A portrait of a dervish 📍Egypt 🇪🇬 c. 1888
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The hippies of Islam? ⠀
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Dervishes are members of a Sufi fraternity who choose material poverty. Instead they focus on love and service, deserting the illusions of ego to reach God. Dervishes try to approach God by virtues and individual experience, rather than by religious scholarship. In most Sufi orders, a dervish is known to practice dhikr through physical exertions or religious practices to attain the ecstatic trance to reach God. ⠀
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Given that Sufism and Dervishes have existed since early Islam (600 AD) and hippies only since the 1970's, it’s more likely that hippies are non-Muslim dervish and not the other way around.