The following is an exploration of the benefits of prayer for the 21st-century citizen, originally penned in the summer of 2025. “Why pray?” is the first in a long-term series of articles on faith and Artificial Intelligence that will be posted to The Critical Currents in the coming weeks and months. Enjoy!

“I’ll fail in the same way to understand with my reason why I pray, and I yet I will pray…my life now, my whole life, regardless of all they may happen to me, every minute of it, is not only not meaningless, as it was before, but has the unquestionable meaning of the good which it is in my power to put into it.” — Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Introduction

The oldest archaeological evidence for organized prayer dates back 11,000 years to a world of hunter-gatherer bands roaming vast plains alongside gazelle grazing on expansive fields of wild barley, and migrant geese searching for water.¹ Constructed in what is now Türkiye, Göbekli Tepe is the world’s oldest temple, built overlooking the southern Anatolian plains. The site, littered with columns portraying scorpions, vultures, and other wild animals, is said to have had neither a permanent population nor a utilitarian function. Its construction predates the use of metal tools and even the advent of agriculture.² The discovery of the “proto-cathedral” challenges the long-held belief among scholars that it was the development of settled agricultural communities that allowed time to be spent on creating complex social structures and religious rituals. Instead, it may have been the formulation of rituals and the construction of temples, like Göbekli Tepe, that laid the foundation for agrarian civilization.³ To explore worship, humanity’s attempt at reaching out to the inexplicable and divine, is to examine the very essence of who we are; prayer, after all, is more human than harvest.

What is prayer?

Before discussing the benefits of prayer, it is necessary first to define prayer and religion. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines prayer as “an act of communication by humans with the sacred or holy—God, the gods, the transcendent realm, or supernatural powers.”⁴ While some would argue that secular meditation and other non-religious practices are forms of prayer, for the purposes of this essay, I will focus solely on the form of prayer that creates a bridge between man and the Divine. Thus, I will define religion as the broader context within which prayer occurs. American philosopher and psychologist William James defines religion in his The Varieties of Religious Experience: “Religion, …shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men (sic)...so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the Divine.”⁵

While James’ definition captures the personal elements of devotional practice, including the growing share of adults who identify as “spiritual, not religious,” his words overlook the significance of community. French sociologist Émile Durkheim defines religion as “...a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden–beliefs and practices which unite in one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.”⁶ From here on, my definition of religion will consist of a synthesis of those introduced: religion is a system of practices and beliefs adhered to by a community, designed to cultivate both a communal and personal relationship with a higher power through prayer. It is with the support of this definition that I summarize the benefits of prayer as follows: the practice provides adherents with a community and delivers measurable psychological benefits.

Benefits of Prayer

During his decades of fighting for Indian independence, plagued with hardship, Mahatma Gandhi’s commitment to consistent prayer remained unwavering. On worship, Gandhi is said to have remarked, “Begin your day with prayer, and make it so soulful that it may remain with you until the evening. Close the day with prayer, so that you may have a peaceful night free from dreams and nightmares.”⁷ The Indian activist, politician, and revolutionary organized prayer meetings for Indians of all faiths. During these meetings, Gandhi lectured the crowds on the precepts of non-violence and freedom.⁸ In a nation beset with religious violence, Gandhi succeeded in uniting Indians of all religions–Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and others–by using what they all shared: prayer. With these ceremonies, Gandhi successfully demonstrated that religious cohesion was possible. Through the unity achieved through shared prayer, Indians could free themselves from British rule and its exploitation of resources and native religions.

The benefits of attending religious ceremonies are, of course, not limited to those of us involved in a fight for independence; religious groups are excellent places to build community, whether the adversary is colonialism or everyday loneliness. The benefits that stem from social connections formed during congregations are well-documented. Tyler VanderWeele, professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in his 2017 article on Religious Communities and Human Flourishing, writes, “religious service attendance is associated with an increased likelihood of subsequently making new friends, of marrying, of having nonreligious community membership, and of higher social support.”⁹ Additionally, VanderWeele notes “that those attending religious services at baseline are 30% to 50% less likely to divorce.” At a time when, according to the American Psychiatric Association, a third of adults in the U.S. feel lonely each week and 30 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds feel lonely every day, organized prayer can be an effective means of combating the loneliness epidemic.¹⁰

The requirement of prayer within most theologies means believers can set aside designated times for worship—often a social event—to counter our harmful culture of leaving social interaction to chance. Building new in-person friendships or potential romantic partnerships around shared religious beliefs at a time when adults struggle to meet new people is a compelling reason to start attending regular prayer-based gatherings.

A study conducted by Pew Research on Religion’s Relationship to Happiness Civic Engagement and Health Around the World indicates a significant correlation between participation in religious ceremonies and increased levels of happiness: “more than one-third of actively religious U.S. adults (36%) describe themselves as very happy, compared with just a quarter of both inactive and unaffiliated Americans.”¹¹ Similar results were found in almost every other country included in the study. Religiously active individuals were also found to outperform their nonreligious counterparts on four other well-being indicators, including physical health. Researchers attribute the increase in overall well-being—and even longevity—to the “social capital” that religiously active adults gain through regular prayer and participation in their faith communities.¹² That network of relationships can also provide a ready support system to rely on when, for instance, searching for a job or exploring other opportunities. Conrad Hackett’s team also suggests that prayer may help the faithful manage stress and suffering.¹³

It is clear that regular prayer offers tangible psychological and even physical benefits, especially when practiced among others. Prayer provides the lonely with company, the fearful with courage, and the lost with direction.

