Mystic dances of the Dervishes

Press, 12 October 1985, Page 19

Mystic dances of the Dervishes

By

SANDRA ARNOLD

Konya is the city of the Whirling Dervishes. The name comes from Ikonium — city with an ikon. According to legend, Medusa — with writhing snakes for hair — once threatened the city. It was saved by Perseus, the son of Zeus, who cut off her head.

To give thanks to Perseus, the inhabitants erected a statue to him — an ikon — in their main square. Until its capture by the Seljuk Turks in the twelfth .century, the city was known as Ikonium. In the days of the Roman Empire, Ikonium became one of the chief cities of the province of Lacaonia. It was visited by St Paul between 47 A.D. and 50 A.D. as he travelled to spread Christianity. In those times it was a centre of religion and it remains so today in the Muslim world.

When Konya became the capital city of the Seljuk Turks it developed into one of the most important centres of culture in Anatolia. Under an enlightened monarch, Sultan Alaeddin Keykubat, it attracted scientists, scholars, artists, poets, and philosophers. The most famous of these was Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, the founder of the sect of Whirling Dervishes. It was his tomb that I had travelled to Konya to see. '■-> The Mausoleum of Mevlana with Its conical green-tiled dome — green being the sacred Muslim colour — Is very striking, even at a distance. Attached to it is the former dervish seminary, now a museum. The outer courtyard has a flower-filled garden and a fountain where pilgrims wash their feet before entering the mausoleum.

Over the entrance is written: "This tomb, this station, is the goal of the dervishes pilgrimage, his ka’ba. He who enters lacking, leaves whole.”

Foreign visitors are not required to wash their feet but are politely requested to remove their shoes at the door. Although it is no longer used as a mosque, the mausoleum has priceless Turkish carpets covering the floors. The change of atmosphere in the dimly lit building is sensed immediately. Soft, unearthly music fills the air. It is played on a medieval reed flute — a ney — which the dervishes used in their rituals. Pilgrims slowly file past the richly decorated sarcophagi, the palms of their hands turned upwards in prayer. There are 65 tombs, all containing members of Mevlana’s family and his followers. The biggest sarcophagus is Mevlana’s, covered with an elaborately embroidered green and gold cloth and surmounted by two enormous turbans. The size of the turbans indicates the importance of the deceased.

The sarcophagi themselves are symbolic; according to Muslim burial tradition, the body must be in direct contact with the earth. The eerie music, ancient musty odour, dramatic tomb hangings, and silent pilgrims combine to give an aura of great sanctity to the place. Next to the mausoleum is the convent where the disciples of Mevlana used to perform their ritual turning dances which gained them the name of Whirling Dervishes. In one of these rooms are displayed the strange musical instruments used by the sect. The music that comes from them is reminiscent of space. The whirling dance represented revolving planets and the music was the music of the spheres. In other rooms are beautifully illustrated copies of the Koran and the original scripts of Mevlana’s philosophical poems.

The Mevlevi order was one of the Turkish-Islamlc mystic movements founded during the spread of Islam throughout the Turkish world. Conceptually it was established by Mevlana and the rituals were developed by his son after his death. Throughout 600 years of Ottoman rule it occupied an important place in all levels of society and the fame of the order gradually spread beyond the Ottoman borders.

Mevlana was born in the city of Balh in Eastern Persia in 1207. His father, Baha ad-Din Valid, was an eminent professor of theology and an authority on religious doctrine. Valid was forced to leave his home after a quarrel with the Persian ruler, who feared his religious power. With his wife and son he migrated to Damascus and then to Konya, where he settled in 1228. The fame of the family had spread and the ruling Seljuk Sultan Keykubad received them with much respect and offered Valid the post of professor of theology in one of the most prominent religious schools — medresse — of the tune.

When his family settled in Konya, Mevlana was 21 years old. He received an excellent education and religious training from his father and from the best scholars of the age. After the death of his father, in 1231, he was appointed religious teacher in his place. Thirteen years later, in which time he gained a great reputation, something occurred which completely changed his life. In 1244, a mysterious Socrateslike figure arrived in Konya. This was a dervish of deep mystic wisdom called Mehmed Shems edDin. After his meeting with Mevlana, an intensely close relationship developed between the two men. Mevlana then devoted all his time to discussions with Shems, who introduced an element of mystic esotericism into Mevlana’s philosophy. This caused consternation and jealousy among his followers; they accused Shems of encouraging their master to neglect his duties. Two years later, Shems mysteriously disappeared. Some historians believe he was murdered by Mevlana’s disciples, who could no longer bear the closeness of their bond.

