Meeting new people

Meeting the People

Wednesday 1^st December 2010

This was such an amazing day. I have to thank Ismail uncle and Fatma Auntie for that. Ismail uncle works at Marmara university Ilahayat campus and managed to set me up for a chat with a group of his students. They were lovely! Bless them.

They all study Islamic Theology- which is amazing in itself- and most of the ones I met were foreign students. Foreign in so much as they came on scholarship from abroad but they were all of Turkish origin. I hadn’t really chatted to any young people whilst I was in Turkey so this was a real treat. We had open discussions about all sorts of subjects from Muslim Integration in western society to the Mavi Maramara incident to the awareness of Turkish youth when it comes to development subjects. It was rly rly interesting and I am so grateful for the opportunities that Allah keeps presenting me with.

The discussions were lively and it was great to see that as youth we all seem to have this zeal for change, for the betterment of society and to uphold a better image of Muslims around the world. We want to help change our societies and improve our Muslim community. We understand the obstacles in front of us and yet we are positive for the future and engaged in producing the right results. It’s great to see how much we share- despite all our different backgrounds we agreed on all these subjects.

The whole day gave me faith in our future and shone this wonderful glaring positive light on all humanity.

After the university we went to Fatma Aunties sisters place. She has set up an English school and homework group called Zenith with a group of friends. It was lovely meeting them all and they were all so nice to us! We are always getting fed in this country. :o) It was good to share experiences and views as well and afterwards we headed off to dinner at Buyuk Camlica where we remained chatting and laughing until quite late alhumdulillah.

We met the funniest guy there as well, bless him. He was the host at the restaurant and spoke the funniest English, with a slight posh accent. He came from a small village (also Laz I believe) where once upon a time the Queen mother’s sister had once visited (?), something like that anyway and had actually slept in their house. Crazy, no?

Honestly, I have met so many lovely people here in Turkey, how is everyone else going to match this?

Thursday 2^nd December 2010

Today we managed to set up a meeting with some ladies at IHH, the organisation that has now become famous due to the Mavi Marmara and Flotilla incident. They are the biggest charity in Turkey, I believe, and doing some incredible work around the world- yes they do work on projects other than Palestine, hundreds of them. Alhumdulillah through a friend of Fatma Auntie’s and Tougba Auntie’s I was able to meet these wonderful people and learn more about this brilliant organisation.

I had the chance to interview a sister Zeliha who was on the Mavi Marmara herself. I will be writing up the interview in full for Ctrl.Alt.Shift insha’Allah so look out for it. Their experiences are amazing, saddening and inspirational. It makes me want to make sure I am on the next Flotilla, alongside everyone else I know. For me, if ever there was a cause which symbolised the total and utter injustice in this world and the blatant abuse of power by our leaders, it is Palestine. May Allah help those suffering and surviving there.

The people I met in this office and the talks I had with them really have solidified in me the need to work for the International community and the betterment of our global society, be it as a development worker, in the media or doing community work.

Afterwards we explored the area of Fatih, where the IHH office is based, a little. The area is quite historic, it has the old Islamic Ottoman university there. It is also quite religious i.e. the people there tend to be “practising” Muslims. It also has lots of great hijabi friendly shops- long sleeves, long tops, full length dresses etc for all occasions. They even have hijabi wedding dresses there! I will definitely know where to go and shop next time.

Afterwards we made our way to Fatma Auntie’s pharmacy near the Florence Nightingale hospital (I think), near which we met up with another charitable organisation called Yardemis. It is quite a small organisation run minly by volunteers. Here I met three men who had been out to various projects in Pakistan, Ethiopia, Palestine, Bosnia etc. Insha’Allah I will be writing up my interviews with them for muslimsinengland.com. That’s the plan anyway. As always their message was to get involved, go out there and see the problems first hand if necessary and do something to make a change. They were passionate about the problems they had seen and keen to make a difference. They were all business men with contacts at hand but I think we all need to realise that we don’t necessarily need to be in this position to make a difference. Remember “many hands make light work”. We all have our strengths and we should ensure we use them for the betterment of humanity if we can. That’s my aim in life- find my strength and work it! ;o)

Friday 3^rd December 2010

Spent the night at Noortaj Khanum’s place and alhumdulillah in the morning had no trouble catching the flight to Doha!

