(Irene A. Bierman, Rifa'at Abou-El-Haj, Donald Pre (BookFi) PDF

Subsidia Balcanica, Islamica et Turcica, 3
The Ottoman City and Its Parts

Urban Structure and Social Order
Edited by
IRENE A. BIERMAN
RIFA' AT A. ABOU-EL-HA]
DONALD PREZIOSI
iSTP1NBUL BiLGt
UNIVERSITY LIBRARl
Aristide D. Caratzas, Publisher

New Rochelle, New York
The Ottoman City and Its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order
Copyright © 1991 by Aristide D. Caratzas, Publisher

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without the permission in writing of the publisher.
Aristide D. Caratzas, Publisher

30 Church Street, P.O. Box 210
New Rochelle, New York 10802
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

Edited by Irene A. Bierman, Rifa'at A. Abou-EI-Haj, Donald Preziosi
Includes bibliographical references and index
1. City planning-Turkey-History.
2. Cities and towns, Islamic-Turkey-History.
3. Architecture, Ottoman.
I. Bierman, Irene A. II. Abou-El-Haj, Rifa'at A. Ill. Preziosi, Donald.
NA9229.087 1991
307.76'09561-dc20 91-10731 CIP
ISBN: 0-89241-473-1
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contents
Part I: THE CITY AS A WHOLE

Introduction: The Mechanisms of Urban Meaning 3
Donald Preziosi
1. Byzantine Constantinople & Ottoman Istanbul: Evolution in a

Millennial Imperial Iconography 13
Speros Vryonis, Jr.
2. The Ottomanization of Crete 53

Irene A. Bierman
3. Power and Social Order: The Uses of the Kanun 77

Rifa' pi A. Abou-El-Haj
PART II:' THE CITY AND ITS PARTS

Introduction: Power. Structure, and Architectural Function 103
Donald Preziosi
4. Administrative Complexes. Palaces. and Citadels: Changes in the

Loci of Medieval Muslim Rule 111
Jere L. Bacharach
5. Facades in Ottoman Cairo 129

Olka Bates
6. The Ottoman Sultan's Mosques: Icons of Imperial Legitimacy 173

Howard Crane
Glossary 245
Index 253
Contributors
Rifa'at Ali Abou-El-Haj Ottoman historian and Professor of History,

California State University, Long Beach
Jere L. Bacharadt Professor ofIslamic History, University of
Washington, Seattle
Ulkii Bates Associate Professor of Art History, Hunter College
of the City University of New York
Irene A. Bierman Associate Professor of Islamic Art History, UCLA
Howard Crane Islamic art historian and Professor of Art History,
Ohio State University
Donald Preziosi Professor of Art History, UCLA
Speros Vryonis, Jr. Professor of Greek Civilization and Culture and
Director of the Alexander S. Onassis Center for
Hellenic Studies, New York University
Preface
"The presumption is that meaning in the urban environment is not completely con-
tained in the structures themselves that comprise that environment, but is rather a
complex function of interrelations among objects, users, and their historical circum-
stances."
These words have their origins in a position paper circulated in advance of
a conference entitled Power and Structure in the Islamic Urban Arts, sponsored in
May. 1984 by the Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern
Studies, the Art History area of the Department of Art, Design, & Art
History, and the School of Architecture of the University of California, Los
Angeles. During the days of that conference, a large group of art and architec-
tural historians, historians, architects, city planners, and sociologists met to
consider the many ways in which the urban environment was employed to
signify and sustain specifically Islamic ideas and values of statecraft, political
legitimacy, religious unity, and social and economic power. The participants
were asked to address the question of how Islamic cities and their parts
engendered and sustained such values, and how such values might be "legible'
in Islamic architectural foundations and structures.
The present volume is one product of that conference, and consists of
essays commissioned subsequent to the conference on a more focussed theme
of the historical relationships between political power and specifically
Ottoman Islamic urban structure. Rather than publishing a traditional volume
of conference proceedings, the editors projected a thematically unified vol-
ume made up of essays by several scholars whose research into the relation-
ships between Ottoman political power and urban structure provides a multi-
disciplinary picture of the current state of our knowledge of the subject.
The resultant collective venture is made up of six essays by historians and
art and architectural historians of the Ottoman world which present overlap-
ping insights into the social history of the Ottoman city and its parts. Many of
the subjects taken up below in each study reappear in different ways in all six,
and each essay further illuminates, and is in tum illuminated by, the others.
Urban Structure and Social Order is divided into two parts: considerations of the
Ottoman city as a whole [part One] and in its component parts [part Two].
viii Preface
Each part is preceded by an introductory section which identifies commonly
addressed themes, and indicates the specific ways in which the conclusions
and insights of each essay augment and resonate with those of the others.
Many people helped to make this volume possible--some because they
helped bring about the original conference which inspired the present study,
and some because of their advice and counsel on the design and production
of this book. The editors would like to thank Professor George Sabagh,
Director of the von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies; Professor
Nikkie Keddie of UCLA; and Dr. Heath Lowry, Director of the Institute for
Turkish Studies, Washington, D.C., which awarded a publication subvention
for the volume.
In addition. special thanks go to Professor Speros Vryonis, jr., Director of
the Alexander S. Onassis Center for Hellenic Studies, New York University,
for his ongoing advice and encouragement; Mr. Jonathan Friedlander; Robert
H. Gray, former dean of the UCLA College of Fine Arts; UCLA Vice-
Chancellor Elwin Svenson; Susan Sims and Emiko Terasaki; and Ethel Sara
Wolper for making the Glossary and Carel Bertram for making the Index.
Special thanks must be given to Grace Wax. Caroline Kent. and Shannon W.
Morris for typing this manuscript. We would also like to thank Professors
Martin Krampen of the Hochschule der Bildende Kunste, Berlin, and Janet
Abu-Lughod of the School of Social Research. whose theoretical and critical
contributions to this work at its outset helped define the volume's thematic
unities. The many contributors to the 1984 conference helped us in under-
standing the extraordinary diversity and complexity of urban design and his-
tory in the larger Islamic world. Finally. we wish to thank John Emerich of
the Press for his ongoing encouragement and unfailingly good advice in
bringing this project to completion.
In all the transliterations, we tried to follow the system adopted by Islam
Ansiklopedisi. The most notable exceptions were: For the Arabic ayn, we
adopted the symbol' as in 'Ali; for hamzah, we adopted the symbol' as in
Dar al-'Imarah.
IRENE A. BIERMAN
DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY, UCLA
RIFA' AT A. ABou-Er.-HA]
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY AT LONG BEACH
DONAlD PRFZIOSI
DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY, UCLA
Part I
THE CITY AS A WHOLE
I have neither desires nor fears [Kublai Khan declared].
and my dreams are composed either by my mind or by
chance.
Cities also believe they are the work of the mind or of
chance [Marco Polo replies]. but neither the one nor the
other suffices to hold up their walls. You take delight
not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the
answer it gives to a question of yours.
Or the question it asks you, forcing you to answer. like
Thebes through the mouth of the Sphinx.
-Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Introduction
The Mechanisms ofUrban Meaning
Donald Preziosi
If you were to visit the Athenian Akropolis to examine the great architec-
tural remains of classical Greece, you would most likely come upon a curious
anomaly in the symmetrical composition of the large gateway covering the
western end of the Akropolis hill, a building known as the Propylaia. As you
walk through the Propylaia, you may notice that the door and flanking win-
dows of a room behind the left (north) portico do not align themselves with
the intercolumnial spaces of that portico. This bizarre asymmetry is at odds
not only with the doors of the central portion of the Propylaia leading onto
the Akropolis platform, but in fact also with the alignments of all such archi-
tectural members in other classical colonnaded structures.
The asymmetrical facade belongs to a chamber known in antiquity as the
Pinakotheka, or picture-gallery, referred to by the ancient traveller Pausanias as
housing pictures significant to Athenian history and mythology. Should you
attempt to find a spot where the chamber's door and windows might appear in
their canonically classical position (between the fronting columns), you will
eventually find yourself at the center of the forecourt of the Uvshaped
Propylaia, down on the zigzag ramp leading steeply up to the Propylaia plat-
form.
That spot is at the center of the ramp, and at the center of the forecourt.
Directly ahead, to the east, you can look through the large central doorway of
the Propylaia up onto the Akropolis platform. If you were standing at this
point in the latter part of the 5th century B.C., you would see directly ahead
of you through the main Propylaiaentrance the great chryselephantine statue
of the Athena promakhos, the patron of the Athenian struggle against the
Persians half a century earlier: the .head of this massive gold and ivory statue
would dominate the view into the Akropolis. If you were to turn around, in
the direction of the gaze of that statue, you would then see on the far western
horizon the island of Salamis, the site of the Athenian naval victory against
the Persian fleet.
4 Donald Preziosi
This entire tableau orchestrated by the Propylaia and by the statue of
Athena is nothing less than a theater of memory, or theatron: a place where the
visible becomes legible. It is the obverse of the ancient Greek theater, for the
spectator is at the center of the orchestra, not on one of the tiers of seats. The
central point of this historical panorama transforms the spectator, the individ-
ual subject, into the very site for the production of meaning, where the indi-
vidual gaze and perspective is the "measure" of things. By literally playing
with the perceptual expectancies of the subject, it puts that subject into the
only place where the architectural composition of the Propylaia as a whole
would grammatically "read" within the canons of classicism;
It should be recalled that the claim to exclusive or decisive success at
Salamis was hotly disputed by Sparta, whose forces played a major role in the
Persian defeat. For those with eyes to read it, the tableau mounted by Athens
at the entrance to its most sacred religious sanctuary would have constituted
a powerful and provocative political statement-a text made up of ideological
imagery, composed by the Athenian state to legitimize and reinforce its claims
to the leadership of all the Hellenes.!
II
Cities and their parts work to engender, reflect, legitimize, and sustain the
lived realities of social groups. They accomplish this by establishing certain
distributions of individuals and objects; surfaces and boundaries; visibilities
and occlusions, over space and time and in dynamically changing arrange-
ments that sustain the relationships in which individuals and groups are caught
up. While cities afford opportunities for action and interaction, they also con-
strain behavior through the fabrication of conventionally appropriate stages
for interaction or separation. Urban structures acquire signification through
active usage, and their meanings change according to position and perspec-
tive, intention and circumstance. Thus, the complex set of associations pro-
jected by a given city-say Istanbul-may be radically different to members
of different classes or religious or ethnic communities, or to members of the
same groups at different historical periods, or under changed political circum-
stances.
The relationship of the individual historical subject to such urban realities is
invariably highly complex. Individuals are more than passive "consumers" of
urban imagery and structure: cities are not "read" as if they were texts or
paintings. Rather, they are reckoned with in the dual sense of that
phrase-simultaneously coped with and thought with. 2 At the same time that
the individual subject must cope with a prefabricated urban fabric, he or she
must think (with) it in order to fabricate a lived relationship to its affordances
and constraints. To use a city means to actively understand its material, logi-
.cal, and semantic orders: to play its game according to conventionally estab-
lished rules and protocols.
The Mechanisms of Urban Meaning 5
A city's geometric and topologic economies operate as grids of certainties:
networks of predictability and predication for the staging of behavioral rou-
tines, and episodic frameworks for inter-personal contact and avoidance. In
this sense, an urban structure is a matrix of ideological instruments for creat-
ing and sustaining a story-shaped world. The sub-text of that story-shaped
world is the fluctuating dynamic ofsocial power.
A city is never neutral: the urban tabric is a device for tracking, measuring,
controlling, and predicting behaviors over space and time. The realities it tab-
ricates and maintains are invariably fictive-an ideologically-invested perspec-
tive on the proper social realities of individuals, groups, and classes. In this
sense, there is no city which is not in some way a utopic fiction-or, more
accurately, a matrix of varied and often conflicting fictions.s
From such a perspective, ideology may be construed as a fixed set of posi-
tions or places for the social subject to inhabit, both physicallyand metaphori-
cally. A given ideology establishes and maintains a particular form of subjec-
tivity-a perspective from which given lived worlds cohere and appear
ordered, legitimate, and natural.'
Ideology and urban structure are not external to each other, as might be
assumed were we to construe literally the assertion that what a city "repre-
sents' is power. Cities and their parts exemplify, embody, and express power
relations, to be sure, but at the same time they enforce, perpetuate, and
engender relations of power. At the same time that we inhabit a city, it inhab-
its us. As we come to understand more fully the nature of the "images of
cities"5 that socialized individuals to form, it becomes more clearly apparent
that one of the principal functions of cities is precisely to engender "images"
of themselves, thereby providing the means whereby life-worlds and their
imagery (which is to say their ideologies) can be reckoned with. In this
regard, the history of building may be understood as the ongoing, dynamical-
ly changing, and frequently contradictory generation of ideological imagery.f
III
The essays comprising this interdisciplinary volume are each concerned in

