Abstract
THIS collection of papers, the work of a careful student of the Nearer East, most of which have already appeared in periodicals, is of value at the present time. The treatment, however, is sketchy, and some of the questions discussed do not easily lend themselves to popular writing. The chapter on the jests of the Turkish humorist, Khoja Nasr-ed Din, scarcely deserved re-publication, being a collection of “chestnuts”, unless an attempt could have been made to trace their analogues in Western folklore. An interesting paper, based on personal knowledge, describes an interview with the Chelebi Effendi, the leader of the Dancing Dervishes, a Persian by origin, a scholar and theologian, intimately associated with the Turkish Court, his function being to gird each new Sultan with the historic sword of Osman at the Eyuh mosque at Constantinople, a ceremony which no Christian is permitted to witness. The best result to be expected from the sketch of the Sunni and Shiah sects and of the origin and influence of the Caliphate may be to attract the reader to the standard authorities, from Gibbon to the Encyclopædia of Islam.
The City of Dancing Dervishes and other Sketches and Studies from the Near East.
By H. C. Lukach. Pp. xi + 257. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1914.) Price 7s. 6d. net.
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The City of Dancing Dervishes and other Sketches and Studies from the Near East . Nature 94, 560 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/094560a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/094560a0