For all their mysticism, the dervishes are ordinary people. One foreign correspondent was shocked several years ago when he came across the owner of his local corner shop whirling in white robes at a sema ceremony in Istanbul. The Konya group, regarded as the main dervish community, are technically civil servants. The culture ministry has been paying the dervishes' wages since the early 1990s. It sends them to perform abroad to promote Turkey's often tarnished image.
Dervishes can use a car, have a family.
I don't know you are a dervish until I look into your heart,'' said Calisir. Would-be members of the order undergo at least a year of training before they can begin to spin without dizziness. Moslem sects are frowned upon by Turkey's secularist authorities who fear the orders breed Islamist activism. The dervishes, however, are free from official suspicion.