Photos from Rumi's 'Wedding Night' in Liverpool
Here are a couple of photos from Shaikh David Bellak (David Dede)'s visit to Liverpool in December for Rumi's 'Wedding Night', the commemeration of his passing to the Realm of Beauty on Dec 17th 1273. Above, Dede can be seen wearing the tall 'destar' headpiece wound with green fabric at the base, a symbol of the Mevlevi Shaikh holding the place of Rumi on the red sheepskin, the 'place of burning'. The circle are reciting together the Divine Names in Arabic - for example 'La illaha ilallah', Reality is One - counting them on a huge 1001 bead tesbih which Dede commissioned long ago, based on an original at Rumi's tomb/museum in Konya. The ceremony took place in the home of a descendent of another great Sufi master, Shah Nimatullah, and the Persian carpet was beautifully appropriate as our mise-en-scene. In this second photo, the traditional Mevlevi 'sikke' headpiece can be seen, the same as that worn by the Shaikh, only without