Although somehow I seem to have lost the security lock for my backpack which has rly rly peeved me off because I bought it specially!! Ahhhh, Jenny! Just my bad luck eh? Guess I will have to find a new one now......

On my flight I met a lovely New Zealander whose name I never did ask but who had been travelling now for about 3 years. Jealous much? Anyway he had just been form Japan to China to Kazakyzstan to Turkey and was now on his way back to Japan and Auz. *sigh* Had a lovely chat with him but haven’t rly learnt the art of how to part with people I meet yet, I am sure that will come, so it was a little awkward in the end. I kind of wish now that I had swapped details with him- I am off to New Zealand on this trip too after all!

My arrival in Doha was quite funny really. The usual Lamees silliness! I arrived and missed the notice with my name on it- probably because all you see when you exit the gate is a crowd of men so you take a quick scan and then look away. So I ended up calling my friend like 15 minutes later saying “Have you forgotten me?”, only to realise that I had missed the driver. Eventually we found him and I had a nice swish ride to her apartment in the family 4x4- typical Qatar style! We had so much to catch up on we chatted all the way- I had missed her loveliness so!

I couldn’t quite get over the oddness of Doha, especially after Istanbul. It was just so....... NEW! Lots of empty space, new cars, new apartment blocks, lots of new buildings- the oldest must be like from the 60s. It was crazy!

Sacred Trusts

The entrance to Topkapi

The entrance to the Sacred Trusts exhibition

Fatima (RA)'s mantle and prayer mat (extra adornment by Ottomans)

The bowl the Prophet (SAW) drank from

The Bow and Sword of the Prophet (SAW)- extra adornment by Ottomans

Shopping!!

Monday 29^th November 2010

On Monday we finally made it Topkapi, but quite late in the evening to be honest. Plans changed in the morning because Murat was called off to work. The family have a Chai place which of course is supplied by tea form their plantations and he was called in to help sort the latest shipments I believe. Anyway, so there was a load of toing a froing before it was decided that he would take us out and then work tomorrow. We ended up going to Topkapi, myself, Murat and Rabieh but we only arrived at like 3pm and it closed around 5pm. We rished round but it was still amazing. I really wanted to see the Harem but we couldn’t seem to find it! However, in the end I wasn’t too bothered because I got to see he Sacred Trusts exhibition which was really the most amazing and most important part. It included items from throughout Islamic History- Prophet Dawood (AS) sword, Prophet Musa’s (AS) staff and relics from the Prophet Muhammad’s (SAW) time. These included a mould of his footprint, strands from his beard, the bowl he drank from, his sword and the swords of various Sahabat’s as well as the mantle of Fatima (RA). It was amazing!!

SubhanAllah I spend every day thinking “Alhumdulillah”. I am so truly blessed by Allah, he has given me so many blessings and every day of this trip is a gift. I am so grateful.

Afterwards we went to Kapaliçarşe, which is the famous indoor underground market of Istanbul. We weren’t there for long though. We got there around 6 and it closed at 7pm. Got a few quick errands done for my aunt- buying some house stuff and some bags in particular. It was nice to see it even though I don’t have space in my baggage for anything extra until after Pakistan when I unload!

That night we got home very, very late. Istanbul Traffic! Oh my Lord was there traffic! We spent 2 and a half hours in a traffic jam. Yes, 2.5 hours!!! Arrrggghhh!!

Thankfully, I have the wonderful knack of falling asleep in any and all forms of transportation. All I need in the movement, however slight. Add warm air and I am most definitely off to the land of nod! So, I slept for most of the journey- unlike my fellow passengers, poor them! This meant we were late for dinner, again. Not a great impression on the in-laws.......

