What is a whirling dervish?

In English, we like to refer to someone who is rushing around as being ‘like a whirling dervish’ but until I came to Turkey I don’t think I had even stopped to wonder what a dervish really is.

Two weeks ago, on our way to Cappadocia, we passed through Konya which, aside from being the seventh largest city in Turkey and the largest in terms of land area of its 81 regions (38,000 sq km – nearly double the size of Wales), is the centre of the Mevlevi order of dervishes.

Mevlana museum (once a dervish lodge), Konya

A dervish is a Sufi Muslim holy man who follows an austere religious life and focuses on leaving behind the ego and personal desires in order to reach God.  There are other dervish orders in Pakistan, Afghanistan and north Africa, among other places, but the Mevlevi order is based on the teachings of Celaleddin Rumi and was started by his son.

Rumi – also known as Mevlana (‘the Master’) – was a thirteenth century poet and religious scholar who settled in Konya.  He is little-known in the UK but in the USA he is described as the best-selling poet and a selection of his love poems has been performed by the likes of Madonna, Goldie Hawn and Demi Moore!

In most Sufi orders, some form of physical exertion is used to reach a trance-like state.  Rumi believed passionately in the use of music and dance for this and his spinning developed into the ritual Sema (whirling) practised by the Mevlevi dervishes.

The Semazen (whirling dervish) wears a tall, camel hair hat that represents the tombstone of the ego and a wide, white skirt that represents its shroud.  At the beginning of the Sema, he holds his arms crossed over his chest to resemble the number one, symbolising God’s unity.  Later, his arms open and his right arm reaches to the sky to receive God’s beneficence while his left hand reaches to the earth.  As he turns (from right to left) he embraces all humanity in love.

These days the dervish lodge in Konya is the Mevlana Museum and as the site of Rumi’s tomb, a place of pilgrimage.  Every year in December the Mevlana Festival is held to celebrate Rumi’s birthday with demonstrations of the Sema.  But his teachings are also relevant, nearly eight hundred years later.

Mevlana's tomb

Rumi believed that human beings had been created with God’s love in order to love.  He treated people of different religions exactly the same, believing that they all hold the truth.  Most importantly, he called for peace and tolerance, which is something we could certainly use more of today!

Dervish graves, Mevlana Museum