Religious experience according to Hacı Hulûsî Baba

Hacı Hulûsî Baba was a poet and at the same time a religious scholar who lived in the early twentieth century. According to Hacı Hulûsî Baba, religion has both external and internal dimensions. He gave importance and priority to the internal dimension of religion and suggested that the realities we experience internally should be taken into account in reaching the truth. In his words, inward religious experiences are important in order to reach hayat-ı javid (i.e. a life focused on eternity). He interprets the bond established with Allah through the experience of "love." In his perspective, lovelessness is heedlessness, every heart without love is a ruin, and straying from the path leading to Allah is banditry. He advocates a religious life centered on love and asceticism; he uses the word "rind" for the religious person he idealizes. Hacı Hulûsî Baba recommends placing piety and morality at the center of individual life. Here, it is important to give due credit to the intellectual achievements without ignoring the intellectual discoveries. From his point of view, it can be said that what needs to be done is to find a middle way that unites the mind and the heart. When this union is achieved, a true experience can take place.