varying ways with the means whereby particular historical cities within the
Ottoman world established their own regimes of legibility-the ways in which
cities made manifest the signs and emblems of power relations, and the ways
in which they employed architectonic and other cues as to how they were to
be "reckoned with" by their inhabitants. Each study, specially written for this
volume, provides a slant or perspective on the problem of how Ottoman
cities orchestrated meaning, deployed relations of power, and constructed and
embodied particular ideologies.
Each essay was written within a framework defined by these questions, and
each of the historians, art historians, and architectural historians contributing
to this joint project presents a perspective on the social history of the
6 Donald Preziosi
Ottoman city-the multiple foci necessary for assembling a realistically com-
plex picture of that history. Each of these perspectives overlaps with the oth-
ers, illuminates them, and is in turn illuminated by them. It has been our joint
understanding that any adequate understanding of social history is necessarily
a collective endeavor that transcends the capacities arid programmmatic inter-
ests of individual disciplines or discourses.
The following essays should be read in that spirit-as partial and in many
cases deliberately overlapped perspectives on the issues at hand. The many sub-
jects addressed below-histories of architectural formation, state patronage,
and the histories of social, religious, political, and legal institutions-reappear
in different ways in each study, and link together important facets of the rela-
tionship ofIslamic power and urban formation.
Part One, devoted to the Ottoman city as a whole, includes essays by two
historians and an art historian. Chapter 1, by Speros Vryonis, jr., considers
the processes by which two imperial personages (Constantine and Mehmed)
respectively gave form and substance to the imperial capitals of
Constantinople and Istanbul. In Chapter 2, Irene Bierman examines the ways
in which 17th-century Ottoman conquerors and settlers transformed a
Venetian merchant city (Herakleion) into an Ottoman provincial capital, and
signalled its newly Islamic status by the orchestration of architectural forms
inherited from Venetian and native Greek foundations: the city became a
small-scale reflection of the imperial capital ofIstanbul. Chapter 3, by Rifa'at
A. Abou-El-Haj, focuses on the change in the social uses of Ottoman law
(the kanun) in regulating life in Istanbul and elsewhere, and thereby illustrates
the complex mechanisms by which Ottoman urban structures and founda-
tions originated and were perpetuated.
Vryonis considers the site of Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul as the
medium-material of imperial iconography, and discusses the nature of the site
itself, the almost daernonic personalities of Constantine and Mehmed, and the
valorization of the site by the joining together of site and personality in the
physical creation of a "super-city.' Constantine brought to Byzantium the
Roman Empire, Christianity, and Greek culture; Mehmed brought to
Constantinople Islam and the Sultanate (to be followed eventually by the
Caliphate).
According to Vryonis, the rise of the two successive imperial capitals
entailed a 9-fold integration of the political powers amassed by Constantine
and Mehmed These processes are described as irnperialization, sanctification,
rnandarinization, literalization, militarization, demographization, thesauriza-
tion, monumentalization, and sacralization, or ceremonialization, Vryonis
argues that both Constantine (in 330) and Mehmed (in 1453) used similar or
equivalent means in constructing the foundations of their respective imperi-
urns, and that in a number of respects, both rulers had ambiguous attitudes
toward the cultures they replaced-pagan Greek culture and Byzantine
Christian culture, respectively. In both cases, a process of sanctification
purged, eliminated, and transformed such elements in the new imperial
iconography.
Vryonis considers such processes as examples of a translatio imperii, and he
details many of the ways this was accomplished by both Constantine and
Mehmed. What is important here-in connection with the general subject of
the volume-is the implication that the establishment of an imperial urban
structure entailed in both historical instances a fundamental reorientation
upon an existing or surviving material infrastructure-both the urban struc-
ture as a whole and the relative disposition and deployment of its various
component parts. In other words, it may be said that each imperial founder
created new conditions of legibility within the urban infrastructure. While the
most obvious and familiar example of such translationes was the conversion of
the great church of the Haghia Sophia into an Islamic mosque through palpa-
ble and significant architectonic renovations both internally and externally,
the process may be seen in every facet of urban life, and on every scale. This
is evident in a wide variety of "rewritings" of portions of the visual environ-
ment. A good example is the great porphyry column set up in the Forum of
Constantine, crowned by a statue of the ruler in the attitude of Helios, hold-
ing a globus crucifix in one hand. Placed beneath the base of the column
were various significant Christian relics, as well as the pagan Palladium
brought from Rome. The entire structure represents an amalgam of pagan
and Christian practices and formations, all of which were in effect trans-
formed to constitute a sanctification of the new political order. The new
imperial capital materialized on the Bosphorus as a microcosm of the
Christian imperial macrocosm, transforming and subsuming the signs and
relics of the old Greco-Roman order. What was accomplished on a colossal
scale in the new Christian imperial capital reflected transformations taking
place throughout the Greco-Roman world on a microcosmic scale during the
previous two centuries. This may be seen in the ongoing transformations of
Greek pagan temples and shrines into sites of Christian worship: a transforma-
tion involving, in many cases, the simple conversion of a pagan temple into a
Christian church by the closing off of the old east entrance, the opening of an
entrance at the western end, and the refitting of the interior with an altar on
the east end, often accompanied by the erection of an apsidal wall behind the
altar table. In a similar fashion, Christians in the West converted old urban
basilical forms once used for commercial or civic offices into churches.
In all cases, such translationes involved the transformation of older urban
imagery into structures meant to be "read" in strikingly different ways: the
significance and connotations of the urban infrastructure were changed, and
in effect "rewritten.' Constantine and Mehmed were fascinated by aspects of
the cultural traditions they replaced and transformed. Both rulers saw them-
selves as straddling two worlds, and both appear to have seen themselves as
personalities large enough to subsume the legacies of the old and new orders.
Vryonis's essay argues strongly that the imperial iconography established by
8 Donald Preziosi
each founder cannot be adequately understood without a consideration of the
inseparability of urban form and the orders of urban life.
The essay by Bierman (Chapter 2) extends some of Vryonis's major con-
cerns into a provincial context: the world of Ottoman Crete. Conquered by
the Ottomans in the 17th century, the island had for four centuries been
occupied by the Venetians. Their capital of Candia (present-day Herakleion)
was itself a miniature version of the Venetian imperial capital on the Adriatic
in that it replicated several of its key architectural monuments in approxi-
mately the same relationships to each other. Thus Venetian Candia contained
a Piazza San Marco, a Basilica San Marco, a Campanile, and a governor's
palace corresponding to the position occupied by the Palazzo Ducale relative
to its associated buildings in Venice. Moreover, just as the great civic and reli-
gious center of Venice fronted on a major thoroughfare (the Canal Grande),
so did the equivalent complex in Candia open onto the major land gate of
that city. Equivalent foundations were made in the second major Venetian
Cretan city to the west, Rethymnon (Retimo).
In Candia and Rethyrnnon, the Greek Orthodox structures permitted
within the urban core were rendered invisible, marginalized behind the mon-
umental Venetian urban core. The Ottoman conquest of the island resulted in
an eradication of Latin Christian institutions and foundations and the deporta-
tion of the Venetian and Western populations back to Europe. Bierman
details how the Ottoman conquerors remodeled all Venetian and many Greek
structures in the city of Candia into institutions ofMuslim function.
Archival and architectural evidence suggests that the transformation of the
Venetian political and religious infrastructure involved materially minor, but
symbolically major remodellings. Three items appear to have been sufficiently
expressive of Islarnicization in the transformation of Latin Christian churches:
the erection of an Ottoman-style minaret built over the foundations of an
older Latin bell-tower; the installation of a chronogram plaque on the front
facades of former churches; and the establishment of a graveyard with charac-
teristic Ottoman tombstones adjacent to the new cami. Apart from the interior
replacement of Christian furniture by minbars and qiblas, these three alterations
to otherwise untransformed structures sufficiently signalled Islamic religious
hegemony.
Bierman observes an apparent anomaly in this transformational process in
the siting of the Sultan's Mosque in Candia. In contrast to Imperial Istanbul,
where the Great Church of Constantinople, the Haghia Sophia, was trans-
formed into the Aya Sofia Cami (the great mosque of the conqueror
Mehmed), in Candia the sultan's cami was sited on the ruins of a Franciscan
monastery, near the eastern gate of the city: the old Basilica San Marco in the
urban center was converted to the mosque of the Grand Vezir. Bierman's
explanation of this anomaly gives us an insight into the process of
Ottomanization itself: the new Sultan's mosque stood on one of the highest
points within Candia, at a position where its distinctive Ottoman outlines
would have been visible for many miles both on land and at sea. This siting
suggests that the conquerors may have been concerned with orchestrating the
urban structure of Candia as a whole as a miniature echo of the great imperial
capital on the Bosphoros, where imperial mosques standing on the major hills
of the city were visible far out to sea to any approaching traveller. Candia
thus would have been rendered legible as an Ottoman and Islamic city from
far and wide.
This external legibility was complemented by a system of internal legibility,
with the foundation of numerous camis, tekkes, sebiihanes, mescids, and other
characteristicallyOttoman Islamic institutions, often transforming (or standing
in positions in the city overlying) prominent Venetian foundations. The 17th-
century Ottoman traveller Evliya Celebi observed that while the entire
Muslim population of Khania (Haniye) and Rethymnon (Retmo) could be
accommodated in three camis, twice that number were initially built in each
city. Vryonis observed, in connection with the imperial foundation of
Constantinople, that many civic and religious structures were built, far more
than would have been immediately required by the small initial population of
that city.
Bierman argues that the deliberate creation of a distinctively Ottoman "sky-
line" in the provincial cities of Crete resonates with the iconographic pro-
gramme evident in the imperial capital of Istanbul and in other great cities of
the empire. Yet by the mid-17th century, patterns of patronage and institu-
tional support within the empire had come to be different from those charac-
teristic of earlier times. She suggests that despite the visual prominence given
externally in the Cretan cities to the Sultan's camis, these foundations did not
include complexes serving as major centers within the cities, nor did they in
fact signal the exercise of extraordinary philanthropic generosity (as they
would in the capital and elsewhere). Indeed, she observes that in some
instances, the Sultan's camis had no congregation on Crete, and in one case
(Sultan Ibrahim's Cami), it served as a gunpowder magazine.
Such anomalies suggest that on 17th-century Crete the Sultan's cami was an
"empty" sign representing sultanic power as such: actual political and
.ecomonic power lay elsewhere, and was expressed in the strong patronage of
the mosques of the Grand Vezir, the Pasa households, and the Valide Sultan,
as well as in foundations endowed by the original conquerors and their
progeny. Thus, while the connotative functions of Sultanic power were tena-
ciously maintained, their denotative functions had radically changed.
The complex historical nature of these changes in power and patronage
within the Ottoman Empire, legible in the architecture and urban structure of
provincial Crete, are equally legible in Istanbul itself in connection with the
social uses of the Ottoman law (kanun), as discussed in great detail by Abou-
EI-Haj (Chapter 3). His essay examines changes to, and augmentations of, the
complex body of legal regulations during the period 1600-1800, and indicates
the ways in which such changes reflect important shifts in social and econom-
10 Donald Preziosi
ic relations. Such changes are embodied in the provincial microcosm of
patronage and institutional foundation and support on Crete, where, as
Bierman has shown, the signs of Sultanic power become increasingly empty.
By attending closely to the content and social functions of the kanun and
what became an associated literature (such as the nasihatnameler), we may be
able to understand the specific nature of the patronage of Ottoman institu-
tions and foundations during the period 1600-1800. Abou-El-Haj's study
indicates quite clearly that while the form of the kanun remains constant dur-
ing this period, its social usages and practical referents shift, often very dra-
matically. What once were the instruments of domination (through surplus
extraction), the kanun of the sixteenth century and the nasihatnameler (political
polemics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), are refitted and entered
into the discourse over modern constitution-making in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. Thus the rights of the sipahis, once spelled out in some of
the nasihatnameler, are used anachronistically to annotate and explicate the six-
teenth century kanun. Such anomalies between formation and reference are
themselves echoed in the findings of both Vryonis and Bierman in their
research into the history of urban structure and its changing ideological con-
notations.
All three essays in this section exemplify and reinforce this historical speci-
ficity. Taken together, the studies by Vryonis, Bierman, and Abou-EI-Haj
offer complementary and partly-overlapping insights into Ottoman urban and
social history, highlighting by turns the internal and external dimensions of
that history. In so doing, they demonstrate the interdependence of architec-
tural, urban, and social questions, not only in specifically Ottoman contexts,
but more broadly. Not least of the implications to be drawn from this section
is one which is strongly methodological: that the writing of social history in
its fullest sense necessarily involves the integration of many different lines of
research-from the history of art and architecture to the history of legal,
political, and social institutions. An important corollary to this is that the
writing of social history works against the grain of disciplinary specialization
and fragmentation as a multidisciplinary and collective enterprise: a dialogue
among histories and historians.
NOTES
1. A discussion of this example nuy be found in D. Preziosi, "Reckoning with the
World: Figure, Text & Trace in the Built Environment," Americal'lJOflrl'lal ofSemiotics,
vol. 4, nos. 1-2 (1986): 1-15, and in idem., (Between Power & Desire: The Margins of
the City) in Glyph Textual Studies I: Demarcatil'lg the Disciplil'les (Philosophy, Literature,
Art) (1986): 237-253.
2. The notion of "reckoning" with urban structure is developed in the essays cited
in the previous note. The viewing position described above is what might be termed
an al'lamorphic point, from which visual anomalies and ambiguities dissolve, and a
canonically proper tableau or perspective locks into place. Such phenomena are char-
acteristic of many planned foundations in various cultures: as I. Bierman argues below
in Chapter 2, Ottoman foundations on Crete present equivalent "canonical" tableaux
of the whole city that are emblematic of Ottoman Islamic hegemony. The literature
dealing with aspects of this phenomenon (often under the heading of genius loci) is
quite large; a useful introduction may be found in C. Norberg-Schulz, Meaning in
Western Architecture (New York: Praeger, 1975), esp. 427-434, with references. See also
idem Genius Loci (New York: Rizzoli, 1980).
3. On the relationships between architecture and ideology, see M. Tafuri, Theories
& History of Architecture, (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), esp, 61-73; idem.,
Architecture and Utopia (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1976), 150-169. On utopias vs.
heterotopias, see M. Foucault, "Of Other Spaces," Diacritics vol. 16, No.1, Spring
1986, pp. 22-27.
4. On ideology as engendering "positions" for subjects to inhabit, see R. Coward
& J. Ellis, Language & Materialism, Developments in Semiology & the Theory of the
Subject, (London & Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), esp. 71-82. Ideology,
according to the authors, puts individuals at the imaginary center of a social structure,
making the subject the place where ideological meanings are realized. Ideology
achieves such closures by fixing the relationship by which the individual represents
himself in his world of objects (p. 74). From such a perspective, all architectonic for-
mations work to engender ideological imagery: for an example of the operations of
such mechanisms, see n. 2 above, and Chapter 2 (Bierman) below.
5. The classic study of urban imagery is K. Lynch, The Image of the City (Cambridge
MA: MIT Press, 1960). Lynch's research into the ways in which urban inhabitants
develop "images" or cognitive maps of their environments has given rise to a very
large body of research into the subject over the past quarter-century. A useful intro-
duction to key issues is R. M. Downs & D. Stea, eds., Image & Environment: Cognitive
Mapping & Spatial Behavior (Chicago: Aldine, 1973). See also, A. Renier, ed., Espace et
representation (paris: Les Editions de la Villette, 1982), esp. 123-184, and M. Krampen,
Meaning in the Urban Environment (London: Pion, 1979), esp. Part 2 (93-307), which
recounts a series of empirical studies on what the author terms the "psychosemiology"
of architecture.
6. This subject is taken up in various ways by a number of authors in the present
volume; in Part One, particularly by Vryonis (Chapter I), who discusses the ways in
which the imperial rulers of Constantinople-Istanbul employed the urban site itself to
orchestrate ideological imagery, and by Bierman (Chapter 2), who shows how these
imperial practices were reflected in a provincial comer of the Ottoman empire, the
island of Crete. In Part Two, the detailed mechanisms of these practices are outlined
by all three authors-in terms of the shifting loci of Muslim rule in administrative
complexes (Bacharach); in the "Ottomanizing" facades of buildings in Cairo (Bates);
and by Crane under the umbrella term of "icons of imperial legitimacy" in the
mosques of the Ottoman Sultans in Istanbul and elsewhere.
1
Byzantine Constantinople
& Ottoman Istanbul
Evolution in a Millennial Imperial Iconography
Speros Vryonis,Jr.
When the semi-legendary Byzas ostensibly founded the first Greek city on
the Bosphorus, Byzantion (tradition dates it to 667 B.C.), he chose a site of
unrivaled geographical excellence, situated as it was at the juncture of two
land masses and two seas. But even after the rebuilding of the city along
Roman lines by Septimius Severus in 196 A.D. it remained a small provincial
emporium of no political importance. Yet its natural military security (sur-
rounded on three sides by the sea), maritime advantages (sheltered deep har-
bor), continental hinterlands (the rich agricultural areas of Thrace and
Bithnia), and proximity to the great sea routes and land highways linking
Europe to Asia and the lands north of the Black Sea to the lands south of the
Mediterranean, all rendered the small city of Byzantion potentially more
blessed than the three Mediterranean super-cities of Rome, Antioch, and
Alexandria. Later Byzantine and Ottoman writers praised the geographical, as
indeed the climatic, virtues of the site as particularly suited to be the recepta-
cle of imperium. This brings us to the first of the three components of this
paper, the site itself, which is to the imperial iconography and style what the
medium-material is to an architect, sculptor, or painter. The geographical site
and its physical topography remained constant factors in the evolution of the
Byzantine and Ottoman capitals to a degree that the land itself was historically
and mystically transformed because it inherited first Athens, Rome, and
Jerusalem, then Mecca, Damascus, and Baghdad. No other geographical site
was so constituted as to be able to receive and to renew all these elements. It
brings us to the English student of Asia Minor, Sir William Ramsay, and his
preoccupation with the concept of the sanaus locus, the abiding sanctity of a
given and well defined geographical site, the geographical spot which, once
sacralized, retains "forever" its holy character.
The second element is that of the daemonic personalities of the founding
genii: in the first instance Constantine the Great, in the second Mehmed the
Conqueror.' In both cases, the two imperial capitals emerged first as acts of
conscious re-foundations (both urban and imperial), on a grandiose scale, by
men of ruthless genius whose vision was ecumenical and focused on eternity.
Constantine and Mehmed were absorbed into the rhythms of long-lived and
14 Speros Vryonis,Jr.
vital imperial traditions; their re-foundations constitute major historical reori-
entations with longevity and with imperial successors (Constantius II,
Theodosius II,Justinian I, Bayazid II, Selim I, and Snleyman I) who extended
and consummated the act of imperial creation in Constantinople-Istanbul. A
cursory examination of the personalities and character of the first Christian
emperor and the first Muslim sultan to rule on the Bosphorus is in order and
of intrinsic interest.
Because of the heroic stature of both men, and the absolutely fundamental
nature of their roles in founding imperial cities and empires, within a century
of their respective deaths they entered the golden realm of historical myth.
Constantine became the ideal of Byzantine monarchs and was reckoned,
along with his mother Helen, a saint in the Byzantine church. The figure of
Mehmed was transmuted into the image of the just and pious sultan, revered
by both his Greek and Turkish subjects for his justice and benevolence, and
by Muslims as endowed with a peculiarly religious aura. Undoubtedly these
transformed imperial and sultanic types played an important role in the impe-
rial iconography of the city long after the death of their prototypes, but his-
torical myth obscures their real role in the very act of creation of the imperial
iconography of Constantinople-Istanbul. Constantine's principal biographer
and contemporary, Eusebius of Caesarea, has written an unblushing encomi-
um which is at the same time a frankly Christian apologia. As such the Vita
Constantinii must be balanced by the hostile writings of Zosimus. In the case
of Mehrned, we have contemporary accounts from Greeks (especially
Critobulus, but also Ducas and Chalcocondyles), Ottomans (Tursun Bey), and
Italians (particularly Angiollelo); once more the ruler is seen through more
than one prism.
Through the prismatic views of the disparate sources the student of these
eras may see beyond the later "romantic" encrustations and glimpse into the
historical personalities of both rulers and, having thus glimpsed at their per-
sonalities the student can better interpret their historical acts. The first charac-
teristics shared by both men that emerge from an analysis of their historical
acts are supreme political intelligence and military genius, an absolutely lethal
combination. Coupled to these are inexhaustible energy (psychological and
physical) and never-faltering determination. Before proceeding to any further
delineation of their personality traits one should make an initial probe to
ascertain their motive force. Later Greek and Ottoman authors certainly saw
as a motive force religion and the hand of God, and it is true that in their life-
times Constantine and Mehmed were intimately involved with religion at
both intellectual and institutional levels. The truth of the matter, however, is
to be found elsewhere. The pagan author Zosimus wrote of Constantine that
he became arrogant, "when he had attained to the sole authority," and that
further, he "gave himself up to the unrestrained exercise of his power."
Finally, Zosimus accused Constantine of "aspiring to the sovereignty of the
whole world"2 Among the world conquerors to which his Christian biogra-
Byzantine Constantinople and Ottoman Istanbul 15
pher Eusebius compared him was Alexander the Great, saying of Constantine:
That he conquered nearly the Whole World. But our emperor began his reign at
the time of life at which the Macedonian died, yet doubled the length of his life, and
trebled the length of his reign. And instructing his army in the mild and sober precepts
of godliness, he carried his arms as far as the Britons, and the nations that dwell in the
very bosom of the Western ocean. He subdued likewise all Scythia, though situated in
the remotest North, and divided into numberless diverse and barbarous tribes. He then
pushed his eonquests to the Blemmyans and Ethiopians, on the very confines of the
South; nor did he think the acquisition of the Eastern nations unworthy his care. In
short, diffusing the effulgence of his holy light to the ends of the whole world, even to
the most distant Indians, the nations dwelling on the extreme circumference of the
inhabited earth, he received the submission of all the rulers, governors, and satraps of
barbarous nations, who cheerfully welcomed and saluted him, .sending embassies and
presents, and setting the highest value on his acquaintance and friendship; insomuch
that they honored him with pictures and statues in their respective countries, and
Constantine alone of all emperors was acknowledged and celebrated by all.3
Critobulus, biographer and contemporary of Mehrned, on two occasions
compares Mehmed with Alexander the Great. In the first he remarks that it
would be unjust for the deeds of others,
...petty as they are in comparison with yours, [that they] should be better known
and more famed before men because done by Greeks and in Greek history, while your
accomplishments, vast as they are, and in no way inferior to those of Alexander the
Macedonian, or of the generals and kings of his rank, should not be set forth in Greek
to the Greeks, nor passed on to posterity for the undying praise and glory of your
deeds.f
He continues:
When he became heir to a great realm and master of many soldiers and enlisted
men, and had under his power already the largest and best parts of both Asia and
Europe, he did not believe that these were enough for him nor was he content with
what he had: instead he immediately overran the whole world in his calculations and
resolved to rule it in emulation of the Alexanders and Pompeys and Caesars and kings
and generals of their sort. s
In one of the versions of the chronicle of George Sphrantzes there is specific
reference to Mehmed's fascination with the cult of Alexander:
He was not without wisdom. Having delved into the craft of astrology he loved to
read constantly. He read the lives and accomplishments of Alexander the Macedonian,
Octavius Caesar, Flavius Constantine the Great. Theodosius of Spain-emperor of
Constantinople. And he sought and searched for devices so that he might surpass all of
them and so that he might expand the boundaries of his kingdom to the limits. 6
Mehmed seems to have had ample opportunity to learn of the exploits of
Alexander the Great, not only from the Greek and Italian familiars of his
court," and from the Iskandername, a Turkish poem by Ahmedi which treated
the Persian contents of the Alexander legendf but also from a fifteenth centu-
ry manuscript of Arrian's Anabasis of Alexander in his own palace library.?
Julian Raby has recently indicated that Mehmed frequently read of
Alexander's exploits in Arrian and that the Saray manuscript of Arrian, which
can be dated to the 1460's, is written by the same palace scribe who commit-
ted to writing Critobulus' history of'Mehmed.t?
It is thus clear that the motive force giving direction to the political intelli-
gence and military genius of Constantine and Mehmed was the desire to cre-
ate, or perhaps to recreate an ecumenical empire. All of their historical acts
are to be understood against the background of this consuming passion; the
accomplishments of Alexander the Great served both as the model to be imi-
tated and as the yard stick by which their respective accomplishments were to
be measured. If the one version of the chronicle of Sphrantzes is to be
believed, Mehmed not only had the model of Alexander in common with
Constantine, he had also as an additional model the accomplishments of the
founder of Constantinople, Constantine himself
Given the unusual nature of the two men's preoccupations-the acquisition
of massive, unlimited power-their additional personal traits fall into place.
The two monarchs had considerable education for the practical men of state
that they were, education that seemed to be ongoing throughout their lives,
though interestingly, doubt has been expressed as to their complete mastery of
literary Greek: the fame, as well as much about the history of their accom-
plishments, has been vouchsafed to posterity by Greek intellectuals writing in
Greek. (As we saw above, Critobulus was quite articulate about the fact that
Mehmed's historic deeds were so great that they deserved to be, and indeed
needed to be, recorded in Greek to receive their proper due.) Both rulers, to
continue with their personal traits, exhibited courage, an insatiable thirst for
glory, vanity, conceit, magnificence, arrogance, suspicion, faithlessness, and
jealousy. Though these were often interspersed with mercy, kindness, and
self-control, one is left with a strong sense of an impersonal cruelty which
arose from their unbending desire to acquire great power. Though
Constantine was eulogized for his Christian virtues by Eusebius, and specifi-
cally for his paternal and uxorious excellence, he nevertheless did not hesitate
to have his wife Fausta murdered in her bath, and to have his son Crispus and
his young nephew Licinius executed, along with other friends.t! Yet, with
the passage of his historical figure into the realm of historical legend, he
achieved sainthood in the church. Mehmed, according to the well-informed
Theodore Spandugino, was responsible for the deaths of 873,000 persons dur-
ing his long reign. 12 If we are to believe the contemporary eyewitness
accounts ofJacopo de Promontorio, who was among the advisors of the sul-
tan in the court, and also the accounts of Gian-Maria Angiollelo, who served
in the court as a gulam, Mehmed's cruelty attained colossal proportions and
diabolical refinements.
Diverse and horrible are the punishments, injustices, and cruelties of the Grand
Turk. The most usual death he metes out to anyone he pleases, whether guilty of any
crime or not, is to make the man he wishes to punish lie down on the ground, a sharp
long pole is placed in the rectum; with a big mallet held in both hands the executioner
strikes it with all his might, so that the pole, known as a palo, enters the human body
and, according to its path, the unfortunate lingers on or dies at once. Then he raises
the pole and plants it in the ground; thus the unfortunate is left "in extremis." He does
not live long.
Another horrible cruelty is inflicted on grave offenders: the victim stands erect with
his hands tied. He causes a two-pronged fork equipped with barbed hooks and affixed
to a wooden pole to be rammed into his neck from behind just below the chin in such
a way that the windpipe is not touched and that the pole is at the victim's back.
Usually, the prongs protrude by four or five hand's breadths near the ears. Then his
hands are untied. Eager to save his life, the unfortunate raises himself with both hands
to escape from the hooks. For a moment suspended at the highest point, he inevitably
falls back. This continues and sometimes the unfortunate spends the whole day or
even as much as two days in this torment. Then he dies a horrible death....
Many claim that the sultan has people buried alive or even devoured by elephants
and other wild beasts. But Master Iacopo says he has never seen such acts of cruelty.
The worst, however, is the following: for the special punishment of those whom he
particularly hates, he keeps among his executioners three or four perfect beasts, whom
he pays well and whom, when he wishes to avenge himself on someone, he causes to
eat the person in question in his presence until he gives up the ghost. That is the most
hideous death that has ever been mentioned... .In short, if ever a ruler has been feared
and dreaded, ruthless and cruel, this one is a second Nero and far worse. 13
Thus these cosmic architects of world power are what Kantorowicz (in the
case of Frederick II) and Babinger (in the case of Mehmed II) term the "dae-
monic personalities" that do not behave according to the established morality
of a society. Quoting Goethe, Babinger remarks, "In reality...only the observ-
er has a conscience; the man of action is always without one. "14 It may seem
to some that a consideration of this aspect of the personalities of Constantine
and Mehmed is at best tangential to our subject, but in fact it is not. The cre-
ation first of Constantinople and then of Istanbul 1,130 years later are cos-
mogonic in the sense that they are coterminous with the creation of two vast
worlds, and a cosmogonic creation is a daemonic creation. The erection of
two super-cities, for this is what Constantinople and Istanbul were for the
better part of a millennium and a half, was the act of two world tyrants, who
not only materially realized their colossal vanity in marble, cement, and
bronze in the very act of foundation, but who also perpetuated their political
genius in a most extraordinary fashion. Power of the type that Constantine
had reunited in one hand and the massive power-empire that Mehmed had
brought together in his own person had to be centered in a great city.
That both rulers saw in their creation of their super-city a super-human act
is profusely illustrated by the sources. According to the Cappodocian historian
Philostorgius (368-430/40), Constantine attributed the very marking out of
the city's location and of its boundaries to divine intervention:
He [philostorgius] says that Constantine in the twenty-eighth year of his reign was
tracing out the wall on foot having in hand his spear. It seemed to those who were
following him that he was extending the size [of the city] more than was needed and
so someone came up to him in order to ask him: "How far, Lord?" and he, answering
18 Speros Vryonis, Jr.
explicitly said: "Until He who is in front of me halts," thus clearly indicating that
some heavenly power was walking before him.l s
In the introduction to the vakif docwnent establishing the massive Fatih com-
plex (mosque, medreses, turbes, etc. of Mehmed II), Mehmed speaks of the
transition and transmutation of his energies "from lesser wars to the mightiest
war,"16 referring in the former to his long wars of conquest and in the latter
to the rebuilding of Constantinople-Istanbul. In other words, world conquest
culminates in a supreme act: the building of the receptacle of world power,
the super-city.
Plutarch, in his life of Themistocles, relates the now famed conversation
between the renowned Themistocles and the anonymous, insular boor from
the tiny, insignificant isle ofSeriphos:
The man from Seriphos told him [Themistocles] that he had glory not because of
his own [ability] but because of the city [Athens]. "You speak the truth," said
Themistocles, "but neither would I have become famous if I were from Seriphos, nor
would you had you been an Athenian."17
The point of the anecdote is that fame and glory derive from individual bril-
liance within a powerful political tradition. In the case of Themistocles, his
abilities fructified because they had the appropriate large-scale arena: the birth
of the Athenian empire. I wish to state again, at this point, that obviously the
activities of both rulers have to be interpreted against an even broader histori-
cal, political, and economic background. I choose to concentrate here only
on the personality factor, it being understood that without these broader fac-
tors that resulted in the creation of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, we
could not fully account for the foundations of Constantinople and Istanbul.
With this observation we move to the third area of introductory analysis in
this presentation. We saw that the geographical factor of the peninsula of
Byzantion was a condition that existed long before the habitation achieved
great political importance. The area was "valorized" when the second factor,
the daemonic personality, joined an imperial tradition to that peninsula in a
creative act of political enormity. It was not merely a matter of moving capi-
tals from one spot to another: The Romans had had capitalsat Rome, Milan,
and Nicomedia and the Ottomans had had capitals at Bursa and Edirne. In
fact, the nature of that peninsula as we saw was unique, unlike the preceding
Roman and Ottoman capitals. Once the two founders transferred imperium
to it and consummated this by the physical creation ofthe super-city, the pre-
existing potential of this peninsula was brought into being: it was "valorized."
Constantine brought to Constantinople the Roman Empire, Christianity, and
Greek culture; Mehmed brought Islam, the sultanate, and eventually there
followed the caliphate as well. We are speaking then of the momentous
drama of translatio imperii, a drama in two acts. We return to the concept of
William Ramsay and the sanctity of a given geographical site. We are in the
presence of the consecration of the most sacred political soil in the history of
the Near East and Europe in the period from 324 to 1821.
The rise of the two successive cosmopoleis on the Bosphorus entailed basi-
cally a nine-fold integration of the great political power which Constantine
and Mehmed had amassed: imperialization, sanctification, mandarinization,
literalization, militarization, demographization, thesaurization, monumental-
ization, sacralization.is
Imperialization called for the final localization of the head, heart, and senso-
ry nerve system of empire; it therefore entailed the specific centralization of
power about the person of the ruler within the super-city. As mentioned ear-
lier, imperialization of Constantinople-Istanbul presupposed the translatio
imperii into the sacred palace. An essential and complementary process was
that of the city's sanctification. In a sense, God and saints became not only the
defenders of the imperial capital (and so their houses were generously built
and lavishly endowed), but they also became residents of the city themselves.
Tombs of martyrs, saints, seyhs, and divinized rulers came to be the most
cherished possessions of, and central points around which revolved the life of
the inhabitants of cosmopolis. This too, involved a translatio, a translatio of
religious relics which, as a result of the flow of the centuries, rendered
Constantinople and Istanbul a vast religious reliquary. The increasing density
of religious objects, churches, mosques, and tombs covered cosmopolis with a
richly layered sanctification. Imperium always rests more firmly and assuredly
when it resides next to sanctity,
Inasmuch as the cosmopolis constitutes the head and heart of a vast imperial
provincial body it must, in order to centralize its power, have the necessary
nerve system to articulate its vast body and to force it to move in consonance
with the desires of the head. This was achieved by the imperial city's man-
darinization, that is, the creation of a huge bureaucracy with its intricate net-
work of bureaus, clientele, and memory system (archives) that transmitted the
accumulated desires (laws) of successive imperial generations to the far-flung
limbs of the imperial body, assuring regularity to the entire political and social
process of imperium. Mandarinization, as also sanctification, brought with it
Iiteratization, as both processes functioned, and could function only, through
the written word The canons of imperialization and of sanctification had to
be reduced to uniformity once and for all, so that mandarinization would
have a stable basis. As the rulers created educational systems, there ensued a
further translatio to the cosmopolis of learned men, a translatio of the written
materials in which the various wisdoms of the ages were accumulated. Thus,
literatization created schools and libraries.The super-city was accordingly the
centralized focus ofscience and knowledge, just as it was ofsanctity.
The imperialization of the peninsula of the Bosphorus necessitated its mili-
tarization, for imperial capitals with strongly centralized imperium are very
vulnerable to seizure both from within and without. This gave rise to a mili-
tarization that is to be seen in what one would call the Maginot line mentali-
ty. The city's choice as imperial center was in part dictated by the advantages
of its geographical location. Surrounded on three sides by the sea,
Constantine and Theodosius II placed massive walls along the land side, along
with lesser maritime walls, so that it remained throughout most of its history
an impregnable fortress. Thus walls and sea were intended to protect the
imperial city from seizure from the outside.
It is fascinating to see that one of Mehmed's first orders to the first gover-
nor of the city, after he had battered the walls with artillery and captured
Constantinople, was to rebuild the walls. But imperium was of such a delicate
and coveted nature that it had to be protected from seizure from within the
city itself; therefore the palace (both Byzantine and Ottoman) was also
protected by walls. In both the Byzantine and Ottoman instances the palace
was protected by extensive military contingents lodged within the palace con-
fines. The imperium localized within the sacred space of the city walls
enjoyed, further, the protection of a massive provincial structure which
extensive hostile forces would have to dominate before capturing the heart,
mind, and nervous system of the center. It was in this respect that Ibn
Khaldun formulated his famous theory that empires decline first at the periph-
eries, and only after all else has fallen away does the focal point of imperium
fall captive to the new conquerors. Such was the fate of Byzantine
Constantinople, and the fate of Ottoman Istanbul was largely, though not
completely, parallel.
A cosmopolis of this type must also be a megalopolis. The ancient Greek
preference for urban life is commemorated, but not always correctly under-
stood, in Aristotle's famous dictum: Man is a "politikon zoon," (man is an
urban animal). In a humanistic fashion, Byzantine authors from Libanius to
Theodore Metochites explain that man's virtues reach the greatest develop-
ment and refinement in great cities, and that they decline in villages and small
towns where there is not sufficient reward and fame. Both these literati lived
in super-cities: Antioch and Constantinople.I? Thus a city in which the
divine emperor himself resided could be properly "valorized" only if its
demography reached heroic proportions by the standards of that day. The
capital, in which the imperium resided, had to be a super-city. Thus both
Constantine and Mehmed took great care to effect a translauo populi that
sought to bring not only large numbers of inhabitants for the capital, but one
which would also bring the nobility, artisans, merchants, men of letters, holy
men, and various ethnic groups. The super-city was to be not only a mega-
lopolis, but it was to have (in addition to the nobles) the inhabitants who
would feed the capital with specialized skills: bureaucrats, literati, priests, rnul-
las, seyhs, dervises. It was thus to be a microcosm of the imperial macrocosm.
The similarities of the Greek and Ottoman super-city in this respect are strik-
ing. Perhaps the most attractive aspect of the cosmopolis was its ethnic and
linguistic variety, most colorfully illustrated in the verse of the twelfth-century
Constantinopolitan poet, who boasts that he can greet people on the streets of
Constantinople in seven languages (in addition to Greek) and proceeds to do
so in "Scythian," "Persian," "Latin," "Alan," "Arabic," "Russian:' and
"Hebrew. "20 The citizens were grouped in smaller neighborhoods, usually
about churches/mosques, within thirteen to fourteen larger urban regions.s!
Constantinople and Istanbul were for extensive periods between the fourth
and eighteenth centuries the largest urban agglomerate in Europe and the
Near East.22
The irnperialization of Constantinople-Istanbul brought with it a high
degree of thesaurization, the accumulation and centralization of the empire's
economic wealth. The evolution of both Byzantine and Ottoman empires
entailed, at crucial stages, the transformation of the eastern world from poly-
centric to monocentric political life, that is, from a region in which political,
economic, and cultural life were focused in three or four super-cities
(Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople--Damascus, Cairo, Baghdad,
Istanbul) to a region in which these activities were increasingly centered in
one super-city. Just as imperialization, sanctification, and mandarinization
brought in their train various "translationes," so thesaurization brought a cen-
tralization or concentration of wealth to the Bosphorus, a "translatio abundan-
tiae"--taxes from population, crafts, commerce, agriculture, animal husbandry,
the Egyptian grain shipments, and international trade from the east, west,
north, and south. The megalopolis lived and attained its grandeur from the
toil of the provinces. Perhaps the best illustration of the parasitic character of
the cosmopolis is to take two imperial religious foundations: that of the
monastic complex of Christ Pantocrator, founded by the emperor John II
Comnenus (1118-1143) and his wife Irene in Constantinople, and that of the
vakif of the Fatih complex founded by Mehmed II in Istanbul.
The first of these two foundations (it was of course Christian, but was later
converted first into a medrese and then into a mosque [as Zeyrek Kilise Cami]
in the reign of Mehmed II) included the monastic church of Christ
Pantocrator, the church of Theotokos Eleousa, the chapel of the Archangel
Michael, dwellings for 89 monks, a xenodocheion, a five-chambered hospital
with 64 beds, a medical school, a leprosarium, etc. The hospital, which had
63 medical personnel and 103 administrative personnel, also contained an
outpatient clinic for citizens who wished to be examined or treated for minor
ailments. The typikon does not give a complete account of all expenses, but it
does give enough to illustrate the vast economic wealth on which the founda-
tion was based. The expenditures on the hospital personnel and patients were
2,375 hyperpers, 216 new hyperpers, 17,917 kilograms of bread, 39,392 kilo-
grams of wheat, 5,554 liters of wine, 1,110 liters of olive oil, 96,216 kilo-
grams of wood for fuel. More significant, however, in terms of the
economically parasitic character of the super-city, is the sou~ce of the rev-
enues. Of the approximately 117 properties either given to the Pantocrator,
(or from which they derived revenue) the vast majority were in the
provinces: 24 villages and 25 proasteia, 2 fortresses, 1 pronoia, 9 episkepseis, 4
xenodotheia or hans, 1 salt work, 2 baths, etc.2J
The Ottoman example, the Patih complex of Mehmed II, is even more
22 Speros Vryonis} Jr.
impressive. It included the following institutions with a total of 496 person-
nel: The great mosque (95), an imaret (soup kitchen, 35), a hospital (30), and
medreses (168). The complex fed 1,117 individuals daily (including 160 guests
and 794 medrese students, among others). Thus we are in the presence of a
huge economic enterprise affecting large numbers of people. But 83% of the
annual income (500,000 aktes, or 30,000 gold ducats in 1490) came from its
57 villages in the Balkan districts of Corlu, Tekirdag, and Kirklar IIi. The
remaining revenues came from the taxes of 12 hammams in Istanbul.>
A corollary of the axiom that the super-city lived parasitically off the
provinces is that the process of thesaurization was reversed as the cosmopolis
declined and lost its provinces, so that wealth began to flow out of the city.
The translatio imperii to Constantinople and Istanbul was thus accompanied
by the processes of sanctification, mandarinization, literatization, militariza-
tion, demographization, and thesaurization. Such an evolution needed con-
cretization and spiritualization; it needed form and order, morphe and taxis.
The first of these two was acquired through monumentalization; the second
was acquired through sacralization. Imperium was monumentalized first in
the creation of the palace, sanctification in the erection of churches, mosques,
monasteries, tekkes and shrines. Mandarinization was concretized in the
palace, as well as in senate houses and municipal administrative buildings,
whereas literatization appeared in the schools, medreses, and in the structures
built to house the literary treasures which either made their way to the capi-
tal, or were committed to writing there. Militarization is most spectacularly
reflected in the city's land walls, but also in the palace walls of Topkapi.
Demographization and thesaurization are materialized in the great Byzantine
fora and the Ottoman bazaars, in the public loutra and hammams, and finally,
in the great public boulevard of the Mese-Divan Yolu. The latter, which
retained the same location for centuries, led imperial processions and ordinary
citizens along the major churches, mosques, and market places of the city to
the great land walls and thence to the European provinces. These then are the
elements common to the imperial iconography of Byzantine Constantinople
and Ottoman Istanbul.
For both societies, the sacralization of the super-city--the process or taxis
by which the monuments of this land were infused with their sacred power--
was consecrated by time-honored ceremonial. In the tenth century the
Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus warned his son that the cer-
emony must be observed:
To neglect this eeremony, and to sentence it as it were to death, is to be left with a
view of the empire devoid of ornament and deprived of beauty. If the body of a man
were not gracefully formed, and its members were casually arranged and inharmo-
niously disposed one would say that the result was chaos and disorder. The same is
true of the institution of empire; if it be not guided and governed by order, it will in
no way differ from vulgar deportment in a private person. 25
Ceremonialization constitutes the mystical litany accompanying all basic
relations of man to God, of man to man, and of man to nature that transpired
within the formal confines of the super-city. First was the very act of succes-
sion of emperors and sultans whether achieved peacefully or violently, This
ceremonial of the practical acquisition of power was consummated by the
wearing of the crown or the girding of the sword, appropriate acclamation by
soldiers, blessing of religious men. Above all, it was effected by entry into the
palace and by sitting on the throne itself From that moment onward the
movements and utterances, indeed, the entire life of the ruler were regulated
by ceremony that transformed him divinely in the eyes of every member of
society. The taxis or ordo of both city and palace was structured in conso-
nance with this, the first concern of the trans/alia imperii.
The sanctifying function of the religious institution was equally entrapped
with rigidly ordered ceremonial, ceremonial which brought sacralization to
the life of every individual, not only at all major rites of passage from birth to
death, but also on special and specific occasions in the religious calendar as
well as in daily life. God was thus brought into the daily life and actions of
individuals and so into the entirety of the citizens' life. Religious ceremonies
and processions infused churches and mosques with a sacred character obvious
in such a phenomenon as the right of asylum and in the practice of incuba-
tion. It was in these same structures that the succession of emperors and sul-
tans was sanctified and religious relics and imperial corpses sacralized. The
Christian liturgy, above all, was believed to bring the Godhead, in the form of
the Holy Spirit, into the physical structure of the church, where it trans-
formed the wine and bread in such a manner that it enabled the communi-
cant to partake of the Godhead physically in an act of sacred cannibalism. Yet
bureaucracy, literature, military life; economy, even the popular life of the
people and their amusements were transformed by processions and exercises
that had a very specific liturgical character and united them to the imperial
palace and to God. Literary compositions were themselves the vehicle of this
liturgization, as were often the painted images of the holy.
The imperial processions had as an integral part the formal participation of
bureaucrats, holy men, literati, guildsmen, and other representatives of the
populace. Of particular importance were the games of the hippodrome (with
their own ritual), viewed both by the imperial family and the citizens from
the stands. In some ways parallel to the hippodromic activities of Byzantines
were the participations of the people through their guilds in Istanbul's great
imperial a/ays called to memorialize the circumcisions of the sultanic offspring
or other events, and which passed through the Ok Maydan (the former
Byzantine hippodrome). At a lower social level, there were the "expeditions"
or outings to the public baths. Initiation to trade corporations, as indeed the
rebellions of corporative and other bodies, all had their own ceremonial.
Thus the form and order of the super-city's life were two inseparable parts
of its imperial iconography without either of which the other would have no
meaning or existence. The supreme character of this imperial city was reflect-
24 Speros Vtyonis, Jr.
ed both in the Greek and in the Ottoman epithets applied to it. The Greek
authors most often refer to it as The Queen of Cities, The Ruling City, the
Second Rome, the New Rome, The City Guarded by God, Eye and Heart
of the World, or Fortune of the Christians; most conunonly, however, it was
simply called The City.26 The Ottomans used two names derived from Greek
usage, Kustantiniyya and Stambul. Occasionally the Ottomans called it New
Rome, but they more often referred to it as Paytakht-i Saltanat, Dar al-Khalifa
(capital city of the sultanate, Domain of the Caliph), Madinat al-Muwahhidin
(City of the Believers in the Unity of God), lslambol (Full of Islam), AI-
Mahrusa (The Well-Protected), or simply Sehir (The City),27
The foundation of Constantinople (limitatio, 324) and its consecration on
11 May 330, were so momentous that Constantine ordered the astrologer
Valens to cast the horoscope of the city's fate, and thereafter set 11 May, as
the date for the annual celebration of the city's birthday. Later tradition
attributed much to Constantine that was actually affected by his successors; in
effect, the period 326-565 represents the period of fundamental formation of
the super-city. The fully evolved monumental aspect of the city reflects its
imperialization, for (as Dagron has remarked) Constantinople had its institu-
tions before its inhabitants, and its walls and palace before its houses. This is
to say, it was conceived of as a plan, a scheme to be implemented Its build-
ings did not result from prior growth and accretion of population: It was a
true foundation. 28
Constantine built the original kernel of what was to become, over the cen-
turies, a vast palace complex covering over 100,000 square meters.s? In his
reign it was a more modest, tripartite complex consisting of the famed Chalce
(a high ceremonial entrance with various halls), the Scholae (a group of build-
ings in which were housed the imperial troops of the slholarii, landidati,· and
excubitores), and the complex of the emperor's household, the palace of
Daphne. Under Justinian I, Theopohilus, Basil I, and the tenth century
emperors the palace was vastly expanded to accommodate increasingly all
aspects of imperial court ritual and government. Justinian rebuilt the Chalce
with eight arches and a central dome. The upper parts of the walls depicted
the victorious wars of the emperor in mosaic, whereas the lower portions
were ornamented in brilliant marbles. Above the great bronze gate of the
Chalce (prior to Iconoclasm), was the mosaic image of Christ, later replaced
by a painted image. janin has described the Chalce as a "veritable" muse-
um. 30 It contained imperial statues, with appropriate verses composed for the
occasion by the philosopher Secundus, as well as a statue Of Belisarius, the
military architect of Justinian's glorious reconquista, In the dome were four
sculpted Gorgons taken from the temple of Ephesian Artemis, and above
them two bronze horses from the same city.
Most striking in the monumentalization of imperial power were the
Chrysotriclinos and the Magnaura sections of the great palace. The former,
built and decorated in the reigns of Justin II (565-578) and Tiberius (578-
582), was a large octagonal chamber with 16 windows that brought rays of
light into the center of the room in a dazzling manner. The imperial throne
was set in the apse of the chamber, the half dome of which was decorated
with a mosaic representation of the enthroned Christ. The symbolism of
throne, mosaics, and light combined the concepts of earthly and heavenly
imperium, and when brought to life in the imperial ceremony performed in
the Chrysotriclinos to the accompaniment of music from the golden organs
and the mechanical tree with its singing metallic birds, the participants, both
emperor and beholder, were transformed.
The Magnaura-a magnificent hall intended primarily for the reception of
foreign ambassadors by the emperor seated on the Throne of Solomon--has
been described by the tenth century Latin ambassador, Liudprand ofCremona.
Before the emperor's seat stood a tree, made of bronze gilded over, whose branches
were filled with birds, also made of gilded bronze, which uttered different cries, each
according to its varying species. The throne itself was so marvellously fashioned that at
one moment it seemed a low structure, and at another it rose high into the air. It was
of immense size and guarded by lions, made either of bronze or of wood covered over
with gold, who beat the ground with their tails and gave a dreadful roar with open
mouth and quivering tongue. Leaning upon the shoulders of two eunuchs I was
brought into the emperor's presence. At my approach the lions began to roar and the
birds to cry out, each according to its kind; but I was neither terrified nor surprised,
for I had previously made enquiry about all these things from people who were well
acquainted with them. So after I had three times made obeissance to the emperor with
my face upon the ground, I lifted my head, and behold! the man who just before I had
seen sitting on a moderately elevated seat had now changed his raiment and was sitting
on the level of the ceiling. How it was done I could not imagine, unless perhaps he
was lifted up by some such sort of device as we use for raising the timbers of a wine
press. On that occasion he did not address me personally, since even if he had wished
to do so the wide distance between us would have rendered conversation unseemly,
but by intermediary of a secretary he enquired about Berengar's doings and asked after
his health. I made a fitting reply and then, at a nod from the interpreter, left his pres-
ence and retired to my lodging.31
The palace in its fully developed form led out, through the Chalce, to the
Augusteum, the Hagia Sophia, the Senaton, the Library, the Forum of
Constantine, the Hippodrome, and the ports on the Sea of Marmara. It was,
accordingly, centrally placed as regards the constitutive forms and ceremonies
of the imperial city.32 Directly in front of the Chalce to the east was the
square of the Augusteum, surrounded by porticoes on all four of its sides and
graced by five heroic 'imperial statues atop columns: St. Helen, Constantine
with his three sons and two nephews, Leo I Eudocia, and Theodosius-
Justinian I. This latter is the most famous, best-described of the city's statues,
and survived until the late fifteenth century when the Turks melted it down
for the casting of cannons. Procopius gives us the earliest detailed description
of this work:
And on the summit of the column stands a gigantic bronze horse, facing toward the
east, a very noteworthy sight. He seems about to advance, and to be splendidly press-
ing forward. Indeed he holds his left fore foot in the air, as though it were about to
take a forward step on the ground before him, while the other is pressed down upon
the stone on which he stands, as if ready to take the next step; his hind feet he holds
close together. so that they may be ready whenever he decides to move. Upon this
horse is mounted a colossal bronze figure of the Emperor. And the figure is habited
like Achilles, that is, the costume he wears is known by that name. He wears half-
boots and his legs are not covered by greaves. Also he wears a breastplate in the heroic
fashion, and a helmet covers his head and gives the impression that it moves up and
down, and a dazzling light flashes forth from it. One might say, in poetic speech. that
here is that star of Autumn. And he looks toward the rising sun, directing his course, I
suppose. against the Persians. And in his left hand he holds a globe, by which the
sculptor signifies that the whole earth and sea are subject to him, yet he has neither
sword nor spear nor any other weapons,but a cross stands upon the globe which he
carries. the emblem by which alone he has obtained both his Empire and his victory in
war. And stretching forth his right hand toward the rising sun and spreading out his
fingers, he commands the barbarians in that quarter to remain at home and to advance
no further. 33
Immediately to the east of the Augusteum were the patriarchal residence
and library, and the great church of the Hagia Sophia flanked by St. Irene to
the east. To the south of the Augusteum was one of the two senate buildings,
ornamented by statues including those of Zeus of Dodona, Artemis, and
Aphrodite. and where the senators met to celebrate the New Year.34 To the
north of the Augusteum and Milion was the Basilike which housed the
famous statue of Tyche, various educational institutions (including the so-
called University of Constantinople). and which was graced by various stat-
ues. Of central importance was the Bibliotheke or Library which. according to
one source. when it was attacked by fire in 475 contained 120.000
manuscripts. Rebuilt by Justin II, by the eighth century (26) it was said to
have housed 36,500 works when it was once more exposed to fire.35
In the immediate vicinity of the palace and the hippodrome were the
famed baths of Zeuxippos which Constantine remodeled and then graced
with a large number of statues that he had gathered from pagan sites in Asia
Minor. Greece, and Italy. and which the sixth-century poet Christodorus has
described 75.36 Both the public baths and the spectacular hippodrome were
essential to the existence of the Constantinopolitans and figured greatly in
their consecrated cycle of daily life. Here emperors, aristocracy, and the citi-
zens of the cosmopolis gathered to witness and participate in games, spectacles
and shows. Because the hippodrome was located between the palace and the
great central boulevard (the Mese), the imperial retinue had direct access to
the kathisma from the palace, whereas the citizens occupied the 30 to 40 rows
which surrounded the hippodrome on its three sides. Constantine
embellished this Severan construction by bringing here too large numbers of
ancient statues. By the fifth century the spina contained an Egyptian obelisk.
the serpentine bronze column from Delphi commemorating the Greek victo-
ry over the Persians at the battle of Platea, and other adornments. The colon-
naded sphendone, or curve of the hippodrome, had among the more famous
statues those of Castor and Pollux, Hercules, the Chalcydonian boar, Athena,
Scylla and Charybdis, and the four bronze horses later taken to Venice and
placed on the cathedral of St. Mark.J7
Just to the north of the Augusteum and west of the Hagia Sophia was the
Milion, the point of departure of the Mese which led through the fora to the
great land walls and finally to the European provinces.P The Milion was
marked by the dome of a great triumphal arch resting on four lesser arches.
Imperium was symbolized by the statuary groups of Helen and Constantine
holding the cross atop the dome, and the statue of the Tyche of
Constantinople. Below were statues of Sophia, wife ofJustin II, her daughter,
her niece, and equestrian statues of Trajan and Theodosius 11.39 The great
ceremonial boulevard then led to five splendid fora that opened up as the
Mese progressed westward toward the land walls. The first was the forum of
Constantine.w a circular colonnaded complex to the northwest of the hippo-
drome which was dominated by the porphyry column of the city's founder.
The column was fifty meters in height and crowned with the statue of
Constantine as Helios with a globus crucifix in the left hand and a lance or
scepter in the right. According to a later source, there had been placed under
the base of the column wood from the true cross, saints' relics, the basket
which had been used in the miracle of the loaves, the crosses of the two rob-
bers, the vase ofperfume, and the pagan Palladium brought from Rome. The
column, the statue, and the sacred objects allegedly placed underneath consti-
tute a sanctification of Constantine's imperium. The next market place, the
massive Forum Tauri, was also dominated by a tall column atop of which was
the statue of Theodosius I set there in 386; relief; on the sides of the column
commemorate his victories over the barbarians. Among the numerous statues
gracing this forum were the four Gorgons from the temple of Ephesian
Artemis. There followed the Forum Amastrianum and then the Forum Bovis
in the present day district of Aksaray. In the latter one saw again the statues of
Constantine and Helen. The last great agora to the west was in the district of
Xerolophos, the Forum of Arcadius (Avret Pazar), and it was dominated by a
tall column carrying the statue of Arcadius. As with the other fora, this too
was surrounded by colonnaded porticoes and was lavishly decorated with an
assortment of statues. The Mese continued its course to the walls which it
transected at the Golden Gate, the triumphal portal through which Emperors
entered and exited from the city. The Mese and the fora served imperial cere-
monies in which the imperium resident in the city was celebrated and in
which emperor, officials,soldiers, guildsmen, and the populace all played their
clearly defined roles. The shops of merchants and craftsmen were established
along this road and about the fora, the guild of the perfumers being assigned
to the area of the Chalce so that the aroma of their goods would be wafted
upward to the quarters of the palace, and that of the tanners being banished,
because of the offensive odium, to a district outside the city's walls.
The role and history of the church of the Hagia Sophia in the city's imperi-
al iconography are obviously of great importance. They were central to impe-
rialization and sanctification, and so the palace, the patriarchal residence, the
hippodrome, and the buildings were in immediate proximity to the church,
and the central Constantinopolitan boulevard, the Mese, began nearby. It
remains for us to say a word about a church that was second in importance
only to Hagia Sophia, the church of the Holy Apostles. It would seem that
the church was begun by Constantine, finished by his son Constantius II and
completely rebuilt by Justinian I, the first consecration having been consum-
mated in 356. The church came to serve as the semi-official mausoleum of
emperors into the eleventh century and so was intimately associated with the
imperial cult. Most revealing as to its role in sacralizing imperial authority is
the account which Constantine's biographer, Eusebius, gives of its erection by
Constantine:
He also erected his own sepulchral monumentin this church.
All these edifices the emperor consecrated with the desire of perpetuating the mem-
ory of the apostles of our Saviour. He had, however, another object in erecting this
building: an object at first unknown. but which afterwards became evident to all. He
had in fact made choice of this spot in the prospect of his own death, anticipating with
extraordinary fervor of faith that his body would share their tide with the apostles
"themselves, and that he should thus even after death become the subject. with them,
of the devotions which should be performed to their honor in this place. He accord-
ingly caused twelve coffins to be set up in this church. like sacred pillars in honor and
memory of the apostolic number, in the center of which his own was placed, having
six of theirs on either side of it. Thus, as I said, he had provided with ardent foresight
an honorable resting place for his body after death, and, having long before secretly
formed this resolution, he now consecrated this church to the apostles believing that
this tribute to their memory would be of no small advantage to his own soul.
Nor did God disappoint him of that which he so ardently expected and desired. For
after he had completed the first services of the feast of Easter, and had passed this
sacred day of our Lord in a manner which made it an occasion ofjoy and gladness to
himself and to all; the God through whose aid he performed all these acts, and whose
zealous servant he continued to be even to the end of life, was pleased at a happy time
to translate him to a better life.41
Constantine had assumed the epithet isaposiolos (equal to the Apostles) and
had associated himself with the cult of the Apostles as the thirteenth Apostle,
and superior to them as is evidenced by his burial in the mausoleum-church.
In 356 the relics of the Apostle Timothy were brought from Ephesus and
deposited in the church of the Holy Apostles, and in 357 relics of the
Apostles Luke and Andrew followed. Thus Constantine's power was sacral-
ized by his association with the Apostles, and the sanctification of the city was
intensified by the physical presence of three of the Apostles rhemselves.ss
Such, in brief, is the monumentalized form of the imperial iconography of
Byzantine Constantinople: Palace, churches, hippodrome, libraries and
schools, fora and shops, walls, harbors, and water system. The ceremonial, to
which allusion was briefly made, mystically transformed the structures and
infused them with their meaning and role in the imperial iconography:
Graeco-Roman imperium, Christian eschatology, and Greek paideia.
The Ottoman conquest of the city on 29 May 1453 was a momentous his-
torical act its conqueror perpetrated at the same time an act of destruction and
an act of recreation. The three day sack of the city left it an uninhabited
shambles in which was heard neither beast nor fowl, only the cries of the
dying were audible. Those Constantinopolitans who survived the frightful
slaughter, some 60,000, were taken outside the city to the tents of the
Ottoman anny as slaves of the Ottoman soldiery.P Mehmed had allowed his
troops a three-day period of intensive pillage (yagma) claiming for himself the
walls and the buildings only. But in this respect he established his claims on
the physical structure of Constantinople from the first moment that he
entered the conquered and desolate city:
Descending [Mehmed] to the Great Church and having dismounted from his horse
he entered and was overcome by the sight [of the church of the Hagia Sophia].
Coming upon one of the Turks, who was smashing one of those marble slabs, he
asked the Turk for what reason he was destroying the floor. The latter replied, "On
behalf of the Faith [Islam]." He [the sultan] stretching out his arm struck the Turk
with the sword saying this: "The treasure and enslavement suffice for you [plural].
The buildings of the city belong to me." The tyrant had repented over the agreement
[to allow the soldiers to sack the city], witnessing [now] the treasures taken away and
the mass enslavement. Having dragged the Turk by his legs, they threw him outside
half dead. The sultan summoned one of their polluted priests and he, having been
summoned, ascended the pulpit and called out their accursed prayer. And this son of
lawlessness, the forerunner of Antichrist, having ascended the holy altar performed his
prayer. 44
Clearly the sultan was willing to part with the treasures and inhabitants of
the imperial city, and to allow them to be taken by his soldiers. The buildings
and the walls, however, were his and he would not tolerate their alienation,
or as in this case, their destruction. The first monument which Mehmed then
claimed was the great church of Hagia Sophia, the pivotal center of imperial
sanctification in Byzantine times. Shortly after dispatching the vandalizing
Turkish soldier, he performed there his first official act in the city: the Muslim
prayer. By that very act he Islamized the most famous church in
Christendom, where countless Byzantine emperors had been consecrated and
crowned, and made of it the central mosque of the City.45 Before departing
for Edime, he ordered the military governor of the city to repair the great
walls, to build a new citadel there (Yedi Kule), and to create for the sultan a
palace north of the Forum Tauri (Eski Saray). Thus he planned immediately
for the essential monumentalization of the new translatio imperii: Palace (resi-
dence of imperium), mosque of Aya Sofya (residence of sanctity), and the
walls both delimiting and defending the imperium of Istanbul. On a return
trip to Istanbul in the autumn of 1455, he found all three major works com-
pleted; by 1457 he had his officials draw up the document establishing the
vakif(religious economic foundation) of Aya Sofya.46
30 Speros Vryonis) Jr.
In 1459 Mehmed seems to have taken a crucial decision in the rebuilding
of the imperial capital and at that time he revealed his plans:
Command oj the Sultan to all able persons, to build splendid and costly buildings
inside the City.
Then he called together all the wealthy and most able persons into his presence,
those who enjoyed great wealth and prosperity, and ordered them to build grand
houses in the City, wherever each chose to build. He also commanded them to build
baths and inns and marketplaces, and very many and very beautiful workshops, to
erect places of worship, and to adorn and embellish the City with many other such
buildings, sparing no expense, as each man had the means and the ability.f?
Having previously secured the walls, converted Aya Sofya into a (ami, built
the citadel of Yedi Kule, and begun the bedestan in 1456, the sultan now
ordered the powerful and the wealthy to undertake the building of the
nahiyes (large urban units that were self-contained) in various parts of the city.
His summons to the powerful and wealthy to take an active role in the build-
ing of the city recalls Constantine's summons of the Roman nobility to the
newly founded Constantinople. The nahiye centered about a large mosque
and a large market area and contained many smaller neighborhoods (mahalles)
each usually centered about a smaller mosque. The sultan set the example for
the high officials by undertaking to build both the mosque complex of Fatih-
Sultan Pazar and the new palace on the easternmost acropolis of the city:
The Sultan himself selected the best site in the middle of the City, and commanded
them to erect there a mosque which in height, beauty, and size should vie with the
largest and finest of the temples already existing there. He bade them select and pre-
pare materials for this, the very best marbles and other costly polished stones as well as
an abundance of columns of suitable size and beauty plus iron, copper and lead in a
large quantities, and every other needed material.
He also gave orders for the erection of a palace on the point of old Byzantium
which stretches out into the sea-a palace that should outshine all and be more mar-
velous than the preceding palaces in looks, size, cost, and gracefulness.
Furthermore he ordered them to construct many very fine arsenals to shelter the
ships and their furnishings, and to build very strong, large buildings for the storing of
arms, cannon, and other such supplies. He also ordered many other similar things to
be done to beautify the City and to be useful to the public as well as to be necessary
and valuable in his wars and fighting. And in order that all this should be done speedi-
ly, he set over the work his most experienced and energetic commanders. Now it was
his plan to make the City in every way the best supplied and strongest city, as it used
to be long ago, in power and wealth, glory, learning, and trades, and in all the profes-
sions and all sorts of good things, as well as in public and private buildings and monu-
ments. 48
The Fatih mosque complex, which was begun in 1463 and finished in
1471, contained a mosque, 16 medresses, a hospice, a han, a hospital, a chil-
dren's school, a book store, and accommodations for the personnel of the
medreses. We have already seen what were its incomes and expenses.s? Nearby,
and providing revenues for the Fatih complex, were the Sultan Pazan, the
Sarradjhane, and a bath. In this matter the whole of Istanbul, that is the part
within the walls, was built up so that by the reign of Suleyman I it had 13
nahiyes and 219 mahalles. 50 Of these mahalles, 30% came into being during the
reign of Mehmed II; 192 cami and mascid were also erected during his rule. 51
He also, significantly, removed the palace from the region north of the Forum
Tauri to the Acropolis on the eastern tip of the peninsula, thus withdrawing
the imperial residence from immediate contact with the city's daily life.
The new imperial city was fundamentally monumentalized under Mehmed,
but there were yet further extensions and developments, particularly- in the
reigns of Bayezid II, Selim I, and Suleyrnan I. Very much as in the reigns of
Constantine's successors, so in the sultanates of Mehmed's successors the city
was further and greatly developed. Bayezid II, Selim I, and Suleyman I each
built vast kiilliyat, or mosque complexes, with schools, libraries, hospitals, hos-
pices, imarets, and tiirbes attached to the mosques so that they constituted
important urban centers for the life of Ottoman Istanbul. Their endowments
bestowed upon them rich incomes with which the kiilliyats were able not
only to maintain their large administrative and service staffs, but also to pro-
vide education, medical care, charity, and other social services. 52 The spread
of the sultanic foundations over the city, as the spread of the great Byzantine
fora, indicated not only the city's expansion, but the complexes came to con-
stitute a characteristic feature of the imperial iconography of Istanbul. It is of
interest to note that each sultan was buried in the tiiroe within his own kiilliy-
at, whereas many of the Byzantine emperors were buried in one church, that
of the Holy Apostles. But mosques and churches both frequently attended to
the schools, hospitals, kitchens, hospices, and shops for the populace. At the
Same time the palace built by Mehmed, which came to be known as Topkapi,
and thebedestan were subsequently greatly expanded.53
The imperial iconography had elements of continuity as well as of change.
The most pronounced change was in the location of the palace, henceforth
much more secluded from the populace than it had been in early- and mid-
dle-Byzantine times when the Great Palace had been located next to the hip-
podrome, the public baths, Hagia Sophia, the public library, and the central
boulevard with its groups of business establishments. 54 There was a slight dis-
placement westward of the economic center, but otherwise there was a basic
continuity in the monumental imperial iconography. The center of religious
sanctity remained not only in the same geographical location, but in the very
same building, Aya Sofya, which became the central mosque of both the city
and the empire. The ceremonial boulevard, the Divan Yolu, was largely the
Same as the Byzantine Mese, and the economic life centered about this boule-
vard and on the shores of the Golden Hom continued in the same sites with a
similar rhythm. Regal sanctity remained rooted to a certain degree in the
Same spot where Constantine and many of his successors had been buried: on
the hill of the church of the Holy Apostles. It is surely significant that after
Mehmed had given the church of the Holy Apostles to Gennadius as the new
patriarchical residence that in 1461 Gennadius was forced to abandon it. In
1463 the dynastic church of the Holy Apostles was completely destroyed (no
remains whatever have been found or identified) and replaced by the Fatih
complex where the new conqueror and refounder of Constantinople-Istanbul
was buried in his tarbe.
Mehmed, and his successors too, by the same processes of imperialization,
sanctification, mandarinization, literatization, militarization, dernographiza-
tion, thesaurization, monurnentalization, and sacralization, had once more
monwnentalized and sacralized imperium in the old familiar confines of the
Golden Hom, the Bosphorus, the Marmara, and the land walls.
Though Mehmed assured the continuity of imperial tradition in the penin-
sula of Byzantion, when we consider the matter historically rather than
iconographically, it was a different historical tradition. How did Mehmed and
his successors view the Byzantine tradition of imperiwn and what did he do
with it? The fate of three Byzantine monuments will serve as a symptomatic
guide to this area of research. He preserved and renewed (and left them in
their original function) the great land walls much as they had been. He trans-
formed Hagia Sophia from the imperial church to the imperial mosque. He
destroyed the dynastic mausoleum of the Holy Apostles and replaced it with
his own mosque-tomb. This question once more brings us to the complex
and multi-faceted personalities of Constantine and Mehmed, both of whom
sat astride two different and changing worlds.
As rulers who appeared at turning points in the history of the
Mediterranean world, both Constantine and Mehmed played crucial roles in
dramatic changes. As primary actors in the drama of historical evolution they
stood astride two different worlds: Constantine straddled the late ancient
pagan and the early Christian worlds; Mehmed presided over the worlds of
declining Byzantium and rising Islam, and so by their actions in creating the
super-city they displayed certain attitudes toward the cultures of the outgoing
or declining worlds. Dagron has pointed to the inherent contradiction in
Constantine's official monuments. Atop the great arch of the Milion,
Constantine erected a statuary group depicting himself, Helen, the cross, and
the Tyche of the city.55 Atop the great porphyry colwnn in his own forum,
Constantine was represented in a statue as Helios-Apollo, the sun god. 56 Yet
he was buried in the sanctuary of the Holy Apostles, his casket placed in the
midst of 12 apostolic cenotaphs. Perhaps the most striking of all these cultural
contradictions is the fact that he built Christian churches and yet decorated
his new city with the best of pagan sculpture to be found in the empire.
Among the works of art i"n his own forum there were 12 sirens on top ofpor-
phyry columns with wild animals, as well as a statue group in which Paris is
presenting the apple to Aphrodite. Mention has already been made of the
adornment of the hippodrome's sphendone with pagan statuary. But the most
detailed evidence for Constantine's fascination with pagan sculpture is the
sixth-century ecphrastic poem of Christodorus that describes many of the
statues for the great baths of Zeuxippos. Though the statues perished in the
great conflagration of 532 that consumed the magnificent baths, Christodorus
has provided us with an eye-witness account (somewhat stylized) of these
statues. He describes seventeen deities and mythological figures, 26 statues
representing 24 personalities from the two Homeric poems, 14 poets and
tragedians, seven scientists and philosophers, three historians (Thucydides,
Herodotus, Xenophon), three orators, five statesmen, and one wrestler. It is
interesting to note and to underline that the preponderance of the statues rep-
resents pagan Greek gods and heroes (46), 27 pagan authors, whereas there
are only five statesmen. Obviously the world of official urban leisure was
pagan and Greek, at least within the confines of the public baths.57
Statues remained, for centuries, an important part of the city's
iconography,58 and especially the monumental columns on which the imperi-
al statues were mounted. By the time that the tenth-century poet Constantine
the Rhodian composed his ecphrasis on the church of the Holy Apostles and
on the seven wonders of the city, many of the statues had disappeared, but
others were still standing and these, along with the tall columns, remained
noteworthy landmarks of the city.59 Though much of the statuary had been
destroyed by previous fires (especially the statues of the Baths of Zeuxippos)
there was still enough statuary in the fora and the hippodrome so that along
with these great columns they gave a definite quality to the city's iconogra-
phy. The destruction of perhaps the majority of the remaining statues by the
Fourth Crusaders beginning in 1204 changed this aspect of the city drastically
and forever. When the Latins came, the Byzantine imperial apparatus-rulers,
bureaucrats, and clergy-abandoned the city. The Latins, short of money,
took a large number of statues off to the foundries where they were melted
down, allegedly, for coin. The moving description of this barbarous act is pre-
served in a text attributed to the historian Nicetas Choniates; it offers us a
striking contrast in the views that the Crusaders and a learned Byzantine had
of classical statuary. He mentions that they sought out some of the statues
which had stoicheia inimical to them and destroyed them as well, but the
majority seem to have been melted down for economic reasons.60
Having opened the tombs of the emperors, as many as were in the shrine which is
built around the church of Christ's Apostles, they plundered all night and utterly, law-
lessly stole whatever golden ornaments, or pearls, or clear and imperishable valuable
stones still remained in them. And having found the corpse of the emperor Justinian
unravaged by the centuries-long years, they marvelled at the sight, but they did not
restrain themselves from the graveyards. Those of the western races spared neither the
dead nor those yet living....
A little later they pulled down the icon screen of the Greatest Church being reck-
oned in many tens of thousands of minas of silver, and of the purest silver, thickly cov-
ered with gold.
And since they lacked money (there is no satiety of wealth when the barbarian peo-
ple are desirous) they looked covetously on the bronze statues and delivered them to
the fire. 61
The author of this interesting text allows us to understand that up to its
destruction the pagan statuary of the city was still considered to be an essential
element in the city's iconography, culturally and aesthetically. 62
When the Byzantines retook the city in 1261, it would seem that little of
the statuary remained. One statue which survived was the equestrian monu-
ment of Justinian in the Augusteum, one of the seven wonders of
Constantinople. But by the first half of the fifteenth century the statues had
largely vanished from the Constantinopolitan landscape and thus this aspect of
the city's imperial iconography was altered. Although Nicetas Choniates (if he
is the real author of the text on the destruction of the statues) felt no ambigui-
ty as to this pagan element in the city's imperial iconography, in the tenth
century Constantine the Rhodian had been torn between the wonder of the
statues and the hatred which he felt for Graeco-Roman paganism.O Of inter-
est in regard to the statues are the remarks of Manuel Chrysoloras in his letter
written from Old Rome to the emperor John VIII Palaeologus in which he
compares the marvels and wonders of the Old and New Romes. In this com-
parison Chrysoloras asserts that the New Rome was not inferior to the old as
to the number and quality ofstatues: 64
That there .were also very many other such statues in the city is proven by their
bases which are still visible and the epigrams [inscribed] on them. Of these many were
[to be found] in other places. and very many [most] were in the hippodrome. I myself
saw many others formerly which I know now to have been taken away.65
Though there were still some statues to be seen, his argument as to their
formerly great number and presence is drawn from the numerous statue bases
and inscriptions that were still to be seen around the city in his day. In fact
most of the statues, he implies, have disappeared, and the process of their dis-
appearance is still going on in his lifetime:66 "And I have heard that there are
many other such [statues] which I myself have not seen, in hidden places. "67
Chrysoloras then proceeds to explain to the emperor why there are no longer
many statues left in the city:
The reason that it [Constantinople] did not have more of them [statues] was that that
city came into being then when they were neglected here [Rome] also, because of reli-
gion [there being an] avoidance. I believe, of the similarity of statues and idols. How
could they [in Constantinople] continue to create what had formerly been removed
here [in Rome]? They discovered and created other things: panels {pi"akes}, icons, and
paintings. that is. I say, of mosaics. which is a most brilliant and permanent art. 68
Thus the statues, because of their easy association with past idolatry, were not
continued, but were replaced by paintings and mosaics. Chrysoloras is writing
at a time then the statues had largely disappeared and Byzantines had become
disaccustomed to the daily sight and presence of the splendors of the ancient
art ofsculpture.
When the Turks finally took the city, the most spectacular of the statues,
the equestrian figure ofJustinian in the Augusteurn, was one of the few stat-
ues that had survived. The classical portion of the imperial iconography of
Constantinople had largely disappeared. The Ottoman Turks, because of reli-
gious proscriptions and unfamiliarity with classicalart had no interest in statu-
ary in the new imperial iconography of Istanbul.s? The fate of Justinian's
colossal equestrian statue, as indeed of the pillar on which it stood, nicely
illustrates this. We are informed of the statue's short and final history in
Ottoman hands by the sixteenth-century observer Pierre Gylles, one of the
last individuals to see the famous statue before its destruction:
The Palace is entirely in Ruines, yet I collect from the Pedestal of a Pillar of
Justinian lately standing, but now removed by the Turks, which Procopius says was
built by Justinian in the Augusteum, and Zonaras in the Court before the Church of
Sophia, that the Augusteum stood where there is now a Fountain, at the West End of
the Church of the Hagia Sophia ...On the Top ...was set a large Horse in Brass, facing
the East, which indeed afforded a noble Prospect. He seemed to be in a marching
Posture, and struggling for Speed. His near Foot before was curvated, as though he
would paw the Ground: his off Foot was fixed to the Pedestal, and his hind Feet were
so contracted, as though he was prepared to be gone. Upon the horse was placed the
Statue of the Emperor. 'Twas made of Brass, large like a Colossus, dress'd in a warlike
Habit like Achilles, with Sandals oil his Feet, and armed with a Coat of Mail, and a
shining Helmet. He looked Eastward, and seemed to be marching against the Persians.
In his left Hand he bore a Globe, devised to signify his universal Power over the
whole World. On the Top of it was fixed a Cross, to which he attributed all his
Successes in War, and his Accession to the Imperial Dignity. His right Hand was
stretched to the East, and by pointing with his Fingers, he seemed to forbid the bar-
barous Nations to approach Nearer, but to stand off at their Peril. Tzetses, in his
Various History, describes what kind of Helmet he had upon his Head. The Persians.
says he, generally wore a Turbant upon the Head...They are, says he, of the same
Shape with that, with whi~h the Statue of Justinian, erected upon a large Pillar, is
crowned...Zonaras writes, that Justinian, in the seventeenth Year of his Reign, set up
this Pillar, in the same Place, where formerly had stood another Pillar of Theodosius
the Great, bearing his Statue in Silver, made at the Expense of his Son Arcadius,
which weighed from seven Thousand four Hundred Pounds. When Justinian had
demolished the Statue and the Pillar, he stripped it of a vast Quantity of Lead, of
which he made Pipes for Aqueducts, which brought the Water into the City. This ill
Treatment of Theodosius by Justinian, was revenged upon him by the Barbarians; for
they used his Pillar in the same Manner, and stripped it of the Statue, the Horse, and
the Brass wherewith it was covered, so that it was only a bare Column for some Years.
About Thirty Years ago the whole Shaft was taken down to the Pedestal, and that,
about a Year since, was demolished down to the Basis, from whence I observed a
Spring to spout up with Pipes, into a large Cistern. At present there stands in the same
Place a Water-house, and the Pipes are enlarged. I lately saw the Equestrian Statue of
Justinian. erected upon the Pillar which stood here, and which had been preserved a
long Time in the Imperial Precinct, carried into the melting Houses, where they cast
their Ordnance. Among the Fragments were the Leg ofJustinian. which exceeded my
Height, and his Nose. which was above nine Inches long. I dared not publickly mea-
sure the horse's Legs, as they lay upon the Ground, but privately measured one of the
Hoofs, and found it to be nine Inches in Height.70
Though the original attitude of Constantine the Great and of his immediate
successors had led to the massive adoption of a major pagan element in the
Constantinopolitan imperial iconography, that is to say statuary, the internal
36 Speros Vryonis,]r.
development of Byzantine civilization led to its demise. As Manuel
Chrysoloras had written, while resident in Rome, the Christians gradually
abandoned the sculptor's craft because of religious prohibitions and when the
Turks took the city what little of this impressive sculpture had survived soon
disappeared
In the realm of'Iiteratization, however, the course of development was radi-
cally different. Imperialization, sanctification, and bureaucratization had as
their "literate" monuments schools and education, libraries and literature, and
thus the craft of teaching and writing, unlike that of sculpture, was in constant
and uninterrupted demand and was constantly renewed. There are gaps in the
long history of schools and libraries in Constantinople, but it is fairly certain
that there was never a complete break between Byzantine and ancient pagan
schools-education. Religion did not question the basis of late ancient educa-
tion, rather it accepted it. And inasmuch as the ancient Greek texts remained
the basis of education the state, rulers, and very often the church concerned
themselves with continuing a form of ancient education---schools, libraries
and the reproduction of manuscripts. Constantine's son Constantius II,
ordered the new edition of the ancient Greek texts in Constantinople: Plato,
Aristotle, Demosthenes, Isocrates, Thucydides and the others, and he con-
structed an important library to house the texts of the ancient Greek authors.
Julian passed a law increasing the technical and library staff to care for these
texts. Theodosius II established a higher school in Constantinople, the so-
called University of Constantinople, and by 475-6 we are informed that
when fire broke out in the Chalkoprateia, the great imperial library included
120,000 manuscripts. Almost three centuries later we are told that it still
counted 36,500 manuscripts, when it was again threatened by fire.71 Though
the information on libraries and manuscripts remains scant for the immediate-
ly succeeding periods there is no doubt that in the later period and down to
the Turkish conquest itself the state and the church continued to care for
libraries, manuscripts, education and schools. The westerner Pero Tafur
remarked that he saw a number of ancient authors in the library of the impe-
rial palace when he visited Constantinople in 1437, whereas a chance remark
of Constantine Lascaris (a young man at the time of the fall of
Constantinople) reveals that he saw the entire work of the ancient historian
Diodorus Siculus in the imperial palace.72 Thus the imperial iconography
which eventually rejected pagan statuary from its organism, readily assimilated
and further developed pagan literatization via schools, an educational system
based on the ancient texts, and libraries. A study of the city'S Byzantine
monasteries reveals that at least eleven possessed libraries in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, but inasmuch as the record is very incomplete, the num-
ber must have been considerably higher and among their manuscripts
undoubtedly they possessed a significant number of pagan Greek works. 73
Many of the larger and more important churches and the patriarchate as well
undoubtedly possessed libraries.Zt
When Mehmed created an Ottoman Imperial iconography in his new capi-
tal, what was his attitude to the Greek-Christian literatization which he found
before him? In the new Ottoman imperial iconography, as we saw, the geo-
graphic site remained the same. Primary sanctification was monumentalized in
the same structure where it had resided under the Byzantine emperors, and
on the other hand the first sultanic mausolewn in Ottoman Istanbul was on
the site of the burial church of the Byzantine emperors. By and large bureau-
cratization and literatization followed the traditional Islamic patterns that the
Ottomans had adopted earlier in their rise to empire. But the reign of
Mehmed, as well as his personality, indicate that in the realms of bureaucrati-
zation and literatization the sultan led a double life. Though as a sultan he
Islamized the overall bureaucratization and literatization of Istanbul's imperial
iconography, personally he seems to have been interested and indeed fascinat-
ed by the Greek literary remains and traditions, and he was also aware of
Byzantine bureaucrats. Indeed the system of slave officials and troops exposed
him to Byzantine practices within the palace milieu. 75
What happened to the books and libraries of the Byzantines at the time of
the conquest? The historian Ducas, whose detailed narrative is based on eye-
witness accounts, describes a savage pillaging of the Byzantine capital which
included a large scale looting of the libraries as well.
Mter three days, after the capture [of Constantinople] he released the ships so that
each could go off to its own provinces, bearing a load so as to sink. And what sort of
load? Luxurious garments, silver, gold, copper, tin vessels, countless books, prison-
ers...All [the ships] were fully loaded and the tents of the anny were full of captives
and of all types of goods enumerated above ...Having loaded the wagons with all the
books, more than can be counted, they scattered them everywhere in the east and
west. And so ten books were sold for one coin, i.e, Aristotelian, Platonic, theological
and every type of book. Tearing loose the gold and silver from countless gospels
which were covered with every type of ornamentation, some they sold and others
they threw away. They consigned all icons to the flames and having roasted meat with
the fire, they ate. 76
That the sack of the city destroyed much is confirmed by the Greek,
Ottoman, and Western sources."? It is difficult to ascertain what did survive
i.n the way of Greek manuscripts and for this there are two brief indications.
In the sixteenth century, the patriarchal notary Thodore Zygomalas drew up
a catalogue of the manuscripts in the patriarchal library at the Pammakaristos
church. Only a fragment of this catalogue survives and lists 174 manuscripts.P
it is not clear what the provenances and dates of these manuscripts were. Of
more immediate interest is the collection of non-Islamic manuscripts which
Mehmed II brought together in his own palace library, the contents of which
were described as early as 1592 by Dominico ofJerusalem, a jew converted to
Christianity who was the court physician of Murad Ill, Dominico speaks of
some 120 volwnes, a figure more or less commensurate with the study of A.
Deissmann in his detailed analysis, reconstruction, and catalogue ofMehmed's
non-Muslim books. They consist of works in Greek, Latin, Armenian, Syraic,
Slavic, Italian, Arabic (Christian), Hebrew, and Old French, but by far the
largest single group consists of works in Greek.
Deissrnann gave considerable attention to the question of what function
these Greek works served in the palace milieu. According to him the collec-
tion of these works reflects the interests of a conqueror who saw himself as
the ruler who effected a decisive turn in history, and who, standing between
East and West in Istanbul, sought to unite the cultures of these two worlds in
his person."? Mehmed, Deissmann continues, brought this library together
in consultation with such scholarly advisors as George Amiroutzes whom
Mehmed had brought into the court. Such individuals wrote works for
Mehmed, but Mehmed undoubtedly acquired manuscripts during the course
of his conquests too, whereas other works (Critobulus) were dedicated to
him. Finally, Deissman asserts, the sultan himself must have commissioned a
number of these works, especially during the period after the conquest of
Constantinople. He argues, with some plausibility, that the lavishly illumi-
nated Octateuch of the Saray must have come from the library of the
Byzantine emperors.s? The Greek manuscripts of Mehmed's library reflect a
rather wide interest: history (Alexander, war, technology), geography, math-
ematics, astronomy, philosophy, poetry, Old and New Testaments, the antiq-
uities of Constantinople, and the history of the construction of Hagia
Sophia. It includes some twenty-odd ancient Greek authors (Homer,
Hesiod, Pin dar, Polybius, Arrian, Ptolemy, Aristotle, Plato, Euclid, Galen,
Xenophon, appian, etc.), at least 12 Byzantine authors (Critobulus,
Maximus Planudes, Psellus, John Cantacuzene, Leo Grammaticus, Zonaras,
St. Basil, Proclus, Nicephorus Uranos, etc.). Most unexpectedly, it included
the Arabic translation of George Gemisthus Pletho's Compendium
Zoroastreorum et Platonicorum dogmatum, the third book of the De legibus with
the hymns to the pagan gods, and the Chaldean Oracles. It would seem that
the translation is based on that part of the manuscript that the patriarch
Gennadius Scholarius had not burned, and so it would seem that he turned it
over to the Sultan. The translation would indicate that Mehmed had some
interest in the events surrounding the attempt of PIetho to revive the ancient
system of pagan religion.
Whereas the number of Greek manuscripts in Mehmed's library is not
large, the number is nevertheless significant as is also the fact that the ancient
authors include philosophers, historians, scientists, mathematicians, and poets.
Deissmann explained their presence by seeing in the personality of Mehmed a
historical figure who understood himself as the unifying force then of eastern
and western cultures.
More recently, Julian Raby, in a series of carefully researched and tightly
argued papers, has further refined the problem and the possible interpretations
of both the library and the personality of Mehmed. Raby has explained in
further detail Mehmed's broad cultural personality, his exposure to western-
ers, and his reliance on Greek secretaries in the earlier years of his reign. He
has concentrated his analysis on the paleography and codicology of some of
these works, and he has shown that of some sixteen Greek manuscripts pro-
duced by the Greek scriptorium in his court in Constantinople between
1460-1480 there are two groups. The first was intended for his personal use,
the second for the palace school in which the future administrators had to be
taught Greek among other languages. Raby indicates the six works which he
asserts to have been intended for Mehmed's use as the following: Critobulus-
Historiae, Arrian-Anabasis, Homer-Diad, Testament of Solomon, Diegesis- Tenth
century text on erection of Hagia Sophia, and the Greek translation of
Buondelmonti (western travel accountj.s! As a result of his codicological anal-
ysis Raby came to the interesting conclusion that Critobulus' Historiae and
Arrian's Anabasis (of Alexander the Great) were bound as companion vol-
umes. Further, he connects Mehmed and the Homer manuscript to a section
in Critobulus where Mehmed is said to have visited the site of Troy where he
asked about the burial place of Achilles and Ajax, who, he said, had been for-
tunate to have had such a poet as Homer to sing their praise.82
Reference has already been made earlier in this paper to the fact that one of
the historical standards by which Mehmed measured his conquests were the
conquests of Alexander the Great, hence it is understandable that he would
have had a copy of Arrian in his library and that it should be bound as a com-
panion volume to Critobulus. The last two texts, the Diegesis of the construc-
tion of Hagia Sophia, and the travel account ofBuondelmonti, both of which
give detailed accounts of Byzantine Constantinople, reflect his interest in the
topography and history of the site which became the site of his own capital.
Hagia Sophia figured so importantly in his world that there were Persian and
Turkish translations made of the Diegesis in his own life time. 83 The remain-
der of the Greek manuscripts of his Greek scriptorium in the palace reflect
the contents of a late Byzantine school curriculum and from this Raby argues
that these works must have been utilized for the training of future administra-
tors in a language which they did not know. 84
Thus we come back to the larger question of Mehmed's attitude to the lit-
erary culture and to the bureaucracy of Byzantine civilization. His attitude
toward these was selective and restricted to his life in the palace. He collected
a number of Greek manuscripts and of Greek literati. In the palace, this
resulted in a certain intellectual and scriptorial activity in Greek during his
life-time. Toward the end of his reign, these Greek secretaries disappear and
are replaced by renegades from differing nations.8 5 The nature of this second
group of manuscripts is emphasized by a manuscript that escaped the notice of
both Deissrnann and Raby, but which was noted by the Turkish scholar
Djaferoglu and commented on by A. Papazoglou, This is manuscript 4749 in
the collection of Aya Sofya and entitled Lugat-ifarisi arabi ve rnmi ve sirbi, also
Lugat-i elsine-i eme« It has been identified as having been in the library of
Mehmed II and is a handbook for the learning of Arabic, Persian, Greek and
Slavic. Consisting of 51 pages, it contains the exact same phrases in these four
languages and must have been intended for the instruction of those inside the
palace.86
After the death of Mehmed II, the afterlife of this Byzantine literatization
weakened greatly. His son Bayezid II shared little of his father's interests in
this domain. Symptomatic of this change is that the collection of Byzantine
religious relics that Mehmed had not only collected, but which he also
seemed to revere, was dispersedby Bayezid who used it in his diplomatic bar-
gaining with the West.87
Thus we see in the case of both Constantine and Mehmed an example of
cultural ambiguity in their attitudes toward the outgoing cultures. In the case
of Constantine, it was pagan sculpture; in the case of Mehmed, it was a taste
for pagan and Christian literature, bureaucrats, statuary, and religious relics.
But in both cases, sanctification purged and eliminated these elements from
the systematic imperial iconography.
APPENDIX
Translation from the section on the Destruction of the Statues
by Nicetas Choniates
And since the barbarians lacked money (there is no satiety of wealth when
the barbarian people are desirous), they looked covetously on the bronze stat-
ues and delivered them to the flame.
Accordingly, the heavy bronze statue of Hera in the agora was cut into
staters and consigned to the foundry, and her head could barely be carted off
to the great palace by four-yoked carts of oxen.
And after, he, Paris, standing with Aphrodite and giving her the apple of
strife, was removed from his base.
The four-sided bronze device, which rises high into the air and competes as
to height with the greatest of the columns, as many as are raised upright in
many areas of the city, who when he sees this would not marvel at its variety?
For every musical bird is engraved thereon singing the song; of spring. The
labors of farmers and pipes and milk pails, the bleating of sheep and the
boundaries of lands are depicted. There spreads out the open sea, and schools
of fish are seen, some being caught, others overpowering the nets and easily
returning to the deep. Erotes in groups of two and three oppose each other
with flowers, naked of clothing, throwing and receiving apples, bubbling over
in sweet laughter. This particular four-sided figure ends in a sharp form hav-
ing the shape of a pyramid, and above it is the statue of a woman which is
pushed about by the first movement of the wind. Hence it was named
Anemodoulion.
And even this most beautiful work they send to the foundries, just as also
the equestrian figure standing on a trapezoidal base in the (forum) of the
Taurus, heroic in shape and marvelous as to size. Some said that this man is
Jesus ofNaue, and they interpret his hand outstretched toward the sun, which
is advancing on its westward journey, as though ordering the halt at Gabaon.
To the majority, however, it (represents) Bellerophontes, born and raised in
the isle of Pelops, who is seated on Pegasus. The horse is without bridle.
Pegasus is thus presented striking with ease his hooves on the plains and dis-
daining all, and he bears the rider as both a bird and pedestrian. But there is
an old tale that has come down to us, and it lies in the mouths of all, that in
the left front hoof of this horse there is a statue of a man; according to some
he is of the race of the Venetikoi, to others he is from another of the
epizephyrian nations that are not subservient to the Romans, of some one of
the Bulgarians. Often the hoof was made secure so that what was known to
be hidden therein should in every way remain undetected
The horse having been chopped to pieces, along with the rider, and having
been consigned to the fire, the bronze statue that was entombed in the hoof
of the animal was found and it was covered with a garment which they weave
from the wool of sheep. Having inquired a little as to the things said about it,
the Latins threw this into the fire.
Nor did these barbarians, who have no love for the beautiful, spare the stat-
ues standing in the hippodrome or other types of wondrous works from
destruction. These too they minted into coins, trading the great for the small
and exchanging great things that were most greatly created for insignificant,
small change.
And there was Hercules Trihesperus, magnificently set with his basket, and
spread over his head was the lion's pelt looking out fiercely, even though in
bronze, almost roaring, and scattering the reckless mass gathered about. Him
also they tore down. He was seated, angry, having neither quiver nor bow in
his two hands, nor putting forward his club, but stretching out the base, just
as his own hand, as far as possible. He is bending his left knee and he sets the
elbow of the left arm on it. He stretches out the rest of the hand, leaning his
head downward into the palm, despondently and calmly. He was weeping at
his own fate and unable to endure all the struggles Eurysthenes had set for
him not out of necessity, but out of envy, being puffed up by his good for-
tune. He (Hercules' statue) was broad of chest, wide of back, with thick hair
and full buttock, strong arms, and achieves such a size, I think, one would
imagine Lysimachus to ha~e made the original Hercules, he who had created
first and last with his own hands this most excellent art. And he was thus the
greatest, as the cord going about his thumb (i.e., of Hercules) would stretch
out like a man's belt. They who divorce bravery from its accompanying
virtues, and having appropriated it (bravery) and boasted about it, and holding
it in high esteem, they did not pass by such a Hercules without pulling him
down.
And they pulled down with it (the statue of Hercules) the saddled, braying
donkey, and the ass driver following him, which the Caesar Augustus had set
up in Actium (which is Nicopolis in Greece), and who, when at night went
out to reconnoiter the army of Anthony, came upon a man driving a donkey.
And when he asked who he is and whither he is going, heard: "I am called
Nikon and my donkey Nikandros, and I am going to the anny of Caesar."
Nor did they restrain their hands from the hyena and she-wolf who gave
milk to Remus and Romulus. They exchanged these ancient objects of rever-
ence for insignificant coins and these bronze, and placed them (statues) in the
foundry. In addition, the (statue of the) man wrestling the lion, and also the
Nilotic horse, whose hindermost parts of the body end in a tail studded with
scales, and the elephant shaking his trunk; and in addition to these, the
sphinxes, which in the foreparts are like shapely women, and which in their
hindparts are horrible like beasts, which are also very strange as they walk on
land, and by lightness of wing they go about and compete with the great-
winged birds; and the unbridled horse raising its ear, snorting and prancing
haughtily and obediently; and that ancient evil, the Scylla, appearing like a
woman as far down as the waist (and this part projecting forward because of
its huge breasts) and full of savagery, and thereafter cleft into beasts of prey
that leap upon the ship of Odysseus and devour many of his companions.
There is in the hippodrome a bronze eagle, the novel creation of
Appollonius of Tyana and a magnificent device of his magic. Once when he
came among the inhabitants of Byzantion, he was asked to do away with
snake bites from which they suffered greatly. Doubtlessly utilizing magic with
his associates, of which the teachers are the daemons, and all those who pro-
claim their orgies, he raised up on a column an eagle, a sight 'dripping' plea-
sure on the souls and persuading those enjoying the subject to spend time
there, just like those listening to the songs of the Sirens, which are so difficult
to pass by. He held out his wings, as though in flight, and the serpent was
lying at his feet leaning backward and coiled, he hindered him from flying off
as with the extreme end of the body he was dashing against the wings in
order to bite him. But the venomous animal failed. Having been pierced by
the barbs of the eagle's talons, his vigor faded, and he seemed rather to
become fatigued, or rather thus struggling with the bird he became attached
to his wings. And as the serpent breathed his last, the venom perished with
him. The eagle, gazing proudly and not hooting aloud the victory, set off to
lift with him the serpent. Once taking him up into the air to testify to this
(the victory), he announced it by the joy of the look and the death of the ser-
pent. This (sight), should it be seen, the contortions of the snake and the bite
of death would be forgotten, and all the snakes ofByzantion would be fright-
ened by this example, and it would persuade them to scatter and to enter
their holes. The statue of the eagle is marvelous, not only because of all that
we have recited, but also because of the lines engraved on its wings, which
are twelve. It clearly shows the hours of the day to those who casually look at
it, if, of course, the rays of the sun are not darkened by the clouds.
And what of white-armed Helen with the beautiful ankles and slender
neck, who, having assembled all of the Hellenes in Troy and having ravaged
it, and landing at the Nile, and thus retracing her steps again after a long time,
returned to the land of the Laconians? Did she soften the cruel ones? Did
she soften those of an iron will? To the contrary, not at all was she able to do
such a thing, she who had embraced every beholder by her beauty, although
she was garbed pretentiously, appeared dewey, even though in bronze, moist,
saturated with love in the chiton, veil, crown, and braided hair. This braid is
finer than the spider's web, and the work is imposing. The crown bound the
forehead with gold and precious stones imitating light, and the braid, reaching
down as far as the legs, clasped together with a fetter in the back the hair,
which was confused and blown about by a wind. And her lips were a little
open like a flower bud so as to seem to be speaking. Immediately encounter-
ing the charming smile, which fills the beholder with joy, and the flashing
glance, and the arch of the eye brows, and the other beauty of the body, no
one, no matter who, can describe it by word so as to pass it on to later gener-
ations.
o Helen, daughter of Tyndaris, fair beauty, offshoot of the Muses, concern
of Aphrodite, very best gift of nature, prize of Trojans and Greeks, where is
your pain-banishing medicine that causes forgetful-ness of all evils, and.which
the spouse of Thonos granted you? Where are your invincible love potions?
Why did you not make use of these now as you did in the past? I think that
it was decreed by the Fates that you should fall under the rush of the flame,
though you still had not stopped consuming your beholder with love. These
descendants of Aeneus would say that they condemned you to the flame as a
revenge for Troy, which because of your cruel love was charred by the light-
ed flame. The greed of these men, however, does not allow me to be mindful
of and to speak of such a thing by which the rarest and most beautiful works
of art anywhere were consigned to complete destruction; and to say that they
frequently gave and sent to their wives moderate amounts of cash; and to
record whether they devoted themselves to their (gaming) tables and draughts
all day long, or whether they were inspired to rash and mad attacks (rather
than to prudent bravery) against each other thus putting on the armor of Ares
they gave preference to the prize of victory over all their possessions; over
their wedded wives, from whom fathers hear who are their children, and
even over the greatest matter of the soul, concerning which men exercize all
care. And as for the reading and knowledge of those words that rhapsodes
composed about you?
"It is no cause for anger that Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans should suffer grief
for a long time over such a woman. For she is greatly like the immortal goddesses as to
her face."
Let that too be recorded in the discourse. There was set up on a stele a
small woman, young in face and at her most charming age, with her hair
braided and drawn back over both sides of the brow. She was not raised up
high but could be touched by those stretching out their hands. The right
hand of this statue, without any support below it, held up in the palm, by the
foot of a horse, a man on horseback as another man would hold up a cup of
drink (?). The rider, armed with coat of mail, and his legs girt about by
greaves, was in the full vigor of body and simply exhaled bellicosity. The
horse had raised up its ear to the trumpet blast, with neck high, its eyes pierc-
ingly keen, and its breathing as a result of its running was already evident in
its eyes. Its feet were raised up in the air in a display of the reeling of battle.
Next after this statue there were set up, very near the eastern turning point
of the tetraoton, which is called the turning point of the Reds, statues of chari-
oteers. They are examples of the charioteering art. But they do not command
the charioteers with open display of the hands, as it is the case when those
approaching the victory post should not let go of the reins. They must wheel
in the horses by drawing away and must apply the spur continuously and
more violently, so that shutting in the victory post from those coming
behind, they allow the rival charioteer to drive on around the course and to
come in last, even though he might be driving a faster horse, and though he
might be well trained in the racing skill.
The discourse shall add something else to that which has already been
recounted, though it was not proposed that everything should be committed
to writing. This is something charming in appearance and a little more won-
derous than everything. This work is on a stone base and it depicts a bronze
beast, more likely a Brachycercon than an ox, for it has not a deep throat such
as the Egyptian oxen have, nor is it equipped with hooves. This beast was
holding with its jaws and was choking another animal, which was armed over
its entire body with scales that were so jagged that even in bronze form they
inflicted pain on him who touched them. It was thought that the former was a
basilisk and that the latter, which was being seized by its mouth, was an asp.
Not a few conjectured that the one was a Nilotic ox and the other a crocodile.
I am not interested in this difference of opinions, but will speak rather
about the novel struggle which was carried out on both sides whereby they
mutually inflicted and suffered, killed and were killed, seized and were seized,
and whereby both won and were defeated by one another. The former, said
to be a basilisk was all of him swollen from head to foot. His whole body had
sunk down and it had turned green like a frog, for the poison had gone
through the entire structure of the beast and infected it with death. It had
sunk down on its knees, and the life-giving force which had faded was erased
from its expression. Rather, the sight would have led the beholder to think
that formerly it might be revived from the dead, had not the bases of the feet
supported it and held it upright. And the other beast, which was held fast by
its jaws and was struggling with its tail, was in a similar state as it was gasping
from being strangled by the grip of the teeth. It seemed to be straining to leap
and to try to jump out of the enclosure of the teeth and to fall out of the
"chasm." But it was unable to do so because the parts right after the shoulders
and the front legs, and all the parts of the body joined to the tail were held in
the mouth (of the basilisk) and were pierced by its jaws.
And thus were they being killed by one another. The conflict was common
to both as was the self-defense. They were both victorious, and yet death was
mutually concurrent. It occurs to me to say that to be destroyed by one
another, and to be led off on the road to death by one another, these affairs,
which are deadly bearers of evils and destructive for man, are portrayed not
only in statues and do not occur alone among the stronger beasts. They also
occur frequently, however, among the foreign nations, which have attacked
us Romans, killing and being killed by one another. They are destroyed by
the power of Christ who does not rejoice in blood but who disperses the bel-
licose foreign nations, and who displays justice against the attacking basilisk,
the trampling lion, and the dragon.
NOTES
1. I do not intend to go into the social background which lay behind the rise and
formation of the two men. For the historical circumstances of their rise and rule see:
A. H. M. Jones, Constantine the Great and the Conversion ofE"rope (London, 1948); F.
Babinger, Mehmed the Conq"eror and his Times, trans. R. Manheim, ed. Hickman
(princeton, 1978).
2. In E. C. Richardson, "The Life of Constantine by Eusebius," in A Select Library
ofNicene and Post-mane Fathers ofthe Christian Ch"rr.h (Grand Rapids, 1971) I: 420-
435.
3. Richardson, 483.
4. Critobulus, History of Mehmed the Conq"eror by Ksitovoelos, trans. C. T. Riggs
(princeton, 1970), 3. Critobul din Imbros, Din domnia I"i Mahomed al II -lea anni
1451-1467, ed. V. Grecu (Bucharest, 1963),25-27.
5. Critobulus, 14; Critobulus, 4, 279.
6. George Sphrantzes, Phrantzes, C0'P"s Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (hereafter
Bonn), ed. B. G. Niebuhr, vol. 36: 93.
7. Babinger, "Mehmed II, der Eroberor, und Italien," Byzantion XXI (1961): 127-
130.
8. Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror, 500. Ahmedi, lskendemame, Inceleme-
Tipkibasim, ed, I. Onver (Ankara, 1983).
9. A. Deissmann, Forshungen "nd FIlnde im Serai mit eniem Yerzeir.hnis der nir.htislamis.
chen Handschriften in Topkap" Serai zu Istanblll, (Berlin-Leipzig, 1933), 60. A. Pertusi,
"Le epistole storiche di Lauro Quirini sulla caduta di Constantinopoli e la potenza dei
Turchi," Lauro Quirini umanista. St"di e testi, a t1'ra di K. Kra"tter et al., ed. V. Branca,
Civilta Veneziana, Saggi, XXIII, (Florence, 1977): 229, quoted by J. Raby, "Mehmed
the Conqueror's Greek Scriptorium," DIlmbarton Dales Papers XXXVII (1983): 19:
"Quam ob rem sese princiem orbis terrarum gentiumque omnium, idest alterum
Alexandrum, et esse et dici vult. Unde et Arianum, qui res gestas Alexandri diligentis-
sime scripsit, quotidie ferme legere consuevit."
10. Raby, "Greek Scriptorium," 18.
11. Philostorgius, ed. J. Bidez, Philostorgios Kirchengeschichte, in Die griechisr.hen
r.hristlichen Sr.hriftsteller der ersten dreiJahreh"nderte (Leipzig, 1913),21: 14 17.
12. Spandugino, De la origine deli imperatori ottomani, ed. C. Sathas, Mnemeia
EllenikesIstorias IX (1890): 170.
13. Quoted by Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror, 429-31, who also evaluates the
source's reliability.
14. Ibid., 432.
15. Philostorgius (Bidez) 20-21 (II,9).
16. O.L. Barkan, "The Problem of the Construction and Settlement of Istanbul
after the Conquest," (manuscript of a paper given at the Princeton Conference on the
Economic History of the Middle East, 1975), 1-2.
17. Plutarch, Themistocles XVIII, 3.
18. For a broad historical survey see, R. Meyer, Byzantion, Konstantinupolis,
Istanbul. enie genetische Stadtgeographie. Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien.
Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Denkschriften. 71. Band, e. Abhandlung, (Vienna,
1943).
19. S. Vryonis, "Cultural Conformity in Byzantine Society, Ninth to Twelfth
Century," in S. Vryonis and A. Banani, Proceedings of the Fifth Giorgio Levi della
Vida Biennial Conference, entitled Individualism and Conformity in Islam (Wiesbaden,
1977), 128.
20. S. Vryonis, "Byzantine Demokratia and the Guilds in the Eleventh Century,"
Dumbarton Oaks Papers XVII (1963): 291-292.
21. A. M. Schneider, "Strassen und Quartiere Konstantinopels," Mitteilungen des
deutsche« archaologischen Instituts Istanbul III (Berlin, 1950), 76-78. H. Inalcik,
"Istanbul," Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 229-230.
22. The estimates for the population of Byzantine Constantinople have varied great-
ly inasmuch as satisfactory, official figures are lacking. See G. Dagron, Naissance d'une
capitale. Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 Ii 451 (paris, 1974), 518-541, for a sur-
vey of the literature, sources, and figures:
a. Under Constantine I the city covered 700 hectares and may have had a popula-
tion of 100,000 to 150,000.
b. Under Theodosius II the area within the new walls was 1,400 hectares and could
hold 400,000-500,000. By 430 its population had surpassed that of Rome and so it
must have, as of 430, been between 200,000 and 300,000.
For an earlier discussion on the population in the period of the Comnenoi see, D.
Jacoby, "La population de Constantinople a I'epoque byzantine. Une probleme de
demographie urbaine," Byzantion XXXI (1961): 81-109, who allows that the
Constantinopolitan population may have reached 400,000 at the period of maximum
growth. See also Schneider, "Strasse und Quartiere Konstantinopels," passim, for the
problem of the figures in the Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae, and consult Dagron,
op. dt., 525-530, for their most recent evaluation.
For Ottoman Istanbul much more in the way of statistics and physical monuments
remains so that we are on somewhat sounder ground. That Byzantine Constantinople
had drastically declined in the Palaeologan period there can be no doubt. The city had
lost its supporting provinces in much of the Balkans and Asia Minor. On the basis of
rough estimates to be found in travellers accounts the population has been placed at
40,000 to 50,000. A. M. Schneider, "Die Bevolkerung Konstantinopels im XV
Jahrhundert," Nachrichten der Akademie Der Wissenschajien in GOttingen. Philosophisch-
Historische Klasse,Jahrgang 1949, #9,231-237. But it is much more likely that it was
close to 70,000, because during the conquest of the city in 1453 the prisoners taken
were reckoned at 60,000 and the number slain at 4,000. From a survey made in 1477
by the Cadi Muhieddin (Topkapi Saray A~ivi, D 9524) we see the following number
of households recorded for the taxes (though we cannot tell whether the survey is
comprehensive):
Households %
Muslims 8,951 60
Greek Orthodox 3,151 21.5
Jews 1,647 11
Kaffans 267 2
Annenians of Istanbul 372 2.6
Annenians & Greeks
from Karaman 384 2.7
Gypsies 31 .2
14,803 households
These figures have been emended by Inalcik in his article "Istanbul," EI2, 243, to
read:
Muslims 9,517
Christians 5,162
Jews 1.647
16,326 households
In the registers of 1535 there are:
Muslim hearths 46,635

