114 days and 114 nights sema

Oruç Güvenç playing the çeng during a music therapy session.

From the 1st of May, 2017 to the 23rd of August , 2017,  Yalova Termal, Turkey

During one hundred and fourteen days and nights sema, the music and the dhikr (invocation) will never stop . . . .

Sema is a form of worship…

In Ahmet Eflaki’s book entitled: “Ariflerin Menkıbeleri – Menakıb-el-Arifin” (Legends of the Enlightened Ones) we find how often and how long Hz. Mevlâna Jalâleddîn Rumî performed the sema. According to this book, he celebrated sema continuously for three days and nights, sometimes seven days and nights, sometimes sixteen days and nights, and three times forty days and nights.

Acting from this point of view a sema program has been planned covering 114 days, which will start on the 1st of May and continue till the 23rd of August.

The duration of this event was determined by taking into account the number of the surahs in the Holy Qoran which is 114.

In principle  we will try to carry out the sema unintermittently and perform the dhikr (invocation) and the music – likewise – nonstop. The semazens and the musicians will perform in shifts to implement this task.