half-light of the Grand Bazaar, whose coolness overwhelmed him after the sweltering day and bright radiance, and rambling as he sensed the abrupt chill in his flesh. Not to mention that if he’d been in no rush and felt the impulse, he’d enter through the flea market and meander through labyrinthine streets to the Old Bedesten, the heart of the bazaar. The market contained cheap imitations and makeshift goods today; he came across only knockoffs, shoddy imports, and knickknacks, or inexpensive wholesale products. Normally, were he paying careful attention, he’d always find something astonishing in the flea market or Bedesten.
Here two opposing and difficult-to-imitate polarities of life, which didn’t appear without latching on to one’s skin or settling deep within, actually merged: genuine poverty and grandeur, or rather, their castoffs ... At each step, remnants of out-of-fashion entertainments and the traces of old and grand traditions, whose origins and means had been forgotten, could be found heaped together. In one of these narrow, contiguous shops, old Istanbul, veiled Anatolia, and even the last remnants of the Ottoman Empire’s heritage would glimmer in the most unanticipated way. Vintage outfits that varied from town to town, tribe to tribe, and period to period; old carpets and kilims whose locale of weaving he’d be sure to forget even once reminded, yet whose motifs and colors he’d remember for days; a store of artwork from Byzantine icons to old Ottoman calligraphy panels; embroidery, decorations, all in all, caches of objets d’art; jewelry that had adorned the neck and arms of some forgotten beauty from a lost generation or two; all of it, in this humid and crepuscular world, could keep him in its thrall for hours with the allure of a by gone age and the appeal of the mysterious added in for good measure. This represented neither the traditional nor the modern East. Perhaps it was a state of timelessness whose very clime had been exchanged for another. When Mümtaz left this setting for the hubbub of the Mahmutpaşa street bazaar, he felt the inebriation of a man who’d gotten drunk on laced wine in a cellar before stepping into direct sunlight. And the satisfaction imparted seemed to be quite a middle-aged pleasure for a man his age – like an addiction.
On this occasion, he relented again. First he watched the pigeons. Then he gave in and fed them. While he did so, he was prodded by an urge to make an appeal to Allah, as he used to do in his childhood. Mümtaz, however, no longer wanted to mix everyday matters with his personal conception of the divine. The divine should be like a fountainhead, unencumbered by humanity, robust, removed from all types of experience, and should simply provide the resilience to endure life. He didn’t think this way solely to resist the pagan superstition that often reared its head during times of trouble and had recently established a vast shadowy realm within him. Perhaps he wanted to remain faithful to the notions that preoccupied him. About a month ago, a friend of his whom life had staggered rather profoundly had told him how society filled him with revulsion, how little by little the ties that bound him to the community had loosened. He was in fullscale revolt: “The social contract won’t continue, it cannot continue,” he raved.
At that time, Mümtaz tried to explain to his friend the absurdity of the connection he’d arbitrarily made between his experience and his ephemeral mental states. He said, “Just because things have taken a bad turn, let’s not blame the gods. Our affairs are always susceptible to the betrayal of circumstance and to trivial mishaps. Things might even go wrong for a few generations. The breakdown and disorganization shouldn’t alter our relationship to our inner beliefs. If we conflate these two distinct things, we’ll be left naked and exposed. Furthermore, we shouldn’t assume that success is granted by the gods,
Here two opposing and difficult-to-imitate polarities of life, which didn’t appear without latching on to one’s skin or settling deep within, actually merged: genuine poverty and grandeur, or rather, their castoffs ... At each step, remnants of out-of-fashion entertainments and the traces of old and grand traditions, whose origins and means had been forgotten, could be found heaped together. In one of these narrow, contiguous shops, old Istanbul, veiled Anatolia, and even the last remnants of the Ottoman Empire’s heritage would glimmer in the most unanticipated way. Vintage outfits that varied from town to town, tribe to tribe, and period to period; old carpets and kilims whose locale of weaving he’d be sure to forget even once reminded, yet whose motifs and colors he’d remember for days; a store of artwork from Byzantine icons to old Ottoman calligraphy panels; embroidery, decorations, all in all, caches of objets d’art; jewelry that had adorned the neck and arms of some forgotten beauty from a lost generation or two; all of it, in this humid and crepuscular world, could keep him in its thrall for hours with the allure of a by gone age and the appeal of the mysterious added in for good measure. This represented neither the traditional nor the modern East. Perhaps it was a state of timelessness whose very clime had been exchanged for another. When Mümtaz left this setting for the hubbub of the Mahmutpaşa street bazaar, he felt the inebriation of a man who’d gotten drunk on laced wine in a cellar before stepping into direct sunlight. And the satisfaction imparted seemed to be quite a middle-aged pleasure for a man his age – like an addiction.
On this occasion, he relented again. First he watched the pigeons. Then he gave in and fed them. While he did so, he was prodded by an urge to make an appeal to Allah, as he used to do in his childhood. Mümtaz, however, no longer wanted to mix everyday matters with his personal conception of the divine. The divine should be like a fountainhead, unencumbered by humanity, robust, removed from all types of experience, and should simply provide the resilience to endure life. He didn’t think this way solely to resist the pagan superstition that often reared its head during times of trouble and had recently established a vast shadowy realm within him. Perhaps he wanted to remain faithful to the notions that preoccupied him. About a month ago, a friend of his whom life had staggered rather profoundly had told him how society filled him with revulsion, how little by little the ties that bound him to the community had loosened. He was in fullscale revolt: “The social contract won’t continue, it cannot continue,” he raved.
At that time, Mümtaz tried to explain to his friend the absurdity of the connection he’d arbitrarily made between his experience and his ephemeral mental states. He said, “Just because things have taken a bad turn, let’s not blame the gods. Our affairs are always susceptible to the betrayal of circumstance and to trivial mishaps. Things might even go wrong for a few generations. The breakdown and disorganization shouldn’t alter our relationship to our inner beliefs. If we conflate these two distinct things, we’ll be left naked and exposed. Furthermore, we shouldn’t assume that success is granted by the gods,
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