About this site
Whirling Istanbul is the visitor desk, in six languages, for the Sema, the whirling dervish ceremony, at Kasımpaşa Mevlevihanesi in Beyoğlu. It is operated with the lodge by Istanbul Workshops, which runs the lodge's visitor bookings.
How bookings work
When you reserve on this site, your reservation goes straight into the lodge's booking system, the same one used by the lodge's own website. You pay nothing online; you pay at the door on the day. Prices, dates, seats and the cancellation window on every page are read live from that system, so they are the lodge's own figures. Booking terms.
Where our facts come from
We would rather this site were right than persuasive. Every guide opens with a short answer and ends with its sources, and shows the date it was last checked. In practice:
- The ceremony at Kasımpaşa: the lodge's published information and its booking system.
- The lodge's history: the lodge's own history page and its academic references, the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, and Turkish national news agency reports of its reopening.
- Other venues: their own websites and booking pages, the Ministry of Culture, and official ticketing sites. Where a venue publishes nothing, we say so rather than repeat a reseller's claim.
- Meaning and history of the Sema: UNESCO, the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi and Encyclopaedia Britannica.
On pages that compare venues, remember that we are the Kasımpaşa lodge's visitor site. We have no arrangement with any other venue, we do not earn commission from them, and we say plainly when another option suits you better.
Reviews
The reviews on this site come from the lodge's booking system, which gathers them from the channels the ceremony is sold on. We show every rating, including the critical ones, and quote reviews in the language they were written in.
Photographs
The photographs on this site are of Kasımpaşa Mevlevihanesi and its ceremony and belong to the lodge. To use one, ask in the chat on this site.
Corrections
If something on this site is wrong or out of date, especially another venue's schedule, please tell us: write in the chat. We check and correct quickly.