Dervish is a general term for various types of marginal mystics. Its etymon is the Persian word darvīsh (lit. "poor, needy"), but it has commonly been used to denote practitioners of religious poverty. The mediaeval Ṣūfī tradition applied this word to a specific lifestyle, in which detachment and renunciation were both material and spiritual. Dervishes had to go from door to door to beg for alms and, metaphorically, from gate to gate to ask for divine revelations, as at each stage of his spiritual quest, the dervish calls upon God