Tekke of Melan

The site lies on a hill overlooking the Dropull plain south of Gjirokastër, on the east side of the valley near the small village of Vlaho Goranxi.

The courtyard is overgrown with cypress trees and includes an Ottoman shadirvan supplied with water by an aqueduct.

[1] The extensive two-story main building includes a prayer hall and adjoining rooms where the Shi’a-influenced Bektashi dervishes pray, study, meditate, and listen to the babas’ sermons.

The remains of a small medieval church can be found here, and a Christian monastery is said to have predated the tekke.

[2] The area was declared a cultural heritage site in 1963,[4] but would be closed and partially destroyed during an anti-religious campaign mounted by dictator Enver Hoxha of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania in the late 1960s, an emulation of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.