ABSTRACT
The imams' calls to prayer from the city's thousand minarets have to contend with a million car horns, and towering constructions threaten the mosques' centuries-old dominance of the skyline. As the traffic grinds along the freeway, the shepherd boys still tend their sheep and goats on the side of the road and other boys sell simit, bread hoops, from long sticks while standing in the fast lane. Others stand on every street corner in town, catering for every taste, from sherbet to mussels. Others squat by the roadside with jars of water for thirsty travellers or boot black for dirty shoes. Istanbul was the capital of the Second Holy Roman Empire, the then Constantinople bearing the name of the founding Emperor Constantine. That lasted a thousand years until it was swept away by the Ottoman Empire in the fourteenth century, bringing the Muslim culture which has dominated ever since, the two traditions leaving a rich, if contradictory cultural legacy.
