Step out of the Mevlana Museum onto the avenue and the first thing to greet you is the Türbeönü Bazaars rising in the square (the former Mevlana and Altın bazaars), brought to the area through urban renewal. Leave this transitional zone of modern and traditional behind you step by step and the historic Bedesten Bazaar suddenly opens up before you, with its crowds of thousands of years and its living spirit. Reaching from the Seljuks to the Ottomans and on to the present day, these labyrinthine streets are the centre not only of trade but of Konya's Ahi culture, of the ethics of the tradesman and of the rhythm of daily life.
Although one tends to imagine a single surviving building, the original bedesten of 1538 has in fact been demolished — yet the name "Bedesten" and the fabric of the bazaar have gone on living for centuries.
Two Thousand Years of History and a Story of Transformation
The Bedesten district's past as a centre of trade reaches back to the Roman period. This point, where the city's main axes cross, kept its commercial vitality in the Seljuk period under the name Çarşı-yı Kebir (the Great Bazaar).
The bazaar took on the institutional identity of a "bedesten" in 1538, in the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, with the nine-unit bedesten built by the military judge Mevlâna Kadri Çelebi (the foundation of Mustafa Pasha of Muğla). Although this building was pulled down in 1898, the streets, hans and small mosques around it have carried the name "Bedesten" down to today as a spirit and a tradition.
Renewed many times after fires through its history, the bazaar suffered its greatest rupture in the great Konya bazaar fire of 1867. After that disaster, in which landmarks such as the Kapu Mosque and the Aziziye Mosque were also badly damaged, the bazaar was rebuilt on a grid plan in the Ottoman architectural thinking of the day — one of the first planned bazaar layouts in the Ottoman Empire.
Physical Fabric and Its Character as an Open-Air Museum
Spread over roughly 100,000 m², the bazaar has all the features of a classical Ottoman city bazaar:
- 7 main avenues and the 40 streets and dead ends joining them
- More than 2,600 shops (2,687 in official records)
- A shopping and living area closed to vehicles and entirely given over to pedestrians
The whole bazaar is registered as a Historic City Centre Conservation Area. This is not a place of shops alone: its registered civil and religious buildings form something close to an open-air museum.
- Kapu Mosque (İhyaiyye Mosque): built in 1658 by Pir Hüseyin Çelebi under the name "İhyaiyye", rebuilt after the 1867 fire by Tursunoğlu Ahi Mustafa Efendi, and known as the "Kapu (Gate) Mosque" because of its closeness to the old castle gate — the landmark at the western end of the bazaar.
- Aziziye Mosque: the monumental building at the eastern end. Rebuilt with the support of Pertevniyal Valide Sultan, mother of Sultan Abdülaziz, the mosque is the most magnificent reflection of the Baroque and Empire styles in Ottoman architecture. With its immense windows and its columned minaret balconies recalling Indo-Islamic architecture, it is a visual feast.
- Historic buildings: the Bulgur Dede Mosque, the Mecidiye Han, the Ahmet Efendi Baths and the Nakip Hacı İbrahim Han.
The Trades: The Living Legacy of the Ahi Brotherhood
As a reflection of the Ahi tradition in Anatolia, tradesmen of the same branch are lined up side by side in the Bedesten. This arrangement lets them keep an eye on one another, maintain quality and work in solidarity:
- Jewellers and money changers: concentrated along the bazaar's main avenue.
- Drapers and saddlers: traditional cloth, fabrics and ready-made clothing.
- Herbalists and spice sellers: streets where century-old scents mingle.
- Shoemakers, haberdashers and coppersmiths: traditional crafts distilled from history.
- Coffee houses, tea stalls and tradesmen's restaurants: the address for fırın kebabı, etliekmek, tirit and the traditional butter loaf.
Waves of Urban Renewal and Modernisation
Under the Mevlana Culture Valley Project carried out by the Konya Metropolitan Municipality, the Bedesten Bazaar was the site in 2012–2013 of one of the largest restoration projects ever undertaken anywhere in a single sweep.
The façades of close to 2,700 shops were returned to their original timber and stone fabric, and sign clutter and cabling were taken into the infrastructure. That tradesmen began ordering their tea after the restoration through internet-based systems rather than the noise of an intercom is a charming example of traditional fabric meeting modern infrastructure.
In addition, the Mevlana Bazaar (89 shops) and the Altın Bazaar (139 shops, offices and cafés), created under the Türbe Önü Urban Renewal Project in the area neighbouring the Mevlana Mausoleum, today serve under the name "Türbeönü Bazaars" as gateways continuing the Bedesten.
The Guide's Route Note
The ideal walking route we suggest from experience in the field: Mevlana Museum → Türbeönü Bazaars → Aziziye Mosque → Bedesten Bazaar (the Kapu Mosque axis).
The best time to walk the bazaar is the morning. Entering as the shutters go up and the traditional prayer for the first sale of the day is spoken offers a remarkable chance to observe the living Ahi culture. Buy a small gift from a tradesman and drink a restoring coffee at one of the century-old tea stalls, and you will have felt the true heart of Konya.