Description of the attraction
The famous Mevleve Tekke Museum is located in the Turkish part of Nicosia, near the Kyrenia Gate. This place has a relatively small size and is completely different from all other museums in Cyprus. The building itself was built at the end of the 16th century by order of the Governor-General Arap Ahmet Pasha after the Ottomans seized Cyprus. He, like the commander of the Turkish army Lala Mustafa Pasha, belonged to the Mevlevi sect.
The Mevlevi, or the Order of Dancing Dervishes, who were followers of Sufism, a fairly popular trend in Islamic philosophy, was founded by the mystic poet Jalaladdin Rumi. It was for their ritual dances - sema - that they began to be called "whirling dervishes": to the sounds of a tambourine and a flute, they began to whirl until they fell into a state of exaltation, believing that in this way they achieve union with God.
The order was very influential, and the monastery owned a large territory: in addition to housing for permanent residents, auxiliary premises and a large garden, there were also guest rooms. However, in 1925, Ataturk officially banned Sufism, and at the same time dispersed the order, and the inhabitants of the Mevlevi monastery had to leave it. The building was turned into an orphanage for children, then several exhibitions were opened there.
Only in 2002, after a major overhaul, an ethnographic museum was created in this room, which consists of only a few rooms. On the ground floor there is an exposition, which contains household items used by dervishes, poems by the founder of the Rumi sect, musical instruments and paintings. There is also a large room where the sacred dances of the dervishes were held. A passage opens next to it, leading to 16 tombs of sheikhs.
