US Muslim writer Shems Friedlander laid to rest in Türkiye

Shems Friedlander, a US Muslim scholar, artist, filmmaker, and writer who converted to Islam a half-century ago, was laid to rest Thursday in the central Turkish Anatolian city of Konya.

Friedlander died on Tuesday at age 82 in Istanbul, where he had moved in 2014.

Born to a Russian Jewish family in New York in 1940, Friedlander started working as a graphic designer in New York after graduating from university and encountered Muslim Mevlevis when members of the Sufi order came to the Brooklyn Music Academy in 1972 to perform the sema, or mystic ceremony of the whirling dervishes.

The Mevlevis later invited Friedlander to visit the city of Konya, the seat of their order, where he came for the first time in 1972 and became a Muslim.

Friedlander moved to Istanbul in 2014 after working as a professor at the American University in Cairo, Egypt for 20 years.

Since his conversion he has visited Konya regularly, especially for Seb-i Arus (Night of Union) ceremonies marking the anniversary of the death of Mevlana Rumi, whose life and teachings the Mevlevi order is founded on.

Friedlander, who wrote several books of Sufism, including ones that were translated into Turkish and Arabic, in 2012 was named one of the world’s 500 most influential Muslims.