Kamil Pasha

Tags: Istanbul by Jenny White
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According to a recent poll carried out by A-G Research Company, the percentage of people who fast the entirety of Ramadan was 64 percent last year and dropped to 60 percent this year.
Columnist Kerim Balci’s observation about this:
On a recent visit to Istanbul I observed that the “city” was not fasting. In the past, […]

Tags: Culture, Headscarf Debate, Istanbul, Religion, Rights by Jenny White
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One of the assailants in a deadly armed attack on the US Consulate General in Istanbul in July had engaged in phone conversations with suspects arrested as part of the investigation into Ergenekon, a neo-nationalist gang believed to be the extension of a clandestine network of groups with members in the armed forces that planned […]

Tags: Deep state/Ergenekon, Istanbul, Politics, Religion by Jenny White
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The following are brief excerpts from a fascinating article by Kerem Öktem, “Sexual Identity Politics in Unsettled Turkey”, in Middle East Report Online (for full article, click here) I’ve also added MERIP to the blogroll.

… June 29 marked the […]

Tags: Culture, Istanbul, Politics, Rights by Jenny White
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From the Qantara.de interview with Orhan Pamuk:
Pamuk: I’ve spent the last two years outside of Turkey. This is perhaps partly related to the Nobel Prize. My fame grew and grew, but then I moved back here. I have witnessed humanity in Istanbul. Oh I know what humanity is in Istanbul. I cannot think of life […]

Tags: Culture, Fiction, Istanbul by Jenny White
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This post (along with this wonderful photo) about the Kastamonu Food Market in the Kasimpasa district of Istanbul was on the luscious “Cafe Fernando Istanbul” food blog in April, but it has stuck in my mind. It’s a narrative of the author’s rising from sleep, getting his car unblocked, finding the market, and then shopping, […]

Tags: Istanbul by Jenny White
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A wonderful photo sent in by the photographer A. Murat Eren (here’s his site). Thanks, Murat!
Istanbul cats are small points of delight and surprise. They’re everywhere, each one is different, and they continually lighten the spirit.  JW

Tags: Istanbul by Jenny White
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Provenance of photos unknown

Tags: Istanbul, Religion by Jenny White
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Sabbateanism, a movement that began 400 years ago in the Ottoman Empire, is the subject of some of the most popular conspiracy theories in Turkey [JW: about Jews masquerading as Muslims and infiltrating Turkish society and politics.]…

Historian Cengiz Sisman [has] studied the subject for his doctoral thesis at Harvard University and recently published a book […]

Tags: Culture, Istanbul, Religion by Jenny White
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Thanks to a reader for alerting me to this review in the Tehran Times of the Turkish TV series “Nour” that has become so popular in the Arab world that it has led to a fatwa being issued against it and doubled Arab tourism to Turkey. Looks like the series is a kind of Rorschach […]

Tags: Culture, Fiction, Istanbul, Politics, Religion, Uncategorized by Jenny White
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