Christian hearth 25,295
Jewish hearths 8.070
80,000 hearths or households
Ibid., 243. In 1550 a western observer estimated the number of households so that the
population may have been around 500,000 (about 4 to the household). It is interesting
that the notitia documentation attests 322 neighborhoods for early fifth century
Constantinople (Schneider, "Strassen und Quartiere Konstantinopels," 77), whereas
the number of neighborhoods (mahalles) in Ottoman Istanbul was: 182 under
Mehmed II, 219 in 1540, and 292 plus 12 cemaats in 1634 (Inalcik, op. cit., 234).
A late tradition gives a romanticized version of a part of Constantine's plans to colo-
nize his new foundation:
Desiring to populate his city and desiring above all to bring the Romans to
Byzantion, Constantin!' the Great took from them secretly their rings. . . and sent
them against the king of the Persians who was called Sarbaros, They were: Four mag-
istroi-Addas, Protasius, Scopebros, Philoxenus; Eight patricioi-Domninus, Probus,
Dareius, Maurus, Rodanus, Sallustius the eparch, Modestus, Eubolus. And as has been
.said he sent them to Persia where they remained 16 months. Constantine the Great
having sent to Rome took their wives, children and families. He also appointed build-
ing engineers so that they might survey their houses and how the lands of each lay.
And as they observed their houses, some on the shore of the sea and others on the
hinterland, and [as they observed] their shapes... and having taken the families of
these senatorials, they came to Byzantion and they constructed their houses in the
same pattern. They [the magistroi and patricioi] having returned from Persia with vic-
48 Speros Vryonis Jr. J
tory and having sent tribute of 365 centenaria, they were received by the emperor
who feasted them and addressed them making trial of them: "Do you wish to depart
for Rome?" They replied that they did not wish to depart for two months. The
emperor replied: "I wish to give you your houses this evening." Having ordered his
parakoimomenos Euphratou (who had converted him to Christianity) the latter gave
each one of them his house. And they having seen their doorways and the courtyards .
. . that they were like the ones in Rome as to size, shape, and height, and also the
view from the doorways, they imagined that they were in Rome. But finding their
families [there] as well they were amazed. Then did they believe that it was not a
dream but a desire of the emperor, "that settled us here against our will. . . .. The
regions [of the city] took their appellations from their names. Philoxenus built the cis-
tern called Philoxenus. Probus erected the church of Prodromus. . . the so-called
Probou. Domninus built a house in the region of Maurianou which Agrikolaus had.
Dareius built the house of Icanatissa, of Sclerus. Maurus built the house which Belonas
had.. Rodanus built a house which is called the [mansion] of Euouranes... Sallustius
built a house which is called that of Kontomytes. Modestus built a house, that of
Lampros, in the area of the Holy Apostles.
The text is edited in T. Preger, Saiptores originum constantinopolitanarum (Leipzig, 1901)