Tuesday 30^th December 2010

So Murat went off to work and we took a Ferry across to the European side again so we could do some more shopping at Kapalicarse. I was not satisfied with the shopping of the day before. I don’t particularly enjoy shopping and there was nothing in particular that I wanted to buy but I enjoy bazaars and old shopping places. They just have a different atmosphere. As a result, we mostly just walked around and I didn’t buy anything at all really except a couple of souvenirs for friends.

We went across in one of the old ferries and came back in one of the brand new deluxe ones- a taste fo the odl and the new all in one day. I have decided I love the Bosphorus, it is beautiful both night and day. I love the ships, be they cargo or ferry. I love the fishermen, the bridges, the waves, the gulls, the lights, the wind..... ahh! It just has this amazing feeling to it. If you’ve been, do you know what I mean?

As we had taken the ferry, the trip there and the trip back were very short and we were home early so we skipped off to dinner at the in-laws. Lots of home-made Turkish foods again, including home-made vine-leaf dolma, sorba (soup), something made from raw bulgur wheat and again sweet dish- baklava!

Taxim Square and Dolmabahce Palace

Photos for you guys!

Tourist, toursit, tourist!

Friday 26^th November 2010

On Friday the men had to go and pray Jummah so we had a late start. We ended up being taken up to Beykoz, which is about an hour and half away from central Istanbul, on the banks of the Bosphorus but high up in the mountains. From there you can see the meeting of the 2 seas, the Aegean and the Marmaris (I think). However, we were a little waylaid along the way by a stop for lunch at a beautiful fish restaurant by the sea. It was a Belediyet place, which basically means it is approved by the council/mayor and you can guarantee the halal environment- no alcohol, guaranteed halal meat, good atmosphere etc. All I will say here are 2 words, “Yay” and Yum”.

We visited Hazrat Yuşa’s tomb and took in the views, which once again were of course stunning!

On the way up the mountain we saw lots of individual stalls selling vegetables, huge pumpkins, different types of turnips, nuts and more. I love the colour and smell of fruit and veg here. It smells real. Do you know what I mean? Fresh food doesn’t smell like that in the UK. Too much processing I think!

In the evening we went out to dinner with my Khala’s old friends from Manchester. Ismail and Fatma Safa Ustun. Fatma had studied English with my Aunt back in the days when my Aunt was still lecturing/teaching. They are lovely people- warm, generous and friendly. Once again we went to a Belediyet place called Fatih Paşa and ate more than we had space for in our stomachs.These Turks seem obsessed with feeding us! Do they not know we have too many pounds on us already? J

Saturday 27^th November 2010

The plan was to go to Topkapi Palace, however, the Bosphorus betrayed us. High winds and a choppy sea, make not for a ferry crossing for we! OK, that didn’t work but you get the point...

Ali Amca, Murat’s father insisted that we always go everywhere in the car because my Aunt was not up to too much walking. What he forgets is that she has had both knees replaced since he last saw her and the walk would probably be good for her! Plus, she wanted to take the ferry and it is so much quicker, avoiding all the traffic. Basically, this meant that if we did not take the Bridge or the Car Ferry, we did not go across to the European side!

Anyway, so we ended up going to Şile instead. This is towards KaraDeniz (Black Sea) and this really excited my khala. When we got there, I understood why. There were beautiful views and it was a very nice, cute Black Sea town with cobbled streets and little cafes. We went down to the

harbour, watched the sun set, took another hundred photos and bought fresh fish from the quayside.

One of the fishermen showed me what he said was a Dog fish he had caught. It was really long and I thought..... dead. It had a slash near the gills from where it had been caught

and he was keeping it in a water tub separate from the rest of the fish stock. But, when he picked it up to show me and for me to take a photo- well.... it was still sucking away at the air, trying to get a quick breath. Thankfully he didn’t try and make me hold it. I sucked in my squeal because as many of you may know.... fish freak me out! Not if I am eating them but when they are alive and well and all slippery and moving. I just don’t know what it is about them!

