Reading the Quran translated by Toshihiko Izutsu at a mosque in Istanbul

It's been 9 days since I left my residence in Japan and came to Istanbul, Turkey.
There may not have been a difficult time like this past month.
I had online classical Greek lessons until the beginning of March, so I couldn't do anything because I wanted to clean up and travel. Classical Greek is so difficult! Maybe like Sanskrit.

I sorted out the big ones. Large looms, ground looms, several large darkroom enlargers, two darkroom water tanks, many cameras, many tripods... My books were great difficult. Because these are all the books I want to keep...

Since from our former house we could overlook the big ocean, I had to remove the bayberry branches these were blocking our view of the ocean view. Thanks to that, both my hands are still swell to this day.

Ryukyu indigos were delivered to Kazuki Yamazaki's workshop. We were moved by the way he and his son were caring for the indigo seedlings I had given them earlier. As expected, the decision to entrust to the teacher and his son was the correct one.

I ended up staying up all night the day before our departure because of all the items that wouldn't go away no matter how much we cleaned them up. However, the remaining luggage was taken care of by Mr. Nao from Ecoplus.
The cleaning staff was also very nice and managed to manage such a chaotic schedule.
The real estate agent also looked on in amazement. From now on.

It was quite a forced move, but if we hadn't done this, we wouldn't have been able to become minimalists forever.
In fact, I put too many books in my suitcase and it was overweight, so I was charged a large amount of money at the airport counter. The minimalist project is still ongoing because it is beyond my age and physical strength.

Unable to escape from the fence in Japan, we continue to change our address and post-process after escaping from Japan in a chaotic apartment’s room in Istanbul.

While going out to buy takeout-foods from a popular restaurant called Lokanta, we also stop by a nearby mosque. A small mosque in the city is better than a mosque in a tourist area. Sultan Armet (very famous as bluemosque) is also a very nice space without tourists. Our favorite is Sokullu Mehmet Pasa Cami, a mostly devoutly Muslim mosque. Adhans, which were played several times from early morning until late at night, originate from here. There are other mosques, and multiple adhans are harmonized there. We might like Istanbul, Turkey.

Reading Toshihiko Izutsu in a mosque. “The Original Image of Islamic Philosophy” is a masterpiece! The Quran translated by Toshihiko Izutsu is also a great translation!
At Sokullu Mehmet Pasa Cami, there are multilingual translations of the Quran: Japanese, Korean, German, English...I looked through them, but they are on a completely different level than Toshihiko Izutsu's translation.

``The Quran is a holy book in its original Arabic text.The Quran translated into a foreign language is no longer a holy book, but a secular book, and is merely a kind of extremely rudimentary commentary on the original text. Even though he was a genius, Toshihiko Izutsu's lament and ridicule was deeply understandable.
Even the technology translations I have done have that feeling, but when it comes to translating holy scriptures, the difficulty is unimaginable!

I don't know any Arabic, but when I listen to the adhans several times a day, morning, noon and night, and see the mysterious letters displayed in the mosque, I feel like I can understand a little bit of what Toshihiko Izutsu was feeling. Islam is what Islam is all about in Islam, not from the Western world. The Western world might have to become more aware of this.

20.Apr.24 istanbul, Turkey