{"id":14517,"date":"2013-12-13T10:00:48","date_gmt":"2013-12-13T15:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/?p=14517"},"modified":"2013-12-13T19:02:57","modified_gmt":"2013-12-14T00:02:57","slug":"february-1-2013-sufi-whirling-dervishes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2013\/12\/13\/february-1-2013-sufi-whirling-dervishes\/14517\/","title":{"rendered":" Sufi Whirling Dervishes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, emphasizes universal love, peace, acceptance of various spiritual paths and a mystical union with the divine. It is associated with the dancing of whirling dervishes, who originated in the 13th century as followers of the poet and Muslim mystic, Rumi. Their dance is a traditional form of Sufi worship, a continuous twirling with one hand pointed upward reaching for the divine and the other hand pointed toward the ground. Manjula Kumar, a program manager at the Smithsonian Institution, explains how the dancing of these whirling dervishes from Turkey serves as \u201ca spiritual offering.\u201d They were part of a Smithsonian symposium on the concept of Sufism and searching for the divine through the arts. <em>Produced, edited, and interview by Lauren Talley.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This expression of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, &#8220;is creating an atmosphere to pray, and it\u2019s an offering. I think it\u2019s just a physical way of expressing this love for the divine, and in the whirling it becomes a meditation,&#8221; says Manjula Kumar, a program manager at the Smithsonian Institution. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2013\/12\/13\/february-1-2013-sufi-whirling-dervishes\/14517\/\" class=\"more\">More <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":18593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6569],"tags":[1438,417,5250,10608,9203,5834,10977],"class_list":["post-14517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videocast","tag-dance","tag-islam","tag-mysticism","tag-rumi","tag-smithsonian","tag-sufism","tag-whirling-dervishes","topics-belief-and-practice","faith-other-world-religions"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>December 13, 2013 ~ Sufi Whirling Dervishes | December 13, 2013 | Religion &amp; Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The dancing of whirling dervishes serves as a &quot;spiritual offering.&quot;\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2013\/12\/13\/february-1-2013-sufi-whirling-dervishes\/14517\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"December 13, 2013 ~ Sufi Whirling Dervishes | December 13, 2013 | Religion &amp; Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The dancing of whirling dervishes serves as a &quot;spiritual offering.&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2013\/12\/13\/february-1-2013-sufi-whirling-dervishes\/14517\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion &amp; 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