The children pierce their cheeks with oversized needles, while adults do it with small metal rods. Some even stick thicker bars into their bodies. This is how the Dervish in Prizren prove their faith.

The Rufai Dervish order is famous far beyond the borders of Kosovo. They were there long before the former Serbian province hit the headlines in the 1990s after its outbreak of ethnic bloodshed.

Their annual dance was banned in Turkey nine decades ago, but the centuries-old tradition continues in Kosovo, as well as among their brethren in the region, in Macedonia, Albania and Bosnia.

With white felt caps on their heads and dressed in black tunics, some 130 of them huddle on prayer carpets in the narrow Tekke - the place of gathering for the Sufi Muslim brotherhood - in Prizren, in southern Kosovo, waiting for Shejh Adrihusein Shekhu.

When he arrives, he explains to the congregation in Albanian, Turkish and Serbian that they are gathered to celebrate the birthday of their order's founder, Ali. The ceremony, three-and-a-half hours long, is capped with a trance-inducing whirling dance and the self-mutilation.

A liberal wing of the Sufi Muslims, the Dervish profess love and tolerance for others, regardless of their religions. They despise fundamentalists and terrorists.

During the first two hours of the celebration, the shejh and his followers sing and pray without a pause. Then he preaches, urging for tolerance and "love for all people." Then bonbons are handed to all, to relax throats, which are running raw, before the singing commences.

An hour later, Shehu signals his Dervish to stand up, and all began to whirl ecstatically to the sound of drums and cymbals. At one moment, he beckons a young - perhaps 10 years old - Dervish to approach. He then sticks a large needle through both of the boy's cheeks.

There is no blood visible and the child shows no pain in his apparently deep trance, as he falls back into the ranks and continues dancing, with the needle jutting from his face. Around 10 other boys come to Shehu to have their cheeks pierced.

The older Dervish puncture their jowls and other body parts by themselves. As the tempo accelerates even further and the dance becomes more fervent, a few Dervish even whirl with long sticks protruding from their necks.

Then the Shejh begins removing needles from the young Dervish. After he plucks a needle out, he presses the puncture wound briefly with his thumbs and releases the boy. He repeats the process, one boy after another.

Just a few droplets of blood can be seen on some, but the older men, who pierced themselves with large sticks, bleed thin red rivulets.

The point of the self-mutilation, they explain later, is to fight the body in order to liberate the soul.

"Man must overcome his body, its biochemical functions, to free the soul, so it can be with god and in god," one says.

A medical explanation that the persistent whirling drains some parts of the body from blood, allowing nearly bloodless piercing, hardly satisfies those who see the dance.

In the end, Shehu invites his flock for tea. Dressed in everyday street clothes, they discuss everyday matters - marriages, farming and also politics and religion.

Each member of the order has taken advice from the shejh. The title is inherited from father to son across generations and Sheh's son has already for years been growing into the role, designated to him by birth. When his father passes away, the order will be in safe hands.