TURKEY -WHIRLING DERVISHES

WHIRLING DERVISHES

The famous Whirling Dervishes of Turkey are icons in status and instantly recognizable throughout the world. Have you ever wondered how it came about?

Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi , the founder of the Mevlevi  Order or Whirling Dervishes  was born 30 September 1207 in Balkh, which is located in present day of Afghanistan. Melvana ‘s father , Bahauddin ,a respected philosopher and mystic fled with his family from Balkh in 1227 to Konya, the capital of the Selcuk Empire.

Melvana’s family was welcomed by the Selcuk Sultan who recognized that spiritual authority was higher than political authority. Under such encouraging religious tolerance, Melvana’s budding mysticism thrived and he wrote his masterpiece of Islamic mystical literature, the Mesnevi.

Mevlana compared the mystic’s desire to be reunited with God to the sigh of the reed flute, the ney , used in Mevlevi service: The ney cries to return to its reed  bed from which it was torn. The Mevlev service ( sema) is another expression of  the  soul’s unending search for the unattainable :

In the  sema the whirling of the dervishes express the search for God in all directions. Their stamping is to crush selfishness under foot; their jumping is their attempt to rise to God.

Bowing means the complete submission of one‘s soul to God. Bowing means the complete submission of one’soul to God.The position of the islands is important: The right arm is held upward towards God, the left downward to the earth; the two make a balance, the dervish freely transmitting to fellow humans all that he receives from God.

The ritual of sema, is a serious religious ritual performed by Muslim priests in a prayer trance to Allah. Mevlevi believed that during the sema the soul was released from earthly ties and able to freely and jubilantly commune with the divine. Dervish literally means “doorway” and is thought to be an entrance from this material world to the spiritual heavenly world. The Whirling Dervishes played an important part in the evolution of Ottoman high culture.

From the fourteenth to the twentieth century, their impact on classical poetry, calligraphy and visual arts was profound. Rumi and his followers integrated music into their rituals as an article of faith. Rumi emphasized that music uplifts our spirit to realms above and we hear the tunes of the Gates of Paradise.