Elif Shafak is one of Turkey’s most acclaimed and outspoken novelists

Shams 
KONYA, JUNE 1246
By and large, the narrow-minded say that dancing is sacrilege. They think God gave us music—
not only the music we make with our voices and instruments but the music underlying all forms 
of life, and then He forbade our listening to it. Don’t they see that all nature is singing? 
Everything in this universe moves with a rhythm—the pumping of the heart, the flaps of a bird’s 
wings, the wind on a stormy night, a blacksmith working iron, or the sounds an unborn baby is 
surrounded with inside the womb.… Everything partakes, passionately and spontaneously, in one 
magnificent melody. The dance of the whirling dervishes is a link in that perpetual chain. Just as 
a drop of seawater carries within it the entire ocean, our dance both reflects and shrouds the 
secrets of the cosmos. 
Hours before the performance, Rumi and I retreated into a quiet room to meditate. The six 
dervishes who were going to whirl in the evening joined us. Together we performed our 
ablutions and prayed. Then we donned our costumes. Earlier we had talked at great length about 
what the proper attire should be and had chosen simple fabric and colors of the earth. The honey-
colored hat symbolized the tombstone, the long white skirt the shroud, and the black cloak the 
grave. Our dance projected how Sufis discard the entire Self, like shedding a piece of old skin. 
Before leaving the hall for the stage, Rumi recited a poem: 
“The gnostic has escaped from the five senses
And the six directions and makes you aware of what is beyond them.”
With those feelings we were ready. First came the sound of the ney. Then Rumi entered the stage 
in his capacity as 
semazenbashi
. One by one, the dervishes followed him, their heads bowed in 
modesty. The last to appear had to be the sheikh. As firmly as I resisted the suggestion, Rumi 
insisted on my performing that part tonight. 
The 
hafiz
 chanted a verse from the Qur’an: There are certainly Signs on earth for people with 
certainty; and in yourselves as well. Do you not see? 
Then started the 
kudüm
 accompanying the piercing sound of ney and rebab. 
Listen to the reed and the tale it tells,
how it sings of separation:
Ever since they cut me from the reed bed,
my wail has caused men and women to weep.
Giving himself over to the hands of God, the first dervish started to whirl, the hems of his skirts 
gently swishing with a separate life of their own. We all joined in and whirled until there 
remained around us nothing but Oneness. Whatever we received from the skies, we passed on to 
the earth, from God to people. Each and every one of us became a link connecting the Lover to 
the Beloved. When the music ceased, we jointly bowed to the essential forces of the universe: 
fire, wind, earth, and water, and the fifth element, the void. 

---

I don’t regret what transpired between me and Kaykhusraw at the end of the performance. But I 
am sorry for putting Rumi in a difficult position. As a man who has always enjoyed privilege and 
protection, he has never before felt estranged from a ruler. Now he has at least a smattering of 
insight into something that average people experience all the time—the deep, vast rift between 
the ruling elite and the masses. 
And with that, I suppose I am nearing the end of my time in Konya. 
Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person 
before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough. 
With the initiation of poetry, music, and dance, a huge part of Rumi’s transformation is 
complete. Once a rigid scholar who disliked poetry and a preacher who enjoyed the sound of his 
own voice as he lectured others, Rumi is now turning into a poet himself, becoming the voice of 
pure emptiness, though he might not have realized this fully yet. As for me, I, too, have changed 
and am changing. I am moving from being into nothingness. From one season to another, one 
stage to the next, from life to death. 
Our friendship was a blessing, a gift from God. We thrived, rejoiced, bloomed, and basked in 
each other’s company, savoring absolute fullness and felicity. 
I remembered what Baba Zaman once told me. For the silk to prosper, the silkworm had to die. 
Sitting there all alone in the whirling hall after everyone had left and the hubbub had died away, 
I knew that my time with Rumi was coming to an end. Through our companionship Rumi and I 
had experienced an exceptional beauty and learned what it was like to encounter infinity through 
two mirrors reflecting each other endlessly. But the old maxim still applies: Where there is love, 
there is bound to be heartache.