David Dalle
Thursday August 21st, 2014 with David Dalle
Rare sufi music from the Mevlevi sufis from Konya, the famed Whirling Dervishes

My niece just came back from a month in Turkey where she visited Konya, home of the Mevlevi order of Sufis, founded by followers of the great Persian Sufi poet and mystic Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī after his death in Konya in 1273. She was able to visit the mausoleum of Rumi and witness a Mevlevi Sema ritual where the sufis wearing long white gowns and whirling around, a practice credited to Rumi for starting. Music is essential to the ritual, and the ney flute is the most privileged of the instruments which also includes a kemence, string instruments and percussion. There is rhythmic chanting punctuated by soaring melismatic solos. The effect, like a lot of Sufi music, is to increase emotional tension to unbearable heights before releasing it. Of great importance of me and my listeners, my niece picked up some recordings of the Mevlevi Sufis for me! We hear a recording led by Suleyman Erguner, a prominent ney player and teacher who has had a long association playing with Mevlevi Sufis.