Three Daughters of Eve

by Elif Shafak

Every day millions of Istanbulites downed another dose, not realizing that they were becoming more and more unbalanced. People who would refuse to share their bread shared their insanity instead. There was something inscrutable about the collective loss of reason: if enough eyes experienced the same hallucination, it turned into a truth; if enough people laughed at the same misery, it became a funny little joke.

She would rather stay home and, in the witching hours, be immersed in a novel – reading being her way to connect with the universe.

samee peri sameeee

Glue, the favourite treat of street children and underage prostitutes; the magic carpet that carried them, as light as feathers, over the roofs and domes and skyscrapers into a far-off kingdom where there was no fear and no reason for fear; no pain, no prisons, no pimps.

The glue dissolved the membrane of their brain cells, attacked their nervous systems, destroyed their kidneys and livers, devouring them, inch by inch, from inside.

‘This country had three military takeovers to put an end to such bullshit. Now it’s cropping up again! You think we’ll allow it? Your books are full of lies. They’re written in venom! Maybe you’ve been poisoned, have you?’

WTF kolot bgt polisinya 😡

How irresponsible of Him to allow terrible things to happen to those who didn’t deserve it. Could God see and hear through prison walls and across cell bars? If He could not, He was not all-powerful.

God was a maze without a map, a circle without a centre; the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that never seemed to fit together.

Never believe anything you haven’t seen with your eyes, heard with your ears, touched with your hands and grasped with your mind.

‘Men don’t want women to be too clever or too educated. I wouldn’t want you to die a spinster.’

aaaa baba D:

People faced death defending their countries and their flags and their honour; she, defending a fake Hermès bag with a misplaced grave accent.

demi allah ngakak

Canopied under a mantle of secrecy and silence that shamed the victims and shielded the assailants, Istanbul was no stranger to sexual abuse. In this city where everyone feared outsiders, most assaults came from those who were too familiar, too close.

Peri would come to understand that nothing swells the ego quite like a cause motivated by the delusion of pure selflessness.

How could they be so certain of the superiority of their truths when they knew so little, if anything at all, about other cultures, other philosophies, other ways of thinking?

In the name of religion they are killing God. For the sake of discipline and authority, they forget love.

I don’t want an extra skin. I touch the flame, I burn; I hold ice, I’m cold. The world is what it is. We’ll all die. What’s the point of safety in crowds? We are born alone, we die alone.’

We don’t need a higher authority to do that for us!’

At Oxford, Peri had studied how the bourgeoisie in the West, with its liberal, individualistic values and opposition to feudalism, had played a progressive role in the course of history.

People look at me as if I’m a passive, obedient victim of male power. Well, I’m not. I have a mind of my own. My hijab has never got in the way of my independence.’

monAA <3

Into her God-diary Peri wrote: Believers favour answers over questions, clarity over uncertainty. Atheists, more or less the same. Funny, when it comes to God, Whom we know next to nothing about, very few of us actually say, ‘I don’t know.’

There’s no wisdom without love. No love without freedom. And no freedom unless we dare to walk away from what we have become.

If I ever fall in love, she promised herself, it’ll be with someone’s brain. I won’t care about his looks or status or age, only his intellect.

‘Some girls are born without a hymen, and some hymens can be torn during sex or a simple physical activity but never bleed.’

yee kocak ni hakan maen marah2 aje

Was religion an empowering force for women who otherwise had limited power in a society designed for and by men, or was it yet another tool for facilitating their submission?

Many scientists hailed as ‘staunch atheists’ today were, in fact, theists in heart.

‘The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.’

‘Only humans have consciousness. It’s the divine order. That’s why Allah holds us humans responsible for our behaviour.’

What Marx actually said was: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” ’

Philosophers do not judge. They understand.’

‘Three young Muslim women in Oxford! The Sinner, the Believer and the Confused.’

NGAKAK

‘God won’t hear you,’ Shirin said.

shirin ya allah lambenya kompor bat, bisa ga sih dia ngehargain mona sm org2 yg beda jalan pikiranny sm dia😭

When Azur had had enough, however, he pulled down the bridge and put a stop to the invitations to come to his rooms.

THE FUFK

‘I say, stay out of my business, Mouse, or I’ll eat you alive.’

nah lu jg stop ngurusin org lain shirinnnj