Mevlevi Hane

Overview

Mevlevi Hane is a former dervish Muslim monastery from the Early Middle Ages, located in the architectural reserve of the Old Town on the slope of Jambaz Tepe in Plovdiv.

Mevlevi Hane is located in the Old Town of Plovdiv and is the only dervish monastery of this type that was Muslim. He belonged to the Persian religious community of the Order of the Dancing Dervishes, or Mavlevi. There used to be a Christian temple on this place, which is connected to the eastern fortress wall of the city in front of the northern slope of Jambaz Tepe. It is believed that it was destroyed in 1410 during the fighting in the Ottoman state.

In the past, the monastery complex included a prayer house-mosque, a hall for ritual dances of dervishes and residential buildings. Later, the monastery was abandoned and only the ritual dance hall survived.

North of the building of Mevlevi hane are discovered part of the fortress wall of the ancient city on the inside with adjacent rooms with different functions. Now the finds are exhibited in an underground hall, arranged under the courtyard of the monastery complex.

It is believed that the Mevlevi Order died around the beginning of the twentieth century and probably operated in these places for about a hundred years. Today, the building functions as an Oriental-Persian-style complex named Puldin. The complex was opened on September 4, 1974.

According to the descriptions, in the middle the ceiling was decorated with a carving sun. The main building was approximately square in shape, measuring 14 by 16 m. Inside there was a hall formed by eight oak columns, bearing a ceiling with wooden paneling. Historians claim that there was a retreat with a plastered chalk inscribed with garlands and eight medallions with quotations from the Qur'an. The tekke of the dancing dervishes of Jalaleddin Rumi "Mevlevi hane" is well preserved.

The exterior architecture of the building is modest, but the interior, rich in carvings and frescoes, shows extravagance. The execution of the details in the decoration testifies to the skills of the Bulgarian master builders from the Renaissance era, as well as to the influence they exerted with their art even in the Ottoman cult buildings.