A Ramadan Night in Istanbul
A 15 Hour Journey of Taste, Sight, Sound, and Spirit
Saturday — 6:15 PM
Tuzla, Istanbul, where I am doing a Turkish language summer intensive at Sabanci University, is about an hour and a half out from Taksim Square. Last Saturday, my classmate, Davut, and I, took the 6:15 PM shuttle bus for a scenic trip into downtown Istanbul, running into the notorious rush hour traffic on the Boğaziçi Köprüsü over the Bosphorus.
Iftar — 8:44 PM
Once we got to Taksim, we walked around for a bit, checking out some of the stores before getting seated at the restaurant we would have iftar in. Haci Abdullah is an Ottoman style restaurant, founded in 1888, that a friend had taken me to two nights ago. And again, I got the delicious Haci Abdullah 3-piece dish with eggplant and beef, with a big glass of pomegranate juice! There is a mosque (camii) right next door where we prayed magrib.
We met up with two doctoral students from Harvard. They just came from a bookstore in the Sultan Ahmet area called Irsad, which I have yet to go to (their online database seems quite impressive).
Being from New York, John asked whether I was a Yankees fan. I admitted I grew up watching and loving the Yankees. My Bostonian friend did not hold this against me, and we launched into a conversation about Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game, the title of outgoing NYU President John Sexton’s book and seminar, which I took in my junior year and then served as a teaching assistant for in 2013. The idea of the course, in seeking the ineffable, immediately resonated with my friend, a Red Sox fan, whose mother had converted from Judaism to Catholicism, and who is a practicing Catholic. (We later attended mass in the morning, but more about that later!)
We then walked over to this popular baklava and ice-cream place in Karaköy called Gulluouglu, (founded in 1820). I got the yummy pistachio and would definitely recommend it! Here’s a video from CNN about the place:
Isha Prayer — 10:40 PM
We then walked some more in Karaköy, took a taxi up the steep hill (thank God for the car ride!) and walked up to the Süleimainye, which, along with the Blue Mosque, is probably my favorite mosque in Istanbul.
Henry Matthews writes in his Mosques of Istanbul:
In the thirtieth year of his reign, Süleyman [the Magnificent] embarked on his greatest building project, Süleymaniye Camii.…Mimar Sinan’s duty as architect was to proclaim the sultan’s magnificence and power in solid stone and overwhelming interior space. He was commissioned to place the mosque at the heart of an educational complex, with no less than seven medreses, that would flourish as Istanbul’s intellectual centre.…The vast scale of Süleymaniye Camii can be somewhat overwhelming, but there is plenty of detail to enjoy. Sinan aimed to create beauty through perfection of form rather than lavish decoration... Inscriptions, over doorways picked out in gold, over courtyard windows in blue and white tiles, and painted in the dome are all excellent examples of the calligrapher’s art. They are probably the work of Çerkes Hasan Çelebi. The inscription from the Qur’an, in the centre of the dome, being: “God is the light of the heavens and the earth.” [Q24:35]
In the front of the mosque, in the prayer niche (mihrab), this part of the verse (in bold) is inscribed: “So her [Mary’s] Lord accepted her with good acceptance and caused her to grow in a good manner and put her in the care of Zechariah. Every time Zechariah entered upon her in the prayer chamber, he found with her provision. He said, “O Mary, from where is this [coming] to you?” She said, “It is from God. Indeed, God provides for whom He wills without account.” (Q3:37).
At the Sülemaniyye, after every 4 units (raka’) of the tarawih prayers, the salat-i ummiyye is collectively recited. When the prayers are done, as is common in other mosques in Turkey, the transition into dua’ (supplication) is made through a recital of this verse:
“Our Lord! We believe in that which You have revealed and follow the Messenger. So write us among those who witness (to the truth).” (Q3:53)
Based on the Prophetic tradition, “If somebody recited the last two Verses of Surat Al-Baqara at night, that will be sufficient for him” (Bukhari), the last two verses of the second and longest chapter of the Qur’an (Q2:285–6) are also recited before departing from the evening prayers.
Something really beautiful we noticed while exiting the mosque is the calligraphy over the door —
“Say, “O My servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of the mercy of Allah.” (Q39:53).
What a message to walk out with!
Cafe — 12 AM
We then went to a roof top cafe with an amazing view of the Süleimaniye. Fireworks were going off as they apparently do every night in Ramadan. (I couldn’t tell from where I had been staying). Conversations ensued, while freshly squeezed orange juice and Osmanli tea replenished me!
Eyüp— 2 AM
After walking back to Taksim, at 2 AM, we took a cab to Eyup Sultan Mosque which the Cambridge Muslim scholar, Abdal Hakim Murad (Tim Winter) describes beautifully here:
Sabah prayer at the mosque of Eyüp is the most popular worship experience in the city; but arrive even at two in the morning on the 27th, and you will find it hard to squeeze beyond the leather curtains into the mosque interior. Here, more than anywhere else in the City, the Turks are feasting, and feasting again, on the Qur’an.
