In Islamic culture, cats enjoy a high status and are widely respected and protected by all levels of society. The Qur'an of Islam says that all things were created by Allah, and cats are subject to man, and they are also the bridge between humans and Allah. Cats have always been faithful companions of Muslims from the past to the present, and the love of cats is part of the faith, and many cities in the Islamic countries of the Middle East and the North are cat towns.
Muhammad called cats clean things and good companions of human beings. Muhammad himself had a pet cat. Once he was about to go to prayer, but found the cat sleeping soundly on the sleeve of his robe. In order not to disturb the cat's sleep, Muhammad cut off the sleeves of his shirt and went to pray in a robe without sleeves. Muhammad also asked Muslims to treat cats well by giving them enough food and water, and it is said that Muhammad died leaving only two things: food and water for cats.
Istanbul is a world-famous thousand-year-old capital, and the city is full of splendid ruins of ancient civilizations, and tourists can pick up a random stone in the old city, perhaps more than 500 years old. There are also hundreds of thousands of stray cats here, and tourists are tired of visiting the attractions and will go to pet those stray cats everywhere. Istanbul's residents also feed stray cats all over the city as pets, believing that without cats, Istanbul would be a soulless city.
The cats that wander in Istanbul are dignified, and these maverick cats firmly believe that the relationship between humans and cats should be equal, and their ancestors lived in the city 2,000 years ago, and although Istanbul is the home of the local residents, it is also the city where their ancestors have lived for generations, and they are also the owners of Istanbul.
The people of Istanbul also agreed with these cats, so they put a lot of plates and containers for cats to eat and drink in many places in the city, and many residents would put cat food and water in the plates and containers regularly, and the stray cats would live a worry-free life from then on, they would come to these "canteens" to eat when they were hungry, and they would fill the river water in the basins when they were thirsty.
Istanbul's cats have a lot of power, they can come and go in shops and hotels at will, lie on the shelves of supermarkets, or crawl on the ticket machines in subway stations, and people will not disturb them, and even when the members of the Turkish parliament are in session, a cat swaggers in and walks in, and then jumps on the table as if no one is around, and drinks the water from the councilors' cups, and the parliamentarians do not stop it, but only look at it with loving eyes.
There are many famous internet celebrity cats in Istanbul, and one of them lives in the famous Hagia Sophia. This chubby cat is a Chinese tanuki cat, and people call it Gli. It has a very cute appearance, with big green eyes. Gli has lived in Hagia Sophia for many years, and many foreign tourists come to Sophia Cathedral to find it and take photos together, and even former US President Barack Obama is a fan of it and has taken photos with it.
There is also a well-known Internet celebrity cat Tombili in Istanbul, who will come to the street on time every day, and then lie quietly on the side of the road, lazily watching the busy and noisy world, sitting like a big man, looking like thinking about cats. Tombili has countless fans all over the world, and cat slaves have traveled from all over the world to Istanbul to visit it. After Tombili's tragic death, the Istanbul government, at the request of fans, built a bronze statue in the place where he watched the street scene during his lifetime, and every day the bronze statue was filled with flowers and cat food given to him by fans.