The Mevlevi Sema at Konya

Konya, on the high plateau of central Anatolia, had been the capital of the Seljuk sultanate of Rum, a meeting-place of Persian, Turkish and Islamic learning, and it was there that the great poet and teacher Jalal al-Din Rumi, known to the Turks as Mevlana, our master, lived, taught and died in 1273. Around his memory and teaching there grew the Mevlevi order (the Mawlawiyya), one of the most influential of the Sufi orders, organised in the decades after his death by his son Sultan Walad and his successors. The order is best known for its distinctive ceremony, the sema: in a round ceremonial hall the dervishes, in long white robes that stand for the shroud and tall camel-hair caps that stand for the tombstone, turn slowly and steadily in a circling movement, one hand raised to receive from heaven and one lowered to give to the earth, while the breathy lament of the reed flute, the ney, the drum and the chanted poetry of Rumi fill the hall. The Mevlevi understand the sema not as a dance for its own sake but as a form of the remembrance of God, dhikr, given a particular shape, a turning of the whole person toward the divine. The heart of the order is the lodge at Konya, crowned by the famous fluted dome of brilliant green tile that rises over the tomb of Rumi. This scene depicts the lodge and the ceremony around the year 1300, as the young order took shape: the green dome of the master's tomb, the round hall, the turning dervishes and the sound of the ney, in the city on the Anatolian plateau. In keeping with the project's ethics the founder is not shown by likeness; the dervishes of the ceremony are depicted at a respectful distance.