The Mevlevi Semâ

Primary source

• Grand National Assembly of Turkey, Tekke ve Zaviyelerle Türbelerin Seddine ve Türbedarlıklar ile Bir Takım Unvanların Men ve İlgasına Dair Kanun (Law no. 677), in the Assembly's printed Kanunlar, vol. 4, 1925, Law no. 677, p. 21; headnote 'Resmî Ceride ile neşir ve ilânı: 13/XII/1341 - Sayı: 243'; dated at the foot '30 teşrinisani 1341 ve 13 cemaziyelevvel 1344'. Birinci madde (closure, titles, garb, penalty); ikinci madde (in force from publication).The statute itself, read as printed: that it was passed on 30 teşrinisani 1341 (30 November 1925) and promulgated in the Resmî Ceride of 13 December 1925, no. 243; that its first article closes all tekkes and zaviyes in the Republic, retaining only those then in use as mosques; that it forbids the titles şeyhlik, dervişlik, müridlik, dedelik, seyyidlik, çelebilik, babalık, emirlik, nakiblik, halifelik and others, together with the performance of services attached to them and the wearing of their garb (kisve iktisası); that those who reopen a closed lodge or tomb, provide a place for a tarikat rite even temporarily, bear those titles or wear that costume are punished with not less than three months' imprisonment and a fine of not less than fifty lira; and that the law takes effect from publication.
• Republic of Türkiye, Consolidated text of Law no. 677 (Tekke ve Zaviyelerle Türbelerin Seddine ve Türbedarlıklar ile Bir Takım Unvanların Men ve İlgasına Dair Kanun), mevzuat.gov.tr, 1925, Mevzuat no. 1.3.677. Kabul Tarihi 30/11/1925; Resmî Gazete 13/12/1925, sayı 243; additions of 1949 and 1950 and an amendment of 1990 recorded in the notes, and no repealing instrument.That the statute is still carried in the Republic's consolidated legislation with its 1925 adoption and promulgation dates, has been added to in 1949 and 1950 and amended in 1990, and has never been repealed — the ground for saying the dervish habit remains an offence while the state pays men to wear it.
• Republic of Türkiye, Constitution of the Republic of Turkey (1982), Article 174, 'İnkılap kanunlarının korunması' (Preservation of Reform Laws), 1982, Article 174, verified against the consolidated Turkish text: eight Reform Laws are listed and the third is '30 Teşrinisani 1341 tarihli ve 677 sayılı Tekke ve Zaviyelerle Türbelerin Seddine ve Türbedarlıklar ile Bir Takım Unvanların Men ve İlgasına Dair Kanun'. The article provides that no provision of the Constitution may be construed or interpreted as rendering unconstitutional those provisions of the listed laws that were in force on the date the Constitution was adopted by referendum.That Law 677 was in force when the 1982 Constitution was adopted and is shielded from constitutional challenge, which is why the ban outlived the political settlement that made it.
• UNESCO, Proclamation of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity (2001–2005), 2005, Programme page; incorporation under article 31.1 of the 2003 Convention, 4 November 2008.That ninety Masterpieces were proclaimed across three proclamations in 2001, 2003 and 2005; that they were incorporated into the Representative List on 4 November 2008 under article 31.1 of the 2003 Convention; and that no further proclamation would be made — so the 2008 'inscription' was an automatic transfer of the 2005 title, not a second assessment.

