Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Fatima Mernissi, Dreams of Trespass: 

Tales of a Harem Girlhood (New York: Perseus Publish-

ing, 1995); ———, Islam and Democracy: Fear of the 

Modern World (New York: Perseus Publishing, 2002); 

———, Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Dif-

ferent Harems (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002); 

———,  The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Inter-

pretation of Women’s Rights in Islam (New York: Perseus 

Press, 1992).

Mevlevi Sufi Order

The Mevlevi order is one of the most well known 

Sufi orders, due to its famous “whirling 

dervish

” 

dance. It takes its name from the great 13th-cen-

tury mystic poet J

alal

 

al

-d

in

 r

Umi

, who is known 

in Turkish as Mevlana (from the Aratic mawlana

= “our master”). Though Rumi’s poetry was com-

posed in Persian, the language of the Seljuk court, 

the order developed mostly in the Turkish context 

of the Ottoman Empire.

Rumi was born in Khurasan in 1207, and, 

shortly before the Mongol invasions, he migrated 

as a child with his father to Anatolia, which was 

then under Seljuk rule. They eventually settled 

in Konya, the Seljuk capital, where Rumi’s father