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About the lecture
The word ‘dervish’ often evokes mystical dancers in flowing white robes, spinning to hypnotic music. Yet Sufism, the spiritual dimension of Islam practised by dervishes, is much more than this iconic whirling meditation. It is a way of life and a search for deeper connection with God and the community. We need not travel to Türkiye or the Middle East to encounter dervishes. Sufi orders took root in the Balkans during Ottoman rule and, despite modernisation, socialist repression and the wars of the 1990s, remain a living part of religious and cultural life in Bosnia and Herzegovina. How did they survive and revive after Yugoslavia's dissolution? What role do they play in Bosnian society? Why does Sufism attract people who feel outside traditional religious structures? The lecture explores how dervish orders operate today, their rituals and social position, and why many people find new meaning in them in uncertain times.
Andrej Mentel is an anthropologist at the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava. His research focuses on the western Balkans, especially Bosnia and Herzegovina, and on solidarity and its relationship with religion. In particular, he investigates how Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox communities contribute to creating, sustaining and breaking solidarity in a deeply divided society.
The lecture series was supported using public funds by the Slovak Arts Council.
