Istanbul Quotes

The first thing I learned at school was that some people are idiots; the second thing I learned was that some are even worse.

You see, unlike in the movies, there is no THE END sign flashing at the end of books. When I've read a book, I don't feel like I've finished anything. So I start a new one.

Its Vermeer" Kat turned to the boy who lingered in the doorway. "It's stolen" "What can I say?" Hale eased behind her and studied the painting over her shoulder. "I met a very nice man who bet me he had the best security system in Istanbul." His breath was warm on the back of her neck. "He was mistaken.

Where would you like to go, what would you really like to do with your life? See Istanbul, Port Said, Nairobi, Budapest. Write a book. Smoke too many cigarettes. Fall off a cliff but get caught in a tree halfway down. Get shot at a few times in a dark alley on a Morrocan midnight. Love a beautiful woman.

إذا لم تتمكني من إيجاد سبب كي تحبي الحياة التي تعيشينها، فلا تتظاهري بأنك تحبين الحياة التي تعيشينها

Either grant me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge.

Perhaps this is why lunatics have a harder time dating, not because they are off the wall but because it is hard to find soemone who is willing to date so many people in one person.

Life can't be all that bad,' i'd think from time to time. 'Whatever happens, i can always take a long walk along the Bosphorus.

Because time is a drop in the ocean, and you cannot measure off one drop against another to see which one is bigger, which one is smaller.

I know what kind of man it takes to get involved with something as barbarous as human trafficking.” “I get it, Swopes. He’s not the kind of man you take home to meet your stepmom.” I rethought that. “Wait a minute. Maybe my stepmom would like to meet him. Do you think he ships to Istanbul?

إن الروح بحاجة لأن ترتعش لكي تستيقظ

The Iron Rule of prudence for an Istanbulite Woman: If you are as fragile as a tea glass, either find a way to never encounter burning water and hope to marry an ideal husband or get yourself laid and broken as soon as possible. Alternatively, stop being a tea-glass woman!

I am calling to tell you that Colonel Yildiz has made travel arrangements for you, Tara, and me. We are flying to Istanbul tomorrow. I’ll call you back and with the departure time. Do you understand?

  “What’s puzzling is the sender wrote, ‘I hope this is helpful for the Tariq’Allah office in Istanbul. Stay in touch.’ Turkey does not speak Arabic. Someone wrote this cover page in Arabic.

The past lives within the present, and our ancestors breathe through our children.

إن الأغلبية الساحقة من الناس لا يفكرون مطلقاً، و الذين يفكرون لا يصبحون الأغلبية الساحقة أبداً، فاختاري في أي فئة تريدين أن تكوني

علي عكس ما يحدث في الأفلام، فإن اشارة النهاية" لا تومض في نهاية الكتاب، فعندما أقرأ كتاباً، لا أشعر بأنني أنهيت أي شيء. لذلك فأنا أبدأ كتاباً جديداً

Mourning is like virginity. You should give it to the one who deserves it most.

Imagination was a dangerously captivating magic for those compelled to be realistic in life, and words could be poisonous for those destined always to be silenced.

Article Five: If you have no reason or ability to accomplish anything, then just practice the art of becoming.

Hüzün does not just paralyze the inhabitants of Instanbul, it also gives them poetic license to be paralyzed.

لا أستطيع تغيير اتجاه الريح لكني استطيع أن أعدل أشرعتي كي أصل إلى غايتي

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy! Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel! The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy! The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy! Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cas- sady holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggars holy the hideous human angels! Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocks of the grandfathers of Kansas! Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace & junk & drums! Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets! Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the middle class! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebell- ion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles! Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria & Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow Holy Istanbul! Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch! Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucina- tions holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the abyss! Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! magnanimity! Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!

A man went to Istanbul, his first visit there. On his way to a business meeting, this man lost his way. He began raging at himself for getting lost, until a realization allowed him to transcend his ire. "How can I be lost? I've never been here before?" pp 104-105

كل شيء يتوقف على موقفك إزاء الأمور. فإن كنت تبحث عن وحيد القرن الأرجواني اللون, فلن تستغرق وقتاً طويلاً حتى تبدأ في رؤيته في كل مكان.