I: 146-148. The anecdote is of interest inasmuch as, whatever its factual veracity, it
depicts a type of colonization involving the grandees of the state, much as in the case
of Mehmed's colonization of Istanbul.
Earlier sources emphasize Constantine's policy of resettling citizens from other parts
of the empire in Constantinople. Indeed, the extension of the walls first by
Constantine and then by Theodosius II indicates that they planned to create a great
city with a large population.
He [Constantine] having been persuaded by the words of God, expanded greatly

the city formerly called Byzantion, and encompassed it with very great walls. Since he
reckoned the indigenous citizens to be insufficient in regard to the greatness of the
city he built great mansions here and there along the boulevards. He settled in them
illustrious men with their households, having summoned them from Rome the Elder
and from other nations, and made them owners [of these mansions].
The text is in Sozomenus, II, 3, iii-iv, ed. J. Bidez and G. C. Hansen, Sozomenus
Kirchengeschite, (Berlin, 1960). Sozomenos, II, 35, speaks of the immense growth of the
city's population.
23. P. Gautier, "Le Typicon du Christ Saveur Pantocrator," ReV14e des Etudes
Byzantines XXXII (1974): 21 and passim. It is of interest to note that when, in the
reign of Mehmed II, it was transformed into the Zeyrek complex (mosque and
medreses) the structures, in their rededicated form, received a substantial vakif from the
sultan that provided for extensive expenses, personnel, and services. The document
provides details on the daily expenditures for a wide variety of personnel attached to
the foundation: See E. H. Ayverdi, Osmanll mi'marisinde Fatih devri 855-886 (1451-
1481) III (Istanbul 1973): 537.
24. O. 1. Barkan and E. H. Ayverdi, Istanbul vakiflan tahrir defteri 953 (1546) tarihli
(Istanbul, 1970): x-xi, The Aya Sofya complex on the other hand had 250,000 ak;es,
or 15,000 gold ducats, and this income came largely from sources within the city itself:
revenues of 2,360 shops, 1,300 houses, 2 caravansarays, 30 beghanes, 23 boza hanes, 12
hammams, in Istanbul, Uskudar, and Galata.
25. E. Barker, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium .fromJustinian I to the last
Palaeologus (Oxford, 1957): 103.
26. E. Fenster, Laudes Constantinopolitanae (Munich, 1968). passim.
27. Inalcik, "Istanbul," EI2, 224. Byzantine Constantinople had early acquired a
special character in the lore of the Muslim world prior to the appearance of the Turks
in Iran. See A. Miquel, "La geographie hurnaine du monde musulmanjusqu'au milieu
du 11e siecle." Geographie arabe et representation du monde: la terre et l'etranger (paris-The
Hague. 1975) II: 411-444.
28. Dagron, op. cit., 8-9.
29. In addition to R. Janin, Constantinople byzantine. Developpement urbain et reper-
toire topographique, 2nd ed. (Paris), 106-120, for the great palace, see C. Mango, The
Brazen House. A study of the Vestibule of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople
(Copenhagen, 1959); R. Guilland, "Le Palais de la Magnaure," Epetens Etaireias
Vyzantinon Spou do« XXVII (1957): 63-74; J. Labarte, Le palais imperial de
Constantinople et ses abords, Sainte Sophia, Ieforum Augusteon et l'hippodrome tels qu'ils
existaient au di"ieme siecle (paris, 1861); E. Mamboury and Th. Wiegand, Kaiserpalilsle
von Konstantinopel (Berlin-Leipzig, 1934).
30. Janin, Constantinople byzantine, III.
31. The Works ofLiudprand ofCremona, tr. F. A. Wright (London. 1930),208.
32. Janin, op. at., 59-62, 73-76.
33. Procopius, On the Buildings, tr. H. B. Dewing with collaboration of G. Downey,
The Loeb Classical Library (Oxford, 1940). VII, 33. 35, 37. See the reproduction of
the fourteenth-century drawing in Beilage 2 of J. Kollwitz, Ostromische Plastik der
Theodosiasiseher Zeit (Berlin, 1941).
34. Janin, op. cit., 155-156.
35. Janin, op. cit., 161-162. The first conflagration consumed also the statues of the
Sarnian Hera, the Lindian Athena, the Cnidian Aphrodite. which was in the Lausus.
Cedrenus (Bonn), I: 616;Zonares, XIV, 2. For the second fire see, Manasses, VV.
4257-4324; Glycas (Bonn). 231.
36. Janin, op. cit., 111-14. "Christodorou Ecphrasis," in Anthologie Crecq"e, ed. and
trans. P. Waltz (Paris, 1928) I: 51-90.
37. Janin, op. cit., 183-194.
38. Janin, op. cit.• 36-37.
39. Janin, op. cit., 103-104.
40. Janin, op. cit., 59-72.
41. Eusebius (Richardson). I, 555.
42. Janin, La geographie ecclesiastiqve de l'empire byzantin. Premiere partie. Le siege de
Constantinople et le patriarcat oecvmeniq"e. Tome III. Les eglises et les monasteres, 2nd
ed, (paris, 1969).41-50. Dagron, op.dt., 401-409. For the church of the Holy Apostles
see further, A. Heisenberg, Crabeskirch "nd Apostelkirch. Zwei Basiliken Konstantins.
Untersuchungen zur Kunst und Literatur des ausgehenden Altertums. Zweites Teil.
Die Apostelkirche in Konstantinopel (Leipzig, 1968). Ch. Angelides, "E perigraphe
ton Ayion Apostolon apo ton Constantino Rodio. Architektonike kai syrnvolismos,"
Symmeikta V (1983): 49-92.
43. S. Shaw in his History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern r"rkey (Cambridge,
1976) 1: 57. has attempted to present the conquest and occupation of the city in 1453
as a peaceful. orderly event. But he has chosen to ignore all the contemporary
Turkish, Arabic. Greek, Italian. and Slavic sources, which are unanimous as to the
destructive character of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. See Vryonis,
50 Speros Vryonis Jr. I
"Stanford J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modem Turkey. Volume 1.
Empire of the Gazis: The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire 1280-1808,
Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, London, New York, Melbourne, 1976) A
Critical Analysis," Balkan Stvdies XXIV, 1 (1983),55-78.
44. Ducas, Istoria Turco-Bizantina (1341-1462), ed. V. Grecu (Bucharest, 1958),375.
45. Inalcik, "Istanbul," E12, 224-225.
46. Ibid.
47. Critobulus (Riggs), 140.
48. Critobulus (Riggs), 140-141.
49. Inalcik, "Istanbul," E12, 229. Ayverdi, op. dt., 356-406.
50. Inalcik, op. cit. A. S. OIgen, Constantinople during the Era of Mohammed the
Conqueror 1453-1481 (Ankara, 1939). Ayverdi, Fatih devri sonlan"da Istanbul mahal-
leleri, ~ihri" iskani lie "afilsil (Ankara, 1958).
51. Ayverdi, OMFD, 538-541.
52. For Bayezid II, see G. Goodwin, A History of Ottoman Architecture (London,
1971), 168-174; Islam Ansiklopedisi, the s.v, "Bayezid II". For Selim I, see Goodwin,
op. cit., 184 ff; for Stlleyrnan I, see the two massive volumes of 6. L. Barkan,
Saleyman Cami lie imareti insaatl (1550-1557) (Ankara, 1972, 1979), where Barkan has
assembled the extremely rich and detailed data on the building, builders, and daily
expenses for the erection of the killliyat ofSilleyman from 2,973 folia of archival docu-
ments. Goodwin, op. dt., 215-239.
53. Goodwin, op. cit., 132-137. F. Davis, The Palace of Topkapr in Istanbul (New
York, 1970). B. Miller, Beyond the Sublime Porte (New Haven, 1931). On the bedestan,
Inalcik, op. cit., passim. W. MOller-Wiener, Bildlexiko« zur Topographie lstanbuls
(Tubingen, 1977),345-349. Ayverdi, OMFD, 557-571.
54. Wiegand, "Der Hippodrom von konstantinopel zur Zeit Suleimans des
Grosses," Jahrbuch des kaiserlich Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts XXIII (1908), 1-11.
55. Preger, Saiptores orig. constant., 38, 166.
56. Janin, Constantinople byzantine, 78-79. Zonaras. XIII, 3, 24-27, gives interest-
ing details.
57. Christodoros, Eephrasis, ed. and tr. P. Waltz, I: 51-90.
58. They were obviously understood differently according to social affiliations, reli-
giosity and education of the contemporary observer. C. Mango, "Antique Statuary
and the Byzantine Beholder," Dumbarlon Oaks Papers XVII (1963): 5>.76, stresses the
superstitious perception of the statues. Nicetas Choniates (if he is the author of that
treatise on the destruction of the statues) sees them as a classicizing author would see
them, with great appreciation for their artistic quality and literary connotations. This
variety in the perception of the statuary was not unique to medieval Byzantium. The
ancient Greeks themselves seem to have varied as to their perception of the statues as
well.
59. E. Legrand, "Description des oeuvres d'art et de l'eglise des Saints ApBtres de
Constantinople. Poerne en vers iambiques par Constantin Ie Rhodien," RellUe des
Etvdes Crecques IX (1896): 36-44, on the Seven Wonders of Constantinople and on
the columns and statues. He listed:
1.The Equestrian statue ofJustinian in the Augusteum.
2.The porphyry column of Constantine in the forum of Constantine.
3.The Senaton, near the forum of Constantine, with its columns and the
bronze gate taken from the temple of Ephesian Artemis which depicted the
Gigantomachy with Zeus and his thunderbolts, Poseidon with his trident, Apollo
armed with bow, and Hercules. There was also the bronze statue of Athena of
Lindos on a column.
4.The column with a cross in the Philadelphion.
5.The bronze Anemodoulion, a pyramid-like structure, decorated with bronze
reliefs of animals, fruits, naked erotes in the vines, winds, and on top a statue that
changed position in obedience to the prevailing wind.
6.The elevated column erected by Theodosius I in the Forum Tauri depicting his
victory over the Goths. The equestrian statue ofTheodosius atop another column.
7.The column ofArcardius in the Xerolophos.
For a discussion and identification of these statues, see T. Reinach, "Commentaire
archeologique sur le poerne de Constantin le Rhodien," Revue des Etudes Crecques IX
(1896): 66-103.
60. A. Cutler, "The De Signis of Nicetas Choniates. A Reappraisal," American
Journal of Archaeology LXXII (1968): 113-210. R. M. Dawkins, "Ancient Statues in
Constantinople," Folklore XXXV (1924): 209-248. E. Mathiopolu- Tornaitou,
"Klassisisches und klassistisches im Statuenfragment von Niketas Choniates,"
Byzantinische Zeitschrift 73 (1980),25-40.
61. Mala Choniatae Historia, ed, I. A. van Dieten (Berlin, 1975) I: 647-48. On sto-
icheia, 643. For the translation of the text, see the appendix at the end of this study.
The relevant section on the statues has also been edited in D. Morisani, F. Gagliuolo,
A. de Franciscis, De signis constantinopolitanis (Florence, n.d.),
62. The four bronze horses placed atop St. Mark in Venice are said to have been
taken from the hippodrome at this time.
63. Legrand, op. dt., 40, lines 147-149.
64. Manuelis Chrysolorae epistula adJoannem Imperatotem, Patrologia Craeca, CLVI, 23-
54.
65. Manuelis Chrysolorae epistula, 45.
66. Ibid. He argues, again on archaeological grounds, that the two great columns of
the Forum Tauri and of the Xerolophos must have been great because of the size, bril-
liance, and luxury of the foundations.
67. Ibid., p. 48, possibly a reference to areas abandoned and overgrown by trees and
vegetation.
68. Ibid.
69. The case of the sixteenth century Ibrahim Pasa, a devsirme who collected statu-
ary, is clearly an exception.
70. P. Gilles, The Antiquities of Constantinople, with a Description of its Situation, the
Conveniences of its Port, its Jlubliek Buildings, the Statuary, Sculpture, Architedure, and other
Curiosities ofthat City, tr.J. Ball (London, 1729), 127-130.
71. P. Lemerle, Le premier humanisme byzantin. Notes et remarques sur enseignement et
culture aByzance des origines au Xe siecle (paris, 1971),43-73.
72. C. Manaphes, Ai en Konstantinoupolei vivliothekai autokratorikai kai patriarchikai kai
peri ton en autais cheirographon mechri tes aloseos (1453). Melete philologike (Athens,
1972),56-60.
73. O. Volk, "Die byzantinischen Klosterbibliotheken von Konstantinopel,
Thessalonike und Kleinasien," Ph. D. Dissertation (Munich, 1954), passim.
74. Janin, Constantinople Byzantine, 161-163.
75. Mehmed seems to have had a fascination for ancient statuary, western religious
painting, and a reverence for the Byzantine religious relics. See Raby, "Greek
Scriptorium," 22. Above all, the study and documents in Babinger, Reliquienhacher am
Osmanenhof im XV jahrhundert. Zugleich ein Beitrag Zur Geschichte des osmanlschen
Goldpragung unter Mehmed II im Eroborer (Munich, 1956), Bay. Akad. der
Wissenschaften. Philos.-Hist. Klass, Siztungsberichte, 1956, Helt 2.
76. Ducas (Grecu), 391-393. The Italian Lauro Quirini, who met up with eye wit-
nesses of the sack of the city during his sojourn on the isle of Crete in July 1453,
reports that over 120,000 manuscripts were destroyed during the pillaging of the
Byzantine capital. For this and other references to the destruction of Greek
manuscripts during the capture of the City, see Raby, op. dt., 16.
77. Vryonis, op. cit., 55-78.
78. Manaphes, op. cit., 148 for reference to the edition of the text.
79. Deissmann, op. dt., 24-25.
80. Deissmann, su; 35-36.
81. Raby, op.tit., passim.
82. Raby, op. dt., 21, for the texts.
83. F. Tauer, "Notice sur les versions persanes de la legende de I'editication d'Aya
Sofya," Fuad Kopralu Arm~gani (Istanbul, 1953), 487-494; "Les versions persanes de la
Iegende de la construction d'Aya Sofya," Byzantinoslavica XV (1954): 1-20. See also
Raby, op. dt., 19 and note 29 for further bibliography.
84. Raby, op. dt., 27-28.
85. Raby, op. cit., Passim.
86. Papazoglou, "Ena cheirographo ellenotourkiko tes vivliothekes tes Ayias
Sophias," Nea Estia XIII (1939): 389-391.
87. Babinger, Reliquienschacher, passim.
2
The Ottomanization of Crete
Irene A. Bierman
This study reports on one aspect of the Ottornanization of Crete: the

imposition of architectonic signs of Ottoman Muslim Power upon the
existing Venetian Christian built environment following the conquest of
Crete in the mid-seventeenth century.' If the major cities of mid-seventeenth
century Crete-Hanya, Retme, and Qandiye-are viewed through the
metaphor of a public stage, then what occurred in these cities was the
transformation of those stages to provide a setting in which the creation of a
specifically mid-seventeenth century Ottoman Muslim hegemony could be
dramatized. In short, the Ottoman building program reinforced the political
and religious values of the Ottoman Muslim hierarchy and the political
conditions at the capital and throughout the empire.
The new buildings that signalled this Ottomanization were mesdds, tekkes,
kiUuphanes, and, in special focus here, the cami institutional complex with its
minaret, chronograrn plaque, and, cemetery. These Ottoman Muslim
structures were, in effect, laid over the Venetian Latin-Christian built
environment. (Venetian Crete had been itself constructed for similar imperial
purposes.) Crete is of particular interest among the Ottoman provinces
because two different sign patterns were used to proclaim Ottoman power.
One was external, as it faced the approaches to the cities (mainly from the sea,
but also from the land); the other was internal in that it reorganized urban
spaces to support Ottoman Muslim activities. Both sign patterns reinforced
and supported the will of the Ottoman hierarchy to enforce and strengthen its
rule over the Venetian, Orthodox Greek, and jewish populations of Crete.
Unless a conquered city is razed and rebuilt, the surviving signs, when
considered diachronically, are viewed against the abiding shadows of other
signs from other times and other powers. Therefore, it is in the initial
moment of shift in dominant ideologies on Crete from Venetian Latin-
Christian to Ottoman Muslim that the specificities of the processes of change
in urban space can be partially distinguished and analyzed. This study, in
attempting to .suggest the context of this shift in power on Crete will begin
with a brief historical note that concentrates on the period immediately prior
to the conquest. Then it will describe the urban infrastructure of the island as
S4 Irene A. Bierman
it had been under Venetian control when the Ottomans conquered; finally
the paper will explore the key elements of the process of Ottornanization,
especially the establishment of camis, as they relate to the external and internal
systems ofsigns ofOttoman power.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The history of Crete, the fourth largest of the Mediterranean islands, spans
8000 years. During much of that time, Crete's geographic location made it an
important link in the economic and political structures of neighboring
powers. The current capital, now called Heraklion, was founded in 82iA.D.,
when the Arabs erected a defensive ditch around their new port settlement,
naming it khandaq (ditch). No above ground archaeological remains of this
period have been found to date. The Byzantines reconquered the island in
961 and maintained the capital city, although its name was Hellenized to
Khandax or Khandakos. Little remains in the urban areas from this period,
although traces are found in the countryside. The Franks, who had conquered
Constantinople and thus inherited Crete from the Byzantines, sold Crete to
the Venetians in 1204. They too maintained the capital city, although the
name, reflecting the new language of rule, became Candia. The Ottomans, in
turn, retained the capital city, naming it Qandiye. The names of the two
other major cities on the island, Khania and Rethyrnnon, likewise were
Ottomanized to Hanya and Retrne.
For the Venetians, Crete was a key bastion in the Eastern Mediterranean. It
was an important source of tax income as it exported substantial quantities of
oil, wine, grain, and timber to Europe. The port city of Candia became an
important intermediate point for Eastern Mediterranean goods arriving in
Venetian trading convoys. To protect this valuable outpost, the Venetians
fortified the cities of Candia, Khania, and Rethymnon-one of the largest
Venetian fortresses-and created other fortifications at Seteia, in addition to a
network of smaller installations. These fortified cities and coastal castles ringed
the island with an effective and impressive armor for several hundred years. A
traveler approaching Crete in the early seventeenth century would have easily
recognized these distinctive fortifications as Venetian.
Certainly these fortifications proclaimed Venetian imperial power by their
size and quality of design. The orchestration of the quantities of material and
workers necessary to construct such fortifications represented substantial
political authority. But in the eyes of Evliya Celebi, the seventeenth-century
representative of the then dominant Ottoman ideology, these very
fortifications represented Ottoman, rather than Venetian power. As the
following quotation from his Seyahatname suggests, Evilya Celebi wished his
readers to see these fortifications as representing Venetian fear:
And when in the year [929/1522] Sultan Slileyman ... may mercy and forgiveness be
upon him conquered Rhodes [from the Knights] of Malta, fear struck the hearts of the
The Ottomanization of Crete 55
Frankish Infidels. (The power of the Turk Siileyrnan is revealed. No doubt Suleyrnan
or a Mehmed Khan certainly will come to this island of Crete as welll) And so
thinking, they [the Venetians] fell to dread and terror and made these castles of Hanya,
Retme and Qandiye like the wall of Alexander. 2
Evliya Celebi continues to comment that after Sultan Selim II conquered the
island of Cyprus from Venice, the Cretan Venetian Christians added bastions
to the castle of Hanya in order to fortify it further.t The Venetian sources
confirm the structural fortification of the cities and the island in response to
these same events.
In the end, these fortifications could not withstand the Ottoman attacks.
Although the Venetian population was somewhat disaffected with Venetian
home rule-heavy taxes, harsh punishments, the denuding of forests-they
fought hard against the Ottomans. Khania and Retimo fell in 1645, but
Candia was able to resist the siege for almost twenty-five years until 1669.
One result of this siege pattern was that the conquest created differing
conditions in Candia than those in Khania and Rethymnon. If we maintain
the metaphor of these cities as stages, then the effects of the historical
circumstances produced different actors and audiences for each stage. In both
Khania and Rethimo the Greek Orthodox and the Venetian Latin rite
populations remained. In Candia, however, the conquest-surrender
documents provided for the safe return to the homeland of those Venetians
who remained when the Ottomans took over. Thus, when the Ottomans
entered Candia in 1669, the capital city was virtually empty of actors and
audiences, except for some few Greek Orthodox Christians and Jews. The
situation thus echoed that of the successful siege of Constantinople some two
hundred years earlier where a virtually empty urban space was counteracted
by a policy of repopulation.t On Crete, and especially in Qandiye, the
Ottomans resettled mainly Muslims from their Albanian, Egyptian, and
Anatolian provinces. Even some Christians (mainly Armenians) were settled
on Crete.
VENETIAN CRETE
It is evident on architectonic and archival grounds that the Venetians had

sought to make each of the two major cities Retimo and Candia (especially
the capital Candia) into miniature replicas of Venice, complete with the
primary distinctive features (such as presence of particular forms and stylistic
inflections) of their great capital on the Adriatic.! This task involved the
construction of buildings serving as concrete analogues for the Basilica San
Marco, the Palazzo Ducale, the Loggia, the Campanile, and the Piazza San
Marco.
The corresponding structures and spaces on Crete were small-scale
provincial versions of their Adriatic model; what is of special interest here, is
the apparent fact that the elements of the public urban core in Retimo and
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Candia were composed together according to spatial relationships that in the
main replicated the prototypes in Venice. Despite the constraints of a different
topography on the mountainous island of Crete. the central monumental core
of these Cretan cities was developed to replicate that of Venice itself, thereby
reinforcing and perpetuating Venetian political and religious values and
attitudes by their presence and their spatial relationships. The Venetians
enforced a policy of segregating the Venetians and Latin clergy from the
Greek population who lived predominantly in the interior of the island. The
Venetian urban structures and the institutions they housed helped both to
assure the political allegiance of the Venetians living abroad. and to maintain
their Latin faith.6
These essential architectonic elements and their spatial relationships are
indicated on the sketch plan based on the seventeenth-century Venetian plan
of Candia (pre-Ottoman conquest) made by WurtmUller (fig. 1). The
Candian San Marco and its campanile stand on the east flank of the piazza
(the Candian Piazza della Biade) to the south of the loggia. The plan indicates
the positions of the Palazzi of the Governor and the Admiral to the west of
the public square; a major fountain built by Morosini near the center; the
Fondaco and the old city gate to the south.
It should be noted in making the comparison with the Venetian (Adriatic)
center that the original Can dian central area was near the original main
Venetian city gate in Candia, thereby replicating the position of the Palazzo
Ducale, San Marco basilica, and Piazetta in Venice with respect to its major
urban threshold on the Venetian Canal Grande. The pre-conquest plan as
shown incorporates the subsequent growth of Candia to the south and the
new city walls enclosing new outlying suburbs. Thus. the monumental central
core originally on the city threshold which had in part signaled the
relationship of the state to the sources of economic power. was relegated. by
the time of the Ottoman conquest, to the geographical center of the enlarged
urban area.
The plan of Retimo reveals a modified interpretation of these essential
elements. apparently in response to the topography and senlement patterns.
Here the San Marco Basilica was located away from the main piazza. The
existence of a substantial inner citadel, the Portezza,? which was the original
settlement site. altered the ideal urban topography such that the San Marco
basilica was constructed where the original settlement sprang up. on the
Portezza, The piazza was-located in the lower city of Retimo on the flat land
to the south. which came to constitute the major residential and commercial
area.
Here the piazza is a miniature L-shaped version of the great Piazza-piazetta
system in Venice: in both cases, the piazetta section opens out onto the water
(to the east). Nearby. at the northeast side of the Retimo piazetta stood a tall
clock tower that is no longer extant; it recalls, if not in exact location. at least
the relative size and prominence of the Venetian carnpanile.s
S8 Irene A. Bierman
These central urban cores, which focused activity within a space defined by
certain types of structures, both presented and perpetuated Venetian power.
One element of that power, namely Latin rite, or Roman Catholic
Christianity and its adherents, was reinforced by the presence of a
considerable number of Cistercian and Mendicant monastery foundations, in
addition to the parochial churches supported by the Venetian lords. In all
three cities Franciscan monastery foundations dominated both in number
(two in Candia and Khania and three in Retirno)? and in position within each
city. The churches of these monasteries were usually the largest churches in
each city and located on major land and sea thresholds. Besides the
Franciscans, the Augustinians, Dominicans, Servitius, Crucifixius, and
Benedictines had their own churches in these cities. These were all funded by
donations of local land holdings and support from Rome. Consequently, the
Venetians closely watched these monk-clergy whose first loyalty was to
Rome, rather than Venice.t?
Venetian Roman Catholic Christianity, however, is not only legible in the
presence of the central core replicating the Adriatic capital and in the
presence of other Latin rite churches and monasteries, it is perpetuated also in
the way in which the arrangement of the central core obscured vision and
accessibility to the Greek Orthodox structures that were permitted within the
urban area. The structures and institutions of Greek Orthodoxy were in
general marginalized to the interior of the island, but in Candia, the capital,
the Greek Orthodox metropolitan cathedral of St. Titos, was located just off
the main piazza. Nevertheless, for the pedestrian in the street (the actors on
the stage) the buildings of the Venetian central core obscured direct vision of
St. Titos, and the Venetian street alignment obscured direct access to this
structure. Additionally, Venetian regulations concerning the public use of
writing augmented and reinforced this marginalization. These regulations
called for the effacement of the inscriptions in Greek on the exterior of St.
Titos, and their replacement with writing in Latin.U Thus, although the
denotative message of the words remained the same, the range of
connotations associated with a specific alphabet, Greek script, were replaced
by those of Latin.
OTTOMANIZATION
Ottomanization, the next layer in the archaeology of the Cretan urban

areas, did not eradicate buildings. It did, however, dissolve the prominence
and centering function of the Venetian public monumental core. Some of the
structures forming the core continued to function in similar fashion: the
governor's palace in Qandiye became the saray of the vezir; the loggia became
the office of the defterdar (fig. 2a, 2b).t 2 But in the Ottoman system these
structures lacked the formal qualities and the power persona of the office
holder or resident to give them the place they had in the Venetian system.
Thus, although the structures remained, and their functions were often
similar, their imponance in the Ottoman system did not replicate that in the
Venetian.
Ottomanization, a palimpsest upon the Venetian urban fabric, aimed to
legitimize the ruling elite. Within Ottoman rule, by the mid-seventeenth
century the Sultan's power was being confined, while that of the vezir and
Pll5a households increased. Patronage, which had been dominated by imperial
generosity, was, by the mid-seventeenth century, balanced by the dispensatory
abilities of the vezir and pasa households.P Of course, the effects of these
power shifts were felt throughout the Ottoman empire, but these changes are
highlighted in Crete because Ottornanization was taking place at that
moment.
The nature of mid-seventeenth century Ottoman hegemony was made
clear on Crete through two different systems of legibility, which obliterated
the central format indicative of Venetian hegemony. The external system that
conveyed Ottoman domination was embodied in the siting of the Sultan's
cami with its minaret. This represents a continuity of practice, despite major
shifts in the power structure in the capital and in the provinces. The internal
system was primarily embodied in the presence of many cami complexes
throughout the city that served as centers within the urban fabric for the
acculturation of Ottomans. The patronage of these institutions was indicative
of the shifts in power in the empire; their number (in excess of what was
initially required by the Muslim population) was indicative of their function
of generating Ottoman ideology.
The External System

The external system which made clear that Crete was joined to the
Ottoman empire was effected by the siting of the Sultan's cami. His cami was
located in the most prominent topographic site, and thus with its minaret was
the most visible structure to land and sea approaches to the island's cities. To
all who approached, the Sultan's cami marked these cities as Muslim and
signaled a ruling system in which hegemony rested with the Sultan and his
entourage.
That the choice for the siting of the Sultan's cami had to do with its external
visibility to sea and land routes and not considerations of visibility or function
within the cities is highlighted by comparing the circumstances of Qandiye
and Retme. In both cities, the Sultan's cami is on the highest point, rendering
it readily visible to the sea and land approaches. Yet, from the point of view
of an actor-pedestrian in these two stages, only in Retme can the Sultan's
cami be seen from almost all points within the city. The topographical
differences between these two cities is what makes the Sultan's cami visible in
Retrne and not in Qandiye. The hilly configuration of Qandiye renders the
Sultan's cami visible only when the pedestrian directly approaches the area of
the cami itself. In contrast, in Retme, the Sultan's cami is on the Fortezza,
Fig.2a Contemporary view of Sultan's cami in Retme taken from the city.
separate from the city and raised above it (figs. 2a, 2b) Thus, the inhabitants of
the city, located in the commercial flat plain below the Fortezza, can readily
see the cami. Yet, this topographical configuration that enables the population
to see the cami, simultaneously makes it non-functional to the city's
population by removing it from the central urban area. Moreover, the
government practice of barracking the army in the Fortezza completely seals
access to the cami. Such circumstances suggest how important maintaining the
location of this tami was in creating the external image of Ottoman power.
The siting of the Sultan's cami on Crete functioned as an icon of the earlier
tradition: it represented to external view the place and function of the Sultan
within the urban culture as it had been denoted in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. And yet, while this external position was retained on Crete, it
denoted a different meaning in the mid-seventeenth century. A brief
comparison with earlier Ottoman practices distinguishes the functional
difference of the Ottoman Cretan practice.
The prominent siting of the Sultan's cami that created an identifiable skyline
was a practice of long standing with the Ottoman Sultans. It began in Bursa,
the earliest Ottoman capital, where the Sultans' camis were situated so that
they were prominently visible. It is exemplified most obviously in the final
Ottoman capital, Istanbul. There, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the
major hills were chosen by successive Sultans as locales for the patronage of
communal structures. This siting denoted structures that functioned as a
major center of Ottoman culture within the city. In Bursa, and especially in
fifteenth and sixteenth-century Istanbul, these endowments of the Sultan
generally supported larger structures with more associated functions than any
single other structure in the City.14 While the central formal element of these
structures was a cami with its flanking minarets, the cami proper was only part
of an elaborate complex called kalliye. In these complexes the traditional cami
functions-e-congregational prayer, Friday sermon, Muslim education, as well
as a locus of support for Muslim socio-cultural activities-were expanded and
elaborated. These efforts made functions more diverse. New structures were
needed then and additional personnel to staff them.
This siting practice also connoted a whole range of ideological relationships
in which the Sultan, as a major center of patronage that dispensed power,
exercised extraordinary philanthropic generosity funded by a conquest
economy. Certainly others within the ruling group (for example, the
Timurtas family in Bursa),15 also supported foundations within the urban area.
In fact, although the number of endowments within the city supported by
members of the ruling group other than the Sultan was always greater than
those supported by the Sultan himself, in the fifteenth and sixteenth century
the Sultan's complex, situated so prominently, was arguably more costly and
elaborate than any single other endowment. Thus maintaining the prominent
siting of the Sultan's cami on Crete linked the external presentation of
Ottoman power there with earlier architectural traditions that embodied
primary functions and ideological realities specific to the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. Yet, by the mid-seventeenth century, while the external
sign was maintained, it no longer either denoted or connoted the earlier
functions and relationships.
Fig.2b Contemporary view of Sultan's cami; original minaret is missing.

62 Irene A. Bierman
In the mid-seventeenth century on Crete the prominently sited Sultans'
camis did not denote complexes that served as the major centers within the
cities, nor did they denote the exercise of extraordinary philanthropic
generosity. In fact, as we shall see below, they did not always even denote the
maintenance of a Muslim congregation. Instead, even though the sign of the
Sultan's power was maintained, the largest congregations and the largest
endowments were supported by the members of the vezir and p asa
households. As if to emphasize this point, the size of the congregation
supponed by the valif is a significant theme in Evliya Celebi's account of the
Ottomanization of the Cretan cities. He notes, for instance, that Gazi Yusuf
pasa the conqueror of the City,16 supponed the largest congregation in Hanya
(the first city conquered by the Ottoman forces). In Retrne the largest
congregations were supponed by the qapundan-! derya (Admiral of the Fleet)
Deli Huseyin p~a, the Valide Sultan (Sultan Mother) Kosern Mahpeyker, and
'Ankebut Ahmed pasa, who later became the governor of the liva of
Amasya.i? In Qandiye, the principal congregations were those of the Grand
Vezir Kopruluzade Fazil Ahmed p~a (fig. 1) and the defterdar (chief finance
officer) Ahmed pasa. The role of the Grand Vezir Kopruluzade Fazil Ahmed
pasa as the major patron of the capital city, Qandiye, is indicative of his
dominant power position in Istanbul in the second half of the seventeenth
century. It was he who led the campaign that led to the capture of Qandiye
and the capitulation of the island to the Ottomans.
The change in the denotative function of the Sultan's cami is further
emphasized by Evliya Celebi's detailed description of the Sultan's cami in
'Inadiye, a city built by the Ottomans for the siege of Candia.18 There the
structure called "Sultan Ibrahim's cami" was the only cami within the city
without a congregation. In fact, it did not function as a.cami, but rather as a
storage depot for black powder.t? While this is not the only incident of the
Ottoman's storing powder in mosques (e.g., the Panhenon Mosque, Athens
and the Sukur Bey Mosque, Nigde), the point here is that the external sign of
the Sultan's former power was tenaciously maintained, even while the
denotative function had so radically altered. We could express this relationship
another way by saying that the ideal or fictive relationships were maintained to
external view, while the actual relationships were masked to that view.
The connotative functions of the Sultan's cami likewise changed. The
ideological relationships naturalized by the Sultan's camis on Crete were ones
in which the position of the Sultan as head of state was maintained, but in
which his power was shared by a ruling elite composed of the vezir and p~a
households.s? The Sultan's former ability to dispense extraordinary
philanthropies had been curtailed in the seventeenth century by a changed
composition and configuration of the ruling elite. By the mid-seventeenth
century most of the Sultans (Murad IV was an exception) were vinually
puppets of the ruling elite who had a significant share of the wealth of the
empire. In the mid-seventeenth century the major construction of the cami
was sponsored by the vezirs and their associates not only on Crete, but
throughout the Ottoman empire.s! Thus, by the mid-seventeenth century a
redistribution of the resources of the empire had taken place and although
others shared substantively in the wealth, the Sultan nonetheless endured and
was not impoverished by these changes.
Although the Sultan's camis on Crete conformed to the siting traditions
established within the empire, they were not marked by the presence of
multiple minarets that had indexed imperial patronage in some cities. 22
Rather, they uniformly had one minaret. This lack did not render their
external legibility ambiguous. No Sultan's cami in the Ottoman provinces that
today make up Yugoslavia, Rumania, Greece, and the Balkans was
constructed with multiple minarets or received additional ones. 23 The
relevant populations of the mid-seventeenth century would have readily
understood the priorities of these visual signs. Those who were part of the
Ottoman empire (Muslims, Christians, or Jews), as well as travelers from
outside the system, could not have escaped the signs of Ottoman presence
that dominated so much of the Mediterranean.
Thus what becomes clear in analyzing the practice with regard to the
Sultan's cami on Crete is that maintaining its prominent presence was the
primary external indicator in visually linking this newly acquired territory to
the rest of the Ottoman ernpire.P We could question why it was so
important to hold so tenaciously to this external image when the internal
relationships had so changed, but that is an inquiry for another study.
Nonetheless, the fact that the siting was maintained also had an effect on the
inherited city fabric,
In terms of the urban fabric on Crete, the siting of the Sultan's cami helped
to obliterate the function of the Venetian central core. It affected this shift by
not consistently privileging the site of the San Marco Basilica with its Piazza.
In the capital city, Qandiye, the most prominent topographical spot was not
that occupied by the Venetian San Marco church, but rather the one
occupied by the Franciscan monastery church, St. Francis. The Franciscan
church thus became the Sultan's cami (figs. 1 and 3). In Retrne, however, it
was the San Marco Basilica that became the Sultan's cami, because the San
Marco was in the prominent place in the original settlement of the elevated
Fortezza (fig. 2b). Thus, the requirements of the Ottoman system of external
signs, at variance with the inherited Venetian system, effectively changed the
relationships between areas within the city, and reinforced new, seventeenth-
century Ottoman ones.
The Internal System

The internal system of legibility that proclaimed Ottoman Muslim
hegemony to the urban populations was a palimpsest on the entire Venetian
urban fabric, In some instances Ottoman construction even augmented the
area covered by the Venetians. Ottornanization replaced the centralized
Fig. J View of the Sultan's cam; in Qandiye, taken e. 1900. Gerola.
Venetian core with a series of neighborhood centers at the heart of which was
a cami complex. These were not the only structures and institutions that
Ottomanized the urban setting. Evliya Celebi's account of the conquest
records the Ottomanization process of the island in the mescids, hadith
colleges, tekkes, sebils, cemeteries, and fountains that he specifically
enumerates as transforming the cities from "infidel" to Ottoman. Yet while
he counts all of these other structures/institutions, he records specific details
only about the cami. In his account it is the cami, as well as its patron,
location, and size of its congregation, that affects most significantly the
dynamic process of Ottomanization.
That Evliya Celebi stresses the role of the cami institution in the internal
transformation of the city (as does this study) underscores the centrality of this
institution in providing the conduit for acculturation into the Ottoman
world. And, for the focus of this study, it was the institutional complex that,
by the mid-seventeenth century, displayed the most formally developed visual
indices. Thus it was this institutional complex, of all of those within the
Ottoman system, that had the most potential for palpably changing the stage
set of the Cretan cities. The institution of the cami (in contrast to that of the
meSlid) is important because of the way it supports and sustains Muslim life
and Ottoman culture--as a locus for Muslims to fulfill the requirement for
communal prayer, as the initial institution for childhood instruction
(supporting teachers specifically for this purpose), and as the place of the
Friday sermon, an on-going guide to Muslim living for adults.25 It is through
this institution that Muslims who came to Crete with the Ottoman forces,
those who were soon to be resettled there, and converts from the local
populations were acculturated into the Ottoman Muslim system.
Immediately upon the Ottoman conquest, camis were established in each of
the cities. In all three cities, but especially in Retme and Qandiye, which
were the more important Ottoman cities, the system of distribution of camis
was similar in terms of relative siting of the camis, visual elements of the
structures, congregations, and patronage. In most instances in each of the
cities Latin-Christian churches (both monastery churches and parochial
churches) were converted into cami complexes. It was expedient to do so:
these structures were numerous, and, being the structures of the previously
dominant ruling group, the Ottoman's wanted to supplant them. In many
cases the Roman Catholics who used these structures had left the cities. In
Qandiye, in contrast to Retme and Hanya, almost all of the Venetian Latin-
Christian population had left the city with the Ottoman conquest. The Latin
churches there provided empty stage sets for the Ottoman actors. Such a
practice of appropriation, of course, echoes the Ottoman conquest of
Constantinople, and beyond that, the conquest practices of many groups
throughout history.26
The patterning of the initial new cami construction in each city was limited
Fig. 4 Contemporary view of cami ofKil~iik Hasan p~a.

