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religious experience in Konya

Konya Travel Blog › entry 16 of 26 › view all entries

this magnificent country between Europe and Asia has a lot to offer: friendly people, magnificent nature, old cities like Istanbul and a lot of culture! I travelled through Turkey for 3 weeks, starting in Istanbul and then further to Cappadocia. Next I did a short stop at Konya to visit the Mevlana museum and then headed further to lake Egirdir. One of the last stops on main land was Olympos, and I finished by doing a 3-day boat trip along the mediterrean coast. life is wonderful in Turkey!

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religious experience in Konya

September 16, 2008

At about 4.30 p.m I reached Konya and visited the Mevlana museum. This is a museum dedicated to some sort of religious strict order within the islam by the dervishes, monks that lived the religious ideas of Cellaledin Rumi. His tombstone stands in the Mevlana complex. While spinning round and round, the Dervishes dance with one hand up in the sky in order to have contact with Allah.

No pictures of the inside buildings as it was strictly forbidden to take pictures. the museum shows the lifestyle of the Dervishes and their way of interpretation of the Koran. Also a great deal of old manuscripts and holy books are displayed, some of them in Arabic or Ottoman Turkish. Konya is busy conservative city in the centre of Turkey and one of the most important religious cities in the country. This is also the place where the illustrators of Disney's Aladdin got his inspiration. Compare the palace of the king in Alladin with some of the of the mosques below. There is even an 'Alladin mosque' in Konya. Didn't have the time to explore the city as I was heading to Egirdir and it was still a 3-hour drive. Countryside turkey was still very present on my way.