لا يجوز أن تلعن أي شيء يهطل من السماء.. حتى لو كان مطرا

I like to borrow a metaphor from the great poet and mystic Rumi who talks about living like a drawing compass. One leg of the compass is static. It is fixed and rooted in a certain spot. Meanwhile, the other leg draws a huge wide circle around the first one, constantly moving. Just like that, one part of my writing is based in Istanbul. It has strong local roots. Yet at the same time the other part travels the whole wide world, feeling connected to several cities, cultures, and peoples.

قد لا يعجبك المطر, وليس بالضرورة أن يعجبك

لم تكن عبارة " أوصى لي به كثيرون" معياراً جيداً, و خاصةلأنها كانت تحذر دائماً من عبارة أكثر الكتب مبيعاً التي " يوصي بقراءتها كثيرون".

Ways of loving from a distance, mating without even touching-Amor platonicus! The ladder of love one is expected to climb higher and higher, elating the Self and the Other. Plato clearly regards any actual physical contact as corrupt and ignoble because he thinks the true goal of Eros is beauty. Is there no beauty in sex? Not according to Plato. He is after `more sublime pursuits.' But if you ask me, I think Plato's problem, like those of many others, was that he never got splendidly laid.

But Istanbul is a city of easy forgettings. Things are written in water over there, except the works of my master, which are written in stone.

It never took her long to darken any conversation, as from birth she was inclined to see misery in each and every story, and to fabricate some when there was none.

That was the one thing about the rain that likened it to sorrow: You did your best to remain untouched, safe and dry, but if and when you failed, there came a point in which you started seeing the problem less in terms of drops than as an incessant gush, and thereby you decide you might as well get drenched.

We had no desire to live in Istanbul, nor in Paris or New York. Let them have their discos and dollars, their skycrapers and supersonics transports. Let them have their radios and their color TV, hey, we have ours, don't we? But we have something they don't have. Heart. We have heart. Look, look how the light of life seeps into my very heart

That is why we can suicidally fall in love with others but can rarely reciprocate the love of those suicidally in love with us.

The beauty of a landscape resides in its melancholy.

فعندما لا تفضي لأحد بشيء استثنائي، فأنه سيعتبر أن كل شيء يسير علي ما يرام

We're stuck. We're stuck between the East and the West. Between the past and the future. On the one hand there are the secular modernists, so proud of the regime they constructed, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the army and half of the state on their side. On the other hand there are the conventional traditionalist, so infatuated with the Ottoman past, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the general public and the remaining half of the state on their side.

If I see my city as beautiful and bewitching, then my life must be so too.

لكنها كانت واثقة من أنها لا تستطيع أن تعرف حدودها إلا عندما تتجاوزها

How terrible it was to still be mentally and emotionally attached to someone from whom you have been physically separated.

It was in Cihangir that i first learned Istanbul was not an anonymous multitude of walled-in lives - a jungle of apartments where no one knew who was dead or who was celebrating what - but an archipelago of neighbourhoods in which everyone knew each other.

There is no together anymore. Once a pomegranate breaks and all its seeds scatter in differetnt directions, you cannot put it back together.

We cannot abandon this rabbit hole for fear of a traumatic encounter with our own culture.

It is so demanding to be born into a house full of women, where everyone loves you so overwhelmingly that they end up suffocating with their love; a house where you, as the only child, have to be more mature than all the adults around.... But the problem is that they want me to become everything they themselves couldn't accomplish in life..... As a result, I had to work my butt off to fulfill all their dreams at the same time.

I am listening to Istanbul with my eyes closed The drunkenness of old times In the wooden seaside villa with its deserted boat house The roaring Southwestern wind is trapped, My thoughts are trapped. I am listening to Istanbul with my eyes closed A bird is flying around your skirt I know if your forehead is hot or cold Or your lips are wet or dry; Or is a white moon is rising above the hazelnut tree My heart's fluttering tells me I am listening to Istanbul with my eyes closed

كان الأمر بتلك الدرجة من السوء, مثل أن تخسر جائزة اليانصيب الكبرى بسبب اختلاف رقم واحد فقط.

İstanbul ile Ankara karşılaştırması yaptı. İstanbul'a giden herkes dönüşte böyle bir kıyaslama getirir, lokum gibi ya da pişmaniye, saray helvası, Bolçi. "İstanbul'da insanların tek amacı İstanbul'un tadını çıkarmak gibi görünüyor. Avına dişlerini geçirmeye çalışan yırtıcı hayvanlara benziyorlar. Ankara'ya istesen bile dişlerini geçiremezsin, bir sürü üst geçit var." Metin ile birlikte bu şakaya güldüler. Kapatırken Cemil şöyle dedi: "İstanbul'da gün boyu dolaşırken dünyanın haline üzüldüm. Ankara'da insan sadece Ankara'nın haline üzülüyor.

