“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Instead, take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do.”

That’s what my man Jelaladdin Rumi said in the 13th century. He was a poet, mystic and theologian of Persian origin that made his way to Konya, Turkey. His followers began a religious order called the Mevlevi Order or Mevleviye. It is considered to be the mystical branch of Islam and the main reason for this is due to the importance of the ritual known as sema.
Sema is the ceremony of the whirling dervishes. Sema literally means something like firmament, or vault of heaven. It is a ceremony that involves whirling to music, which is why the participants are known as whirling dervishes. Let me back up just a little bit and fill you in properly.

Sufism is a branch of Islam that teaches its followers how to attain ecstatic unification with Allah. The basic idea is to purify oneself from the attachment to wordly pleasures and temptations and bathe in the pure light of God. When one chooses to walk this path, they engage in many ways in which to remember Allah and these are known as dhikir. Some example of this are chanting the names of Allah, prayer, meditation, poetry, Qur’anic recitation, and of course, music and dance as interpreted through the sema.

Sufis set themselves apart from followers of orthodox Islam with their use of music as a way to bind emotionally with Allah as well as build a sense of communal worship. Because Sufism is believed to predate the rise of Islam, many Muslims do not even consider Suifm to be a legitimate branch of the religion.

The Sufis who perform this form of communal worship are kind enough to make public appearances in the form of a spiritual concert. There is a very specific order to the proceedings.

First, musicians perform a short concert for the audience. The main isntruments used in Sufi music are the ney, an ancient woodwind made of a hollow reed or cane, the oud, a fretless lute-type instrument, the daf, a large frame drum that sometimes features bangles or cymbals, making its sound similar to that of a tambourine, and the kanun, a zither with twenty six strings that is played in the lap with two tortoise shell picks or with the fingers.

The dervishes file slowly into the room as the music continues. They wear very specific clothing and each piece has a meaning. Their white flowing gown is a symbol of death. Their black cloak, a symbol of the grave and the distinctive tall brown cap is meant to symbolize the tombstone.
When they arrive together, they remove their cloaks and walk around the circle, each assuming a position in a corner, directly across from another. They solemnly bow to each other. Then, they begin their whirling.
There are several stages of this dance, but the elements are meant to symbolize man’s mystical journey through the mind, filling with love and moving towards perfect union with the Creator. In order to do this, one must find the truth, abandon the ego, and arrive at the perfection that one finds through such holy union. It is only then that a man can truly serve the world and its fellow man as a mature member of society, one with all of creation.

It is a very beautiful ceremony; one that always fills my chest with tremendous pressure and brings tears to my eyes. I seem to have some inexplicable connection with the music and the ceremony itself. It is the kind of deja vu feeling that one sometimes gets and causes one to wonder if we could have been in this life long before.

While it is true that I am fortunate enough to live in a city where I could attend these concerts on a weekly basis, it is something, like going to the hamam (Turkish bath), that I tend to do only when I have guests visiting from out of town. So I would like to take this opportunity to thank Emily for coming this past week so that I could rejuvenate my heart through the sema ritual.

I would advise anyone visiting Istanbul not to leave before you have attended such a concert. There are several places around town that give these performances, particularly in the touristic center of the old city, Sultanahmet.

Having been to several different venues now, I still recommend the Sirkeci Train Station, sometimes known as the Orient Express Train Station. For one, the architecture of that place is mind-boggling, and because the performance space is so generous, eight Sufis often perform, as well as the teacher, or pir, who presides in the center.
It is one tourist opportunity that I wholeheartedly recommend fitting into your itinerary in a city that is bursting at the seams with glorious history.