The spiritual heart of Turkey — Rumi's final resting place, Seljuk architecture, and etli ekmek baked in stone ovens
Konya (population 2.2 million, Turkey's seventh-largest city) is the most religiously conservative major city in the country and simultaneously one of its most spiritually significant — it is where the 13th-century poet and mystic Jalal ad-Din Rumi (known in Turkey as Mevlana) lived, taught, and died in 1273. The turquoise-tiled dome of the Mevlana Museum (formerly a lodge of the Mevlevi Sufi order, now a museum housing Rumi's tomb) is visible from much of the city. Every December, Konya hosts the Şeb-i Arûs festival commemorating Rumi's death — the Whirling Dervish sema ceremony performed in…
Konya (ancient Iconium) was one of the most important cities of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum (1077–1308), which established its capital here after the Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 and settled in Anatolia. The Alaeddin Mosque on the central hill (begun 1116, expanded through the 13th century) and the Karatay Medrese (1251, now a ceramics museum with remarkable Seljuk tilework) are the major Seljuk monuments. Rumi arrived in Konya in 1228 and remained until his death — the Mevlevi Sufi order he founded here spread across the Ottoman Empire and is st…