“Violent, irrational, & intolerant”

Critics of organized religion are quick to underscore the violent tribalism that often results. Examples, both historical and contemporary, are numerous and include the suffering brought about by partition in Gandhi’s own India, between his Hindu homeland and Muslim Pakistan. All despite Gandhi’s earlier efforts to create cohesion among different religious groups through communal prayer-based gatherings. The relatively recent acceptance of atheism has allowed writers such as Christopher Hitchens to savagely criticize belief. The British-American author and journalist, in his book God Is Not Great, characterizes organized religion as “Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children.”¹⁴

While countless individuals have been killed in the name of religion, the same is true for most other identifiers that distinguish one group from another. Differences in race, education, ethnicity, gender, and political beliefs have all been at the root of conflict. The riots that took place during the Red Scare in the 20th century are just one example where fear over a new political ideology led to deaths.¹⁵ The fear of communism in the case of the Red Scare is not that dissimilar from the Western fear of Islam and Muslims in the 21st century. “Hard-Orientalist portrayals,” characterizations of Islam and all Muslims as violent extremists in the media, have been used to drum up fears of a Muslim invasion of the U.S. Since 9/11, these fears have been percolating both ideologically and legally.¹⁶ Islamophobia has repeatedly been used by the West to galvanize support for violence and foreign intervention in the Middle East; religion has been used as a justification by monarchs and politicians, among other differentiating features, for acts they were already committing or wished to commit for personal or political gain.¹⁷ Religion itself, especially prayer, should not be held responsible for the cruelty of individuals who cynically claim to be religious.

Conclusion

Some may find themselves asking: Why bother believing when there is no irrefutable proof of God’s existence? Why invest hours that could be spent pursuing hobbies and other pastimes? My objective is not to claim that there is any irrefutable proof of the Divine, sufficient to satiate our rationalist, empirical appetites. Neither do I suggest that you should take up prayer for the sake of acquiring salvation or any other metaphysical end.

My recommendation to take up worship is instead grounded in a desire to counter one of civilization’s greatest threats: chronic solitude and related mental health conditions brought about by social media. With advances in artificial intelligence capable of human-like interaction, we are likely to become even more isolated from one another. It is credible to imagine a future, perhaps even a likely future, where AI will replace traditional religious institutions in the coming decades, offering tailored companionship and new forms of prayer and spiritual practice. If this were to be our future, we would be vulnerable to manipulation and privacy violations that would be difficult to eliminate. Rather than entrusting our spiritual lives to wisdom emanating from soulless data centers, prayer is better left untouched by the technology that threatens to upend and reshape so many other aspects of our lives. We already have forms of worship that have evolved through human history and draw on our shared humanity, strengthening communal bonds. Why would we remove community from prayer? Without it—as we explored with Göbekli Tepe—prayer might never have developed.

Prayer offers a nearly cost-free solution to many of our modern troubles. Why must we prove God’s existence to return to or begin our practice? We, of course, do not. Instead, more people should take the Kierkegaardian leap of faith and reap the rewards of prayer.¹⁸ As weekly attendance at religious services dips below 30% in the U.S. and below 20% in Europe, and younger generations show little interest in worship, we must work to protect prayer and the religious establishments within which prayer occurs from extinction, or risk losing part of our humanity.¹⁹ Prayer, the panacea for the ills of the contemporary world, may have always been there for us—in the church, mosque, or temple just down the road.

Endnotes

1. Andrew Curry, “Göbekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?” Smithsonian Magazine, November 2008, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/.

2. IBID

3. IBID

4. Adalbert G. Hamman, “Prayer,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed June 12, 2025, https://www.britannica.com/topic/prayer.

5. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (Penguin Random House, 1982), 31.

6. Paul Carls, “Émile Durkheim (1858—1917),” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n.d., accessed July 14, 2025, https://iep.utm.edu/emile-durkheim/.

7. Gandhi Memorial Center, “Gandhi’s Inspiration from the Prophet Muhammad,” The Gandhi Message, March 22, 2023, https://www.gandhimemorialcenter.org/the-gandhi-message/2023/3/22/gandhis-inspiration-from-the-prophet-muhammad.

8. Manya Jain, “Final Days at Birla House: Gandhi’s Peace Mission Through Fasting and Prayer,” Enroute Indian History, August 16, 2024, https://enrouteindianhistory.com/final-days-at-birla-house-gandhis-peace-mission-through-fasting-and-prayer/.

9. Tyler J. VanderWeele, “Religious Communities and Human Flourishing,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 26, no. 5 (October 2017): 476–81, https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417721526.

10. American Psychiatric Association, “New APA Poll: One in Three Americans Feels Lonely Every Week,” news release, January 30, 2024, https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/news-releases/new-apa-poll-one-in-three-americans-feels-lonely-e.

11. Religion’s Relationship to Happiness, Civic Engagement and Health Around the World (Pew Research Center, 2019), https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/01/Wellbeing-report-1-25-19-FULL-REPORT-FOR-WEB.pdf.

12. IBID

13. IBID

14. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Twelve, 2007), 55.

15. David E. Hamilton, “The Red Scare and Civil Liberties,” Bill of Rights Institute, accessed July 14, 2025, https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-red-scare-and-civil-liberties.

16. Sophia Rose Arjana, “4. Monstrous Muslims: Historical Anxieties and Future Trends” In Religion and Popular Culture in America, Third Edition ed. by Bruce David Forbes and Jeffrey H. Mahan (University of California Press, 2017), 86-88.

17. IBID

18. M. Jamie Ferreira, “Faith and the Kierkegaardian Leap,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Alastair Hannay and Gordon Daniel Marino (Cambridge University Press, 1997), 207–34, https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521471516.009.

