantic coastal town of Carmel, California, which I had put together as a sort of 'pre-honeymoon.' 

This would be followed by a sensuous drive down one of the world's most beautiful coastal highways, Route 1, through Big Sur, down to the Hearst Castle area.  

100 miles of coastal twists and turns offer stunning views of giant Redwoods, the famously twisted Monterey Cypresses, and rocky coastlines.

I hoped these romantic venues would be the backdrop of a cinematically romantic weekend for couples considering marriage   This would be the triumphant icing on the wedding cake!

Yet, the trip fell utterly flat. 

We were both almost catatonically depressed or so it seemed.  I couldn't WAIT for it to be over. I was embarrassed. We weren't so good by ourselves, as a couple. Or maybe it was just the wrong thing to do for us.

But WHY weren't we comfortable with each other during it; why didn't I take a hint?  Why didn't I SHARE what was going on with me with a trusted friend? Or even with her?

The answer was that I actually had few friends.

I didn't really know HOW to make friends very well.  I grew up a single child in a nuclear family far away from the NYC and Florida Panhandle branches of my family,

 I lived in a shared apartment in Berkeley, where I'd moved just because of its convenient location in the middle of my sales territory. I lived with roommates I wasn't particularly social with, worked as a traveling salesman, and drank and/or acted out sexually on the weekends.  Either than or tried to escape to my Buddhist getaway.

The Sixties had ended—for me, with a whimper. I felt lost. I felt alone.  And I wasn't good with women, either, or so I thought.  I hadn't had a girlfriend or even dated for a year or two.

Somehow, we managed to recover from that 'romantic' disaster.  But rather than allowing myself some time to grapple with the consequences of marrying someone I was possibly ill-suited for, I began to Fear I might 'miss out' if I didn't DO something about Aisha.

I interpreted the recent events in Jerusalem as more than just a lucky coincidence in the life of a spiritual seeker.  There might be something 'divine' behind them. And, of course, Sidi did nothing to dissuade us of that notion.  

He seemed to believe there were 'no coincidences', that if I or anybody else arrived at his doorstep, it was for a reason.  

Ultimately, I selfishly hoped that my relationship with Aisha would improve MY life.  At least it would be a way out of my painfully dull and inconclusive life as a salesman and occasional weekend spiritual seeker.

And I was losing control over myself and my self-destructive impulses.  I felt powerless over my baser instincts and my underlying mood of existential loneliness. 

Except when I was at my favorite Buddhist Monastery- the only place I could relax and feel some inner peace.  They generously opened doors for me to live there whenever I wanted.  But I didn't know how I would support myself in living up in that relatively remote area of California.

And, more likely, the answer is that I still didn't feel 'done' with the World enough to want to spend the rest of my life in a monastery.

We are Married   In the Winnipeg Mosque.

Marrying Aisha might fix all that.  Plus, she came with her daughter, the delightful 8-year-old Teresa, whom I had already developed an affection for.

I convinced myself that marriage would be like having my own Spiritual Advisor attending to my needs 24/7.

 And since Sidi had suggested it, I hoped he might be RIGHT about us being the PERFECT COUPLE for each other.

So, I gave in, and we both did. We 'eloped' and were married by a lovely imam in the Winnipeg Mosque in December 1980.

Cracks in the Marriage Start to Appear.

We had a couple of good years at first.  I more or less 'fell in love' by default because we were suddenly in each other's company 24/7, and humans are adaptable.  I did get the sense she loved me, too.  Although she was withdrawn and introverted generally.

We humans are 'made to love', at least in my experience. It happens naturally with whoever is in our space, provided they are semi-stable and outgoing. At least, that has been my experience.

And because, frankly, we had a pretty good sex life, adequate funding, supportive parents, and a lovely little girl.  And, of course, the shared hope for union with God - though Aisha was far more committed to the Sufi format towards that goal than I.

