Türk Kültürü ve Hacı Bektaş Velî Araştırma Dergisi (Sep 2018)
DEVİRSEL İBADET MODELLERİ OLARAK SEMAH- SEMÂ UYGULAMALARININ TARİHSEL KÖKENLERİ [THE HISTORICAL ROOTS OF SEMAH PRACTICES AS MODELS OF CYCLIC WORSHIP]
Abstract
Cyclic perception is an ancient system of thinking for human beings to explain the God-human relationship and to transfer the principles of this relationship to human life. The first layer of this system, named as “agricultural cycle” symbolizing the first agricultural communities, was built on the idea that the nature was periodically becoming active to grow up the agricultural products and then getting passive again. The second layer of this system, named as “cosmological cycle”, was generated on the idea that the cyclic characters of all the cosmic elements of the universe and the reflections of these characters to human body and soul was being followed and perceived by the human mind. The final layer of the system concentrated on reaching and internalizing the “divine wisdom” that has created and controlled all the cyclic system of the universe including the agricultural and the cosmological cycles. This final layer of the system can be named as “the cycle of wisdom”. Throughout the history, religious music and dance has always been utilized as a model to transfer all of these fictive layers to the human consciousness considering the necessary variations of “time and place”. “Semah and sema” traditions that are among the prominent worship rituals of Anatolia and the neighboring geographies appear as the application examples reflecting this cyclic perception to human life as a model of faith. In a way, semah and sema traditions help to unite the celestial and humanely perceptions of time by constructing the idea of “cyclic time” in human mind and thus building an idea of faith attributing meaning to the periods of life, before life and after life. This study aims to discuss the changes that have had occurred in the human perception of “God and universe” throughout the history, in the light of the collective memories possessed by the semah and sema traditions.
