Istanbul, Türkiye
I am a germophobe. Not severely (I for some reason am completely OKAY with public gyms), but enough.
So walking barefoot into a mosque for the first time — shoes off at the door, no exceptions — was not something I was mentally prepared for.
Turkey was my first Middle Eastern country.
Nobody told me.
I showed up in Toms.
I made it work. We’re moving on.
What I was not prepared for — in a completely different way — was what was waiting on the other side of that door.
I had been inside castles before. Palaces. Grand historic buildings stacked floor to ceiling with the accumulated wealth of people who had more than they could ever use.
Thrones and tapestries and gold fixtures and rooms built for no reason other than to demonstrate that more was possible. Endless, exhausting, superfluous more.
Castles are a flex. An architectural argument that excess equals power.
A mosque argues the opposite.
Do you ever walk in a castle and just think to yourself, “why?” I often wonder why families needed THAT much space, THAT many riches, THAT many rooms, and I mean just THAT much stuff. It’s too much to keep up with. But who am I to speak on such things.
Step inside a mosque and the first thing that hits you is the space.
Not what’s in it. The space itself.
High ceilings that make you feel appropriately small.
Clean lines (my favorite).
Light coming in at angles that feel deliberate.
The floor open and uncluttered.
No furniture demanding your attention, no objects competing for your eyes. Just architecture and air and something quieter than quiet.
I am a minimalist.
Have been for a long time.
And standing inside that mosque in Istanbul, I understood something I hadn’t been able to fully articulate before.
Minimalism isn’t about having less.
It’s about making room for what actually matters.
Castles fill every inch with things.
Mosques clear every inch for presence.
One is about accumulation.
The other is about reverence.
And reverence requires room — room to think, to breathe, to feel the weight of where you are without distraction pulling you somewhere else.
I’ve stood in rooms full of priceless things and felt nothing.
Inside that mosque I felt everything.
That’s not a religious statement.
It’s a design one.
It’s a philosophy one.
The space was built to do something to the person standing in it, and it worked exactly as intended — on a germophobe in Toms who hadn’t done her research.
Turkey was the beginning.
Once I started visiting mosques, I couldn’t stop.
There’s one in Casablanca, Morocco that stopped me completely still. I’ll get to that city eventually. When I do, you’ll understand why I’m mentioning it here.
For now: if you ever have to choose between a castle and a mosque, choose the mosque.
Bring socks.