Whirling Through Konya

Hello all,
The Turkey-Germany game just ended; looks like the Turks won't take Vienna after all. Close game, but this time the last minute shot wasn't Turkey's: final score, 3-2 on a 90th minute Germany goal. Turkey played remarkably well for having 8 or so players out due to penalties and injuries. Still, I'm in a bit of a down mood as you might imagine. But the blog must go on.
Our day in Konya was a blur of mosques that spanned almost the entire history of Islamic Anatolia. We started with this elegant 17th century Ottoman mosque:

From the night before.
It was built by Murad IV, one of the only sultans after Suleiman the Magnificent whose reign did not continue the empire's downward trajectory. It's kind of a balance between the classical, Sinan
style of the 16th century and the more European, baroque style of the 19th:

Absolutely beautiful as you can tell.
From there we went to Konya's second most significant religious site, the tomb of Şems. Şems was the teacher of Rumi, or Mevlana, the founder of Sufism; Rumi's tomb is probably the thing for which Konya is best known today. But before we visited Rumi, we saw his teacher. It's a site of significant devotion for Muslims; one woman we saw screamed 'Allah!' and went into some kind of convulsions, though apparently this is frowned upon in Sufism.
After Şems' tomb, we went back in time a little more to visit another mosque, Alaeddin Camii, built in the mid-12th century. In the 11th century, a group of Turkish nomads from Central Asia moved to the Middle East, where they came to dominate the politics of the Abassid Caliphate. This Turkish dynasty, known as the Seljuks, also fell after some time, dividing into several different groups. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum (the Turkish term for 'Rome' or Byzantium) established itself in Asia Minor, with its capital at Konya. That's why Konya has such a rich Seljuk heritage. Alaeddin Mosque is the most prominent example of this; it's set up in a really bizarre way, but has a breathtaking mithrab:
This color of tile (sometimes it looks awfully like UNC blue) was unique to the Seljuk period, and you see it often in Konya.
We continued with the Seljuks, next visiting Ince Minaret Medrese; a medrese is a religious school and this one is named so because of its thin (ince) minaret, most of which was destroyed by lightening in the 20th century:
It's now used as a museum of Seljuk and Ottoman wood and stonework. The most incredible part is the facade, on which is written the entire first chapter of the Koran in beautiful Arabic script:
After a quick lunch, we went to the main attraction: Rumi's tomb. Rumi was something of a mystic, and not in the sense that we use it (i.e. a sketchy Turk). He lived in the 13th century and preached a message of religious universalism; today, he is the best-selling poet in America. His tomb is a place of pilgrimage for Muslims across the world, but especially Turks, who visit by the millions every year. Its famous for its distinctive blue-green tiles:
You can't take pictures inside the mausoleum itself (which contains Rumi, members of his family, and members of the royal Seljuk family as well), but it was beautiful. More significant was the remarkable 'devotional energy' (as William would call it); really powerful.
We finished up with another mosque, from the 19th century, very European in style. It was a really interesting contrast with everything we'd seen up to that point. After a huge Turkish dinner, we went back to bed early to get ready for our trip to the village. It's about 1AM here now, so I'm gonna go to bed; stay tuned for the village post! Thanks for reading, talk to you soon