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Description

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, whose life and mystical poetry provided the inspiration for the Mevlevi Sufi order, is one of the world's best-known poets.

Yet the centuries-long musical tradition cultivated by the Mevleviye remains much less known. In this deeply researched book, renowned scholar Walter Feldman traces the historical development of Mevlevi music and brings to light the remarkable musical and mystical aesthetics of the Mevlevi ayin – the instrumental and vocal accompaniment to the sublime ceremony of the 'Whirling' Dervishes.

This accessible introduction to the relationship between music and the performative elements of Sufi practice presents the biographies of the principal Mevlevi musicians, showing both their creation of the music of the ayin and their key role in the development of Ottoman court music. It also includes numerous original translations of Turkish verse by major Mevlevi poets and presents music examples with explanation, both in the book and freely available on the Aga Khan Music Programme website.

ISBN

9781474491877

Publication Date

2-2022

Publisher

Edinburgh University Press in association with Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations and the Aga Khan Music Programme

City

Edinburgh

Keywords

Ayin, Islam and music, Islamic poetry, Mevlevi poetry, Mevlevi Sufi order, Mevlevis, musicology, Mysticism, oral tradition, Ottoman history, Ottoman music, Rumi, Sufism, Whirling Dervish

Disciplines

Audio Arts and Acoustics | Ethnomusicology | Musicology | Near Eastern Languages and Societies | Other Arts and Humanities | Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures

From Rumi to the Whirling Dervishes: Music, Poetry and Mysticism in the Ottoman Empire

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