If you have no reason or ability to accomplish anything, then practice the art of becoming. If you have no reason or ability to practice the art of becoming, then just be. If you don't have any reason or ability to just be, then endure.

once there was, once there wasn't, God's creature were as plentiful as grains and talking too much was a sin.

Think carefully. We only have one life to live. We alone are responsible for it.

Back above ground, like robotic versions of the mosques and minarets that grace the shores of Istanbul's Bosphorus, Houston’s petroscape of domed white tanks and silver fractioning towers spreads along the banks of its Ship Channel.

After all is said and done, what is life anyway? Aren’t we all going to die in the end? I believe life is only worth living if, while we are on this earth, we can do honorable things.

...when women survive an awful marriage or love affair, and all that shit, they generally avoid another relationship for quite some time. With men, however, it is just the opposite; the moment they finish a catastrophe they start looking for another one. Men are incapable of being alone.

My fear was not the fear of God but, as in the case of the whole Turkish secular bourgeoisie, fear of the anger of those who believe in God too zealously(...) I experienced the guilt complex as something personal, originated less from the fear of distancing myself from God than from distancing myself from the sense of community shared by the entire city .

الحياة مجرد مصادفات مع ان الامر يحتاج الى جني لكي يتسوعب هذا اامر

For me it has always been a city of ruins and of end-of-empire melancholy. I’ve spent my life either battling with this melancholy or (like all İstanbullus) making it my own.

Anything more than friendship with her would destroy his chances of taking the throne. But every time one of them had fallen – in the snows of the Alps, in Istanbul, on the stormy topside, in that dusty canyon – the other had been there to pick them up. She couldn’t imagine Alek leaving her for some daft crown and scepter.

I've never considered breaking that oath before. Ever. But I did, for you. To keep you safe. Everything--from letting you go at the prom, to tonight at the ball--it's all been for you. As much as I tried to tell myself it was for the Saxons, it wasn't true. As much as I said I was going to Istanbul just for Fitz, it wasn't true. Every second I wasn't with you, I was thinking about you. Worrying about you. It wasn't for them. It was all for you.

Günlerden pazartesi. Yine vapurun alt kamarasındayım. Yine hava karlı. Yine İstanbul çirkin. İstanbul mu? İstanbul çirkin şehir. Pis şehir. Hele yağmurlu günlerde. Başka günler güzel mi, değil; güzel değil. Başka günler de köprüsü balgamlıdır. Yan sokakları çamurludur, molozludur. Geceleri kusmukludur. Evler güneşe sırtını çevirmiştir. Sokaklar dardır. Esnafı gaddardır. Zengini lakayttır. İnsanlar her yerde böyle. Yaldızlı karyolalarda çift yatanlar bile tek. Yalnızlık dünyayı doldurmuş. Sevmek, bir insanı sevmekle başlar her şey. Burda her şey bir insanı sevmekle bitiyor.

And before long, the music, the views rushing past the window, my fathers voice and the narrow cobblestone streets all merged into one, and it seemed to me that while we would never find answers to these fundamental questions, it was good for us to ask them anyway.

İstanbul'dan ayrılmak istemiyoruz fakat senede kaç defa kütüphaneye gideriz? üç beş cadde ile bir o kadar da kahveden başka ne biliriz? fikir hayatı, fikir hayatı diyoruz... en kabadayımız bile gevezelikten başka ne konuşuyor? kahve münakaşalarıyla zihnimizi inkişaf ettirdiğimizi sanmakla pek akıllıca bir iş yaptığımıza kani değilim... bizi buraya asıl bağlayan bir alışkanlıktır... biz burada maksatsız yaşamayı ve boş beyinle dolaşmayı tatlı bir meşgale haline getirmek yolunu keşfetmişiz... hepimizi istanbul'a bağlayan sadece bu... burada insan, kafasını zerre kadar işletmeden mütefekkir bir kimse olduğuna inanmak ve buna başkalarını da inandırmak imkanına malik... bu şehrin ve buradaki muhitlerin dayanılmaz cazibesi işte bundan ibaret!...

