CHAPTER VIII IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE CRUSADERS Nations melt From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt BYRON "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," Canto IV, 12. Aside from the interest which attaches to it as the northwestern terminus of the Bagdad Railway, Konia, the ancient Iconium, like so many other places in Anatolia, is extremely rich in legendary and historic lore. According to a local myth it was the first spot to emerge from the waters of the Deluge. It is mentioned in the legend of Perseus and the Gorgons. A local legend has it that the name was derived from the Greek word eikon-figure or image-referring to the mud figures, which, when breathed upon by the wind, were converted into living men and women. This is evidently a variant of the old myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha. It was doubtless this pride in their great antiquity and a belief that Phrygian was the primitive language of our race that led the inhabitants of Iconium to claim a Phrygian origin. That Phrygian was really the oldest language they had no doubt. For, it was averred, the Egyptian King, Psametik, had conclusively proved this by showing that "infants brought up out of hearing of human speech spoke the Phrygian language." The Ten Thousand Greeks, in the army of Cyrus, halted here on their famous expedition to southern Mesopotamia. Cicero reviewed his troops here when he was proconsul of Cilicia. It was one of the important missionary centers of the early evangelizing activity of St. Paul. It was to this city that, accompanied by Barnabas, he directed his steps after he had been expelled by the Jews from Antioch. In Roman times Iconium stood at the intersection of several important highways and was designated by Pliny urbs celeberrima-a most celebrated city. According to a venerable tradition, Iconium had for its first bishop Sosipatros, one of the seventy-two disciples, who was succeeded in the episcopal chair by Terentius, likewise one of this chosen body of disciples. Equally noteworthy is the fact that Iconium was the birthplace of St. Thecla, who is said to have been converted to Christianity by the Apostle St. Paul. She is the heroine of the Acta Pauli et Thecla. From the earliest ages of the Church she was greatly venerated in Asia Minor, where she was known as the "Apostle and Proto-martyr among Women." In the Greek Church her feast is celebrated on the twenty-fourth of September under the title of "Proto-martyr among Women and the Equal of the Apostles." And here, according to a venerable tradition on which oriental geographers set much store, is the tomb of "Plato the Divine," who, under the name of Eflat, is revered by the local population as a thaumaturgus. The origin of this singular tradition in this part of Anatolia-so distant from the real burying place of the immortal philosopher-is one of the curiosities of Ottoman folklore.1 2 During two centuries-from 1099 to 1307-Iconium was the capital of the Seljuk Sultans of Rum and is still regarded as one of the holy places of Islam. Many of its sultans were patrons of art and literature, and, during the zenith of its splendor, this Seljukian metropolis could boast of nearly as many colleges and students as Bagdad-the far-famed capital of the Abbasside Caliphate. Its present chiefest title to fame is the tomb of the noted Jelal-ed-din-Rumi, usually known as Mevlana. He was famed for knowledge and wisdom and was the founder of 1 For an interesting article on this subject, see "Plato in the Folk-lore of the Konia Plain," by F. W. Hasluck, in the Annual of the British School of Athens, No. XVIII. 2 Called Rum-Rome-because it was, before its conquest by the Seljuks, a portion of the Roman-Byzantine Empire. the Dancing Dervishes and the author of the "Mesnevi," a celebrated poem in Persian verse, in which is instilled the Sufi system of pantheism. His successors, as heads of the Dancing Dervishes, have their residence in Iconium and theirs is the right and the privilege to gird each Ottoman Sultan, on his accession to the throne, with the historic sword of Osman This imposing function, which is performed in the Mosque of Eyub in Stamboul, has been likened to the coronation by the Pope of the Holy Roman Emperor. By those who know them best the better class of Dancing, or, more properly, the Whirling Dervishes, are described as being a very tolerant and large-minded people. Thus it is said that "in the dangerous period in the winter of 18951896, when religious and national feeling ran high in Turkey, it was mainly owing to the Mevlevis that the softas of Konia were prevented from attacking the Christian population of the town." But the orthodox Moslems, as represented by the softas and mollahs, do not regard with sympathy the peculiar ceremonial