After Shems’ disappearance, Mevlana severed all contact with the medresse and concentrated entirely on the composition of poetry and ritual dance, attempting to rediscover Shems through transendental mysticism. During the next 30 years of contemplation he founded the Mevlevi Order of what became known as Whirling Dervishes, and wrote in Persian, which was the literary language of the time, two great mystical poems, characterised by humanistic love and ecstasy of living. The most important of these poems is the six-volume Masnawi, consisting of 25,629 couplets. It is considered one of the most important texts in Islamic literature after the Koran and the Hadith (revealed traditions following the words and actions of the Prophet). Mevlana’s poems convey his belief in the value of human existence and the importance he placed upon freedom of the individual and freedom of expression. He saw man as having no intrinsic evil and regarded all mankind as worthy of love and forgiveness. He proposed that Universal Love, the love of God, was sufficient to negate all evil, and that the love of mankind was equal to the love of God. He owes his universal renown largely to the fact that his message was for all mankind, expressing without discrimination love for the human race.

Mevlana means Lord in Arabic and was the title given to him by his devotees during his life. After his death in 1273, his funeral was attended by some of the most prominent persons of the Seljuk Empire. His place was taken by one of his followers for 11 years, and on his death, by Mevlana’s son, Veled, who developed the rites and practices of the order known as Mevlevi — Disciples of the Master. Over the centuries the Order grew very powerful, with convents in most of the major towns and cities of the Turkish Empire. Many sultans were members and wealthy men endowed the Mevlevi with money and property. Secular interference was neither wanted nor welcome. The establishment of the secular government of Ataturk in 1923 was greeted with hostility and its aboli-

tion of the caliphate was regarded as an anathema. The Mevlevi were involved in plots to overthrow the Government and restore the sultan. Ataturk, afraid of religious influence, then decided on the suppression of the Orders. The convents were dissolved and their properties seized; the whirling rituals were banned and some of the leaders were publicly hanged. Later, as a concession to tourism, the dervishes were allowed to perform their rituals for one week only, during the anniversary of Mevlana’s death on December 17.

Mevlana considered death as a return to God. He referred to his death as a time of celebration, saying that the day on which the soul leaves the body must be celebrated as a festival or a wedding. Every year thousands of tourists from all over the world visit his mausoleum in December to see the whirling dance. The Mevlevi rites take the form of the sema — mystic dance. Sema ceremonies take place in the semahane. In one corner of this hall a red pelt is spread out for the Sheyh — the leader — to sit on. In front of the seats in the* hall is placed a row of 18 candlesticks. The dervishes file barefooted into the semahane, praying as they come, their arms crossed over their chests. They wear tall, camelwool caps which symbolise f their tombstones and black cloaks which represent their graves.. They stand with the toes of their right foot over the left and their heads inclined slightly to the right. Then the elders of the order enter and lastly the Sheyh, who bows in greeting as he enters the hall. Then the assembly is seated in unison and all together they kiss the ground and pray. Someone recites from the Koran and this is followed by music played on the reed-flute. The assembly kiss the ground again and rise to their feet and then parade three times around the hall. On the third tour the Sheyh comes to his pelt and stands in front of it. The three periods of processing round the hall, together with the four periods of turning during the dance, represent the seven stages of effort a dervish has to make in his life.

The semazens — dervishes taking part in the dance — take off their black cloaks, the shedding of worldly cares and emergence from' their tombs. Then they pass by the Sheyh one by one and kiss his hand. The semazens move slowly away from the Sheyh, opening their crossed arms and turning to the rhythm of the music played in the background. They spin full circle and turn slowly around the hall at the same time.

As they dance, they spread out their arms, with the palm of the right hand opened upwards to the sky and the palm of the left hand down towards the earth, symbolising mankind acting as a bridge between the earthly and heavenly spheres. There is one axis running from the Sheyh’s pelt through the centre of the semahane which is never touched by the feet of the dervishes. This line represents the equator.

During the ritual, a cosmic sphere is created in dance, as symbolic planets spin around the sun in resemblance of the divine reality. As they spin, their heads are slightly inclined to one side and the white skirts of their robes flare out like umbrellas. These robes represent their shrouds and the sphere of the divine.