WILLIAMS: Once the heart of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul has for centuries been the gateway between east and west. Today Turkey’s largest city is also home to one of the of most mystical and mysterious sects in the Islamic world – the Whirling Dervish.

Several centuries ago, a Muslim mystic founded the sect here in Turkey that’s become known in the west as the Whirling Dervishes. Today one of the groups following that path is creating religious ructions by challenging the Islamic tradition of segregating the sexes.

Twenty-two year old, Alun Cakmut, is studying for a job in Turkey’s booming tourist industry. One day he’d like to start his own business but when he’s not planning his material future, Alun is pursuing a mystical goal. He’s a Whirling Dervish, a practice known in Turkey as the sema.

ALUN CAKMUT: When I am doing the sema, I feel I am very close [to God]. I feel I have electricity and get a spiritual satisfaction.

WILLIAMS: The sema first requires the right clothes – the white symbol of purity, the black cloak of death of the individual ego. The sema was brought to Turkey in the 13th Century by Mevlana, the poet and mystic who today looks down through the ages.

ALUN CAKMUT: When I do the sema I think of it as a link between God, myself and Mevlana.

WILLIAMS: But whirling is not just a link to God, it’s a meditation on the nature of things.

ALUN CAKMUT: The most important thing is the flow of thoughts. I mean, why do we do the sema – there’s a meaning to it, or why would we turn? In the world everything turns – every part of an atom turns inside itself – water circulates, blood circulates in the body.

WILLIAMS: Alun was brought into the world of whirling by his father, a sufi musician. He rejects suggestions that whirling might confuse dizziness with God.

ALUN CAKMUT’S FATHER: No, no, no – understanding God, and being one with him is different from one soul to another. If you concentrate really well that semazen will be truly successful in making the journey.

WILLIAMS: But there’s trouble in the search for paradise. Turkey is a male dominated society. Women are segregated from men during prayer and even turned away from the main section of the mosque.

But in a quiet Istanbul suburb, one sufi leader is offering an alternative. Hassan Dede is a Muslim mystic. Once a week his adherents come to hear a very practical message.

HASSAN DEDE – TALKING TO ADHERENTS: I don’t trust or believe in a God I cannot experience. What do the practitioners of Sufism say?

WILLIAMS: But the semazens aren’t here just for a religious pep talk. This is a ritual that starts with an ancient prayer.

[Semazens chanting Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah whilst shaking their heads]

WILLIAMS: As the Dervish music moves the mystical heart, the whirling or sema starts. They first receive the blessing of their master, Hassan Dede, who explains how the circle is a symbol of inclusion. [Semazens line up with their arms crossed over their shoulders and as they approach Hassan Dede, kiss the air in front of him, then kiss his hand, then kiss the air in front of them again and proceed into the circle and begin whirling]

HASSAN DEDE: My left leg is like the fixed part of a compass. When I do the sema it encompasses the hearts of all 72 nations. Mevlana said, whatever religion you are from, come to my ceremony. If you yearn for Moses, look at my semazens and through them you will see Moses. If you love Jesus, look at my semazens because among them you will see Jesus – and you love Mohammed, he is there also.

WILLIAMS: At the heart of the Mevlana Sufism lies a controversial difference to mainstream Muslim belief.

HASSAN DEDE: Mevlana says God is the size of a human being. Oh Mevlana, they said, do you mean God is a person? Yes, he said, if not for humankind, God would not have become known.

WILLIAMS: Such humanist thought is opposed violently in many part of the Islamic world but Hassan Dede remains unbowed by the mainstream.

HASSAN DEDE: It was mankind that brought to light God’s being. Could the Church do that? The Mosque? No. They would never do it. They’d say “get down, a sin, don’t talk like that, you’ll be punished by God”. But we talk without fear.

WILLIAMS: Hassan Dede’s teaching is controversial for another reason. He encourages men and women to pray and whirl together. One of the devotees is twenty-two year old, Deniz, who feels fortunate to have found the group that looks beyond gender.

DENIZ: It has nothing to do with feminism because it isn’t a place where men’s superiority over women or women over men is discussed. It is only a place where we learn about humanity where all these discussions cease. I hope one day people will achieve this level of knowledge and get away from the words man / woman and will get to the point of seeing it as humanity.

WILLIAMS: But not everyone agrees. Back at the other dervish centre, two new devotees are taught the practicalities of mystical whirling. The nail is used for the pain of self-sacrifice and the salt keeps the wound clean. Their teacher or dede is a sprightly seventy-four. Here strict segregation is employed. Men and women whirl separately.

TEACHER / DEDE: Why, you ask – because when doing the sema together for the period those dervishes during the spiritual journey, certainly during that journey - with the contact between men and women, the sweat, the breath, the smell, touching - their minds will become distracted. Let women do the sema, let men do the sema - but at the moment there is no sema together.

HASSAN DEDE: The criticisms come from people who do not know themselves. You see they do not have a wide knowledge of the subject. At God’s level both men and women and human beings, two halves of an apple. Now as they are both human beings if men have rights before God, why not women? Have they come from another place? No.

WILLIAMS: Tonight Hassan Dede’s group has come to Istanbul’s old railway station to perform for tourists. For Deniz mixed-sex whirling, even here, offers no distractions to the true seeker of the way.

DENIZ: Well, the goal is only to think of God - not to think of anything else. We are human beings, but I don’t think of my friends, or any other thing. I am only with myself. So thinking of those things would mean not doing the sema.

WILLIAMS: It may also seem odd that such an intensely spiritual experience is performed so publicly for tourists who pay to see mystical Islam.

HASSAN DEDE: These kids who do the sema don’t take a penny. The money collected goes to the foundation till all our efforts are looking ahead to buy some land and build a cultural centre and open to the whole world.

WILLIAMS: They may have their critics but dervishes like Deniz just aren’t going to listen.

DENIZ: We will always do this.

WILLIAMS: What do you say to them though, who say that you shouldn’t do it together with men?

DENIZ: I say only we won’t give up.