Istanbul Symphony (Op 28) – Fazil Say

Note: Concert starts at 16 minutes.

• Black Earth / Kara Toprak – Fazıl Say
• Turkish pianist Fazil Say accused of insulting Islam (via twitter)

Paulo Coelho and Christina Oiticica in Istanbul

Paulo Coelho and Christina Oiticica in Istanbul on St Joseph’s Day.

Scenes from press conference at Pera Palace Hotel and Istanbul street scene.

Photos by Marcos Borges.

Music Istanbul by Orient Expressions.

- Paulo Coelho in Istanbul on St Joseph’s Day
- Paulo Coelho Press Conference at Pera Palace Hotel
- Paulo Coelho’s St Joseph’s Day Party at Pera Palace Hotel

Dreams do come true

nostalgia by Eisblume

When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream. — Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

There are always two choices in life, either put up with the conditions as they are, or take the responsibility to change them. — Pooja Tripathi

I’m constantly blinking my eyes trying to stay awake
I feel like I’m fallen and I know I better awaken
I’m constantly reminiscing on what are the meanings of my dreams
My dreams are beyond an ordinary dream
In my dreams I have already been here and there
I feel like I’m trapped in a cage
Because it continues to leave me puzzled like a maze
I feel like in life it is meant for us to dream
Because dreams are what bring life to reality
All I know is I must awaken before life passes me by
Because I pray when I die I get to live in the sky

– sehar

A doctor by profession and a child by heart. A teacher by choice and a dreamer by soul who aspires for civils,A poet,a blogger who wants to be a writer,A dancer who is an optimistic and believes in enjoying every moment of life – good or bad because gift of life is life itself,An aquarian whose life’s motto has always been “LIFE IS FOR ONCE,MAKE IT LARGE”………….n thats ME

There are always two choices in life, either put up with the conditions as they are, or take the responsibility to change them.

Pooja reads and comments on Paulo Coelho’s blog. One day to her surprise, Pooja recieved an e-mail:

Dear Dr. Proja
I prefer to post your story as my “Reader’s story” later this week, that is why I did not approve the comment
I am copying to my good friend, also a warrior of the light, Priya, who will make the necessary corrections.
Thank you for sharing
Paulo

The e-mail was from Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho, and true to his word he published her story on his blog.

There are always two choices in life, either put up with the conditions as they are, or take the responsibility to change them.

It happened one fine day when I was at my father’s clinic attending to his patients whilst he was out of town. A lady named Saraswati came with her one year old daughter. The baby was burning with fever, when I took her temperature I realized it was at 103. I scolded the lady for not bringing her baby in any earlier. The lady started crying, saying she did not have the money for the doctor’s fees and medication (I didn’t pay much attention to this since this is a very common occurrence at my father’s clinic).

Saraswati then told me her story. She had got married three years ago; her parents paid a dowry of 10,000 rupees. However, her husband ran away with the money and leaving her pregnant. Saraswati returned to her home and took on the job of a servant. Her husband’s family did not care about whether her daughter was sick or well since she was a girl.

After telling me her story, Saraswati left. I did not charge her, but I knew that this would not solve her problem. I thought about Saraswati all night and wondered what could be done to help these illiterate, cheated and downtrodden women.

Then the next day I received a call from my aunty who needed a housemaid for her daugher-in-law who had just had twins. I felt as if God had showed me a way to help Saraswati.

I recommended her to my aunty. My aunty gave Saraswati a good income and a good home to live in.

After a few days she came with her sister who was educated and was looking to become independent like her sister. I recommended her to one of my friends for a receptionist’s position. From this came the idea of NAARI, an organization for making women self-dependant.

Setting up NAARI was not an easy task, since there are so many legal formalities for female organizations. I was very young and all alone, so I dropped the idea. And then one sunny morning when I was having coffee a group of women came to my house (guided by the ever so dear Saraswati of course).

Everybody had a common story, cheated, exploited and dowry victims.

I recommended nine of these women to domestic maid jobs.

Now these ladies are independent and all eleven of them are working hard to live a respectable life. I may have not been successful in giving them an organization but when one day Saraswati came to my home with a box of sweets because she had got admission for her daughter at a nearby school, she fell to my feet and said : you have given my daughter and I a respectable living, may God give you much success.

I realized I had done nothing I just showed them a way – a way to self-respect and thereafter, all eleven of them continued this tough journey themselves.

She thanked Paulo and he replied: “Thank you for sharing the story. you are not only a beautiful soul, but a good writer too (went through your blog.”