19. The Age Gap in Religion Around the World (Pew Research Center, 2018), https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/06/ReligiousCommitment-FULL-WEB.pdf.

Bibliography

American Psychiatric Association. “New APA Poll: One in Three Americans Feels Lonely Every Week.” News release, January 30, 2024. https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/news-releases/new-apa-poll-one-in-three-americans-feels-lonely-e.

Arjana, Sophia Rose. “4. Monstrous Muslims: Historical Anxieties and Future Trends” In Religion and Popular Culture in America, Third Edition edited by Bruce David Forbes and Jeffrey H. Mahan, 85-99. University of California Press, 2017.

Carls, Paul. “Émile Durkheim (1858—1917).” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed July 14, 2025. https://iep.utm.edu/emile-durkheim.

Curry, Andrew. “Göbekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?” Smithsonian Magazine, November 2008. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665.

Ferreira, M. Jamie. “Faith and the Kierkegaardian Leap.” In The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, edited by Alastair Hannay and Gordon Daniel Marino, 207–34. Cambridge University Press, 1997. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521471516.009.

Gandhi Memorial Center. “Gandhi’s Inspiration from the Prophet Muhammad.” The Gandhi Message. March 22, 2023. https://www.gandhimemorialcenter.org/the-gandhi-message/2023/3/22/gandhis-inspiration-from-the-prophet-muhammad.

Hamilton, David E. “The Red Scare and Civil Liberties.” Bill of Rights Institute. Accessed July 14, 2025. https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-red-scare-and-civil-liberties.

Hamman, Adalbert G. “Prayer.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed June 12, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/topic/prayer.

Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Twelve, 2007.

Jain, Manya. “Final Days at Birla House: Gandhi’s Peace Mission Through Fasting and Prayer.” Enroute Indian History, August 16, 2024. https://enrouteindianhistory.com/final-days-at-birla-house-gandhis-peace-mission-through-fasting-and-prayer.

James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Penguin Random House, 1982.

Religion’s Relationship to Happiness, Civic Engagement and Health Around the World. Pew Research Center, 2019. https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/01/Wellbeing-report-1-25-19-FULL-REPORT-FOR-WEB.pdf.

———. The Age Gap in Religion Around the World. Pew Research Center, 2018. https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/06/ReligiousCommitment-FULL-WEB.pdf.

VanderWeele, Tyler J. “Religious Communities and Human Flourishing.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 26, no. 5 (October 2017): 476–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417721526.

“...the ability to make connections across disciplines—arts and sciences, humanities and technology—is a key to innovation, imagination, and genius.”

— Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

Leonardo

There are few, if any, who rival Leonardo da Vinci in curiosity—or historical celebrity. The Italian painter, architect, inventor, engineer, sculptor, and intellectual is perhaps the greatest thinker humankind has, and possibly will, ever produce. There have been other illustrious painters, more accomplished engineers, and sculptors who surpass Leo in skill. And yet, if I were to ask anyone in Times Square, Istanbul, or anywhere else to name a painting, 9 out of 10 times they would respond with The Mona Lisa. Not Rembrandt’s NightWatch or Klimt’s The Kiss. Not even Picasso’s Guernica, the Spaniard’s tour de force. “That woman by Leonardo da Vinci,” they would say, “the one in Paris.”

Why, then, centuries after his death, are we still collectively obsessed with the Renaissance man? What distinguishes da Vinci and renders his work irresistible to the millions of tourists who take a pilgrimage to the Louvre? Simply put, it is his insatiable appetite for knowledge. His obsession with uncovering the divine workings and language of our enigmatic world. Leonardo was propelled by pure, childlike wonder. It is that awe, that inescapable sense of reverence in da Vinci’s strokes that sets him apart.

Leonardo’s genius is nowhere more evident than in his notebooks, where da Vinci drew elaborate, anatomically accurate diagrams and scribbled questions. Analyzing his notebooks is the closest we will ever get to understanding his mind. What quickly becomes clear to the reader is da Vinci’s commitment to interdisciplinary thinking. Plans for a flying machine are drawn and described alongside exquisitely rendered human exoskeletal systems. Questions about a woodpecker’s tongue, adjacent to sketches for an upcoming painting. His imagination thrived in the connections between the objects of his curiosity, rather than in hyperfixation on a single field of interest.

In Leonardo’s paintings, his interdisciplinary thinking is front and center. For instance, his use of proportions and perfect curls is inspired by his study of mathematics and physics. Even the plays he would put on for the Sforza court in Milan were built on contraptions he devised using his engineering skills. Da Vinci’s scientific knowledge was at the foundation of his artistic creation, and his artistic creativity in turn inspired his scientific inquiry. Da Vinci’s rejection of specialization was his greatest strength. The same will be true for the leaders of the next generation.

The Liberal Arts & AI

In the past century, to the delight of some and the dismay of many, training in the liberal arts has become a hallmark of American higher education. The widespread adoption of the ancient Greek approach has presented some obvious questions: A first-year Economics major at Columbia, on his way to Literature Humanities, may question why he should bother reading “books that enable us to ask questions about literature and how it works,” when he plans to land a job on Wall Street upon graduation. Wouldn’t cramming his schedule with advanced courses on the working of the market seem like a better use of his time? Why, then, do top universities with thousands of notable alumni go to great lengths to ensure pre-meds take history and archeologists take calculus?

