At the Court of the Ottomans: Exploring Istanbul

“If the world had a single Empire, Istanbul would be its capital”.

It is said that Napoleon pronounced these words talking about the capital of the old Ottoman Empire. Istanbul is an incredible melting pot of cultures and religions. Only when walking through its narrow and crowded streets, did I finally understand Napoleon’s words. This city magnificently embodies the idea of a crossing point between Christianity and Islam and expresses it by means of its gorgeous and massive historical buildings of rare beauty. Facing each other, the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia best exemplify the coexistence and mutual understanding between competing faiths that uninterruptedly ruled over these lands for the last two thousand years.

For example, the defaced images of the Christian saints provide a glance into the historical tension that marked the relation between the two religions in times of war and conquest. At the same time, the underground cistern built during the early Roman age to guarantee the city adequate water supplies, represents an element of continuity between Roman and Ottoman rule and stresses past rulers’ concern for people’s needs. Not only virtues but also vices and luxury made Istanbul the “new Rome”. The Sultan’s palace, Topkapi, best exemplifies this contradiction showing personal pleasure in the extravagantly decorated Harem, wealth in its treasury which contains the 5th largest diamond in the world, and religious relics.

Yet, in Istanbul, images and conceptualizations of West and East dissolve into a single mainstream that combines rather than divides traditional categories of “us vs. other”. Western electronic music reverberates from the bars of the city only to stop when the daily prayers are broadcasted from nearby mosques. Conservatively dressed women walk side by side with friends dressed in mini-skirts and high heeled shoes. Traditional Turkish dishes and “cay” is listed on the same menu as European cuisine and alcoholic beverages. Not to mention the Grand Bazaar, a micro-cosmos of human interconnections and economic interdependence that largely anticipated the globalization era. These examples are just a drop in the ocean of the multicultural identity of a city whose geographical position and European-Asian halves further complicates traditional categories of West and East.

Does East or West make any sense in Turkey? Right now, based on my experiences during my first month living in the Eastern side of the country and traveling West, I am still undecided. Istanbul itself embodies the dual face of the same coin, depending on one’s geographical location, because fluid and undefined borders disprove the rigid categorization of political scientists. Taking a cruise on the Bosporus further reinforces the ambiguous and contested identity of the port city that, undisputed in terms of its national and Turkish territorial belonging, leaves room for debate of its supranational dimension. Such a problematic definition provides further evidence of the tensions and contradictions of this marvelous country that throughout its multiple cultural facets points out the existence of an ongoing process of reconciliation between secularism and religion, a significant issue on its path to democracy.