CHANDIGARH | 12 JANUARY 2020 Travel 3

City
Sujoy Dhar the cultural, political and religious
growth. It was during this time that

H
E takes all this knowledge Rumi founded the Sufi order known in
from Koran Kareem and the West as the Whirling Dervishes.
Hadith. He takes all A performance of the whirling
these from the love side, dervishes at the Mevlana cultural

of
the divine love. centre should not be missed if you

Because of this it touched our
hearts. All the humanity, they
need spiritual feeding. Because
they are hungry, their soul is
hungry,” Esin Chalabi Bayru, the
descendant of Mevlana Celaled-
din-i Rumi, the 13th century Per-
sian poet and Sufi mystic, says
about the work of her great ancestor.
Dignity personified, her words about
Rumi permeates through your pores as
you listen to her in her Konya, the city
where Rumi lived and breathed his last
on December 17, 1273.
The Islamic theologian was born to
native Persian-speaking parents in the
present-day Afghanistan, but he settled
down in Konya. It was here he met his
spiritual instructor Shams-i-Tabriz or
Shams al-Din Mohammad (1185-1248), a
Persian poet. Tradition holds that Shams
taught Rumi in seclusion for 40 days,
Konya, a city in central Turkey, continues before fleeing to Damascus.
Bayru is the vice-president of the Inter-
to remind visitors of Rumi, the 13th-century national Rumi Foundation (IRF), which
sponsors and disseminates research on
Persian poet and Sufi mystic, and his Rumi. As we walked out of the IRF office
after meeting her, we headed for the
philosophy and message of love striking green-tiled mausoleum of
Mevlana (Rumi), Konya’s most famous
building, to experience the essence of
love that Rumi spread in the world.
Attached to the mausoleum is the former
dervish seminary, which now serves as a
museum with manuscripts of Mevlana's
works and various artefacts related to the
mysticism of the sect. The tomb of Rumi
was built on his grave in 1274 (the com-
plex is called Mevlana Museum now), fol-
lowing his death on December 17, 1273.
The conical dome of the building is cov-
ered with turquoise faience. The Mevlana
Museum is also known as the Green Mau-
soleum (for the Green Dome) and it is the
ON RUMI’S TRAIL: (From top) The mausoleum of Rumi; a performance of the original lodge of the Mevlevi Whirling
whirling dervishes, a Sufi mystical sect; the 5000-year-old Sille village on the Dervishes. However, several sections were
outskirts of Konya city. PHOTOS BY THE WRITER added to it until 1854.
love
By a decree of Turkey’s founding
father and first President Kemal Ataturk
on April 6, 1926, a year after he dissolved
all Sufi brotherhoods, the mausoleum
and the dervish lodge (Dargah) were
turned into this museum. Every Decem-
ber, a ceremony is held to commemorate
Rumi — a controlled, trance-like turning
or sema (the dance) of the white-robed
men, creating a fascinating performance
for the viewers, is held.
So if you are in Konya in December,
walk across the beautiful city, strewn
with oak leaves. All of a sudden, you
will stumble on an installation art like
monument, which marks the great
event of November 30, 1244 — the meet-
ing of Rumi with Sufi master and wan-
dering mystic Mohammad Shams al
Din of Tabriz at that place. The meeting
is called “The Union of the Two Seas”; it
had changed the course of Rumi's life.
Konya is situated on a large and level
area in the middle of the Central Anato-
lian Region of Turkey. Permanent settle-
ment in Konya began in the prehistoric
age. Thus, Konya is one of Turkey's old-
est and continuously inhabited cities. It
was known as Iconium in Roman times.
It was the capital of the Seljuk Turks in
the 12th and 13th centuries, a period of
are in Konya in winter. It repre-
sents a spiritual journey to matu-
rity and oneness with God. As the
dervishes in white robes and coni-
cal caps (sikke) spin and spin, they
elevate the audience, too, to a spir-
itual level.
During daytime in Konya, spend
some time in the Alaeddin mosque,
which served as the “Mosque of the
Throne” for the Seljuq Sultans of Rum
and contains the dynastic mausoleum.
Another lovely mosque made with cut
Godene stone is the Aziziye mosque
that you encounter while wandering
around in the city. The Turkish baroque
style mosque with twin minarets in
Rococo style in the city's business cen-
tre was rebuilt in 1874 after it was
destroyed in a fire in 1867. It has a love-
ly chandelier inside.
A visit to Konya is incomplete if you
do not visit Sille, a village with anoth-
er Rumi connection, located only 8km
north of Konya. It boasts of the Byzan-
tine era Aya Eleni church and several
rock chapels with frescoes. Till 1922,
Cappadocian Greek language was spo-
ken there, and the Greeks and the
Turks lived together peacefully for
almost 800 years, thanks to Rumi who
was witness to a miracle at the nearby
Orthodox Christian monastery of Saint
Chariton. While Rumi’s request to the
sultans to protect the Greeks of the vil-
lage was honoured through all times,
the Greeks left in 1923 during the pop-
ulation exchange between Turkey and
Greece. Walk through the village with a
nicely paved main street by a river and
beautiful houses and shops lined on
the other side.
In Konya, do not miss tasting some great
food. Try Etli Yaprak Sarma (meat stuffed in
vine leaves), okra soup (Baumya Corbasi),
the kebabs and desserts like Hosmerim Hel-
wasi or Sac Arasi.

