She had never once ridden in a car. At 101, she flew to Mecca

Anakiz Uslu was born in 1925 on the central Anatolian plateau, two years after the republic and eight years before Turkey had a civilian airline of any kind. In the villages of her childhood people moved by ox-cart, by donkey, or on foot. She chose the last of these and never stopped. In a hundred and one years she had not once travelled in a vehicle — not a bus, not a car, nothing.

The wish to see Mecca, meanwhile, sat with her for decades. Umrah can be performed at any time of year, which is what makes an ordinary September possible for it. What was not ordinary was the arithmetic: roughly 1,900 kilometres from Konya to Jeddah, and a woman who had never left the ground, or indeed a wheel.

Her grandchildren arranged everything and went with her. She boarded her first aeroplane. When they reached the Masjid al-Haram, walking the circuits was beyond her, so they took turns. One would carry her, then hand her to the next, through all seven rounds.

Her grandchildren, asked afterwards, reached for the word indescribable and did not find a better one. What they said they felt most was pride — not at having made the trip, but at having been the ones whose backs she rode on.

She went home to Cayirbagi. Behind her: five children, 21 grandchildren, 56 great-grandchildren, 24 great-great-grandchildren. When she was born, life expectancy in Turkey was around 35 years. She has outlived that figure three times over, and the people who carried her are her own.