For these recitals they meet together once a week. Ordinarily, this is on Thursday, and after the fifth prayer of the day, so that it occurs after night-fall. In each city, suburb, or quarter, the members of this association, divided into different bodies, assemble at the house of their respective pīr or shaik͟h, where, seated, they perform their pious exercises with the most perfect gravity. The shaik͟h, or any other brother in his stead, chants the prayers which constitute the association, and the assembly respond in chorus, “Hū (He),” or “Allāh!” In some cities, the Naqshbandīyah have especial halls, consecrated wholly to this purpose, and then the shaik͟h only is distinguished from the other brethren by a special turban.
The Bak͟htāshīyah was founded by a native of Buk͟hārā, and is celebrated as being the order which eventually gave birth to the fanatical order of Janissaries. The symbol of their order is the mystic girdle, which they put off and on seven times, saying:—
1. “I tie up greediness, and unbind generosity.”
2. “I tie up anger, and unbind meekness.”
3. “I tie up avarice, and unbind piety.”
4. “I tie up ignorance, and unbind the fear of God.”
5. “I tie up passion, and unbind the love of God.”
6. “I tie up hunger, and unbind (spiritual) contentment.”
7. “I tie up Satanism and unbind Divineness.”
The Maulawīyah are the most popular religious order of faqīrs in the Turkish empire. They are called by Europeans, who witness their ẕikrs and various religious performances at Constantinople and Cairo, the “dancing,” or “whirling” darweshes. They were founded by the Maulawī Jalālu ʾd-dīn ar-Rūmī, the renowned author of the Mas̤nawī, a book much read in Persia, and, indeed, in all parts of Islām.