REFUGEES, dissidents and émigrés from across the Arab world are flocking to the old imperial city which ruled their lands until 1918. In Mukhtar, a popular café in Istanbul’s “Little Syria”, outcasts from regimes that crushed the Arab spring sip coffee spiced with cardamom—and plot their comeback. They hail from Egypt, Syria, Yemen and other Arab countries where the Ottoman Turks once ruled. Some advocate peaceful means, others violent. “These tyrants will never hand over power peacefully,” says a Kuwaiti dissident.

Istanbul may host as many as 1.2m Arabs, including many of the 3m-plus Syrian refugees in Turkey. A former presidential candidate from Egypt is there, along with Kuwaiti MPs stripped of their citizenship and a crop of former ministers from Yemen. Dozens of Arab websites, satellite-TV stations and think-tanks relay grievances back home. Istanbul’s Arab Media Association now counts 850 journalists as members.

Most Arab states deny citizenship to foreigners and their offspring, even those born and raised in their countries. By contrast, Arabs may get a Turkish passport after five years of residency, or immediately if they bring in at least $250,000. “There they treat us like slaves,” says a Lebanese education consultant who took a pay cut to move from Dubai to Istanbul. “Here we belong.” Some Arabs arrive after failing to win asylum in less friendly Europe. “It’s more familiar, Muslim and closer to home,” says an applicant. Saudis snap up property in case things go wrong back home.

Turkey’s political system is another attraction. Its democracy looks flawed to European eyes. But it is a paragon compared with most Arab regimes. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose wife is of Arab origin, still openly champions the Arab uprisings of 2011 and the Muslim Brothers who briefly ran Egypt until its current president, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, took over in a coup in 2013. “It’s the last corner of the Arab spring,” says Ayman Nour, once a candidate for Egypt’s presidency, who now runs his own television station from the city.

These days hot Arab bands come to play in Istanbul. The city also hosts the biggest Arab book fair in a non-Arab land. Last month a school opened for Palestinians from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Ibn Haldun, a new university on Istanbul’s outskirts, offers scholarships to students across the umma, or Muslim nation, to promote Islamist values. Mr Erdogan’s son, Bilal, is on the board. A new Arab Council for the Defence of Revolutions and Democracy seeks to bring all the city’s Arab émigrés together. But after the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, their haven may feel a bit less safe.