Dervishes whirl at Annenberg

Poised to accept God's blessing, the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey performed the selams -- bodily turns -- of their ancient order's worship ceremony Monday before a sold-out Annenberg Theater crowd. The Dervishes continued the traditions of the Mevlevi Order, a group of Turkish spiritual elites devoted to Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. Their performance incorporated the order's dual nature with a concert of classical Turkish music and an invocation of the Sema, a 700-year-old form of worship of the Mevlevi order. "Sufism is very spiritual, asking someone to come as you are, whatever you are, to the search for God through love," Wharton junior Evren Ucok said. "There is a Sufist in everyone." Sufists believe the human heart can possibly connect with the divine -- an imperfect form polishable through the whirling movement of the Dervishes. Once turning, the Dervishes became journeymen on the way of love, traveling to their divine center where they stand closest to God, said Kabir Helminski, spiritual leader of the Threshold Society, a Sufist order in Vermont. With right hands raised to heaven in reception of God's blessing, and the left turned down to bestow this gift upon the whole of creation, the Dervishes held their sacred pose to represent an inner love for humanity. Repeating the name of Allah with each turn, the Dervishes allowed their God to become the center upon which they turn, according to Amer Latif, one of the Dervishes. "This pose is the highest state desired by a Dervish -- to be so selfless in service of the world," Latif said. "At that moment it is a feeling of being in God's presence, feeling very empty and very full as well." The Dervishes engaged in four periods of turning, each time bowing to each other in symbolic reference to the soul concealed within the body. Brought to America through the efforts of the Threshold Society, the Whirling Dervishes completed their 15-stop tour with the performance at Annenberg. Promoted by the Turkish Society -- a University group extending to schools and Turkish families as far away as Delaware -- the event brought "a taste of a spiritual culture" to America, said Idil Cakim, a Communications graduate student. "Turkey is this amazing piece of land with centuries of history -- and this is a familiar voice from home," she added. "I remember my childhood in Istanbul with the church towers calling us five times a day to prayer." The Dervishes' voices took her back to the calls and mysticism of Istanbul, Cakim said. "It takes a lot of courage to live 24 hours a day in a foreign country, communicating in another language, and another culture," she added. "This is a moment to take pride in, to admire and listen to a voice you haven't heard in a while." The Mevlevi trace their origins to the 13th century writer Mevlana Jalauddin Rumi, whose poems provide the words for much Mevlevi music. Most of the order's members lead normal lives aside from their participation in the Sufi rituals. The Mevlevi still exist in Turkish society as a brotherhood of spiritual artists and intellectuals devoted to Sufism, according to Helminski.