TURN, TURN, TURN
Whirling Dervishes of Rumi dance as a spiritual journey toward truth
For the Whirling Dervishes of Rumi, it’s all about revolving. Members of the Sufi order use dance as a form of devotion to God, and the revolution of all things — from electrons, protons and neutrons in atoms to the earth revolving around the sun — is at the heart of their spinning movements.
“Everything turns and revolves and they find harmony with the universe with the turning,” said Rasid Avsar, director of the Little Rock chapter of the Dialogue Institute of the Southwest.
The institute is hosting two events featuring the Whirling Dervishes of Rumi and Sufi music in Little Rock and Conway on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1.
The Dialogue Institute of the Southwest is a nonprofit group started by Turkish-Americans and their friends with the goal of improving relations among people of diverse faiths and cultures.
The Whirling Dervishes of Rumi are a Sufi religious group from Turkey. Sufism is a mystical tradition within Islam, not a separate sect or branch of the religion.
“It’s a long tradition based on the teachings and life of the Prophet Muhammad,” Avsar said.
The roots of Sufism date back to the seventh century. Sarwar Alam, an instructor in the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, teaches a course on Sufism. He said that compared to mainstream Islamic tradition, which emphasizes law (commonly known as Shariah), Sufism emphasizes the inner or spiritual side of religious practice.
“It is also argued that the prophet himself
kept that type of spirituality,” Alam said. “During the period of revelation he used to meditate in a cave in Mecca. It was a common practice. There were people who also used to meditate in the mosques of Medina known as ahl al-suffa. They were known as suffa, or people of wisdom.”
That group used to wear woolen garments known as suf and that’s where the name Sufi comes from.
The emphasis on love is a hallmark of Sufism and Sufis often use music and dance as a means of devotion in addition to worship in the mosque and praying five times a day. Sufis also practice tolerance of other religions.
“If you go to any Sufi shrine, you will find people of other faiths … they created a space where you can exchange opinion freely. It is a space for dialogue, a space where apparent division of humanity on the basis of religion is not there,” Alam said.
Through the years, poetry became the language of Sufism and one of the best known of the great Sufi poets was Mawlana Jalaleddin Rumi.
“He was a prolific composer of verses,” Alam said. “Among his writings were the Mathnawi, written in Persian.”
The Mathnawi includes six volumes and 25,000 verses. The Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, or Works of Shams Tabrizi, is filled with 40,000 verses.
Rumi was born in Balkh, located in present-day Afghanistan. His family escaped a Mongol invasion and eventually settled in Konya, Anatolia, in present-day Turkey. The famed poet is buried there and the Mevlevi Sufi order is based on his teachings, which also include the revolving dance of the Order of the Whirling Dervishes.
The dervishes, also known as semazen, use dance as a spiritual journey, of turning toward truth and love. The ritual dance of the whirling dervishes is full of symbolism. Even the clothing they wear has meaning. The hat, made from camel’s hair, is seen as the “tombstone of the ego” while the white skirt is the “shroud of the ego.” The black cloak is removed to symbolize spiritual rebirth.
As they whirl, the semazen hold their arms open, with the right held up toward the sky and the left toward the earth. The uplifted hand is raised to receive God and the message is carried to others through the downward left hand. They revolve, spinning quickly in the ritual known as Sema.
Their dance is not done for entertainment. It’s a spiritual act and each portion has a specific meaning, starting with a eulogy to Muhammad and the prophets who came before him, progressing to a drumbeat to symbolize creation and music from a reed flute symbolizing the divine breath and continuing on to other stages, each with distinct rhythms and meanings.
Avsar said he hopes the events will be successful and enlightening and share the Sufi message of tolerance and peace for all.
That goal is in with the institute’s goals to promote tolerance and understanding.
“This dialogue is very important,” Avsar said. “We believe as Turkish-Americans and Muslims the real face of Islam is this — Sufism — and peace. Unfortunately bad things are going on. What can we do? We try to introduce the real Islam and if we can make a contribution to that through this, we will.”
Whirling Dervishes of Rumi and Sufi Music Concert will be held at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 31 at Albert Pike Memorial Center, 712 Scott St., Little Rock. Tickets are $25. A second event will be at 2 p.m. Feb. 1 at Ida Waldran Auditorium, University of Central Arkansas, 201 Donaghey Ave., Conway. General admission tickets are $15 and student tickets, $10.
Tickets are available online at thewhirlingdervishes.org and will be available at the door if seats remain. Information is also available by calling (501) 223-3443 or online at thedialoginstitute.org/ littlerock.