The sarcophagus of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari is an important holy site
As a European Capital of Culture for 2010, Istanbul likes to show its modern, western side. But in the Eyup district, a holy site for Muslims, life is veiled in centuries of tradition.
It is afternoon in Eyup. The call of the muezzin rings out over the square in front of the mosque. Women in colorful headscarves lead their children by the hand as men with prayer beads amble towards the entrance to the mosque.
Pairs of newlyweds pose for photos in front of the fountain; the brides’ wedding dresses shimmering in the sunlight. A young groom exclaims, “We are here to pray to Allah for a good marriage!” His mother says softly, “God willing, they will always be a happy couple.”
A few meters away, a couple proudly presents their five-year-old son. The boy looks like a little sultan. He is wearing a shiny white suit with gold edging and a turban-like headpiece. In a few days he will participate in the “sunnet” – the Turkish circumcision ceremony.
Before this important event, the boy’s parents take him to the Eyup Sultan Mosque. “You pray before circumcision – that’s the practice laid down by our prophet,” explains the boy’s father.
Eyup is a popular place for wedding ceremonies
Pilgrims and tourists
According to theologian and Eyup’s cultural affairs coordinator Irfan Calisan, the district gets many regular visitors. Each year, Eyup is visited by up to four million people – one and a half million in the fasting month of Ramadan alone.
“On days of particular religious significance, like the Festival of Sacrifice, we sometimes have 100,000 visitors per day,” said Calisan.
Muslims flock to Eyup not only for special occasions or religious events. There is also an old tradition, dating back over 500 years, of visiting the gravesite of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari – the companion and standard-bearer of the prophet Mohammed, believed to have died there in the seventh century. The gravesite, located in the mosque’s inner courtyard, dates back to the 15th century. The Eyup district owes its name to this famous religious figure.
“Many Mecca pilgrims make a stopover here,” said Calisan. “We call this tradition from the Ottoman times ‘little hajj.’”
Hopes and prayers
Traditionally, the Abu Ayyub al-Ansari gravesite is also visited by unmarried and childless women, who come to pray for a husband and offspring, as well as by students and the sick, who pray for good exam results and health.
The sarcophagus of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari is an important holy site
Those who come here have the chance to take advantage of the so-called “wishing window” at the entrance to the Abu Ayyub al-Ansari mausoleum. They can stand in front of it and pray in the hope of having their wish granted.
The graveside is decorated with precious carpets and tiles. The sarcophagus of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari is in a separate room, behind a silver lattice door. Only the hafiz, the Koran reciter, is allowed to enter it. The mufti of Eyup, Isa Gurler, gave Deutsche Welle the chance to look inside.
“As the prophet left Mecca and went to Medina, he spent seven months in Abu Ayyub al-Ansari’s house,” explained Gurler. “After the prophet’s death, Ansari became a leading Islamic scholar. He told the Muslims about the deeds and statements of the prophet.”
Eternal peace
After visiting the gravesite, many pilgrims head to the old cemetery behind the mosque to honor the dead. Only very few can be buried there – it is reserved for special dignitaries. But the spiritual atmosphere of the place puts a spell on everyone present, regardless of why they are there.
Irfan Calisan smiles wisely. “That’s how it is in life is – happiness and sorrow are not far from each other. It’s the same in Eyup.”
ISTANBUL—Nobel Prize-winning author Sir V.S. Naipaul has pulled out of a writers’ conference in Istanbul that starts Thursday, pressured by religious conservative media in Turkey that objected to statements he has made on Islam.
Author V. S. Naipaul
The move sparked two Turkish authors to pull out of the event, its organizers said Wednesday.
Mr. Naipaul, author of some 30 books, had been due to give the opening speech at the European Parliament of Writers, a literary event organized here to mark Istanbul’s status as a European Capital of Culture this year.
For the past week, however, religious conservative Turkish newspapers, including Yeni Safak and Zaman, have been campaigning against the decision to honor Mr. Naipaul, a 78-year-old Trinidadian of Indian origin. While some Turkish authors supported his right to attend the conference, defending him on grounds of free speech, others said they would boycott the event if he attended.
“How can our writers bear to sit by the same table with Naipaul, who has seen Muslims worthy of so many insults?” wrote poet and Zaman columnist Hilmi Yavuz, who initiated the planned boycott last week and described Mr. Naipaul as “an enemy of Islam” and “a colonialist.”
The uproar over Mr. Naipaul’s participation exposed the continued sensitivity of religion in modern, officially secular Turkey, even as it seeks to join the European Union. Free speech also remains fragile, with hundreds of journalists facing trial over their articles and thousands of websites banned under a 2007 law.
“In these days when it is often said how we are opening up to the world, this case showed how closed we still are,” liberal journalist Ece Temelkuran wrote in Haber Turk newspaper.