Like a benign watchful presence, behind the five-hundred year old plane tree planted by the Conqueror’s own hand in the mosque court, lies the grave of the Companion Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, which, of the hundreds of active pilgrimage sites in the City, remains the greatest magnet for visitors. The space is ablaze with a turquoise glow, supplied by the Iznik tiles, which are among the most precious ceramic masterpieces in the world. Close beside it is the I‘tikaf chamber built for Princess Adile, who spent her Ramadans here a century ago, before being buried among the royal tombs nearby. Outside lie the graves of warlike pashas, sayyids, and ulema, including Ebussuud Efendi, the great tafsir scholar, and reviver of the Shari‘a in the time of Sultan Suleyman. Here too are the sainted ladies, and then great madrasas and tekkes, beyond the stone stairs where a new Sultan, visiting the mosque for his coronation, would descend from his horse, to walk the remainder of Enthronement Road humbly on foot. In his palace, the Sultan alone could ride; at Eyüp, he too was required to dismount.
The square around Eyup was packed with people strolling, having snacks or suhur. We visited Abu Ayub — the Companion who, after the Prophet’s migration to Medina, hosted the Prophet in his house for 7 months. In the hadith literature, we find this beautiful narration about his etiquette in hosting the Prophet:
Allah’s Messenger had alighted in his house (of Abu Ayyub Ansari at the time of his emigration to Medina) and he occupied the lower storey, whereas Abu Ayyub Ansari lived in the upper storey. One night, Abu Ayyub Ansari got up and said: (How unfortunate it is) that we walk above the head of Allah’s Messenger, so they (he and his wife) went aside and spent the night in a nook and then told Allah’s Apostle about it whereupon Allah’s Apostle said: The lower storey is more comfortable (for me). but he (Abu Ayyub Ansari) said: We (would not live) over the roof under which you live. So Allah’s Messenger shifted to the upper storey, whereas Abu Ayyub Ansari shifted to the lower storey. (Sahih Muslim).
Notably, for continuing our devotional practices after Ramadan, we come across this hadith narrated by Abu Ayyub al-Ansari: “He who observed the fast of Ramadan and then followed it with six (fasts) of Shawwal. it would be as if he fasted perpetually.” (Sahih Muslim).
Fajr Azan— 3:30 AM
Inside the masjid, some people recited Qur’an while others prayed. After the fajr azan, two reciters recited the 21st part of the Qur’an in about forty minutes. We then prayed our sunna prayers, followed by the fajr congregational prayer, after which there was a talk by the mufti of Istanbul. We got back to Taksim by 5 AM.
Catholic Mass — 9:30 AM
The activities of the day weren’t over yet. We got in a few hours of sleep and were up at 9:30 AM. My friend was going to attend mass at a Catholic Church in Taksim and I decided to accompany him and attend mass for the first time. We went to the St. Anthony of Padua Church on İstiklal Avenue, the largest church of the Roman Catholic Church in Istanbul. Although originally built in 1725 by an Italian community, today the congregation was mostly Filipino and African, as was the minister. The sermon was about faith sustaining us through disappointment and setbacks. There was a number of readings from the Bible and a number of beautiful hymns.
On the left side of the church, I noticed a plaque for Maximilian Maria Kolbe, who my friend told me was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar, who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the German death camp of Auschwitz. It reminded me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor who fought against the Nazis, who a friend and writing instructor at NYU had introduced me to as one of his favorite modern theologians. Bonhoeffer gained his doctorate in theology in Berlin, before going to Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he studied under Reinhold Niebuhr and “heard Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., preach the Gospel of Social Justice and became sensitive to not only social injustices experienced by minorities but also the ineptitude of the church to bring about integration.[4].” He is another powerful inspiration for what taking faith seriously might mean in not being complicit or silent in the face of evil.
In the pictures and plaques in the courtyard of the church, I learned that Pope Francis, another inspirational religious thinker and leader for many, had visited Istanbul in November 2014.
After mass, we walked a bit more in Takism. We found an Arabian Oud shop that just opened a week ago and tried their Amber oud. We walked a little more, and toured the Hagia Triada Greek Orthodox Church, built in 1880, right by Taksim Square.
While it might not have been a night of drinking and partying that would be some folks’ idea of a fun night in the city, this was truly an exciting, lively night of spiritual reflection and exploration. Alhamdullilah. God willing, I hope to be back for more.
Ebadur Rahman is a PhD student in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. He has previous degrees from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University and is a graduate of the pilot seminary program of Zaytuna College. He memorized the Qur’an at the age of 15 while in high school in New York. Currently, he is studying Turkish in a summer intensive program in Istanbul. His first piece for Ummah Wide was Building a More Lively Connection to God and His Beloved: Reflections from Istanbul on Bettering our Ramadan Experience.
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