practices of the various orders of dervishes, especially their use of incense, music, and lighted candles in public worship. To the strict followers of the Koran the characteristic forms of worship of the Mevlevis and Rufais, more commonly known as the Dancing and Howling Dervishes, are as distasteful as are the ritualistic services of certain modern Anglicans to the conservative members of the Church of England. As to the esoteric doctrines of the dervishes, especially those based on the Mesnevi, they are declared by the doctors of Islam to be quite irreconcilable with both the Koran and the Hadith-the accepted traditions of Mohammedanism. It must be said that the bizarre performances of the Dancing and Howling Dervishes-performances which are resorted to as a means of detaching the minds of the devotees from all things earthly and attaining a state of spiritual ecstasy-are to the casual 3 See Turkey in Europe, p. 185 (by C. Eliot, London, 1908). spectator but little different in kind from certain revivals of our southern negroes. The solemn dervishes, however, exhibit far more dignity and reverence in their devotions than do the excitable and noisy Africans in their campmeetings and revivalistic gatherings. Surrounded by a barren and desolate country, Konia, when seen from afar, looks like an oasis in the desert. It is situated on an elevated plateau well-watered by mountain streams and blessed with a salubrious climate. It was these attractive features that led the Seljukian Turks to choose it for their capital. Its luxuriant gardens and orchards have long been famous and add much to the city's picturesqueness-especially when viewed from a distance. For when one enters the old Seljukian capital there is little to attract attention except a few mosques. Of the old Greek city practically nothing remains aside from the fragments of friezes, cornices, bas-reliefs, and ancient inscriptions which are found in the walls which surround the erstwhile Seljukian capital. Here, as in so many other places in Anatolia, the Turks, when requiring material for their mosques and palaces, converted the imposing temples of the Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines into quarries for stone, and lime. As in Nicæa, a great part of the space within the walls of Konia is covered with crumbling ruins overgrown with weeds and bushes. The poet must have had such a scene in his mind's eye when he penned the lines: There a temple in ruin stands Two or three columns and many a stone, Of the things to come than the things before. Modern Konia, a good part of which lies outside of the walls of the Seljuk capital of the thirteenth century, is composed of one-story buildings, constructed chiefly of wood and sun-dried bricks. But amid all the squalor and decay that distinguishes this historic city there are several mosques and medresses-colleges-which will well repay careful inspection. Among the buildings deserving particular attention is the splendid tekke of the Dancing Dervishes, in which is the tomb of Hazret Mevlana, the founder of this peculiar order. It is popularly known as the "Blue Mosque" from the exquisite sapphire and turquoise blue tiles which until recently covered the cupola that rises above the great turbeh of the founder. There is nothing in Brusa, Stamboul, or Cairo that can surpass its rich and delicate traceries and arabesques, its profusion of jeweled lamps, its wealth, precious tapestries, wondrous faïence, its magic glories of color from the looms and kilns of Persia and India. But over and above all this wealth of ornamentation there is a religious atmosphere that does not exist in the ordinary mosque. For the dervishes, unlike the orthodox Moslems, make a special appeal to the emotions of their followers, and hence their widespread influence and popularity throughout the Mohammedan world. There is, however, no attempt made here to affect the emotions through any of the plastic or pictorial arts. In this respect the Blue Mosque, like every other mosque in Islam, is absolutely devoid of paintings and statues. The reason is that Moslem law proscribes all representations of the human form, either in painting or statuary, as impious, because they are regarded "as encouragements to idolatry and as profanations of God's chief handiwork."4 According to one of the traditional sayings of Mohammed, "Whoever draws a picture will at the day of resurrection be punished by being ordered to blow a spirit into it; and this he can never do; and so he will be punished as long as God wills." Nor does the Prophet leave any doubt as to the nature of the punishment, for he declares explicitly, In the Koran, Sura V, it is written, "O believers! surely wine and games of chance and statues, and divining arrows are an abomination of Satan's work! Avoid them that ye may prosper." |