Semah, Alevi-Bektaşi ritual

Sama, literally Listening, is a Sufi ritual performed as part of the meditation and prayer practice known as Dhikr (in English, Remembrance [of God]). It is discussed by al-Ghazali in his The Alchemy of Happiness. It is sometimes associated with Rumi, who is said to have fallen into an ecstatic trance after wandering through a city and hearing the name of God in the rhythmic hammering of a goldbeater (hence the name Sama, i.e. hearing/listening). As an imitation of this, Sama invites the practitioner to reflect on the all-encompassing presence of God, a concept known as tawhid. Sama often includes 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. In 2005, UNESCO confirmed the "Mevlevi Sama Ceremony" of Turkey as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Semah”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

Semah, Alevi-Bektaşi ritual is a tradition recorded in open cultural data, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 3 external registers, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