A Bayram Morning

By Yusuf KANLI
Today I want to re-publish a slightly revised article that I wrote earlier about my feelings as a young boy, over 40 plus years ago, about the religious holidays.

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Waking up early in the morning and attending the Bayram prayer at the small village mosque together with the elders was something I very much aspired to when I was a small kid. Was I a religious boy? It probably had more to do with communal psychology. Those were difficult times during which the only toys we had were wooden rifles. A community, smaller in size in a bicommunal state that faces constant threats, humiliation and oppression, unavoidably develops an inward looking character and strengthens solidarity amongst its members; in a way, it becomes like a clenched fist, ready to defend itself against any eventuality.

Going to the mosque would demonstrate that I was grown up. Praying together with the elders at the village mosque would show that I had become one of them. But I was a small kid, and a child must be at least seven or eight before he can be taken by his father to the mosque for Bayram prayers.

But although my mom was a practicing Muslim who devoted many hours of every day to prayers and reciting verses from the holy book, the Koran, my father -- may Allah forgive him and rest him in peace -- was not a mosque-goer. He was a typical Turkish Cypriot; he worked during the morning hours, rested in the afternoon and went to the defense trenches outside the village in the evening to join the other men of the village to guard us -- the children, women and the elderly -- against a possible Greek Cypriot attack.

A man meets with a Bektashi and they start talking about life. "How often do you drink (wine)?" he asks, and the Bektashi replies, "From niiight to niiight." He continues, "How often do you go to mosque?" The Bektashi replies "Every Bayram, every Bayram."

That, indeed, somewhat represents the pattern of behavior for Turkish Cypriot men during those years. Perhaps because of the islander character, despite all the difficulties of life, they were always "successful" in finding a little time to spend some happy moments at a bar, drinking and joking with their friends. What else they could do anyhow?!

Going to the mosque was so rare for them; they usually went "every Bayram." Perhaps that is why going to the mosque, and not the bar, or the defense trenches, which the men did every day, had become synonymous with being a grownup for me.

My father did not go to the mosque even on Bayrams, but my grandpa and uncles did go.

Great day!

Had I known that in a few months' time I would start my primary education at the mosque - that year the primary school of my neighborhood was converted into military barracks to host the Turkish regiment compelled to relocate itself in our "secure" neighborhood from the region it was deployed side by side with the Greek regiment in accordance with the 1960 founding treaties of the Cyprus Republic - perhaps I would not have pressed my grandpa so hard to take me to Bayram prayers that year. I had just turned five. My new shoes were shining. With my trousers and dark brown jacket, I was confident that all the beautiful girls in the village would fall in love with me after seeing me walking out the front door of the mosque as a grown up.

I was five, but had already learned how to read and write thanks to my mom. I was able to recite, by heart, many sections of the holy Koran. Süleyman Çelebi's "Vesilet-ün Necât" or as is publicly known "Mevlit," a poem on the life story of the Prophet Mohammed, was very much like an alphabet for me.

With my grandpa holding my small hand firmly and dancing from stone to stone to avoid mud splashing on his shining shoes, I finally made it to the mosque that Bayram. I was proud of myself. I was a grownup.

During those years, after Bayram prayers at the mosque, the family gathered at my grandpa's house for an extended breakfast -- which apparently was a brunch, I learned years later. That year, as the "elder son" of the "elder son" of the family, I was like a pasha.

And, of course, I immediately issued my first order as the new pasha of the family: Bayram pocket money for kids under five years old would be two shillings, but for those over five, it would be five shillings.

It was a great day. I wish all our readers a happy holiday.

(Yusuf Kanly can be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected])