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Sabiha Çimen, Nehir, eighteen embraces friend, Istanbul, 2018. Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos
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Sabiha Çimen: Hafiz

BY Elisabeth Biondi, January 3, 2023

Sabiha Çimen, a Turkish photographer and a Muslim, spent three intensive years studying and memorizing the Qu’ran in a religious school in Istanbul as a teenager. The word for someone who has memorized all 6,238 verses of the Qu’ran is “Hafiz,” which she also took as the title of her recently published light-hearted and beautiful book (Red Hook Editions, 2021).

A resident of Istanbul and New York, Çimen visited religious schools for girls throughout Turkey, like the one she attended, from 2017 to 2021, photographing vignettes of daily life, much like the ones she had participated in when she was the same age as the young girls she photographed. More than documenting what she saw, she visually recreated her own emotional experiences: the fun, the mischief, the amusement – in essence, the behavior of young girls everywhere.

Despite Çimen’s strict religious upbringing, her pictures show a side of Muslim life not featured in many depictions of Muslim people in the West. Her gentle, heartwarming photographs correct the dominant narrative of Muslim women dressed in black and oppressed by men. They reveal that abiding by traditional Muslim faith and being a contemporary woman are not necessarily a contradiction.

Sabiha Çimen, Student plays hopscotch, Istanbul, 2020. Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Sahiba Çimen, Kevser uses palm leaf to hid her face at Quran school, Istanbul, 2017. Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Sabiha Çimen, Students waiting to perform during graduation ceremonies, Istanbul, 2017. Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Sabiha Çimen, Shy student hides behind curtain, Istanbul, 2017. Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Sabiha Çimen, Students relaxing at break, Kars, 2018. Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Sabiha Çimen, Student waits for her father’s pick up, Istanbul, 2018. Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Sabiha Çimen, A plane over students at an amusement park, Istanbul, 2018. Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos