What Might Feel Like Home...

When hubby and I got married, we did not rely on any one. We accepted some help from family, but alhamdulellah, we were able to buy our own car, our own furniture and home appliances, and pay for the wedding expenses and the house rental. We reached the wedding TOTALLY financially exhausted, so we could not afford a honeymoon in the real sense of the word. Our "honeymoon" was a four days trip to the south coastal city of Aqaba! :-)

Days passed... and we knew that we were expecting a baby. It was almost one month before Ramadan 2014, when hubby suggested that -since we have saved some good mount of money- we travel. He told me this would be a compensation for the honeymoon that we did not have :-)

The first suggestion was Taba on the Egyptian coast, but a friend of mine told me that this trip includes a ferry trip that would not suit me as a five months pregnant. Sharm Al Sheikh was not a good suggestion for me as a hijabi. So hubby suggested Turkey, and I wholeheartedly agreed to that.

So one week before Ramadan, my mom, my youngest sister, hubby and I flew to Istanbul.

We arrived at night. And the feeling was extremely weird. I felt as if I was face to face with some one I know well and haven't seen in a long time. At first it was annoying. I felt I was suffocating. I felt as if I was looking inside the heart of some one sad.

The next day was our trip to the Bosporus. The feeling started to ease. Gradually, I started to feel that I am being embraced. As I looked into the streets, I felt that Istanbul was whispering to me. It was alive! I was sitting in a bus driven in the streets, that was the reality. But what felt was that I was setting with a dear one, listening to her sad, but loving, speech. Every place we visited there, did not seem to be planned by the tourist guides, it rather felt as another thing Istanbul was lovingly letting us know about it...

Istanbul was alive! Istanbul has a spirit... It feels, and breathes... It knew me, and communicated with me! And a thousand things just fell in place during that visit!

What surprised me is that during the trip I did not inform any one about the hocus pocus that I was feeling there. BUT! After we went home, I discovered that my little sister went through the same phases and felt exactly the same! :-)

I have many stories to tell about that trip...

But for now I will share with you the dearest to my heart...

As I told you, I was 5 months pregnant, and we knew that I was pregnant with a baby boy. We had alot of discussions about the name and were not yet aware what name we will chose for our baby. I was fascinated with the pair (Leon - Leo). But let's face it, an extremely white (which is expected looking at his mom and dad) non Arab young guy named "Leon" or "Leo"? He will never be taken seriously nor be considered a real man! So I kept these suggestion for myself, and we surfed through all sorts of names: Alqasem, Yahya, Haroun, Issa, Moussa, and the list goes on. But never reached a decision.

When we were in Istanbul, we were taking a tour on foot in our last day, waiting for our bus that will take us to the airport. We reached the building of the municipality of greater Istanbul, which is a very beautifully built complex, with a garden that has fountains and statues. Hubby was taking pictures of the statues, and my eyes caught the statues of lions. Hubby was shooting, and I was watching when my eyes suddenly sparkled, and I commented to him: "These are Aslans, like our son!"

Aslan, is the Turkish word for lion. It is a name that is VERY common in the Caucasus region. When I made that comment, hubby forgot about photography for a moment, an looked into my eyes and smiled. After that incident, and until we went home to Amman, he called me "Umm Aslan", and I called him "Abu Aslan". After we went home, he told every one: it seems that our son has been named, and we will call him "Aslan" inshaAllah... And Aslan was it :-)

This is the front building of the Greater Istanbul Municipality building 

This is the garden with fountains to the right of the front building, the lions' statues are between them!

I did not reach the end of the story!

Remember that I told you about my grandmother being a Turkish citizen?

Well, my father went to the Turkish embassy (it was my youngest sister, actually, who initiated the whole thing after she "sneaked" to the embassy to come with the info!) and they told him that as long as he is a son of a Turkish citizen, he can apply for citizenship! He only needed to update her records in the Turkish system properly, because from the Turkish system's point of view, she was still alive and single. So my dad went into some hurricanes with the Jordanian government to issue a proper marriage certificate and a death certificate in order to submit them to the Turkish government so that they update her records. Once her records were updated, they got back to my father informing him that he is now ready to apply, and he did!

And we are waiting now to hear from them...

After my father obtains the citizenship, it will only be a matter of time inshaAllah before we obtain it as well. Once we do, we can apply for my family. And my father is planning to sell everything here once every thing is OK and buy a small residential building for all of us. I am also trying to apply for a job with my organization in their Istanbul office (pray for me!).

If Allah subhanahu wa taala allows this to happen, Turkey will be a place in which we have roots, and which has a culture VERY close to our ethnic culture, and is a Muslim country, and is VERY close to homeland (it is only the Black Sea that separates Turkey from the Caucasus)...

So may be, I will finally be able to say: I am a Turk Guzel... with a clear consciousness :-)

Perhaps...

Ya Rabb...