When you go from the center of Novi Pazar, the so-called Old Bazaar, to Prvomajska next to the Altun alem mosque and turn left across the Jošanica river, you will reach the old Gazilar cemetery in half an hour's walk.
It has towered over this city for centuries, guarding the bones of the defenders of Pazar from the Austro-Turkish war from the 17th century, on which two wooden sarcophagi - turbets of two dervishes - have been lying for at least 250 years.
The Dervišhalitović family has been taking care of this cemetery for centuries.
The family name and the memory of the elders indicate that they too were once dervishes.
Pensioner Zibija Dervišhalitović Šarenkapić, a descendant of this family, is not a follower of dervishes, but she has many Sufis, as dervishes are called differently, in her own environment.
"Dervishes have always been seen as more liberal in understanding the practice of religion, regarding alcohol for example, but also as a more intellectual part of the community.
"They are a thoughtful part of society, the one that made strides in culture, art and science," says this professor of literature.
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A long dervish tradition
From the 17th century until the nationalization during the communist regime in 1945, the Derviškhalitovićs managed the vakuf in Novi Pazar, which is the Turkish word for endowment.
This means that the waqf is not inherited as a property, but the oldest member of the family has the obligation to take care of it.
In that estate there are houses, tekkies - places for dervish gatherings, two turbets - mausoleums, the Gazilar cemetery in Pazar and the village of Pljevljani next to the cemetery.
In one turbet lies Ahmed Gurbibaba, a Sufi poet from the 17th century, who is possibly the ancestor of this family.
The Dervishkhalitovics also have poets among their contemporaries.
"Dino Merlin is my close relative and our ancestors were dervishes."
"My father and his grandfather did, I know that for sure," says Dervišhalitović Šarenkapić.
Although the surname Dervišhalidović suggests that some of his ancestors were dervishes, singer-songwriter Dino Merlin is not a dervishe, his team told the BBC.
Dervishes, by the way, do not need to publicly declare themselves, they do not carry flags and do not emphasize this as a prerequisite for communication or working with them.
"They treat themselves and their own beliefs as normal, and I wouldn't say that anyone in the city can point at them, even though they have their own worldview," says Dervišalitović Šarenkapić.
This Pazarka not only comes from a family that has lived in that city for 300 years, but her husbands have also been there for four centuries.
He says from experience that dervishes are never a destructive point, but a link in society.
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Knowing them is a blessing
And Alena Demirović is full of words of praise for the Sufis.
She was born in Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and grew up in Toronto, Canada.
"One word that would describe my experience with dervishes in English is zealous, which means ardent, zealous, persistent, thorough.
"Knowing one or more of them is a blessing from God," says this communication specialist with an address in North America.
Alena Demirović knows many dervishes, but they, she says, deliberately do not come under the media spotlight much because Sufism also implies modesty.
"In addition to having truly given their heart and soul to God, dervishes are also missionaries of the faith whose job it is to transmit it through knowledge and spirit, from the big city to the smallest village in the world.
"For me, they are faithful representatives of both Islam and the country they come from, and most of all, representatives of people devoted to God, true believers," she says.
They seek tranquility and satisfaction from God, not from people, he adds.
"Throughout history, Sufis have gone through oppression, persecution and even extermination.
"All this further encourages them to be very modest, which avoids any form of self-promotion," says Demirović.
How Muslims view dervishes
Sufis are viewed differently among Muslims, says Mufti Mustafa Jusufspahić from Belgrade.
"You always have those who look with the eyes of a child and those who don't look at all, but only criticize.
"The majority of the population does not make any difference, while there are also those who do not consider them Muslims at all, which is inadmissible in my opinion," notes Jusufspahić.
Mufti from Belgrade comes from the famous family of imams from Dorćol.
His father Hamdija Jusufspahić performed the duties of Belgrade imam and mufti from 1967, and then from 2008 to 2016 it was his brother Muhamed Jusufspahić.
"My father liked to go to Bosnia, to the spring of Buna in Tekija, and he was very close to the sheikhs of that time.
"My grandfather Mustafa from Egypt on my mother's side was a sheikh of the Rifaji order and had his tekke in the town of Zagazik," says Jusufspahić.
Tekija na Buna has also become a tourist attraction in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but when rituals are not held in it, the coldness emanates from the thick walls with small windows and colorful slits in the shape of stars in the ceiling.
This Turkish-style multi-story building is wedged into a cave at the very source of the river, near Blagaj.
Dervishes in Belgrade
How many tekki are there and where are they located in Serbia, the mufti of Belgrade has no information.
The Islamic Community of Serbia counts around 180.000 Muslims in Belgrade alone.
The Islamic community consists of all branches of Islamic theology, including dervishes.
They gather in existing mosques and smaller places of worship - masjids, and there they perform the dervish rite of zikr.
"Today in Belgrade, zikr is held daily in each of the Islamic places of worship, of which there are currently 15.
"The zikr is held after every prayer, of which there are five daily, in some mosques it is done in groups and out loud, and in some everyone by themselves and quietly to themselves," says mufti from Belgrade and military Mustafa Jusufspahić.
'Nothing is known about them'
Nevertheless, a small percentage of people in the Balkans know something more about dervishes, usually only when they have them in their immediate surroundings.
Milan Drobnjak from Belgrade, who studied dervishes for the purposes of his studies, also sees this.
"A lot is known about them, and on the other hand - nothing is known.
"Dervishes are mysterious by themselves and don't always want to reveal everything, and a lot depends on historical circumstances," says Drobnjak.
He graduated in Arabic at the Faculty of Philology, and for his master's thesis he wrote about dervishes in the Balkans because, he says, history, religion and culture intertwine in that topic.
He studied literature as well as newspaper articles.