And having been in communication with Pooja all evening, I can only say I agree with Paulo, she is a beautiful soul, who radiates an outer beauty, and she is a good writer. As my lovely friend Iva with who I was chatting later would say (and says of me), she is a typical Aquarian.

But it did not end there. She had e-mails following publication on Paulo’s blog, one of which she reproduced as it was yet another story, which was also posted as a comment on Paulo’s blog to the original story.

On the eve before fleeing my homeland in April 1975, I was struck with a mysterious infliction (some kind of severe, internal bleeding and clot). Some at the hospital announced I only had a few days to live. Others with my condition had already died. My father refused to believe in this fate for me, refused to give in to the despair swirling around him. He was not alone.

There was a young, female doctor who performed an immediate surgery on me to remove whatever it was that stood in the way of my breath and caused blood to pour from my mouth. I was four years old and one of the few memories I have from that time in the hospital was being in a room full of sick and dying children and thinking, “I am not going to die. Not today. Not here.”

Doctors like you make a difference. Hope makes a difference.

Thank you to you and to all the doctors out there saving lives. As we say in Vietnamese, cảm ơn bạn rất nhiều. Thank you so much.

We all have dreams, but how many follow our dreams? We make excuses, then we bemoan our fate and are envious of others who have all the luck.

We are all presented with the same opportunities in life, the difference is that some grasp the opportunities that life offers them, are like Santiago in The Alchemist prepared to take risks to fullfil their dreams.

For me it was as a dream come true when Paulo Coelho invited me to his St Joseph’s Day party in Istanbul. Meeting him was like meeting an old friend I had known forever. Being in Istanbul, was in itself like being in a dream.

Meeting my lovely friend Sian was like a dream come true. I often used to think when we met, would I wake up one day and find that was all it was, a dream.

When I came back from Istanbul I went to see my lovely friend Sian. I wanted to share with her the excitement of my trip to Istanbul. I told her of how meeting Paulo was like meeting an old friend who I had known forever. I or maybe she said it was like when we met, something clicked, as old as time itself we had known each other, two soul mates reunited

- The Road Not Taken
- Dreams Do Come True
- Two Choices in Life
- Reader’s story: two choices in life

An atom’s weight of good

atom

(On the Day of Judgment) all humankind will issue forth in scattered groups to be shown their (past) deeds. Then whoever has done an atom’s weight of good shall see it, and whoever has done an atom’s weight of evil shall (also) see it. — The Holy Quran, 99:6-8

At his press conference to mark St Joseph’s Day and to explain why he was hosting a party with friends that evening, Paulo Coelho said the question God would ask would not be of our sin but of our love. He also quoted from the Quran.

Pomegranate juice

pomegranates

Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks. — Song of Solomon 4:3

Let us go early to the vineyards to see … if the pomegranates are in bloom – there I will give you my love. — Song of Solomon 7:12

I used to eat pomegranates as a child when I visited my grandmother. We used to scoop out the seeds with a spoon.

Then they kind of disappeared. In the last few years pomegranates have started to re-appear, but still are not very common.

In Istanbul I saw pomegranates everywhere, a small pomegranate the sort seen in England and a large pomegranate the size of a large grapefruit.

The pomegranates I saw in Istanbul were used for fresh crushed pomegranate juice, a fruit juice to die for.

Fresh crushed orange juice 2 lire, fresh crushed pomegranate juice 3 lire.

Pomegranate is a superfood, high in antioxidents (much higher than other juices, red wine and green tea), high in vitamins A, C, E and iron.

Thought to originally be native to Persia, pomegranates are now grown all over the Middle East and Mediterranean.

Pomegranates were one of the fruits brought to Moses to show that the promised Land was fertile

- Pomegranates: the fruity panacea
– 11 Health Benefits of Pomegranate Juice
- Pomegranate in the Bible | Biblical Quotes About Pomegranates
- 22 Facts About Pomegranates
- Carrot, grapefruit and ginger juice
- Watermelon juice
– 100 Best Health Foods
- SuperFoods

You, who they call Lord

setting sun Tenerife

You, who I can feel deep inside my soul.
You, who has created this world.

When I look into the microcosmos, in the macrocosmos, everywhere I find you.
I sense your greatness.

You, who they call Lord,
who they call Father,
who they call Allah,
who they call Jahwe,
You, who is there.

Who is with us. Who walks with us.
The older I become, the more I can call you friend.
You are the friend of my life, who loves me and who called me to carry your message to the people.
Thank you.

