From American Pastor to Whirling Dervish

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2026

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Former Christian minister Craig Fenter was in the midst of a deep spiritual void when he first picked up a book of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi’s poetry in his local LA bookshop. The writings of Rumi, a 13th-Century Persian poet, Islamic scholar, and Sufi mystic have long inspired people across faiths. And Rumi’s poetry on divine love and the soul’s journey toward God would captivate Craig, inspiring him to leave behind his Californian home, to begin a new life as a whirling dervish in Turkey. The BBC’s Emily Wither travelled to meet Craig Fenter, now known as Ismail, in the central Anatolian city of Konya, Rumi’s resting place and an important pilgrimage site for his followers. It is here where Ismail joined the Mevlevi order, became a disciple of Rumi and converted to Islam. Ismail is now working on a new English translation of Rumi’s most famous work, the Masnavi-yi Maʿnavi, 25,000 verses of rhymed couplets in Persian.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts.
0:09.0	The musicians are warming up their instruments.
0:11.8	They're gathering.
0:12.4	And you can see Hakkan is putting the Poudra,
0:15.2	the talcum powder down on the area where they're turning,
0:18.3	and it makes it easier to turn instead of just working on concrete.
0:22.4	And these are some of the Semazins coming here.
0:26.8	I'm Emily Wither and for this edition of Heart and Soul from the documentary on the BBC
0:31.8	World Service. I'm in Konya in Turkey's central Anatolia region.
0:42.5	I'm about to watch a group of Semazan or whirling dervishes perform a Semer ritual,
0:47.2	a form of whirling meditation and prayer used by the Mevlavi order.
0:53.3	There's something special about being able to do Semah in the shadow of Rumi's tomb,
0:55.8	to be here with guests from around the world that have come here looking for love,
0:58.5	looking for something.
1:01.8	He's just chasing away a cat
1:03.8	that's gone on to the spot
1:07.0	where the dervishes will be performing this evening.
1:12.9	Welcome.
1:14.4	Which language do you speak?
1:16.2	English.
1:16.8	Oh, English.
1:17.3	Welcome.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.