dervish

views updated May 29 2018

dervish Member of a Muslim fraternity. Communities arose within Sufism, and by the 12th century had established themselves in the Middle East. The Bektashi order acted as companions to the Ottoman Janissaries, and were suppressed by Atatürk. The chief devotion of dervishes is dhikr (‘remembering of God’). Its encouragement of emotional display and hypnotic trances has earned dervishes the epithet ‘whirling’.

dervish

views updated Jun 27 2018

der·vish / ˈdərvish/ • n. a Muslim (specifically Sufi) religious man who has taken vows of poverty and austerity. Dervishes first appeared in the 12th century; they were noted for their wild or ecstatic rituals and were known as dancing, whirling, or howling dervishes according to the practice of their order.

dervish

views updated May 23 2018

dervish a Muslim (specifically Sufi) religious man or woman who has taken vows of poverty and austerity. Dervishes first appeared in the 12th century; they were noted for their wild or ecstatic rituals and were known as dancing, whirling, or howling dervishes according to the practice of their order.

The name comes via Turkish from Persian darv¯š ‘religious mendicant’.

dervish

views updated Jun 27 2018

dervish Muslim ascetic. XVI. — Turk. derviş — Pers. darvēš, darvīš poor, (sb.) religious mendicant.