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Shabbat, September 24, 2005 - Konya's market, Mevlana Museum, Benny and the Tallest Man in Turkey, Dancing with Sabri
Konya is all about Mevlana. Who is Mevlana?
He was one of the world's great mystic philosophers. His poetry and religious writings are among the most beloved and respected in the Islamic world. He lived at Konya in the 13 century. His followers were organized into a brotherhood called Mevlevi, or the whirling dervishes. Mevlana was a very open minded and a liberal in his views. He also loved music and dancing.
His teachings are summed up in this verse:
Come; come whoever you may be,
Even if you may be, an infidel, a pagan, or a fire-worshipper, come.
Ours is not a brotherhood of despair.
Even if you have broken your vows of repentance a hundred times, come.
The Seven Advices of Mevlana:
In generosity and helping others be like a river
In compassion and grace be like a sun
In concealing others' faults, be like a night
In anger and fury, be like dead
In modesty and humility be like earth
In tolerance be like sea
Either seem as you are or be as you seem
We visited the former lodge of the whirling dervishes, which is today the Mevlana Museum. The lodge has a flute dome covered with turquoise tiles. We later saw the dome from the inside, it is right over Mevlana’s Tomb. The April bow, which holds the April rainwater, that is so important to the farmers of this region. Cloths, musical instruments and original manuscripts are here.
Today started as a lazy day. It is Shabbat and we thought that we would take it easy and stay in the room and read. So we went to the bazaar, our favorite pass-time, with endless rows of merchandise.
Mevlana Museum was next and we decided to go in. See photos.
From about 1150-1300, Konya was the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, one of the successor state to the Great Seljuk Turkish Empire of the 11th century.
We continue toward Aladdin Hill, where we saw young students who were selling food as a form of fund raising for their school. We stopped for dinner of stuffed pepper and grape leaves.
In Aladdin Hill we saw many people sitting at tea gardens. We also saw two women stuffing very thin dough with parsley. It tasted very good. A friendly Turkish man started talking to Benny and offered to take us around.
He later took us to his friend's place where they played and danced for us.
When we left in the morning, it was warm and nice. On our way back home, we felt few drops of rain, that turned within seconds to heavy rain and all the streets turned into rivers.
Tomorrow we will continue to Egirdir, (there is a small line on top the letter ‘g’ and that means that you do not pronounce the letter ‘g’), and it is pronounced Eridir.
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