In Bursa

A young, friendly carpet seller in Bursa once recommended a mosque for a visit (he was right, it was beautiful). He also suggested that I pray there. God is one, he said, and your God is the same as mine. But I don’t believe in God, I said. His pupils widened. Do you believe in anything? He asked with a mixture of surprise and disapproval. I believe in good people, I said. Good people come from God, he said. I bit my tongue because the first thing that came to my mind, a kind of bon mot – “Or perhaps God comes from good people?” – was not true. God comes from all sorts of people, many of them not good at all. Like the sort who assume that since God is the bestest, everyone who does not worship him must be morally inferior, if not totally corrupt. And such as those who claim to serve the truth. The truth? What is truth?