Sama (Sufism)
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Sama is a Sufi ceremony performed as part of the meditation and prayer practice dhikr. Sama means "listening", while dhikr means "remembrance". These performances often include singing, playing instruments, dancing, recitation of poetry and prayers, wearing symbolic attire, and other rituals. Sama is a particularly popular form of worship in Sufism.
Whirling Dervishes in Istanbul, Turkey
Sufis performing Sama before Shaykh Nizam al-Din Awliya. Miniature from the Timurid copy of the Khamsa of Amir Khusrau. Herat, 1485.
Sufism
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Sufism is a mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic purification, spirituality, ritualism, asceticism, and esotericism.
Six Sufi masters, c. 1760
Dancing dervishes, by Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād (c. 1480–1490)
A Sufi in Ecstasy in a Landscape. Isfahan, Safavid Persia (c. 1650–1660), LACMA.
A Mughal miniature dated from the early 1620s depicting the Mughal emperor Jahangir (d. 1627) preferring an audience with Sufi saint to his contemporaries, the Ottoman Sultan and the King of England James I (d. 1625); the picture is inscribed in Persian: "Though outwardly shahs stand before him, he fixes his gazes on dervishes."