But what attracted me to weeds was not their beauty, but their resilience. I mean, despite being so widely despised, so unloved, killed with every chance we get, they are so pervasive, so seemingly invincible.

There is a reason Mary is everywhere. I've seen her image all over the world, in cafés in Istanbul, on students' backpacks in Scotland, in a market stall in Jakarta, but I don't think her image is everywhere because she is a reminder to be obedient, and I don't think it has to do with social revolution. Images of  Mary remind us of  God's favor. Mary is what it looks like to believe that we already are who God says we are.

The great trains are going out all over Europe, one by one, but still, three times a week, the Orient Express thunders superbly over the 1,400 miles of glittering steel track between Istanbul and Paris. Under the arc-lights, the long-chassied German locomotive panted quietly with the labored breath of a dragon dying of asthma. Each heavy breath seemed certain to be the last. Then came another.

Benim için kitap okurken hala önemli olan anlamaktan çok, okuduğum şeye uygun düşler kurmaktır.

İnsanlar birbirine aşık gibi davranmaktan aşkın ne olduğunu ve aşkın felsefesini anlamaya fırsat bulamıyorlar.

Bilim adamı olup da cahiller arasında kalmanın azabı ne müthiş bir azaptır...

You know the sultans used to light their garden parties with turtles? They'd put candles on their backs and let them wander around. Hundreds of them.

Don't underestimate the good in you

kar yağıyor dışarda sokak lambasına düşüyor ve serçeler üşüyor kenarları hafifçe yanmış sayfalarına kan sıçramış bir kitapta nazım hikmet okuyorum. dışarda kar yağıyor ve dağ lokantasına gidiyor zengin kasabalılar. kar yağıyor dışarda mektubun yeni gelmiş istanbul kokuyor. dışarda kar yağıyor seni seviyorum.

Yeah, we should all line up along the Bosphorus Bridge and puff as hard as we can to shove this city in the direction of the West. If that doesn't work, we'll try the other way, see if we can veer to the East. It's no good to be in between. International politics does not appreciate ambiguity.

Was it really better for human beings to discover more of their pasts? And then more and more...? Or was it simply better to know as little of the past as possible and even to forget what small amount was remembered?

If you go to Singapore or Amsterdam or Seoul or Buenos Aires or Islamabad or Johannesburg or Tampa or Istanbul or Kyoto, you'll find that the people differ wildly in the way they dress, in their marriage customs, in the holidays they observe, in their religious rituals, and so on, but they all expect the food to be under lock and key. It's all owned, and if you want some, you'll have to buy it.

From her he had learned two fundamental things about love: first, that unlike what the romantics so pompously argued, love was more a gradual course than a sudden blossoming at first sight, and second, that he was capable of loving.

With the engine stalled, we would notice the deep silence reigning in the park around us, in the summer villa before us, in the world everywhere. We would listen enchanted to the whirring of an insect beginning vernal flight before the onset of spring, and we would know what a wondrous thing it was to be alive in a park on a spring day in Istanbul.

So I close this long reflection on what I hope is a not-too-quaveringly semi-Semitic note. When I am at home, I will only enter a synagogue for the bar or bat mitzvah of a friend's child, or in order to have a debate with the faithful. (When I was to be wed, I chose a rabbi named Robert Goldburg, an Einsteinian and a Shakespearean and a Spinozist, who had married Arthur Miller to Marilyn Monroe and had a copy of Marilyn’s conversion certificate. He conducted the ceremony in Victor and Annie Navasky's front room, with David Rieff and Steve Wasserman as my best of men.) I wanted to do something to acknowledge, and to knit up, the broken continuity between me and my German-Polish forebears. When I am traveling, I will stop at the shul if it is in a country where Jews are under threat, or dying out, or were once persecuted. This has taken me down queer and sad little side streets in Morocco and Tunisia and Eritrea and India, and in Damascus and Budapest and Prague and Istanbul, more than once to temples that have recently been desecrated by the new breed of racist Islamic gangster. (I have also had quite serious discussions, with Iraqi Kurdish friends, about the possibility of Jews genuinely returning in friendship to the places in northern Iraq from which they were once expelled.) I hate the idea that the dispossession of one people should be held hostage to the victimhood of another, as it is in the Middle East and as it was in Eastern Europe. But I find myself somehow assuming that Jewishness and 'normality' are in some profound way noncompatible. The most gracious thing said to me when I discovered my family secret was by Martin, who after a long evening of ironic reflection said quite simply: 'Hitch, I find that I am a little envious of you.' I choose to think that this proved, once again, his appreciation for the nuances of risk, uncertainty, ambivalence, and ambiguity. These happen to be the very things that 'security' and 'normality,' rather like the fantasy of salvation, cannot purchase.

