I always had heard the term Whirling Dervishes. It represented, to me, freneticity, mystery, wild behavior and uncontrolled emotions. I would venture to say on a daily basis, we use hundreds of terms that we don't know the true meaning of. This definitely was a term I was completely wrong about.

The Whirling Dervishes from Turkey

We were on a bus tour of Turkey I would place this trip as one of the most interesting and exciting of all our vacations. The Moslem culture was being explained as we traveled. The mosques, the Imams, the minarets, the food, the Koran and the eventual modernization of Turkey by Kemal Attaturk in the 1920s. Every day was an adventure and I couldn't wait to get on the bus.

When we reached Cappadocia and saw the topography of the land, I had to laugh. The mushroom-like projections from the earth were "God's Prank." Thousands of years of rain, weather and the elements were putting on a show.

That night at the hotel we were entertained by a belly dancer. The next night we were scheduled to see the "Whirling Dervishes," whatever they were.

The locale was a cave that was carved out of the soft rock of a mountain. It was a huge area and we tourists entered in a hushed awe. The only musicians we saw were sitting on the floor, legs crossed. They were a drummer and a reed pipe player.

We had a large contingent of Aussies on this tour and they were funny and gregarious. On this occasion they, too, were somber, not knowing what to expect.

The music began and eight handsome young men entered and filled the center stage. They all wore gray conical hats that were flat on top (sort of like elongated fezzes.) They had white starched skirts at their waists.

Slowly they started to whirl and swirl rhythmically around the room. We watched the men in silence as the music increased in tempo and loudness. Within 15 minutes the swaying of these men was riveting as they turned and turned and turned.

They had elevated themselves into a religious frenzy but they just kept twirling. Most ordinary people would have fallen on their faces in a dizzy heap by now, but these guys just kept going. One hour later the music and dancing ended. The audience slowly disengaged and decompressed from this religious ritual with all its fervor and mystery.

The Dervish practiced a form of Sofi or Sema. This is mystical Islam and the dancing and whirling were meant to bring one into an exquisite state whereby one could be closer to God.

Sema is the inspiration of Merlana Celaleddin-I Rumi (1207-1273). "Man is the possessor of a mind and intelligence which distinguishes him from and makes him superior to other beings. Thus, the Whirling Dervish causes the mind to participate in the shared similarity of all other beings. The ceremony represents a mystical journey of man's spiritual ascent through mind and love to the Perfect from Sema - The Universal Movement.

In the lobby of the cave the eight dancers waited calmly for the audience. We spoke with them and we were amazed. They seemed to be just regular guys who were going to college but had chosen this particular method of praying and reaching Allah. We were all struck by their ordinariness, and yet we knew that they were not ordinary.