Turkey’s equivalent of the ‘Bible Belt’, conservative Konya treads a delicate path between its historical significance as the home town of the whirling dervish orders and a bastion of Seljuk culture on the one hand, and its modern importance as an economic boom town on the other.
Luckily the city derives considerable charm from this juxtaposition of old and new. Ancient mosques and the mazey market district, awash with Eastern smells, eager shopkeepers and Muslim pilgrims, rub up against contemporary Konya around Alaaddin Tepesi, where hip-looking university students talk religion and politics freely in the tea gardens.
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