İftar at Sultanahmet mosque - İstanbul

İ love Ramadan.  Who doesnt?
İ love Turkey.     Who else?
İ love İstanbul.    How couldnt I ?

One of my biggest wishes has been to be at the garden of Sultanahmet for iftar once in my life. İ wanted to spent the most intense,the most heartchanging and the most beautiful time of the year in an islamic country.İ wanted to experience the people fasting around me,İ wanted to see the mosques shining,decorated with bright lights, İ wanted to hear the azan calling and the people filling the mosques for tarawih. İ wanted to be in İstanbul.


For the first time in my life (and the last) İ have holidays for three month this year.And for the first time in my life İ am able to spent the entire holy month in my beloved country. Alhamdulillah!

on my way to Sultanahmet

Everyone was warning us.They were telling us scary stories about the amount of people there.Theye were telling us a bout people still being lost, missed children and people staying hungry for hours after iftar because they werent able to buy any food.

Regardless of the warnings we went there.
We went to Sultanahmet.For Iftar !
And İ loved it, İ absolutely fell in love.


İ dont remember seeing so many people on one spot of this planet.İt was the first weekend of Ramadan and the weather  mild . So the masses exploded.We arrived there an hour before iftar and it was already full. So full that we couldnt find any free spot for us to sit...
With five unpatient kids,having walked 3 miles and a heavy watermelon I was near to tearing up. Would that be it ?

Not in Turkey. As the people saw us desperately searching for a place,they stopped us.A friendly old men came to us , greeted us with the most beautıful words  'Assalamualaikum' and invited us to sit next to them.At first we were a little confused where he was planning to get us in.But he talked quickly with the neighbours and they all gathered up their blancets a little more so that we finally saw a little green patch.

We sat down.

people on their way to Sultanehmet

12475391629 people waiting for azan

Outside of the mosque is a huge square where they built a bazar for the tourists.They mainly showed ancient ottoman arts like,çini,hüsn-i hat etc.

İt is impossible to find a place in a restaurant next to the square. To buy something from a fastfood-restaurant you need to wait like half an hour. So the only thing we could buy were soups.

Mercimeksoup!

People run around and try to sell their food,but it is so full,the chance that you might not get anything is very high.So we ended up with the most delicious soup İve ever eaten (yes, even better than my Grannys soup!) and some çiğköfte. 

İt looks quite poor.And in comparison to the regular wasteful ,rich iftar-dinner table it looks even poorer.

But it hadnt been about the food at no point of this adventure. İt was delicious and the most filling soup İve ever eaten.We ate and ate and ate and it didnt look like the soup was becoming less.İ felt like İ had eaten in the best restaurant of the world.

And indeed İ had. İ was sitting at the table of the most generous host , surrounded by all my brothers and sisters in İslam,all sitting and waiting and making dhikr. All the talking stopped as our host - Allah (c.c) gave us the command to eat.

We ate and went for prayer. İ have no pictures of that time. İ was in trance. i was loving and crying and thanking my Lord for this gift.

'welcome Ramadan'

İ want to experience this once more. Once more ! Once more ! Ya Allah! İ thank you for all what you have given me.

Dont you love Ramadan too? <3