Mr. Naipaul, through his agency, declined to comment. A statement by the agency confirmed that the writer had decided not to attend due to the strong Turkish reactions, a decision it said was made Tuesday by Mr. Naipaul and the event’s organizers.
“The politicization of the conference in the Turkish media in regards to Sir V.S. Naipaul’s participation has altered the original conception of the event and [his] contribution to it as a celebrated author,” the statement said.
“We feel disturbed about how things came to this point and how meaningless [the debate] has been,” said Ahmet Kot, literary director of the Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Agency.
The organizers said that by Wednesday evening in Istanbul, Turkish writers Murat Uyurkulak and Cem Akas, the latter of whom was scheduled to moderate a panel discussion, had withdrawn to protest the cancellation of Mr. Naipaul’s visit.
Mr. Akas couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Mr. Uyurkulak said in a telephone interview he made his decision in support of freedom of expression.
“I am not a fan of Naipaul. I don’t really like him. But I don’t want to take part in a literary event where somebody is being boycotted because of what he says,” Mr. Uyurkulak said. “If we cannot host someone who represent opposing views as he pleases, if we cannot listen to them, we have a problem.”
The organizers added that all foreign writers were already en route or already in Istanbul, and that none had so far canceled appearances.
Mr. Naipaul’s views on Islam, including those in 1981’s nonfiction “Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey” and the 1998 “Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples,” have sparked anger in the Muslim world. Opponents of his visit to Turkey have cited several of his books as offensive and objected to his characterization of Islam as “imperialist.”
Islam “has had a calamitous effect on converted people,” Mr. Naipaul said in 2001 after a book reading in London. “To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say, ‘my ancestral culture does not exist—it doesn’t matter.’”
The European Writer’s Parliament was conceived by Turkey’s sole winner of a Nobel Prize for literature, novelist Orhan Pamuk, together with Jose Samarago, the Portuguese Nobel winner, who died in June. The event aims to bring together around 100 writers from around Europe.
Jason Goodwin, author of “The Janissary Tree,” had just arrived in his hotel in Istanbul on Wednesday when he heard word of Mr. Naipaul’s cancellation.
“I can understand why Turkish writers might be upset” by Mr. Naipaul being an honorary guest, Mr. Goodwin, who has written about the Ottoman empire, said in a telephone interview. “My impression is that he also doesn’t know Islam as deeply he should. Personally, I would have wanted to hear Mr. Naipaul speak as he would have been an interesting voice, an interesting person.”
Mr. Goodwin also said he understood Mr. Naipaul’s decision. “We are all here as guests,” he said. “And who wants to be an awkward guest?”
via Naipaul, Turkish Authors Pull Out of Istanbul Writers’ Conference – WSJ.com.
PJ Harvey releases her ninth studioalbum ‘Let England Shake’ on February 14. Laura Snapes has heard it…
Let England Shake
You might know this one from Polly?s performance on The Andrew Marr Show earlier this year, which you can watch below. Now though, the Four Lads ?Istanbul (Not Constantinople)? sample has been scrapped (?It actually became something that was drawing the song back rather than letting it become its own living entity, so we got rid of that in the end,? Polly explained), and what sounds like a hollow music box salvaged from a decrepit carousel mimics that song?s melody instead.
It?s still played on autoharp, the chord progressions of which are so subtle that it almost becomes drone-like, Mick Harvey gracefully splashes the cymbals on every autoharp downstroke, and a wind section adds long, off-key chords for gravitas. Most striking of all though is PJ?s voice ? high, brutally direct and confessional in places on ?White Chalk?, here it?s layered and spritely, flirting with her regional accent on certain lines. It sounds like she?s having fun with it?
The Last Living Rose
There?s a pretty good quality video of PJ playing this at last year?s Camp Bestival. The recorded version is much the same in terms of voice and guitar, but with added spindly percussion and plaintive, sparingly used horns. There?s real emphasis at the end of this line – ?past the Thames river glistening, like gold, hastily sold, for nothing, NOTH-II-IING!? ? which seems much more of a direct political statement than we?re used to from Polly.
The Glorious Land
?This album?s not solely about war, it?s about very many different things ? it?s the world we live in, and part of that is war,? PJ said in our interview. This song more than any other present seems directly related to the act of battle itself. There?s a shaky but liturgical rhythm to the drums which open the minute-long introduction, uneasy single bass notes, and then a bugle, which rears its ?Reveille? throughout the song, the lyrics of which make up a series of call and responses.
All the lines are repeated twice, then answered twice: ?How is our glorious country ploughed, not by iron ploughs,? is met with ?our lands are ploughed by tanks and feet, fee-eet maa-arrching?. With more lines, her voice grows ever higher, the chorus sees her playing with intonation again ? ?oh, America? is sometimes ?oh, A-me-ri-CAH?, followed by a rattling childlike chorus of ?oh Eng-err-laa-aand?. The only line that remains unanswered is, ?how is our glorious land bestowed?? her voice borderline hysterical, but still restrained.
