I was lucky enough to catch this performance in Wekalet el Ghouri arts centre on a visit to Cairo in October 2018.

The Whirling Dervishes perform their dhikr (an Islamic devotional act in which prayers are repeatedly recited within the mind or aloud) in the form of a dance which involves whirling.

The dance represents a mystical journey of man’s spiritual ascent through mind and love to the “Perfect”.

Turning, the follower grows through love, deserts his ego, and finds truth.

He then returns from this spiritual journey as a man who has reached maturity and a greater perfection, able to love and to be of service to the whole of creation.