[ad_1]
Years in the past, when her sister was recognized with ovarian most cancers, Mahire Turk sought divine intervention.
She trekked to a shrine atop a hill overlooking the Bosporus, sat underneath an ornate dome near the grave of a Sufi grasp who died almost 400 years in the past and prayed intensely for her sister to beat the illness.
After chemotherapy, her sister was declared most cancers free — and is now anticipating a child, mentioned Ms. Turk, 40, who works in a pharmaceutical warehouse.
So to this present day, when worries cloud her thoughts, Ms. Turk, like a lot of her compatriots on this historical, sprawling metropolis of 16 million, visits one in all its many shrines to long-dead non secular figures to hunt a non secular enhance.
“These are the protectors of Istanbul,” Ms. Turk mentioned throughout a return pilgrimage to the shrine of Aziz Mahmud Hudayi, the place she had prayed for her sister. “I’m certain that if I pay them a go to, they may shield me, too.”
Centuries of civilization have left Istanbul dotted with such graves. Extra than simply historic relics, many are well-kept, residing websites that obtain crowds of tourists searching for quiet locations to hope, make needs and unburden themselves from the woes of the trendy metropolis.
The shrines mix Islamic devotion, Turkish historical past and Istanbul folklore. The town’s sailors, for instance, have historically considered Aziz Mahmud Hudayi and three different males buried close to the Bosporus, which flows by Istanbul, because the waterway’s protectors.
A number of the shrines mark the resting locations of documented historic figures. Others are of extra doubtful historicity, which doesn’t diminish their position within the non secular lifetime of town, a task that endures largely unaffected by Turkey’s up to date political and financial gyrations.
Turkey’s non secular authorities have posted indicators at some websites to remind guests that Islam forbids praying to anybody however God. However lots of the devoted nonetheless search the intercession of the interred to assist them land jobs, purchase automobiles, get wholesome, discover spouses or have kids. And a few categorical a deep affinity for the useless.
“I like him,” Fatma Akyol, a college scholar in theology, mentioned of Yahya Efendi, a Sixteenth-century Sufi scholar and poet who now rests in a shrine on the southwestern financial institution of the Bosporus. “I go to him fairly often.”
Yahya Efendi’s tomb sits underneath a pistachio-colored dome in an ethereal room surrounded by the graves of 10 others, together with his mom, spouse and son. The advanced has separate prayer amenities for women and men, each with commanding views of the Bosporus. Exterior, stone paths wind by a graveyard shaded by towering bushes to a terrace the place guests take photographs.
One latest afternoon, cats dozed within the mausoleum’s marble entryway as guests drank from a stone fountain and eliminated their footwear earlier than coming into to hope. Dad and mom introduced their kids. A mosque preacher with an extended beard mentioned he had introduced his spouse and her sister “to obtain non secular well being.” A youngster in a Metallica T-shirt emerged from the mausoleum, retrieved his footwear and wandered off.
Ms. Akyol mentioned she typically spent hours praying and studying scriptures within the shrine. She shrugged off warnings about searching for assist from the useless, evaluating it to working a connection to get a job.
“Whenever you ask for one thing from God, those that are beloved by God is usually a go-between,” she mentioned.
The shrine of Aziz Mahmud Hudayi sits on the waterway’s reverse financial institution.
Guests come to hope close to his grave, typically returning to distribute sweets after their prayers have been answered, as they do at many shrines.
Exterior, lecturers advised women from an Islamic summer season faculty to maintain quiet throughout their go to. A brother and sister from a Turkish Black Sea city mentioned they every had been searching for “a benevolent affair,” which means they hoped to get married. And a retired man mentioned the buried mystic had walked on water throughout the Bosporus, proving his non secular prowess.
Omer Arik, the vice chairman of the inspiration that oversees the location, advised a distinct model of the mystic’s story, through which the mystic guided a boatman throughout the water throughout a storm, utilizing a route that’s nonetheless named for him. It didn’t trouble Mr. Arik that some guests believed a extra miraculous, water-walking model, he mentioned, citing a Turkish proverb: “The sheikh doesn’t fly. The follower makes him fly.”
Close to the northern finish of the Bosporus’s western financial institution sits the shrine of Telli Baba, or the Father of the Threads, a determine whose story is imbued with a lot lore that even the retired sailor who oversees the shrine doesn’t declare to know his precise historical past, and even his full identification.
He may need served within the sultan’s military through the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman military in 1453. He may need carried in his turban a size of silvery thread that brides historically braided into their hair as an indication of his devotion to the Almighty (most likely the supply of his nickname).
His grave, in a small room with hanging lamps, is roofed with silver threads. Guests reduce a bit once they make a want and are alleged to return it after it comes true.
Hatice Aydin, a retired trainer who cleans the shrine and feeds the native cats, mentioned a minority of tourists wished for kids and new jobs.
“Most of them are in search of husbands,” she mentioned.
Positive sufficient, a preschool trainer quickly emerged from the shrine and revealed that she had been asking for a groom. It was her third go to.
Later, a younger lady appeared on the entrance in a blue hoop gown that was too massive to slot in the stairwell that led to the grave. Her uncle mentioned he had prayed there for her to get married and so had introduced her again on her engagement day. They snapped photographs close to the doorway and left.
Fatma Yilmaz, a monetary supervisor, got here bearing needs for herself and a variety of others, she mentioned. She reduce 13 items of thread: 4 for her, 5 for her sister, one every for her son and her ex-husband, and two for associates.
“Now it’s on them,” she mentioned. “If their needs are accepted, they’ve to return right here.”
Atop a hill on the alternative financial institution stands the fourth of the Bosporus’s protectors, a shrine to Hazreti Yusa, or the prophet Joshua, who’s revered by Christians, Jews and Muslims.
An indication from the native non secular authorities stops wanting claiming that he’s truly buried there, noting as an alternative that the location has held non secular significance for a lot of centuries. The location is centered on a grave — a greater than 50-foot-long raised flower mattress. It could be that lengthy as a result of those that constructed it could not have recognized precisely the place the physique was buried and needed to verify it was coated.
One latest night, Rumeysa Koc, 35, stood by the grave, her palms raised. She had come to Istanbul with a colleague to purchase merchandise for her girls’s clothes line however had woken that morning after a horrible nightmare. The ladies had completed their work early and determined to squeeze in a shrine go to.
As they drove towards the shrine, she mentioned, she had obtained a name telling her that the very factor she had dreamed about — she declined to offer specifics — had not come to move.
“With out even setting foot on this hill, God solved the problem for me,” Ms. Koc mentioned.
So on the grave she had given thanks, she mentioned, and left feeling that her day had been miraculous.
“I’m feeling free as a fowl,” she mentioned.
[ad_2]
Source link
