The Call To Dinner
The pedestrian street of Taksim Square was mostly empty, while Istanbul 's other city streets were full of buses, cars and taxis taking people home after the work day. As the sun got lower and lower, the kitchen staffs of empty restaurants cooked faster and faster in anticipation of the call for prayer that would indicate the day's fasting was over. It was almost 6:24, and at 6:25 the restaurants and cafes would be full. Unless you had a reservation or were lined up at the door, chances were there was no table for you for another hour.
There are approximately 15 million people living in Istanbul today. In a country where 98% of the population identifies as Muslim, the majority of the city was fasting for Ramadan last month. During this Islamic holy month, Muslims do not eat or drink during sunlight hours. While most cafes and restaurants were open during the day, these were mostly empty until sundown. In some parts of the city it was conspicuous to be eating on the street.
Experiencing Istanbul during Ramadan was a very singular experience for most students visiting with Professor Rocourt. Taksim Square , the downtown of modern Istanbul , looked very much like the main street of Frankfurt according to one student. Another student said Athens . Whichever it was, it was clear that this part of Istanbul felt like a traditional European city. The architecture and shops were identical- there was even a Starbucks. Advertisements were very similar to those of any Western country, with a few cultural differences. Tarkan , Turkey 's Ricky Martin, pouted on the sides of buildings four stories high, and a woman in an ornate gold and blue headscarf bowed her head over heavily trafficked streets.
Between the historic district which showed thousands of years of human history, the palaces which showed decades of Turkish history, and the modern district that could have been anywhere in Europe, the one unifying feature was the call to prayer. It was sung from mosques all over the city, echoing across the Golden Horn Straight and through the hilly streets five times a day. The city seemed to get quiet until the last calls died down and then people would continue with their business. It was the best reminder that you had remained in the same city all day despite the huge diversity in what you had seen. And at the last call you could hopefully wait a little while for dinner.