The Wandering Dervish(es)

A quote from a book that I am reading these days :

"Every Friday there would be one or two groups of wandering dervishes gathered outside the mosque of the town's great Sufi saint, Sidi 'Abd ar-Raheem al-Qenawi, rhythmically swaying together, swinging their arms and chanting the name of Allah, to the accompaniment of a flautist and a hymn-singer equipped with crackling microphones. The fringes of the desert nearby were dotted with the shrines of saints, little mausoleums with flags fluttering; occasionally, too, a procession would pass down the street, with a gaily decorated camel ..., to celebrate a saint's birthday. The dervishes themselves, however, appeared to be drawn mostly from the poorest classes : men clothed in rather threadbare gallabiyas, with now and then an ill-fitting military uniform in amongst them. Certainly the people I got to know, that is to say, the people who could speak English --- my colleagues and students --- did not have much good to say about this tradition. They tended to see it as something irreedemably 'superstitious', vulgar and old-fashioned. Nor did they appear to have any knowledge of its history."

Andrew Shanks God and Modernity (London : Routledge and Kegan Paul, 2000), p. 133, italics mine