I want to ask for everyone who is here today, to feel some of God’s Greatness and His love, who wants us, who loves us.
Jesus Christ showed us a way which we can walk together.
In spite of everything and everyone, we can find ways together,
seek and find ways which will gift us with a better and more beautiful life.

Paulo has written that he is searching for the sense in his life.
And while searching he went across new paths, wrong tracks and detours, like the all of us.

Let’s keep on looking for you in the humans beings that are present in our path.

Amen

– Abbot Burkhard

Posted by Paulo Coelho on his blog.

At the press conference and at the party too at Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul on St Joseph Day, Paulo Coelho explained why he held a party on St Joseph Day, and that prayers would be said to St Joseph, that it was not an obligation to join in, but that if you did, the prayers must come from your heart, from your soul.

He invited several people on to the platform so that a prayer could be said in many languages. One of those who he invited was the Abbot of Melk Abbey who said this prayer in German.

Paulo invited everyone to hold hands during the prayers. It was a very moving experience.

I look forward to Abbot Burkhard’s recent book being translated into English.

Top story in Religion Today (Tuesday 29 March 2011).

- Spiritual experience of a sunset
- Paulo Coelho’s St Joseph’s Day Party at Pera Palace Hotel
- Abbot Burkhard’s book is # 1!!!
- No mosteiro de Melk
- Footprints in the Sand
- Sand and Foam

Pera Palace Hotel

View from the balcony - Elaine Street

The sun that suddenly rises behind the hills of Pera, over the minarets of the city and the Golden Horn, fills your heart with a crimson joy. Everything that was asleep all night long is waking up now … — Knut Hamsun

Pera Palace Hotel was built in 1892 to serve passengers on the Orient Express. It sits on top of a hill in modern Istanbul with extensive views of the river, Bosphorus and the old part of Istanbul. Passengers on the Orient Express were conveyed from the station, across the river and up the hill in a sedan chair. An example of one such sedan chair may be found in the foyer.

In 1895 Pera Palace was opened with a Grand Ball.

Pera Palace soon established itself as the place to see and be seen.

It was at the Pera Palace Hotel that Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express (1934).

Other famous guests include Ernest Hemingway, Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock, Mata Hari, Yehudi Menuhin, Jacqueline Kennedy, Rita Hayworth, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, King George V of England, King Edward VIII, Queen Elizabeth II, President Tito of Yugoslavia, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary and Czar Nicholas II of Russia.

Room 101, a favourite of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk during his many visits, is now a Atatürk museum.

The most recent famous visitor Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho. He hosted a St Joseph’s Day Party (Saturday 19 March 2011) and earlier in the day a press conference.

Pera Palace Hotel has been recently renovated to restore it to its former glory. It was closed in 2006 and reopened 1 September 2010. The re-opening coincided with the year that Istanbul had been designated as the European Capital of Culture.

The electric lift inside the hotel was the second only installed in Europe. The first was the Eiffel Tower. British writer Daniel Farson described the elevator:

It is the most beautiful elevator in the world made of cast iron and wood… It ascends like a lady who curtsies. Tourists can not take their eyes off this utterly pretty and aristocrat elevator.

Apart from the Ottoman Palaces, Pera Palace was the first building to have electricity.

A few minutes walking distance from Pera Palace lies Istiklal Avenue, the heart of modern Istanbul. A historic tram mentioned by Orhan Pamuk in one of his novels runs through Istiklal Avenue. At the end of Istiklal Avenue, a funicular runs down to the tram station, from where a tram runs across the river to the old part of Istanbul and the railway station. Or a 10 lire taxi ride, but the funicular and tram is more fun.

Also within walking distance lies the Galata Tower.

Pera Palace is featured in 1000 Places to See Before You Die, with a copy opened at the relevant pages in a display cabinet in the hotel foyer.

- Paulo Coelho meets readers in Istanbul
- Paulo Coelho Press Conference at Pera Palace Hotel
- Paulo Coelho’s St Joseph’s Day Party at Pera Palace Hotel
- Pera Palace Hotel Istanbul « Historic Hotels of the World – Then & Now
- Refurbished grandeur in Istanbul’s Pera Palace Hotel
- Istanbul: Afternoon Tea at the Pera Palace Hotel

Women and Islam

Koran

Proper veiling and Islamic dress code that upholds women’s chastity and modesty is a public issue. Indubitably this is an absolute legal and Sharia matter that is a religious imperative. Being un-Islamically dressed is a crime. — Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejehei, Iran’s public prosecutor

When Islam became imperial, a lot of cultural baggage infiltrated Islamic society. — Haifaa Jawad, senior lecturer in Middle Eastern studies at the University of Birmingham in England

I had an interesting conversation with three Muslim girls who I met at the New Mosque in Istanbul. I asked why they were dressed as they were, why they wore head scarves, as this was not required by the Koran.

