The city of Rumi and the Mevlevi order, a quiet pilgrimage centre on the Seljuk heartland of central Anatolia — and a practical guide to seeing it well.
Last reviewed on 3 June 2026.
Konya sits on a broad, flat plain in the south of central Anatolia, ringed by distant hills and a long way from the sea. It is among the oldest continuously inhabited places in the country — people have lived in and around the plain for thousands of years, and the early town of Çatalhöyük a short distance to the south predates almost everything else in the region. In the 12th and 13th centuries Konya became the capital of the Anatolian Seljuk sultanate, and that period left it a clutch of mosques and theological colleges that still anchor the centre. Today it is a large, devout and notably conservative city, and above all a pilgrimage centre — the place where the poet and mystic Rumi lived, died and was buried.
Jalal al-Din Rumi — known in Türkiye simply as Mevlana, "our master" — was a 13th-century theologian, jurist and poet who spent most of his adult life in Konya. His father had brought the family west ahead of the Mongol advance, and Konya, then a Seljuk capital, became their home. Rumi's encounter with the wandering dervish Shams of Tabriz transformed him from a respected scholar into a mystic poet, and the verse he produced afterwards — the long Masnavi and the lyrical Divan — is read across the Persian-speaking world and far beyond it.
His tomb is the heart of the city. The Mevlana Museum grew up around it on the site of a former dervish lodge, and it is instantly recognisable from the fluted, turquoise-tiled dome that rises above the sarcophagus. Inside, Rumi's tomb lies beneath the dome alongside those of his father and other figures of the order, draped in cloth and crowded by visitors who come to pay their respects rather than simply to look. The surrounding rooms display manuscripts, musical instruments, prayer rugs and the cells where dervishes once lived. It functions today as a museum, but for many of the people moving quietly through it the visit is closer to pilgrimage, and the atmosphere reflects that.
The religious order that grew from Rumi's teaching is the Mevlevi, the Sufi brotherhood Europeans came to call the "Whirling Dervishes". It was organised after his death, largely by his son, and spread across the Ottoman world from its mother lodge here in Konya. The order's lodges were closed in the early years of the Republic, when the dervish brotherhoods were dissolved, but the Mevlevi cultural and musical tradition survived and is now actively maintained.
The ceremony most associated with the Mevlevi is the Sema, the turning ritual recognised by UNESCO as part of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. It is a form of worship, not a performance. The dervishes turn slowly on one foot, one palm raised to receive grace from above and the other turned down to pass it to the earth, while the long white skirt of the robe opens into a circle. The shedding of a black cloak at the start represents the casting off of worldly attachment; the turning itself is understood as a remembrance of God and a symbolic ascent. The accompanying music — reed flute, drum and chanted verse — is integral rather than decorative.
Because the Sema is devotional, it is not staged everywhere on demand, and treating it as nightly tourist entertainment misses what it is. In Konya, the Mevlana Culture Centre hosts the ceremony, and respectful visitors are welcome to attend; the form here tends to be closer to the religious original than the abbreviated versions sometimes put on in tourist districts elsewhere in the country. The most significant time to be in the city is the week around mid-December, the Şeb-i Arus — the "wedding night", as the Mevlevi call the anniversary of Rumi's death, marking his union with the divine. The commemoration draws large numbers of pilgrims and visitors, and the city is busiest and most charged then.
Konya's other great inheritance is architectural. As the Seljuk capital it accumulated mosques and medreses — theological colleges — built in a distinctive style that married Anatolian stone-carving with Persian tilework. Several survive in and around the old centre, and seeing two or three of them together is the best way to understand why the city mattered before Rumi made it famous.
The oldest and largest of the city's monuments, spread across the green mound at the centre of Konya. A Seljuk congregational mosque with a forest of reused columns inside and royal tombs in the courtyard.
A 13th-century college now housing a museum of Seljuk tilework. Its great star-vaulted dome, sheathed in dark blue and turquoise tiles, is one of the finest interiors of the period.
The "college of the slender minaret", known for its deeply carved stone portal. The minaret that gave it its name lost much of its height to lightning long ago, but the doorway remains a high point of Seljuk decoration.
