A Brief Glimpse into Sufi Mysticism
The turning of the dervishes is a moving meditation designed to bring practitioners closer to God
Finding the hidden venue tucked away in a side alley off Divanyolu Caddesi, where the T1 tram runs, proved to be part of the experience itself.
After wandering the ancient streets of Istanbul’s Sultanahmet district, past the towering minarets of the Blue Mosque and the Byzantine dome of Hagia Sophia, I finally located the nondescript building.
The setting was modest. It was a small hall, tucked away in an alley filled with kebab restaurants, where about forty visitors sat in old plastic chairs, forming a ring around an empty center space.
An attendant moved quietly among us, offering plastic bottles of water and small cups of Turkish tea. As 7:00 PM approached, three musicians in ordinary street clothes took their positions and began playing haunting melodies with a wooden flute, two drums, and an elaborate zither-like instrument called a qanun.
Then came a moment of transformation. The musicians withdrew briefly, returning draped in flowing black robes, their ordinary appearances now ceremonial.
Three dervishes entered, two clothed in white robes, one in red. What followed was an hour of controlled spinning accompanied by prayers and Quranic recitations in Arabic.
What struck me most was the precision and deliberation of the movements. This was no wild, ecstatic “"whirling,” but a carefully choreographed ritual that clearly held deep meaning for the performers.
When the ceremony concluded with solemn bows and the audience quietly dispersed, I found myself curious about what I had witnessed. The ritual belonged to something much older and more complex than I initially understood.
This ceremony belongs to the Mevlevi Order, a Sufi Muslim brotherhood founded in the 13th century by followers of the Persian poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi. After Rumi’s death in 1273, his devotees established this order in Konya to preserve his teachings about divine love and spiritual connection.
What I witnessed was the Sema ceremony, a form of moving meditation designed to bring practitioners closer to God. The symbolism embedded in the performance revealed layers of religious and cultural meaning.
The white robes worn by the dervishes, called tennure, represent the shrouds of the ego. Their distinctive conical felt hats symbolize the tombstones of worldly attachments.
At the ceremony’s outset, each dervish discards a black cloak, representing the shedding of material concerns.
During their spinning, which I admit made me dizzy just as an audience member, they hold their right arms elevated toward heaven and their left arm extended in front of them, their wrists relaxed, positioning themselves as conduits between the spiritual and physical worlds.
The turning itself follows specific patterns and meanings. As the dervishes rotate around their own centers while moving counterclockwise around the hall’s focal point, they supposedly mirror orbital motions and represent cycles of life, death, and rebirth.
The turning serves as a form of dhikr, or remembrance of God, where the physical act of spinning becomes a moving meditation designed to focus the mind entirely on the divine.
Through this rhythmic, repetitive motion, practitioners aim to transcend their individual egos and achieve a state of spiritual union with God, using their bodies as instruments of worship and devotion.
Historically, the Mevlevi Order held considerable influence throughout the Ottoman Empire. With the establishment of modern Turkey and secular reforms in the early 20th century, Sufi orders were actually banned.
The Mevlevi tradition survived underground until 1957, when it was permitted to resume as a cultural association. Today it functions as both spiritual practice and cultural heritage preservation.
The music accompanying the ceremony derives from compositions by Rumi and other Sufi poets from the 14th through 18th centuries. These melodies and chants represent centuries of mystical Islamic poetry transformed into liturgical music.
What makes witnessing the Sema particularly interesting is recognizing that despite its accessibility to tourists, this remains an authentic spiritual practice. The dervishes’ skilled movements reflect serious dedication to their religious tradition.
The performance constitutes neither entertainment nor mere cultural display, but active worship expressing surrender to divine will. The practitioners maintain a commitment to their spiritual path while sharing it with curious observers.
Standing in that Istanbul studio, watching these practitioners embody centuries of tradition, I understood that I had just glimpsed a dimension of Islam I’d read about but only seen in films.
The “"whirling dervishes” offer a window into Sufism, Islam’s mystical branch, where spiritual practice takes forms quite different from conventional worship in the West.
For travelers interested in understanding the complexity of Islamic civilization, witnessing such ceremonies can provide a little insight into traditions that have flourished within Islam for nearly a millennium.
In a world often marked by religious misunderstanding, the dervishes demonstrate how faith can sometimes transcend cultural boundaries and speak to a universal human longing for connection with the divine.
Robert J. Hutchinson is a frequent traveler and the author of numerous books of popular history, including Searching for Jesus: New Discoveries in the Quest for Jesus of Nazareth (Thomas Nelson), The Dawn of Christianity (Thomas Nelson), The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible (Regnery) and When in Rome: A Journal of Life in Vatican City (Doubleday). Email him at: roberthutchinson@substack.com