I tried to reintroduce Buddhism back into the equation by bringing her to Gold Mountain Monastery in SF, where I'd spend many happy days meditating, bowing, studying, and attending services.  For some reason, she recoiled.  She 'hated' Buddhism, it turned out.  More likely, she'd had a bad personal experience with someone at the SF Zen Center.

But, I admit, Buddhism often doesn't have the 'Parental Love' feature that many people who seek the conventional God the Father tend to be looking for.  

And I, for one, don't BLAME THEM.  It's a complex world and life for many.  It's comforting to think one isn't alone; someone up there is watching and cares!

Okay.  Rather than make a fuss, I'd just forget about Buddhism.  Though it kind of hurt my heart.

I made some sacrifices like this as the marriage progressed.  Despite this, Aisha kept demanding fretful 'impulse moves,' which made me increasingly worried. 

Aisha hardly ever talked about her earlier days, or so it seemed to me.  And when she moved from Canada to the US, she mostly lost track of all the friends she had in Canada who WEREN'T in the fuqara.

This led her, I believe,  to focus on being with the rest of the fuqara, who were mainly in Europe, and/or to her creating more followers of Sidi around us in Marin County, where we finally landed after false starts in Walnut Creek, Jerusalem, and the U.K..

She was not interested in 'just' becoming a housewife, and a traditional career did not seem attractive to her then or later.

I had assumed that her chemistry degree would ultimately lead her to want to be employed, as would I.  It turned out that the assumption, never spoken of, was incorrect.

Oops.

Our tendencies led us in different directions.  However, our shared commitment to our children and some degree of natural affection approaching love grew between us and held us together for 14 years.

And my schedule allowed for us to go back to Jerusalem almost every summer.  Aisha got a lot out of THAT.  Myself,  not so much.  (I wish I had used ALL that time to meditate, like I can do today!)

But we were friendly with Sidi's family and frequently joined them upstairs when Sidi was at work.  We'd sometimes eat, play games, or watch Arabic soap operas or music videos on TV. 

On other days, we'd frequently visit the colorful Old City to visit Holy Places,  for diversion and to shop for necessities.  There was plenty to see and do there. 

Other Western disciples often came through the zawiya and stayed there, which provided diversion and more opportunities for dhikrs   (And the damned marriages!!) Some of these are still friends today.

We often visited Sidi for years thereafter, including spending entire summers in a vacant apartment in his house; he never mentioned the secret history of our courtship or asked us for money. 

 He occasionally asked for help with the utilities, but it was never more than what he reckoned we had used in the part of his household that we occupied.  $25-50 was the usual.

So any skepticism about his motives and authority over us was forgotten.  In fact, I settled into a Zombiefied performance of the Islamic rituals without much personal commitment or attachment to them.

I did, however, begin to notice a tendency of Sidi to throw his weight around—whether to get the best price for watermelons at the local market based on his Islamic judicial status or to get a better grade for one of his children on the same basis. 

Sidi aroused my fundamental suspicions about his honesty.

I observed Sidi redirecting a substantial sum of money from a wealthy disciple who had just paid the annual 2% wealth tax—$10,000 in this instance—to Sidi. Sidi then transferred this money to one of his own children so he could start a business.

It is technically 'not allowed' for the person collecting zakat to give it to several different classes of relatives, including children.  I may be missing something.

In this case, the wealthy disciples heard something about this and were not pleased.  As I recall, Sidi denied doing it. 

Though I admit this may have happened differently than my fading memory recalls, I began to lose faith in his ability to be rigorously honest.   

After all, Sidi was also a family man.  He had a large family to support in an occupied territory where honest opportunities for young people were few.  I know he loved his children and would always go to bat for them, whether or not it involved stepping on somebody else's toes.

Ultimately, I began to resent him for the CALLOUS and DEMEANING liberties he had taken with Aisha and me.  It seemed more like we were an experiment than people he actually, physically,  knew anything about.  

Often, Sidi's Couples Seemed Randomly Matched.