The answer lies in the value of interdisciplinary thinking and flexible problem-solving. In the age of artificial intelligence, where technology can crunch numbers and generate code faster and of higher quality than the average white-collar employee, specialization has lost its allure. Instead, we must channel our inner Leonardos and embrace creativity. Fundamentally, LLMs are plausibility engines, designed to spit out the most probable response to a query. The one thing these chatbots cannot do, by definition, is iterate beyond the data they have been fed. As students globally use artificial intelligence to write their essays and brainstorm, a generation that is incapable of critical thinking is entering the workforce.

We are hurtling towards a world where AI outages could spell disaster for productivity. Automation will infiltrate every facet of our society, providing subpar replacements for human output. But because Chat-GPT or Grok will never be able to innovate, the last human frontier will remain originality. To optimize for this new reality, we will need to adjust our academic incentive structures to provide students with the necessary background to be as original as possible. In human employees, ingenuity is becoming significantly more valuable than efficiency.

American Universities

And yet, around the world, top universities outside the US still insist on pigeonholing students into a particular course of study. In England, renowned for its academic institutions, universities such as Oxford and Cambridge often require students to specialize within their fields. Some argue that intense concentration on a narrow field for three years produces more desirable, highly skilled employees. And that may well be the case in STEM, where specialized knowledge is essential. However, for the vast majority of students seeking higher-level education, especially at elite institutions, it is vital that they cast a wider intellectual net.

In the United States, our universities have not become the envy of the world for hiring the best academics. They enjoy universal prestige for creating an intellectual environment conducive to creativity. Great American ideas that reshape industries do not originate from staying within a field. Instead, they are formulated by the joint effort of those working in disparate areas willing to synthesize different ways of thinking. Innovation is a product of the cross-field inspirations that Leonardo relied on. Steve Jobs, in particular, is a great example. Courses he took on calligraphy at Reed inspired his beautiful engineering approach to product design. Elegant exteriors combined with robust electric interiors have defined the Apple brand. Jobs found success at the intersection of art and engineering. However, without having had the exposure to those university-level courses, he may never have been able to design the iPhone.

Conclusion

It is a tragedy that tens of thousands of the brightest minds reject the arts and humanities, choosing instead to focus all their attention on a single, specialized STEM-oriented skill set. We do not need more computer scientists or investment bankers. What we need is minds primed by a liberal arts education to make connections and push the boundaries of what is possible.

When the average American pictures the dangers associated with Artificial Intelligence, scenes from the 1984 film, Terminator, may come to mind: autonomous robot assassins threatening our lives. Leaders in the AI space, focused on the development of large language models, picture others: the potential for the creation of bioweapons, explosives, and other life-threatening devices, at scale.1 But other risks are equally alarming.

In recent months, dozens of stories have been published by major news outlets concerning delusional and psychotic episodes induced by conversations with AI chatbots.2 Not limited to the product of a single company or demographic, LLM delirium is emerging as an acute risk to public health and security. Owing to their alluring sycophancy and humanlike personality, AI chatbots have become imperfect cures for chronic solitude.

Yet, there is another existential threat looming in the shadows: covert manipulation by LLMs and their “superintelligent” successors.

AI Manipulation

If we begin to see AI as a general-purpose consultant and rely upon the technology to make life-altering decisions, LLMs may remake society-wide behavioral patterns. Simply put, systems producing similar responses for related queries could steer users in a shared direction. For instance, it is not hard to imagine the influence AI could soon have on travel if millions of Americans ask ChatGPT to arrange their flights, accommodations, and activities: AI could drive traffic to some vendors while leaving others without sufficient business. The tourism industry may soon be at the mercy of Silicon Valley, exceeding the control the internet already wields, “choosing” the hotspots and must-sees.

If adoption continues at the current rate, as users seek to benefit from AI’s often touted “expertise,” the technology could begin to influence when or where we buy a house, get married, work, or even if and when to have a child. The critical thinking required to evaluate possible courses of action, developed in our early years, suffers when assignments meant to develop teenage minds are conveniently completed by text terminals. We may eventually reach a point of no return, where the masses, accustomed to outsourced thinking, cannot make decisions without their LLM of choice.

With Godlike capabilities for manipulation, executives at the helm of AI behemoths will have the opportunity to have a hand in what that influence looks like, molding the world to conform to their vision for the future. Companies could begin paying AI companies for discreet advertising, carefully placed nudges with the capacity to pick the winners and pump profits. Authoritarian leaders may enter into confidential agreements with companies to support regimes and spread propaganda through LLMs.

The threat posed by the subconscious influence of AI is greater than the one posed by political or other forms of manipulative “propaganda” spread intentionally by rational human actors. The implications for our political system are immense: voters in liberal democracies could begin to find themselves asking Grok for advice on who to vote for and acting upon Grok’s response, allowing the LLM to crown a winner without even “approaching” a ballot box.

Within a few generations, even industry elites could be at the mercy of their creations; incapable of controlling AI’s desires and covert manipulation, we may awake to find the entirety of the human species at the mercy of artificial intelligence—without the mental acuity necessary to break free from our self-imposed bondage. Difficult to mitigate, the dangers are innate in the hallucination-prone, black-box technology itself.

Conclusion

Despite what Silicon Valley CEOs may have you believe, we don’t need an impossible leap in AI capabilities or the often hyped Artificial General Intelligence for the technology to upend our lives. Or even for the scenario described above to become our reality. Having had years to develop their minds, adults over 30 will likely not bear the brunt of the AI industry’s insistence on limited oversight and regulation; young people and future generations, growing up in a world with widespread LLM usage, will. These models will not just democratize information; they will be responsible for how we think, what we think, and when we think, driving our individual and collective actions. As weekly user counts jump from the hundreds of millions to the billions, societal transformation is imminent.