Don't forget that your mind is a stranger at nights. Don't talk to strangers.

البيت مهم بالنسبة لي لأنه مركز العالم في رأسي أكثر من كونه جمال غرف وأغراض

In the beginning the point was not to have a point, to escape the world in which everyone had to have a job, a desk, an office.

Don't call me wretched! it declared. the wretched too have a heart لا تقل أني بائس. فللبوئساء قلوب أيضا.

There was something in the color white that resembled silence. Both were emptied of life.

لكن ألا تظنين أنه يوجد فرق كبير بين الجنسين عندما يتعلق الأمر بالشفاء من علاقة حبّ؟ أقصد عندما تخرج المرأة من زواج أو من علاقة حبّ فاشلة، و كل هذا الخراء، فهي تتجنب عادة أن تقيم علاقة أخرى لفترة من الزمن. أما الرجل، فهو على عكس ذلك تمامًا. فما إن يخرج أحدهم من كارثة حتى يبدأ مسيرة البحث عن أخرى. إن الرجل لا يستطيع أن يعيش وحيدًا.

It is a scientifically known fact that collectivities are capable of manipulating their individual members’ beliefs, thoughts, and even bodily reactions. You keep hearing a certain story over and over again, and the next thing you know you have internalized the narrative. From that moment on it ceases to be someone else’s story. It is not even a story anymore, but reality, your reality!

Tüketen insanın üreten insandan daha değerli olduğu bu yanlış ve ahlaksız döneme tahammülüm kalmamıştı artık. Değişmiştim, Mardin beni değiştirmişti. İnsanlar bunca acı çekerken, İstanbul'da en iyi suşinin nerde yenilebileceğini konuşanlara dayanamıyordum.

كانت تريد حباً يستغرق كيانها إلى حد أن يعتنق مخاوفها الكثيرة أطوارها الغريبة وانحرافاتها . وحبيب يعشق كل شيء فيها لم تكن تريد حباً لجانبها الطيب ويتجنب جانبها المظلم بل كانت بحاجة إلى شخص يستطيع أن يقف إلى جانبها في السراء والضراء في رشدها وجنونها . وربما لهذا السبب يجد المجانين صعوبة في الالتقاء بشخص تقول لنفسها: لا لأنهم مختلفون بل لأنه يصعب العثور على شخص يريد أن يلتقي بعدة أشخاص مجتمعين في شخص واحد

Conrad,Nabokov, Naipaul - these are writers known for having managed to migrate between languages, cultures, countries, continents, even civilizations. Their imaginations were fed by exile, a nourishment drawn not through roots but through rootlessness. My imagination however, requires that I stay in the same street, in the same house, gazing at the same view. Istanbul's fate is my fate. I am attached to this city because it has made me who I am.

Seviyorum seni ekmeği tuza banıp yer gibi geceleyin ateşler içinde uyanarak ağzımı dayayıp musluğa su içer gibi ağır posta paketini, neyin nesi belirsiz, telaşlı,sevinçli,kuşkulu açar gibi, seviyorum seni denizi uçakla ilk defa geçer gibi. İstanbul'da yumuşacık kararırken ortalık içimde kımıldanan bir şeyler gibi, seviyorum seni "Yaşıyoruz çok şükür!" der gibi.

hüzün, which denotes a melancholy that is communal rather than private. Offering no clarity, veiling reality instead, hüzün brings us comfort, softening the view like the condensation on a window when a teakettle has been spouting steam on a winter’s day. Steamed-up windows make me feel hüzün, and I still love getting up and walking over to those windows to trace words on them with my finger. As I shape words and figures on the steamy window, the hüzün inside me dissipates and I can relax; after I have done all my writing and drawing, I can erase it all with the back of my hand and look outside. But the view itself can bring its own hüzün. It is time to come to a better understanding of this feeling that the city of Istanbul carries as its fate.

