“Hello!” The youngest of the men addresses me politely in Russian.
I turn around, surprised.
“Hello! Was it you on the phone? Are you Russian?”
“Yes. But from Dagestan. I study here. Where are you heading?”
At last I can explain everything in detail. At the same time I interrogate Ramazan, my interlocutor.
Nurula wants to show me something and he calls me up to a glass display case. Inside there is a black square bundle wrapped in velvet, inscribed with Arabic characters.
“This is a hair of the Prophet Mohammed,” translates Ramazan.
Nurula begins opening the bundle, but the oldest of the men stops him.
“They cannot show it to you,” explains Ramazan. “They only open it during important holidays.”
The women are preparing dinner but they can only show their hospitality from behind the threshold. Nurula takes the plates from them at the door and brings them to the table. Another brother appears, his two children run among us dodging the outstretched arms eager to pat them on the head. Eventually I am introduced to the men. It turns out that the eldest is the father and the second-eldest is the Islamic scholar Mohammed Said, a friend of the family. I blush embarrassed by my initial lack of politeness.
Before dinner I manage to meet the mother of the family. I go out from the living room into the hallway where a woman in a white shawl comes to meet me, her arms reaching out for a hug, her face radiant with welcome. She says something in Turkish, hugs me, then reluctantly but dutifully lets me join the men.
During dinner there is general conversation. At first quiet, like the trickle of a small stream, then as loud and free as an overflowing river. The scholar asks about Russia. It turns out that he has twice been to Kaliningrad. A friend of his, a Duma deputy, lives there. For young people’s religious education he had invited representatives of different religions to lecture at one of the colleges. Only Muslims responded to his invitation.
I ask lots of questions about young people in Turkey. I say that on first impression they don’t strike me as very religious. And that it seems that there are far fewer genuinely devout Muslims — those who pray every day — than those who are devout merely in name. The scholar and the others assure me that the devout make up no less than ninety percent of the total. I find that hard to believe.
Ramazan goes on translating conscientiously and I keep forgetting about the food. The father keeps pushing forward different dishes, coaxing me to eat more. But the conversation itself is the main dish, a delicacy that we cannot get enough of. The scholar, Ramazan and I speak the most, with the older brother and the father sometimes interjecting, and the middle brother and Nurula listening in silence.
One, two, three, four, five, six men and I am the only woman.
The wives and sisters cautiously look in from the doorway but then hide again shyly.
They would have certainly had dinner with us were it not for the male guests: the Dagestani and the scholar.
Ramazan translates for me:
“The women also want to listen, so they will be allowed to come in.”
One after another they come into the living room. The men make room for them at the table but they try to maintain some distance and some even remain behind the threshold.
“This girl looks a lot like a Russian girl,” I say pointing to one of the little girls wearing a bright pink scarf and raspberry-colored sweater.
Ramazan translates. She smiles and nods.
“She is Circassian,” explains Ramazan. “During the war between the Russian Tsar and the Imam Shamil many Circassians settled in Turkey.”
Cautiously and timidly the women ask why I am traveling alone, don’t I have a husband or father or brother to travel with me? I explain as best I can that I can do very well without them on the road but refrain from adding that it’s easier and more interesting this way.
Finally, at one point in our warm, sincere conversation, when it’s already hard to believe that we’re seeing each other for the first time and that I’m not a member of their family, the elder brother comes in and says that they have just telephoned their spiritual teacher and that he has granted them permission to show me the hair of the Prophet.
The house storms into action. Women fuss about. Ramazan gets up as the upcoming event is explained to him. He automatically takes out a knitted white cap from his pocket and puts it on.
The women give me a skirt to change into for the ceremony. They tie my headscarf properly. One of them suddenly gives me a ring from her finger: a turtle studded with precious stones.
“No, no!” I protest. But her eyes express such trust and such openness that I put the ring on.
The valuable parcel is placed on a small table in the center of the living room. People sit staggered around so that everyone can see. Among them I notice some new faces. This is too important and rare an event to miss.
I can’t help asking:
“Isn’t it forbidden to worship objects or images in Islam?”
“This is not worship.” Ramazan points to the head of the family. “They are keeping this hair as a sign of love and respect towards the man who was sent by the Lord.” Ramazan translates my words and the father nodds confirming that it is an act of love.
They put me close to the precious parcel. Off to one side is the older brother Ahmed and the middle brother on the other side. Seven-year-old Ahmed is also here.
Everyone sings a greeting to the prophet:
“Salalahu aleihi va saliam! — Peace to him and praised be Allah!”
The two brothers start unwrapping the parcel. Under the velvet cover there is a colorful shawl, then another one beneath it, and another, and so on… It seems that all in all there are more than a hundred. I’m no longer afraid I’ll burst out laughing because I now have a happy smile on my face. If this happiness hadn’t already been inside me I would have breathed it in from the air all around. Happiness illuminats the faces of everyone present.
The shawls finally end and caskets begin: a biggish one with a smaller one inside, then an even smaller one. And finally there it is: a glass flask with a few dark hairs from the Prophet Mohammed’s beard.
The eldest brother raises it high. Then he passes it across his son’s brow. He catches the little daughter of the middle brother darting in and out among the adults and passes it across her brow as well. The father says something and the elder brother turns toward me. I obediently bend my head and the flask gently touches my forehead.
I look at their faces.
However beautiful the voice of each individual performer, when many voices blend in the choir it makes my heart stand still. Songs sound even more wonderful when sung in the name of the Lord.
The hair of the prophet is just a pretext, a wave of the conductor’s wand for hearts already filled with love and ready to overflow.
Nurula wouldn’t have left me there on the road in a million years. Why? Just look at his mother and father standing there. Or, I should say, standing before God — and that’s the real point.
Awfully sweet Kurdistan
In the morning Nurula came by, sad because there were no more bus tickets to Diyarbakir. He could do nothing but take me back to the same place where he’d picked me up yesterday.
Nurula said goodbye quickly and hurried back to his car as if afraid to see the Kurdish terrorists attack and kill me on the spot.