Sunday 28^th November 2010

Once again we hit the tourist route. This time it was the Domebahçe palace and Taxim Square. Again the plan had been to do Topkapi as well but as usual we ran out of time.... too busy enjoying ourselves to the full I assume! J

At this point I have to take moment to explain how bad the traffic in Istanbul can be, traffic jams in London don’t compare to the heavy traffic on the roads of Istanbul. Seriously, they need to get some cars off the road or introduce a congestion charge or SOMETHING!

So, in anticipation of this we actually left the house early. Our first stop was Dolmabahce Saray, which is the modern acquivalent of the Topkapi Palace, it was built towards the end of the Ottoman Empire in their move to modernise and so is very European in its design. It reminded me very much of the Louis XIV style. I wrote an article about my impressions for www.muslimsinengland.com so make sure you check it out, but basically although beautiful and impressive I thought the opulence was rather disgusting. If there ever was a reason why empires fall<>

So, we spent so long in the palace and it was so big that by the end my khala was rather tired so instead of going to Topkapi, again, we decided instead to pray at the Dolmabahce masjid and then visit Taxim Square- the hub of central Istanbul. Once again, talk about traffic! Taxis everywhere, so many people and nowhere to park. J

Murat ended up dropping us off before heading away to find parking. We wandered around Taxim square, took in the Ataturk monument there and then headed off down the main shopping street. It was so packed it was unbelievable- much more than Oxford Street- and just as I hate Oxford Street, I hated the crowds here. How do they shop amongst this? To me it is just annoying!

There were all the usual suspects amongst the shops and more plus street sellers selling kids toys to Simit (a local favourite, really it’s just a kind of bread). There was a match on as well, Galatasaray versus Besiktas which meant it was extra busy and there was the same crazy football chanting and general macho behaviour that you get from football fans anywhere else.

We stopped for lunch- because they always have to feed us even when we aren’t hungry! J- and had kumplirs (I think) which are just jacket potatoes rly but filled with all sorts of fillings, Turkish style. Ours had, beetroot, coleslaw, some couscous stuff, gherkin stuff and I don’t know what else, with mayo. Everything has too much salt because that is another Turkish obsession, adding salt to everything including the mayonnaise. So the food already comes with extra salt in it for us and then the Turks have to salt it some more- blood pressure anyone?

We also then stopped for icecream-, where we to had this strange waiter that seemed annoyed with us from the moment we came in. I mean it was an icecream place so it couldn’t be because we only came in for dessert and didn’t order enough.... that’s what the place was for. Weirdo!

After dark, we headed over to the apartment of an old friend of my Aunt’s. Masha’Alalh they live in a beautiful neighbourhood in the top floor (what I suppose is penthouse) apartment. They have 2 floors and beautiful views from their balconies. Ahhh.... I think I could definitely move to Istanbul, despite the traffic! Here, we once again ate- dinner this time but still more food!- and were treated to more dessert. The love for sweet was most definitely waning by this point. Enough already! J

Overall having a generally amazing time!

Hagia Sofia photos

Photos of the Hagia Sofia

Photos!

Art Museum


Qur'an collection

First few Istanbul days....

Right so in my first instalment I didn’t really fill you in on the details of where we have been and what we have done. I can tell you straight of that it has been a beautiful stay in Istanbul nd I will definitely be coming again if I can.

Wednesday 24^th November 2010

Our first day in the city was spent mainly at home, visiting each apartment and so doing the family rounds. It was lovely to meet them all and put faces and personalities to names I had been hearing since I was younger. My first and only visit to Istanbul and Turkey was when I was about 7 years old and I really don’t remember much and definitely didn’t remember most of the family. We were fed repeatedly and also fought over in terms of who would be feeding us dinner next! Ahhh.... feels good to be loved! J

On that first evening we went up to Buyuk Çamlica, which is like a viewing point on top of a hill, one of the highest points in Istanbul I think. The view from up there was truly breathtaking. You could see the whole of Istanbul lit up, the mosques and bridges at night are illuminated too and make for a stunning city view. We had a coffee (well, I had a VERY sweet hot chocolate up there in a pretty Ottoman style coffee house and chatted with the kids.

