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Unknowing
Traditional Bektashi
Unknowing
And knowing nothing of unknowing,
They spread.
Flee.
Unknowing
And knowing nothing of unknowing,
They seek.
Teach them.
Unknowing
And knowing nothing of unknowing,
They sleep.
Wake them.
Knowing,
And knowing unknowing,
The silent few become one with the Core.
Approach.
About the Poem
I came across this poem in a somewhat unusual place. I have been listening to Jason Goodwin’s The Janissary Tree, a historical mystery set in Istanbul in 1836. The novel’s protagonist, Yashim, encounters these words in connection with the Janissaries and the Bektashi dervishes who had long been associated with them. The poem caught my attention immediately, particularly those final words: “Knowing, / And knowing unknowing.”
At first, “knowing unknowing” sounds like a contradiction. How can we know and not know at the same time? Yet perhaps one of the greatest signs of wisdom is knowing the limits of our own knowledge.
The poem seems to describe different kinds of ignorance. There are those who do not know and do not even realize that they do not know. Some confidently spread their ignorance, and the poem tells us to flee from them. Others recognize enough to seek understanding, and we should teach them. Still others remain asleep to what they do not understand, and we should try to wake them.
But the final group is different. They know, yet they also know “unknowing.” They have acquired knowledge without acquiring the arrogance of believing that they can know everything. Instead of speaking loudly and confidently, they are “the silent few.” They recognize that some things remain beyond them.
What fascinates me is how often this same idea appears in very different religious and philosophical traditions.
In Daoism, the Dao De Jing repeatedly warns against mistaking our understanding of reality for reality itself. Its famous opening tells us that the Way that can be completely expressed is not the eternal Way. Chapter 71 makes the connection with Unknowing even clearer: wisdom lies in recognizing what we do not know. The person who does not know but believes that he knows has a far greater problem.
The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates arrived at something similar. The wisdom attributed to him was not that he knew everything, but that he understood the limits of what he knew. Recognizing our ignorance becomes the beginning of wisdom rather than its opposite.
Christianity has its own tradition of unknowing. In 1 Corinthians 13:12, Paul writes, “For now we see through a glass, darkly.” He continues by acknowledging, “now I know in part.” We see only a reflection of the whole. Our knowledge is real, but it is incomplete.
Centuries later, an anonymous Christian mystic would write The Cloud of Unknowing, arguing that God cannot ultimately be grasped by human intellect alone. Faith sometimes requires us to enter the mystery rather than conquer it.
Islam likewise recognizes the limitations of human knowledge. God may know all things, but human beings do not. Even the familiar phrase inshallah—“if God wills”—contains an acknowledgment that we do not know what tomorrow will bring. We can plan, hope, believe, and act while recognizing that the future remains beyond our knowledge.
None of these traditions are saying that knowledge is bad. Neither is Unknowing. Notice that the poem does not praise ignorance. Those who seek should be taught; those who sleep should be awakened. We should learn. We should question. We should seek truth.
But knowledge should bring humility with it.
Perhaps the danger comes when we stop recognizing the distinction between what we know, what we believe, what we think we know, and what remains unknowable. Certainty can be comforting, especially in religion, politics, and our understanding of other people. It is also very easy to mistake certainty for truth.
The wisest person in Unknowing is not the person who loudly announces that he has discovered all the answers. The wisest are “the silent few” who have learned enough to understand how much remains beyond their understanding.
There will always be things we cannot know. We cannot know exactly what tomorrow will bring. We cannot completely know another person’s heart. We cannot fully understand why some things happen to us. And no matter how deeply we believe in God, none of us can comprehend the entirety of the divine.
Perhaps that is not something we need to overcome.
Perhaps true wisdom is not merely knowing.
It is knowing unknowing.
Unknowing is associated with the Bektashi tradition, a Sufi order historically centered in Anatolia and the Balkans. Its author is unknown, and the precise origins of the poem are difficult to establish. The version above appears on Anthony Weir’s website, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes. I have not been able to locate an original Turkish or Ottoman Turkish text from which this English version was translated, so I have attributed it simply as “Traditional Bektashi” rather than assigning it to a particular poet.
The poem’s appearance in The Janissary Tree is particularly appropriate because of the close historical relationship between the Bektashi order and the Ottoman Janissaries.
The Janissaries were the elite infantry corps of the Ottoman Empire and, for centuries, among the most powerful institutions in the empire. Their origins were unusual. Beginning in the fourteenth century, the Ottomans used a system known as the devşirme, or “collection,” through which Christian communities in the Balkans were required to surrender boys to the Ottoman state as a form of tribute. The boys were converted to Islam, educated, and trained for service to the sultan. Some entered the imperial administration, while others became Janissaries.
Technically, the Janissaries were slaves of the sultan, but the word “slave” can be misleading to modern readers. They were not slaves in the sense of plantation or domestic slavery familiar from American history. As members of the sultan’s household, they could receive salaries, enjoy considerable privileges, and rise to positions of wealth, status, and enormous political influence. Their lack of traditional family or tribal loyalties was originally intended to ensure that their loyalty belonged directly to the sultan.
Over the centuries, however, the Janissaries evolved from an elite military corps into a powerful political force capable of making and unmaking sultans. They also developed a particularly close spiritual association with the Bektashi order of dervishes. When Sultan Mahmud II violently abolished the Janissaries in 1826, an event known as the Auspicious Incident, he subsequently suppressed the Bektashis as well, closing many of their lodges and driving adherents underground. Since The Janissary Tree takes place only ten years later, that history hangs heavily over the story.
The poem itself reflects a central concern of mystical traditions: the difference between possessing knowledge and understanding the limits of knowledge. Its progression leads from ignorance without awareness, through seeking and awakening, and finally to “knowing unknowing”—a state in which knowledge is accompanied by humility before what cannot be fully understood.
About the Bektashi Tradition
The Bektashi order is a Sufi mystical tradition traditionally associated with Hacı Bektaş Veli, a thirteenth-century holy man from Anatolia. Over the centuries, Bektashism developed a distinctive religious tradition incorporating Sufi mysticism alongside elements associated with Shi’a Islam and particular reverence for Ali and the Twelve Imams.
Bektashi spirituality has often emphasized an inward search for divine truth rather than relying solely upon outward religious observance. This sometimes placed Bektashis at odds with the more orthodox Sunni religious establishment of the Ottoman Empire.
Their close association with the Janissaries made that tension political as well as religious. When Sultan Mahmud II destroyed the Janissary corps in 1826, the Bektashis lost their powerful protectors and were themselves subjected to official suppression. Nevertheless, the tradition survived, particularly in Albania and elsewhere in the Balkans.
That history adds another dimension to Unknowing. Religious institutions can sometimes be very certain about what they know. Mystics, by contrast, have often reminded us that approaching God can mean confronting something far greater than the human mind can fully understand.
And perhaps that is why the poem’s final instruction is not learn, teach, or even know.
It is simply:
Approach.