The Words That Maketh Murder
?I?ve seen and done things I want to forget,? Polly sings, whilst a detuned autoharp echoes limitlessly. ?I?ve seen soldiers fall like lumps of me-ee-eat.? Right, so here she?s definitely in character mode as she explained in the magazine, her voice a shellshocked but theatrically coy rattle.
The lyrics are a harrowing portrait of war ? nothing you couldn?t garner from the television or newspaper, but images of dismembered limbs and ?a corporal whose nerves were shot? hang oppressively before she and collaborator John Parish question, ?What if I take my problem to the United Nations?? come the end. All you critics who quarrelled with her move into narrative lyrics come the release of ?To Bring You My Love? ? gird your loins.
All And Everyone
At first, this feels a lot lighter, with open, ringing autotune chords. There?s a certain air of resignation, as amplified by an organ, meek as though played by an old lady in the parish vestry. After about forty seconds though, it all tails off and weighted, dissonant autoharp clanks underneath, making chords out of different detunings.
Again, we?re on the battlefield ? and ?death was everywhere, and everyone? – but mentions of beaches and sea along with the richly drab horns give it more of an old-timey D-Day feel than any modern war. The clanking, detuned strings chime with gunfire regularity, cymbals occasionally adding canon-like emphasis, but vanishing during the chorus, which drones at a half pace to Polly?s frantic descriptions during the verse.
On Battleship Hill
Initially the warmest sounding track so far, kicking off with an almost major chord echoing, comforting electric jangle. There?s no edge or sharpness to the guitar part at all, until a stuttering classical guitar falters on a single played string whilst Polly trills, ?The scent of time has carried on the wind? in a nigh-on hysterial alto. Here she?s lamenting the senescent damage that time brings upon humans, but not on the land, which ?returns to how it?s always been, time carried on the wind.? A jarring, eerie listen.
England
A love letter to England; here, it?s this character ? or Polly?s ? raison d?être, and in the country?s dying throes, her protagonist wilts accordingly. It?s an unhinged listen, starting off with just her voice half singing, half wailing, ?laah-dah-da-dah? like a slightly mad child, whilst a thinner, far more distant, approximation of her voice is trapped underneath, almost mangled into Middle Eastern intonation that recalls routine prayer calls. Again, she?s dealing with the torture of aging ? ?I have searched for your springs,? she sings, ?but people, they stagnate with time, like water, like air??
In The Dark Places
Back to that raw, more live feel; the guitar a thick burr beneath as she and John again roam the landscape, witnessing ?our young men / hit with guns / in the dirt / and in the dark places?. It?s probably the most affecting song on the record, the verse all searching high notes, then dropping into an almost spoken chorus, where Polly and John take turns leading verses of ?And not one man has / and not one woman has / revealed the secrets of this world.?
Bitter Branches
Drums dash at a gravelly chase, the pace much faster than anything else thus far, and the ominous guitar sprinting behind recalls the oppressive chase of ?Uh Huh Her?. As on the opening song, Polly?s having fun with her voice again ? it veers mercurially between an unnerving coo during the drops and an echoing shriek on the verses as she castigates the trees: ?Bitter branches / Spreading out / There?s none more bitter-er-er / than the wood.?
Hanging In The Wire
And the oppressive sound lifts? We?re still out in the countryside, but rather than dendrophobic railings, here the lyrics trace a lone rambler who ?sees the mist rise over no man?s land.? Beneath her dislocated, high voice, the song?s piano-led, but wouldn?t have fit on ?White Chalk? due to its sweet, high classical refrain ? though she does mention ?the white cliffs of Dover.?
Written On The Forehead
So the sample was stripped from ?Let England Shake?, but there?s one here ? an old reggae track called ?Blood And Fire?. I?m not sure who did it originally ? the only thing YouTube?s throwing up is a really shit UB40 cover of it? Anyway, as a muffled voice chants, ?Blood, blood, blood, blood and fire? in the background, Polly?s voice trembles, ?People throwing Dinars / At the bellydancers.?
We?re not on homely pastoral turf any more, with the mention of Dinars seeming to link back to the trapped voice in ?England? that sounds like prayer call. Given that the original sample on ?Let England Shake?, ?Istanbul (Not Constantinople)? referred to the Turkish people reclaiming/renaming their capital city as its original name was of Latin origin, so there seems to be a parallel Middle Eastern narrative or set of references running through the record.
The Colour Of The Earth
John Parish kicks off this song, singing, ?Louis was my dearest friend / Fighting in the ANZAC trench.? Quick history lesson for you here: this refers to a fight to capture the Ottoman capital of Istanbul ? then known as Constantinople ? during the first world war, a battle that resulted in heavy casualties on both sides.
