As an anthropologist, this intimacy with cats fascinates me because they represent another instance of how “human culture” is in fact made up of our relationships with nonhumans. Globally, cats have accompanied humans since ancient times, beginning in Western Asia almost 10,000 years ago. Humans initially welcomed them in their nascent settlements for their ability to control rodents; today cats can be found anywhere there’s a human presence—including in cyberspace.
But what makes cats especially loved in Turkey, and what can we learn from this special relationship in one particular country?
Gideon Lasco
No one knows for sure how cats became beloved in Turkey. The origin story of the significance of cats is, in the words of anthropologist Kimberly Hart, the “stuff of cultural memory and legends rather than historical verifiability.”
It’s clear, however, that religion played a role, particularly Islam, which the vast majority of the Turkish population—98 percent according to one recent survey—adheres to. While some Muslims have ambiguous attitudes toward keeping dogs as pets, cats are considered ritually clean and have been historically favored, dating to the Prophet Muhammad who is said to have loved cats.
In Istanbul today, there is a “cat-friendly imam” who welcomes felines to his mosque. “It is something any Muslim should do,” he says. My friend Oguz from Turkey agrees with the sentiment, citing a Turkish saying that goes: “If you kill a cat, you must build a mosque.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gideon Lasco is an anthropologist and a physician based in Manila, the Philippines. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam and his M.D. from the University of the Philippines, where he currently teaches anthropology. His research includes the chemical practices of young people, the meanings of human height, the politics of health care, and the lived realities of the Philippine “drug war.” Lasco has a weekly column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, where he writes about health, culture, and society. Follow him on Twitter @gideonlasco.
According to Turkish historian Ekrem Buğra Ekinci, cats’ abilities to control rodents made them an “indispensable part” of households during the time of the Ottoman Empire. Written accounts from the 16th century report the existence of cat hospitals and gardens in and around Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), where locals fed and cared for large stray populations. Many of these traditions of “stewardship,” as Hart refers to them, persist today, carried out by people of different religious affiliations, ethnicities, genders, classes, and ages.
Just as important as these culturally specific factors, however, may well be qualities inherent to cats that drive people’s fascination with them. Cats seem to have a mind of their own, an inscrutability and imperviousness that make them at once fascinating and endearing.
Just as important as these culturally specific factors, however, may well be qualities inherent to cats that drive people’s fascination with them. Cats seem to have a mind of their own, an inscrutability and imperviousness that make them at once fascinating and endearing.
Michael Gross, a science writer based at Oxford, suggests this has to do with how they co-evolved with humans: “Unlike dogs … which have been profoundly altered by breeding and the need to fit into human society, cats didn’t change that much compared with their wild ancestors and have kept their independent spirit.” More here.
