*"Dervishes dancing in a courtyard with musicians and a young man watching from a doorway. A miniature painting from a sixteenth century manuscript of the Majalis al-'Ushshaq ('The Assemblies of the Lovers') by Kamal al-Din Husayn Gazurgahi; Shiraz, Iran, 1590-1600"* (BL)

"A kneeling darvesh," Iran, earlier 1600's

Source: http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/search/LOTDETAIL.ASP?sid=&intObjectID=4483441&SE=CMWCAT04+913005+%2D1574624078+&QR=M+1+0+Aqc0000900+884718++Aqc0000900+&entry=india&SU=1&SN=7038&RQ=True&AN=33
(downloaded Apr. 2005)

"A KNEELING DERVISH, SAFAVID ISFAHAN, FIRST HALF 17TH CENTURY. Tinted drawing on buff paper with background drawn faintly in gold, a shaven-headed young man with long sidelocks kneels on a mat with a coarse woollen shawl over his shoulders and beads in his hands, with blue, orange and gold margins, on blue album page, slight staining, restricted to margins. Miniature 6 7/8 x 4in. (17.2 x 10.2cm.)."

*"An old Sufi crossing the water on his prayer mat after he had been refused a passage by the ferryman, a miniature painting from a seventeenth century manuscript of Sa'di's Bustan ('The Flower-Garden'), India, 1629"* (BL)

*"Sufis in ecstasy: Sufis are dancing and collapsing before six shaikhs who sit in a semi-circle on a floral carpet, each dressed in a jama beneath a Persian style coat with long sleeves, an opaque watercolour by Muhammad Nadir al-Samarqandi, 1650-55"* (BL)

Turkish and Indian darveshes, French perspectives by Picart, 1731 (left); and de la Cave, 1734 (right)

Source: ebay,  Jan. 2006

*For comparison: Catholic religious orders, in a print from 1825*: Legend: Fig. 1,2. Brotherhood of the minor orders, 3,4. Conventual, 5. Cellite, 6. Caesarian, 7,8. Capicine, CANONIC ORDERS: 9. Of the Lateran congregation, 10. St. Rufus, 11. St. Laurent,  and St. John, 12. Of the order of St. Sepulchre, 13. Premonstrant, 14. Of the Ronceval order, 15,16. St. Spirit, 17. Barnabite, 18. n/a, 19. Bethlehemit, 20. Jesuit, 21. Jesuit missionary in China, 22. Same, in Tong-King, 23. Same, at Madura, India.

Source: ebay, May 2006