Dervish (Persian)
Driyosh (Pahlavi)
Drighu (Avestan) [from Pers
darvish seeking doors from
dar a door; i.e., those who seek from door to door, beggars] Poor one; an Islamic devotee, used in mystic Persian literature for one who shows his spiritual grandeur by turning away from the common norms of society and material wealth. Originally a mendicant, but now it generally indicates a member of a religious fraternity, whether mendicant or not, cloistered or lay. In Turkey and Persia it indicates a wandering, begging religious, called in Arabic-speaking countries a fakir. Those whose faith is so great that they have miraculous powers are termed walis.
The dervishes are the practical expounders of Islam. As with the fakirs and sufis, the origin of the dervish fraternities is assigned to either Ali or Abu Bekr. They are divided into two great classes, the ba-Shara (with the law), who govern their conduct according to the principles of Islam; and the be-Shara (without the law), who do not rule their lives according to the formal principles of any religious creed, although they call themselves Moslems. The sufis belong principally to the latter class. There are reckoned 32 different fraternities of dervishes, with innumerable suborders, but the two principal ones known in the West are the Mevlevits (whirling or dancing dervishes), an order founded by Jelal ud-Din ar-Rumi, author of the great Persian mystical poem the
Mathnawi; and the Rifa'ites (howling dervishes), who in ecstasy cut themselves with knives, eat live coals and glass, handle red-hot iron, and devour serpents.
to be comtinue "
Dervish2 "
