Elif Shafak is one of Turkey’s most acclaimed and outspoken novelists

Aladdin 
KONYA, FEBRUARY 1246
Besieged with anticipation, for the last three weeks I have been waiting to find the right moment 
to ask my father for Kimya’s hand in marriage. I have spent many hours talking to him in my 
imagination, rephrasing the same sentences over and over, searching for a better way of 

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expressing myself. I had an answer ready for every possible objection he could come up with. If 
he said that Kimya and I were like sister and brother, I would remind him that we were not 
bound by blood. Knowing how much my father loved Kimya, I was also planning to say that if 
he let us get married, she would not have to go and live anywhere else and could stay with us all 
her life. I had everything worked out in my mind, except I couldn’t find a moment alone with my 
father. 
But then this evening I ran into him in the worst way possible. I was about to leave the house to 
meet with my friends when the door creaked open and in walked my father holding a bottle in 
each hand. 
I stood still, agape. “Father, what is it that you are carrying?” I asked. 
“Oh, that!” my father responded without the slightest trace of embarrassment. “It’s wine, my 
son.” 
“Is that so?” I exclaimed. “Is this what has become of the great Mawlana? An old man blasted on 
wine?” 
“Watch your tongue,” came a sulky voice from behind me. 
It was Shams. Staring into my face without so much as a blink, he said, “That is no way to talk to 
your father. I’m the one who asked him to go to the tavern.” 
“Why am I not surprised?” I couldn’t help smirking. 
If Shams was offended by my words, he didn’t show it. “Aladdin, we can talk about this,” he 
said flatly. “That is, if you don’t let your anger blur your vision.” 
Then he cocked his head to one side and told me I had to soften my heart. 
“It’s one of the rules,” he said. “If you want to strengthen your faith, you will need to soften 
inside. For your faith to be rock solid, your heart needs to be as soft as a feather. Through an 
illness, accident, loss, or fright, one way or another, we all are faced with incidents that teach us 
how to become less selfish and judgmental, and more compassionate and generous. Yet some of 
us learn the lesson and manage to become milder, while some others end up becoming even 
harsher than before. The only way to get closer to Truth is to expand your heart so that it will 
encompass all humanity and still have room for more Love.” 
“You stay out of this,” I said. “I’m not taking orders from drunken dervishes. Unlike my father, 
that is.” 
“Aladdin, shame on you,” my father broke in. 
I felt an instant and potent pang of guilt, but it was too late. So many resentments I thought I had 
left behind came flooding back to me. 

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“I have no doubt you hate me as much as you say you do,” Shams proclaimed, “but I don’t think 
you have stopped loving your father even for a minute. Don’t you see you are hurting him?” 
“Don’t you see you are ruining our lives?” I shot back. 
That was when my father lunged forward, his mouth set in a grim line, his right hand raised 
above his head. I thought he was going to slap me, but when he didn’t, when he wouldn’t, I felt 
even more uneasy. 
“You shame me,” my father said without looking at my face. 
My eyes welled with tears. I turned my head aside and suddenly came face-to-face with Kimya. 
How long had she been standing there watching us from a corner with fearful eyes? How much 
of this squabble had she heard? 
The shame of being humiliated by my father in front of the girl I wanted to marry churned in my 
stomach, leaving a bad taste in my mouth. It felt like the room was spinning all around me, 
threatening to collapse. 
Unable to stay there a moment longer, I grabbed my coat, pushed Shams aside, and dashed out of 
the house, away from Kimya, away from all of them.