Between Konya and Cappadocia: Dervishes, Caravans, and Turkish Rugs

As we traversed Turkey, we followed narrow roadways over uneven landscape, tracing ancient trade routes and stumbling upon small towns nestled among the hills. I am always torn between creating a self-guided vacation or falling in with a tour operator. However, for this portion of the journey, I was thrilled we’d gone with a tour operator–the roads were long, the road signs entirely in Turkish, and the distance between gas stations was great. I could definitely see us getting stranded on the side of the Turkish highway because we didn’t understand the sign that said “last gas station in one hundred kilometers!”

And the tour operator had planned stops for us along the way, so our long day of driving (Turkey is enormous. If you didn’t know that, go look at a map!) was broken up into a series of interesting destinations. First, was the city of Konya.

Konya

Like many places not in North America, the city has been around for a long time. In this case, it’s been around a long time even compared to other cities that have been around a long time. Way back in the Hellenistic (Greek) and Roman periods, the city was named Iconium. Supposedly, Medusa was killed here and her head was placed on a pillar to protect the city. Another myth says instead that Perseus just brought Medusa’s head to the city to the vanquish the native people. Either way, the name Iconium is theorized to originate from the “icon” of Medusa’s head. The city was Byzantine Greek for many centuries, then, in 1071, the Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine army and Konya the capital of Seljuk Rūm.

Konya is also the city where Rumi, also known as Mevlana, founded the order of the Whirling Dervishes. We visited the monastery of Mevlana.

The order of Sufi dervishes was founded in 1273 and practiced in Turkey until 1926, when Atatürk outlawed the practice. Dervishes are a mendicant ascetics, meaning they have taken a vow of poverty, and they spin to reach religious ecstasy. This means they spin in order to achieve an altered state of consciousness that makes them less aware of the external world and more internally aware. Sometimes these periods are accompanied by visions and often by a feeling of euphoria, kind of like being outside of your body. They believe it is a way to be closer to god, to reach an almost spiritual state. Some orders, including Christian orders, sought to achieve religious ecstasy through fasting, but the dervishes found they could achieve it through slow, continuous spinning motions.

Sultanhani Caravenserai

The second stop on our travel day was even more appropriate. Created in Seljuk time (13th century), caravenserais were built specifically for travelers and merchants.

Like hotels or hostels today, caravenserais also let you bring in your horses and camels and all your wagons. With thick, tall walls, they were easily defendable, which was important because often trading caravans would use them as they traveled from city to city with wagons full of goods to sell. There were covered areas for setting up your camp in the summer time, and enclosed rooms that you could warm with fires in the winter. A small mosque rises out of the center of the courtyard.

Cappadocia

Sometime later, we entered the region of Cappadocia. It has a somewhat alien looking landscape as it’s covered in a rock called tufa, which is volcanic ash that’s hardened into stone.