43° 15′ N 17° 54′ E
The footprints lead only to the waterline,
But after entering the sea there are no traces, no impressions. [Rumi]

Maybe it’s all just a matter of scale. You can sense more God in the scarcely-lit rooms of Luis Baragan’s house than in the five separate naves of Mexico city’s Cathedral combined. Such places, however, you will certainly not find listed in the current nominations for the New 7 Wonders of the World.

Blagaj is a small town just 20 km from Mostar, Bosnia. Just as in a fairytale, at the end of the road you will reach a river spring under a huge rock. Which reveals a beautiful dervish tekke.
The Tekija (Tekke) was built in the 16th century during the reign of Mostar Mufti Ziyauddin-Ahmed ibni Mustafa. Over the past centuries, many stones have fallen from the 200m cliff (incredibly, hurting no one) and many conquerors have passed through, leaving it, on its sacred site, essentially untouched. Thinking of the day when the founder of the Tekke first saw this place, I wonder if he was thrilled the same way we are today, with the silent power of tons of rock rising above a never-ending, timeless flow of green, ice-cold water? The ancient dervish may have known the road ends there, but in fact the way merely begins.
At the entrance to the complex is a tiny kitchen. Tea and coffee are served, nobody complains. The setting is perfect: colourful, low-pixeled patterns of Bosnian kilims remind me of 80’s arcade computer games like Space Invaders and Scramble. Shedding your shoes you’re free to explore the entire house. Upstairs are rooms where the former occupants held meetings, as well as spaces for various religious rites. The Dervish order of this particular Tekke is called Halveti(s) (halvet arab.– to be isolated, to live in solitary).

The most impressive part of the Tekke is a room with a star-like perforated dome. Here a dervish is expected to stay for 40 days in total isolation from the outside world, devoted exclusively to prayer and contemplation. The dervish concept of living religion is inaccurately described as a form of mysticism. Somehow it seems natural they’re not a loud people drawing attention to themselves; and it’s difficult to meet real dervish. “Oh, yes, there are dervishes, but you have to find them” smiles the young, short-bearded guy secretly while pouring me tea.

Except for a very few visitors, the entire building is – perhaps predictably – empty. And in that moment of my own isolation – which lasts for but a minute or two, I let the atmosphere simply wash over me; I looked at the shadows cast by the wooden window grids, I listen to the distant gurgle of the river, took in the familiar musk scent of the incense; and I imagine Halvetis swaying easily in some kind of trance, whispering monotonously “Hu, Hu, Hu…”.
And I realise – again – one needn’t be religious for such a place to evoke in us a very primal sense of self-awareness; a place far from the shamelessly packaged spiritualism of contemporary life – at the end of the road, by a river.
Author: Emir Jelkič
Photos: Simon Plestenjak