“Even when the texts are clichés, poor translations, or make little sense, having them stamped on the body makes people feel unique, special, beautiful, and full of life. I believe the tattoo is a remnant of magical thinking, a leftover trace of ancestral faith in the aura of words.”

– Irene Vallejo, Papyrus

On my recent visit to the Topkapı Palace, for centuries, the center of the Ottoman Empire and home of the ruling dynasty, I found myself amid a throng of eager tourists filing through the imperial gates. The sweltering sun, contributing to what pundits later reported to be Istanbul’s warmest week, did little to subdue the crowds. After purchasing a discounted ticket and passing through what, in practice, were decorative metal detectors, I entered the first of four courtyards. Finding myself strolling beneath cypress trees with branches that seemed to point out sites of significance, I ducked into a gallery displaying articles of clothing and the detritus of great sultans.

Tucked away among the dozens of preserved cloaks and kaftans were shirts fitted with calligraphic inscriptions. The Talismanic shirts, I later found out, were garments covered with protective prayers and Quranic verses. The thin fabric was meant to act as a layer of supernatural defence, warding off misfortune, illness, and other forms of spiritual evil.

Safavid, Mughal, and West African rulers wore similar shirts, with designs reflecting local tastes and traditions.1 The shirts were carefully crafted by expert artisans to be worn below suits of armor. And yet, despite being made for war, their colors are unapologetically lively, woven into patterns fit for a high-end brand’s summer collection.

These shirts and their modern motifs, worn by men ruling over millions of square miles and subjects, reflect the role of the Ottoman court as a center for artistic innovation and Islamic spirituality. They serve as a reminder of the power of words and their ability to serve as a refuge from worldly chaos, providing a sense of control in a world governed by fate and chance.

If you are visiting Istanbul, I would not pass up the opportunity to visit these revealing Ottoman-Turkish historical artifacts.

Image Gallery:

Following a 30-minute ride aboard the Marmaray rail line, along the coast and beneath the Bosphorus, I disembark, clutching my camera. I walk past the turnstiles and an amateur guitarist playing Sezen Aksu, and ride the escalator up into the midday sun. A group of Italian tourists greets me at the exit; they admire the Galata Tower across the channel, murmuring, as I hurry across the street. I hail a cab, one of many looking for tourists at this hour, and settle into the backseat. The smell of cigarette smoke fills my nostrils as we navigate through traffic. At the end of a narrow alleyway beside a family of coiled cats, the tip of a navy minaret reaches up into the sky. I pay my fare—10x what it would have been only 2 years ago—and enter through the gates of what is now the Kariye Mosque, an embodiment of Istanbul’s complex history.

Thanks to my Turkish citizenship, I do not need a ticket to enter—one of only a few places where the passport waives otherwise necessary entry requirements. A security guard, sipping Turkish tea on a stool beside the doorway, waves me by and into the mosque.

History: Past & Present

Despite the existence of conflicting accounts, some drawing generously from legend, the Chora Church was most likely founded by the Eastern Roman General Crispus in the 7th century as a monastery on the outskirts of Constantinople.1 Its name, Chora, means “country,” referring to its location outside the original city walls.

Following years of service and a series of minor repairs, Theodore Metochites, an influential statesman and scholar, sponsored major renovations in the early 14th century. Elaborate mosaics and frescoes were commissioned as part of the overhaul to adorn the walls and ceiling, all depicting biblical narratives and characters typical of the period.

Pictured below is a depiction of the Last Judgment, painted on the ceiling of the church paracelsion, a side mortuary chapel found in early Byzantine churches. Despite the presence of prominent blemishes, the fresco remains an outstanding example of early Byzantine ecclesiastical art. Serving powerful patrons, the Church held an exalted place in the hearts of the imperial family up until the Christian empire’s collapse in 1453.2

Following the Ottoman conquest of the city by Mehmed the Conqueror in the 15th century, the site, along with the rest of the city, entered a new era under Muslim control. Initially, the Chora Church, unscathed by the Ottoman Siege, was left to the Greek community’s Patriarchate and remained a place of Christian worship.3 Nevertheless, in 1511, following in the footsteps of the Hagia Sophia, the Chora church was converted into a mosque.

The site’s new muslim custodians constructed a minaret and mihrab4 to suit Islamic worship. Rather than destroying the artwork, during the conversion process, the Ottomans opted instead to cover the mosaics and frescoes, allowing for their preservation. A combination of thin layers of removable plaster and wooden curtains was used to hide the figural depictions during prayer. Shortly after the modifications, the mosque became a hub for the local Muslim community, which had previously lacked sufficient space to pray.

Politically, the conversion symbolized the Ottoman effort to incorporate Byzantine heritage into the empire's cultural fabric following their conquest of a powerful Christian capital. Acutely aware of the Church’s historical and artistic value, the Ottomans not only chose not to eliminate the remnants of their predecessors but also ensured that the structure formed part of the empire’s cultural inheritance for generations to come. It is the Ottoman principle of religious tolerance that made my visit to the Kariye Mosque and appreciation of its figural adornments possible, centuries after their creation.

Conclusion

The Kariye Mosque's fusion of Christian and Muslim architectural elements embodies Istanbul's role as a bridge between East and West; a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1985, the Mosque is well worth a visit.

Now, having finished my own, I look out over the Bosphorus and watch the ferries glide by as the recording of the adhan begins to play from crackly loudspeakers mounted on the Kariye minaret. Through endless wars, conversions, and natural disasters, prayer atop this hill has endured in one of its many forms for centuries. Looking to the future, I hope that worship here will continue for centuries hereafter.

