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As background to the locations described in Orhan Pamuk's novel Snow, readers can view a map of Turkey by the Central Intelligence Agency of the US Government and download it in pdf format.

Calling themselves Osmanlis, after tribal chieftain Osman I, the Ottomans were Turks from Central Asia. They created a vast empire that encompassed southeastern Europe to northern Hungary, the Middle East to Iran, and most of the North African coast.…

Muslim life in America is summarized in a U.S. State Department booklet. The booklet was published by the State Department and the Bureau of International Information Programs (a State Department agency) in 2009. It includes profiles of American…

1909 Abdul Hamid, the last of the Ottoman sultans, is deposed. 1914-1918 Turkey allies with Germany in World War I, and former Ottoman provinces are divided as mandates among the victorious…

Rivaling the Hagia Sophia for architectural splendor, the Süleymaniye Mosque was built in the sixteenth century CE for the sultan known as Süleyman the Magnificent, ruler of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 to 1566. The mosque, in Istanbul, is…

To The Countess of Mar, Adrianople [now Edirne], April 18, 1717 ….I was invited to dine with the Grand Vizier's lady, and it was with a great deal of pleasure I prepared myself for an entertainment which was never given before to any…