Wow, Zeynel, impress the uncles with how stock-standard nerdy you are!
A hafiz is a person who has mastered the art of reciting the Quran: both the memorising AND the speaking. Arabic, the language used in the Quran, is a poetic language so your imam (priest) and muezzin (prayer caller) had better learn the craft of saying it beautifully and accurately. Achieving enough mastery to become a hafiz is an accomplishment, hence the cooing of Ayse and Zeynel’s dads.
In 2016, I said this page was the point where the Turkish miniature style began to click for me. And it shows!
I recently did my take on that signature for this page of Alexander Comic, and it’s interesting to see the advancement in my approach to adapting historical styles to comics.
I speak more about it on the commentary tied to Alexander Comic, but it’s a pity that beyond this TCM page, I didn’t use architectural elements much in the panelling of TCM: that way of framing illustrations, with the gutters being the walls of a building and the borders being the architectural features, is such a signature style of Persian/Turkish miniatures.
She stares at the blank pages of a journal, imagining them filled with ideas, plans and strategies. Her mind is racing, but she can’t keep her thoughts down. They are blended in with excitement, and admittedly, trepidation. Maybe she’ll do better after today…
Her father calls her, from outside her room. “Ayse!” His voice is booming, tinged with glee. “Habibti, they are here!”
“What, already?” She groans, shifting position from her back to her belly on the bed.
“C’mon!” cooes her father. “Don’t keep us all waiting!”
Ayse and her family are expecting several guests this evening. They are the deCordobas, old family friends from a city faraway. Her father, Selim, once lived in Istanbul, and knew the patriarch Efraim and his wife, Zeyneb during their youth. They have not seen each other in years. For so long that in fact, Ayse doesn’t remember having seen them at all. But that doesn’t matter, she will see them today. She is curious afterall, to know about this family, and particularly, the eldest son, even if out of jadedness, if anything.
Dinner is a joyful affair. The food is delicious, the conversation light, and the atmosphere friendly. The two fathers are seated next to each other, and on their sides, their respective wives and eldest children. The opposite side of the table is the other deCordoba children, and the rest of Ayse’s immediate family.
Ayse is seated across from the eldest deCordoba son. He is a tall, lanky young man. He possesses something close to a scholarly aura, with a large and graceful nose, a potential for a beard across his soft jawline, and a face in constant thought. This is Zeynel, she understands. He is a quiet soul, never intrusive, never making his presence known and felt. She finds this quality of him novel, compared to the loud and obnoxious suitors before him. She doesn’t know what to make of it. All she could do is respect his silence, and so, even at that joyful dinner, they make no conversation.
The silence between Ayse and Zeynel unnerves their fathers. They have hoped their children would be able to make small talk. However, it appears that it has fallen upon them to engineer some things. This, they non-verbally agree to, in the body language of old friends. A subtle cock of the head, a nudging of the arm, a concerned glance.
Selim is the first to begin. With a smile and booming voice, befitting a veteran carpet merchant, he says to his friend, “Sooo, I heard your son passed his recitation! A hafiz now! You must be proud!”
Efraim, a hawk-nosed professor with striking grey-blue eyes, is unable to help himself. He is genuinely proud of his boy. Afterall, becoming a Hafiz is not easy. A student spends years memorising the Quran, then reciting it properly, in the correct form of elocution that does justice to the poetry of their holy book. Efraim is happy to have a son so skilled in this art, and with fingers steepled, he replies to Selim, “I am! Yet he refuses to be called a true hafiz until he can recite the hadith, too. Right, Zeynel?”
At his name being mentioned, Zeynel looks up with a look of surprise. Bashfulness, even.
He reminds me of a mouse, thought Ayse. A very tall, very confused mouse.
Zeynel smiles nervously as he stumbles through the first syllables of his reply. “Oh! Erm, of course. It’s… it’s only right. There’s no end in the pursuit of Truth.”
The fathers are pleased at this humble response. Ayse remains unconvinced.
