Category: Culture

Festivals
Savour the taste of Anatolia at Laburnum Street Food Fair

If you love Turkish food and are in London, get yourselves to Hackney this week, so you can sample all your favourite flavours in one place. On Thursday, 13 June, a five-day food festival opens by Suleymaniye Mosque in Haggerston, East London. Semi-covered street stalls will be selling a wide range of Turkish food, including […]

Community
Şeker Bayramı – celebrating the end of Ramazan

Today marks the start of a three-day public holiday in Turkey and North Cyprus to celebrate the end of the 30-day fast of Ramazan. Several other Muslim countries will also follow suit, after the new crescent moon was observed in Mecca. The rest of the Muslim world will commence their own festivities, which is called […]

Community
All welcome to annual iftar dinner at Shacklewell Lane Mosque on 24 May

The UK Turkish Islamic Trust and Metropolitan Police Service invite you to break fast, or ‘iftar’ as Muslims would say, at the UK’s first Turkish-owned mosque in Dalston this Friday, 24 May. Shacklewell Lane Mosque will be opening its doors to its regular worshippers and other Muslims in the capital, and to those curious to […]

Music
Balkan fusion vibes from Don Kipper at the Jazz Café

The British capital is a hotbed of musical fusions, as epitomised by Don Kipper. The multi award-winning ensemble play a wide range of musical forms reflecting the cultural diversity of their North East London home, from Romani, Turkish and Greek Folk, to Klezmer, electronica and jazz beats. While born of traditions that surround them and […]

Books
A talk on ‘Martial Law in the Late Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey’

Turkey is no stranger to martial law. Its roots are steeped in the late Ottoman Empire, when İdare-i örfiyye first appeared as a neologism in the 1876 Ottoman constitution. While the term referred to the sultan’s authority in the Ottoman-Islamic legal tradition, its definition was inspired from the French “état de siège” in the 19th century. […]