I noticed that the 'arranged marriage' scenario was being played out constantly every year with ever-increasing numbers of people, and often with even less of a prelude than Aisha and I had had with each other. 

My experiences with him continued year after year, and by the time he finally started coming to America, I was already seriously questioning his motives.

Sometimes, when one marriage didn't work out, any partners who remained Sidi's disciples could go to him and get a SECOND wife or husband.  

How could he THEN claim that the two people he chose to put together were "specially made for each other by Allah" a SECOND time? 

In any case, you won't find anything about the bizarre 'Arranged Marriage' feature of Sidi's teaching career in written form, not in Sidi's writings or anyone else's.  At least, I never did.

And anyone who presumed to put single Muslims together in this fashion in a Muslim country would not live very long.  A daughter's virginity is ESSENTIAL to Muslim parents.  Anyone flippantly pairing off a Muslim girl to a random boy would most likely be stoned to death by a mob!

Yet Sidi practiced it with Westerners in what became almost an assembly-line fashion as if it were a commandment to marry off his disciples as quickly as possible.  

Nobody ever seemed to question it.

 Even Aisha, although it didn't work for her, continued to enable it and encourage others to participate by carrying Sidi's water for him.  She indeed never rebuked the practice. 

Sadly, as I later learned, 'arranged marriage' is a common technique among invasive cults to signal and ensure continuing loyalty. 

'Moonies' Compeled to Participate in Mass Marriages

 Sidi never tried this, to my knowledge, among people from his own milieu.  Only in the case of Europeans or North Americans disengaged enough with their culture and religion of birth could an unconventional Sheikh/Conman make their most important decisions FOR them.

However, most of my contact with him ended with my divorce from Aisha, which occurred in our 14th year of marriage.  

I heard summaries of what was going on thereafter through second-hand contacts with his children in America and my own children's experiences.

So far as I know, the "Compelled Marriages" tradition continued unabated until Sidi died in 2014. 

MEANWHILE, Back in Palestine...

I remembered Sidi's departed loving wife, a pleasant, accepting soul.  Despite severe asthma, she never complained of her voluminous household duties.  She was also very much the Ruler of the Household, although never to the point of actual, unhinged anger - she could make her demands on her children ABUNDANTLY CLEAR.  Sadly, she didn't speak a word of English.

What would she have thought of all this? 

Sidi's Wife Exemplified Traditional Virtues

Or his own daughter, Amina? 

Why was she not a candidate for Sidi's Cult Marriage Program?  Why did she get to choose her husband, A doctor, while the Western Disciples didn't?

In fact, it is common in traditional cultures for people to participate in arranged marriages.  Often, it's the norm.  

The practice has many advantages, especially when the two engaged people have substantial opportunities to get to know each other first.  People in those cultures typically also do not have the high romantic expectations that modern love stories give people in the West. 

Many in the West seek a marriage partner but have unrealistically high expectations.

Traditional cultures recognize that marriage requires many compromises.  It takes a village to support a marriage; parents usually mediate problems between married couples.  Arranged Marriage can work out tolerably well, and love, or at least mutual respect, can later develop.

I can appreciate, in principle, that marriage is too important to be left SOLELY to the bride and groom.  Yet, I avoided telling my parents about my marriage until it was over.   And this was because Sidi APPOINTED HIMSELF rather than the 4 parents involved as the matchmakers and without the larger supportive community.

Aisha and I didn't have the culture surrounding us to support our particular marriage, except the culture of Sidi's group.  So, while we kept in contact with them, and Aisha always tried to recruit new members, everything depended on us staying loyal to Sidi and his methodologies.

And Aisha increasingly became a missionary to complement what had earlier been more of a solitary, personal spiritual quest.

As time passed, I began to chafe under the crumbling foundations of our marriage.  I just wasn't all that MOVED by Sidi, Sufism,  and Islam.  I didn't find myself HUNGRY for more practices.  I didn't see myself changing into a better person.

