Until I read 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in thei Strange World I wasn’t a fan of Elif Safak’s writing. I found her early novels (The Bastard of Istanbul and The Flea Palace) disjointed and in the case of the latter, more like a collection of vignettes than a work of narrative fiction. However since reading…
Everyone hopes their children and grandchildren go on to bigger and better things, but it’s unlikely Orhan Veli Kanik’s grandfathers expected their grandson would become a poet. They were both traders and yet they were exactly the people Veli had in mind when he created a new style of Turkish poetry directed at the people….
When Atatürk uttered the words “Ne mutlu Türküm diyene!” meaning “How happy is the one who calls themselves a Turk!” to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Turkish Republic in 1933, he wanted to promote unity. Although the majority of Turks are and have always been Sunni Muslims, they can also be Alevi, Bektaşi or…
With a few notable exceptions such as Orhan Pamuk and Elif Şafak, many portrayals of Turkey and particularly the life of women here are projected through the lens of Western perceptions of the Middle East – dangerous, mono-cultural, male-dominated and archaic. However Turkey is not an Arabic country, and Turkish people are extremely diverse. They…
I love Islamic architecture and have been in more mosques than I can count. However after travelling in Istanbul and Turkey for a month with my Dad, in 2007, I was mosqued out. Dad was fascinated by them and big or small, famous or completely unknown, he wanted to see inside every one we passed….
Anyone who’s ever visited Istanbul, even for the shortest time, will have seen a kedi (Turkish for cat) or two (hundred). It’s no surprise really, as love for cats in Turkey goes all the way back to the life and times of the Prophet Muhammed, peace be upon him. Muhammed was raised by his uncle…
If you’ve ever walked along the waterfront from Üsküdar to Salacak, you’re likely to have passed the number 1453 in big bright red letters. It commemorates the Fall of Constantinople because that was the year Mehmet II laid siege to the city now known as Istanbul. Constantinople was founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine I…
Anyone who follows my website knows I’m a Kadıköy girl. It was the first district where I lived in Istanbul, and other than a brief six month foray on the other side, Kadıköy has always been my home in Istanbul. So it was exciting to learn that Ataturk Youth and Sports Day, commemorated every May…
The word miraç in Arabic translates as ladder, to go up or rise. Muslims believe that on the night of Miraç Kandili the Prophet Muhammed was taken from the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca to the Masjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem and from there passed into heaven via Sidretul Munteha, which even the Angel Gabriel could not…
On March 18 1915 Turkey, sixteen battleships, including six English and four French, set sail for the Dardenelles intending to wrest control of this vital waterway. The stakes were high as the strait had been heavily mined, but if victorious, the rewards would be great. Just one kilometre wide at its narrowest, this strip of…