He concluded that the attitude towards dervishes depends on who you ask: for some they are the only orthodox Muslims, while for others they are a sect.
And so it is all over the world.
"Sunnis and Shiites, the two main streams of Islam, do not look kindly on dervishes - because of the perception that they want to reach God, they don't like them either," Drobnjak told the BBC.
Shiites and Sunnis
Sunnis and Shiites agree on the basic principles of Islam, such as belief in one God and the importance of prophets. They also share the same holy book - the Koran.
The reason for the divergence arose in the early years of Islam.
They did not agree on who should be the rightful successor of the Prophet Muhammad as the leader of the Muslim community after his death.
Many Muslims believed that Abu-Bakr, the prophet's closest associate, would be the first caliph (meaning "deputy of God's messenger").
That is the Sunni view.
A minority believed that Ali, the prophet's son-in-law, should lead the community.
These Muslims became known as the Shiites, meaning "Party of Ali".
Bektashi janissaries
Mufti Jusufspahić recalls that in the 16th and 17th centuries in Belgrade there were registered tekkes in which a large number of dervish brotherhoods were represented.
In addition to Halveti, Sadi and Bektashi, Kadiriya and Nakshibandi also settled in Belgrade.
"Kadirije had tekkies in Dorćol and Kalemegdan.
"In Gornji Grad, their tekke was located next to the martyr's tomb of Damad Ali Pasha, the conqueror of Moreja, who died in the Battle of Petrovaradin in August 1716," he adds in a written response to the BBC in Serbian.
One of the first dervish brotherhoods to arrive in the Balkans were the Bektashis - the official order of Janissaries, the Turkish elite army during the Ottoman Empire.
Their task was to spread Islam, which was most evident during the conquest of the Balkan states, but also when they were losing power.
"They are among the most responsible for the spread of Islam in the Balkans, which is why the Bektashi order is considered the orthodox vision of Islam here," he points out.
The largest number of them remained in Turkey even after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
During the 20th century, when Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern state and a secularist, came to power in Turkey in 1923, the Bektashis came to the Balkans and grouped themselves in Albania.
"Until the Second World War, Albania was the center of world Bektashism, while with the arrival of Enver Hoxha it was all destroyed.
"However, you can never completely destroy something, but it survives in much smaller numbers," Drobnjak points out.
Communist Enver Hoxha ruled Albania from 1945 until his death in 1985.
The same fate befell the dervishes and tekkies in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"It is interesting that in the Balkans there is a difference between Bosnian and Albanian dervishes, in philosophy and rituals.
"For example, Albanians stab themselves, and that was never common among Slavic dervishes," says Drobnjak.
For many, the symbol of dervishes, the order of Mevlevi with white robes and spinning cylindrical caps, arrived early in the Balkans, although there are not many of them now.
A modern threat to dervishes - Wahhabism
Dervishes came to the Balkans in smaller numbers even before the Ottoman rule, and are considered the first missionaries of Islam.
Alena Demirović believes that they were met there by a suitable ground for their philosophy.
"We must not forget that in the territory of BiH, and in most of the Balkans, the autochthonous peoples were Bogumili, who believed in one God and whose basic practice was catharsis - a deep and complete purification of man that gradually enlightens man's negative side and awakens his divine nature.
"If you go a little deeper into Sufi literature, you will come to the following conclusion: isn't that what Sufism also dictates?" says Demirović.
She is a member of the world interfaith and intercultural community and often represents the Balkans in America.
"In the former Yugoslavia, during the communist rule, there was suppression of Sufism as well as other groups from all religions from this area, but sincere believers found ways to maintain and preserve it."
Sufis contributed to the religious tolerance that exists today in the Balkans, she is convinced.
"Muslims mostly have a positive attitude towards their teaching, although, we must emphasize, their teaching has not been spared from various forms of deviations," she says.
The greatest danger to modern dervishes could come from radical Islamists.
He wrote about Kosovo as a fertile ground for the flourishing of Wahhabism and Salafism, which, thanks to money from Saudi Arabia, threatens the security of the wider community. New York Times 2016.
Thick prejudices
In Belgrade during the Ottoman Empire, there were 274 prayer spaces for Muslims, but this is relatively unknown information, the mufti says.
"Simply everything seemed to bury that part of history and in any case to show it as a dark period of this area.
"However, it is undeniable that a lot came with the Ottoman Empire in terms of civilizational values," says the mufti.
Since it is rarely talked about, people have become alienated from each other.
"I believe that we don't know each other enough and that especially Islam in these areas is viewed with deep prejudice and through the prism of historical conflicts," the mufti points out.
What next?
Novi Pazar is somewhat of an exception.
For centuries, this city has managed to keep diverse religious and national groups in essential tolerance and understanding, although images in the media sometimes cast a shadow on that, Zibija Dervišhalitović Šarenkapić believes.
"We are aware that these groups exist, we accept them as such, it is respected that people can see and interpret the world around them differently as long as they do not endanger you or the majority.
"Maybe for some part of the population dervishes are not happy to be seen, but there is no step of intolerance or disrespect," says this Pazarka.
Here, above all, he is thinking of those who make up the religious, political and social majority, and do not "like it when things go off the rails".
"The essence of their behavior, as I understand it, is the skill of living in harmony with others," says Dervišhalitović Šarenkapić.
However, this reflects the wider social problem of not knowing the other, especially among members of different religions.
Pupils in Serbia choose whether to study religious studies or civic education, which this professor considers a big mistake.
"It would be better if everyone had a history of religion, where young people would be given the opportunity to learn something more about those others and those who are different, with whom they do not share a living space and have no common experiences.
"Society is denied the understanding of diversity and the understanding that the world is colorful in all aspects," concludes this Pazarka.
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