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“A great painter does not content himself by affecting us with his masterpieces; ultimately, he succeeds in changing the landscape of our minds.” — My Name is Red, Orhan Pamuk

It’s been almost two months since I disembarked from my journey through Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red, the Nobel Prize-winning book set in 16th-century Constantinople. In addition to the dazzling renderings of the imperial treasury, bustling bazaars, and workshops where artisans illustrate illuminated manuscripts, Pamuk’s reflections on art’s relationship with the human spirit have not left my mind. The Turkish author brings to life the world of Islamic miniaturism and the struggles undertaken by kaftan-clad men who labored endlessly over illustrations of timeless tales through a careful synthesis of fact and fiction.

Pamuk approaches artistic expression with an acutely Sufi-Islamic sensibility that is worth examining, regardless of religious affiliation. Pamuk asserts, through his fictional miniaturists that “...painting is the act of seeking out Allah’s memories and seeing the world as He sees the world.” (79) Rather then trying to paint items as they are present in the world around us, illustration is used as a means of revealing the essence of what is to be depicted; the essence visible in full only to the divine. They would “[attempt] to depict the world that God perceives, not the world that they [saw].” The miniatures that adorn the Metropolitan Museum’s gallery walls are not meant to be a window into a moment in time; instead, they are intended to exist outside the very conception of time in a world hidden from our own.

However, the pursuit of otherworldly portrayals is not intended to replace our appreciation for the mortal world. After all, “Allah created this worldly realm the way an intelligent seven-year-old boy would want to see it; what’s more, Allah created this earthly realm so that, above all, it might be seen.” Art is meant to serve as a means of celebrating beauty, especially when we feel we are peering through a portal that may, in fact, be divine.

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken,” – Oscar Wilde

Running at the Music Box Theater from March until June 15th, The Picture of Dorian Gray, starring Sarah Snook, may very well be the Broadway spectacle of the year. Adapted by Kip Williams from Oscar Wilde’s 1890 original for a 21st-century audience, Actor from hit TV Series Succession, Sarah Snook, plays all twenty-six roles in a 2-hour extravaganza.

At the center of Wilde’s masterpiece is the dazzling twenty-year-old Dorian Gray, living amongst Victorian London’s rich and powerful. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed gentlemen begins his journey with the creation of a portrait by artist Basil Hallward, a man captivated by Dorian’s youth and beauty. Unbeknownst to the artist himself, the portrait possesses magical qualities. Dorian soon discovers that the physical manifestation of age and hedonistic pursuits would only appear upon the Dorian in the portrait, leaving himself unscathed. Having come to this realization, Dorian progressively descends into a life of sensual pleasure with little regard for Victorian or Christian morals. Dorian turns to Lord Henry, a corrupt man speaking in favor of spineless debauchery, for advice, slowly becoming mad in the process. By the end of the 18-year period Wilde illustrates, Dorian stabs the now hideous portrait, killing himself in the process.

Wilde’s involvement in the Aesthetic Movement is the foundation of the philosophical dilemmas the novel and Williams’s adaptation explore. At its core, Aestheticism was a movement and school of thought centered on the doctrine that art exists solely for the sake of beauty and not for any political or didactic purposes. Wilde’s own pleasure-seeking lifestyle is said to have influenced part of Dorian’s character. In his own words, “I can resist everything except temptation.” While championing the value of beauty through Dorian’s obsession with appearance, Wilde’s work is simultaneously a critic of living a life devoid of moral consideration, epitomized in Dorian’s self-destruction. Another dichotomy driving the work is the contrast between Dorian’s beautiful appearance and twisted, corrupt soul. While one may appear to be and sound devoid of moral transgression, especially in the Judeo-Christian sense, it is not guaranteed that their life is not infested with sin. A close reading urges the audience to consider their values and uphold moral purity, even when given the chance to avoid social judgment. God, of course, is always watching, Christians would be quick to point out.

Williams does an excellent job bringing this Victorian-era novel alive with a talented camera crew and outstanding acting. It is never easy to pull off a one-man show without taking away from a play’s substance. Here, Snook’s solo performance, playing primarily male characters no less, only adds to the production. Screens, slang, and digital filters supplement Wilde’s original while enticing the younger generation. In publishing this review, it is my hope that we return to the philosophical dilemmas present in Wilde’s work in a world where the morality of our actions is no longer considered. In the absence of ethics, what separates humanity, our flesh and blood, from artificial intelligence that poses an existential threat to our creativity, authenticity, and morality?

“[Boethius] would have been remarkable in any age, in the age in which he lived, he is utterly amazing.” – Bertrand Russell

To hinge one’s contentment upon what is not theirs would, on all counts, be ludicrous. To demand that one must control the most prominent kingdom and fall in love with the fairest maiden before reaching a state of delight would be irrational. Instead, we must seek our satisfaction from within our hearts and souls. Only there can we discover what is truly ours and be truly happy.

Such were the musings of the Italian statesman and early Christian: Boethius (475 AD – 525 AD). Born to a wealthy family in the storied city of Rome under the reign of the Gothic King Theodoric, Boethius entered the political scene. He received great praise from those in power and was given the high office of consul. Alongside his work for the government, Boethius worked on translations and written works, particularly in the field of philosophy. It is primarily thanks to Boethius that we have access to Plato and Aristotle in the modern age, for without his translations from Greek to Latin, the works of the great philosophers would have been lost to time. The polymath’s wife, renowned for her beauty and virtue, bore two sons who would follow in their father’s footsteps and be handed the office of consul with little expertise. For the Romans, everything was going according to plan — until it wasn’t.