66 Irene A. Bierman
to two caregories.s? the replacement of a structure on a desired site that had
been damaged by siege, such as the San Marco Basilica on the Fortezza in
Retrne, which became the Sultan's 'ami; or the establishment of a 'ami on a
city threshold site not privileged by the Venetians, such as that of Kncuk
Hasan pasa 'ami on the waterfront in Khania (fig. 4),28 or the Valide Sultan's
'ami by the Tekke Qapusi in Retme.
This study has so far discovered only one instance where a Greek
Orthodox cathedral was converted into a 'ami. 29 However, when the grand
Vezir Kopruluzade Fazil Ahmed p~a converted the basilica of St. Titus, the
patron saint of the island, into his 'ami, he effectively removed all visual traces
of Greek Orthodoxy from the urban areas.3D And, when this cathedral was
converted into a 'ami, the street patteming of the Venetian piazza system was
altered to allow pedestrians direct access and vision to this 'ami of the Grand
Vezir. The population center of the capital city was thus dominated by the
grand Vezir's 'ami along with that of the deJterdar Ahmed p~a whose cami was
the converted San Marco Basilica (figs. 1 and 5).
The architectonic evidence of the pattern of placement of the new
constructions as well as the transformed structures suggests a strategic
orchestration so that these structures would communicate Ottoman Muslim
power and presence to citizens coming into and out of the cities as well as
those who moved through them. That these structures were initially
(immediately post conquest) more important sociologically and ideologically
than for their primary functions is indicated by the number of 'amis which far
exceeded the initial needs of the Muslims. Evliya Celebi's record alluded to
their connotative function when he remarked that in Haniye and Retrne
almost the entire Muslim population was served by three ,amis, and yet at
least double that number were initially established in each city.31 These extra
,amis, especially in the empty city of Qandiye, presumably were established
for generated congregations: those moved to the island by the Ottoman
policy of resettlement (mainly Egyptians, Anatolian Turks, and Albanians) and
conversions from the local populations.x
Ottoman patronage on Crete was present in the structures and institutions
sponsored by the members of the socio-political groups that were specific to
the mid-seventeenth century. Thus the Ottoman presence on Crete was
different from, for example, that of the Ottoman area now called Yugoslavia,
which was conquered substantially earlier. Initial building and the support of
institutions on Crete (,amis as well as all other Ottomanizing structures) were
sponsored by the Sultan, the Valide Sultan,33 and the conqueror of each city
whose position varied, although the Grand Vezir Kopraluzade Fazil Ahmed
Pasa undertook the successful siege of Candia.>' In addition, the a1a of the
yeniferis and the commander of the segban corps of the yeniteris invariably
sponsored 'amis. Others also sponsored structures, although their rank was
more variable. Only a few of these patrons had been members of the
devsirme. Most of them rose in rank in the government by alternate means. 35
Fig. 5 Cami of defterdar Ahmad Pasa, taken c. 1900. Gerola.
68 Irene A. Bierman
The defterdar Ahmed pasa, for example, whose cami was the converted San
Marco Basilica in Qandiye, started his career in the circle of Civizade
Mehmed Efendi. 36 Deli Huseyin pasa, the conqueror of Retme, was from
Yenisehir in Anatolia.P
According to Evliya Celebi, those patrons financed their structures and
institutions by vakfs based largely on local land holdings. This method of
financing was the norm within the empire. Usually money was sent for
endowments only to Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. In assessing the
Ottomanization process on Crete, it must be remembered that the long
conquest process seriously depleted both Ottoman and Cretan finances as well
as manpower. Looking back to that moment, Crete stands as the major last
Ottoman conquest. And, although that would not have been clear to them
then, the devastation of the long conquest was a financial and manpower
reality that must be reckoned with in the transformation of the Cretan cities.
The Ottoman practice of transformation on Crete offers us a special
opportunity to isolate the significative architectural units which
unambiguously communicated Ottomanization to the urban inhabitants.
Given that the majority of camis were transformed churches, Ottomanization
had to involve the pursuance of a policy aimed at creating a semiotic visual
environment of Ottoman hegemony that repeated in condensed form
selective expressive features from an already established system. That little
alteration was necessary to make Latin-Christian churches appropriate for
Muslim use suggests how clearly these significative units distinguished
Ottoman from "infidel," to use Evliya Celebi's word
The qibla on Crete is southeast and Latin-Christian churches are oriented
east-west, thus only slight interior changes were necessary for Muslim use.
More relevant to our purposes here, the facade of the structure as built could
thus remain the facade of the Ottoman cami. How then was Ottomanization
communicated to the urban populations?
Archival and architectural evidence suggests that three main additions to
the exterior of the cami were sufficient expressive elements to convey the
transformation from Christian function to Muslim function: the addition of
an Ottoman shaped minaret; a chronogram plaque and a graveyard associated
with the cami.
The most highly visible significative unit was the minaret, which on Crete,
as usual in Ottoman construction, was placed to the right of the facade of the
cami/church. This placement was also the usual location of the bell tower
associated with most of the Latin churches. In all of the instances that this
study can now reconstruct, the square bell tower was torn down and replaced
with a round tower with a conical top, even though the Latin bell towers
could have served the same purpose as the minaret (fig. 3). How essential this
total replacement of the form of the tower was for an unambiguous
recognition of the tower as a minaret, and thus as an index of a cami, and not
as a bell tower and thus as an index of a church, is underscored by what had
been Ottoman practice in newly conquered Muslim areas. In the eastern
Mediterranean where some minarets from previous Muslim rule had been
square, the Ottomans merely capped the square towers with the conical tops
that communicated Ottoman Islarn. 38
But on Crete, a mere capping of an existing square bell tower did not
create sufficient context for the real utility of the tower to be communicated.
The power of this significative unit is seen from the actions of the de-
Ottomanizing process that came with Cretan Independence in 1898. Bells
were not added to the top of the round Ottoman minarets, rather the whole
round tower was torn down, and a square bell tower was constructed,
The second significative unit-the chronogram plaque-not only marked
each cami, but at the same time linked it to all other Ottoman foundations
throughout the city. Each cami (transformed church or newly built) displayed
a foundation chronogram in a location on the structure conspicuous to the
urban pedestrian. These plaques presented lines of Ottoman poetry contained
in separate frames. The poetry indicated the name of the patron, his/her rank,
and in a chronogramatic last line, offered the date of the endowment. If these
foundation chronograms on camis were the only ones displayed within the
urban area their function as indices of Ottomanization would have been
circumscribed But such chronograrns marked Ottoman foundations (sebiIs, or
fountains, medreses, tekkes, kiUiiphanes) throughout the cities, indexing in their
presence and their content, significant shifts in the urban order that were
intrinsic to the new rule.39
It cannot be suggested that everyone passing these plaques understood from
the chronograrn content the nuances of Ottoman society (although that
undoubtedly happened to some in time who became part of the Ottoman
state), but that the distinctive form of the inscription denoted the
institutionalization of the personified and personalized Ottoman hegemony.
Those who used the cami institution (or the others within the city) knew
through whom the benefits had come. And often patrons sponsored several
institutions. In Hanya, for example, immediately after the conquest of the
city, Mahmud Ala, the segban bQ5i, sponsored not only a cami on the harbor
shore, but also the largest fountain in the city with the chronogram:
Blessings of God, the segban bqi, the praised ata, o(ata_i Mahmutl)
may the all-loving God make his end praised (mahmutl)
'Ali composed this beautiful chronogram for the completion of the fountain:
"0 All-Wealthy God" is added up with two missing year 1073~4o
These chronograrn plaques served to connote that old structures were
serving new institutional functions that fostered Ottoman Islamic hegemony,
for example camis, tekkes, and mescids that were converted structures, It linked
them with newly built Ottoman consttuctions. On another level, however,
these plaques served as symbols of significant shifts in the urban organization
that were intrinsic to the new order. Such is the case with the fountains and
sebilhanes, for with Ottomanization the delivery of water to the urban areas
70 Irene A. Bierman
was supported by vakfs donated by prominent members of the state. In the
Venetian period these water sources were maintained by the central
government.
And, finally, the last significative unit that indicated a 'ami institution, and
thus in part, an Ottoman city, was the cemetery. Continuing traditional
Ottoman practice, the 'ami complex contained a cemetery for the Muslim
notables, usually located outside, alongside of the 'ami structure. Tombstone
styles were typically Ottoman, that is, the head gear indicating the rank of the
deceased person was carved onto the top of the tombstone (fig. 6).41 All those
Muslims and non-Muslims who passed by the 'ami structures would be
reminded of the specific official stratification of Ottoman society by the
distinguishing head gear on the tombstones.
The presence of these graveyards must have been initially very startling to
the inhabitants of the cities, not only because of the difference in the
tombstone practices, but because the siting of the cemeteries was in contrast
to the Venetian Latin-Christian and Greek Orthodox practice. Before the
Ottoman conquest the graveyards in the cities had been located just inside the
land walls, but separated from the population center. 42 Venetian Lords of
significant status were buried under the floor of the San Marco Basilica in
Qandiye. Since the 'ami structures were strategically dispersed throughout
each city, the contiguous graveyards were ubiquitous indicators of continuing
Ottoman presence and the changes brought about by the new power.O The
effectiveness of these cemeteries as indexes of Muslim presence can be
assessed by the actions of the Cretans in gaining their Independence when
they removed all of the tombstones from their locations throughout the city.
In this short study I have concentrated on a number of distinctive and
expressive features of Ottoman hegemony on Crete. My focus has been on
those elements that were externally visible to those who approached the cities
by land and sea routes and those elements that were internally visible to the
pedestrian-actor who walked the Cretan cities. The time frame for analysis
has been set at the immediate post-conquest period, a synchronic slice that
enables concrete examples of the practices of the military, social, and political
power of the Ottoman Empire to be isolated, thus showing the similarities to
and distinctions from Ottoman practices in other provinces and at other
times. Such a focus necessarily passes over many other kinds of expressive
features that are part of the whole visual system, for example the interiors of
buildings. It also minimalizes the rich complexity of the visual panorama of
signs that were part of the Ottornanization process, such as the way distinctive
Venetian material was reused in Ottoman buildings. Although the larger study
of which this essay is a part is in its initial stages, enough has emerged to date
to indicate that a more thorough knowledge of the Ottoman practice during
the seventeenth century must be tied to an increased understanding of the
architectonic and semiotic facets of power.
Fig. 6 Ottoman tombstones in the Historical museum. Heraklion.
NOTES
1. This paper is based on preliminary data from a larger on-going project on the
Ottomanization of Crete that I co-direct with Donald Preziosi. We are grateful to the
Academie Senate, UCLA, the UCLA Art Council, and to the Research Foundation of
SUNY-Binghamton for important initial funding. Edward Mitchell, my research
assistant for this project, is responsible for the Ottoman translations used in this paper,
as well as other significant research help. Donald Preziosi is responsible for all
translations from Greek. We have gratefully received advice and help from a number
of people: Rifa'at Abou-El-Haj, Oktay Aslanapa, Nurhan Atasoy, Jere Bacharach,
Judah Bierman, Howard Crane, Pierre MacKay, Theo MacKay, Baha Talman, and
Speros Vryonis. Preliminary findings from this study concerning the above-ground
archaeology have been published: Irene A. Bierman and Donald Preziosi, "Re-reading
an Urban Text: The Ottornanization of Cretan Cities," in Semiotics 1983, eds. John
Deely and Margot Lenhardt (New York: Plenum, 1985) and Donald Preziosi, "The
Ottomanization of Cretan Cities," in Historual Archaeology. ed. Charles Redman (New
York: SUNY Press, 1986).
2. Evliya <;:elebi. Evliya (:e1ebi SeyahatnlJTfU!5i (Istanbul: Turk Tanh Ecumeni, 1928)
VIII, p. 380.
3. Ibid.
72 Irene A. Bierman
4. C.]. Haywood. Encyclopaedia ofIslam, 2nd edition. (Kandiya) suggests that the
population never did come back. But since the Venetians in Candia had left for
Venice. the question would be one of the Cretan rural (Greek Orthodox) population
moving to the city---a process which took place elsewhere in the Ottoman empire.
such as in Bosnia. Yugoslavia, and Macedonia (Hasan Kalesi, "Oriental Culture in
Yugoslavian Countries from the fifteenth century till the end of the seventeenth
century," Ottoman Rule in Middle Europe and Balkan in the sixteenth and seventeenth.
centures. Dissertationes Orientales 40. (Prague: Oriental Institute in Academia,
Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 1978) pp. 359-404. There is little indication that
the rural population of Crete, which must have been decimated from the long siege,
moved in great numbers to Candia, but the deliberate Ottoman resettlement. policy in
the capital and on the island indicates that the Ottomans sought. to restore the
population number. but not its original constituency.
5. The above ground surveys for this work and the subsequent Ottomanizing
process were conducted in the summers of 1982 and 1983. Preliminary archival work
was begun at that time. In-depth work on Khania still remains to be completed.
although an initial survey was conducted. Unfortunately, what does remain is
disappearing rapidly from the island under the pressures for housing the increasing
number of tourists: even between 1982 and 1983 certain structures disappeared. From
1900-1902 Giuseppi Gerola catalogued the Venetian religious. military, and civil
architecture on the island. The study was published in 1905. Monwnent! Veneti
nel/'Isola di Creta. (Bergamo: Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti) 4 vols.
in 5 pts. The then contemporary photographs and reproductions of seventeenth-
century maps from the Venetian archives are invaluable. The photographs are
particularly important documentation because the island suffered severely in the wars
of this century. Material on the subject can also be found in Dr. Ekrem Hakki
Ayverdi. AlI1Upa'da Osmanll Mimari Eserleri Bulgaristan, Yunanistan Arnawdkluk. Vol.
IV. (Istanbul: Gfinulilk Ticaret Gazetesi Tesisleri, 1982). In this latter work there is
confusion between the monuments of Khania and Candia and all except for one are
inaccurately placed. Also, another work based on Evliya Celebi: Paul Hidiroglou. Das
Religi6se Lebenauf Kseta nach Ewlija <;:e1ebi. (Leiden: Brill. 1969).
6. Beata Kitsiki Panagopoulous. Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval
Greece. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1979) p. 10.
7. For details on the early history see: Markos G. Youmbakis. Fortezza: The History
ofthe Venetian Fortress atRethymnon. English translation by E]. Featham. (Rethymnon:
Rethymnon Public Library Press, 1970) p. 50.
8. The surveys and research for the city of Khania are still in process. The present
evidence indicates that the urban pattern was much the same as in Candia and
Rethymnon. Some variants in the urban pattern are to be expected, however, because
Khania was a major commercial-maritime port city.
9. See tables produced in Gerola, Vol. 2, p. 112, tabulating both churches and
monasteries in the three cities in question plus Siteia and the Orders that supported
them.
10. Panagopoulos. Monasteries in Mediellal Greece. pp. 10, 18.
11. Stephanos Xanthoudides, 0 Naos tou Aghiou Tito«, 2nd edition. (Heraklion,
1974)p.l1.
12. In the Ottoman system the dejterdar is the chief finance officer who is named
immediately after the Grand Vezir. In Qandiye, the capital city, the governor's palace
was reserved for the Grand Vezir K6prillQzade Fazil Ahmed p~a.
13. For an analysis of power shifts within the Ottoman governing structure, see
Rifa'at Ali Abou-EI-Haj, "The Ottoman Vezier and Pasha Households," Journal of the
American Oriental Society 94 (1974): 438-447; and The 1703 Rebellion and the Structure
ofOttoman Politics (Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut, 1984) pp.
6-15.
14. A Gabriel. Les Monuments tures d'Anatolie, Vols. I, II. (paris: 1931-4) and Une
Capitale Turque, Brousse. (paris: 1958) where he details the location and ednowments
of the structures in Bursa.
15. Kara Tirnurtas Pasa (d. 806) was an army commander for Sultans Murad and
Beyazid. The terms gazi and ahi are associated with him. He and his sons and
grandsons served in the Ottoman government (mostly as beylerbeg and vezir) and
supported various foundations in Bursa through valefs. The role of this family in
shaping the urban fabric of Bursa was researched and analyzed by Edward Mitchell as a
graduate paper for my seminar in early Ottoman architectural history, UCLA, Spring,
1986..
16. Evliya Celebi, Seyahatname, vol. VII, p. 383.
17. Idem. p. 383. The details on his career can be found: Mehmed Sllreyya. sicill-i
'osmani, (Istanbul: Matba'a- 'amire, 1308 a.h.) Vol. V, p.223.
18. Evliya Celebi, Seyahatname, Vol. VIII, p. 393.
19. Evliya Celebi, Seyahatname, Vol. VIII, p. 395, states that it was used for storage
in the time of Mehmed IV. But he also states that it was a cami without a
congregation. I wish to thank Howard Crane for reminding me of these other
examples where mosques were used as powder storage depots.
20. See the references in footnote 13 where Abou-El-Haj details this shift within
the Ottoman state structure.
21. For the construction sponsored by the vezirs and associates see Godfrey
Goodwin, A History of Ottoman ArrJiiteclure. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press,
1971) pp. 360-ff. For Crete see Evliya Celebi, Seyahatname, Vol. VIII. Hanya, pp.
383-84; Retme p. 391; 'Inadiye p. 395; Horasanoglu Tekkesi p. 396; Qandiye pp.
501-515. Again, I wish to thank Howard Crane for advising me on this section.
22. The presence of multiple minarets as an index of the Sultan's patronage of cami
structures is a complex issue. Multiple minarets, initially two, began to be constructed
on camis sponsored by the Sultan or added to earlier ones in the mid-fifteenth century.
This rough date indicates the programmatic construction of multiple minarets, isolated
earlier examples can be found. After the completion of Sultan Ahmed's cami in
Istanbul in 1617, and the long hiatus in cami building, only sporadically did later
constructions have two minarets, e.g., the Nur-u Osmaniye cami completed in 1755
and the Pertevniyal Valide cami completed in 1871. The implications that can be
derived from the locations of the structures with multiple minarets is another issue that
needs study. Certainly not all Sultans' patronage everywhere was indexed by this sign
and certainly not all structures marked by this sign were large complexes. We may
find, for instance, that only structures where the Sultan was likely to appear and pray
were marked by this sign. (Obviously, not every mosque that he might possibly visit,
but specific ones in those specific cities where tradition made it appropriate for him to
visit.) And, finally, in terms of assessing the functions of multiple minarets-especially
in considering their connotative functions-it would be interesting to investigate the
specific circumstances involved in the construction of Muhammed Ali's cami in Cairo.
74 Irene A. Bierman
His anachronistic use of the Ottoman Sultan's minaret code in tandem with other
policies of his rule provide insights into the issues of the social history of the time.
23. These assessments are based on the evidence presented in Dr. Ekrem Hakki
Ayverdi's four-volume work on Ottoman Europe published under the collective title,
Allrupa'da Osmanll Mima,i Bsesles! (Istanbul: Fetih Cemiyeti, 1974-1982) and the
following articles: Godfrey Goodwin, "Ottoman Architecture in the Balkans," AARP
9 (1976) 55-59; Richard 1. Lawless. "Albania-the Legacy ofTurkish Islam," AARP 9
(1976): 60-67; Stefan Stamov, "Les Monuments Islamiques sur les Terres Bulgares,"
AARP 9 (1976): 68-74. The various Sultans, however, sponsored very few camis in
these territories; instead, sponsorship of such complexes was usually left to others
within the ruling structure of the state.
24. For the functioning of power in elements of architecture see: Oleg Grabar,
"Palaces, Citadels and Fortifications," in A,chitectu,e of the Islamic World, ed. George
Michell. (London: Thames & Hudson, 1978) pp. 48-80; and especially on minarets,
Oleg Grabar, "Symbols and Signs in Islamic Architecture," A,chitectu,e as Symbol and
Self-Identity, Proceedings of Seminar Four in the Series Architectural Transformations
in the Islamic World, Fez, Morocco, October 9-12, 1979. (Philadelphia: The Aga
Khan Award for Architecture, c. 1980) pp. 1-11, esp. 9-10; and Dogan Kuban,
"Symbolism in its Regional and Contemporary Context," Architectllre as Symbol and
Self Identity, Proceedings of Seminar Four in the Series Architectural Transformations
in the Islamic World, Fez, Morocco, October 9-12, 1979. (Philadelphia: The Aga
Khan Award for Architecture, c. 1980) pp. 12-17, especially pp. 12-13.
25. On the effectiveness of this institution see Lawless, "Albania," note 23.
26. The Ottomans often reused religious structures transforming some into camls
(such as Aya Sofya and Kariye camQ and some into other kinds of uses (Aya Irene, for
instance). F.W. Hasluck in his two-volume work Ch,istianity and Islam under the
Sultans. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929) devoted a whole section to expedient
conversions of religious structures.
27. Later re-building, such as at the vezir's cami in Qandiye, is not considered here.
28. This cami was begun by the segban btl§i, Mahmud Aga , and completed by KU~uk
Hasan p:l§a.
29. At this stage of the research it is hard to document just how many Orthodox
Church structures existed. Venetian records contain evidence that there were meeting
houses, but no formal churches in Candia except for the cathedral. The ancient
Bzyantine church in Candia, early on in the Venetian period, was taken over by the
Latin bishopric. Evliya Celebi, Seyhatnamesi Vol. VIII, p. 515, says (referring to
Qandiye) that many deir were converted. But it is impossible to separate what deir
(temple) might mean in his writing in relation to the distinctions between Roman
Catholic and Greek Orthodox structures.
30. The history of this basilica is complex. The Grand Vezir took over the original
St. Titos for his cami, but when the original structure was destroyed in an earthquake
in 1856, the cami was rebuilt in the traditional Ottoman domed form in 1872 by the
architect Mousis. It functioned as a cami until 1923 and was transformed into the
Greek Orthodox church of St. Titos in 1926. Venice has recently returned the relic
head of St. Titos which the Venetians took from the city when the Ottomans
conquered.
31. Evliya Celebi, Seyahatname, Vol. VIII, p. 383.
32. What is at issue here is the initial conquest period, when the Muslims on the
The Gttomanization of Crete 75
island would have been limited in number. That number rapidly grew, not only
through conversion, but by state policy of moving Muslims from elsewhere onto the
island, Egyptians, Anatolian Turks, and Albanians were brought to the island. Thus it
is not a surprise that the 1860 census, Huseyin Karni Hatavi, Gi,it Tl2rikhi. Vol. I.
(Istanbul: Muhandis Oglu Ohanasin Matbaasinda Tab'oglunmu~tur, 1288.), reports a
great growth in the number of Cl2mis in all of the cities (Hanya, p. 51; Retrne, p. 53;
Qandiye, p. 55). This census also reports that the original three sancaks into which the
island had been daivided were modified into five: Hanya, Esfekiye, Retme, Qandiye,
and Lasid.. p. 18. This census also provides information about the functioning churches
and monasteries and the location and numbers of the Christian population as of the
1820s.
33. The Valide Sultan did not sponsor a cl2mi in Hanye, but did so in Retme and
Qandiye,
34. Gazi Yusuf pa~a, the conqueror of Khania, and Deli Hnseyin pa:la, the
conqueror of Retme, were both qapudan-i derya (Admiral of the Fleet) at the time of
conquest. Mehmet Silreyya, sicill-i 'osmani. Vol. 4, p. 658 and Vol. 2, pp. 193-94.
35. See footnote 13 for a detailed analysis of the shifts in the mid-seventeenth
century.
36. Sllrreya, s.o., Vol. 1, p. 223.
37. Stlrreya, s.o., Vol. 2, p. 193-94.
38. See especially Dogan Kuban, "Symbolism in its Regional and Contemporary
Context," pp. 12-13.
39. Many of these chronogram plaques are still in sitv. The plaques on the ctlmis that
were converted to use as Christian places of worship have been removed, but those on
Cl2mis now used for "secular" purposes, like the dance hall in Rethymnon, still display
the original chronogram, both on the section that was the Cl2mi and on the associated
klltQphane. In general, drinking fountains still display their chronogram plaques.
40. Evliya Celebi, Seyl2hl2tname, Vol. VIII, p. 383. Note the play on the name
Mahmud as the patron and the word "praised," The last line is the chronogram. By
adding up the numerical equivalents of the letters and adding two-with two
missing--the date is reckoned.
41. In the de-Ottomanizing process the tombstones were removed from the
graveyards, and many seem to be collected into one depot in each city (at the
Archaeological Museum in Candia, for instance which is built on the site of the
Sultan's mosque). The mausoleum structures for some of the special ~eyhs of the
tekkes which are reported by Evliya Celebi and for later periods by Hasluck seem to
have totally disappeared without trace.
42. Occasionally there were additional cemeteries just outside the land walls.
43. Evliya Celebi also mentions the tombs of the warriors felled in the conquest.
These tombs were sometimes located outside of the walls of the city under siege. We
currently can find none of these tombs. Some tombs of dervish ~eyhs from the
eighteenth century still exist, or existed in 1983.
3
Power and Social Order
The Uses of the Kanun
Rifa'at A. Abou-EI-Haj
Kanun, from the Greek word for rule,names "the tabulation of

administrative regulations" through which the Ottoman Empire was
governed. In some senses, the kanuns were not unlike the urban structures of
Ottoman cities: they embodied the dominant institutions of the society. They
expressed, and also enforced, the power relations of that society. The
monuments organized the spaces of community life and the relations that
could be acted out there. In a comparable way, the kanuns organized political
and social relations; that is, they legitimized roles and actions available in
social groups. Yet, in many ways not available to formal urban structures, the
kanuns were not only instruments of Ottoman social order, but also, in my
view, instruments of class domination. In this paper, I will explore the social
uses of the kanuns and related documents of Ottoman rule focusing on the
transition period 1600-1800.
My concern is not limited to the kanun as a body of administrative
regulations. It extends to the concept itself, the concept of a constitutions-like
body of regulations. For we tend to look at such documents as fixed,
unchanging, embodying permanent rights, in a word, monolithically. Yet one
cannot properly discuss the kanuns without noting, first, that they were in
reality "regulations" superimposed on the fundamental law, the seri'at.
Scholars have perceived the relation between seti'a; and kanun as a tension
between abstractions. But it is more useful for the historian to start with the
premise that the dialectical tension is social in origin. The tension is better
described as rising between contending social and political groups. Each
group delineates concepts of their rights as true, precedented and even God-
given. Each group uses the precepts, premises and precedents from the seti'at
or kanun to oppose the political claims by the others, for both are social
contenders for the same role in Ottoman society.
Secondly, it is important to remind oneself that though the form of the
kanun, like the forms of urban structures, reveals a continuity, as we shall see
by focussing on this transition period, over time, there are significant changes
in the actors who govern and in the quality of their actions. Especially during
78 Rifa'at Ali Abou-EI-Haj
the 17th century, new ideas, reflecting among others the influences of
changing class relations, are carried in these old forms as they move the
society toward its more modern forms reflecting capitalist production and
nation-state politics.
In this paper, I have used a historical evolutionary frame, possibly sketchy,
concentrating on the changes made in the central transitional period.
Unfortunately, there is not space enough for the density of detail desirable,
but I have sought to include some summary commentary en route. I begin
with a brief note on the classical period, go on to the developments that
define the transition, and move toward a test of the thesis in modern times.
Finally, also by way of introduction, let me note that the kanun should not be
conceived as law in our modern sense of the term. Modern law is, or at least
is supposed to be, coherent, abstract, universal, equitable, blind (to color, race
or class) and transcendent (above abuse by class or creed). If the kanun are not
like modern laws or constitutions, we need to ask what else in Ottoman
literary legacy resembles the modem form, function and concept of the law.
For Ottoman writers tried to understand and cope with change in their own
contemporary society, economy and politics. We will find these attempts in
one of the oldest of literary genres, advice to the prince literature, which the
Ottomans called nasihatnameler.
THE KANUN IN EARLY MODERN HISTORY:

THE KANUN AS REGULATION
In early modem times the Ottoman kanun represented no more than a set
of administrative and fiscal regulations. These sets, such as the liva
kanunnameler (provincial tax codes), were issued periodically and revised so
long as the Istanbul-based elite could rightly claim control through a sixteenth
century consensus that had been achieved within that class.' (This view of the
law as regulation applies also to contemporary England and France or even
Russia.) The forms of the kanun we encounter in the sixteenth century, for
example, are the just mentioned provincial tax codes or liva kanunnameler and
the" kavanin-i aal-t Osman "-the latter, consisting mainly of codified
bureaucratic regulations intended to provide a sense of uniformity and
coherence to asuperstructure of central administrative practices. Whether by
organization, content or practice, the two code-sets were given coordination
by their common goal of facilitating the flow of surplus from the ruled to the
ruling class. 2
More than half of the examined entries in eighteen sixteenth-century Iiva
kanunnameler consists of lists, providing definitions for general and provincial
taxes, from whom they were to be extracted, and the various circumstances
for their derivation.I Specifically, for example: what were the dimensions of a
peasant's parcel or "cift," those of the half-parcel or "nirn-cift," what was
"the nearest market" (to which produce-tax was to be carried by the peasants
Power and Social Order 79
in delivery of their timar-imposed or "feudal obligations"). Further, they also
included the rates for the taxes to be paid on other "sources" of income and
what forms these took, whether in kind (on the land) or in coin (on the
person), for the dzye or personal status, and on those who were married or
single and for infractions or teraim in violation of the kanun).4
The political organization that produced this form of the kanun was rooted
in a major social division between rulers and ruled. In the Ottoman case,
irrespective ofsocial or political function, all members of the ruling class were
called asken, a military designation, while almost all others were called re'aya
or producer-subjects. These designations in the early modem form of the
kanun reflect the class shape of the contemporary state. The askeri, or rulers,
served both as legislators and executives. The segregation and separation
assured autonomy only for the upper political strata. However, unlike the
modem state, the early state was neither transcendent nor autonomous; it was
a class state. The ruling class spelled out the obligations of the ruled subjects,
and there was no assumption that the subject could be self-governing.
The economic organization parallel to this class-state formation was
"feudal," i.e., timar-based, (referred to also as feudal throughout this study to
differentiate it from the modes of production which emerged later). The
surplus extracted came mainly in kind and was delivered directly. Here we
have the clearest indication of the rulers perceiving themselves as possessors of
the juridic rights to impose, regulate and collect the surplus product. As long
as the timar mode of production was dominant, regulations such as the general
"kavanin aali-i Osman" and the liva kanunnameler were not only produced but
continued to be reproduced. 5 In that sense, they were effective as well as
current.
In Ottoman political theory, however, even the beneficiaries of the
extracted surplus were not considered the owners of the land. After all, public
or min lands were considered inalienable, held in trust by the rulers on behalf
of God and the Muslim community. Neither were the cultivators the actual
owners of this land, according to the same theory. De facto, however, they
inherited and passed on to their progeny the right of cultivation. Except for a
small amount of surplus for paying taxes (in kind and in coin), production in
the timar mode aimed at individual or household sustenance. This class-state
form survived into the second half of the sixteenth century.s
THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD:

THE KANUN AS AD HOC REGULATION, 1560's-1800
To understand the change in the use of kanun that characterizes this period,
we need first to delineate the economic transformation which Ottoman
society experienced, starting from the later part of the sixteenth century.
Simply stated, no single mode of production was ascendant; rather, there
were experiments in several modes taking place all at once. To compound the
80 Rifa'at Ali Abou-El-Haj
difficulties in analysis and understanding, we find cases where the new modes
appear under the guise of the old forms. It was a period of widespread
experimentation in social, economic and political forms, and all the
institutional forms that were reproduced tended to reflect this transitional
state manifesting parallel social, though not fully clear, lines of differentiation.
Inasmuch as the emergence of the modem state formation as autonomous,
i.e., separate from the ruling class, coincides with a change in the mode of
production from the feudal one, primarily based on the timar mode of
production, to one based on production for the market, it is useful to assume
that these parallel changes are related and are best apprehended in light of the
ultimate, but successful emergence of capitalist social relations and their
accompanying political formation, the modern, nation-state.
One can sense the direction, but also the difficulty, in this interpretation by
noting that a corollary characteristic of the new commercial economy was a
change in the ownership of the means of production. In the Ottoman case,
the shift was neither immediate nor final. There were several gradations in the
ownership of real private property that eventually ended with the rise of
commercialization or "mobile property." It is only with the final appearance
of the full-bodied nation-state that there took place an apparent total
separation of the political or state organization from the economic (capitalist
mode of production). The modem state is supported by taxes and does not,
ideally speaking, participate or interfere in the mode of'production.?
We turn now to what is probably the most obvious case in the evolution
toward private property and commercialization. We draw this example of the
"corruption" of the feudal or timar-ziamet form from the middle of the
transitional period, from the decree ofJanuary 11, 1695. Through it, the bases
for holding Royal Lands in Syria, Aleppo, Diyar Bekir, Mardin, Adana,
Malarya, Ayntap, and Tokat were changed. Previously, the right to collect
land tax on Royal Lands had been sold at auction to the highest bidder.
Those who bought the right to collect the tax were sold this right for a
period of one or two years at a time. The ostensible reason for this change in
the condition for selling these tax-farms is that the earlier type of sale for a
short period of time exposed the peasants and the Royal Lands to all the
obvious abuses. Unfortunately, the Imperial Treasury was in need of
immediate ·cash payments because of continuous wars with Austria and her
Allies in the Holy League.s It was felt that the sale of tax farming privileges
for life would both reduce these abuses and add ready cash to the Treasury.
This same decree stipulated that, henceforth a life-long (rnalikane) right to
collect land taxes from Royal Land Holdings would be sold at auction to the
highest bidder. The bidding was to start from the average sum of two or three
years' income which accrued to a tax farmer out of the gross sum of land tax
collected from the particular holding being auctioned. The proceeds from the
auction were to be paid to the Treasury in Istanbul. The payments by the
highest bidders did not exempt them from their obligations to pay a part of
the proceeds of their collections to the Imperial Treasury?
The decree of 1695 demonstrates the evolution through several stages of
the process that ultimately turned min land into malikane, a stage just short of
turning public, state land into private property. but retained at some point a
feature of an investment or "mobile property" (in the form of a life-long
lease). Simultaneously, however. it evokes a new form of tax or revenue
collecting on behalf of the central state. In this role the investor tax-farmer.
although working for himself, also took on a role akin to that of a modern
tax-collector. The commercial dimension of this tax-farming source is
perhaps attested to by its sale at auction to the highest bidder. Finally. the
bidding on the pan of the tax-farmer must have been predicated on his faith
in the future continuation of the society and political organization. with an
expectation of a profitable return on his investment.
There are grounds for confusion over the relationship of tax-farming such
as the malikane and appointment to office. At some points, it appeared as
though compensation for holding office in administration was paralleled by
some kind of pay or income from the land (or revenue source. such agUmriik.
excise tax). In fact that was the case when it came to tax farming. Since tax-
farming was a financial transaction for the highest bidder. as much as it was
for the central authorities, those who held office while they acquired tax-
farms did not lose their tax-farms once they fell out of favor and gave up
posts.t? The continuity in holding the malikane lends support to the
contention that from the point of view of the investors, the malikane was seen
mainly as an investment. and therefore not contingent on the performance of
official duties.
In addition. there are instances late in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. of outright official grants of min or public land as private property.
Both 'Ali and Kocu Bey comment on this fact, and we have evidence of
sultanic grants of t.emlik (in perpetuity) for the latter pan of the seventeenth
century.t! The appearance of private property at this early stage predates the
better known official alienation of large tracts as private property in the
eighteenth century.12
As with the economy, the lines of division separating societal groups were
also getting diluted and rendered confusing for some contemporaries. From at
least the second half of the sixteenth century. and armed with the "classical"
social and political forms as their guides, contemporaries begin to complain
how hard it was becoming to differentiate and separate one social group or
"class" from another. For instance, 'Ali, late in the sixteenth century and
Kocu Bey in the first half of the seventeenth century express frustration at the
blurring of the social lines that separated the producer-subjects or re'aya from
the ruling elites or askens. They seemed equally confused by the dissolution of
what once were the adab. "protocols." that had set apart one class from
another. Not only were individuals who were not entitled to now donning
swords and riding horses. but also those who did not belong to certain classes
were "buying" their way into them, some literally so, others through
influence. To add injury to insult, these "investors" were found ensconced in
the middle of certain classes of society, though ignorant of why they held the
positions they did. Guided by their own values, they rendered into caricatures
the offices they came to hold. Thus the new sipahis knew not what their
"bought" positions stood for. Instead of retaining a spartan military existence,
as did the sipahis of yore, the investor-sipahis, flaunted their "new" status by
inordinate expenditures on elaborate equipment (in silver and gold) that
ultimately served more for show than for combat.
Evidence of the dissolution of lines of social differentiation can also be
illustrated from documents of the late seventeenth century. One incident
related by the chroniclers points to the spontaneity of the phenomenon. Late
in 1680's, at a low point in Ottoman military fortunes, the incumbent
Yeniceri A~a invited the learned ulema to shed their robes and enter the ranks
as actual warriors. The leading ulema spokesman at the time lectured the
Yeniceri commander: "your business is to preserve and protect the people
who reside within the Islamic lands and to repulse the enemy who occupies
Islamic lands.... We [the ulema] are bound to our business of applying and
facilitating the Prophet's canonical laws to forbid and impede the violators of
God's people and preserve their rights in conformity with the requirements of
the 5eri'at against those who do not uphold God's Commandl"13 With this
declaration, he had insisted on the sanctity of the "social" divisions of each
order of society, as if these were foreordained. Within twenty years from that
incident, complaints were again recorded, this time against further erosions in
social differentiation. This time the perhaps more serious charge was made
that it was becoming difficult to distinguish between men and women and
between Muslims and eimmis (non-Muslirnsj.i-
As they lamented the passing away of the authenticity and the purity of the
social, economic and political forms of what they thought were the glorious
days of Ottoman civilization, Ali and Kocu Bey proved themselves to be
I
acute observers of their respective contemporary scenes. They both singled

out the "corruption" of the old social, economic and political forms. But
since both had personal and social stakes in maintaining the older forms, 'Ali
and Kocu Bey might be judged incapable of evaluating, let alone admitting,
the importance of the evolved new ones.
These "new" economic and political forms were especially important for
their effect on the kanun. We have just observed that up to the middle of the
sixteenth century, in early modern times, the kanuns were issued as both
general and specific regulations for conditions and under circumstances which
the central ruling elites thought they controlled. Then, it may be recalled, the
Ottoman Empire was a class-state that was capable of issuing more or less
enforcible regulations. Even the governors of the far flung Ottoman domains
were expected to heed the commands of the political center, Istanbul.
In circumstances when the governing situation was reversed, and with less
cohesion within the ruling elite, there was a gradual dissipation in internal
political control over the Ottoman domains by Istanbul. Under these new
circumstances, hardly any new, general (central or provincial) kanun
regulations seem to have been generated. Those that were _ _ either
drastically modified or if reproduced had little immediate, significant or
enforcible relevance. (That they continued to be reproduced in one form or
another, in spite of their seeming irrelevance for the moment of their
reproduction, points to a significant new utility that will be studied and
analyzed in the last section of this study.)
Since the transitional period was characterized by a flux in economic, social
and political organization, the kanuns or regulations which were issued tended
to reflect this fluidity. The specific regulations tended to be almost
immediately, if not instantaneously, modifiable in content, application and
magnitude. What these kanuns seemed to have had in common was that they
were issued as emergency measures. They were tailored to meet the
perceived needs of the moment by those in power. For example, in one of
the enactments to create order for the fluctuation in the magnitude of an
extraordinary tax, the regulation dated 16 R.I., 1108 (October, 1696) reads:
"In the previous years, there has been entered, from each sometimes 500 akce
each, some other years 700 akce each and yet a third time, 10,000 akce as
'bildar bedel.?' This amounts to an increase from a lower fourteen to a full
twenty fold. (The full text is in Appendix I below.)
fluidity in use of the kanuns became a major issue in the political or nearly
"constitutional" struggles of the late 1600's. Almost immediately after taking
office in 1696, Mustafa II, d 1703, strove to stem the loss of power by certain
elements of the ruling class of Istanbul, temporarily reversing a half century of
diminution in royal prerogatives by a dominant oligarchy. To that effect, he
issueda decree for a more uniform, stableand consistentapplicationof the kanun.
The contemporary looseness in the exercise of the kanun served Mustafa II
as an occasion to resolve, in his favor, the prevailing political struggle. Since
in general the seti'a: was nearly always used as a constitution, empowering the
Ottoman sultans to reign and rule, Mustafa II tried to assert his prerogatives to
regain "absolute" political control by appealing to the canon law. In the
language of the order, the ad hoc usage of the kanun, was to end by bending
(ta'tif') it (to conform) to the ~eri'at. [See Appendix II for text of Sultan's
decree.] Given the prevailing and continuing pattern in the erosion of royal
prerogatives over the previous half century, Mustafa II's decree of 1696
amounted to a radical "constitutional" amendment.U
Halil Inalcik, however, chose to emphasize in this same occasion the
culmination of a seventeenth century pattern of contraction of the "scope of
the kanun ... to the advantage of the ~eri'at ... and (saw) the influence of the
Seyhulislam in state affairs progressively increase(d)... ."16 By making it
representative of an abstract and general pattern in the transformation of the
kanun in light of the ,eri'at, Inalcik leaves out of consideration the political
84 Ri!a'at Ali Abou-El-Haj
struggle between the Sultan's faction and the dominant political oligarchy
which occasioned Mustafa II's move.
It may be recalled that the political form commensurate with the
transformation in the economy was ultimately a loosely held state formation
managed by an oligarchy within the ruling class. There were secondary stages
when Istanbul held on, more or less, to the claim that it possessed control
over the provinces by virtue of its position as the center of administration.
'Ali and Kocu Bey subject this change in the later sixteenth century and first
half of the seventeenth to close scrutiny. For the second half of the
seventeenth century, the "historian" Naima makes a concerted effort not only
to account for this shift in political power, but to defend the crystallization
into an oligarchic, grandee power (especially illustrated by his patrons the
KOprUlas).l7
But in the eighteenth century the continued fragmentation of central
power resulted in the rise oflocal dynasts who deprived the capital both of its
material resources in the form of revenue and of its political power. It is not
surprising to find that the dynasts were drawn from the "investors" who had
consolidated by various means their rnalikane and fifllik holdings. But these
merchant investors were "minimalists" as administrators. Since they thrived
on commerce, they were early advocates of laissez faire as much in
administration and politics as they were in economics. By the end of this
period, Istanbul became more and more dependent on the provincial notables
for revenues to sustain it, and on provincial militias to defend it against
external enemies.P
Earlier, we noted that one of the major economic symptoms of this shift
was a growing separation of the state from the economy. Whereas in the
classical period the political form appeared as a class-state, allowing no
differentiation between the rulers and their political or coercive power to
impose their will as direct extractors of surplus (the sultans had their estates
from which they obtained direct revenue), in the transitional period, the state
was set on a course of achieving liquidity by adopting numerous forms of
revenue collection. Along with ad hoc and "only as needed" assessments from
all classes of individuals and groups, the state resorted to frequent changes in
the traditional taxes, by extraordinary and sometimes arbitrary assignments in
cash taxes. We also noted earlier special provisions, added to tax-farming, that
turned the tax farmers into part-time collectors of revenue on behalf of the
central treasury.
In sum, by the end of this period, a pattern had developed allowing the
central state to bow out of direct interference in the social relations of
production. Although it protested otherwise some of the time, in the main
the state left these in the hands of the long term investors. Simultaneously, it
was also mortgaging its future revenues by the sale of the miri lands as tax
farms, whether on short term contract or for life, as in the case of the
rnalikane.
This outline of state formation in the transitional period is deliberately
oversimplified. For in this same period, the coexisting and contradictory
political and economic tendencies seemed at times to pull seventeenth and
eighteenth century Ottoman society in two diametrically opposed directions.
In spite of the fragmentation of power at Istanbul, there is an evolution in
outline of a structure for a centralizing political formation. It is already
possible to identify several characteristics of the modern state and its
administrative apparatus. First, a specializing bureaucracy that saw the
separation of the sultan's personal household from those of public affairs.
Second, the narrowing of the roles of certain offices, such as the reisUlkiittab
that turned more and more to the conduct of foreign affairs. Third, the
highly refined bookkeeping practices in the financial registers, and the
licensing of physicians and surgeons after they had to submit to and pass
commonly held public examinations.i?
Also suggestive of modern state preoccupations was the insistence on
territorial "sovereignty" within well defined and actually demarcated linear
borders.P The border zone, which fluctuated to several miles in width, gets
narrowed by the mutual agreement of Ottoman sultans and their neighboring
dynastic states such as the Hapsburgs and Romanovs. With the closure of
these zones, peaceful international border crossings become occasions for the
devising of unilateral agreements. A state system had developed in the
seventeenth century, to which Istanbul became a partner, through which
mutually devised international agreements were put in place for regulating
growing commercial transactions, especially in the eighteenth century.21
Perhaps paradoxically, the evolving modern state formation was paralleledby
the already noted decline in Istanbul's economic and coercive capabilities. The
central authorities' material base had shifted from the direct gathering of
revenues from public lands (inalienable or min), once the prerogative of the
sultans, to a losing scramble for extracting taxes on private or semi-private lands,
as these same public lands were transformed into several and various gradations
of private property. Locally, the political consequence of this economic
transition toward commercialization of production and the state's growing
dependence on others to provide it with its revenue, was the above noted
fragmentation of imperial power, and a virtual loss of control by the center.
The resulting political vacuum in the provinces was filled by local elites,
recruited mainly from the reluctant merchants and investors (tax farmers).
Being essentially investors, they took on minimal political power, attested to
by their unenthusiastic expenditures on administration. Instead of providing
well-equipped armies, they raised militias who were appropriate only for the
simple maintenance of local security necessary to facilitate commerce. This
ambivalence toward the taking of political power is in part explicable by the
considerable amount of contraband commercial transactions in which they
participated, in violation of the more and more stringent central
governmental prohibitions.
Nevertheless, these local dynasts governed, for more than a century, quite
autonomously from Istanbul, at the economic, political and even diplomatic
levels. Neither to them nor to their contemporaries, however, did their
loyalty to the center seem to waver. By the end of the 18th century, except
for the Wahhabis, no significant all-encompassing ideology had emerged to
seriously challenge Ottoman imperial claims. Partly due to the doubts about
the legitimacy of their positions, the dynasts seemed to protest their loyalty to
the sultans by requiring from Istanbul imperial patents of appointment and by
the reproduction of the classical culture and civilization of Istanbul. Since
some of them had actually usurped power, the imperial patent and cultural
identification with Istanbul seem to lend imperial juridic support to their
mini-regimes. However, as the evolving modem state structure at the center
began to take solid shape, approximately from the beginning of the
nineteenth century, Istanbul was able to reassert its hegemony over the
provinces. That a political struggle had to ensue would indicate that the
stances taken by both the central government and provincial leaders were
from the beginning quite ambivalent.P
THE EARLY MODERN OTTOMAN