Scholarship

• Shems Friedlander, The Whirling Dervishes: Being an Account of the Sufi Order Known as the Mevlevis, 1992Comprehensive study of Mevlevi liturgy, liturgical clothing symbolism, and musical structure.
• Ş. Barihüda Tanrıkorur, 'Mevleviyye', TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 29, 2004, vol. 29, pp. 468–475; the republican section and the 1946/1954 sentence at p. 471.That after the closures of 1925 Mehmed Bâkır Çelebi, son of Abdülhalim Çelebi, moved the order's centre to Aleppo and attached to it the mevlevihanes outside Turkey; that in 1944 a decision of the Syrian government ended both the çelebilik and the Mevleviyye as an institution; that the şeb-i arûs commemorations began with small-scale semâ displays at Konya in 1946 and 1954 — a dating of the commemorations, not of a licensing decision; and that the order's systematisation ran from Sultan Veled and Ulu Ârif Çelebi to Pîr Âdil Çelebi, head at Konya from 1421 to 1460, in whose time, on Sâkıb Dede's account, the rules and practices were settled.
• Franklin D. Lewis, Rumi: Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teaching and Poetry of Jalāl al-Din Rumi, rev. ed. (Oneworld), 2008, Ch. 10, 'The Mevlevi Order'. Lewis's 1953–56 account — Heper, the mayor of Konya, the December 1953 cinema performance, the 1954 repeat, the 1955 Tourist Association billing with tennures and sikkes — he cites to Ira Shems Friedlander, The Whirling Dervishes (New York: Macmillan, 1975), 106–13. The 1973 gymnasium episode is NOT from Friedlander: Lewis sources it to Abu al-Qasem Tafazzoli ('Tfz 101–3'). Both passages read in the full text; printed page numbers not recorded.That Sadettin Heper, formerly head of the drummers at the Yenikapı Mevlevi lodge in Istanbul when it closed in 1925, approached the mayor of Konya in 1953 and obtained permission for the samāʿ to be performed publicly on the stipulation that it be construed as a celebration of a great Turkish poet rather than a religious ritual; that the first authorised Mevlevi samāʿ in almost three decades took place in a Konya cinema in December 1953, with three musicians and two people turning in street clothes; that it was performed again in 1954 and advertised by the Tourist Association of Konya in 1955 with the Sultan Veled Walk and the wearing of tennures and sikkes; and, on Tafazzoli's authority rather than Friedlander's, that for UNESCO's Year of Rumi in 1973 the samāʿ was performed in the gymnasium of a Konya high school, a site chosen by the government in preference to the shrine so that the ceremony would be perceived as cultural or even athletic rather than sacred.
• Walter Feldman, From Rumi to the Whirling Dervishes: Music, Poetry, and Mysticism in the Ottoman Empire (Edinburgh University Press), 2022, ch. 3, 'Development and Cultural Affinities of the Mevlevi Ayin'.That Rūmī's own samāʿ was a spontaneous and ecstatic event, and that the Mevlevi ayin, fixed by later generations, departed substantially from it.
• Ruhi Ersoy and Büşra Baysal, 'Şeb-i Arûs Törenleri'nin Politik ve Kültürel İşlevleri' ('Political and Cultural Functions of Şeb-i Arûs Ceremonies'), Millî Folklor 144, 2024, Millî Folklor, yıl 36, cilt 18, sayı 144 (Kış 2024), pp. 16–27; DOI 10.58242/millifolklor.1427512. Ceremony structure and dress symbolism p. 19; Law 677 and the 'umbrella' function p. 20; the ensembles of 1991 and the pull toward spectacle p. 21; UNESCO 2005 and 2008 p. 18. Their 1946 event is Feridun Nafiz Uzluk's Konya Halkevi lecture, not a semâ; the conclusion gives 1947 and the abstract a 1951 Konya Türk Milliyetçiler Derneği programme.That Law 677 was accepted on 30 November 1925, published in the Resmî Gazete of 13 December 1925 and thereby ended the Mevleviyye's status as a tarikat; that the ceremony has seven sections and four selams and took its form closest to today's under Pîr Âdil Çelebi; the symbolic reading of the dress — hırka the grave, tennure the shroud, sikke the gravestone — and of the hands, taking from God (hak) and distributing to the people (halk); that because the semâ alone was readmitted to the permitted sphere, members of other closed orders gathered around it and it served as an 'umbrella'; that the Konya Türk Tasavvuf Müziği Topluluğu and the İstanbul Tarihi Türk Müziği Topluluğu were founded in 1991 and the ceremonies are performed by their semazen, ayinhan and mutrib; that the ceremonies became official under the Ministry of Culture and the Konya governorate in 1990; and that the conditions which made the rite an international emblem blunted its character as a dhikr, a remembrance kept privately in the lodge being pulled toward spectacle once carried into public squares.

