Dervisci rotanti a Istanbul, Turchia

Whirling dervishes perform at the Galata Whirling Dervish Hall, founded in 1491 by Ottomans, in Istanbul, Turkey, on the second day of Muslims’ holy month of Ramadan, late Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2011. Sufi whirling performance of the Mevlevi order is part of a formal ceremony known as the Sama. The order was founded by the Persian-Turkish poet Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi, one of the greatest mystic poets of Sufism in Islam, born in 1207 in Balkh, then in the Persian province of Khorasan and now in Afghanistan, and died in 1273 in Konya, Turkey. His Sufism being a mysticism within Islam where devotees sought a mystical union with God. Rumi advocates unlimited tolerance, positive reasoning, goodness, charity and awareness through love for all regardless their faiths.(AP Photo)