In the spring of 523 AD, Boethius was falsely accused of plotting against the increasingly paranoid Theodoric and was shipped off to Ravenna to await execution. Without warning or time to wish his children and wife well, Boethius’s life of prosperity slipped out from underneath his feet. It was in his Ravennian prison cell, in the two months he awaited his brutal execution through strangulation, that he wrote his most treasured work: The Consolation of Philosophy. Within the book, written in a combination of prose and poetry, Boethius is visited by a woman dressed in a torn gown, and clasping a scepter and books. The woman, tall and proud, introduces herself as Philosophy. The man, awaiting certain death, and the woman, possessing wisdom that mortal men could never hope to internalize, discuss the nature of the human condition.

Lady Philosophy’s message consists of the secret to mortal enjoyment. Happiness, the Lady illustrates, must not be built upon fragile foundations. The wheel of Fortune, or the wishes of the goddess Fortuna, are never stagnant. Boethius writes, “I know the many disguises of that monster, Fortune, and the extent to which she seduces with friendship the very people she is striving to cheat, until she overwhelms them with unbearable grief at the suddenness of her desertion.” Our ambition, our desires, can only be extinguished from within, not by anything “bad luck” can eliminate. In a nod to the Stoics of the past, Boethius believed happiness to be a state of mind, of otherworldly properties. Even love, a part of our lives not typically considered worldly or on par with Golden goblets, Boethius argues, is not to be the basis for our contentment, for Fortuna could take it away at a whim just as she would any other treasure.

Boethius’s Christian faith shines through his desire to seek happiness in God or goodness, two that would become one later in his writing. The God described by Lady Philosophy is most likely a form of goodness, written about by Plato: a form of pure virtue. Only by retreating into ourselves, into our “inner citadel,” can we discover this virtue. By indulging in the qualities Fortuna can never take away, most notably our reason, and pondering the immensity of the universe, our delight is freed from her clutches. “Happiness cannot consist in things governed by chance.” As Exonians, much of our situation lies beyond our control. Although our grades, social perception, and athletic performance appear to depend on our efforts, they are largely influenced by external factors. We must tap into our inner strength and face life with resilience and courage, or risk falling into unnecessary despair.

Beyond physical artifacts, Aristophanes’ plays present an opportunity for contemporary readers to investigate the various religious and ceremonial positions held by young virgin women and pre-adolescent girls in Classical Athens. The comic play Lysistrata, produced by the Athenian playwright in 411 BC, illustrates the roles held by promising daughters of the nobility. A chorus of old women reads the following: “As soon as I was seven, I served as an arrhephoros. Then I was an aletris at ten years of age, for the goddess in charge. Next, wearing the saffron-colored robe, I was a “bear” at the Brauronia. As a beautiful young girl, I was a kanephoros wearing a necklace of dried figs.” Virgin girls held a prominent role in religious traditions, working their way through a sequence of four noteworthy positions: arrephoros, aletris, participant of Brauronia, and kanephoros. I will focus primarily on the essential roles of arrephoros, a participant of Brauronia, and kanephoros. Many Classical Athenian traditions and ceremonies could not have been conducted without young girls and unmarried women performing these roles. Women may have been brought into religious ceremonies through these positions to perform feminine house chores, including weaving, as a show of devotion/faithfulness to divine feminine patrons. Goddesses honored by young women include Athena and Artemis, who have ties to female virginity, transitions, and rites of passage. 

Honoring Athena through yearly ceremonial tradition would not have been possible without the girls’ skill with a loom and reenactment of the myth of Athen’s origin. The first position held by girls around the age of seven was the office of arrephoroi. The King-Archon, the chief magistrate responsible for various noble families, would choose four girls to perform in the Arrephoroi festival. During the festival, a reenactment of Athen’s mythical foundation, the girls carried boxes under the Acropolis, an area containing sacred objects. Outside of the primary festival, the four girls worked alongside the priestess of Athena Polias to weave Athena’s Panatheanaic robe. In Birds, a play produced by Aristophanes in 414 BCE, the playwright draws attention to the significance of the religious activity: “A prosperous construct, this city. Now, what god do you suppose will be the citadel guardian? For whom shall we prepare the peplos?” The “peplos” Aristophanes refers to is Athena’s Panatheanaic robe woven by the preadolescent girls with help from their mentor. Aristophanes uses the gifting of the garb as a metaphor for honoring the city’s guardian. 

Without the participation of unmarried virgins at Brauronia, a religious festival held in honor of Artemis, the Athenians would not have received “salvation.” Every four years, a group of girls between five and ten would be selected to travel to Baruron. Among other activities, the girls would create garments dedicated to Artemis. The following is an inscription from the 4th century BCE found alongside a deposit of dedications: “There is an embroidered sea purple tunic in a box: Thyaene and Malthace dedicated it. An embroidered sea purple tunic in a box: Eukoline dedicated it.” These garments and offerings could not have been created without the aid of unmarried women and their training in the creation of tunics and other attire; training men would not have received. The practice’s significance to Athenian belief is emphasized in the following proposal from the late 4th / early 3rd century BCE, arguing that the festival “dedicated to the goddess [is necessary] for the salvation of the Athenian people.” Divine interventions would have been sought both on the individual level–for protection from illness, increased fertility,  and assistance in childbirth–and at the communal level, to ensure the physical perpetuation of the city-state across generations.  

