Faith and Fear in Istanbul-Turkey’s Alevi Minority

It was one of those grey Istanbul days that gives the Bosporus a melancholic look and sets you in a thoughtful mood, the Bosporus though was nowhere in sight, I was though in thoughtful mood, mostly thinking about what the hell I was doing standing on the side of a busy highway directly opposite a high security prison, my camera neatly tucked away in my bag, trucks thundering by sending dust from the construction site behind me into my eyes, trying not to stare too much at the prison I looked out onto the barren wasteland beyond, I was early, Omar though was late.
I was meeting journalist Omar Waraich who has credits with Time magazine and the New Yorker among many other illustrious publications, our plan the previous evening was to meet here and take a leisurely stroll through the suburbs to the Gazi neighborhood where we were investigating a story on Turkey’s Alevi community but clearly Google had mislead us and we were missing the suburbs, as Omar emerged from a cloud of exhaust fumes I could see he was also in a thoughtful mood, we studied our smart phones for a while, cursed them then set off in search of a taxi.
The reluctant taxi driver eventually deposited us outside the Haci Bektas Cemevi in Gazi, a Cemevi is am Alevi place of worship and of the handful in Istanbul this was the largest, after a brief brush with the leather jacket thug brigade who took exception to me photographing the outside of the Cemevi we headed inside.
I will let Omar take up the rest of the story about this fascinating and hugely misunderstood community via the link below or clicking on the image above.

Faith and Fear in Istanbul

 

 

Istanbul, TurkeyAlevi, conflict, Islam, istanbul, journalism, life, photographer, Photojournalism, religion, Shia, turkey, writing