All three sit within easy walking distance of one another around the Alâeddin mound, so a single morning on foot covers the heart of Seljuk Konya. The two medreses are now museums, which means their interiors — the tile mosaics, the carved mihrab niches, the play of light under the domes — can be studied at leisure rather than glimpsed during prayer.
About an hour south of the city, out on the open plain, lies Çatalhöyük — one of the oldest known towns anywhere in the world, settled around nine thousand years ago in the Neolithic. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and its importance is hard to overstate: this was a dense, settled community of mud-brick houses packed so tightly that residents moved across the rooftops and entered their homes through holes in the ceiling, at a moment when much of humanity was still mobile.
What survives to see on the ground is, frankly, subtle. The mound has been excavated in sections, and shelters protect the exposed house walls, hearths and burial platforms; some interiors preserve traces of wall painting and the moulded forms that the excavators interpreted as part of household ritual. Much of the most striking material — figurines, painted plaster — has gone to museums, including in Ankara. A visit rewards curiosity and a little prior reading far more than it rewards expectations of spectacle; it is the antiquity and the ideas, not the visible remains, that make the trip worthwhile.
The Konya plain is one of the great breadbaskets of Anatolia — flat, fertile and given over to wheat and grain on a scale that has fed the region for centuries. That agricultural identity shows up directly on the table. The local speciality is etli ekmek, a very long, thin flatbread spread with minced meat and baked in a wood oven, then cut into sections and eaten by hand; it is the dish people most associate with the city, and it is everywhere. The other Konya signature is fırın kebabı, mutton slow-roasted in a wood-fired oven until it falls apart, traditionally served simply with bread. Both are plain, hearty, oven-driven dishes that suit the character of the place.
Konya has a continental climate: hot, dry summers and cold winters, with the open plain leaving it exposed to wind. Spring and autumn — roughly April to early June, and September to October — are the most comfortable windows, with mild days and manageable temperatures for walking between the monuments. Summer is hot and bright but perfectly workable if you keep to mornings and evenings. Winter is genuinely cold, and December brings the Şeb-i Arus commemoration, which is the single most atmospheric time to visit but also the busiest; if you come then, plan ahead.
Konya is unusually easy to reach because it sits on the high-speed rail network. The YHT trains connect it directly to Ankara in around an hour and three-quarters, and run through to Istanbul, which makes a day or overnight trip from either city realistic. There is also an airport with domestic flights, mainly to Istanbul. Within the city, a tram line links the main railway station and the university districts with the centre near the Mevlana Museum, and the historic core around the Alâeddin mound is compact enough to cover on foot.
Jalal al-Din Rumi was a 13th-century theologian, jurist and poet who spent most of his life in Konya, then a Seljuk capital. After a transformative friendship with the dervish Shams of Tabriz he turned to mystical poetry, producing the Masnavi and the Divan. In Türkiye he is known as Mevlana, and the Mevlevi Sufi order grew from his teaching.
Yes. The Sema ceremony is held at the Mevlana Culture Centre, and respectful visitors are welcome to attend. It is a form of worship rather than a nightly show, so it is worth checking the schedule in advance. The most significant time is the Şeb-i Arus commemoration around mid-December.
The easiest route is the high-speed YHT train, which reaches Konya from Ankara in under two hours and continues to Istanbul. The city also has an airport with domestic flights, and it is a few hours' drive from Cappadocia or Ankara. A tram and walkable centre make getting around simple once you arrive.
For anyone interested in Sufism, Rumi or Seljuk architecture, very much so. The Mevlana Museum, the Seljuk medreses and the nearby site of Çatalhöyük give it real depth. It is a quieter, more devout city than the coastal resorts, and it makes a natural pairing with Cappadocia or a stop on the rail line between Ankara and Istanbul.
Çatalhöyük is one of the world's oldest known towns, a Neolithic settlement on the Konya plain dating back around nine thousand years. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, notable for its densely packed mud-brick houses entered through the roof. The visible remains are modest, but its importance to the story of early settled life is enormous.