Afterwards we made our way down to the banks of the Bosphorus near the main city bridge which once again made for great views and c hance to watch some of the many hobby fishermen night fishing along the banks.

That night we returned home to a fish feast. If some of you do not know this already, I recently turned ermmm..... pescatarian?! Basically I don’t eat meat so most of my stay was spent consuming fish of some kind. They had cooked us some fresh Hamsi ( alittle fish that you can basically eat whole) cooked in breadcrumbs- I think- and it was YUMMY! The great thing is that the Turks always serve you a great salad so all my meals seemed pretty healthy. Then again they also love their bread and seem to eat a loaf each at every meal, but since I wasn’t doing this, no problem!

Also had lovely fresh Baklava with homemade yoghurt- if you’ve never had this, you are truly missing out on one of the yummiest, most lush desserts EVER! Ahhhhhh.... craving!

Thursday 25^th November 2010-12-03

Our second day was the beginning of our tourist run. We visited the Sultan Ahmet Mosque, which is also known as the Blue mosque or Suleymaniye. I may start using this word too much but I see no other way of describing it- it was beautiful! This is how mosques should be and we need more like this in the UK I think. Mosques in Turkey and in the rest of the world generally (where I have been anyway) make Britain’s mosque look truly uninspired! The mosaic work, doors, lighting, carpet- everything is always beautiful. This mosque is obviously an inspiration for the many that came after it and you can see the style copied throughout Istanbul. It was built to outdo the Hagia Sofia and I think it does in terms of beauty. The Hagia Sofia is more impressive in terms of being imposing and commanding but I found the Suleymania more uplifting. I could pray in masjids like that all my life- they seem to bring peace to your heart.

After taking A LOT of photos we made our way to the Turkish and Islamic Art museum behind the masjid. There was a free Qur’an exhibition on with samples dating from the early Ummayyads through the Seljuks to the Ottomans. They were all intricately detailed and exquisite examples of the handiwork and artistic capabilities that Muslims possessed at the time and how they led the way in the Arts at one time. Accompanying the exhibition were details of Islamic history in both Turkish and English which I really appreciated.

The rest of the museum was dedicated to art taken from much of the Ottoman Empire ranging from lovely rose water sprinklers to the door of a mosque to some magnificent carpets. There is so much history in this country. It constantly reminded me of how little I know of Islamic History and how much I yet need to learn. SubhanAllah.

Next we visited the Hagia Sofia- this is still under renovation and though impressive in size and architecture, honestly, I didn’t find it overly moving or exciting. There were some wonderful mosaics that had been uncovered from the time when it was a cathedral but other than that it just seemed.... empty! Maybe it will hold more interest once it is fully renovated.

We also visited the Basilica Cistern. An underground cavern of sorts which, I believe, served as the water supply to the Topkapi palace at one time. It is quite imposing an stunning in how grand it looks. Lots of tall columns, some carved, many just tall stone blocks. There really isn’t much to see except stone and water and some mighty big fish but it is still enchanting. There are 2 stone carved heads of Medusa at the bottom of 2 columns right at the back- although the story behind these seems unclear and I truly wouldn’t have even thought they were Medusa heads if it hadn’t said so!

I have to say I was very surprised at how high the prices for the museums were in Istanbul. Each place cost about 20 TL which is just under £10. I think that’s crazy but that is probably also because I am used to paying nothing for most museums and galleries in the UK! But, fortunately or unfortunately we were the benefactors of the old Turkish tradition of not letting visitors pay for anything. Now when I say anything I mean ANYTHING. Not food, not entrance fees, not travel....not even little gifts I did not use a penny of my money until the last few days of this trip- the family wouldn’t even let us near a bank or exchange place. J Bless them. May Allah reward them for all their help, generosity and warmth. Thank you.