Mural Paintings and Suburban Landscape Around the Shrine of Jalal al-Din Rumi and Mevlevi Lodges in the Fifteenth Century

Depicting gardens and landscapes in architecture is a long-standing tradition in Islamic art, and art historians have studied Ilkhanid, Timurid, and Mamluk examples. In this presentation, I will interpret a series of mural paintings with landscape scenes from Mevlevi shrines and lodges – a Sufi order founded in Konya after the Persian poet and Sufi shaykh Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273). First, these complexes were built away from bustling urban centers and surrounded by green and lush landscapes. I will examine how the choice of site played into Mevlevis' self-representation in their hagiographies, discussing that the Mevlevis wanted to live in the peripheries of cities for seclusion with the aim of staying away from mainstream social groups that they considered “immature souls” (ham ervah).

Secondly, by studying Mevlevi hagiographies and the depictions of sema scenes in manuscript paintings, I will discuss how nature and gardens played a role in Mevlevis’ social and ritual praxis. I aim to demonstrate that Mevlevis often went out to suburban gardens, and the whirling ritual of sema accompanied by musical instruments and reciting of Mathnawi took place in these gardens. The endowment documents of the shrines and their account books also show that the annual revenue of such orchards and gardens provided funds for the upkeep of the shrines and the payment of their officials. I will discuss that with painted garden and landscape scenes, green trees and blossoming flowers are brought from the exterior to the interior of the shrines, creating an evergreen and lush garden context.