Rumi Followers Fight To Keep Turkey From Cashing In On Mystic's Legacy [View all]

Religion News Service
By Michael Kaplan



ISTANBUL (RNS) Each Sunday, visitors line up outside of the old Sufi lodge, now a museum, in Turkey’s tourist-filled Galata district, informational pamphlets, cameras and $20 tickets in hand.

The site is but one of the many places tourists flock for performances by the country’s famed white-robed whirling dervishes.

Cafes, hotels and former Sufi lodges reinvented as tourist attractions, like the one in Galata, have all cashed in on the ritual’s popularity.

The “sema” ceremonies, as they’re called, promise attendees a peek into a 750-year-old practice that is as graceful as it is spiritual.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/20/rumi-tourism-turkey_n_6473068.html?utm_hp_ref=religion