Mevlana Museum

The Mevlana Museum in Konya is the former lodge of the Mevlevi order of dervishes and the resting place of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, the thirteenth century poet and mystic whose verses are still read across the world. Rumi died in Konya in December 1273 and was buried beside his father in a garden given to the family by the Seljuk sultan. A year later a turquoise tiled tomb tower was raised over the grave, and for six and a half centuries the buildings around it grew into a community of prayer, music, learning and hospitality. After the dervish lodges of Turkey were closed in 1925, the complex reopened in 1926 as a museum, and it remains both a museum and a place that many visitors treat as a shrine.

You enter through a walled courtyard with a marble fountain, dervish cells along one side and the great kitchen in a corner. Ahead lies the main building: a long hall of tombs beneath painted vaults that leads to the sarcophagus of Rumi under the Green Dome, with the domed sema hall and the small mosque opening off it. Manuscripts, calligraphy, musical instruments, carpets and objects of dervish life are shown in the cells and side halls.

A visit takes about an hour and a half. Dress modestly, keep your voice low near the tombs and remember that people around you may be praying rather than sightseeing.