It was a bad weekend for the Islamic fundamentalists who would like to see severe restrictions on music. Three London concerts, and the entertaining and informative documentary Sufi Soul on Channel 4, all highlighted the role of music within the Muslim world, especially in the ceremonies of the mystical Sufis. This was a timely reminder of the different strands of Islam, with the appearance of devotional whirling dervishes in what was once a London church providing one of the more unexpected religious events of the year.

Sheikh Habboush, who opened the Ramadan Nights festival, is a celebrated Sufi singer from Aleppo in Syria. Dressed in black robes, he was surrounded by eight male singers, musicians and dancers, all sporting a fine selection of hats and playing anything from hand-drums to the desert flute, the ney, and the Middle-Eastern zither, the qanun. A powerful, sturdy performer, his chanting vocals were answered either by repeated phrases by other singers or by echoing phrases from the musicians. There were repeated cries to Allah and Muhammad and sudden bursts of stirring vocal effects, as when the entire ensemble began to speed up and change key at the end of a song. Half an hour into the performance, one of the singers came forward to start spinning, as the music and chanting drove him on. With his arms folded, and his long, skirt-like robes rising from the ground as he gathered pace, he provided a dizzying, exhausting spectacle that continued for nearly 10 minutes, a ritual that was repeated by two singers at the end of the performance.

The dervishes are the followers of the 13th-century poet Mevlana Jalaleddin Rumi, who would apparently whirl with joy in the streets; the aim is to induce a trance-like state that encourages meditation. It's a practice that has inevitably become something of a tourist attraction, particularly in Turkey, but the effect here was like watching a hypnotic religious ritual.