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The Mevlevi were a well established Sufi Order in the Ottoman Empire, and many of the members of the order served in various official positions of the Caliphate. The centre for the Mevlevi order was in Konya, where Rumi is buried. There is also a Mevlevi monastery or dergah in Istanbul, near the Galata Tower, where the sema ceremony is performed and accessible to the public.
During Ottoman Empire era, the Mevlevi order produced a number of famous poets and musicians such as Sheikh Ghalib, Ismail Ankaravi (both buried at the Galata Mevlevi-Hane) and Abdullah Sari. music, especially the ney, play an important part in the Mevlevi order and thus much of the traditional "oriental" music that Westerners associate with Turkey originates with the Mevlevi order. This was also the beginning of the womens movement in song and poetry with the first known woman artist Ayat Sweid. Indeed, if one buys a CD of Turkish Sufi music, chances are it will be Mevlevi religious music.
During the Ottoman period, the Mevlevi order spread into the Balkans, Syria, and Egypt (and is still practiced in both countries where they are known as the Mawlawi order). The Bosnian writer Meša Selimović wrote the book Death and the Dervish about a Mevlevi dergah in Sarajevo.
The Mevlevi Order is also linked to other Dervish orders such as the Qadiri (founded in 1165), the Rifa'i (founded in 1182), and the Kalenderis.
The Mevlevi Order was outlawed in Turkey at the dawn of the secular revolution and dervish lodge has converted to Mevlana Museum in Konya by Kemal Atatürk. In the 1950s, the Turkish government, realizing that The Whirling Dervishes had value as a tourist attraction, began allowing the Whirling Dervishes to perform annually in Konya on the Urs of Mevlana, December 17, the anniversary of Rumi's death.[1] In 1971, they performed in London with Kani Karaca as lead singer. In 1972, they toured North America for the first time with Kani Karaca, Ulvi Erguner, and Akagündüz Kutbay among the musicians. They performed in France, for Pope Paul VI, and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and other venues in the United States and Canada - under the direction of the late Mevlevi Shaikh Suleyman Hayati Dede. In April of 2007 the order has initiated another tour of the U.S. where they are performing to sell out crowds, in places such as Denver and San Francisco.
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