Turkmenistan - Muslims pray outdoors after a storm - Friday

Wandering Uzbek dervishes at Samarkand, Uzbekistan - Scene in the Registan. The Registan was a public square, where people gathered to hear royal proclamations, heralded by blasts on enormous copper pipes called dzharchis - and a place of public executions. The Registan is framed by three madrasas (Islamic schools) of distinctive Islamic architecture. Dervish or Darvesh in Persian usually refers to a person who is a seeker of the truth i.e. universal truth'. Within the Islamic tradition such people are often known as Sufis, Sufi, people of the way or mystics and they come from every strata of society here monetary considerations are inapplicable since the situation is that of a deep personal inner spiritual longing. There are in existence a number Sufi Orders many of which bear the name of a great saint and within these orders various practices have continued over the centuries in order to assist generations of seekers whose desire is to be brought to reality itself. It is said that the number of ways to reality/truth exceeds the number of grains of sand on the beach. It may be noted that this infinite number of ways to truth can even start at a point beyond religion, ultimately the truth is an universal quality

Picture No

11096193

Media ID

46708820

Size

5207px x 3309px (6.4MB)

Credit

Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection

Source

Unattributed postcard

Date

circa 1910s