At passport control in Istanbul, the border officer glances at my passport and smiles. “You came from Rize,” she says to my wife. “How on earth did you find this man?” “Kismet,” replies my beloved, “when Allah decrees a thing, He only needs to say, ‘Be!’ and it is.” Through the years I’ve come to …
At a Turkish wedding, seated beside my Turkish wife, a distant relative asks me: “Is this the first Turkish wedding you’ve been to?” Um… Fortunately, the music is too loud for me to provide a witty retort about having married my wife four times. I never understand why they play the music so loud at …
One day, if the Most Merciful wills.
In the aftermath of the massive earthquakes in Turkey, conspiracy theories are running wild once more. The most notable of them that the tremors were caused by what they claim is a US weapon system known as HAARP, an atmospheric research project based in Alaska. My take? “How convenient!” How convenient that we can now …
Here the story of one good man. The story of the mayor of a town that reportedly did not suffer any damage during the earthquake. A town, that despite being located in the midst of a region flattened — resulting in massive loss of life — appears to stand unscathed. This the story of a …
When we were thinking about building a house in Turkey, I was the one insistent on doing everything by the book. I demanded a geological survey at the outset before we took it any further. My wife had been keen on building further up the hill for better, unobstructed views across the Black Sea. She …
Indeed, those men and women who give in charity and lend to God a good loan will have it multiplied for them, and they will have an honourable reward. Quran 57:18 These organisations are on the ground and ready to act. Give all you can.
Turkey has been rocked by a devastating earthquake this morning. How powerful? Well it caused the lights to swing at our place 550 miles from the epicentre — the distance from London to Aberdeen — triggering the motion sensors on our security camera, pinging a notification to our phones. Apparently it was felt across the …
We’ve had another camera installed over there. It’s a dome camera, with pan and tilt, which can be controlled in real time via our phones, the closest we’ll get to tele-transportation for now. Amusingly, it also has motion-detection, so whenever a moth flutters past, it triggers a notification on our phones, prompting us to peer …
You can see where my heart is this week.
Of course, now we are missing our lands and neighbourhood. Still dreaming of those days. It’s ever so on dreary, dark, cold and wet days here. But when we are there we miss our home here too. This is life, near and far.
