The Buna River begins in the little Croatian village of Blagaj. It wells generously up out of the earth in a cave at the base of an imposing rock cliff. It is nature at its finest, and it is here that the Sufi built a house of worship, or tekija, that perches boldly and beautifully over the water. As it was explained to us, there are 12 orders of Sufism, and each has a family tree of sorts that shows its direct relationship to the prophet Muhammad. The ceiling in one of the rooms actually illustrates the chronology of some of the different branches that used the tekija. Another name for one of the orders of Sufis is Dervishes (or whirling Dervishes, after the ritual in which members spin in imitation of the solar system): http://www.blagajtekija.ba/en/history/ and http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/571823/Sufism
thanks! a really wonderful young man whose dad is a Dervish decided, for some reason, to abandon his post to show us all around. it was fascinating ~ and, of course, exceedingly beautiful.
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