I choose Konya for a 2-night stay to take a break from the daily driving during my road trip across Western Turkey. That turned out to be a good choice: it’s a modern city with plenty to see and do. I left the car at my hotel, 11km on the outskirts of the city, and used the tramway to get right to Aladdin hill. In the center there still is a lot of construction going on, it seems that a whole neighbourhood will be replaced by glitzy shops and apartments. This unbridled development is the main reason that Konya can’t just go for a nomination of its historic center  – it would need to focus on specific monuments and/or a specific theme.

According to the Epic Subtitle already present in the name of the Tentative Site (“A capital of Seljuk Civilization”) the most straightforward theme would be the Seljuk Dynasty and its architecture. I started with a visit to two madrasahs from that period (these are also part of another TWHS): the İnce Minareli Madrasah (closed for renovation, but with a noteworthy facade) and the very pretty Karatay Madrasah. The TWHS description also mentions the Sirçali Madrasa: I found this closed as well, but you can peek into the courtyard which has some tilework. Another one, integrated into the Sahib-i Ata complex, lies next to the Archeological Museum of Konya.

The monuments at the top of Aladdin Hill are also from the Seljuk period. To me, they looked a bit too ‘clean’ and overly restored. The Aladdin mosque apparently is the main monument, but I skipped entering as a large school class just went in ahead of me.

Of course, there are interesting buildings from other periods in time as well, mostly from the Ottoman days. There’s even a mosque (the Aziziye) with elements in the baroque and rococo styles!

The question is whether a future nomination of Konya would dare to focus on the Mevlevi order, that of a Persian Sufi mystic that has its origins in Konya. By a decree of Ataturk, his mausoleum has been turned into a ‘museum’ – but nowadays you’ll find many people praying there. Turkey also choose the Mevlevi Sema (the ceremony performed by the whirling dervishes) as its first entry on the UNESCO List of Intangible Heritage.

I had wanted to see a performance and was put on the right track by a local man that I met at the Mevlana Museum. I was lucky that one was scheduled just on the day (Sunday) that I was in town. Since the end of Covid, Sema ceremonies in front of an audience are held twice a week (Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon) at the Irfan Cultural Center in Konya. This is an intimate venue, with 200 seats and some standing room on the balcony. For the 2.30 p.m. session, they started handing out free tickets with seat numbers about 45 minutes before. It’s a full ceremony that starts with the placement of a red hide on the floor and further includes prayer, music, poetry, solemn greetings to the sheik and each other, and of course the whirling of the dervishes. The movement has some strict rules (the head is slightly tilted towards the heart for example), but each dervish seemed to have his personal style as well (it’s not a choreographed dance group). A video screen hanging from the balcony showed explanations per scene in Turkish and English, which was really helpful.

Photos (clockwise from top left): façade and interior of the Karatay Madrasah, whirling dervishes at the Irfan Cultural Center, and tombs in the Mevlana Museum.