With heads slightly tilted, right hands facing up to receive the light and beneficence from Allah (SWT), and the left facing down to deliver such blessings unto humankind, Dervishes start and keep on whirling in a systematic movement that is an active practice of Dhikr…     With heads slightly tilted, right hands facing up to receive the light and beneficence from Allah (SWT), and the left facing down to deliver such blessings unto humankind, Dervishes start and keep on whirling in a systematic movement that is an active practice of Dhikr, or Remembrance of Almighty Allah, which stirs up and asserts the realization of His oneness. Whirling or this kind of Sufi dancing is what’s originally known as the Mevlevi Order, a Sufi order  that was founded in Konya, a city in Turkey in the 13the century by the followers of the Sufi  poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi-Rumi. The Mevlevi mystic dancing commemorates or follows with a bit of elaboration the ecstatic whirling of Mevlana Rumi in the streets of Konya back then. And in the coming few lines I shall shed light on the dancing ceremony as practiced by modern Dervishes, or what is known as  Sufi Dancing in our modern age. In sincere and heartfelt reverence and appreciation of the oneness of Almighty Allah, the ceremony starts and takes seven stages symbolizing the whirling dervish’s love of God, His Creation and Mankind:
  1. Natt-i Şerif: praise for Almighty Allah, the One and Only, the Sole Creator of the Universe, as well as praise for His noble Prophet, Muhammad, and all the prophets preceding him, (peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all)
  2. The beating of drums symbolically announcing, Allah’s command to all worlds, all creations, to “Be”.
  3. Ney Music: Playing kind of flute music symbolizing the divine breathing of life into all living creatures of the universe.
  4. Dervishes greet each other in an act symbolizing the souls’ greetings.
  5. With arms placed on their chests, in an act demonstrating the belief in the oneness of God (SWT) each dervish bows down in humiliation and kisses the hand of the spiritual leader of the ceremony, known as the Efendi, seeking the permission to start the ceremony and thus start the whirling.
One after the other, the dervishes drop their black cloaks and start whirling in their white garments revealing their considerable wideness as the whirling continues and intensifies. The dropping of cloaks connotes the shunning of falsehood and any elements of beautification for the truth to be revealed, symbolized in the white garments the dervishes wear under the black cloaks. And then the whirling starts in an anti-clockwise direction, initially in a slow motion and starts picking up gradually, with each dervish slowly unfolding his arms, with the right palm facing the sky symbolizing reaching up to heaven to receive God’s blessings, and the left palm facing down symbolizing the delivery of the received blessings to humankind on earth. The whirling continues in four sessions, each lasting for approximately 15 minutes, with some pauses in between during which the dervishes get some rest. And in the final session, the Efendi joins the whirling team.
  1. The sixth phase involves some prayers from the Holy Quran.
  2. Then the ceremony concludes with the recitation of Surah Al Fatiha, or the Opening, the first chapter of the Quran, followed by congregationally supplication.
As made evident here and contrary to much widespread misconception about Sufi Dancing, such Sufi procession is not aimed at the mere sense of ecstasy gained by the dervishes throughout the  various stages of the ceremony and the act of whirling, it’s not solely aimed at losing consciousness, but rather it’s an organized set of movements through which the dancer seeks to reach a stage of strong realization of the oneness and the magnificence of the Lord, Allah (SWT) and submitting to His Supreme Power. Wassalaam, Maha Youssuf maha@muslimtribune.org Posted on: September 2, 2011