Istanbul’s cats are as famous as its dogs. Nowadays, the new pastime among neighborhood locals is feeding street cats. When these people go out on the street, all of the neighborhood cats gather around them and open their mouths as if mobilization was declared. They are a far cry from catching rats, let alone rummaging through the garbage.
The kid of the house
Mice were the unwanted inhabitants of old wooden houses and cats were their mortal enemies. In the past, a house without a cat was unthinkable. Not every cat can catch a mouse since it must be a mousing cat. Cats that are not hunters by instinct are paired with the hunters and they get used to the job in a short period of time.
Cats were fed not only to catch the mice but to befriend children and the elderly. Especially people who see no loyalty from their relatives or friends, or people who have no children, show their love and compassion to the cats. Prince Şerefeddin Efendi was exiled from his homeland, forcing him to live alone in Beirut. It was his lifelong companion, his cat, who notified the neighbors of his death.
Every domestic cat is almost like the kid of the house. When someone in the household shows a child even slightly more interest, they get jealous. There were people who looked after dozens and even hundreds of street cats and fed them. The stories whose protagonists are genies, always featured a cat as the genie in disguise.
Cats are smart animals with strong senses. Even if they go miles away, they can find their way back home. According to the common belief, cats are ungrateful, while dogs are renowned for their loyalty. However, the religious scholars favor cats, which expect their sustenance from god without showing gratitude to anyone, but they do not favor dogs which is beleoved to “dirty” their owners.
In Islam, if cat urine stains one’s clothes, it is not regarded as dirty, while a dog’s saliva is considered to be dirty and if it gets on your clothes you cannot pray in them unless the stain is rinsed off. In fact, according to the Shafii school of thought, if a dog’s saliva stains one’s clothes, that stain is required to be rinsed off seven times in order to be able to pray in them again.
