Turkish Delightful: Dirvishes and why they Whirl

"Like a whirling dervish" is one of those phrases that everyone hears but don't really know what it means. I always took it to mean someone was so frantically busy that they were almost hard to see.

In the land of dervishes, I find that in actual fact a Dervish is a member of a religious order that is part of the Muslim faith. There are several orders of Dervishes, all known for their extreme poverty, and must beg to learn humility.

They must also whirl to learn ecstasy.

This practice has now becme a tourist attractin in Turkey, and we were all taken to see a performance in a 13th century Han on the edge of Capadoccia. Part of a formal ceremony known as the Sema, Dervishes wear a white gown (symbolizing death), a wide black cloak (symbolizing the grave) and a tall brown hat (symbolizing a tombstone). They start by doing nothing from what I could see.

We weren't allowed to take photos, so I will try tp exlain it as best I can. While all the other Dervishes stand with eyes to the ground, one stands, eyes raised and sings praise to Muhammad, which then turns into a flute solo symbolizing man's separation from God. (there's a lot of symbolizing going on).

Then the Dervishes slowly circle round the one in black and bow to each other, which becomes a procession of sorts as they move round and bow to represent the Divine breath mankind received at birth. After all the Dervishes have done this they kneel and remove their black cloaks.

Then the real whirling kicks into gear. Whirling dervishes symbolize the moon and so they spin on the outside of the Sheikh (previous solo singer) who symbolizes the sun. I noticed that they only spin on their left foot, and they slowly move their arms from being crossed over their chests to being opened out, the left palm facing the earth and the right one facing Heaven.

Once they have all whirled themselves silly, they stop and our soloist recites part of the Koran to finish.

The origin of this unique exhibition is credited to Rumi, a Sufi master and philosopher who is buried in the Green Mosque in Konya. The story goes that Rumi was walking through town one day when he heard goldbeaters in the market going at it with hammers. Rumi apparently heard the beaters saying "There is no god but Allah" in a rhythmic chant as they beat. This made Rumi so happy that he stretched out both of his arms and started spinning in a circle. There was no youtube then, but someone must have been watching and thus Sama became the 'it' thing to do. Go Rumi!