Which lends credence to the theory I was mooting on ?Written On The Forehead? about the dual narrative. When Polly talked of the album being about war in parts, my instant assumption would be that it?s a reaction to the military activity of recent years, but if it is, she?s chosen a more recondite fight with which to contrast it, or in which to set her observations.
The instrumentation here is autoharp again, blurred by infinite reverb (perhaps due to the high ceilings of the church in which they recorded), with subtle chord changes that are as plain in tone as an unexotic landscape, but as breathtaking as a bird?s eye view of same.
For the full, exclusive interview with PJ Harvey get the new issue of NME magazine. It’s on newsstands across the UK from tomorrow (November 24), or available digitally worldwide now.
Iranian art galleries are set to participate in the fifth edition of the Contemporary Istanbul, Turkey’s most comprehensive modern art event.
Tehran’s Asar and Etemad galleries will present works by contemporary Iranian artists such as Samira Alikhanzadeh, Reza Azimian, Mohammad Ghazali, Ahmad Morshedlou, Babak Roshaninejad and Sadeq Tirafkan.
This year’s Contemporary Istanbul will to be held from November 25- 28.
The event is expected to attract international artists, collectors, museum directors, curators, art critics, members of the press and art lovers to the Istanbul Convention and Exhibition Center (ICEC).
Organized by the Cagdas Istanbul Sanat Organizasyon ve Yatirimlari A.S, the art show will exhibit paintings, sculptures, plastic arts, gravure, photographs, installations, videos and graphic artworks.
A catalogue of the displayed items will also be published to be sold during the 2010 Contemporary Istanbul.
Conferences and workshops will also be held on the sidelines of the event to promote Turkish cultural and artistry as well as the historical city of Istanbul.
Burn After Seeing: Why Contemporary Iranian Art is Hot will be one of the first conferences to be held during the event, which explores modern Iranian art from the perspective of Sam Bardaouil, co-founder of Art Reoriented — a curatorial and art consulting practice specializing in contemporary art from the Middle East.
TE/ZHD/AKM
via PressTV – Istanbul to exhibit modern Iranian art.
Well-known Indian-British writer Sir Vidiadhar Suraiprasad Naipaul’s invitation to speak at an Istanbul literary event has prompted controversy due to the author’s critical statements about Islam.
A number of Turkish writers invited to the European Writers Parliament have announced they will boycott the event in protest of Naipaul’s participation.
“The invitation [to Naipaul] should be canceled and the reason should be explained to him,” said writer Rasim Özdenören. Leftist writer Cezmi Ersöz said Naipaul’s invitation to the event was an insult to Muslims.
Daily Zaman writer Hilmi Yavuz was the first to withdraw his name, followed by Cihan Aktaş of daily Milli Gazete and Beşir Ayvazoğlu of Yeni Şafak.
“Islam has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples,” Naipaul, a Nobel laureate, said in 2001. “To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say, ‘My ancestral culture does not exist, it does not matter.’”
Responding to the controversy, Ahmet Kot, the literary director of the Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Agency made an announcement and said Naipaul was invited not as the event’s guest of honor but to deliver its opening speech.
“I was expecting to get positive reactions for bringing together people with different views,” Kot said. “I still think that we are right and some writers will support us.”
The literary event will run from Thursday until Saturday.
A similar controversy occurred during this year’s Golden Orange Film Festival in Antalya, when world-famous Bosnia-Serbian director Emir Kusturica, who had been invited to participate in the festival as a jury member, withdrew from the event following protests in Turkey. The protesters claimed some of the director’s earlier comments supported war criminals during the Bosnian War in 1995.
Tehran galleries taking part in Contemporary Istanbul exhibit
Tehran Times Art Desk
TEHRAN – Tehran’s Asar and Etemad galleries will participate in the fifth edition of the Contemporary Istanbul exhibit, which runs from November 25 to 28.
The Asar Gallery will be displaying selected works by seven Iranian artists with the central theme of population.
Alireza Adambakan, Samira Alikhanzadeh, Reza Azimian, Mohammad Ghazali, Ahmad Morshedlu, Babak Roshaninejad, and Sadeq Tirafkan will be displaying their works.
The name of the artists attending the event from Etemad Gallery was not released in the news.
For four days, Contemporary Istanbul will be hosting national and international galleries, artists from all over the world, collectors, museum directors, curators, art critics, members of the press and art lovers at the Istanbul Convention and Exhibition Center (ICEC).
As the most extensive “modern and contemporary art” event in Turkey, Contemporary Istanbul aims to promote the cultural and artistic life of Turkey.
via tehran times : Tehran galleries taking part in Contemporary Istanbul exhibit.