CONSTITUTION (DUSTUR)
If, as we noted above, the kanun does not approximate in meaning the term
"law," as it is known today, were there any sets of Ottoman literary writings
that approximated the denotation of the modern law, i.e., that spelled out
protection of rights or even privileges?
The models for the kind ofjuridic historical materials we seek are like those
which resemble not so much the Magna Carta and other parts of the English
unwritten constitution as those economic, political and moral tracts by
pamphleteers, commentators and purveyors of advice and opinion from the
16th through the 18th centuries in England and on the Continent. A famous
and prominent example among these is Machiavelli's Prince. We find these
materials in the nasihatnameler.
The Ottoman genre of the nasihatnameler first appeared in the second half of
the 16th century, continued into the 18th, proffering advice parallel to the
ones produced by their counterparts in contemporary Europe. To illustrate
this point, I only refer here to one common theme shared by the two genres.
From both sides, some of the writers describe, as they decry, the growing
"corruption" in contemporary political, social and economic life as their
respective societies were abandoning the quietist assumptions of the
"medieval" modes for the more aggressive, disruptive and dissolving
commercial ones. Incidentally, another underlying but corollary sub-theme of
the phenomenon of commercialization is that of the delegation of authority
and the consequent social specialization.at These same writers expressed
regret over the passing away of the responsible or "integrated" man whose
material base was secured by private property. For some of these writers, it
was this individual, secure in his material base, on whom society could count
for spontaneous and honorable social service.
The contrasting corrupted and corrupting "personality" is one displayed by
the merchants who had taken the place of the civic minded class of subjects.
The merchants devoted their energies not to social service, but to self-
enrichment. The business of the public, or politics, is delegated to others who
become specialists in it. The political specialists, in tum, seem to invariably
subordinate to their own secondary interests the primary public ones,
ultimately ursurping power to serve that end 24
To illustrate the phenomena we turn again to two acute Ottoman
observers, from the late sixteenth century, 'Ali, and from the first half of the
seventeenth century, Kocu Bey. Both express difficulty in assimilating into
their socio-economic and socio-political framework, the specialists that the
kul yeniceri or standing army had become. It would seem that the root
problem was the dev~irme whose primary goal was the creation of a class of
specialists. Its sole purpose was "government" in the widest sense:
administration and soldiering. The pay for these specialists was in the form of
cash "salaries." In the older order, there was no distinction between the two
categories of service, since the sipahis were not only administrators, but were
also the askeris.
The chief distinction between the new military class of administrators and
the old, is that the new class was from first to last, "created" to specialize in the
military, cum administration, i.e., its function was strictly political. The old
military class, according to the elaborated set-up of Kocu Bey, was composed
of individuals whose integrity and virtue were derived from the stability that
the timar provided and whose loyalty can be depended upon since they were
derived from the producer-subjects or re'aya. Unlike the "alienated" ones
who become specialized, the sipahis had fulfilled, all at once, economic, social
and political functions. Because they were integrated, or whole, they could be
counted to be responsible, loyal and civic-minded. Their material anchor,
according to Kocu Bey, was the feudal or timar system. Exclusive monopoly
over the feudal lands and hereditary entrance into the class of sipahis made
them stable. In contrast, as outlined earlier, the kul class was paid in cash.
For both authors, specialization bred corruption, since it meant that
function was assigned by favor, not by "right" or etiquette. Hence, the
primary path for assignment to public positions or favor was the intisap, or
influence, that pervaded every sector of state, society and economy. It is
specialization, then, which actually breeds corruption.
To raise cash to pay for the kul specialists, the real property of the sipahis
(and the hass) was turned into mobile or liquid property. Miri lands were thus
converted into a source of revenue to keep up the specialists, the kuls,
Therefore miri land became the final resort to generate the revenue to pay for
the kuls. Since the primary assets of the state were in the form of miri lands,
over time, more of these were alienated.25 This alienation of min land meant
that these assets were viewed progressively as potential investments. Indeed,
through the technique of tax-farming, public lands were turned into mobile
property as the demand for revenue grew.
It is our hypothesis that the underlying theme of the nasihatnameler was a
dialectical one delineating the difference between the timar-based feudal
economy and commercial capitalism. The authors of these tracts, however,
expressed this conflict in the form of a discourse in social psychology which
pitied the "virtuous" sipahi against the corrupt and undependable merchant.
But these are not the dimensions of the nasihatnameler which were emphasized
by the latest social users. Indeed, the dimension which they dwelled upon was
a more literal reading that focused on the political rights of the elites, seen as
general "bills of rights." We turn now to this mirror or advice literature (the
nasihatnameler) and others focussing on rights within the dominant class
structure.
Discussing the early modern kanun, we started with the assumption that the
form of the law is predicated on the historical reality emanating from a class-
state. Therefore the social elements of Ottoman society most likely to have
rights, or to be self-consciously aware of having title to them and to demand
them for themselves were members of the ruling class. This ruling class made
no pretension to equality for all classes of society; rather, the ruling class saw
itself as directly controlling the means of coercion or violence as it regulated
the lives of the re'aya or producer-subjects. Whereas the nasihatnameler became
a literary mechanism for advocacy, defense and definition of the rights of the
ruling elites, the re'aya had none. They consistently appear solely as producers
whose primary responsibility consisted of providing the requisite surplus for
the upkeep of the ruling class. Thus no historically evolved sets of juridic
rights are penned on their behalf.
Indeed the lists of the appropriate punishments for infractions against the
regulations usually occupied a prominent place in the codes. (Called ceraim =
not crimes but infractions or violations. Examples abound in the liva
kanunnameler and in the "kavanin-i aal-l Osman"). Here there is no notion of
equity (following the oft quoted, "verily We created you into social sectors or
social 'classes' "= wa inna khalaqnakum tabaqat"), The re'aya took the lower
rank as each layer of society or tahaqa was given its designated place in the
order ofsocial, political and economic functions.26
Because the ruling class made no pretensions to social equity, discussions of
subjects' rights must be seen as pertaining only to members of the ruling class.
Often these tracts favor changes in support of certain rights of one faction
within the ruling elite over against another. Under these circumstances, these
Ottoman writers felt bound to spell out only their own faction's rights and
privileges. Their literary products became political tracts that reflected the
political philosophy of the writers and their patrons.
The ruling class solicited the support of the lower classes of society only in
the very exceptional cases, and only if it had nearly total control of the
outcome. Otherwise, e.g., in the rebellions of 1687 and 1703, the lower
classes were associated with chaos (cumhur).27 In the tracts, the main concern
of the writers was expressed as the guaranteeing of the re'ayas ability to
reproduce themselves. Thus justice for the producer-subjects or re'aya is
coached mainly in terms of the self-interest of the ruling class.
The re'aya were the sector of society to suffer the most dislocation of life
and livelihood during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is,
therefore, not coincidental that already in the second half of the sixteenth
century after Suleyman Kanuni, an instrument for the "protection" of the
te'aya, called adaletnameler, was a more common issue than the kanunnameler.
Inalcik avers that the adaletnameler were meant to "... clarify and sanction the
provisions of general kanun-names, and to prohibit abuses in connection with
them. "28
During this period, the shift to the treatment of min land as a direct source
of actual (cash) income, and the commensurate shift to commercial capitalism,
led to change in the life of the producers. Compounded by growing
insecurity in the countryside, their reaction to the pressure on them to
continue to produce was met partially by a marked flight to urban centers,
resulting in a steady growth in city populations (growing urban). Part of the
pressure on the peasants came from the privatization of public lands.
Like the "kaoanin-i aal-i Osman," the political tracts seem to acquire
relevance, even beyond the specific time and specific context of their initial
production. For an illustration, I would like to discuss one juridic use, from
the early part of the twentieth century. The occasion was the reproduction,
through printing in a scholarly publication, of the "kavanin-i aali Osman." It
took place at a time when the last generation of Ottoman political "thinkers"
was conducting what proved to be the last experiment in the building of a
modern state, based on an historically evolved constitution.
In his publication of the "kauanin-i aal-I Osman," the editor, Mehmed Aref
(1290/1873 - 1335/1916) gave a completely modern meaning to these
ancient codes.29 He introduced the texts with the idea that the codes formed
the elements out of which the Ottoman national identity and character were
forged. In that instance, he was referring to the "kavanin-i aal-I Osman" that
were issued during the reigns of Fatih Mehmed, of Suleyman Kanuni and
some of the sultans of early seventeenth century. He approaches them in the
following manner: "what one encounters in these aforementioned kavanin is
the nature of the forming of our national identity. . . ," i.e., the Ottoman
national character in formation. (The Ottoman formulation is quite awkward,
reflecting the difficulty the editor found in coining the right phrase, term or
formulation for a new political concept: "... mezkur-i kanun tabi'at-i
milliyemizin takarnuli ... docar olmus ....").
Mehmed Aref's approach to the significance of the kavanin is at best
anachronistic. It is part of the groping for evidence in support of the new
nation-state. It is out of such manipulation of this juridic past that an
"unwritten constitution" is usually concocted.
In reality, the "kavanin-i aal-t Osman" provided early modern structural
organization for Ottoman society and polity up to the end of the sixteenth
century, for the regulation ofsurplus extraction from the producer-subjects or
re'aya. Because of their narrow reference to conditions to the fifteenth
through the seventeenth centuries, the kavanin were insufficient in and of
themselves for a juridic framework to support a nation-state. To supplement
the kavanin, and provide historically relevant annotations and explications,
Mehmed Aref turned to the nasihatnameler. He used all the standard advice
literature, including the works ofLutfi Pasa, 'Ali, and Kocu Bey.
Ostensibly, he sought these documents for their help in a more precise
definition or clarification of certain aspects of the kavanin. However, by not
reading these documents as political tracts Mehmed Aref participated in the
process of perpetuating the politically charged claims of these documents. He
read them not as arguments for one or another political cause, but as objective
and accurate Ottoman contemporary history. In this way Mehmed Aref was
grafting on the kavanin these "bills of rights" intended to define rights once
held or imagined by certain factions of the Ottoman ruling elite against the
claims of others within the same class.
Furthermore, Mehmed Aref had attached on the kavanin those features of
the nasihatname political tracts without regard to the initial purposed goals of
their authors. Conveniently enough for the editor, some of the authors of
some of the nasihatnameler claimed that they were simply reiterating the
principles and even some of the detailed specifics contained in the "kavanin-i
aal-i Osman." In other words, the earlier authors could be seen as already
viewing the kavanin as a written framework for an Ottoman constitution. The
tracts writers' own contributions were therefore presented as if they were
mainly clarifications of the historical reality.
Mehmed Arefs reading of the kavanin through the filter of the nasihatname
has a further implication. The coupling of the kavanin with the nasihatnameler
may be understandable when viewed within the context of the time of the
republication of the codes (kavanin), from 1911, and through the newly
created, but scholarly agency, the Ottoman Historical Association, Tarih-t
Osmani Encumeni (T. O. E.). After all, it could be argued simply that the
Association (T. O. E.) was attempting to introduce the writing of a "new
history" based on the study of primary edited documents. Some founding
members of the Association and chief contributors to its journal were
Ottoman officials who had gone into early retirement from state service at the
beginning of the second constitution period or me5fUtiyet.
At a minimum, we could say that by publishing these documents Mehmed
Aref was laying the ground for a claim of an "historical" Ottoman
constitution, made to define historically the elements that went into making
the Ottoman national character. After all, it was "fashionable" for modern
states to base their legitimacy on an historical constitution (written or
unwritten was not at issue). Before concluding, we suggest that the
publication of the "kavanin-i aal-i Osman," annotated by the nasihatnameler as
bills of rights, represents in part a continuation in the effort by elements of the
last generation in Ottoman society to justify their emerging national identity
along "traditional" lines, as other "nationalities" were inventing their own
contrasting or competing theories.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
In this essay, my intention was not to embark on a comprehensive study of

all the possible social uses of the kanun throughout Ottoman history. Instead, I
concentrated on three varieties from three contrasting periods. The minimum
goal of the essay was to demonstrate that the kanun was a flexible mechanism
to which various social groups resorted at different times for different, and
sometimes, contrasting purposes.
During the classical period, through coherence in the exercise of political
power and based on consensus within the ruling class, an effective
bureaucratic structure was fashioned to provide cohesion and a mechanism for
setting up both imperial governance, i.e., on a large scale, and provincial, on
the domain levels. Through the instruments of the "kavanin-i aal-l Osman"
and the liva kanunnameler, the ruling class regulated and enforced the
extraction of the surplus product in a comparatively uniform and consistent
manner for the benefit of soldier-administrators, as it set up the rules for both
a local and an overarching administrative hierarchy.
Although in the transitional period, 1600-1800, the kavanin and the liva
kanunnamler were kept on the books, they had lost their effectiveness. In this
same period, the form of the state changed reflecting a commensurate
transformation in the mode of production. The centralizing role ofthe class-
\tate in the classical period gave way to rule by oligarchy, especially
characterized by a loosening hold of the center's political and economic grip
over the provinces and culminating in the rise of the dynast-run semi-
independent principalities of the eighteenth century. The state at Istanbul
became more and more dependent on cash revenue derived from the
conversion of public land into a variety of tax-farms, culminating in their
alienation into semi-private property and sometimes into outright private
property.
In this period, not untypically, perhaps, the centrally issued kanun were
kept on the books, helping to retain a theoretical claim for suzerainty by the
center. The lack of coherence in government management coincided with a
flexibility and fluidity in the day to day use of the kanun. By the end of the
eighteenth century, government regulation, especially of taxes, took on an ad
hoc tum that amounted to arbitrariness. No new comprehensive codes were
issued during this period. Instead, the society produced the nasihatnameler, as
general but parallel extra-juridic devices. These purported to elaborate and
clarify, as they tried to account for, the historical evolution in the political,
economic and societal norms. Besides trying to provide a "blue-print" for a
new coherence, in their detailed "analyses" of the changes which Ottoman
society underwent, they helped in outlining, perhaps inadvertently, the social,
political and economic claims at different times of the various dominant
elements of the Ottoman ruling elite.
Finally, we noted, for the twentieth century, a totally different social use for
the kanun. In one of the very last imperial attempts at legitimating the
Ottoman past, the kanun, supplanted by the nasihatnameler, were merged for
the formation of an Ottoman national character. In addition, the
amalgamation of the two forms served as a framework for an Ottoman
constitution. What should not escape our attention is that the discovery of a
juridic affinity between these "ancient" sets of documents, coincides with the
second constitutional monarchy. Here we credited Mehmed Aref with the
connection.
In the construction of an historical foundation for an unwritten Ottoman
constitution, it was neither the internal nor the specific contents of the
kavanin or the nasihatnameler that had immediate social relevance. The form of
the kavanin that would have twentieth century social pertinence is its claim to
a continuous and perpetual structure, encompassing jurisdiction over all
Ottoman domains. Whatever juridic and "practical" unity the far flung
Ottoman territories had were derived from these Istanbul-based regulations.
The earlier sultans had codified the kavanin to give coherence for a uniform
central administration of the empire. Some of the nasihatnameler which
Mehmed kef turned to in the annotation of his edition of the kavanin
centered on restoration of what the contemporary authors had proclaimed as
historically evolved rights of certain "sectors" of Ottoman society. It is the
"bill of rights" dimension of the form of the nasihatnameler that is relevant for
social expropriation by Mehmed AreC
Since research on this part of the study is in its early stages, we can only
suggest these non-exclusive tentative hypotheses. The early twentieth century
emphasis on the unitary dimension in the form of the kavanin and the "bill of
rights" one from the nasihatnameler become handy juridic instruments
pertinent for at least three obvious contemporary trends:
1) the centrifugal national liberation movements based in presumed ethnic
homogeneities. Mehmed Aref can argue that there was a historicity to the
Ottoman claims to the domains they held;
2) the potential "republican" trend which would depose the Ottoman
dynasty. (Surely, Mustafa Kemal was not the inventor of the "republican"
option which he took shortly after the end of W. W. L) Mehmed Aref
reiterates the reference to the phenomenon of the codes as "Kauanin-i aal-I
Osman," with a special emphasis on the latter part of the phrase, namely, aal-I
Osman, the House of Osman. (Incidentally, invariably the term aal, or the
Arabic house, is attached in Ottoman usage to the Prophet's family. With this
emphasis the Ottoman dynasty received a parallel sacrosanctity.) Perhaps not
strictly coincidentally, the Ottoman Historical Association, the publisher of
the kavanin, did not only receive the padishah's or imperial patent, and had
the Ottoman princes declared ex-officio or honorary members, but was also
the beneficiary of the Ottoman sovereign's private purse. Thus by turning to
the "Kavanin-i aal-l Osman" as juridic evidence of the historical, indeed
natural unity of Ottoman domains, Mehmed Aref was at the same time
pointing out the currency, the legitimacy, and the continued relevance of the
sovereign and suzerain rights of the House of Osman;30
3) the absolutist trends. With the use of the nasihatnameler as supplementary
documents to illuminate the meaning of the kavanin, Mehmed Aref had
elevated them into historically accurate documents. At the same time he lent
support to the claims enunciated by several generations of nasihatname writers
as the autonomy of the sipahis. In this sense, Mehmed Aref, like several of the
nasihatname authors, had no illusions about either the appropriateness or
advisability of the return of the sipahis to their position of power, or the
return to the feudal or timar-ziamet mode of production. (Unless we want to
regard this as a completely rhetorical device, without purpose or social
utility.) There were of course nasihatname authors who did not see the return
to the sipahi and the feudal mode of production as the final panacea for
contemporary ills. This was especially the case with Lufti Pasa, thrice the
grand vezir for S11leyman Kanuni. Indeed, his advice is for the opposite, i.e.
the autonomy of the grand vezir, the specialist, in the conduct of state affairs,
as free from the interference of the courtiers as from any other quarter. Here,
there are no freedoms for any class or group, since in fact the grand vezirs
were expected to be divinely guided and inspired, acting "for Allah, in Allah,
and for Allah's sake." It is here where the emphasis on the seti'a: amounted to
a claim to royal absolutism. This also signifies the importance of the
scounterpoint: the secular freedoms or rights of the sipahis, as those were
enunciated by some of the authors on the nasihatnameler.
In no way should the emphasis on this political utility of the reproduction
of the kavanin diminish the purely scientific purposes of their reproduction;
after all, the internal content of both the kavanin and the nasihatnameler point
to historical significance at the time of their respective production. In this
sense, the reproduction by the kavanin by the Ottoman Historical Association
fulfilled one of its missions: the facilitation of a modern type of historical
research. This mission of the Association would require of the contemporary
researcher to put aside the form and focus on the internal and historically
specific contents of the reproduced documents. As far as I know, however,
the adaletnameler were not republished by the Ottoman Historical
Association.st
The positive reclamation of the Ottoman imperial past continued as a trend
right into early Republican times and only came to a formal and abrupt end
94 R!fa'at Ali Abou-EI-Haj
with the termination, first of the sultanate and then of the caliphate by
Mustafa Kernal, AtatUrk. Yet despite his efforts to rewrite and "remake" the
history of modem Turkey, the continuity in this positive identification with
Ottoman imperial claims has not abated. In total sincerity and without any
sense of irony, to this day, these retrospective historical projections are
occasionally encountered in the second half of this century even by some of
the most ardent and "aristocratic" of modern Turkish republicans. But an
exposition of the social uses of that latter-day historical reclamation lies
beyond the scope of the present study.
NOTES
*Over the last three years, my familiarity with the issues of the kanun and its
significance have been enhanced and deepened by a continuing dialogue I have had
with Cornell H. Fleishcer (Washington University, St. Louis). He has generously
shared with me in manuscript form several articles on the uses of the kanun in the
sixteenth century. In his recent book, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire,
Princeton, 1986, he devotes the substance of one whole chapter to the phenomenon
of the kanun. During the discussion of my preliminary presentation of this paper at the
CIEPO symposium in Pees, Hungary, my colleagues Sinasi Tekin (Harvard
University) and Gilles Veinstein (l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris)
favoured me with their constructive criticisms. Andreas Tietze (Wien) and Sureyya
Faroqhi (Middle East Technical University, Ankara) have read an earlier version of this
paper and their substantial comments have helped me clarify my thinking on major
points of substance.
This is part of a larger ongoing project examining Ottoman political thought 1600-
1800.
1. The consensus within the ruling class and its significance for the sixteenth
century is discussed briefly in R. A. Abou-E1-Haj, "The Nature ofthe Ottoman State
in the latter part of the Seventeenth Century," in Andreas Tietze, (editor), Ottoman-
Habsburg Relations, Vienna, 1985. See also Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the
Ottoman Empire, The Historian Mustafa 'Ali (1541-1600) Princeton, 1986.
2. The most important of the "kavanin-i aal-i Osman" were published as separate
additions, 'ilave, appended to the Ottoman historical journal, as "Kanunname-i AI-i
Osman," Tarih-I Osmani EnCTlmeni Meanu'asi. 1911 and 1913 among others.
3. The most recent up-to-date discussion and evaluation of the significance of the
/iva kanunnamler is by Heath Lowry, "The Ottoman Liva Kanunnames Contained in
the Defer-i Hakani," TheJournal of Ottoman Studies. II, Istanbul, 1981. This article has
an appendix which coordinates the unpublished list discussed by Lowry with the
published ones in Orner LOfti Barkan, XV ve XVI lnti ASJrlarda Osmanll
Imparatorliilunda Zirai Ekonominin Hukuki ve Mall Essaslan. Birinci Cilt, Kanunlar.
Istanbul, 1945.
4. The liva kanunnamler consulted are for eighteen Ottoman livas in the Fertile
Crescent. In a forthcoming study Society, Production, Trade and Taxation in the Ottoman
Arab Provinces, I discuss these codes, based on unpublished copies, supplemented by
Barkan, ibid. See also R. A. Abou-E1-Haj: "Society, Production and Taxation: Mosul
in the Sixteenth Century," in Proceedings ofthe Second International Conference on Arab
Power and Sodal Order 95
Provinces under Ottoman Rule. Tunis, Spring, 1988 and "Production, Trade, and
Taxation in the District of Basra (Iraq) in the Sixteenth Century," Majallat al-Buhuth
al-Tarikhiya orJou,nalJor Historical Research. (Tripoli) 1983 in Arabic.
5. The liva kanunnameler were reproduced to guide the collection of taxes. See
especially Heath Lowry cited above.
6. Cornell Fleischer's current studies challenge even this late chronological
designation for the "classical" period.
7. The most recent and provocative work on the parallel developments in England
of the 17th and 18th centuries is by].G.A. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce and History.
Cambridge (England), 1985. See especially chapters 3, "Authority and Property," and
chapter 4, "The Mobility of Property and the Rise of Eighteenth Century Sociology."
8. I first discussed this decree and its implications in The ReisiZlleilttab and Ottoman
Diplomacy at Karlowitz. (princeton University. Ph.D. dissertation available through
Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1963). For the war and the negotiations for peace
see ibid. and idern., "The Ottoman Methods of Negotiation: the Karlowitz Case,"
Der Islam, 1974; "The Closure of the Ottoman Frontier in Europe," Journal of the
American Orie~tal Society. 1969; and "Ottoman Diplomacy at Karlowitz, ''journal oJthe
American Oriental Society," 1967.
9. A copy of the decree of January 11, 1695, is found in the financial defter or
register, Istanbul.: Basbakanhk A~ivi, Maliye Defteri, 3423, 6a-7b. Rasid, RQJid Tarihi.
Istanbul, 1282. II, 288-11 has partial text, but deletes the shortage in cash as a motive
for promulgation.
10. For example Rami Mehmed lost his post as the reisillkilttab, but not his malikane.
For a detailed biography of Rami Mehmed's early career, see Abou-EI-Haj, The
Reisillkilttab and Ottoman Diplomacy at Karlowitz.
11. 'Ali and Kocu Bey refer often to the conversion of miri into mulk. Rami
Mehmed, the seventeenth century reisillkattab, was awarded temlik by imperial decree.
For instances of temlik during the imperial formative years, see O. L. Barkan, Tilrkiye
Toprak Meselsi. Istanbul, 1980, pp. 231-280.
12. For example, the Calili family of Mosul was given tracts of land encompassing
several villages in the eighteenth century. See the forthcoming Ph.D. dissertation on
that Ottoman province by Dina Khouri Rizq (Georgetwon University).
13. The occasion is discussed in Rifa'at Ali Abou-El-Haj, The 1703 Rebellion and
the Strwdure oJOttoman Politics. Leiden, 1984,28, n. 89.
14. 1680's encounter reported in Defterdar Mehmed Efendi, "ZUbdetul-vakayi,"
Istanbul: SUleymaniye Kiltilphanesi, Esad Efendi no. 2382,ff. 173b-174a and Rasid
Efendi, Tarih-i Rajid. II, 90,92. The incident reporting the violations of dress codes
reported in Defterdar "Ziibdetul-vakayi," 399a and 40la (D. II, 1114). Repeated
almost verbatim in "Anonymous History," Berlin: Staatbibliothek, Diez A Quarto 75,
ff. 186a and 189a-190a.
15. Inalcik, "Kanun," E.I.2 and "Suleiman the Lawgiver and Ottoman Law,"
Archivum Ottomanicum, 1969. Cornell Fleischer, "From Shehzade Korkud to Mustafa
'Ali: Cultural Origins of the Ottoman Nasihatname. 1983, forthcoming. For the
importance of the moment of "publication" of this decree, see bibliography in notes 8
and 9 above.
16. "Kanun," E.I.2, 560a.
17. That there were other grandees is argued by Rifa'at Ali Abou-EI-Haj, "The
Ottoman Vezir and P3$a Households, 1683-1703: A Preliminary Report," Journal of
theAmerican Oriental Society, 94.4, 1974 and in The 1703 Rebellion.
18. The latest effort in explaining the rise of the 12)'12" is by Engin Deniz Akarh,
"Provincial Power Magnates in Ottoman Bilad al-Sharn and Egypt, 1740-1840."
Forthcoming in Proceedi,.gs of Seco,.d I,.teml2tio,.l2/ Symposium ofCERPAO-ACOS. The
Social Life of the Arab Provinces in Ottoman Times. Tunis. 1988.
19. The separation of royal household from those of the public took place in the
middle of the seventeenth century. It along with the growing specialization of the
office of reisil/Teattl2b are discussed in R. A. Abou-El-Haj, The Reisil/kUtl2b l2,.d Ottoman
Dip/om12'Y I2t Kl2r/owitz. My observations on the maIiye financial registers are based on
the examination of numerous entries and varieties of documents for a decade and a
half of the latter part of the seventeenth century. Here, especially well kept and
accurate were the entries for the payments and installments due to the central treasury
from the ml2likd,.e tax-farmers. The licensing with lists of the physicians and surgeons
from Istanbul. is in Basbakanlik A~ivi. Miihimme defteri 111. pp. 4-6: The preface to
the entry reads: "imtihan olunup yecllerine izn tezkiresi verilen attibanin asamileridirdi
zikr olunur == the names of the physicians who had obtained licenses upon having
passed the examinations." At the end of the entry. following the listing of the names
twenty-five physicians. the next entry reads: "imtihan olunip intihab olunan
cerahlarine asamilerini izn verlimstir beyan olunur == the list of those licensed as
surgeons having been so chosen upon passing an examination." There follows a list of
28 surgeons. The list ends with the following quotations: "Istanbulda ve Uskudarda ve
Galata ve Tophane ve Kasem Pasada ve Haskoyde olan atiba ve cerahin ba'd al-
imtihan intikhab olunup izn tezkiresi verilan atiba ve cerahin defteridir == the register
of the physicians and surgeons who had obtained licenses. having been chosen after
they had taken examinations. (and now) residing in Istanbul, Uskudar, Galata,
Tophane, Kasem Pasa and Haskoy districts." Dated: Beg. Zil-hicce, 1111 == May,
1700.
20. G. N. Clark. The Seve,.tee,.th Century. Oxford, 1947, discusses the question of
linear borders in early' modem Europe. William NcNeill, Europe's Steppe Frontier.
Chicago, 1964. discusses the growing tendency of the states in Eastern Europe to fill
the border zones. Rifa'at Ali Abou-El-Hsj, "The Formal Closure of the Ottoman
Frontier in Europe: 1699-1703," journ121 oj the Americl2" Orie,.tl21 Societ),. vol. 89.3,
1969, indicates the first demarcation of linear borders in Europe following the treaties
ofKarlowitz-Istanbul with the Ottomans.
21. Especially see the forthcoming work of Ilber Ortayh, "Ottoman Habsburg
Relations. 1740-1770 and Structural Changes in the International Affairs of the
Ottoman State." Paper given at CIEPO symposium, Vienna. 1983. and "Reform of
Petrine Russia and the Ottoman Mind," paper given at CIEPO, Cambridge, U.K.
1984. 1985-86. and Rifa'at Ali Abou-El-Haj, The ReisillleUttdb l2,.d Ouoma« Diploml2'Y
I2t Kl2rlowitz, 1963 where I first suggested that the office of reisillTeattdb portended the
evolution of a ministry of foreign affairs; "The Closure of the Ottoman Frontier in
Europe," joum121 ofthe AmenCl2ft Orient121 Society, 1969; "The Nature of the Ottoman
State in the Seventeenth Century." Ottoml2n-Hl2bsburg Rell2tiom. Vienna, 1985. Andreas
Tietze. ed.; and "Pitnah, Huruc 'ala al-Sultan: Social Resistance and Political Conflict
in Ottoman Society of the XVII C .... Proceedi,.gs oj CIEPO Cl2mbridge, U.K. 1984
Symposium. Istanbul, 1986. Halil Inalcik, "Military and Fiscal Transformation in the
Ottoman Empire. 1600-1700," Archivum Ottoml2,.i",m. 1980.
22. See note 18 above for the work of Engin D. Akarh, In a personal note,
Professor Akarh suggests that Mahmud II managed to gain support from peasants and
artisans in his struggle with the ayan. However. there are other factors which had to
be taken into consideration that must have convinced at least some of the merchant-
investors and some of the provincial elites that a modem centralized state would serve
their interests. Given the competition from Europe which was brought horne to some
of them, some times by military force, but mostly through competition over the local
markets, the modem centralized state with secure, defined and protected borders
would be their best defence.
23. I am currently engaged in the study of the parallels in political thought in
contemporary Ottoman and European history in early modem times. The examples
from Europe are found in Pocock, Virtue, Commerce and History cited in note 7.
24. Discussed also in Pocock, ibid. The main general study of European political
thought is by Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought. 2 vols.
Cambridge, 1978.
25. Douglas Howard, MESA 1986, WAyn 'Ali Efendi and the Literature of
Decline." Howard maintained that in accordance with 'Ayn-i 'Ali's observations the
sipahis had the following proportions of timars: several years prior to 1558: 63%; in
1558,53.9%; 1576,19.8%; and in 1600 less than 10%.
26. This is argued especially in the 17th c. by alim Yahya Efendi, who had been
invited along with the ulema to shed their robes of learning and join the soldiers as
warriors or gazis. For reaction and a composite biography of his political intrigues and
activities: Silihdar, Tarih, II, 359, 475, 565-69, Defterdar, "Zubdet," 177b, 216a,
277a-b; Rasid, Tarih, II, 90-92, 116-118, 166-168. Cited in Abou-El-Haj, The
Rebellion of 1703. pp. 28-29, n.
27. Both rebellions are discussed in R. A. Abou-EI-Haj, ibid.
28. Inalcik, "Suleyrnan the Lawgiver and Ottoman Law." A. 0., p. 135.
29. I consulted the Tarih-i Osmani Encumeni Meonuas: (T.O.E.M.) version of the
Kavanin-i Aal-I Osman. The clues for the suggested reading I am proposing in this
section of my paper are contained in the introduction to the appendix or in Ottoman
the extra or "'ilave," to the printed T.O.E.M. version. The Introduction was written
in 1330 A. H. or 1911, by Mehmed Are£ (His father, Mustafa Efendi, was known as
Konyali, translated from Arabic into Turkish, "Anwar al-Lughat wa Azharul-kalimat,"
written in Krim in the era of Kaplan Giray b. al-Haj Selim Giray. He was a teacher
and then inspector of schools for the ministry of education.) Mehmed Aref was born
at 10 a.m, 20, R.I1., 1290/1873, a Monday (Haziran or June, 4th). He taught Turkish
at Fatih's Miilkiye Rusdiye medrese and then moved to the maliye to become a
mumayiz. With the me§rutiyet or ma§rutiyet, (the constitutional monarchy or
constitutional regime 1908-1918, see Niyazi Berkes, Secularization of Modern Turkey),
he retired in 1327/1909, at age 36, and died 1335/1916 (at 43). Upon the creation of
T.O.E., he was declared a founding and permanent member of the T.O.E.
(T.O.E.M. vol. I, p. 8 in 1329/1911). Listed as "formerly maliye nezateti mumeyizi (n).
. .," he was appointed as the T.O.E. h4iz-i athar (preserver of records) or archivist. He
has several articles published in T.O.E.M. on general history of Ottoman empire
especially on 12th c. A.H.)
30. The "Introduction" to the first volume of T.O.E.M.
31. Inalcik reports that: "The Ottoman sultans after Suleirnan I published 'adalet-
names instead of kanun-names and their content became more and more elaborate.
Even the proclamation of the Hatt-i Sherif of 1839, which open the Tanzirnat period
of reform, can be linked with this tradition." A. 0., 136.
APPENDIX I
Ad Hoc Tax Rates: (Mallye Defleri 10304, pp. 14-15).
I. PART I.
The petition of the unworthy servant is the following:

In as much as in the past during campaign years, according to what was required,
the kadas of Anadolu Vilayet, some years from each hane 1,000 akceh each other years
from each hane 700 akceh each and yet others as well from each hane each and from
those who were mu'af, from each nefer 10,000 akceh as bildar bedel, these have been
entered in the mavkufat defteri.
For the years 1106, 1107 and 1108, of the 58,938 hane that are listed today from
each hane the amount of 600 akceh was (entered), and in the kadas of Hoceli Sancak,
the haneler that are ocaklik, there are 660 1/4 haneler, the amount of 300 akceh each
was collected. And from those without hane, from each nefer, 600 akceh each. And of
those who were exempt in lieu of service, of these the three hundred and one (301)
nefers who were so admitted by PART II. "According to the said summary the ahkam
(ordinances or enactments) had been authorized": 26 R.I., 1108 (October, 1696).
PART III.
In the kazas of the eyalet of Anadolu there are today 59, 3031'4 haneler,
In the previous years, there has been entered, from each hane sometimes 500 akceh
each, some other years 700 akceh each and yet a third time, 10,000 akceh as "bildar
bedel.")
In the years 1106 and 1107, from each hane the sum of 600 akceh each was
collected by ferman; and from the mu'af, the ikhraji ferman of the nefers from each
300 nefer in the previous years(s) ten thousand akceh and from 38 nefers five hundred
akceh each, that being the ferman, this year, 1108, let the ferman according to this
manner be entered as amr = order to be obeyed, and in the defteler.
From the entered nefers, from each one thousand akceh, forty akceh is hereby
entered for the tahsildar, that is assigned as ikhraj akceh,
In this manner, the total is 374 yak, 038, 950 akceh, the request for the ferman of
His Imperial Highness, is required.
Sah, with imza of "Halil"?
PART IV.
Janeb ..: -i bedel bildarat vilayet-i

Anadolu baray-i da 1108.
Fil as I:
Hane yekun
58,938 35,362,800 600 at hane 'an mu'afa---t 6651/4 199,600 300
ocaqliq nefer fi beher... 59,603 1/2 33,562,450 301 1,000 amounts =
3,010,000
at 500 =
0,190,000
3,200,000
Liva -i
Kocaeli ber ocaqliq
nefer Ii beher nefer
3,941 60 akceh
236,460
yAKUN .
38,899,891 minus ba vajh-i ma'ash beher 1,000 akceh
01,559,960 fi 40
37,438,590
APPENDIX II
KANUN TO CONFORM TO SERI'A

Urge Make kanrm conform to the ~ar' and use of seri'a as guide for the formulation
(even of the language of the) kanun. Muhimme Defteri 108: page 395.
To Istanbul Kaymakarn (Osman Pasa) order that: (Since) the principles of the
(Muslim) millet and the welfare of the (Muslim) ummet are anchored permanently in
the Kuran and the geri'at of the Prophet (ofSayyid al-Mursalin),
Thereafter, following the sacred text. "This day I have perfected your religion for
you," (al-Ma'Idah, 4) the regulation of the affairs of the general and special (of
humanity) (and its righteousness) are to be guaranteed by their confonnity to the rules
ofthe upright ~ar' (ahkam-i ~ar'-i kawim).
And in obedience to the severe (Kuranic) admonition: "Verily those who oppose
(defy) Allah and his Apostle shall be vanquished, as the unbelievers who preceded
them were vanquished," (al-Mujadalah, 4) while the concuction of regulations
contrary to the forbidden limits of the ahkarn-i ~ar', are hereby cancelled and lifted,
some of the orders (awarner) which are considered kanuni, are to be made to follow
and are to be bent to the kanun of the sacred ~ar'.
And since the making of kanun which is basically inappropriate from the point of
view of the ~ar' constitutes great danger and massive sinning; henceforth, all the
matters of executive orders (awamir-i ahkarn) are to be supported and founded
(istinad) in the sacred ~ar' and passed through the filter of this FAITH, well fortified
fortress (that is is) and of great build, which is the Manifest Faith (Din-i Mubin).
And as Allah wills it, while We (Sultan: Mustafa II) are busy with the affairs of the
sacred war (gazu), the opportunity should be captured on this occasion by placing the
totality of the affairs of the domains and the affairs of Allah's people ('ibad) by the total
shaping of these regulations in confonnity with the ~ar', (by this process) the kanun
becomes sirf or purified, . . . and by this process also the kanun is therefore protected
by the shadow of the sacred ~ar' ....
The warning is thus issued in the form of hatt-i humayiin to go along with the
ferrnan-i 'ali, that the said vezir (Osman P~a) was to issue the ahkarn (regulations) for
Istanbul in the said manner.
Dated: Beg. Z.K., 1107 (May, 1696).