This surpised them, they disagreed, and one whipped out her iPhone on which she had stored the Koran. You are wrong she said, I can find no mention in the Koran. To me, it seemed to make my point.

I suggested they read Reconciliation by Benazir Bhutto which dicusses the role of women in Islam, also the relationship between Islam, the West and democracy.

The West does not have a dislike of Islam because of prejudice, it is because of killing of innocent people, terrorism, the appalling treatment of women.

The Koran was way ahead of its time. Women in the Arabian Peninsular had no rights, they were worthless, little more than slaves, female babies were burried alive.

The Koran explicitly gave women rights, they were to be treated as equals, they were equal in the eye of God, they were made and man in his image. Women could keep the money they earned. The wife of the Prophet was a successful businesswoman. If they bore and fed and looked after children, it was the role of the men to compensate them for the work they did in child rearing.

O people! be careful of (your duty to) your Lord, Who created you from a single being and created its mate of the same (kind) and spread from these two, many men and women; and be careful of (your duty to) Allah, by Whom you demand one of another (your rights), and (to) the ties of relationship; surely Allah ever watches over you.

We see the same in Genesis, where God created man and woman in His image. If in His image, then God must be male and female.

If men and women arise from the same being, then they must be equal!

The Koran says: And surely we have honoured the children of Adam.

If both are honoured equally, then they must be equal in the eyes of God, and in Islamic practice.

There is a requirement of women to dress modestly, an explicit requirement on dress for the family of the Prophet when they received visitors at Medina, but not a requirement on others.

O Prophet! say to your wives and daughters and the women of the believers that they lay down upon them their overgarments; this will be more proper, that they may be known, and thus they will not be given trouble; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

There is a reference to a veil and that is in a saying of the Prophet: the best veil is in the eyes. In other words men should treat women with respect.

The abuse and mistreatment of women in much of the Muslim world has nothing to do with the Koran.

Maulana Azad, an Asian Islamic scholar, argues that men and women are equal in the Koran: They have rights [in regard to their husbands] similar to those against them in a just manner.

In contrast there are those bigots to who women are a commodity, for example Sheikh Taj al-Dian al-Hilali in a Friday sermon in Australia in 2006 in which he compared woman with meat left out for the cat! [see Australia fury at cleric comments]

If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside… and the cats come and eat it… whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat?

Al-Hilali argued that women who are not veiled and who are sexually assaulted are themselves to blame for the assault. It is the same bigots who deny woman an education, who keep them locked in the family home as domestic slaves. Who justify terrorism and killing of innocent civilians and at the same decry human rights and democracy as something alien imposed on Muslim society by the West.

The same cleric a year later mocked Jewish people as pigs!

Another Muslim cleric in Australia, Samir Abu Hamza, said it was ok for husbands to rape and beat their wives! [see Cleric 'must deny' views on rape]

“You beat them… but this is the last resort, after you have advised them for a long, long time, then you smack them, you beat them.
“You are not allowed to bruise them, you are not allowed to make them bleed, this is just to shape them up – ‘shape up woman’ – that’s about it.
“You don’t go and get a broomstick.”
“Even if her husband was to ask her for a sexual relationship and she is preparing him the bread on the stove, she must leave it and come and respond to her husband”.
“In this country if the husband wants to sleep with his wife and she does not want to and… there’s nothing wrong with her, she just does not want to, and he ends up sleeping with her by force, it is… known to be as a rape.
“Amazing. How can a person rape his wife?”

The Koran encouraged learning. It ushered in the Golden Age of Islam in what is now Iraq. Devout scholars, clerics, were also men of learning, doctors, poets, artists, scientists.

Islam encouraged tolerance and respect for other religions.

But the interests of men rode roughshod over the teachings of the Koran. Bigotry replaced tolerance. Ignorance replaced learning. Dogma replaced compassion.

That I was able to hold the conversation with the three girls, would not have been possible in most Islamic countries. I was though amused by their dress. They were very elegant in black, wore fine silk scarves.

Synchronicity: Whilst I was writing this I was sent two examples of the abuse and mistreatment of women. In Iran a woman subjected to 74 lashes for being ‘un-Islamically’ dressed and in Egypt women being subjected to tests of virginity and being treated as prostitutes if they failed the test.