In fact, because I HAD no actual spiritual path, I just substituted addictions and paid-for sex as some sort of 'consolation' for the unfulfilling marriage I was in.

We were, in fact, downright FOOLISH.  Not only in the way we chose it

I came to think we had been set up by a flawed manipulator with an unknown, long-term agenda rather than a Sufi Guide who understood us as individuals.

Well, a 'traditional Sufi Guide' probably would have had little to do with women--at least as murids.  Women are NOT equals in most Muslim countries, even today.  They don't HAVE Sheiks!  I'm unsure if SIDI'S female disciples were given bayat or membership in his order.

"We'd been set up by a flawed Manipulator with an unknown long-term objective."

In Sidi's 'defense', it must be said that the traditional path to Sufism usually presupposed an Islamic background, which none of we Westerners had.

It is easy to see why Sidi included more attractive features of Sufism in the display windows and later filled in the Islamic foundations.

However, truth in advertising, it was NOT!  

There's another variable involved here.  Marriage is the ideal social relationship for a Muslim and/or a Sufi.

One might argue that Sidi inserted the marriage part to encourage people to stick with the religion.  If so, it was a terrible way to spread a religion, especially if the married couple didn't know that that was the real motive.  Instead, they were fed some slop about the marriage being 'Divinely Ordained'.

What a sad exploitation of others' hopeful, though often uninformed, religious faith!

SIGNS AND WONDERS

In the Bible, Jesus reportedly criticized his followers, saying, "Unless you see Signs and Wonders, you will by no means believe".  (John 4:48).

Jesus was frustrated that, without a miracle or two, most people find it difficult to believe in the Unseen, especially the Mighty Unseen God of the Universe.

In the Islamic Middle East, Sufism was planted in the soil of conventional Islam.  What Sidi did to Westerners was to plant Sufism first and water it with Islam afterward.  CLEVER!. At least, as I see it.

Sidi also gave access to what he IMPLIED, which were answers from God to everyday questions.  He would pray about whatever the questions were and deliver the answers in a day or two.

Alternatively, Sidi would appoint a Wasid or 'Transcriber' from the assembled disciples to answer questions during a majlis or 'meeting' with spirits.

The medium then had her hands painted with mystical symbols, and Sidi went into a long series of Islamic invocations.

The medium would be asked by Sidi if any Spirit was nearby and available to speak to us.  Often, this was just an ordinary Jinn* or perhaps the King of the Jinn.

It might also be an angel or, sometimes, an Archangel, such as Archangel Michael!

Then, Sidi would ask questions, and the medium would write the answers in English or their native tongue.  Typically, women tended to get longer and better answers than men.  I didn't detect anything spooky the time or two it was tried with me.

'The spirit's answers were usually fuzzy and unclear.'

Though not a 'miracle' on the same level as raising someone from the dead, this 'parlor trick' did imply a DIRECT connection to Astral Realms.  A connection few in the fuqara doubted.  And Sidi did not discourage.

The 'answers' were usually fuzzy and unclear.

The similarities to the Western Ouiji Board one may have tried as a child are apparent.  Except that few people other than the unusually credulous or children are normally inclined to accept the answers received as coming from the Spirit World.

In many other instances, Sidi seemingly brought the Divine to life through signs and wonders.  However, it was a peripheral and meaningless diversion—to me, anyway.  It doesn't really lead to transformation.  It typically invites repeated attempts to open doors that are otherwise closed and for a good reason.

However, as I must also observe, divination is practiced with utmost seriousness and sincerity in many traditions, especially Tibetan Buddhism, which uses it to locate reincarnated Lamas.

I don't PERSONALLY give much credence to those incidents.  Even though Tibetan Buddhism and culture are currently en vogue!  And I doubt most ordinary Muslims would feel comfortable with it, either.

_____________________________________________

* Bayat - The 'Promise' between Master and Student