Where past comes alive

Kalpana Bindu
Izmir is home to regal ancient structures and

F
OR tourists, Turkey generally
invokes images of blue mosque, hot
air balloons at Cappadocia, or the
white travertine terraces of
Pamukkale. Quite often, what fails to find
space on their itinerary is the province of
Izmir. On the coast of the Aegean sea, it's
home to some of the regal ancient struc-
tures and heritage of the Byzantine
Greek era even as it shares the modern
cosmopolitan culture with Europe.
As we reached Izmir, we could observe
the imprints of ancient history visible in
every lane and bylane of the city. Hidden
among the buildings and residential
complexes was a 7th century fortifica-
tion wall of the ancient Smyrna city. Juxta-
posed within the expanse of the Agean sea,
high rise buildings and mountains was an
excavation site of ancient Agora, frequent-
ed mostly by students and professors of
archeology and history.
From Bayrakli, we took a train towards
the north of Izmir to the ancient Acropolis
of Pergamon in Bergama, which was the
capital city during the Hellenistic and
Roman eras. Thereafter, a bus ride through
the rustic Turkish countryside and a short
20-minute taxi ride took us to the promon-
tory, leaving us enraptured with the
panoramic view of Bergama city below.
At the tabletop of the hill, the relics of
‘Gate of Eumenes’ exported us to the Hel-
lenistic era. The majestic and towering Tra-
janeum, a temple of Roman Emperor Tra-
jan, was the most impressive site. Thanks
to the restoration work undertaken in the
year 1976, the pillars of this Greek style
temple built during the 1st and 2nd centu-
ry BCE have been reconstructed.
heritage of the Byzantine Greek and Roman
eras. The imprints of ancient history are
visible in every lane and bylane of the city
From the edge of the hill near Traja-
neum, we saw the 10,000-seat amphithe-
atre and were intrigued by its sheer
steepness and numerous stairs. While
walking down the amphitheatre, we
decided to search for the second-largest
ancient Greek library which, according
to a legend, housed 200,000 volumes of
manuscripts, but to date the ruins have
not revealed the secret of its location.
Although our short search did not yield
any result, we hope some travelers would
discover its location in times to come.
Our last stop was the Asclepeion, a
thriving healing center of the Roman
era, established in 4th century BCE. The
site had a few intact structures, such as
the healing spring, underground pas-
sageway, remains of the temple of Ascle-
pius and a circular treatment center. Our
journey to Bergama ended on a sweet
note with a dessert called Lor, which
seemed like a holy alliance between
roshogulla and gulabjamun, suggesting
some traditional and cultural exchange
between India and Turkey.
The next morning, as we boarded a tour
bus to visit the famous Greco-Roman
Metropolis of Ephesus in the south of
Izmir, serendipity was at play again. Dur-
ing our breakfast stopover, we were
served Gözleme that turned out to be a
variant of our very own aloo ka parantha,
with an addition of cheese in the stuffing.
While entering through the south gate
of Ephesus, our tour guide informed
that despite decades of excavation, only
15 per cent of the vast Ephesus city had
been unearthed to date. Walking down
the broad boulevards of the Curetes
street, we reached the Hercules gate.
Dedicated to Greek hero Hercules, the
gate, supposedly built in the 4th centu-
ry BCE, had the reliefs depicting Hera-
cles with the skin of the Nemean lion.
To the south of the Curetes street was
the ostentatious temple of Hadrain,
dedicated to goddess Artemis and
Emperor Hadrain with its intricately
carved reliefs of Tyche, goddess of vic-
tory and snakehead Medusa.
Moving down the hill, there was a mes-
merizing view of the Library of Celsus, one
of the few remaining structures with
Greek influence on Roman architecture
and the most iconized structures of Eph-
esus. Constructed in honor of Roman Sen-
HISTORIC:
Curetes street
leading to the
Hercules Gate,
dedicated to the
legendary Greek
warrior Hercules;
and a temple of
Roman Emperor
Trajan
PHOTOS BY THE
WRITER
ator Julius Celsus, the library during its
heyday had 12,000 scrolls and was the third
richest library in ancient times.
To our utter surprise, while we were
engrossed looking at the large Greek
sculptures, our guide led us to the side wall
and showed us a small carving which
seemed like an Indian goddess with six
hands and three faces. He informed us
that this small figure was curved by
Indian merchants who had visited Eph-
esus during the Roman era.
On our way back to Bayrakali, while
we were recollecting the memories of
our visit to the two UNESCO World Her-
itage sites, we felt that the trip was too
short to understand the vastness of those
places and the greatness of the culture that
had created these cities.