Young virgin women would not have been appointed to a position of religious significance and dealt with respectfully during ceremonies if they weren’t necessary. The respect they were shown is exemplified through the last responsibility in the sequence of religious obligations performed by young maidens:  the office of kanephoroi or “basket bearer.” This honorable position, reserved for girls of nobility with exceptional promise, would have held a prominent role in various religious festivals and processions. One of the few remaining descriptions of kanephoros is present in one of Aristophanes’ comedies. In Acharnians (425 BCE), the father of comedy describes the private festival for Dionysus put on by an Athenian citizen and Spartans to celebrate a private truce: “Speak words of good omen, speak words of good omen! Let the kanephoros go ahead, a little in front. Xanthias, hold the phallus pole erect! Daughter, put down the basket, so that we may begin.” The virgin daughter or Kore, leads the religious procession, carrying barley, filets, and the sacrificial knife in her basket. Without the ceremonial items, performing the given ritual would have been impossible. In the patriarchal world of Classical Athens, the father’s respectful request for the daughter to “go ahead a little” and “put down the basket” would have been rare outside of religious ceremonies. Thus, if virgin girls were not deemed to be truly necessary, they may have been replaced by honorable men–unless Aristophanes’ references are for comedic effect.Virgin girls and preadolescents were crucial to the “salvation” of the Athenian populace. Classical Athenian religious tradition drew upon the skills females would have possessed alongside their role in ensuring the physical perpetuation of Athens. Feminine fertility would have been of utmost importance in a culture where lineage carried enormous weight. As a result, an exploration of classical Athens through religious ceremony offers a possibly unique perspective on the power feminine figures would have held in society. The craft of fabric-making and clothing held immense significance; without the expertise of women, the men of Athens would have been left unclothed and, in their eyes, without the gods’ blessings. Additionally, the nature of our primary sources is worth examining. Our principal source for the role of preadolescents and nubile girls in Athenian tradition is Aristophanes’ comedies. In ancient Greek comedy, concepts of virginity and purity likely held meanings that extended beyond traditional physical definitions. Since our sources are comedies written for entertainment, we’re left to wonder: How representative are comedies of the real-world female experience? Is the prominent role the daughter held and the father’s respect in Acharnians written in for comedic effect? To an audience of Classical Athenian men, young women and girls, played by men, receiving praise for their “central” role in tradition may have well been first-rate entertainment–the very idea may have elicited laughter. It underscores how comedy, as a unique space, allowed for the exploration of gender dynamics and cultural realities that might have been otherwise difficult to address. Despite possible discrepancies between the authentic Classical Athenian female experience in ceremonies and Aristophanes’ comedies, his work remains an essential source for the lives of Classical Athenian girls.

In Sappho’s poetry, female characters repeatedly express emotional complexity. In the available fragments, Sappho holds women who could experience and express deep longing, love, and desire in especially high regard. In fragment 31, Sappho portrays her own passionate, emotional response when watching a woman she loves with a man. She describes a figurative fire seizing her, a metaphor for being overtaken by uncontrollable rage and envy. Sappho may be making a generalization, acknowledging the pain and suffering love can provoke within women. In fragment 1, Sappho sings of her passionate plea to Aphrodite for assistance in longing. She proclaims, “everything my heart longs to have fulfilled, fulfill,” hyperbolizing her desire. Sappho’s depiction of emotional complexity may be an attempt to relate to women in her audience, a demographic overlooked in Archaic Lesbos. 

Alcaeus’ writings, on the other hand, contradict Sappho’s view of ideal womanhood. In fragment 10, Alcaeus criticizes Helen for giving in to her passion and running off to Troy. Alcaeus reprimands her greatest irresponsibility: neglecting her maternal obligations, “leaving her child at home…,” and instead choosing to satisfy her desire. He later ties the “slaughter” and the violence of the Iliad to Helen’s recklessness ignited by her intense emotions and irrationality. His perspective is rooted in the belief that women, specifically wives, were property, expected to remain loyal to their husbands and perform domestic duties with little freedom or autonomy. 

Beauty is a characteristic Sappho repeatedly attributes to feminine identity. In many of the fragments available, Sappho sings of beauty, most notably when speaking of her relations with young women. In fragment 22b, Sappho describes one of her many relationships: “I urge you [to sing] of Gongolya, Abanthis, [quickly] picking up your lyre, while desire for her once again flutters about you, who are beautiful.”Sappho highlights Abanthis’ beauty, which may illustrate her view that physical beauty is integral to female identity.  In fragment 16, Sappho compares the beauty of military strength with the beauty of one’s lover: “Some say an army of horsemen…is the most beautiful thing on the black earth. I say it is whatever one loves.” While Sappho accentuates the hypothetical lover’s beauty, just as in fragment 22b, in fragment 16, she generalizes one’s beloved. Her abstraction emphasizes the significance of physical beauty to women of the upper class.  Sappho’s lyrics offer one of the only windows into the female experience of antiquity. Owing to a lack of resources, it is uncertain whether Sappho’s work accurately portrays the beliefs of most Archaic Greek women. Few women shared Sappho’s upper-class status and high level of education. Therefore, her views may differ from or even contradict the beliefs of other women of the period. It is also uncertain whether the beauty and emotional complexity Sappho speaks of can be restricted to women. The Poetess may have equally valued emotional complexity and beauty in men. We’re left wondering: Is Sappho exploring an Archaic form of love felt within relationships of all genders? Are Sappho’s descriptions unique to homosexual love? Are emotional complexity and beauty attributes of the ideal lover of any gender? Additionally, all fragments available were part of longer pieces; any conclusions drawn by scholars may say more about the scholar than Sappho herself. Despite these uncertainties, Sappho’s poetry remains an essential upper-class female perspective on Archaic Greek femininity in Lesbos.