Show GAVE SCANT HEED TO SACRED RITES discourtesy of foreigners in saint sophia I 1 was in st sophia on the night of al the ceremony in commemoration of tile the revelation rev lation 0 of the koran i to Ma hommed that night the caliph up to a year and a half ago the sultan comes to st sophia as the spiritual head of islam writes nathaniel peffer in asia magazine ile he comes attended by his retinue but lie he worships warships only as one of the people seated like them afi on the matted floor row now on row they stretch back through the vast pillared hull hall almost bare in its simplicity and perhaps therefore tile the more impressive there are thousands a memorable picture in mass alone and as the muezzins grouped on daises in various parts of the mosque chant the service in the high carrying quaver peculiar to tile the muez duez the mass on the floor bends beads touches heads beads to the ground rises and bends again with what has in it something of an cle mental sweep as one looks down on it from above the effect Is that of an enormous field a of corn yielding to gusts of wind but the setting and the atmosphere give jt a solemnity above the natural and material despite the setting in st sophia th the e sacredness of the ceremony and the presence of the caliph foreigners are admitted on cards from their embassies and given places in the balcony balcon Y just under the high mosque dome on this occasion I 1 was one of those foreigners and while the rites were in ID progress I 1 saw foreigners clambering up and down over the balcony railing chattering chatherin la in loud voices promenading back antworth anT and forth and hailing balling each other across intervals of three or tour four yards electric lights just under the balcony rail impeded their vision they cearlea leaned over and turned the lights out how much longer do we have to listen to this exclaimed a very english young english officer to a group around him and in full hearing of many others they got up in groups went out came back and went out again they would have conducted themselves in exactly tile the same way at a dull football or baseball game J remembered the stories on which I 1 grew up tales so divid of occidentals dentals being quartered it if found in a mosque that even now it seemed so something methin 9 af 6 an adventure for me to walk into a mosque in stamboul though the only notice taken of me was an offer to conduct me about fanaticism bigotry where I 1 knew of course that stamboul was not all of turkey nor st sophia precisely like other mosques I 1 admit the internationalized 11 t Os phere but I 1 ima imagined st patricks ks I 1 in new york at christmas eve pass mass st thomas of trinity on easter morning or an uptown new york synagogue ogue on yoni yom kippur I 1 imagined chinese Cli inese hindus and turks being admitted to the balconies I 1 imagined them so far as it Is possible to imagine that 0 of f orientals orient als acting as I 1 saw the foreigners act in st sophia then I 1 tried to imagine what would happen to them 1 |