KONYA, Turkey — “Come,” Mawlana Jalal-ud-din Rumi says in his famous verse. “Come, even if you broke your penitence a hundred times/ Ours is the portal of hope/ Come as you are.” This invitation from the 13th century continues to lure millions of Turks and foreigners to Rumi’s shrine in Konya, a city in central Anatolia.
The mausoleum with its famous Green Dome covering the Sufi philosopher’s sarcophagus remains one of Turkey’s most-visited museums, with Chinese and Taiwanese visitors leading the list. In 2018, the number of visitors to the shrine jumped 13.5% from the year before, breaking its record by welcoming more than 2.8 million visitors, according to the Anatolia News Agency.