In this pictures I took during a trip I made to Istanbul, Turkey, in the summer of 2007, I captured a few pictures of the Blue Mosque. I remembered these pictures when reading Sardar’s piece in week 2. His account of interpreting the Qur’an when a child reminded me of these images—of young children playing in the courtyard of the mosque, learning Islam through osmosis. They frolic, light-heartedly, in front of the grand Blue Mosque, as a moon makes a high-day appearance, as seen in the bottom right picture. They are at the same time interacting with the religion, as covered women and men wearing white enter the impressive structure to say their prayers for the day, and removed from it, understanding the place only as a playground.
Sardar’s recollection of hearing his mother read the Qur’an to him as a child seemed to offer the same level of duality: both heavy in substance but light in routine. As a child, he seemed to know this was an important text, but he also appreciated the cadence of the language, almost as a lullaby as hew would drift to sleep.
In the arrangement of photos, I wanted to impress the scale of the mosque and its seniority by place that picture above the two of the children. But I also wanted to show how the grand spirituality and playfulness coexisted, at the same level, by placing the photos of the children with the photo of the mosque with the moon in the background.