e =

Sh Tt

Dt w-fi% _-' 4;-':*:7 e

 

 

 

134 AN INTRODUCTION TO SUFI DOCTRINE

religion as such is rather hostile both to dancing and
to music, for the identification through the medium of
a cosmic rhythm with a spiritual or divine reality has
no place in a religious perspective which maintains a
strict and exclusive distinction between Creator and
creature. Also there are practical reasons for banishing
dancing from religious worship, for the psychic results
accompanying the sacred dance might lead to deviation.
None the less the dance offers too direct and too
primordial a spiritual support for it not to be found in
regular or occasional use in the esotericism of the
monotheistic religions.!

It is related that the first Sufis founded their danc-
ing dhikr on the dances of the Arab warriors. Later,
Sufi orders in the East, such as the Nagshabendis,
adapted certain techniques of hatha-yoga and so differ-
entiated their form of dance. Jalal ad-din Riimi, who
founded the Mevlevi order, drew the inspiration for the
collective dhikr of his community from the popular
dances and music of Asia Minor.2 If the dances and

1. A Psalm in the Bible says: ‘‘ Let them praise His Name in the dance :
let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and the harp.”” It is known
that the sacred dance exists in Jewish esotericism, finding its model in the
dancing of King David before the ark of the covenant. The apocryphal Gospel
of the Childhood speaks of the Virgin as a child dancing on the altar steps,
and certian folk customs allow us to conclude that these models were imitated
in mediaeval Christianity. St. Theresa of Avila and her nuns danced to the
sound of tambourins. Ma Ananda Moyi has said : “‘ During the samkirtana
(the “* spiritual concert *’ which is the Hindu equivalent of the Moslem sama*,
or rather, of Zadrah or ‘imarah) do not pay attention to the dance or the
musical accompaniment but concentrate on His Name . . . When you
pronounce the Name of God your spirit begins to appreciate the samkirtana
and its music predisposes you to the contemplation of divine things. Just
as you should make pujas and pray you should also take part in samkirzanas.”

2. An aesthetic feeling can be a support for intuition for the same reason
as a doctrinal idea and to the extent to which the beauty of a form reveals an
intellectual essence. But the particular efficacy of such a means as music lies
in the fact that it speaks first of all to feeling, which it clarifies and sublimates.
Perfect harmony of the active intelligence, (the reason) and the passive intelli-
gence, (feeling or sensibility), prefigures the spiritual state—al-kal.