Arriving in Turkey is when I first realized that I was in my third and half Muslim country since I began my travels: Bangladesh (90% Muslim), India (third largest Muslim population in the world but only 13% are Muslim – that’s the 1/2), the United Arab Emirates (the 20% of the population that is actually from there is predominantly Muslim), and Turkey (96% Muslim). I recently arrived in Ghana – which is 30% Muslim.
I think I never really considered that I was in Muslim countries because the countries were so vastly different from one another. Travelling from India to Bangladesh to the UAE to Turkey to Ghana puts a whole new spin on what a “Muslim country” looks like. They are black, brown, and white. Some have bad food (Ghana), some have good food (Turkey). Some look rich (The Dubai Mall), some look poor (villages in northern Ghana). Some wear burqas; some wear skinny jeans, stripper boots, and head scarves. Sometimes the rules feel restrictive (no booze in Bangladesh), sometimes you’re given so much leeway that you don’t even realize you’re breaking them (my apologies to anyone I almost got arrested in Dubai on my birthday).
I also learned from my time in Turkey touring Mosques, museums, and cave ruins that Christians and Muslims share not only Abraham and Jesus, but also a heck of a lot of stories that I learned in Bible School. On my tour in Cappadocia, Turkey my guide answered a question about why Pigeons were used for their turds (fertilizer) and not eaten for meat. “Well,” my Muslim tour guide said, “they were on Noah’s Ark, and that’s sacred.”
