Next stop was the nearby Mevlâna Museum, the home of the whirling dervishes.
The dervish order was founded by Celaleddin Rumi (1207-73), known as Mevlâna (the Master) was born in Afghanistan but travelled to Konya with his family. There he developed his philosophy of an all-enveloping tolerance, his vision being that by rotating the body over a long period of time, individuals could be brought closer to Allah. Mevlâna preached tolerance, forgiveness and enlightenment and his poetry, even in translated versions, is apparently moving and inspirational. In 1925 Atatürk abolished all the dervish orders as a potential threat to his secular state and it is only in recent years that they have started to flourish again. We're attending a Sema (Whirling Dervish Ceremony) when we're in Cappadocia so I'll hopefully learn a bit more about it then.
A snap from the coach as we approached (I'm probably strange in that I like to take a photo before I get to a place, as so often you don't get that perspective again).
This is more what I expected the Blue Mosque to look like - it's beautiful. I took rather too many pictures so they get a bit repetitive.
Lovely topiary.
This looked like a lad's day out.
The idea of the chains on the entrance is that you have to bow to get under them, thereby signifying humility.
Inside the complex there were numerous rooms with different artefacts on display. There were quite a few metal artworks like these around.
The conical caps worn by the Dervishes represent tombstones and the robes, shrouds.
The complex started life as a dervish lodge and is now a mausoleum and to enter the main area you had to put on plastic shoe covers.
These are the sarcophagi of various sultans.
At the heart of the complex is the tomb of the Mevlâna Celaleddin Rumi, the founder of the order.
I was a long way away from the chap when I took the picture so I sincerely hope I didn't interrupt his devotions.
These lovely gentlemen weren't stirring pots of Lentil soup but the plastic shoe covers, which when they are discarded take up a lot of space, so give them a whack and a stir and the volume decreases hugely.
We then asked Göksel if we could walk around the building for a different angle - he was quite reluctant but we assured him we wouldn't get lost.
