Yunus Emre Cami

Yunus Emre Camii carries one of the most beloved names in the whole Turkish-speaking Islamic tradition: that of Yunus Emre (c. 1238–1320), the wandering dervish and poet whose verses in the Anatolian Turkish of the early medieval period shaped the spiritual imagination of the region for the next seven centuries. Yunus Emre's poems, with their disarming simplicity and their great depth of love for God and for all creation, are learned by schoolchildren across Turkey and are recited with affection at every kind of gathering from literary evenings to funerals. To name a mosque after him is therefore to invite into the congregation the gentle, open-hearted tone of his Islam — warm, inward, and without pretension. The Ankara mosque that bears his name is a dignified neighbourhood structure with a single minaret, a central dome, and a courtyard planted with shade trees. Inside, the prayer hall is carpeted in the familiar Turkish pattern, the mihrab is finished in restrained Kütahya tilework, and the walls carry calligraphic panels which sometimes include verses from Yunus Emre himself alongside Qur'anic inscriptions. The imam's recitation is considered, and his Friday sermons often return to the themes that run through Yunus Emre's poetry: humility, the love of God, the care of the neighbour, and the recognition that the greatest of all journeys is the inward one. Women pray in an upper gallery, and children attend Qur'an classes in the annex. Ablution facilities are clean and well-maintained. During Ramadan the mosque runs a full programme of tarawih and community iftars. A framed calligraphic panel in the mosque's entrance hall carries the most famous of Yunus Emre's lines — 'I came not to wrangle but to love, the beloved's home is hearts' — rendered in exquisite ta'liq script, and more than one visitor has been seen standing before it for a long moment before removing their shoes and entering the prayer hall. For any Muslim visitor to central Ankara with a feeling for the poetic dimension of Anatolian Islam, Yunus Emre Camii is a particularly fitting place to pause and pray.