- Reconciliation
- Seeing Clearly
- The Bookseller of Kabul
– By the River Piedra I sat Down and Wept
- The Role of Science and Faith in the Development of Civilisations
- The Saudi women taking small steps for change
– Australia fury at cleric comments
- Australia Muslim cleric suspended
- Cleric ‘must deny’ views on rape
- Fury at Australia cleric comments
- Egyptian women protesters forced to take ‘virginity tests’
- 74 lashes for women who are “un-Islamically” dressed
– Official Laws against Women in Iran

Elif

Elif by Paulo Coelho

Paulo reading Elif - Marcos Borges

Paulo signing Elif at St Joseph's Day Party

In 2006 Paulo Coelho lost his way. He went on a journey, he took the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostok. It was on this journey, a spiritual as well as physical journey, that he met Elif, a young Turkish woman.

Elif (O Aleph in Brazil and Portugal) is the story of this journey.

At a press conference in Istanbul on St Jospeph’s Day, Paulo Coelho said that Elif is 90% true, the changes were to fit in with the narrative, that it was very difficult to write, but that he was encouraged by his agent Monica Atunes (who just happened to be sat in front of me) to write it.

Elif is a point in time and space.

Elif was published in Turkey on 11 March 2011. It shot straight to No One.

After the press conference at Pera Palace Hotel I wandered along İstiklal Avenue where I found Elif on display in the window of a bookshop and on display inside.

At the airport Elif was on display at a newsstand. I asked how many they had sold in a week. They said 15-20, to which they added very unusual for a little kiosk.

Inside the airport Elif was on display in a bookstore at Duty Free. They had also built a tower of books of Elif. I asked the same question, to be told 60!

Aleph will not be published in English until September 2011.

At his St Joseph’s Day Party at the Pera Palace Hotel, Paulo Coelho kindly signed for me two copies of Elif. These I left behind in Istanbul as presents, one I gave to Elif the other to Işil.

Turkish coffee

One cup of coffee remains in memories for thirty years. — Turkish proverb

Coffee should be as black as hell, as strong as death and as sweet as love. — Turkish proverb

Turkish coffee is made and served as a way of showing respect and affection for one’s guests.

Turkish coffee is served throughout what was once the Ottoman Empire. In Greece it is known as Greek coffee, in Cyprus as Cypriot coffee.

Coffee was introduced to the Ottomans in 1543, it became so popular so quickly that coffeehouses were opened and small shops opened specializing in roasting coffee. Coffee roasting is called “tahmis”. There is a street called Tahmis in the old part of Istanbul near the Spice Bazaar. Its name derived from the coffee shops located on this street 460 years ago.

Turkish coffee is made by boiling finely ground coffee beans in a small copper saucepan. It is poured into a small coffee cup where the dregs form a layer of sludge at the bottom of the cup.

Sade (sah-DEH) – plain, no sugar (fairly bitter)

Az şekerli (AHZ sheh-kehr-lee) – with a little sugar (takes off the bitter edge; less than a teaspoon per cup)

Orta şekerli (ohr-TAH sheh-kehr-lee) – with medium sugar (sweetish; about a teaspoon of sugar for each cup)

Çok şekerli (CHOK sheh-kehr-lee) – with lots of sugar (quite sweet; two teaspoons of sugar or more)

Put the finely ground coffee beans (about one teaspoon per demi-tasse cup of coffee) into a cezve (JEZZ-veh), a special pot with a wide bottom, narrower neck, a spout, and a long handle. Add sugar (if required|) and a Turkish coffee cup (fıncan) of cold water for each cup of coffee you’re making. Bring slowly to the boil over a low to medium heat, to frothing three times, each time removing from the heat. When the froth reaches the cezve’s narrow neck, it’s a sign to remove the pot from the heat and let the froth recede. Watch the pot carefully else it will boil over.

After the third froth-up, pour a little of the froth into each cup. Bring the liquid still in the cezve to the froth-point once more, then pour it immediately, muddy grounds and all, into the Turkish coffee cups, which are smaller than demi-tasse cups.

Wait at least a minute for the grounds to settle before you pick up the tiny cup and sip. Enjoy the rich, thick flavor, but stop sipping when you taste the grounds coming through. Leave the “mud” in the bottom of the cup.

Serve with a glass of water.

I walked on through the Spice Market in Istanbul and there on the corner of the narrow street beyond is a coffee shop. A long queue as people patiently stand in line to buy their freshly ground coffee.

When I took my friend Jane there she bought some to take home. I also bought some for my friend Sian.

On checking out of my hotel this morning they gave me a small pack of ground coffee from this shop.