Time to leave

So we are making our escape, setting down in Istanbul on Saturday afternoon.

That sprawling metropolis bridging Europe and Asia.

InshaAllah we will pray Tarawih in one or two of the grand mosques.

But soon we will be moving on. If we fly, we will be in Trabzon, eastwards along the Black Sea coast an hour or so after our departure from Istanbul. If we take the bus, we will arrive sixteen hour later. It all depends what we can afford.

We won’t stop long in Trabzon.

We’re on our way to Hopa, close to Georgian border. That’s a five hour drive from Trabzon, even with Turkish driving. But go there we must.

We will pass through Rize, Cayeli and Findikli on the way, the dark waters on our left, the steep mountains on our right.

When we arrive, we may stop in town for a while, but soon we’ll be on our way again, onwards into the hills.

We’re heading for Basoba, our village in the forested hills

You can just see the side of our house on the left of this picture, the red brick next to the school building. There is a mosque up the road in the other direction. I guess I’ll join the old, grey toothless ones for Tarawih there as well.

Keep us in your prayers.

Oh for the minarets of Istanbul

Whilst sitting at my desk composing my last post a minute ago, two computers on in front of me (my book is on the laptop, but I had writers block, so I switched on my ancient whining monster to check my emails), I was just thrust back to Istanbul. On both computers I have Islamasoft’s Athan Software. Please don’t tell me that it is not the real athan, just electro-magnetic signals, because I already know this; I have it because it reminds me to leave these sentences behind. The sound of the athan is also beautiful and I like to have beauty in my home. I was taken back to Istanbul because the clock on my laptop is a minute behind the other one that updates to the atomic clock every time I go on line. So the first athan started, drifting from the speakers by my feet as if somewhere in the distance. And then the built-in sound on the laptop began half-way through. It was angelic and I could almost hear the foghorns on the Bosporus.

Beauty

There is nothing like the sound of the call to prayer from Istanbul’s mosques – comfort, despite ourselves.

Stimulation for the soul

Following tradition I am ill once again during my stay in Turkey. This time at least it’s not a stomach bug; I just seem to have caught a bad cold (in this heat!). Still, this hasn’t prevented me from experiencing the better things of life. I am back in Istanbul again and attended a nice Jummah prayer in an ancient mosque over looking the Bosphorus, followed by Maghrib in Taksim. Both times the Qur’an was beautiful; both times I looked around to see young people in the congregation. It is nice to be back in civilised company.

Yesterday we spent the day in the company of a Professor of International Relations and his family. He is a specialist in Turkey-EU relations, Democratisation and Human Rights – and proved interesting company. Then we spent the evening in a luxurious neighbourhood with my wife’s best friend and her family – who happened to include a Chief Advisor to the Turkish Prime Minister. All of these people were Muslims, but more than this, they were intelligent – people you could hold a sustained conversation with. No generalisations and cliches. It was a pleasing change.

The assault on the senses wrought by hours of football on Turkish TV every night and dull broken-record conversations covering the same ground again and again and again start to take their toll on you after a while. A change of environment is most welcome.