Mevlevi Order
The Mevlevi Order or Mawlawiyya (; ) is a Sufi order that originated in Konya (a city now in Turkey; formerly capital of the Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate) and which was founded by the followers of Jalaluddin Muhammad Balkhi Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet, Sufi mystic, and Islamic theologian. The Mevlevis are also known as the "whirling dervishes" due to their famous practice of whirling as a form of "dhikr" (remembrance of God). Dervish is a common term for an initiate of the Sufi path; whirling is part of the formal sema ceremony and the participants are properly known as "semazens".