The great thing about the Internet is that you can look up information on almost any subject you wish. The problem is that if you don't know anything about the subject you are researching, you have no means of judging the accuracy of the information. The only review process that most sites have is from other users, and when dealing with subjects of an obscure or esoteric nature that's not the most reliable form of editorial control.

I was running into this problem when I started writing the review for the Allegro Music disc Turkey: Whirling Dervishes from their Voyager Series. It wasn't until a stroke of luck brought me to Mevlana.Net, the official website of the descendants of the great Persian poet and thinker Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi, that I found material with which I felt comfortable.

While Hollywood and other mass entertainment outlets may have given us the idea that whirling dervishes were isolated crazies who were out in the middle of nowhere, never stoping their relentless spinning, nothing could be further form the truth. "Sema", the name given to the ritual which whirling dervishes (or Semazen) take part in, is practiced by followers of the Sufi Muslim sect who take their name, Mevlevi (the sons of Mev) and inspiration from Rumi.

The sect was founded in the late 1200s following the death of Rumi under the leadership of his son, Sultan Veled Celebi. As they believe that everything in the world is continually whirling, including the stuff that we humans are made of, the best way to offer prayer is to become one with that motion. So the dance of the whirling dervish is their way of being one with the universe and praying to Allah.

Music, of course, plays an integeral part in these proceedings and has a specific role and place in the ritual. After the initial opening entrance and prayer of the "Semazen" ("Sema" means human being in the Universal Movement) who will be doing the dance finishes, the second part is taken by a solo drum symbolizing God's voice ordering creation to "be". It is the third and fourth parts – still prior to the dancing – where the music plays its most important role and from where the recording Turkey: Whirling Dervishes takes its inspiration.

The third part is called a "Taksim" and is played on a type of flute called a "ney" made from reed. This piece of music is improvised each time by the player of the ney as he attempts to find the right combination of notes to communicate its meaning. This piece represents the breath of Allah, more specifically the first breath which gave life to everything – the Divine Breath.