Turkey 2008 - April 20 - Guzelyurt to Konya

At 9:00 this morning, we meandered through the village of Guzelyurt from our hotel to an ancient mosque called St Gregory. The mosque was a church at one time and it was here that the Gregorian chants originated. The purpose of our visit was to have a Q&A session with the mosque's Imam. I expected to see an old bearded cleric with long robes and a Muslim cap. Instead, we were greeted by a clean-shaven young man in Western dress. We had a fascinating discussion with him about Islam, the Koran, suicide bombers and many other things. He answered all of our questions. We learned many things. Imams are employed by the government. They can marry and have children. Turkish Islam is very different from Islam other countries. Killing is the worst thing that a Muslim can do. Etc....

Here We Are with the Imam

After our visit, we got onto the bus and started driving to Konya. Lunch was at a truck stop where they had very decent meals. Our next stop was at an old Silk Caravanserai - one of the largest and best-preserved ones in Turkey. It has a large courtyard which was used for summer lodging and several rooms around the courtyard that were used in the winter.

The Caravanserai and its Courtyard

We drove on to Konya where we stopped at a museum complex associated with Mevlana, known in the West as Rumi, the spiritual father of the Whirling Dervishes. We did not see a dervish demonstration, but we did see a lot of old tombs and Korans.

 

Part of the Museum Complex

We reached our hotel at 5:30. This gave us time to look at our emails and publish our blogs for the last few days. Our hotel is well-appointed with hot and cold water, air conditioning (it is warming up) and wireless internet. Dinner was at 7:00. We had the traditional salad of chopped tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, semi-hot peppers and parsley. Our soup was mushroom and our main course was grilled chicken with French fries and rice. Dessert was either a dark pound cake with a honey filler or rice pudding.

After dinner, we took a short walk around a park near our hotel.