At the start the bow to each other to honor the spirit within. As their arms unfold, the right hand opens to the sky in prayer, ready to receive the power of Allah. The left hand, upon which the dervish gaze rests, is turned to the earth to return the energy. They begin to spin around their own axis and around each other. Each rotation takes them past the Sheik who stands in the middle and is thought to be the channel for the divine grace.
Music accompanies the whirling from beginning to end.
It ranges from somber to rhapsodical and its effect is intended to be mesmerizing. The chanting of poetry, rhythmic rotation, and incessant music induce, according to the faithful, a feeling of soaring, of ecstasy, of mystical flight. Because the dervishes use music and dance to achieve oneness with God, they have had an impact on classical poetry, calligraphy, the visual arts, and music. Their meeting places became academies of the arts. Today in Sufism, such deviations as drug taking, snake charming, fire eating, sorcery, and jugglery are most linked with Sufism by many westerners have only affected a small fraction of the bigger whole, and of all Muslims, Sufis are the most inaccessible to the Europeans.