Alâeddin Mosque

Start with the ground under your feet. You are standing on a hill, but not a natural one. This rise in the middle of Konya is an ancient settlement mound, built up over thousands of years. Layer after layer of homes, walls and lives were laid down here, one on top of another. Today the slope is a shaded park. You may hear the clink of tea glasses from the gardens nearby, pigeons on the paths, and traffic circling far below.

At the top sits the Alâeddin Mosque. From the outside it can look plain, even severe. Long walls of pale stone run along the crest of the hill. There is no soaring dome to announce it from across the city. This building does not try to impress you from a distance. It asks you to come closer, step inside, and let your eyes adjust to the quieter light.

To understand why this mosque stands here, picture Konya as a capital. From the late eleventh century into the thirteenth, the city was the seat of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum. The Seljuks were a Turkish dynasty from Central Asia. One branch built a state across much of Anatolia, the land that is now central Turkey. They chose this hill as their royal centre. The palace stood here, and so did the mosque that served the court.

The building did not appear all at once. Work began in the twelfth century and continued under several rulers. It reached its finished form in the early thirteenth century, under Sultan Alâeddin Keykubad the First. His name is the one the mosque carries today. He is remembered as one of the strongest Seljuk sultans. During his reign, trade, building and learning across Anatolia grew strongly. So the name honours the ruler who completed the mosque, not the one who started it.

Now step inside, and here is the first surprise. The prayer hall is not one open space under a single dome. Instead, it is a forest of columns. Rows of stone pillars carry a flat wooden roof. Architects call this a hypostyle hall, a hall held up by many columns. It is an older style of mosque design, common in the early Islamic world. Walk slowly between the rows. The view changes with every step, like walking through a grove of trees.

Look carefully at those columns, because they do not match. Some are thicker, some thinner. The capitals at the top, the carved stone blocks where column meets roof, come in different styles. Many of them are older than the mosque itself. They were taken from Roman and Byzantine buildings in the region and reused here. Long before the Seljuks arrived, this city was known as Iconium. Those ancient stones now hold up a Seljuk roof.

Turn toward the qibla wall, the wall that faces Mecca. In its centre is the mihrab, a niche that shows the direction of prayer. Here the plain stone gives way to colour. The mihrab and the area around it are covered with tile mosaic in deep turquoise and dark tones. The Seljuks of Anatolia were skilled with this kind of glazed tilework. After the grey and beige of the columns, the blue feels almost bright. It pulls the eye to the most important point in the room.

Beside the mihrab stands the second surprise, and perhaps the greatest treasure here. It is the minbar, the stepped pulpit from which the Friday sermon is given. It is made of wood, carved with fine geometric patterns that fit together without nails. The minbar is dated to the mid-twelfth century. That makes it one of the oldest dated pieces of Seljuk woodwork to survive. It is older than much of the building around it.

Take a moment to stand close to it, as near as the space allows. Think about what this wood has seen. It has stood through the height of the sultanate, the Mongol invasions, and the slow fading of Seljuk power. It saw the rise of the Ottomans, and the centuries of the modern city. Sermons have been spoken from these steps for a very long time. The carving still shows the patient skill of a craftsman whose world has almost vanished.

Back outside, look for the courtyard and the tomb structures within it. These are türbes, the domed or cone-roofed tombs that Seljuk rulers built for their dynasty. Several Seljuk sultans are buried here, on the hill they once ruled from. Their graves sit beside the mosque where their court once prayed. It is a reminder that this was never only a place of worship. It was the heart of a royal compound, where power, faith and memory met.

As you walk around the hill, look out for a modern shelter on one slope. Beneath it are the remains of part of the Seljuk palace. Only fragments survive, but they help you imagine the scale of the old court. In its day, this hilltop would have held halls and gardens. Officials, soldiers and visitors from distant lands would have passed through. The quiet park you see now was once the political centre of an empire.

This was also the city of Rumi, the Persian poet and mystic. Many people know him for his poems of love and longing. He lived and taught in Konya during the Seljuk era, under the patronage of this court. His shrine, the Mevlana complex, stands not far away across the city. It is easy to imagine that the scholars and poets of his circle knew this mosque well. They would have climbed this same hill.

Before you leave, stand at the edge of the hilltop and look out over Konya. Wide modern avenues spread outward toward the plain. The city has grown far beyond anything the Seljuks knew. Yet the old centre is still right here, beneath your feet. Listen once more to the tea glasses and the birds. Then, as you walk down the slope, remember the columns inside. Each one came from somewhere else... and each one still holds up the roof.