Summer 2012
After talking to a Sufi friend of mine, learning Sufi dances in India, reading Vilayat Inayat Khan, Chishti, Rumi, Rabia and Attar, watching dervishes spin and learning how to whirl myself, I felt a visit to Konya in the conservative middle of Turkey had grown into a necessity.
I had also read that only those who are meant to come will get to see Rumi's garden, while the journey of others may be riddled with endless obstacles.
Mine was not. One day in August 2012 , after flying into Turkey and before setting up a meeting with my friend from Syria on this side of the border, I arrived in Konya on a bus, rolling in from the fantasy hills of Kappadokya.
I had called a hotel with the name of Ani ve Shems, which turned out to be large, proper, a bit dusty and completely deserted. It was just me, the waiter lurking near the television set, the receptionist, the hijab wearing breakfast lady in the basement and me, plus a handful of other guests who I never met. I just noticed them by the crumbs on their plates when I arrived in the basement in the mornings to have " kahvalti ".
The whole part of this city seemed grey , moist and shady, the sky eternally overcast, my curtains thick and lace curtains covering the window panes even in daytime. My bed was as far away as possible from the window and unless I went outside, no one would have ever known I was there.
I soon discovered why this hotel was named like this: it was across the street from a small park that contained the tomb of Shams-e-Tabrizi, Rumi's beloved friend. The tomb was kept inside a little mosque where people went to pray, including me once, but the tomb was empty. Shams of Tabriz was not there. In fact nobody here knew where Shams was, there were various stories and theories. Maybe he was killed by the jealous followers of Mevlana, maybe he just quietly left . Either way, he left Rumi heartbroken and lonely, and in need for a new source of inspiration.
So I went and prayed on the second floor of this mosque, facing the empty tomb of Shams-e-Tabrizi, one evening at dusk.
The next morning I started my slow approach to the monastery. It was visible from a window of my hotel but once I went outside into the shady street, it disappeared.
I walked along the park and to the left. Then between the dusty houses in the morning heat. After what seemed like a very long time, I hit the main road.
There seems to be one main road in Konya which is more like a boulevard, an avenue cutting across town , with a green hill, an old mosque, tea gardens and a museum on one end , and at the other end- the monastery.
It's roofs were a bright turquoise and shone over the city, a proud monument to it's past.
The street which was called Mevlana Caddesi led in one long straight line to it's end.
I arrived at a fence. There were people doing ablutions. The door was off to the left.
I had read that his door opens and closes unpredictable intervals. It might open, or it might be closed for the day you get there.
On my day it was open and no trace of it's closing hours. I went inside.
The first thing that meets the eye after passing through the gate is a garden filled with small shrubs and paths between them, all of them roses. Some in bloom, some invisible, and some dyeing.
While I walked among the roses, signs and a recording explained stations in Rumi's life.
Then I arrived at another stone wall that had another gate. Here there was calligraphy on the walls.
I made a detour to see more of the roses and tried to smell them, and then I went inside.
Most people went directly to the main entrance. But I started walking around the hallway that passed in front of all the other rooms, so that I would see the main room last. There were smaller rooms with figures dressed up as Sufi masters giving lectures to young dervishes. I had heard that dervishes are celibate, and I wondered what life in this mevlevi monastery must have been like. Spending all your days in these chambers made of old stone, walking in the rose garden, worshipping God by scrubbing the floors... The kitchen was the biggest room among them all, and strangely, it was in front of the kitchen where the dervishes had trained whirling. There were figures of men sitting in the kitchen scrubbing vegetables , and there was a figure of a dervish apprentice standing in a corner of the room, ready to practice whirling by placing his left toe on a black dot on the floor while driving his body with his right foot, learning to spin in place without losing his balance. When the body rotates it imitates the basic movement of the universe and energy flows upwards. The dervish tilts his head to one side, offering the side of his neck, like a sheep to have its throat cut, or like a woman ready to surrender to a man. The dervish closes his eyes and spins. He wears a tall felt cap on his head and people say this cap symbolizes death. Maybe whirling is the ecstasy of dying and being taken away into the universe in one great silent tornado. I don't really know. It certainly makes thoughts stop and the mind go still. Similar to being in the middle of the desert at night, the stars above, the roaring silence of the sand hearing nothing but the pulse of your blood and the noise of your own beating heart.
I envied this young apprentice dervish who only had to learn whirling in a corner next to the kitchen. Even if he was only a doll.
After walking barefoot over the ancient floor boards I went outside and crossed the courtyard. Here was another fountain for doing ablutions .
Then I went inside. The ceiling was very high. There was light wood, lamps everywhere, people were silent or spoke in hushed voices, there was dark green and black and gold and these were the blankets draped over the tombs.
In one glass case there were all the clothes of a dervish. White clothes, grey wool colored coat, and the Sufi cap.
There were six tombs, I think. Some high, some not so high. The last and greatest tomb was that of Hazrat Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi himself.
I stopped and stood. I could sense the people walking around me. Hundreds of visitors passing in front of the tombs, greeting them, looking, talking softly , offering silent prayers. Ii stood still in the middle of the mass moving by, took a step back to let them pass. My eyes closed, the shuffling ,rustling noises turned into a buzz, a hum, then silence, and then just the great heartbeat of the room. There was black in front of my eyes. When my heart slowed down, I started to open my eyes slowly, the lights returned, I saw the coats of people, the shiny light wooden boards of the floor. I inhaled, gathered myself,offered thanks and left. I knew a small part of me stayed behind, near the dark green, and under the roses, dew drops falling to the ground.
