How Balkan dervishes have survived centuries of turmoil
They form a variety of different, disparate groups, some living in the middle of cities, others taking refuge in mountainous retreats scattered around the Balkans. But all practice the mystical Islam of Sufi religious orders, seen as a “heresy” by followers of rigorous Sunni orthodoxy from the Gulf states. Jean-Arnault Dérens, Laurent Geslin and Simon Rico look at how the Balkans' dervishes have managed to survive to this day, faced with the various challenges posed down the centuries by empire, nationalist upheaval, orthodox Islam, communism and atheism.
SometimesSometimes you need to get lost in the Balkans in order to stumble across a mountain peak or a little hollow where you can find the ruins of a turbe, the name given to tombs of dervish saints seen as intercessors between people and god. Some are still the object of regular pilgrimages, others lie forgotten, but throughout the countries of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and in the cross-border regions of Raška and Sandžak, these traces of the mystical, popular Islam of dervishes still mark the landscape. Over the centuries the dervish groups have often themselves, too, been marked by local beliefs, superstitions and other faiths of the Balkans.