(Sultan: Mustafa II)
Part II
THE CITY AND ITS PARTS
Introduction
Power, Structure,
and Architectural Function
Donald Preziosi
Adolf Hitler is known to have said quite clearly that the building programs
of his National Socialist Party served to reinforce the party's political
authority. According to a recent study by Martin Krarnpen.! this was
accomplished by articulating a relationship between buildings and individual
subjects in such a way as to cause the latter to feel smaller by increasing the
size, bulk, and scale of the former. Such a practice, of course, is known from
the most ancient times in various cultures, beginning with the ziggurats of
Mesopotamia, which towered over their urban settings; similarly, the great
pyramids of pharaonic Egypt materially and symbolically overshadowed the
tomb structures of lesser officials and commoners on the west bank of the
Nile.
Official Nazi architecture made the individual feel small and insecure in
confronting urban structures, which consisted of very large, straight avenues,
huge squares covered by oversize paving slabs, and by a general reduction of
trees and shrubbery. In addition, Nazi buildings have very particular design
properties whose connotations in most cases contrasted with those of earlier
or contemporary modernist designs. Nazi designers developed a simplified
neoclassical idiom characterized by flat roof coverage, the concatenation of
longitudinally stretched structures, a mirror symmetry in the arrangement of
such large block units, repeated rows of uniform windows, the absence of
decoration, very long rows of hard-edged columns, and the use of strongly
accented socles and cornices atop buildings. As Krampen recently suggested,
in this type of environment an individual would come to feel lost unless he or
she joined the masses of marching columns suggested metaphorically by the
long rows of building columns: insecurity was (partly) neutralized through
submission to a larger mass order. 2
Materially, many of the features.of Nazi design resonate with, and recall,
similar design features in the modern bureaucratic architecture of a number of
countries-the monumental core of governmental Washington, for example,
104 Donald Preziosi
or Stalinist Moscow.t Yet design features as such, apart from the very specific
historical contexts in which they are articulated, may convey limited
meanings. In the case of Berlin in the thirties, the design idiom of state
building programs effected a very deliberate contrast with its contemporary
modernist and architecturally avant-gardist contexts, in particular the Bauhaus
movement in Germany and elsewhere, with its connotations of leftist political
affiliation. In Washington of the thirties and forties, the connotations of
bureaucratic design programs, despite often striking similarities to design
features in National Socialist Berlin, were largely different in the specifically
American historical context; their resonance with a long native tradition of
neoclassicizing design evoked romanticized Roman republicanism or Hellenic
democratic allusions.
An awareness of the historitally-specijU legibilities of architectural connotation
induces us to consider the relationships of Ottoman urban structure and
political power with great care, paying particular attention to the particular
historical contexts within which Ottoman building programs were developed
No building within an urban fabric is perceived in a vacuum. Invariably, its
formal and functional characteristics are understood in relationship to those of
other structures, both contiguous and separate. Moreover, in most historical
instances cities are composed of foundations of varying ages, styles, and
purposes, each of which carry multiple associations and connotations. Indeed,
all cities with any appreciable life span are extraordinarily complex and
diverse artifacts-e-srructural matrices or systems; any intervention (in the form
of new construction or renovation) within them alters the perception and
connotations of the whole, often in strikingly radical ways. The complex set
of meanings associated with anyone structure is in no small way a function of
the urban fabric as a whole, with its overriding associations and connotations.
Conversely, the imagery characteristic of a given urban setting may be altered
(in either profound or minimal ways) by individual new foundations: a city is
more than the sum of its parts.
One of the most difficult problems facing the social historian of art,
architecture, or urban formation is how to understand and portray the
extraordinary complexity of such relationships while simultaneously attending
to the very specific historical circumstances within which such relationships
develop, and from which they acquire their meaning. In no small measure,
our inabilities to adequately model the actual complexities of built
environments has derived from an overly rigid analytic or epistemological
distinction between "form" and "content" or meaning. One consequence of
such a distinction, embedded in the very configurations of historical and art-
historical disciplinary discourse, is an assumption that in some manner
artifactual forms "carry" or "convey" meanings which are construed as
somehow independent or preexistent." Indeed, a good portion of the history
of architectural or urban history has perpetuated this analytic dichotomy (or
rhetorical double bind) by oscillating between an extreme formalism and an
Introduction to Part II 105
often equally extreme functionalism; this is no less true of the field of
Ottoman architectural history.5
II
By contrast, the essays in Part Two of this volume seek to understand the
roles specific buildings and building complexes have played in the Ottoman
world, in all their historical materiality, in simultaneously reflecting and
engendering ideological systems. The essays in Part One focused on what
might be termed a macro-scale of ideological imagery; those below focus on a
micro-scale, and consider the detailed mechanisms whereby individual
formations or building types were "reckoned with" in daily life.
The first essay, by Bacharach (Chapter 4) deals with historical background,
and with the historical evolution of administrative compounds between the
seventh and sixteenth centuries, largely before the period of Ottoman
imperial hegemony of much of the Near East. He distinguishes three major
chronological periods in the evolution of the Islamic locus of governance, the
dar at-'imara, the distinction between the site of governance and the territory
of the governed increases in each of these periods.
Bacharach illustrates the gradual change in the locus of governance from its
earliest close association with a central or major urban mosque to its removal
to an elevated citadel location outside of, or closely contiguous with, an
urban area. During the earliest period, shortly after the original Islamic
conquests of lands in the Middle East, the dar at-'imara was often a modest
structure appended to the qibla or Meccan facade of a mosque, and closely
interconnected with the latter, the whole forming an administrative-religious
compound. This close association may be seen as underscoring the
combinatory political and religious duties and obligations of a local ruler.
The second period of development noted by Bacharach, spanning the tenth
to the late eleventh centuries, was characterized by a growing separation
between the zone of governance and the territory of the governed.
Increasingly, the new political and administrative centers were situated at a
distance from the urban fabric, and were heavily fortified. In many cases, even
the walls of these administrative complexes were beyond the view of the
majority of town dwellers. The third period is primarily associated with the
rule of the Saljuqs, after the 1090s, who situated their administrative
compounds within elevated and fortified citadels, both within and without
the urban fabric.
The essay suggests two broadly interesting conclusions. First, that a
particular social function (in this case, governance) was not necessarily tied to
a particular architectonic formation. That is, the "evolution" here is primarily
one of territoriality-the facilitation and/or inhibition of contact among
individuals and groups-rather than an evolution of architectural form as
such. Indeed, the form of the dar al-'imara varies greatly from place to place
106 Donald Preziosi
and over time, but evidently not in any evolutionary way as a formation.
There is, rather, a general development toward increasingly strong separation
between the site of governance and the territory of those ruled, expressed in a
very wide variety of formal ways.
Second, Bacharach's study suggests that a historical understanding of urban
and architectural change is necessarily tied to a network of diverse social
factors. These may include changes in the forms and protocols of
administration as such; changes in the minority or majority status of ruling
elites; changes in military practice and the technologies of warfare; and
changes in the ethnic and geographical origins of a ruling class. As with other
authors in the volume, Bacharach argues cogently and concretely against the
notion of the autonomy of architectural history construed as a "history" or an
evolution of architectural form.
The essay by Bates (Chapter 5) is a descriptive historical study of
architectural alterations to the urban fabric of Cairo during the time of
Ottoman imperial control, beginning in 1517. After nearly seven centuries as
a capital of various sovereign groups, Cairo was reduced by the Ottomans to
the status of a provincial capital. Bates' study is concerned with the signs and
symbols of Ottoman power in predominantly Sunni Cairo, as expressions of
patronage practices by individuals from the imperial capital of Istanbul. Her
study emphasizes the provincial appearance of Ottoman foundations in Cairo
(a subject also considered by Bierman in her study of Ottoman Crete in Part
One), and she considers the important question of the relationships between
the architecture of Istanbul and that of its conquered territories.
Among the implications of Bates's study is the importance of attending
closely to the concrete details of buildings and their external decor as
"message-bearing" units of composition, whereby power and patronage were
displayed. The numerous alterations to pre-Ottoman structures, the
renovation of mosque facades and the entrance facades of other religious and
educational institutions, connote strikingly the new political order, in some
instances by very subtle means. Her close examination of structural details of
buildings erected or renovated in Cairo during the Ottoman period suggests
a highly complex picture of design and construction practice, and provides us
with a number of insights into the ways in which craftsmen were organized,
the nature of their training and experience, and the movement of materials
and perhaps even plans from the imperial capital to other parts of the Empire,
including Cairo. Anomalies in some designs-such as the use of groundplans
identical to prototypes in Istanbul coupled with very divergent
elevations-give us a glimpse of the relationships between instructions from
central planning offices and their realization by local masters following their
own craft traditions in the articulation of decor and fenestration.
She distinguishes, in effect, between a symbolic canon of Ottomanizing
features in buildings, which tended to remain invariant (such as minarets on
mosques, invariably "purely" Ottoman), and minor structural or decorative
features, whose articulation was in many cases less symbolically significant,
and was subject to a cenain degree of optional variation. In some cases, the
latter replicate pre-Ottoman Mamluk designs features, such as the use of
eblak wall texture on the Ottoman mosque of Mahmud Pasa (ca. 1567), or
the arcading surrounding the main entrance to the mosque of Sinan Pasa in
Bulaq, the port of Cairo on the Nile (ca. 1571), which is reminiscent of
Tunisian practices. The minaret of the latter mosque was described by the
seventeenth century Ottoman travel writer Evliya Celebi as "Rumi" (or
Anatolian); presumably its canonically Ottoman form contrasted with the
design of the facades of the structure.
Bates's study focuses on what might be termed the "expressive" functions
or connotations of Cairene Ottoman building, insofar as these embody the
signs of Ottoman identity and hegemony.f The essay by Crane (Chapter 6)
takes us back to the imperial capital Istanbul, and considers the mosques of
the Sultans as "icons of imperial legitimacy." As with the essays elsewhere in
the volume, Crane's study is largely concerned with the legibility of power
relations.
His research indicates that the programmatic functions of the great imperial
mosque foundations went far beyond a kind of one-dimensional personal
aggrandizement masquerading as religious philanthropy. He suggests that
these complexes may be best understood as stages for the expression of a
network of closely linked legitimizing values central to the concept of ideal
Islamic kingship: religiosity, justice, wisdom, permanence, devotion to
learning, charity and benevolence.
The implication is that the great imperial mosque foundations, beginning
with the Fatih complex of Mehmed (ca. 1459/63-1470, on the site of the
earlier Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles), were "icons" not only of
imperial legitimacy in the broad sense, but equally of the personage of the
Sultan himself as embodying the aforementioned virtues. In other words,
there may be seen to be embodied an "iconic" relationship-a relationship of
congruence or resemblance-between the complex and its parts and the
personal qualities attributed to its patron. In short, it could be said that the
complex "resembles" or "represents" the patron himself: it is, so to speak, a
poetic. work which compares the qualities and virtues of natural or inanimate
things with the qualities or virtues of the personage referred to-an
architectural poem.
It may be significant that the Fatih complex of Mehmed stood on the site
of the Church of the Holy Apostles (second in importance to the Haghia
Sophia itself) and the mausoleum-church of Constantine Isapostolos-the
putative thirteenth (equal to the original apostle, and as such, twelve).
According to Eusebius (and discussed by Vryonis above in Chapter I),
Constantine set up 12 coffins in this church (like sacred pillars in honor and
memory of the apostolic number, in the center of which his own was placed,
having six of theirs on either side of it.) For Constantine, then, this church
108 Donald Preziosi
served as an embodiment of his own position in the religious cosmology, and
a representation of imperial sacralization. For both Constantine and Mehmed,
their respective foundations would have been icons of themselves and the
qualities they embodied.
Crane questions the value of a number of traditional symbolic
interpretations of particular architectural forms (for example, the interior of a
dome in an imperial mosque as symbolic of the dome of heaven) when seen
in isolation. His work elaborates an integrated perspective on the question of
the relationships of imperial ideology and architectural formation.
All three essays in this section deal with facets of the highly complex and
intricate nature of architectonic signification. They indicate quite clearly that
buildings are multifunctional signs, which catalyze and structure human action
and interaction. Read together, we may begin to glimpse something of the
nature of that complexity in very concrete, palpable, and historically specific
ways. And we may also begin to see that urban structures simultaneously
embody the effects of power relations and define the purviews and constraints
of power. In this respect, Wittgenstein's speculations on language apply
equally to architecture: it
organizes experience, but that organization is constantly acted upon by the collective
behavior of the particular group [engaging it]. Thus there occurs a cumulative dialectic
of differentiation: (architecture) generates different social modes; different social modes
further divide (architecturel.?
In this sense, the primary function of architecture in the articulation ofsites
for human thought and action is catalytic, acting on and giving form to the
infinite variety of ideas, ideologies, modes of expression, and values to which
individuals and groups have-or are denied-access, and through which
every work of architecture is interpreted or lived.
NOTES
1. M. Krampen, "Zur heutigen Wirkung von Nazi-Architektur," in Kunst,

HochscJll~le,
Faschismus (Berlin: VAS in der Elefanten Press, 1984), pp. 283-305. See
also note 3 below.
2. M. Krampen, "Power, Structure and the Urban Arts," paper presented at the
colloquium "Power and Structure in the Islamic Urban Arts," sponsored by the
Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies, University of California
at Los Angeles, 25 May, 1984. The paragraph here is a summary of part of Kramp en's
remarks.
3. For a discussion of similarities in design features in Nazi Berlin and Stalinist
Moscow, see G. Broadbent, "Buildings as Symbols of Political Ideology," in M.
Herzfeld & M.D. Lenhart, eds., Semiotics 1980 (New York and London: Plenum Press,
1982), pp. 45-54; see also idem., "Building Design as an Iconic Sign System," in G.
Broadbent, R. Bunt, & C. Jencks, eds., Signs, Symbols and Architecture (Chichester:
John Wiley & Sons, 1980).
4. This complex issue is examined at some length in D. Preziosi, Rethinking Art
History: Meditations on a Coy Science (New Haven and London: Yale University Press,
1989) in connection with the history of theories of signification in the modern
discipline of art history.
5. An example of a largely "formalist" approach to the history of Ottoman
architecture is A. Kuran, The Mosque in Early Ottoman Architectu,e (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1968); by contrast, the volume by M. Cezar, TypiaJl Commercial
Buildings ofthe Ottoman Classical Period and the Ottoman Construction System, (Istanbul:
Tllrkiye ~ Bankasi Cultural Publications, 1983) integrates formal and socio-historical
factors affecting the historical development of particular building types.
6. A discussion of the variety of "functions" of architectonic signification may be
found in D. Preziosi Architecture, Language & Meaning (The Hague, Paris and New
York: Mouton Publishers, 1979), pp. 47-57; idem, The Semiotics of the Built
Environment (Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press, 1979), pp. 61-73; M.
Krampen, "Zur Multifunktionalitat des Design," in Krise des Funktionalistischen Design
(Stuttgart: Design Center Stuttgart, 1981), pp. 31-38; J. Mukarovsky, "On the
Problem of Functions in Architecture" (1937-38) in J. Burbank and P. Steiner, eds.,
Structu,e,Sign and Function: Selected Writings of Jan Mukarovsky (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1978), pp. 236ff. The various functions of
architectonic units and structures-referential, aesthetic, allusory, territorial,
expressive, or directive-coexist to varying degrees, with one or another in
dominance (to makers and/or users). Moreover, the perceived connotative functions
of a structure may vary with the same material object over time. Each of the
aforementioned functions indexes particular relationships between architectonic object
and user/beholder, in a given specific historical context. Thus, the "territorial"
function of a construct indexes a particular orientation between a building program
and a user, in this case the connotation of contact (or its converse, separation), In
Bates's study of Ottoman facades in Cairo, she focuses on the expressive and territorial
functions of these structures: the ways in which certain design features index
"Ottomanness" and foster a certain solidarity among those individuals (patrons and
users; an elite class), These design features (for example, the characteristic Ottoman
minaret on mosques) are thereby also expressive of the origins of their patrons. In
Bacharach's study, the focus is on the gradual change from solidarity and contiguity
between governors and governed to an increasingly powerful separation: both involve
what is termed "territoriality" or solidarity. These functions are relational properties,
which can only be determined in specific historical context. The essays in Part Two
indicate that architectonic signification is a highly complex process: buildings are more
than simple "symbols of' some property or set of values. They are rather highly
complex and intricate signs, whose relationships to their referents are multiple and
dynamic. As will be seen in Crane's essay. the great mosque complexes sponsored by
the Ottoman Sultans in Istanbul are highly expressive icons of the imperial personage
itself--expressive in function (in part) due to the manner in which they index the
metaphorical properties displayed by the patron. At the same time, of course, they
display other of the aforementioned architectonic functions.
7. L. Wittgenstein, PhilosophiaJl Investigations (London: Macmillan, 1953); quoted
and discussed in C. Abel, "Architecture as Identity," in Semiotics 1980, pp. 1-10.
4
Administrative Complexes,
Palaces, and Citadels
Changes' in the Loci of Medieval Muslim Rule
Jere L. Bacharach
Political power, religious values, and ideologies are often expressed through
architecture. A particular set of circumstances can lead to the creation of a
distinct architectural form, which, through repetition and elaboration, is
continued over time and space, even though the understanding of the unique
conditions and attitudes that led to its origination might be lost. From the first
Islamic conquests of the Fertile Crescent in the early seventh century to the
establishment of Ottoman hegemony in the same area in the early sixteenth
century, many Muslim rulers from Spain to Iran built administrative centers
and residences for themselves and their entourage; their architecture reflects
many of their values and attitudes they held. Despite the variety and
complexity in the political history of these dynasties over these nine centuries,
the architecture associated with their political rule can be grouped into three
fairly distinct phases. This study will identify the chronological and
geographical parameters of those three periods and identify the major
characteristics of the architecture of the major administrative centers.
The first of these periods begins within a few decades of the original
conquests of the Middle East. An architectural composition consisting of a
mosque, with an administrative center on its Meccan or qibla side, tied
together the religious and political roles of the new conquerors. This
architectural form became programmatic with succeeding rulers; however, an
understanding of its vocabulary was probably lost, and eventually the physical
representation of the original idea ended. Within Iraq the administrative-
religious complex combined the features of symmetry with celestial domes,
while the architectural form in the more Western Arab lands was not as
elaborate. Both patterns were Islamic, rather than an imitation or recreation
of an earlier monumental form.
The second period, primarily from the tenth to the end of the eleventh
centuries, saw a growing separation of the rulers and their subjects. No clear,
single architectural model predominated, but all the new administrative and
political centers were physically separated from the existing Muslim urban
centers. The distances of these palace complexes from the majority of the
urban population, and the adoption of surrounding walls meant that their
112 Jere L. Bacharach
interior architecture was known to only a few. Even the walls were beyond
the view of the vast majority of the urban population. We can consider these
new administrative complexes as being on the same topographic plane as the
existing urban center: they were not in citadels or in locations that physically
dominated the city.
The third period, primarily associated with the rule of Selcuk successor
states after the 1090s and rulers whose ethnic origins were distinct from that
of the local Muslim population, was marked by an even more palpable
separation of those who governed from those who were subject to their will.
The architectural hallmark of this period was the heavily fortified citadel,
which now became the locale of government. Citadels had existed earlier in
many cities, but rarely did they house Muslim administrators. In this period,
legitimacy came to those who controled the citadel.
Before we proceed, a few definitions are needed. "Citadel" is the term used
in this study for a fortress in a commanding position in a city or connected to
its walls. By the twelfth century, Muslims in the East would call them qal'a
while those in the West would use the term qasaba. 1 (prior to this period the
terminology is not consistent.) "Palace" designates the residence of a ruler; it
is normally defined by its occupant and not necessarily by its form or locale.
During the centuries surveyed, palace complexes were found within a citadel,
within the general urban setting, and separated from the main urban
environment. A dar al-"imara could house a jail, a treasury, or administrative
offices. Historical texts, the primary source of information for data for the first
period (when the archaeological record is weaker), tell us that a particular
building was a dar al-"imara, but often these texts do not describe its
architectural features nor indicate what specific governmental functions took
place in it. It was understood to be a place in which governmental activities
were situated, and often the residence of a ruler. A dar &11- 'imara was not
required for administrative purposes; any building that could hold a diu/an or
bureau could serve as an administrative center.
The first period begins not with developments in the Arabian peninsula but
in the Fertile Crescent and Nile Valley. With the initial Muslim conquests of
Greater Syria, Iraq, and Egypt from the 6305, amsar or garrison centers were
established in a number of locations such as Basra and Kufa in Iraq, and al-
Fustat in Egypt. Within the amsar it was necessary to establish governmental
or administrative centers as well as places of worship. These first mosques
were very simple affairs; in the case of Basra, the mosque has been described
as a marked open area, while the dar al-'imara, which included a prison and a
diwan, was possibly composed of reeds.s K.A.C. Creswell believes that this
first dar al-'imara was built on the northeastern side of the mosque.> A few
years later the governor Abu Musa al-Ash'ari rebuilt the mosque and dar al-
"imara with sun-dried bricks, a more substantial material. The exact location
of the administrative center in relation to the mosque is unknown.
The story of the mosque-administrative complex at Kufa is of greater
Administrative Complexes, Palaces, and Citadels 113
interest for this study. In 630, the governor Sad ibn al-Waqqas built a
mosque, and on the qibla side erected a dar al-"imara, which included the
treasury (bayt aI-mal). The two locales were separated by a narrow street.
According to the Arab sources, thieves broke into the treasury and the Caliph
Umar (634-644) ordered that the daral-'imara be built adjacent to the mosque
so that there would always be people around to safeguard the treasury. A
Persian, Ruzbih ibn Buzurgmihr ibn Sasan, is credited with rebuilding the
mosque and dar al-. 'imara with more substantial materials.t
For this study the critical development in Kufa was the placement of the
dar al-'imara on the qibla, creating an organic linkage between the two.
Muslims were defining a spatial relationship between two key buildings
whose architectural elements were not related. Moreover, the linking of these
two types of building was to spread to places thousands of miles distant, for
another two centuries. These new rulers, overwhelmingly Muslim Arab,
represented a small portion of the population in these urban centers, not
simply because they were a ruling elite but because the majority of the
residents was initially not Muslim and, often, not Arab. There were obvious
needs for a mosque as well as some sort of administrative center within the
urban environment. Placing the two buildings within close proximity to one
another made sense, since both served the needs of the new elite, their
military, and the small but growing number of Muslim converts in the amsar.
These religious and political needs did not in themselves dictate a physical or
organic relationship between the two principal edifices.
The dar al-'imara could have been on anyone of three sides of the mosque
and it would have been possible for members of the congregation to be close
to the treasury and hear thieves as related in the preceding story, if they were
at the qibla end of the mosque. Rulers could enter near or at the qibla side of
the mosque from three sidesand still be separated by a barrier from the rest of
the congregation if such a form of protection was deemed necessary.
We will never know why the dar al-'imara was set on the qibla side of the
mosque, but the explanation is certainly more complex than the commonly
accepted reasons-that is, the need to protect a possible treasury in the dar, or
the ruler's need to slip easily into the front of a prayer area from the dar.
When a Believer prayed toward Mecca, the prayer was directed at God but
with the close proximity of the dar al-'imara on the qibla side, did the prayer
also "travel" through the official residence of the Muslim ruler? Did the
physical connection or close proximity of the place of "secular" rule and the
house of prayer along the most important wall symbolize the dual
responsibilities of these early Muslim rulers? Something was deemed
important about this relationship, because it would appear again and again.
In chronological terms the next major development took place in
Damascus during the governorship of Mu'awiya, in the reign of the Caliph
Uthman (644-656). According to the Muslim texts, Mu'awiya used the
eastern half of the main cathedral, the ancient Roman temple or temenos, as a
mosque, while the Christians retained the other half. The governor built a
residence, a dar al-'imara, of burnt bricks on the south side of the mosque and
connected with it, allowing him to enter through a door into a protective
chamber or maqsura. The residence or administrative building had a dome
which was known as the Green Dome (al-qubbat al-khadra). A contemporary
Greek visitor who, upon seeing Mu'awiya's dar al-'imara, is said to have
remarked, (The upper part will do for birds and the lower for rats.)5 Even
allowing for the biases of the source who would have known many
impressive Byzantine churches, this description does not leave the reader with
the sense that the Umayyad dar was an impressive building.
The memory of that residence and its so-called Green Dome was still alive
in the fourteenth century when the great Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta visited
Damascus. He noted that on the south side of the Umayyad mosque there
once had stood the residence of Mu'awiya along with those of his principal
supporters, and it was called al-khadra or "The Green". According to Ibn
Battuta, the 'Abbasids after 750 destroyed it, and in his day the area was used
as a market.s
Under the Umayyad Caliph al-Walid (705-715), the Muslims took over the
whole temenos area and constructed a major mosque. But, there is no
evidence that the dar al-'imara was radically changed The physical connection
between the primary center of religious activity and that of a building
associated with administrative activities continued, but this spatial relationship
did not have any axial or mathematical quality based on geometric ratios. In
the Mediterranean Islamic orbit a physical tie was retained between the two
locales but without any elaboration into more complex patterns.
After Mu'awiya became Caliph (661-680) he appointed Ziyad ibn Abihi to a
number of governorships. The building projects of Ziyad, as noted by Michael
Morony, mark a turning point in the introduction of the architectural forms of
authoritarian rule among Muslims in Iraq a tum toward Sassanian precedents."
Ziyad's first major governorship was under the Caliph 'Ali (656-661), in
Istakhr (659-662), where he developed a reputation for the severe imposition
of law and order. He also reorganized the social system of the city,
implemented agricultural improvements, and built a mosque.s We can identify
one other critical development using the drawings of Donald Whitcomb. 9
The mosque was not built in the old Sassanian center but in a new area.
The primary purpose appears to have been to separate the new ruling elite of
Arab Muslims from the bulk of the population, who were neither Arab nor
Muslim. This is consistent with Muslim policy in many other urban areas. In
Whitcomb's drawings there is the outline of a building attached to the qibla
side of Ziyad's mosque, which could have been the dar al-'imara. At some
unknown date this building on the qibla side was rebuilt with a new
orientation for the qibla direction. Although Whitcomb does not give
dimensions for the original buildings, using a simple scale the following ratios
can be established The width of the dar is twice that of the mosque while the
depth of both is the same. There is also an axial arrangement such that if a
line were drawn perpendicular to the qibla wall, it would bisect both the
mosque and dar.
Unlike the developments in Damascus and Kufa mentioned above, there
are clear physical and geometric relations between the two key buildings of
this early Islamic center. The dar al-'imara and the mosque are connected and
not separated by a street. Therefore the qibla wall is part of the dar al-'imara
and the prayers of the believer come into contact with the (secular) building.
By creating an administrative unit twice the size of the house of worship and
along an axial line so that the dar would always extend beyond the mosque
along the qibla wall, the governing authority was making a visual statement
about the relative importance of the two buildings and, perhaps, the
interdependency of their functions. These geometric relationships may have
drawn on Sassanian models or ideals, but what is more important is that they
were carried by Ziyad to Iraq, where he served as governor. From there the
model went to Wasit, probably Marv, and eventually Baghdad Therefore the
layout developed in Istakhr represents a significant variation to the physical
arrangement that had emerged earlier in Iraq and Syria.
In 665 Ziyad ibn Abihi became governor of Basra, and a number of
changes in the architecture of the existing buildings were undertaken, which
had a profound impact on the architectural and artistic history of the mosque.
These changes included copying the use of a maqsura from Mu'awiya's
mosque in Damascus, moving the minbar to the south side of the center axis
or future mihrab, and cutting a door from the maqsura to the governor's palace
(dar al-'imara) , which was built along the qibla wall. The mosque and dar were
rebuilt of more substantial material, and finally the whole area was enclosed
by a formidable barrier with an impressive gate. Although excavations have
not brought to light specific data, I would suggest that the axial plan found in
Istakhr may have been repeated in Basra since Ziyad served as governor in
both places.
The evidence for developments in Kufa is slightly more extensive. In 670
Ziyad rebuilt the Friday mosque and the governor's administrative center,
which was attached to the qibla side of the mosque, The axial plan was
retained and, although I have not been able to find statistical data, I anticipate
finding a simple ratio between the dimensions of the two buildings consistent
with the work he ordered elsewhere, and which would be found in later
administrative centers in Iraq.
The culmination of the Istakhr pattern in Umayyad Iraq was the building,
circa 702, by the governor al-Hajjaj of a mosque-dar al-'imara complex in
Wasit, his new administrative center. Not only was the axial pattern retained
for the connected mosque and administrative center, but the sides of the two
buildings were two hundred and four hundred cubits respectively, the same 2
to 1 ratio found forty years earlier.i? The dar al-'imara built by al-Hajjaj was
known as the Green Dome or al-qubbat al-khadra. The tie to Mu'awiya's
administrative center is immediately obvious and, although there is scholarly
debate about both the color and the meaning of this dome and its successors,
there is little doubt that it was a sign of imperial rule even if its specific
symbolism is unclear.t!
The new combination of mosque-palace-green dome was used in other
cities culminating in the greatest imperial center of them all, Madinat al-
Salam, the City of Peace or the 'Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur's Round City
built in 766. The architectural complex did not suddenly appear in Baghdad
after a hiatus of over sixty years, a period following the construction of such a
model in Wasit. It was used in at least two locations before the founding of
this new 'Abbasid city. The Umayyad Caliph Hisham (724-743) made Rusafa
in Syria his administrative capital, and built a palace known as al-qubbat al-
khadra. 12 In Marv sometime in the early 750s the leader of the 'Abbasid
Revolution, Abu Muslim, built a domed chamber which was attached to the
mosque.P This dome could have evoked for its viewers the possible themes
of celestial associations and the identification with power in general, if not
Sassanian power in particular.i! It is also important to remember that domes
aid in the visibility of an edifice. Even when walls exist, a dome rising above
them can be an external locator or sign indicating where the principal
mosque and governmental center are located.
The most famous "green" dome (in fact, a mosque-dar al-'imara complex)
was built by the 'Abbasid Caliph ai-Mansur in his "City of Peace,"
Baghdad.i! There is a direct link between the elements that went into this
imperial center and the Umayyad centers. First, the arrangement of a circular
wall was new, although the concept of this type of fortification was not.
Second, the central plaza was dominated by a large complex known as the
Gold Palace (al-qasr al-dhahab) or the Green Dome (al-qubbah al-khadra) ,
because of the dome that capped the palace. Third, the palace and the
mosque were arranged so that the administrative center was on the qibla side
of the religious building although there was room to create any type of
physical arrangement desired. Moreover, in light of the fortified quality of the
walls of the Round City, security for the Caliph could not have been of
primary concern for this organic tie between the mosque and the palace (or
dar). Fourth, the two units were arranged along a central axis. Finally, the
complex repeated the ratios for the two buildings found in Wasit,
demonstrating further that there was a direct link between the complexes.
The 'Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur built a number of other buildings outside
the Round City. On the east side of the Tigris a new imperial complex was
built in al-Rusafa. It was completed in 776 and was used by the Caliph al-
Mahdi (775-785). The area enclosed by protective walls and a moat included
as its primary buildings a palace-mosque combination, which followed an
axial plan. The palace on the qibla side of the mosque was even larger than the
buildings in the Round City, and appears to be based on a 2 to 1 ratio of the
widths and central axis. It probably had a large dome over the palace.ls There
Administrative Complexes} Palaces} and Citadels 117
was no other major mosque in this area when the palace complex was built.
Thus all the elements ofan almost century-old tradition were retained.
AI-Rusafa was not the first site AI-Mansur chose on which to build a new
mosque-palace combination after completing the Round City. He intended
to build for his son, the future al-Mahdi, a palace-mosque combination in the
area of al-Kharkh; but, because of the large Muslim population in al-Kharkh,
he set the royal residence elsewhere. Only a mosque, which was called al-
Sharqiyah, was built in al-Kharkh.t?
In about 796, Harun aI-Rashid (786-809) chose Raqqa as his chief
residence, where he was planning to create a whole series of buildings. It is
reported that this 'Abbasid caliph built a palace in Raqqa with a green dome,
but no trace beyond the literary memory remains.ts With the move of the
'Abbasids to Sarnarra in 836, no new governmental complexes were built
which retained the pattern of mosque with palace on the qibla side, with or
without a green dome.
In summary, my argument has been that a concept of a physical relationship
between an administrative center and the primary place of prayer for the
urban elite was created in Umayyad Iraq. Under the impact of Ziyad the plan
of this complex became more sophisticated and an axial relationship as well as
a geometric one was established between the two units. Walls were added to
separate the elite using this area from the mass of the populace. With al-Hajjai
who "revived" or "created" a so-called Green Dome, the populace beyond
the walls had a visual sign of the locale of power even if they could not
"read" its full symbolism or see the actual structure. The 'Abbasid monuments
were part of this tradition, and were not a radically new development. The
post-Harun al-Rashid world rejected these spatial arrangements for their
centers of government. The green dome, the axial arrangement of mosque
and palace, the geometric ratios, the placing of the palace against the qibla
wall, were design features with no subsequent history.
Having carried the story to mid-ninth century Iraq, it is necessary to return
to the early eighth century and DaITL1Scus in order to trace the type of urban
and architectural developments that took place in the Mediterranean basin.
The earlier argument was that Mu'awiya had established a pattern by
connecting the dar al-'imara with the principal masjid on the qibla side. When
al-Walid (705-715) undertook his building program in Damascus this concept
of a physical tie between the two buildings with the administrative center
placed on the qibla side of the mosque was retained.
Excavations in Jerusalem in the late 19605 along the southern wall of the
Haram aI-Sharif uncovered another example of the mosque-palace pattern.
When modern administrative buildings were demolished, and a few feet of
surface dirt removed, the outlines of a whole series of buildings associated
with the Umayyad era emerged.
The most important of them, the dar al-'imara, was just to the south of al-
Aqsa mosque, that is, on the qibla side of it, and separated from the Herodian
wall by a narrow street.t? The Umayyad Caliph al-Walid had work done on
al-Aqsa mosque and the building complexes, particularly the dar al-'imara,
which was connected by a bridge to al-Aqsa on the Hararn al-Sharif The
archaeological work confirmed data in the Aphrodito papyri from Egypt,
which refer to craftsmen going from Egypt to work on the mosque and
palace.20 In 747 Jerusalem suffered terrible damage from an earthquake, and
this event can serve as the terminal date for the use of the administrative
structures. There is no evidence of an axial relationship between the two
buildings nor an obvious ratio in their respective sizes. However, the critical
element for this study is that the dar al-'imara and mosque were connected,
and that the former was on the qibla side, indicating the continuation of a
physical relationship between the two. Clearly, the relationship between these
two important buildings in early Islamic centers can be traced back in Greater
Syria to the actions ofMu'awiya even before he became Caliph.
Another example from the reign of al-Walid can be found in the small
town of 'Anjar, originally 'Ain al-jarr, which is located in the Biqa Valley.
Inscriptions and the Aphrodito papyri permit a dating of the site to 714 or
715. 21 While excavation data has not permitted the identification of the
specific function of the buildings other than the mosque, it is generally held
that the building on the qibla side of the mosque was the dar aI-'imara. 22 It is
even tempting to see the same pattern of administrative center-mosque in the
outline ofKhirbat al-Mafjar, near Jericho.
As Muslims established their rule in North Africa beginning in Egypt, the
architectural combination of the dar al-'imara connected to the main mosque
was repeated, for example, in the history of administrative centers in the area
of modern Cairo up to the Patirnid conquest in 969. Unfortunately, the
textual sources do not make clear where the first administrative center was
after Amr ibn al-'As conquered the area in 641 and established the first
mosque. In 686 the governor 'Abd al-'Aziz built a large building west of the
mosque of Amr, known as the Gilded House or dar al-Mudhahhaba, but
nothing else is known. Furthermore, 'Abd al-'Aziz is said to have set up a new
capital in Helwan for which there is no other inforrnation.st
The 'Abbasid conquest of Egypt in 751 was followed by the construction of
a new administrative site, north of al-Fustat, called al-'Askar (The
Cantonment). To quote Janet Abu-Lughod,"A prototype ofa princely town,
al-'Ashr was planned as a permanent settlement whose core was the official
residence, the dar al-'imam, together with the central mosque around which
the markets were concentrared.P' The fifteenth-century historian al-Maqrizi
makes it clear that the dar aI-'imara was attached to the mosque on the qibla
side.2 5 'Abbasid administrators built palaces elsewhere and it is very possible
that the real center of government moved from the dar al-"imara, but the idea
that there was to be a building called a dar al-'imara connected to the primary
mosque on its qibla side was retained from earlier periods.
Although Ahmad ibn Tulun (868-884), founder of the Tulunid dynasty in
868, came from Samarra in Iraq, he adopted local customs when it came to
constructing his most important buildings. His new governmental site, called
al-Qata'i (the Wards), was north of AI-'Askar. Ibn Tulun built a mosque, and
on its qibla side, a dar al-'imara. 26 In addition Ibn Tulun, as so many of his
predecessors, built other palaces, parade grounds, parks, and so on. The
mosque-palace combination was also carried westward and could be found in
Qairawan, Tunisia, and Cordova, Spain-with the significant variation that in
the latter case the administrative center was not on the qibla side of the
mosque but to the west, across a narrow street.27 The river was on the qibla
side, which might explain the unusual siting of the dar al-'imara; in theory,
though, the mosque could have been set farther back, permitting room for a
dar. Another possible explanation is that the memory of the original model or
its symbolism had become so weak that only the connection between the
mosque and dar was retained, rather than any specific pattern for that
connection.
These early mosques were hypostyle in form, and the dar al-'imara had a
central courtyard-features common to virtually every major Muslim building
in the Mediterranean basin during the first three centuries of Islam. Fortified
walls around the complex, elegant or elaborate gates, impressive or colored
domes-none of these were present in the preceding examples, and thus they
were not required as parts of the architectural vocabulary when new centers of
Muslim political power were being created However, we must remember that
none of these urban settings were centers of imperial rule, but only provincial
administrative capitals. The architectural vocabulary that was appropriate for
Damascus and Baghdad may not have been felt necessary or appropriate in the
more Western lands. Moreover, with the exception of Damascus, all the
examples of a mosque-dar al-'imara combination with set ratios, axial plans and
even green domes, were located in lands that had been part of the Sassanian
empire and its architectural legacy; the Mediterranean basin sites, however,
were in the late Roman world, primarily in its Byzantine form.
With minor exceptions, none of the building complexes discussed above
were in cities that had pre-Islamic citadels. For only relatively brief periods
'were these fortified locales used as the site for the new Muslim centers of
power. 28 The overwhelming pattern of this first period is that the government
centers were located on the same geographic plane as the rest of the city.
The mosque-palace tie grew out of geopolitical necessity: the first Muslims
ruled these lands as a small minority dependent on their troops against a rural
and urban population that was almost overwhelmingly non-Muslim. The
mosque and dar al- "imara had to be near one another to meet local
administrative needs, increase the sense of security and solidarity for the ruler
and his fellow Muslims, and establish a palpable sign of Muslim presence. The
only architectural combination of units which developed in these Western
lands was the placing of the administrative center on the qibla side of the
mosque. What did not emerge was a set of complex architectural
relations-axial plans, set ratios between units, green domes-as they had in
the more Eastern lands.
The second period is associated with the growth of an urban Muslim
population whose religious, educational, and social needs were being met by
the main urban mosques. There was also the creation of a clearer sense of an
Islamic way of life, which was guided by the ulama and not the political
leadership. Thus the necessity that had held the earliest Muslim rulers to the
center of the urban areas was no longer salient. The new pattern was one of
administrative centers, or rather, palace complexes that included mosques and
administrative buildings, away from the existing population. As in the first
period, these Muslim rulers did not use the older citadels (where they
existed), nor did they construct new ones. The earliest example for the new
loci of political power comes from 'Abbasid Iraq in the ninth century, but it
did not set a general pattern. Developments in North Africa in the tenth
century may have been more important as a model.
Sarnarra, built by the 'Abbasid caliphs, is the best ninth- century example of
the new type of Muslim building activities on a grand scale. The mosques and
palaces were larger and more elaborate than earlier edifices in the 'Abbasid
capital of Baghdad. For most scholars Sarnarra is associated with the 'Abbasid
caliphs' goal to protect themselves and their new Mamluk troops from the
civilian population of Baghdad. The architectural elements in Sarnarra do not
retain the spatial relations characteristic of earlier governmental centers. The
older signs of sovereignty are absent. The scale of the building activities
reflect power and wealth, if not conspicuous consumption, but there is no
organic relationship between them. Unlike other scholars, I attribute the
break between Samarra and earlier building activities to the loss of the
previous architectural vocabulary oflinking the two key buildings. The earlier
sign system has disappeared; consequently, the symbolic value of these
structures must have changed.s? Although Sarnarra constituted a break from
the earlier pattern of the mosque-dar aI-'imara pattern, it was not immediately
copied. Ahmad ibn Tulun, whose building activities in Egypt were
mentioned above, had grown up in Samarra, but when ruling in al-Fustat he
followed the local tradition and linked his new mosque and dar.
The Fatimid city of al-Qahira, built after jawhar conquered Egypt in 969,
was located north of Ibn Tulun's al-Qata'i; it included two large palaces and a
mosque (al-Azhar) to serve the court and their supporters, and many smaller
buildings and an outer wall. The spectacular walls that eventually surrounded
al-Qahira date to more than a century later. Although al-Qahira was an
imperial center, the architectural values of the tenth century were not the
same as those of eighth-century Baghdad. This new capital did not have its
palace on the qibla side of al-Azhar, there were not geometrical or axial
relations between the two principal buildings, and no green dome. The
whole complex of buildings was elegant in its own right, but it was separated
from the bulk of the urban population and thus unseen by them. Even the
original walls would not been seen by the majority of the urban dwellers of
the older Muslim settlements, because they lived a significant distance to the
south.
Paula Sanders has suggested that the (spiritual topography) of the Fatimid
caliph as imam found its way into the actual topography of the administrative
centers-palace complexes built by the Shi'ite rulers.w The complexes
planned at al-Mahdiyya, al-Mansuriyya, and eventually at al-Qahira, reflect
the religious and cosmic values of the Fatimids-inc1uding a different role for
the palaces and the associated mosque.t! Without accepting the politico-
religious value system associated with Fatimid claims to the imamate, rulers
from Spain to Afghanistan adopted a similar model for the locale of their
political rule.
In Spain, in 945, the Umayyad ruler Abd al-Rahman III moved his
residential and administrative center from Cordova to Medina al-Zahra,
where it remained until 981.32 There were numerous buildings. the largest
and best preserved of which is called Salon Rico. The mosque, a very modest
building, is to the south of Salon Rico. Medina al-Zahra had a defensive wall.
This complex can be considered as standing on the same plane as Cordova.
but was so physically separate from it that only those serving the court from
among the urban population would have any sense of its location, let alone its
architectural features.
Further to the east, Aleppo is a very interesting case, because it has one of
the oldest and most impressive citadels of any Middle-Eastern city. However,
the citadel was rarely used as a governmental center by Muslims before the
eleventh century. In 715, when the Umayyads built their central mosque, it
was not in the citadel. There is no evidence that the Umayyads or 'Abbasids
placed their governors in buildings in the citadel: more likely they were in a
dar al-'imara in the city. But Aleppo also offers another example of the pattern
wherein the rulers separated their new government complex from their
subjects by locating it outside the urban center, thereby relying on horizontal
distance rather than vertical distance (as in a citadel). The famous Hamdanid
ruler, Sayf al-Dawlah (945-967) built an extensive residential palace complex
outside the existing city and away from the Muslim urban masses, which was
totally destroyed in 962 when the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus Phocus
sacked Aleppo. However, the citadel, which was in poor condition, housed a
force of Dailamite troops: they held out against the invading Byzantine army
until the Christian emperor and his troops left after a week of looting and
pillaging.33 Sayf al-Dawlah had fled before the invading Christian army and
had not used the citadel as a place of refuge nor as his seat of government. His
building activities reflect a pattern found in many other Muslim lands in the
tenth and eleventh centuries.>'
For the scholar seeking data on where Muslim rulers placed their
government in urban centers, the history of Antioch on the eve of the
Crusader capture in 1097-1098 offers interesting evidence.f The Turkish
ruler Yaghi-Siyan lived in a palace within the former Byzantine city, and
when Antioch was about to fall to the Latins on June 3, 1098, he fled His
son, Shams al-Dawlah, gathered his own followers and retreated to the citadel
where they held out until June 28. When the relieving force of Muslims had
been beaten, Shams al-Dawlah surrendered the citadel to the Crusaders. The
Crusader leader Bohemond promptly established himself in the citadel. Shams
al-Dawlah's last act, using the citadel as a governmental center, was not
characteristic of Muslim rulers up to this point. Another example of this type
of administrative center will illustrate the geographic breadth of the
development of separated palace complexes.
Mahrnud, the Ghaznavid ruler (999-1030), established himself in the
eastern Islamic territories. While there is no clear record of his building
activities in Ghazna, nor where his governmental residence was located, the
data for the area of Bost is clearer. Bost included an impressive citadel, but
Mahmud established for himself an elaborate, extensive palace complex along
the banks of the Helmend River. The complex is almost four miles long and
includes large units which archaeologists such as Daniel Schlumberger, have
labeled as palaces. Beyond the South (or Great) Palace, a mosque was
located 36 Mas'ud III (1099-1115), Mahrnud's great grandson, was the builder
of an impressive palace complex outside Ghazna. In this case the mosque was
part of the overall complex rather than a separate unit. 3? Here again, the local
rulers have separated themselves from the older Muslim urban centers.
The actions of the leaders during the Crusaders' taking of Jerusalem will
serve here as a final demonstration of the point at hand. During final attack
on Jerusalem, July 14, 1098, the Patimid governor and military leader, Iftikhar
al-Dawlah, retreated to the citadel-the tower of David-from which he
negotiated with the Crusaders. He turned the citadel over to Raymond in
return for safe passage for himself and his garrison, while the Crusaders
massacred Muslims and Jews in the city. By August, Godfrey, the first
Crusader ruler ofJerusalem, had control of the citadel and had probably made
it his administrative and military headquarters.ss It is not clear where Muslim
administrators had been located in the period from the 'Abbasid conquest of
Jerusalem to the Crusader conquest, but the old dar al-'imara was not used;
probably neither was the citadel.
Many Muslim cities had citadels. Yet during what I have labeled here the
second period, somewhat more than two centuries, citadels were not the
locale of administrative rule. Individual governors and minor dynasties may
have lived in them. Most of the successful dynasts, however, sought to build
for themselves and their entourage elaborate complexes outside the existing
urban centers. These new complexes reflected their wealth and power. In
addition, the locale of these complexes served to distance them from the city's
inhabitants. This population was primarily Muslim, and it had its own
buildings, such as mosques, to meet its own needs. Yet this distancing may
have helped foster the ruling group's sense of power, solidarity, and
superiority. The walls around these new complexes, some of which were
fortified, only strengthened this situation. However, although these walls
were on the same general plane as the existing urban center, they would not
have been seen by many and the structures they enclosed would have been
known to even fewer. Ties between the Muslim rulers and their urban
Muslim population were made palpable through various ceremonial practices,
some of which were based on Muslim religious traditions, as well as others
which drew on older indigenous practices. Unlike the first period, no clear,
systematic architectural expression of the relationship between the ruling elite
and the rest of Muslim population existed during the second period.
However, the visual relationship between ruler and ruled, master and subject,
was to change from the late eleventh-twelfth century on. The focal point for
Islamic governments was to become the citadel.
The citadel was not an Islamic invention; in fact, it is considered one of the
earliest signs of man's conquest over his environment and other men.t? In the
Middle East, occupied citadels date back to prehistoric times and can be
found in virtually every area. Until the late eleventh century, with minor
exceptions, even those Islamic cities that had pre-Islamic citadels did not use
them. The citadel was a place for storing military hardware, a potential
lookout tower, a base for supplementary troops and a locale for possible
refuge when the city proper was attacked. Neither Caliphs and their
governors, nor sultans, and their local representatives usually lived in these
citadels. Nonetheless, no matter how old or new the citadels were, they took
on new prominence beginning in the twelfth century. They became the focal
point ofMuslim administration. With this development, we are in what I call
the third period of Islamic administrative architectural history.
In some cities before the twelfth century, palaces were built on
promontories or geological formations which then became the bases for
citadels. This was true in Tulunid Egypt as well as Nasrid Granada and
Malaga. Citadels as such were constructed by Muslims, like those built in
North Africa by various Berber dynasties. It is unlikely, however, that the
Almohads and Almoravids originated the model copied by other Muslim
rulers living in more Eastern lands.
It is possible that the critical turning point in establishing the use of the
citadel as the primary Muslim administrative center came with the Zangid
dynasty, whose initial base was in Mosul. 'Imad al-Din Zangi (1127-1144),
the atabeg of Mosul, set the pattern when he reconstructed the citadel and the
fortifications of Mosul, It is not absolutely clear that he moved all the
governmental administrative activities into the citadel or that he built a new
palace which adjoined the citadel and was separate from the rest of the city.40
'Imad al-Din's son, Nur al-Din Zangi (1146-1174) continued the original
policy in Syria by transferring the locus of government to the citadels. During
his reign Nur al-Din undertook numerous building activities, but the most
important ones for the theme of this study were those he ordered done on
the citadels in Harna, Hirns, Aleppo, and Damascus.n
Nur al-Din's work of creating the citadel as the center of governmental
power, as the apex of political control, was to be continued by Salah al-Din
(1169-1193) and the Ayyubid dynasty (1169-1250). For example, Salah al-
Din began work on the citadel in Cairo while his brother al-'Adil (1200-
1218) is credited with undertaking (or completing) work on the citadels in
Cairo, Basra, Damascus, and Aleppo, among others. 42 There are a nwnber of
common themes to all of these edifices, despite the unique quality of each.
Numerous buildings were constructed within the walls of the citadel, to
meet the needs of the governing elite and their military entourage. Although
complete descriptions for most of these citadels is lacking, they all had at least
a mosque, a palace, barracks, and a bath; in other words, they were an
independent city within a larger urban unit and it was possible for an
individual to be born and to die within the confines of the citadel's walls and
still have spent an active and productive life. The fifteenth-century author
Khalil al-Zahiri wrote of the Cairo citadel:
The royal residence, where the throne of the empire is located, is known today as the
Castle of the Mountain. This palace has no equal in area, splendor, magnificence, and
height. Around it are walls, moats, towers, and a number of iron gates which make it
impregnable. It would take a long time to give a detailed description of the palaces,
rooms, halls, belvederes, galleries, courts, squares, stables, mosques, schools, markets.
and baths that are found in the palace; so we will limit ourselves to describing the most
remarkable things and those which can best exemplify the greatness of the Empire. 43
He then describes the palace and the Great Mosque, which, he is told, can
hold five thousand worshipers. The first and most important factor is that the
citadel represents a concentration of governmental power, which has a very
cleat spatial relation to the rest of the city. Citadels existed on a different
plane from the rest of the city. Not only could the ruler look over his subjects
but they, in turn, knew where he was. While a citadel cannot be seen from
every part of a city, it can be seen from most. In the first period, with the
model of the dar at- 'imara-mosque combination, and the second, in which the
palace complexes were separate from the original Muslim political centers.
most people would never have seen the walls that surrounded the residence,
let alone the royal residence itself. This was not the case with the citadel. It
was organically tied to the rest of the built environment, usually by walls; at
the same time, though, it was above the urban area. Both Muslim and
Christian travelers remarked on the formidable character of these citadels.
The work of S.D. Goitein, based on medieval Jewish Geniza material,
reenforces this interpretation of the changed relationship between the
populace and the ruler, symbolized by the building of a citadel. Apropos of
the second period Goitein wrote, "The civil population of Fustat had nothing
to do there (i.e., al-Qahira)." He was describing the lack of contact between
the commercial center of greater al-Fustat and the Fatimids' royal residence,
al-Qahira. But with the building of the citadel on the Muqattam mountain,
contact was established with the population and "summons and visits to the
qaI'a now make their appearance in the Geniza, sometimes with unpleasant
consequences for the persons concerned. "44
The emerging preeminence of the citadel as the center of political and
military power within the Muslim urban setting was also repeated in other
parts of the Islamic world; the citadel became the dominant location of
Muslim administrative centers from Spain to India. Art historians have
debated the meanings of the various units within the Alhambra, but first and
foremost this fourteenth-century creation in Nasrid Granada is a citadel in
that a range of buildings, functionally similar to those in Cairo's citadel, were
situated Similarly, Herat, Ghazna, Samarqand, to name only a few cities east
of the Arab world, have citadels that became the center of political power
with a full range of activities and structures. Many of these cities had pre-
Islamic citadels, but their role as Muslim governmental centers dates, in most
cases, from the thirteenth century if not later. This architectural
concept-s-whereby the ruler and his court were to be placed within a
citadel-was carried also to the Indian subcontinent and was exemplified by
many of the cities under Muslim control.
What is most difficult to explain is why this shift from the use of palaces,
often separated from the bulk of the urban population but on the same plane,
to citadels within the urban setting but physically above the rest of the
population, took place. Extensive studies of the eleventh and twelfth centuries
are still needed before a clearer picture emerges, but we can speculate why
the Eastern Arab world was the site for this development. The causes might
have included changes in the organization of Muslim armies, new
expectations in terms of royal patronage, and the experience of Crusader
practices. In many cases, the users of these citadels were ethnically alien with
respect to the urban dwellers. The eleventh and twelfth centuries mark the
triumphs of a whole series of nomadic armies, the most famous of which
were those of the Selcuks. Many of these rulers would have felt threatened by
or vulnerable to attacks by urban mobs or semiorganized city groups. The
citadel offered them obvious protection. Nevertheless, rulers such as those
who were alien or felt isolated from the population, often sought to span the
gap between themselves and the populace by sponsoring foundations that
serviced the population. This is the moment when Sufi orders became a
significant part of the social fabric, and some of these military leaders
patronized Sufi buildings-and in doing so, often endowed and allocated
space for their own retirement. This activity highlights an interesting
psychological relationship between the two types of building activities
associated with these new rulers. They constructed citadels for themselves,
whereas they sponsored mosques, schools, and Sufi hospices, which would
permanently remind the populace of the presence of their patron.
A second factor, whose relationship to the use of citadels is unclear, is the
change in character and organization of the Islamic armies. Previously they
had been composed of salaried cavalry and infantry of slave origin, whereas in
the new Muslim armies, the men were still of slave origin, but, the infantry
component disappeared. Thus, armies of the Selcuks, Zangids, Ayyubids, and
other dynasties were composed of cavalry, both Mamluk and free, the latter
most often of nomadic origin. Along with the citadels, this new generation of
rulers established parade grounds which were used for training their cavalry.
Infantry would serve in sieges (and in the palace as guards) but were not a
central military force.45
How did Muslims "read" their cities in the centuries before the age of
Ottoman hegemony? The obvious types ofsources that we could look to for
an answer-references in chronicles, comments by travelers, texts by
architects-are all silent on this issue. In many areas not even the buildings
remain, and only faint memories of them exist in written texts. The absence
of this data should not lead us to the conclusion that there was no significance
to the architectural layout of the urban environment. This study has argued
that one element of it, the locus of political power, was not the result of a
series of arbitrary whims. It was a distinct pattern of organization, even if its
meanings may not always be clear or explicit in the historical record.
With the success of the conquests of the Fertile Crescent and Egypt,
Muslims found themselves a new political elite, a new military power, and, in
most lands, a minority. All of these factors influenced the earliest building
activities in this first era. Places of prayer and administrative centers were
needed. However, what eventually emerged in lands from North Africa to
Iran was a pattern whereby the most important administrative center, at least
initially, was placed on the qibla side of the mosque. Clearly, the two roles of
the governing power were tied together, and by placing the dar closer to
Mecca, the interrelated importance of the roles of governor and religious
leader were indicated. Within the world of the former Sassanian empire, the
architectural relationship was even more formalized. The potential
administrative center was always physically connected to the qibla wall, twice
as wide as the mosque, usually crowned by a green dome, and both buildings
were arranged in a symmetrical plan around the same axial line.
The second era coincides with the transformation of urban centers into
Muslim cities, that is, places where the overwhelming majority of the
population is Muslim. This population had certain needs which have a
palpable architectural character, such as the requirement for a large mosque or
a number of mosques which served as the gathering place for the Friday noon
prayer. The rulers, for reasons of security or preference, no longer felt a need
to be located within the older urban environment or above it. The building
of Samarra in the ninth century by the 'Abbasids may be the earliest extant
example of rulers building separate cities, but the Fatimid program in the
following century probably had a more lasting impact. The Fatimids, who
were Shi'ites, separated themselves from the populace, which was
overwhelmingly Sunni. Each group, then, was served by separate edifices.
The citadel, whose use can be traced to ancient Near Eastern civilizations,
did not become a major locus of Muslim rule until the late eleventh and
twelfth centuries. The alien origins of many of the military leaders and
changes in military technique were two factors that led to the emergence of
this particular architectural form as the center of military and political power.
The citadel overlooked the city; the cavalry dominated the infantry; the rulers
were above their subjects; they were all part of the same program, which
found expression in the relationship between parts of the urban setting. The
Ottomans would use these citadels when they conquered many of the lands
of the Eastern Mediterranean, but they would also develop other ways of
expressing their political, military, and religious role in society.
NOTES
I wish to thank my colleagues Caroline Bynum and Peter Sugar as well as the
members of the University of Washington's History Research Group for all their
valuable comments and criticisms
1. G. Deverdun, "Kasaba," Encyclopaedia oj Islam, 2d ed. IV.684-86 (hereafter
referred to as EI).
2. K.A.C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), 1.22
(hereafter referred to as EMA). Michael Morony, Iraq aJter the Muslim Conquest
(princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 75.
3. Creswell, EMA, 1.22.
4. Ibid., 1.26. Morony, Iraq, p. 75. John D. Hoag. Islamic Architecture. (New York:
Harry N. Abrams, 1975), p. 14.
6. Ibn Battuta, The Travels oj Ibn BatMa, AD 1325-1354, trans. H.A.R. Gibb
(Cambridge: Hakyuyt Society Works, 1954),1.130.
7. Morony, Iraq, p. 75.
8. Donald Whitcomb,"The City of Istakhr and the Marvdasht Plain," Akten des
VII. Internationalen Kongresses jar Iranische Kunst und Archaologie (Berlin: Dietrich
Reimer, 1979), p. 364.
9. Ibid.
10. Creswell, EMA, 1.138. Morony, Iraq, p. 79.
11. Charles Wendell, "Baghdad: Imago Mundi, and Other Foundation-Lore,"
Internationaljournal oJMiddleEast Studies, Vol. II (1971), p. 119-20.
12. Hoag, Islamic, p. 28.
14. Wendell, "Baghdad," p. 119.
15. Much fuller discussions of the symbolism of this city can be found in the works
of Wendell, Oleg Grabar, The Formation oj Islamic Art (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1973), and Jacob Lassner, The Topography oj Baghdad in the Early Middle Ages
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970).
16. Jacob Lassner, The Shaping oj 'Abbasid Rule (princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1980), p. 205.
17. Lassner, Topography, p. 181.
18. Grabar, Formation, p. 69.
19. Benjamin Mazar, The Mountain ofthe Lord (Garden City: Doubleday, 1975), p.
269.
20. Ibid.
21. J. Soudel-Thomine,"Ayn al-Djarr," EI, 2d ed, 1.787.
23. Wladyslaw Kubiak, al-Fustat: Its Foundation and Early Urban Development
(Warsov: Wydawnietwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 1982), p. 205, 207, 214, Al-
Maqrizi, al-Khitat (Beirut: Dar al-Sadr, n.d.), 1.209.
24. Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Cairo: 1001 Years of the City Victorious (princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 14.
25. al-Maqrizi, al-Khitat, 1.304.
26. tsu., 1.313. K.A.C. Creswell, A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture
(London: Penguin Books, 1958), p.304.
27. Creswell, EMA, 1.61, 140.
28. Amman under the Umayyads is one exception.
29. Michael Rogers, The Spread of Islam (Oxford: E1sevier-Phaidon, 1976), pp. 127,
132-33, 138, 143.
30. Paula Sanders, "The Court Ceremonial of the Fatirnid Caliphate in Egypt,"
unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Princeton University), 1984, p. 61.
31. nu., p. 65.
32. Construction began in 936: Hoag, Islamic, p. 81.
33. Ramzi Jibran Bihazi, "The Hamdanid Dynasty of Mesopotamia and North
Syria," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (University of Michigan) , 1981, p. 864.
34. A minor nomadic dynasty, the Mirdasids (1023-1079), used the citadel as their
residence and governmental center.
35. Steven Runciman, A History ofthe Crusades, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1951), 1.317-24.
37. Clifford E. Bosworth, The LAter Ghaznavids (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1975), p. 88.
38. iu«, pp. 337-41.
39. Lewis Mumford, The City in History (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World,
1961), p. 28.
40. Ibn Battuta, Travels, II.348.
41. Nikita ElisseeffNur al-Din, (Damas: Institut Francais de Damas, 1967), pp. 712-
15.
42. K.A.C. Creswell, "Fortifications in Islam before A.D. 1250," Proceedings ofthe
British Academy, Vol. XXXVIII (1962), p. 125. Neil MacKenzie at the University of
Michigan and Paul Cheveddan at UCLA have produced dissertations on issues related
to this topic.
43. Susan Jane Staffa, Conquest and Fusion: The Social Evolution ofCairo A.D. 642-
1850 (Leiden: E.]. Brill, 1977), p. 107.
44. S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1983),IV.34.
45. The Mongol conquerors of China followed a similar policy when they ruled
from Peking.
5
Facades in Ottoman Cairo*
Olka Bates
INTRODUCTION
The architecture of Ottoman Cairo is of particular interest to art historians
for several reasons. In 1517, after approximately 550 years as the capital of
various groups, from the Fatimids to the Mamluks, Cairo was conquered by
the Ottomans and reduced to the status of a provincial city. The
consequences of such a change for the architecture of any city would be of
considerable interest, but Cairo is of particular importance because at the
beginning of the sixteenth century it boasted many more monumental Islamic
structures than did Istanbul. This established architectural tradition affected
the general development of styles in Cairo up to the end of the Ottoman
rule, in 1789.
The dominating stylistic trends in Ottoman Cairo remained peculiarly
Cairene, that is, they seemingly did not reflect the influences of its rulers.!
The Ottomans did not alter the architectural scene in Cairo as they had in
other provinces that they annexed to the empire, as for example, in the
Balkans. This reluctance on the part of the Ottomans to impose their building
traditions on Egypt can be interpreted as more than their awe at the buildings
in Cairo. Cairo, an Islamic city, was not just conquered by a Muslim force,
but by a Sunni one. The Ottoman sultan, Selim I, had to secure a fetva or
decree from the Seyhulislam in order to attack the Sunni Mamluks.s Still,
there were, however, at times overt but often subtle signs and symbols used in
buildings founded by the Ottomans in Cairo that indicate their supremacy
and power in Egypt. This paper is an attempt to isolate and interpret some of
these undisguised but subtle forms and elements that Ottomans employed in
their architecture in order to signify their position as rulers of Egypt.
The analysis of signs and symbols of power) will be limited to the facades of
a number of selected buildings. The facades are the public sides of structures
which are to be encountered by all passers-by, and thus, any message they
may bear must be readily intelligible. I presume that the Ottoman patrons did
use such signs, although these signs might have been short-lived, inconsistent,
or at times unclear. Nevertheless, an inhabitant of Ottoman Cairo must have
130 Ulku Bates
comprehended any message that might have been encoded in the stone of the
building by its patron. A (decoding) of such messages is possible for the
contemporary scholar when the building being analyzed is studied in its
cultural, historical, and social context.>
Although a building may have more than one facade, depending on its
configuration and spatial relationship to its surroundings, I shall concentrate
here on that side of the building containing the main entrance. Particular
shapes and forms that are used to decorate portals may have distinctive
characteristics. The iconography of portals, when decoded, can be interpreted
in the political and social context of their period. The movement in space and
time as the approach and entry to the building take place, the path
configuration and access, as well as sequence of spaces, are to be considered
together with the shape of the portal in order to estimate the impact of the
main entrance on the public.!
The buildings selected for study here are those whose patrons were
Ottomans from Istanbul. The most obvious candidate as a patron in this sense
was the governor of Egypt.t The tenure of an Ottoman governor in a
province was one year, which was often renewed in the sixteenth century,
less so in the early seventeenth. After about 1600, governors were moved
around quite frequently,s Correspondingly, only a small number of structures
in Cairo can be securely credited to the patronage of Ottoman governors."
Egypt, one of the most prized provinces of the Ottoman empire, has
relatively few buildings founded by Ottomans.s As a result, only six structures
: sponsored by governors shall be considered here.
To compensate for the small number of buildings, I have also included for
consideration three structures founded in Cairo by Ottoman sultans and a
queen mother through their agents. Another high ranking Ottoman official,
the ala of the harem or dar assadet agasl (also called Kizlar alasl), was among
those who often frequently left their architectural imprint in Cairo. The alas
often were appointed as supervisors of the Ottoman vaqf in Egypt after their
retirement from the court.? Several of these men, as they completed their
tour of service in Cairo, as a means to commemorate themselves,
commissioned the erection of structures many of which were of the sebil-
kattab type.l 0 These I shall not include in this study.
PATRONS, BUILDERS, AND BUILDING MATERIALS

