Qualla: Mevlâna Museum https://qualla.com/mevlana-museum en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:30 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/x/p/mevlana-museum-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Mevlâna Museum https://qualla.com/mevlana-museum Mevlâna Museum: Introduction https://qualla.com/mevlana-museum/ Photo credit Mardetanha, CC BY-SA 3.0. Pilgrims still pray here. Although Atatürk's 1926 decree turned the dergah - the Mevlevi dervish lodge - into a state museum, and although the building is officially classified as a museum and ticketed accordingly, what visitors actually find inside is something more complicated. People come from across Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Balkans, and farther afield to stand near the sarcophagus of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi - the thirteenth-century Persian Sufi mystic the Turkish-speaking world calls Mevlâna, 'our master'. Many bring prayers learned from his Masnavi. Some weep openly. The Mevlâna Museum receives more visitors than almost any other museum in Turkey - 3.4 million in 2019, placing it second only to the Hagia Sophia - and a substantial number of them are pilgrims rather than tourists. The distinction matters. This is a sacred site that happens also to be open to ticketed entry.

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]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/x/p/mevlana-museum-wp/swxp-mevl-na-museum-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Mevlâna Museum: Konya and the Rose Garden https://qualla.com/mevlana-museum/ Photo credit Perencal, CC BY-SA 3.0. Rumi was born in Balkh, in what is now northern Afghanistan, around 1207. His family fled the advance of the Mongols and traveled west across Anatolia, eventually settling in Konya around 1228, when Rumi was a young man. The Seljuk sultan Ala' al-Din Kayqubad, who had invited Rum...

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]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/x/p/mevlana-museum-wp/swxp-mevl-na-museum-konya-and-the-rose-garden.mp3 0:06 2 full Mevlâna Museum: The Whirling Dervishes https://qualla.com/mevlana-museum/ Photo credit Kadı, CC BY 4.0. The Mevlevi order took its name from Mevlâna and developed the practice for which it remains internationally known: the sema, a ceremonial dance in which white-robed dervishes spin slowly with arms extended - the right palm turned upward toward heaven, the left turned downward to...

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]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/x/p/mevlana-museum-wp/swxp-mevl-na-museum-the-whirling-dervishes.mp3 0:06 3 full Mevlâna Museum: Beneath the Turquoise Dome https://qualla.com/mevlana-museum/ Photo credit Kadı, CC BY 4.0. The actual tomb chamber sits beneath the famous Kibab'ulaktab - the turquoise-tiled dome that has become the visual symbol of Konya itself. Rumi's wooden sarcophagus, dating to the thirteenth century, is a masterpiece of Seljuk woodcarving, intricately inlaid and inscribed. Besid...

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]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/x/p/mevlana-museum-wp/swxp-mevl-na-museum-beneath-the-turquoise-dome.mp3 0:06 4 full Mevlâna Museum: Manuscripts and the Reed Flute https://qualla.com/mevlana-museum/ Photo credit Nazzarenoagostinelli, CC BY-SA 3.0. In glass cases around the Semahane sit some of the most precious objects of the Persianate Sufi tradition. A Divan-i-Kebir from 1366 holds Rumi's lyric poetry in spidery cursive script. Two early manuscripts of his great Masnavi-i Manavi - the Spiritual Couplets, the 25,000-line ...

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]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/x/p/mevlana-museum-wp/swxp-mevl-na-museum-manuscripts-and-the-reed-flute.mp3 0:06 5 full Mevlâna Museum: Suppression and Survival https://qualla.com/mevlana-museum/ Photo credit Kadı, CC BY 4.0. When Atatürk dissolved the Sufi orders in 1925 as part of the secularizing reforms of the new Turkish Republic, the Mevlevi tekke at Konya was among the institutions closed. The decree of April 6, 1926 reclassified this building as a museum, which formally opened on March 2, 1927...

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]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/x/p/mevlana-museum-wp/swxp-mevl-na-museum-suppression-and-survival.mp3 0:06 6 full