İstanbul'da insanların tek amacı İstanbul'un tadını çıkarmak gibi görünüyor. Avına dişlerini geçirmeye çalışan yırtıcı hayvanlara benziyorlar. Ankara'ya istesen de dişini geçiremezsin, bir sürü üst geçit var." Metin ile birlikte bu şakaya güldüler. Kapatırken Cemil şöyle dedi: "İstanbul'da gün boyu dolaşırken dünyanın haline üzüldüm. Ankara'da insan sadece Ankara'nın haline üzülüyor.

In our household doubts more troubling than these were suffered in silence. The spiritual void I have seen in so many of Istanbul's rich, Westernised, secularist families is evident in these silences. Everyone talks openly about mathematics, success at school, football and having fun, but they grapple with the most basic questions of existence - love,compassion, religion, the meaning of life, jealousy, hatred - in trembling confusion and painful solitude. They light a cigarette, give their attention to the music on the radio, return wordlessly to their inner worlds.

I know every single street in this town. And I love strolling these streets in the mornings, in the evenings, and then at night when I am merry and tipsy. I love to have breakfasts with my friends along the Bosphorus on Sundays, I love to walk alone amid the crowds. I am in love with the chaotic beauty of this city, the ferries, the music, the tales, the sadness, the colors, and the black humor.....

Water splashes and runs in a film across the glass floor suspended above the mosaics. The Hacı Kadın hamam is a typical post-Union fusion of architectures; Ottoman domes and niches built over some forgotten Byzantine palace, years and decades of trash blinding, gagging, burying the angel-eyed Greek faces in the mosaic floor; century upon century. That haunted face was only exposed to the light again when the builders tore down the cheap apartment blocks and discovered a wonder. But Istanbul is wonder upon wonder, sedimented wonder, metamorphic cross-bedded wonder. You can’t plant a row of beans without turning up some saint or Sufi. At some point every country realizes it must eat its history. Romans ate Greeks, Byzantines ate Romans, Ottomans ate Byzantines, Turks ate Ottomans. The EU eats everything. Again, the splash and run as Ferid Bey scoops warm water in a bronze bowl from the marble basin and pours it over his head.

It happened all the time in this city that encompassed seven hills, two continents, three seas and fifteen million mouths. It happened behind closed doors and in open courtyards; in cheap motel rooms and five-star luxury suites; in the midst of the night or plain daylight. The brothels of this city could tell many a story had they only found ears willing to listen. Call girls and rent boys and aged prostitutes beaten, abused and threatened by clients looking for the smallest excuse to lose their temper. Transsexuals who never went to the police for they knew they could be assaulted a second time. Children scared of particular family members and new brides of their fathers- or brothers-in-law; nurses and teachers and secretaries harassed by infatuated lovers just because they had refused to date them in the past; housewives who would never speak a word for there were no words in this culture to describe marital rape. It happened all the time. Canopied under a mantle of secrecy and silence that shamed the victims and shielded the assailants. Istanbul was no stranger to sexual abuse. In this city where everyone feared outsiders, most assaults came from those who were too familiar, too close.

It is said that in those days one could hear seventy languages in the streets of Istanbul. The vast Ottoman Empire, shrunken and weakened though it now was, had made it normal and natural for Greeks to inhabit Egypt, Persians to settle in Arabia and Albanians to live with Slavs. Christians and Muslims of all sects, Alevis, Zoroastrians, Jews, worshippers of the Peacock Angel, subsisted side by side in the most improbable places and combinations. There were Muslim Greeks, Catholic Armenians, Arab Christians and Serbian Jews. Istanbul was the hub of this broken-felloed wheel, and there could be found epitomised the fantastical bedlam and babel, which although no one realised it at the time, was destined to be the model and precursor of all the world's great metropoles a hundred years hence, by which time Istanbul itself would, paradoxically, have lost its cosmopolitan brilliance entirely. It would be destined, perhaps, one day to find it again, if only the devilish false idols of nationalism, that specious patriotism of the morally stunted, might finally be toppled in the century to come.

