Mevlevi tekke in Sarajevo, Sufi lodge in Stari Grad, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Mevlevi tekke is a Sufi lodge on the Miljacka riverbank at Bentbaša in Sarajevo. The original 1462 complex, rebuilt in 2013 below the Yellow Bastion, follows the layout described by Evliya Çelebi in 1659: a semahane for rituals, a meydan room, 70–80 dervish cells, a musicians' gallery and a kitchen.
Isa-beg Ishaković built the tekke in 1462 on the Miljacka at Bentbaša, before the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia; his vakufnama of that year is Sarajevo's oldest document. The 1697 raid of Eugene of Savoy destroyed it, and it was rebuilt in 1781/82 under valija Vedžihi-paša. Demolished in 1957, it was replaced in 2013 by the Balkan Mevlevi Research Centre in Kovači.
The neighbourhood that grew around the lodge, from Bentbaša to Baščaršija, was called the mahala of Isa-beg's zavija; after the Čekrekčija mosque was built there in 1526, it became Čekrekčija's mahala. The 17th-century traveller Evliya Çelebi recorded a semahane, a musicians' gallery and 70–80 rooms for the poor, and named the lodge's calligrapher, dervish Mustafa.
The site sits near the Miljacka River and is easy to reach on foot from the old town. Visit outside prayer times if you want to explore the rooms and gardens at a comfortable pace.
The tekke was demolished in 1957 despite public objections, and a petrol station later occupied its site on Bentbaša. A new Mevlevi tekke, the Balkan Mevlevi Research Centre, was built in 2013 in the Kovači neighbourhood, modelled on the Isa-beg tekke.
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