The tradition itself

• International Mevlana Foundation, 'Mevlevi Order & Sema', mevlanafoundation.com, Cited as the order's self-description, not as history. The foundation's own site states that it was 'founded in Istanbul in 1996 with moral support of late Celâleddin Bâkır Çelebi', that its president is Faruk Hemdem Çelebi, a descendant of Rumi and the current Çelebi, and that it 'was accredited by UNESCO in 2009' — after both the 2005 proclamation and the 2008 inscription. The cited page gives Pîr Âdil Çelebi's death as 1490, against TDV's 1460.The order's own account of its rite: that the sikke, shaped like a tombstone, symbolises the tombstone of the ego and the tennure the shroud of the ego; that the right hand with open palm extended upwards indicates reception from God and the left with palm extended downwards fair distribution among fellow men; that the discipline of the order was established by Sultan Veled, Çelebi Hüsameddin and Ulu Ârif Çelebi; and that Pîr Âdil Çelebi more or less finalised the form of the semâ as performed today.

Where this claim originates

• UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, The Mevlevi Sema Ceremony, Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (proclaimed a Masterpiece 2005; inscribed 2008, 3.COM), 2008, Element 00100; 'Originally proclaimed in 2005'; 'Inscribed in 2008 (3.COM)'.UNESCO's own record that all mevlevihane were closed in 1925 as a result of secularisation policies; that the Turkish government began to allow performances again, though only in public, in the 1950s, with restrictions eased in the 1990s; and that many sema are now performed outside their traditional context, for tourist audiences and simplified to meet commercial requirements.

Further reading

• 'The Turkish Law of 1925 Closing the Dervish Lodges', Dar al-Masnavi (dar-al-masnavi.org), Full text in English; the translator is not named on the page.An English rendering of Law 677 that a reader can open, corroborating the reading of the Turkish above: that çelebilik is glossed 'leader of the Mevlevi Order' among the abolished titles, that service to those titles and the wearing of dervish costume are prohibited, and that the penalty is at least three months in prison and a fine of at least fifty Turkish lira.

Linked entries

• Part ofSamāʿAttested

  The Mevlevi ceremony is one order's regulated form of samāʿ — the listening whose lawfulness Muslims had been arguing about for three centuries before Rumi was born.

• Attributed toRūmīDisputed

  Tourist billing makes the turning Rumi's own rite; Walter Feldman finds his samāʿ spontaneous and ecstatic, and the ordered ceremony the work of later generations.

• Derives fromSultan WaladTraditional

  Mevlevi accounts credit Rumi's son and grandson with beginning to regulate the turning, and place its near-present form under Pîr Âdil Çelebi, head of the order from 1421 to 1460.

• Practised inThe Tomb at KonyaAttested

  Law 677 closed the lodge beside the grave along with every other in 1925; the December turning is now staged across Konya by a state ensemble, not in the shrine's own semahane.

• Derives fromRūmīTraditional

  Instituted by Rumi family and disciples to preserve his spontaneous ecstatic devotional practices.

• Set againstThe Sufi's DonkeyA modern connection

  The samāʿ in this tale is paid for with a guest's sold ass and ends in a chant its loudest singer did not understand; the Mevlevi semâ is the turning ceremony Rūmī's order ritualised after his death.

• Set againstWhy Does Not the Soul Take WingA modern connection

  The fourth couplet asks why every Ṣūfī does not dance like a mote in the sun of eternity; the Mevlevi semâ is the turning ceremony Rūmī's order ritualised after his death.