Shrouq Tariq
Culture takes a person on a hypnotic ride of the chronicles of any city, past or present. It takes upon a new melody, emotion and attraction of a swirl which isn’t only entertaining but also has religious ties to it. Any visitor who’s lucky enough to see the Tanura dance in Egypt can know exactly the beauty that comes next. The Tanura, a Sufi swirl dance which Rumi calls ‘a bridge to God’.
Egypt, Tanura and the message of love.
Egyptians are truly religious people which shows their affection for God not only in their daily walks of life but also in their dances and culture. This love can be perceived when one walks through the streets of Cairo, and heeds on the echo of the Holy Quran playing on the radio, from young to old, everyone listening to the Holy verses, while going to work through the tireless metro ride. Therefore , even their dancing practice has a religious connotation. This dance represents the rotation of the Earth around the sun and personifies the Kaaba bypass in Mecca. Music also has Arabic motifs and is indefinitely meaningful in sync to the dance tunes of the countries of the East and is traditionally played to the accompaniment of drums, flutes, and tambourines. In the past, this dance was only to be performed by the religious people of God but today it is not only limited to a way of life, its entrenched into the cultural traditions, and has gone through changes becoming an attractive sight for the tourists to enjoy.
This spiritual, Sufi, folkloric, Egyptian dance is more than just swirling. Every movement symbolizes a meaning. As the singers narrate old verses from the Quran, the dancer keeps changing his body language. At the start of the performance, by holding his arms crosswise, the dancer appears to epitomize the only one, thus testifying to god’s unity. While revolving, his arms are exposed to the air: his right arm is directed to the sky, ready to receive God’s beneficence; his left hand, upon which his eyes are joined, is turned toward the earth. He delivers God’s spiritual gift to those who are seeing the performance. Revolving from right to left around the heart, embracing all humanity with love. The human being has been made with love in order to love and that is what the whole act is about. The sheikh stands in the most esteemed corner of the dancing place, and the dervishes pass by him three times, each time exchanging greetings, until the circling movement starts. The spin itself is on the left foot, the center of the rotation being the ball of the left foot and the whole surface of the foot staying in contact with the floor. The spur for the rotation is delivered by the right foot, in a full 360-degree step. If a dervish should become too fascinated, another Sufi, who is in charge of the arranged performance, will gently touch his frock in order to limit his movement. The dance of the dervishes is one of the most stimulating feature of the spiritual life in Islam, and the music associated it is of exquisite beauty, beginning with the great mantra in honor of the Prophet and ending with short, whole-hearted songs.
The dizzying Dervishes
Now imagine this! It’s a full moon night when this display unfolds in front of your eyes and the old monument lay submersed in a milky whiteness. The sky is nearly vague from the pearly characteristic of the super moon which looms overhead like a giant balloon and Cairo night traffic sounds murmured faintly. I don’t know if it was pure luck (kismet as it is called in Egypt) that I ended up watching one of the most mesmerizing Sufi dance forms in the world on a super moon night in a gorgeous medieval sight, but the entire experience was absolutely magical.
But how does the performer manage to swirl in circular motions for several minutes sometimes hours. The whirling dervishes can swirl for almost 2 hours at a rate of 33 to 40 rotations per minute without feeling dizzy! How is this possible? Here’s a little science… Our ears do much more than hearing sounds: our inner ear also contains the structure of equilibrium called the vestibular apparatus. This apparatus (remember your biology class?) contains the utricle, saccule, and three semicircular canals comprising fluid-filled channels that are oriented in diverse planes to spot gravity (information in a vertical orientation) as well as linear movement. These fluid-filled passages react to body movements by sending small instincts to the brain; which in turn interprets the impulses into messages prompting the body to adjust to the movement and maintain its balance.
Well then, how do the dervishes cope to keep balance and not become dizzy? First, they slowly increase the number of turns deceiving the brain to become less and less sensitive to the instincts it receives. Second, they keep their head in a tilted place that balances out the liquids inside the ear channels to minimizes the sensation of imbalance … Clever, right ?
The Sufi nights of Dhamaal in Pakistan, what is Sufi Dhamaal?
This dance routine of preach, devotion and delight is not only constricted to one region. It’s associated to Sufism which is the spiritual subdivision of Islam, climaxes universal love, peace, acceptance of numerous spiritual paths and a mystical union with the divine. It is related with the dancing of spinning dervishes, which began in the 13th century as followers of the poet and Muslim mystic, Rumi, who is someone people believe in, not only from Egypt but from Turkey and Pakistan too. Being Called ‘Tanura’ in Egypt, ‘Dhikr’ in Turkey ,it’s called Dhamaal in Pakistan. When it originates to meditation and the contemplation of arts and nature the expression of bodies cannot be denied or ignored.
Dhamal ,however, is a Sufi Trans dance normally performed in the Sub-Continent and catching some sensible audience in different parts of the world duet the global shrinkage where not only musicians but people experiment with a reality in order to get the spiritual satisfaction. The Dhamal, just like Tanura, directly descents in the field of Anthropology of Religion, Cultural studies and studies of Consciousness and Realities. The Dhammal usually takes place in shrines or Darbars mostly situated in Lahore, exclusively on Thursday nights. The difference between the doers of the dance in the Middle East and the Asians ones is the the Asians dancers are mostly stoners and manage to swirl for hours due to the intake of Hasish.
Diffusion between religion ,culture and spirit
The progress of human realization along with the religion and deep cultural diffusion have always shaped rituals for the divine spiritual healing of the mind, body and the soul, which are tough to explain and equally anxious to experience, people are so well woven to the products of their belief system that they tend to function it naturally. The spirituality remained least concerned of all the sudden change and amazingly keeps its legacy alive for the devotees and upcoming generations. Spiritual and ecstatic dances are one of the most finest and diverse expressions of human perception. The believer crosses all the logics in order to seek peace, love and harmony through the rhythm of repetitive sound of Dhool(drum) or the Tablah and through the vibes of the blessed shrine in Pakistan or the performing stages in Cairo. The trip to the shrines and dancing to the drum beat is the most symbolic of all the human ritual which offer unity of the formation by ensuring the practices in the name of the integrated whole. And that is the whole exquisiteness of it.
“For a dervish, there must be a purpose, a cause for existence, and inside the cause, a True Human Being.” – Jalaluddin Rumi
Shrouq Tariq is the Research Analyst and writer at Matrix Media. Her work has been published in number of national and international newspapers . She’s also a member of the Matrix Media editorial board. She is currently completing her MPhil in Defence and Strategic Studies from Quaid-i-Azam university. She tweets at @shrouqtariq
