Rumi's Whirling Dervishes: An Ancient Sufi Dance – Turkey Visa Online

 

The image of whirling dervishes in their billowing white robes and tombstone-like felt caps is well-known in Turkey. They spin serenely as part of an intriguing ritual to become one with God. A dervish in practising spoke with TurkeyVisaOnline.com about the mystic sea ceremony's significance, dervish training, and difficulties the Sufi order once faced.

 

The whirling dervishes are mesmerised by a 700-year-old ritual and engage in a Sufi dance to achieve their goal of union with God, guided by rhythmic breathing and chanting "Allah." Their white robes spin rapidly, rising and falling in unison. God's blessings, which are delivered to earth by the left hand pointing to the ground, are received with the right palm elevated to the heavens. The dancers spin in a spiritual trance, floating between the two worlds. They are currently engaged in an intense and highly private kind of meditation.

 

The mosque-studded skyline of Istanbul and the whirling dervish ceremony, or sema, which blurs the boundaries between dance, prayer, meditation, and trance, are symbols of Turkey. But what are the dervishes who perform this antiquated ceremony, motivated by the teachings of a poet and religious figure from the modern-day Konya (Turkey), trying to accomplish?

 

Mystical meanings

 

According to dervish Abdülhamit Cakmut, "Sema is the Islamic Mevlevi Sufi order ritual, based on Rumi's philosophy, symbolising the rising of the human soul by releasing the ego to become enlightened and, therefore, to become joined with God. The Hodjapasha Cultural Center in Istanbul, one of the locations where tourists can observe this hypnotic ceremony, is affiliated with the Mevlâna Kültür ve Egitim Dernegi, which Akmut leads.

 

The seven-part event is full of symbolism, as explained by Akmut, from the musical ney (reed flute), which symbolises the holy breath that gives birth to everything, to the actors' unusual attire. The dervish, wearing a headpiece representing his ego's tombstone and a white skirt representing his ego's shroud, is spiritually born to the truth and prepared to travel in its direction after taking off his black cloak. Holding his arms crosswise at the beginning and each stop of the sema, he symbolises the number one and attests to the unity of God, says Cakmut.

 

Attaining enlightenment

 

The dervishes are thought to act as a conduit for divine favours throughout the elegantly simple performance, revolving with skirts flowing in a planned galaxy of dancers. "While he is whirling, his arms are wide; his right hand is pointed to the skies, ready to receive God's blessing, and he is looking to his left hand, which is pointed toward the earth," adds Cakmut. This is how he communicates the spiritual gift of God to the individuals he observes.

 

They keep yelling to Allah, spinning ever-faster as their voices echo. They achieve a level of spiritual perfection called fenafillah by giving up their egos and individual identities. Cakmut compares this "sacrifice of mind to love" to the Buddhist concept of nirvana, with the exception that Muhammad the Prophet is the highest rank in Islam and the goal of sema is "complete submission and annihilation of self within the loved one" rather than "unbroken ecstasy and loss of conscious thought."

 

Dervish training

 

Ultimately, it's challenging to explain the mysterious ceremony adequately; Islamic scholars have thought about it for centuries, and its sense of whirling into the infinite continues to captivate even the most atheistic viewers. To sum up, learning the ropes of Rumi requires months of devotion from loyal initiates, along with a wooden board and a bag of salt. The trainee spins with his left big toe and second toe around a nail in the centre of the square training board while holding his right foot parallel to his left and his arms crossed with palms to shoulders, using the salt to prevent slipping and blisters.

He must turn his foot, entire body, and heel without lifting it off the board. Later, he must spin without the nail, open his arms, and don the crucial white tennure robe. "Opening tennure" refers to the sema phenomenon of skirts opening like an umbrella in the air. "The spinning dervish feels lighter in terms of aerodynamic while wearing tennure, and this helps prevent dizziness."

 

The Sufism movement

 

Sufism, a mystic branch of Islam, rejects any forms of materialism in favour of asceticism. Sufis are typically described in historical records as learned religious people whose desires centre on getting close to Allah.

 

The Mevlevi Order, often known as the Mevlevis, is a branch of Sufism that dates back to the 13th century and includes the whirling dervishes. Dervishes worship Jalaluddin Rumi, a Muslim mystic and well-known Persian poet also known as Mevlana, or "our leader," who significantly impacted Muslim literature and culture. He frequently expresses his intense love for God in his poetry.

 

During the Ottoman Empire, the Mevlevis and their 100+ tekke (lodges) had a significant influence, although Sufism and the order afterwards suffered numerous difficulties. As part of his efforts to transform Turkey into a modern, secular society, Mustafa Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, banned all Turkish Sufi orders and their activities in 1925. Until the 1950s, when the Turkish government relaxed the prohibitions and permitted the sema to be performed publicly, the dervishes lived in secrecy. The inclusion of the sema in UNESCO's third Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005 recognised the sema's cultural importance.

 

See the dervishes' whirl.

 

Every December, the Anatolian city of Konya hosts the Mevlâna Festival. Because of the Mevlâna Museum, Konya is a popular destination for over a million Turkish Muslims, particularly Sufis. The turbaned tombs of Rumi, his son, and his disciples are housed in this turquoise-domed shrine, which is much more than just a museum. The adjoining Mevlâna Culture Centre also performs sema performances throughout the year.

 

Istanbul's Hodjapasha Cultural Center, EMAV Silivrikapi Mevlâna Cultural Center, and Galata Mevlevihanesi, the city's oldest tekke, was established in 1491 and restored in 1796, are among the places where the sema can also be seen. Additionally, visits to view the spectacle can be planned by cultural travel companies like Les Arts Turcs.

 

You can view a performance from the tea garden of the 600-year-old tekke at Karabaş-I Veli Kültür Merkezi (the Mevlâna Cultural Center) in Bursa, the first Ottoman capital, across the Sea of Marmara. The restored 13th-century Sarhan (Yellow Caravanserai), one of the most impressive remaining Seljuk caravanserais, is located amid Cappadocia's wavy valleys and rock formations. It also hosts semas in a setting appropriate for this mainly Turkish ceremony.

 

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