KONYA, Turkey – The tall light brown hats worn by whirling dervishes are as intriguing as the elliptical dance performed in honour of the Sufi poet and mystic Rumi.
In Konya, a sprawling city in Turkey’s central Anatolian plain where Rumi spent most of his life and died 750 years ago, one of the last workshops makes these special “sikke” hats to order.
Yunus Girgic refuses to sell sikkes to tourists because they are exclusively reserved for real dervish dancers.
And he makes sure they do not reach amateurs’ hands, quizzing potential clients about their motives for wanting the distinctive hat.
“I ask a few basic questions and immediately see who I am dealing with,” Girgic told AFP.
At the start of the “sema” dance ritual, dervishes take off their long black coats but retain the sikke, which signifies the tombstone — the end of life on Earth when the dancer meets…