After a time, my hand had become as skilled as my eyes. So if I was drawing a very fine tree, it felt as if my hand was moving without me directly it. As I watched the pencil race across the page, I would look on it in amazement, as if the drawing were the proof of another presence, as if someone else had taken up residence in my body. As I marveled at his work aspiring to become his equal, another part of my brain was busy inspecting the curves of the branches, the placement of mountains, the composition as a whole, reflecting that I had created this scene on a blank piece of paper. My mind was at the tip of my pen, acting before I could think; at the same time it could survey what I had already done. This second line of perception, this ability to analyse my progress, was the pleasure this small artist felt when he looked at the discovery of his courage and freedom. To step outside myself , to know the second person who had taken up residence inside me, was to retrace the dividing line that appeared as my pencil slipped across the paper, like a boy sledding in the snow.

...i have in all honesty believed that two people with similar names must have similar characters, that an unfamiliar word - be it Turkish or foreign - must be semantically similar to a word spelt like it, that the soul of a dimpled woman must carry something of the soul of another dimpled woman i knew before, that all fat people are the same, that all poor people belong to a fraternity about which i know nothing, that there must be a link between peas and Brazil - not just because Brazil is Breziliya in Turkish and the word for pea is bezelye but also because the Brazilian flag has, it seems, an enormous pea on it....

The sudden and total disappearance of Mawlana aroused resentment among his disciples and students, some of them becoming highly critical of Hazrat Shams, even threatening him. They believed Hazrat Shams had ruined their spiritual circle and prevented them from listening to Mawlana's sermons. In March of 1246 he left Konya and went to Syria without warning. After he left, Mawlana was grief stricken, secluding himself even more rather than engaging with his disciples and students. He was without a doubt furious with them. Realising the error of their ways, they repeatedly repented before Mawlana. Some months later, news arrived that Hazrat Shams had been seen in Damascus and a letter was sent to him with apologising for the behaviour of these disciples. Hazrat Sultan Walad and a search party were sent to Damascus to invite him back and in April 1247, he made his return. During the return journey, he invited Hazrat Sultan Walad to ride on horseback although he declined, choosing instead to walk alongside him, explaining that as a servant, he could not ride in the presence of such a king. Hazrat Shams was received back with joyous celebration with sama ceremonies being held for several days, and all those that had shown him resentment tearfully asked for his forgiveness. He reserved special praise for Hazrat Sultan Walad for his selflessness, which greatly pleased Mawlana. As he originally had no intention to return to Konya, he most likely would not have returned if Hazrat Sultan Walad had not himself gone to Damascus in search of him. After his return, he and Mawlana Rumi returned to their intense discussions. Referring to the disciples, Hazrat Shams narrates that their new found love for him was motivated only by desperation: “ They felt jealous because they supposed, "If he were not here, Mowlana would be happy with us." Now [that I am back] he belongs to all. They gave it a try and things got worse, and they got no consolation from Mowlana. They lost even what they had, so that even the enmity (hava, against Shams) that had swirled in their heads disappeared. And now they are happy and they show me honor and pray for me. (Maqalat 72) ” Referring to his absence, he explains that he left for the sake of Mawlana Rumi's development: “ I'd go away fifty times for your betterment. My going away is all for the sake of your development. Otherwise it makes no difference to me whether I'm in Anatolia or Syria, at the Kaaba or in Istanbul, except, of course, that separation matures and refines you. (Maqalat 164) ” After a while, by the end of 1247, he was married to Kimia, a young woman who’d grown up in Mawlana Rumi's household. Sadly, Kimia did not live long after the marriage and passed away upon falling ill after a stroll in the garden

