The sarcophagus of Mevlana and the tombs of his family
Marble sarcophagus 1565; original wooden sarcophagus 1274
At the end of the tomb hall, behind a silver lattice and beneath the Green Dome, lies Rumi himself. His grave is marked by a tall marble sarcophagus draped in a heavy cover of gold embroidered velvet, with a huge turban of the Mevlevi type set at its head. Beside him, under a lower sarcophagus with the same kind of cover, rests his son Sultan Veled, who organised his father's followers into the Mevlevi order. Around them, in the hall you have just walked through, are more than sixty graves of Rumi's descendants and of the sheikhs who led the lodge, each marked by a sarcophagus and a turban whose shape shows the rank of the person below.
The marble sarcophagus was a gift of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the fifteen sixties. The original of 1274 was made of walnut, carved from top to bottom with verses of the Quran and Rumi's own poems in a dense lattice of Seljuk ornament; when the marble one arrived it was moved a few steps to cover the grave of Rumi's father, Bahaeddin Veled, where it still stands. Tradition says the father's sarcophagus rose upright out of respect when the son was buried beside him, and it is indeed the only one in the hall that stands on end. The silver lattice separating you from the tombs was made in 1597, and the ceiling above is painted with gilded and coloured patterns that were renewed in the nineteenth century.
People still come here as pilgrims, and you will see them pause, murmur a prayer and pass on. The embroidered cover on Rumi's tomb, made in Istanbul in the sixteenth century, bears his name and the words that sum up how visitors have felt here for seven hundred years: come, whoever you are.
Did You Know? The wooden sarcophagus of 1274 was moved to cover the grave of Rumi's father, which is why local tradition says the father's tomb stood up to greet his son.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.