Turkey: Konya (August
2017)
Konya is
perhaps most famous as the town where Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi
(1207-1273), now better known as Mevlana (″Our
Master″) or Rumi, founded the whirling dervish sect. Born in Balkh in
present-day northern Afghanistan, Mevlana is regarded
as one of the greatest Persian poets and Sufi mystics. The Mevlana
Museum, the former lodge of the whirling dervishes, is much more than a museum;
it is considered a holy place that attracts huge crowds of Muslims, not only
from Turkey, but also from Iran and other countries in the Middle-East and
Central Asia. Konya is a conservative, but pleasant city. Mosques of very
diverse styles dot the city.
Mevlana Museum:
- Main
building with its distinctive conical dome covered with turquoise faience.
- Domes and
chimneys above dervish cells seen from the courtyard.
- Invocation rosaries made of 1498
linden-wood marbles, exposed in a dervish cell.
|
|
|
- Fountains
in the courtyard.
|
|
|
- Gravestones next to the main building.
|
|
|
- Sarcophagus
of Mevlana, topped by his turban, in the main
building.
- Other
sarcophagi of eminent dervishes.
|
|
|
- In the
Ceremonial Hall (Semahane), which used to be the
setting for the whirling ceremonies.
- Ceiling of
the Semahane.
|
|
|
- Ancient religious book exposed in the Semahane.
- Scenes of
everyday dervish life.
Shops and street scenes in Konya.
|
|
|
|
Aziziye Cami, originally
constructed in 1671-1676 and rebuilt in 1876 in unusual baroque style,
following a fire in 1867:
- The mosque
has two minarets with sheltered balcony.
|
|
|
|
- Inside the
mosque. Note the highly decorated mihrab (niche
pointing toward Mecca) and minbar (pulpit).
|
|
|
Another
mosque, another style. Here, Kapi Cami
(1658), with its multiple ceiling cupola that challenge human three-dimensional
perception.
Serafeddin Cami (1636).
Wooden
minaret of small Ak Cami.
Mihrab decorated with blue tiles in the Alaeddin Cami built in the 12th
and 13th centuries (Seljuq period).
|
|
|
Karatay Madrasa, built in 1251 by Celaleddin
Karatay, a statesman and commander who served four
Seljuk Sultans:
- Roof in the
main room.
- Ceramic tiles exposed in the madrassa.
They have been excavated from the Seljuk Kubad Abad
Palace (13th century) located on the shore of Lake Beysehir,
some 80km west of Konya. Surprisingly, these tiles represent humans and
animals, as such representations are proscribed in Islam.
|
|
|
Byzantine
church of Hagia Eleni in
the village of Sille, close to Konya. (Cappadocian
Greek language was spoken in Sille for centuries
until 1923, when the entire Greek population left Sille
under a population swap agreement between Greece and Turkey.)
|
|
|
|
Back to
main Turkey page | Back
to my mountaineering/trekking/travel webpage