Knowra Mevlevi Order Mevlevi Order The Mevlevi Order is a Sufi brotherhood founded by followers of Jalal al-Din Rumi. Its best-known devotional practice is the sema, a ceremony featuring ritualized whirling.
Sema : A Mevlevi ceremony of music, recitation, and ritual movement, including the dervishes’ whirling. This is the order’s best-known devotional ceremony and the setting for its whirling.
Rumi : A thirteenth-century Persian poet, Islamic scholar, and mystic whose works became central to Sufi literature. His teachings and poetry inspired the community that developed into the Mevlevi Order.
Sufism : The diverse traditions of Islamic spirituality concerned with inward discipline, devotion, and knowledge of God. The Mevlevi Order is one historically distinctive Sufi brotherhood.
Atatürk’s reforms : The reforms undertaken under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk that secularized and reshaped the Turkish Republic after its founding. The reforms included the 1925 closure of Sufi lodges, disrupting Mevlevi institutions in Turkey.
Whirling dervish : A practitioner who performs ritual spinning in the Mevlevi sema. The spinning dervish is the most recognizable figure associated with the order.
Sultan Walad : A Persian poet and son of Rumi who helped establish the Mevlevi community after his father’s death. He organized Rumi’s followers into a more durable religious community.
Tariqa : A Sufi path of spiritual practice and instruction, often embodied in an organized order. The Mevlevi Order is a tariqa with its own lineage, disciplines, and communal life.
Law on the Closure of Dervish Lodges : A 1925 Turkish law that closed Sufi lodges and shrines and prohibited associated titles and practices. This law directly ended the order’s official lodge network in Turkey.
Mevlevi music : The devotional musical tradition accompanying Mevlevi ceremonies, especially the sema. In the sema, music structures the ceremony and accompanies the dancers’ movement.
Konya : A city in central Anatolia that became the principal center of the Mevlevi Order. Rumi lived and was buried in Konya, which became the order’s spiritual center.
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