Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 6
Turkey and Morocco:
Sampling Secular Islam
My Dad used to be absolutely distraught by the notion that God and Allah
could be the same. I couldn't resist teaching our son, Andy (when he was
about three years old), to hold out his arms, bob them up and down, and say, “Allah,
Allah, Allah” after table grace just to freak out his Grandpa. Later, rather than
just torture my Dad, I took a more loving (and certainly more ef ective) approach
to opening him up to the Muslim world: I took him to Turkey. Now—while he's
still afraid of Osama's gang—my Dad is no longer afraid of Islam.
While violent Islamic fundamentalists represent a tiny fraction of all Mus-
lims, the threats they pose are real. And they get plenty of media coverage. To
help balance my understanding of Islam, I make a point to travel to and learn
about its reasonable, mainstream side. I spend time in Turkey, a Western-facing
Islamic nation with a determination to stay secular and a desire to engage the
US and Europe as friends without giving up its culture. Morocco is another good
classroom for gaining a balanced take on Islam. Visiting moderate developing
nations like these, which happen to be primarily Muslim, gives us an accessible
look at a fast-growing religion of 1.3 billion people worldwide. We can observe
Islamic societies struggling (like our own society) with how to deal with a rough-
and-tumble globalized world. In doing so, we gain empathy.
Turkey is also a good classroom in which to better understand our world
because it gives us a peek at an emerging economy. With the frailties of the US
economy and the G-8 stretching to G-20, it's smart to pay attention to the globe's
new economic realities. Turkey—with its torrid modernization, its drift to the
political right, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism—is a study in the cultural
schizophrenia that modern change can cause, from Mumbai to Memphis.
h e predictable question travelers get from loved ones is, “Why are you going
to Turkey?” With each visit to Istanbul, one of my favorite cities in the world,
my response is: Why would anyone
not
travel here?