Tren giderken iki tarafımızda Suriye ve Lübnan'ı sanki safra gibi boşaltıyoruz. Yarın kendimizi Anadolu köylerinin arasında Kudüs'süz, Şam'sız, Lübnan'sız, Beyrut'suz ve Halep'siz, öz can ve öz ocak kaygısına boğulmuş, öyle perişan bulacağız. Kumandanım harap Anadolu topraklarını gördükçe: - Keşke vazifem buralarda olsaydı, diyor. Keşke vazifesi oralarda olsaydı. Keşke o altın sağnağı ve enerji fırtınası, bu durgun, boş ve terkedilmiş vatan parçası üstünden geçseydi! - Eğer kalırsam, diyor; bütün emelim Anadolu'da çalışmaktır. Eğer kalırsa, eğer bırakılırsa... Anadolu hepimize hınç, şüphe ve güvensizlikle bakıyor. Yüz binlerce çocuğunu memesinden sökerek alıp götürdüğümüz bu anaya, şimdi kendimizi ve pişmanlığımızı getiriyoruz, istasyonda bir kadın durmuş, gelene geçene: - Benim Ahmed'i gördünüz mü? diyor. Hangi Ahmed'i? Yüz bin Ahmed'in hangisini? Yırtık basmasının altından kolunu çıkararak, trenin gideceği yolun, İstanbul yolunun aksini gösteriyor: - Bu tarafa gitmişti, diyor. O tarafa? Aden'e mi, Medine'ye mi, Kanal'a mı, Sarıkamış'a mı, Bağdat'a mı? Ahmed'ini buz mu, kum mu, su mu, skorpit yarası mı, tifüs biti mi yedi Eğer hepsinden kurtulmuşsa, Ahmed'ini görsen, ona da soracaksın: - Ahmed'imi gördün mü? Hayır... Hiçbirimiz Ahmed'ini görmedik. Fakat Ahmed'in her şeyi gördü. Allah'ın Muhammed'e bile anlatamadığı cehennemi gördü. Şimdi Anadolu'ya, batıdan, doğudan, sağdan, soldan bütün rüzgârlar bozgun haykırışarak esiyor. Anadolu, demiryoluna, şoseye, han ve çeşme başlarına inip çömelmiş, oğlunu arıyor. Vagonlar, arabalar, kamyonlar, hepsi, ondan, Anadolu'dan utanır gibi, hepsi İstanbul'a doğru, perdelerini kapamış, gizli ve çabuk geçiyor. Anadolu Ahmed'ini soruyor. Ahmed, o daha dün bir kurşun istifinden daha ucuzlaşan Ahmed, şimdi onun pahasını kanadını kısmış, tırnaklarını büzmüş, bize dimdik bakan ana kartalın gözlerinde okuyoruz. Ahmed'i ne için harcadığımızı bir söyleyebilsek, onunla ne kazandığımızı bir anaya anlatabilsek, onu övündürecek bir haber verebilsek... Fakat biz Ahmed'i kumarda kaybettik!

Doğrusunu ister misin, benim gözüm yıldı. Ben artık hiçbir işe yaramam.'' dedi. Annesine birkaç defa ölüm haberi gelmiş. Çünkü birkaç defa haftalarca düşman içinde kaldı. Hepimiz öldüğüne inandık. Sonra esir düştü. Gene öldüğünü söylemişler. Hatta ailesine aylık bile bağlanmış. ''İstanbul'a döndük, dedi. Bir akşamüzeri... Bizim mahallede bir yokuş vardı. Alacakaranlıkta bunu çıkıyorum. Bir yeldirmeli kadın da iniyor. Neredense annem olduğunu tanıdım. Bakkala yoğurt almaya gidiyormuş. O kadar heyecanlanmışım ki duvara dayanarak bekledim. Benim hizama gelince ''Anne!'' dedim. Bunu demedim, adeta inledim. Neredeyse ağlayacaktım. O da benim sesimi tanıdı. ''İsmail, sen misin?'' diye sordu. Hani gereksiz sorular vardır ya, işte onlardan birisi... Yoksa beni tanıdı. Ne yaptı bilir misin? Elindeki kaseyi eğilip yere koyduktan sonra kucakladı beni... Biz ana-oğul, öylece ağlaşırken, yemin ederim ki, aklı fikri, yere bıraktığı kasedeydi. ''Aman kırılmasın!'' Ben kendimi belki yüzlerce defa o kaseden daha değersizmişim gibi ölüme attım. Bunu sen gördün, bilirsin. Annem, mezardan geri gelen oğlu için, kenarı çatlak bir kaseyi -vallaha kenarı çatlaktı, eskici Yahudi iki kuruş vermezdi- yere atamadı. Sonra akrabaları, dostları, komşuları, hemşerileri dolaştım. Hepsinde bu ''kaseyi yere atamamak'' hali fazlasıyla vardı. Harbe gidenler haklı olarak umursamaz olmuşlardı. Bir suretle yakalarını kurtaranlar ise bizim karşımızda vicdan azabı çekiyorlar, bu duyguyla yenilginin suçunu açıktan açığa bize yükletiyorlardı. ''Sanki neye yaradı?'' anlamına gelen bir alaycı, kırıcı bakışlarla bakıyorlar ki dayanılmaz.'' dedi.