"Fluid Geographies: Water, Mediation and Infrastructure in an Istanbul Shrine"

As scholars of Islam know, water occupies a key devotional position for Muslims. This includes everything from sacred wells to fountains established through pious endowments to the provision of water for one’s ablutions. This talk, drawing on my recently published book, focuses on the fluid geographies built into the Istanbul mosque-shrine complex of Eyüp Sultan. Following water’s overlapping infrastructures and the debates and desires that surround water’s use, I offer one way to consider the broader geographies of Islam. 

Timur Hammond is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at Syracuse University. A cultural and urban geographer, he has published widely on topics including Turkey’s July 2016 coup attempt, the artist and scholar Ahmet Süheyl Ünver, and the geographies of translation. His first book, Placing Islam: Geographies of Connection in 20th Century Istanbul, was published open access in 2023 by the University of California Press.

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