or DERVICH, a name given to a sort of monks among the Turks, who lead a very austere life, and profess extreme poverty, though they are allowed to marry. The word is originally Perisan, وردي, signifying a "beggars," or "person who has nothing;" and because the religious, and particularly the followers of Mevelava, profess not to possess anything, they call both the religious in general, and the Mevelavites in particular, Dervises or Derviches.

The dervises, called also Mevelavites, are a Mahometan order of religious; the chief or founder whereof was one Mevelava. They are now very numerous. Their chief monastery is that near Cogna in Natalia, where the general makes his residence, and where all the assemblies of the order are held; the other houses being all dependent on this, by a privilege granted to this monastery under Ottoman I.

The dervises affect a great deal of modesty, patience, humility, and charity. They always go bare-legged and open-breasted, and frequently burn themselves with hot irons, to inure themselves to patience. They always fast on Wednesdays, eating nothing on those days till after sunset. Tuesdays and Fridays they hold meetings, at which the superior of the house presides. One of them plays all the while on a flute, and the rest dance, turning their bodies round and round with the greatest swiftness imaginable. Long custom to this exercise from their youth has brought them to such a habituè, that it does not discomfite them at all. This practice they observe with great strictness, in memory of Mevelava their patriarch's turning miraculously round, as they pretend, for the space of four days, without any food or refreshment; his companion Hamfa playing all the while on the flute; after which he fell into an ecstasy, and therein received wonderful revelations for the establishment of his order. They believe the flute an instrument consecrated by Jacob and the shepherds of the Old Testament, because they sang the praises of God upon it. They profess poverty, chastity, and obedience, and really observe them while they remain dervises: but if they choose to go out and marry, they are always allowed.

The generality of dervises are mountebanks: some apply themselves to legerdemain, postures, &c. to amuse the people; others give in to sorcery and magic: but all of them, contrary to Mahomet's precept, are said to drink wine, brandy, and other strong liquors, to give them the degree of gaiety their order requires.

Befide their great saint Mevelava, there are particular saints honoured in some particular monasteries: as Kiderele, greatly revered in the monasteries of Egypt, and held by some to be St George; and by others, with more probability, the prophet Elias.

The dervises are great travellers; and, under pretence of preaching, and propagating their faith, are continually passing from one place to another: on which account they have been frequently used as spies.

There are also dervises in Persia, called in that country Abdals, q. d. servants of God. They lead a very penurious, austere life, and preach the Alcoran in the streets, coffee houses, and wherever they can meet with auditors. The Persian dervises retail little but fables to the people, and are in the utmost contempt among the men of sense and letters.

There are in Egypt two or three kinds; those that are in convents, are in a manner of the religious order, and live retired; though there are of these some who travel and return again to their convents. Some take this character, and yet live with their families, and exercise their trades: of this kind are the dancing dervises at Damascus, who go once or twice a-week to a little uninhabited convent, and perform their extraordinary exercises; these also seem to be a good people: but there is a third sort of them who travel about the country, and beg, or rather oblige people to give, for whenever they found their horn something must be given them. The people of these orders, in Egypt, wear an octagonal badge, of a greenish white alabaster, at their girdles, and a high stiff cap without any thing round it.