Whirling Dervishes

Acrylic, watercolor & gold on passepartout cardboard, 50 x 35 cm, Artist’s Collection

“Come, come, whoever you are, Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving, It doesn’t matter, Ours is not a caravan of despair, Come, even if you have broken your vow a thousand times, Come, yet again, come, come”

—Jalal ad-Din Mohammed Rumi

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This miniature painting depicts sufi dervishes whirling around Allah, written in Arabic calligraphy. Following in the footsteps of Rumi, they invite human beings to love one another, and to realize that they are all part of a single whole. In the upper left corner is a semse. Derived from the Persian word sems, meaning sun, it is a classical form in the art of Islamic illumination. The pink rose within it symbolizes the prophet Mohammed. 

Curator’s Note: Jalal ad-Din Mohammed Rumi, more popularly known simply as Rumi, was a 13th-century poet, Islamic scholar, and Sufi mystic originally from Khorasan in Persia. He is buried in Konya, a city in Turkey’s Central Anatolian region.