These are the stories you can open in the 3D view, each at its own numbered point on the model.
1A dervish lodge on the square
These white buildings are the tekke of Zeynel Abidin Pasha, a lodge of the Halveti order of dervishes, with its own mosque. Its founder also appears in the records as Aliağazade Zeynelâbidin. The complex once included a public kitchen, the imaret, and a school, the madrasa. Today the mosque, the lodge, the tomb and a seven-sided fountain remain, and the tekke is still in use.
Halveti, or Khalwati, is one of the Sufi orders of Islam. Its name comes from khalwa, a spiritual retreat in seclusion. Its lodges spread widely across the Ottoman lands, the Balkans included. In a tekke like this one, the dervishes gathered around their sheikh for prayer and for the remembrance of God, the zikr.
The main hall is both the mosque and the semahane, the hall where the dervishes held their ceremonies. Look at the roof: a raised central storey with small windows of its own sits above the main roof. Tall arched windows behind green iron grilles line the walls, and the door is painted green. According to one study, the interior was redone in the 19th century.
The sources do not agree. One study dates the walls and the minaret to the late 17th century and records endowment deeds for the tekke in registers of 1721 and 1784. Another source dates the mosque to the first half of the 17th century. So the safe answer is the 17th century. The long, low range beside the hall is the lodge itself.
Walls and minaret: late 17th c. (one study)
Mosque: first half of the 17th c. (another source)
Beside the hall stand the tomb, the türbe, and a small burial ground with turbaned headstones behind an iron railing. One source says the tomb holds Hayati Mehmed, the first Halveti sheikh in Ohrid; we could not confirm this in a second source. This is a place of prayer and of remembrance of the dead, so please keep your voice low here.
The minaret is slim, white and many-sided, with one balcony and a dark conical cap. It rises from a base of rough stone set against the wall of the hall. We estimate its height at 20 to 25 metres; we found no measured figure. From the square you see it above the roofs, next to the crown of the Činar.
In the courtyard stands a seven-sided fountain, one of the parts of the old complex that remain. The imaret and the madrasa are gone. An imaret was a public kitchen that served food to the poor and to travellers; a madrasa was a school. Together with the mosque and the lodge, they made the tekke a small centre of the town's life.
The tekke is an active place of worship and there is no ticket. Visit outside prayer times, dress modestly, and take off your shoes if you go inside; women may be asked to cover their hair. The Činar, the old plane tree on the same square, and the bazaar street that runs down to the lake have their own places in this guide.
.jpg){kind=link}