Tag Archives: turkey

Recommended book: The Muslim discovery of Europe

I’ve always been interested in finding out “the other side of the story”. That was one of my main incentives in learning foreign languages, and the reason why I usually scan international newspapers.  As a recent project put me in constant contact with Turkey, I was able to pick up this book at Istanbul airport and was able to read it through.  While this blog gives a longer review of the book than I’d be willing to write here, the most interesting bit of the whole book was that for the peoples comprising Medieval Islam, Europe was an uninteresting barbaric fringe following an antiquated superseded religion, and so approached their contact with Europeans from a stand of perceived moral superiority.  Not unlike the way Europeans viewed the peoples of the New World in the 1500’s.

The book then gives a summary of how those attitudes changed with the faster European development of the Renaissance to a situation where while European technical, scientific & military expertise was sought after, cultural contact was still avoided.  300 years later, the situation is starting to change as can be seen in the TED talk below:

Disclaimer: I know Turkey is in general much less traditionalist than other Muslim countries. It is generally agreed that the push West was started by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which was not covered in this book.

Turkey one last time

Was in Istanbul, Kayseri & Ankara to see through the project that has brought me to Turkey. Since we were over a week here we had some time to see some of the sights, which was more than welcome. A big thanks to my colleagues and business partners for making the project a success and the stay enjoyable.

Istanbul at night
Istanbul at night

Mosque in Nisantasi
Mosque in Nisantasi. Notice the minaret is in the style of a classical Greek column.
Dusk over Istanbul
Dusk over Istanbul
FIBA Turkey 2010 World Championship opening ceremony
Dervishes at the FIBA Turkey 2010 World Championship opening ceremony.
Night over Istanbul
Another night over Istanbul
Sunrise at the airport
The only problem I encountered during the trip was that I had to wake up extremely early to catch connecting flights. This sunrise was taken at Istanbul Ataturk airport.
Turkey 2010 with Turkish Airlines
There's all kinds of things happening in Turkey this year.
Capadocia Panorama
Capadocia panorama
Avanos
Interesting rock formations in Capadocia
Ivory Coast fans
Ivorian fans at the World Basketball Championship
Basketballer from above
These basketball figurines were placed all over Ankara

Turkey once more

Spent some time in Turkey for work. It was quite a quick visit, but was still able to see more than just Istanbul this time. The rest of the pictures are here.

Taksim
Turkish flag in Taksim square, Istanbul.
Monument in Taksim
Monument to the war dead in Taksim square, Istanbul.
Rolling plains of Anatolia
Visited Ankara for the first time. While I couldn't see much of the city, the approach from the airport really showed the rolling plains of Anatolia.
Dusk over Istanbul
Mosque at dusk in Istanbul.
Istanbul at night
Night at the Golden Horn.

Istanbul again

Spent a few days in Turkey for work so didn’t have that much time to visit the city.  I was able to take a couple of good shots, though.

Giant get-together
The basketball World Championships will take place there in the summer

Bosphorus panorama
The Bosphorus and Ortaköy by day

Bosphorus panorama at night from Ortaköy
Same spot by night

Steamy köfte
It's steamy in the kitchen when they prepare köfte

Istanbul

Visited the city on a business trip. I have to say that the most interesting things about Istanbul for me were the long historical view you get in the city, and the uncanny resemblance Turks have with Mexicans.

As usual with these kind of posts, pictures say it better.

 

Istanbul panorama
A city between cultural zones and continents, it has more than 10 million people and number of different names throughout history (maybe Byzantium or Constantinople ring a bell). So many different peoples have lived in it, that excavations for the metro and the Marmara project have found ancient ruins (just like Templo Mayor in Mexico City).

 

Grand Bazaar
Traders by nature, the culture of haggling in its bazaars is very well developed.

 

Aya Sofya interior
The Aya Sofya, one of the most imposing religious buildings I have ever been to, started its life as a church, became a mosque and is now a national museum.

 

Técnica de panadero
Mexican similarities exhibit A: look at this baker's bread-carrying tecnique.

 

Técnica de taquero
Mexican similarities exhibit B: Kebabs are way too similar to tacos al pastor.

 

I’m not an Arab or a Turk, but so what if I were?

I was talking with another person when he made a comment assuming that I was Spanish. When I mentioned I am Mexican, he apologised profusely. I defused it with a comment saying that usually people think in Europe that I’m either Arab or Turk, because it is the truth.

Although there is some people that try to take advantage of the social security system available in this country, I believe they are as hardworking as anybody. I am taking Dutch lessons with them and they’re pretty OK, and I’ve noticed that they have many businesses that even open on Sunday (something almost impossible in these parts).

Of course not all of them are perfect and culture shock for their communities and the host society is not uncommon, but I believe it has to do with people sticking to the labels of “Turk”, “Arab”,
“Flemish” or “Walloon”, instead of noticing that we’re all “Human” with a capital H, regardless of how corny it may sound.