Worldly Dervish
07:46 on Thursday, April 19, 2007 • 5 responses
I just returned from a 10-day mixed business-vacation trip abroad. The business was as always in Germany—the vacation to the city of Istanbul, not Constantinople.
I’ve been wanting to go to Istanbul since 1991 or so, when I came across a series of scholarly articles on the Hagia Sophia during an architecture course. Medieval arabic cultures have always fascinated me, partially because I’ve always been confounded by the complexity of their aesthetics and philosophy. But I’m also interested because such cultures always seem to be relegated to the outskirts of typical American high school world history curriculum, which in general just perpetuates a fairy tale dualism of good vs. bad, i.e. white Christian interests vs. non-white pagan interests.
Just before I left California I comment offhandedly to some colleagues that in my opinion, no city in the world has been more pivotal than Istanbul (in all its incarnations) to the formation of Western civilization. I’m sure such a comment is easily dismissed by scholars of London, Rome, Athens, Jerusalem, or Branson, Missouri, but as the capital city of no less than four empires over the course of nearly 2000 years, so many peoples have woven themselves into Istanbul’s cultural tapestry that its significance becomes palpable in even the shortest of walks down its streets.
I of course took photos which will be posted soon enough (I have now to scale the dreadful Mount Email), but to those who knew I was going away, I’m back, with stories to tell.