Another area of inquiry before the (message) of the facades can be decoded
concerns the personnel and material that were involved in the construction of
these buildings. The questions that come to mind concern the recruitment of
master builders and craftsmen, their training and organization. In addition, the
final composition of a facade was affected by such factors as the ready
availability of building materials or the difficulty of transporting them from
afar? Of still greater significance is the question of the nature of designs,
drawings, and written or verbal instruction to workers constructing the
Facades in Ottoman Cairo 131
buildings. What is at issue here is whether such drawings, and instructions
were conveyed from the office of the imperial architects in Istanbul or were
locally prepared, and how these plans were executed in the course of a
construction. These facts, unfortunately, are difficult to determine precisely.
Our knowledge in the area of actual building activities is quite limited and
does not enable us to refer to specific cases of buildings; but, we do know that
the organization of architect-builders in Ottoman Cairo paralleled that of the
principal one located in Istanbul, which was attached to the imperial court.l!
In Egypt, it seems, architect-builders were recruited from the yeniferi and
locally created military units. Their appointments and promotions ultimately
were decided at the imperial office of the royal architects, on the
recommendation of the provincial office.12 The training of master builders,
however, seems to have been carried out locally.P According to one
document in the Prime Minister's Archives in Istanbul, builders in Cairo, not
attached to the provincial office of architects, were hired by Muslim citizens
but of unspecified groups or classes.>' Master craftsmen trained in specific
techniques or in certain materials were in demand; on the request of the
imperial office of royal architects in Istanbul, they traveled to important
construction sites. 1S Unfortunately, we do not know whether architects,
builders, or workers were ever recruited from outside of Egypt to work on
the specific buildings under consideration here.
When the need arose, materials were sent from one area of the empire to
another, at least for imperial undertakings and important structures, such as
the Masjid-i Haram in Mecca, and for the constructions ordered by influential
governors.t- Sinan Pasa, the governor of Egypt (1567-1568,1571-1573), and
whose mosque is one of the structures considered in this paper, had lead sent
from Istanbul to Cairo.t? This is the only case yet known to me.
In a centralized political system such as the Ottoman administration, which
included the imperial and provincial offices of architect-builders, it is
tempting to assume that designs and drawings for major buildings in the
provinces were prepared at the imperial office and dispatched to the
provinces to be locally executed. Although we do know the existence of
some such drawings, there is unfortunately no record that any type of
drawings or even a set of instructions were sent to Cairo.P' On the other
hand, large-scale building activities or those sponsored by high-ranking
Ottoman officials in the provinces were known at the imperial court. There
are documents in the Prime Minister's Archives regarding the mosques of
Mahmud and Mesih Pasas, both considered in this paper.t? The analysis of
plans of building; founded by Ottoman officials in Cairo has led me to assume
that at least several of these were prepared in Istanbul. Some were carried out
by builders familiar with Ottoman architecture of the capital, but most
buildings were executed by local masters who worked according to
instructions. In the latter cases, discord between the ground plan and
elevations occur. For example, while the plan of the mosque of Malike Safiye
132 UZka Bates
is clearly based on types that existed in Istanbul, its elevation curiously departs
from the prototypes in Istanbul. It seems likely that local masters worked
quite independently of the instructions from Istanbul (which may not even
have existed for relatively minor constructional details) in the areas of
decoration, fenestration, and secondary structural elements. In these areas the
local masters followed the traditions best known to them, that is, those
characteristic of the architecture of Cairo. We shall return to this point when
we consider the facades closely.
To summarize at this point, the governors appointed to Egypt seem to have
been prepared to undertake construction of buildings in Cairo whenever their
tenure there and circumstances allowed them. Due to the greater likelihood
of reappointment, the sixteenth-century governors had more of an advantage
than their seventeenth-century successors. The royal family of the Ottomans,
who had land holdings at their disposal in Egypt, had structures bearing their
names built in Cairo (but more often in Mecca and Medinaj.s? The
organization of master builders and craftsmen was rigidly organized, along the
lines of the imperial system in Istanbul, and the whole system was centralized,
to the extent that promotions originated at the top. At times people and
materials moved from one province to another, although at present we lack
specific information about how this relates to buildings in Cairo. Such major
transportation of personnel and materials was decided on at the imperial
center and decisions were implemented by provincial courts.
orr OMAN MOSQUE FA<;ADES IN ISTANBUL

Now let us turn to our main topic, the consideration of the signs and symbols
of power used on Ottoman founded buildings in Cairo. It is necessary, first, to
examine the facade compositions and elements as they occur in the buildings of
Istanbul itself in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. It will also be
useful to discuss the dominant characteristics of several buildings in the
provinces that were founded by governors.
The earliest mosque to be founded in Istanbul after its conquest by the
Ottomans in 1453 is that of the Conqueror himself, Mehmed 11.21 Except for
parts of the low enclosure wall that surrounded the mosque (known as the
Fatih or the Conqueror's mosque) and its dependencies, not much from the
original mosque has survived. But the enclosure wall and the low gates
indicate an early characteristic of Ottoman imperial mosques: that the mosque
is neither situated on the street, nor does it have a face that can be
immediately observed from the street. Instead, the mass of the mosque is seen
isolated and withdrawn from the public area and cannot be entered directly
from the street but rather only from its courtyard. Therefore, the approach
into the mosque is an indirect sort of bent entrance, which forces the visitor
to cross an outer, unpaved, and sometimes planted enclosure while viewing
the majesty of the building, and to enter the paved courtyard, empty except
for the central fountain and the domed porticoes on four sides. Here, the
observer is once again oriented toward the mosque. Another peculiarity of
the imperial mosques, which is also apparent in this early one, is that they are
situated on hills, dominating their surroundings. If one adds to the mass of a
mosque two slim minarets on the north corners of the building, the result is
an imposing verticality visible from many points in the city.
The Bayezid mosque, founded by the successor ofMehmed II at the end of
the fifteenth century, is the oldest surviving imperial mosque in Istanbul.
Although it no longer has an outer enclosure wall, it retains the other
characteristics that are observed in the earlier mosque. It is situated on a hill
and is unattached on all sides. One can only approach and enter the hall of
the mosque through a courtyard attached to the north side. There are three
gates into the courtyard, but the main one lies opposite the hall of the
mosque. The block in which it is placed is slightly wider and higher than the
other two. This gate is known as the trJf kap: or the (crown gate.) On axis
with it, on the opposite side of the courtyard is the entrance to the prayer
hall. This is the main entrance portal into the mosque. The foundation
inscription is placed above this portal. The portal and the inscription are
partly hidden by the columned and domed portico. The portico is four-sided,
encircling the court, but adjacent to the hall, and is higher because it is raised
on a platform. The arch in front of the portal is not only wider but higher,
and its upper edge is crested, unlike the rest of the arcading. The dome above
the bay in front of the portal is higher than the others. Clearly, on the kible
(qibla) side, the portico is differentiated from the other three.
This portico is the threshold to the interior; and the similarity between the
portal and the mihrab composition imply a direct communication between
two zones. The threshold is more elaborate than the rest of the built space
because it is deemed more important. This kible-side portico, then, mediates
between the hall and the court. The portal in the center of this facade is
aligned with the mihrab. Therefore, an axiality is established for the approach
to the mosque, toward the mihrab. The approach is not directly from the
street, and if the outer enclosing wall were still there, it would have been a
bent one, as in the earlier mosque and the mosque of Suleyman (1550-1558)
in the same city. The approach to the prayer hall is gradual, passing through
several zones, such as the outer gate, the gate of the courtyard, and finally the
main portal with the dedicatory inscription.
Since the Mosque of Sultan Bayezid has survived in its original form, the
impact of its exterior can be determined as it as intended. The mosque is
distinguished from its surroundings by virtue of its elevated position on a hill;
the shapes and forms are arranged upward in the direction of the central
dome in a graduated manner, similar to that of a pyramid form, but not as
sharply steep. Just as the approach to the mihrab is gradual but along a
horizontal line, and punctuated by gates, the approach to the peak is also
upward, punctuated by the horizontal lines of windows, moldings and eaves.
These principles of movement-horizontal and obliquely vertical in and
around the mosque-are applied in later imperial mosques with slight
134 Ulka Bates
variations. The mosques of Sahzade and the Suleymaniye (which the great
architect Sinan built for Sultan Suleyman), and the Selimiye mosque built for
his successor, Sultan Selim, followed the principles set by the architects of the
Fatih and Bayezid mosques.P Monumental mosques of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries such as the Yeni Valide, the Sultan Ahmed, the Nur-u
Osrnaniye and the Laleli mosque (founded by Mustafa III) retain the axial
approach from the main door of the court to the primary face of the mosque
with its dedicatory inscription, as well as an oblique upward sweep of the
mass from the exterior. Moreover, these mosques are either built on hills or
on platforms, isolated in their monumentality. The slim, pencil-like minarets
frame the volume of space between them and exaggerate the verticality that
dominates the forms. The imperial Ottoman mosque does not face public
space with a grand and multi tiered wall that may be demarcated with
windows and which may contain a monumental and elaborate portal. The
imperial mosque does not directly communicate with the public space either.
It withdraws from the street or square into its own grounds, separated by a
low barricading wall.
The (facade) of such a mosque contrasts sharply with the elaborate facades
of cathedrals of Western Europe, and with the structures in $ah Abbas'
Isfahan where a mediating porch (eyvan) welcomes the public into the
structure. It contrasts also with the imposingly composed facades and
monumental portals of the Mamluk-period buildings in Cairo. The Mamluk
facades, in fact, are part of the urban environment intimately connected with
the public and its spaces. They are defined and in turn define the
thoroughfares of Cairo by forming ornamental walls along them. The facade
of the Ottoman imperial mosque is partly hidden behind layers of gates,
colonnades, and courts. Such a mosque is meant to be seen in its awesome
totality from afar, being raised on natural or artificial terraces.
The treatment of the exterior is different in the smaller mosques, especially
in those that are not imperial and not built in the capital. For example, two
mosques bear the name of Sultan Selim, the conqueror of Egypt, one is in
Istanbul and the other in Konya. But both were founded by his son,
Snleyman, the Istanbul mosque in 929/1522 and the one in Konya probably
in the 15305. Although built in memory of a sultan, they are of modest size.
The Istanbul mosque is a domed cube, flanked by low tabhane rooms. Small as
it is, the mosque stands on a hill and is surrounded by an outer enclosure wall,
which contains a planted garden. The entrance to the mosque interior is by
means of a courtyard axially aligned with the mihrab. Where it departs from
the monumental mosques mentioned above is that its cubelike exterior
appearance enforces a different facade articulation. As seen from the street, it
presents a flat wall pierced with windows--not too many or too close to one
another-and a rather large spherical dome. The verticality of the mosque of
Sultan Selim is dependent on its two slim rninarets.P The Sultan Selim
mosque in Konya stands adjacent to the tomb and Hankah of jalal ai-Din
Rumi, and honors the Sufi poet as much as it does the sultan.24 It does not
have a courtyard. The arcaded portico mediates between the public open area
in front of it and the prayer hall of the mosque. The portico contains seven
domes, and the arch corresponding to the entrance into the hall is wider and
higher than the flanking ones. Behind the colonnade of the portico, in the
shade, we see the portal, on axis with the mihrab. Two windows separated by
narrow "mihrab" niches are placed on either side of the entrance. Above the
domes of the portico, a flat wall rises. A low dome tops the mosque. The wall
above the portico has three narrow rectangular windows and two round ones,
arranged within a pointed blind arch. Again, the two faceted minarets flank
the mosque and they provide the vertical accent to it; otherwise, it would
have been a predominantly horizontal structure because of its heavy portico.
The compositional solution for the facade is quite different in a provincial city
than in Istanbul.
Mosques belonging to members of the sultan's family were frequently built
in various parts of the empire. Those in the provinces are generally smaller
and more modest in their workmanship than the ones in Istanbul. The
apparently (lackadaisical) approach to provincial mosque design may be
attributed to two factors. Either Istanbul was the main (showplace) where the
patrons advertised their power and authority through their architectural
foundations, or high- ranking royal architects of the imperial office did not
travel to supervise even royal undertakings there. Perhaps, instead, they left
the work to their counterparts in those towns. I think both reasons underlie
the greater attention given to work in the capital, a point that which should
be kept in mind when viewing Ottoman architecture in Cairo.
An example of a modest structure is the mosque of A~e Kadm, a daughter
of Mehmed I, built in 873/1468 in Edirne (figure 1).25 Seen from the street,
it is a cubic block with an unusually high octagonal drum and a spherical
dome. Widely separated windows on two tiers are on the square sides and
three narrow windows pierce each side of the drum. An unusual element is
the capping of the squinches inside with quarter domes, which appear above
the corners of the cube and set against the drum. A slim minaret is on the
northwest corner of the mosque. The main entrance to the mosque is from
the north side, preceded by the arcaded portico. This portico faces a
courtyard, which has domed arcades on three sides. The mosque and its court
are enclosed by a low wall. The exterior appearance of this mosque is similar
to that of Sultan Selim's in Istanbul except for the single minaret,26 and its
rather high drum. By comparison, the mosques that bear the name of
Mihrimah Sultan, daughter of Sultan SUleyman in Istanbul are extraordinary.
The marked superiority in the coherence of design and execution of
buildings in Istanbul over those in the provinces is particularly apparent in
mosques founded by high-ranking Ottoman officials. The mosque of Firuz
ala, the treasurer of the empire during the reign of Sultan Bayezid, was built
in 896/1491 on one corner of the Hippodrome in Istanbul. It is a small
Fig. 1 Edime, Ayse Kadin Mosque, exterior
square domed mosque, about 12 meters on a side. It has no court. The
entrance is from the street via several steps, through the three-domed portico
and main portal. The entrance is on the axis of the mihrab conforming to the
Ottoman convention for the placement of the main door into the prayer hall.
The dome of the mosque is low and not easily noticeable on the street level.
The rather squat minaret is placed on the northeast corner of the mosque,
thus behind the triple-arched portico. Firuz aga is buried in a small cemetery
that abuts the kible wall. The facade of the mosque is composed of the domed
portico, a low drum, and the low dome of the hall. It is the portico that
dominates this facade, which should be considered as the main one in all
Ottoman mosques. The lack of a courtyard can be attributed to its position
on one of the main thoroughfares of the city. Because the mosque is built on
a platform, it is an impressive presence on the street. That the mosque is
freestanding on a crowded street adds to its impact. In the words of G.
Goodwin, it is monumental (despite its small size) and a prototype for all
mosques in the empireP This is true in varying degrees from Cairo to
Damascus, or from Diyarbekir to Sarajevo. The degree varies in proportion to
the power and wealth of the patron, the duration of his stay at that location,
the proximity of the province where the building stands, and also on the
strength of the local architectural traditions. It is with reference to the first
and last points that I shall take up a few examples from the far-flung corners
of the empire before I return to the relevant architecture of Cairo. I shall
concentrate on the facades in those places that are the subject of this paper.
PROVINCIAL OTTOMAN MOSQUE FACADES

The provinces of what is now Yugoslavia were the scene of considerable
building activity under Ottoman rule. Large segments of the population had
recently converted to Islam; moreover, a number of successful members of
the Ottoman administrative and military elite had been conscripted in
Yugoslavia in their youth for the yeniieri. According to the vakJiye of
995/1587, Perhad Pasa (who served as the sancak beyi of Banja Luka in
northern Bosnia) had founded in 987/1579 a remarkable mosque and
dependencies that consisted of a school, a bath, a fountain, a mausoleum, a
caravansary, a warehouse, and two hundred shops.28 The complex, enclosed
by a low wall, survives today only in its mosque, mausoleum, fountain, and a
gate on axis with the principal one leading into the mosque. There does not
seem to have been a courtyard. Having entered from the gateway into the
precinct of the mosque, one faces a portico with three domes supported by
four columns. As usual, the floor of the portico is above ground level. The
foundation chronograrn is above the entrance door, below the central dome
of the portico, giving the name of the donor and the date of building. This
door is flanked by mihrab niches and single windows to each side. Clearly, this
facade is the main one and is visible from the street. The mosque form is that
of a cube covered with a small dome. The dome is raised above three tiers of
138 OZku Bates
terraced planes. The oblique verticality of the imperial mosques of Istanbul is
reproduced rather clumsily here. Instead of a smooth line, it is jagged toward
the peak of the dome. The broken outline of the mosque is compensated by
the sharp vertical line of the very tall minaret which is placed on the
customary northwest corner of the mosque. Thus, when seen directly from
below facing the entrance of the building, the mosque is indeed impressive: a
high and well-articulated portico-facade emphasized by the slim tower of the
minaret. But when viewed from the side or from a distance, the awkward
terraces of the interrupting horizontal lines becomes visible. It seems that the
general plan of the mosque was reproduced successfully by a local master, but
the elevation did not rival its prototypes in Istanbul.
Closer to the capital, in Bulgaria, in a town known as Hezargrad or
Razgrad, Ibrahim Pasa, an official of Sultan Suleyrnan who served many
decades as governor in various provinces, built a complex of mosque, medrese,
schools, hospice, caravansary and bathhouse. Today only the mosque has
survived, but it gives us sufficient information on the facade decoration
undertaken by an Ottoman governor.s? Although there is no foundation
inscription, the mosque must date from the 15405. The main facade of the
mosque, with the portico and the customary minaret on the northwest
corner, is certainly recognizable as an Ottoman building. The anomaly is once
again in the elevation: above the truncated corners of the high cubical form
of the mosque, there are four squat towers capped with conical tops. These
unusual towers are formally somewhere between the dome stabilizing-turrets
of the imperial mosques and ordinary minarets. Another oddity of the
appearance of this mosque is the height of the square-shaped walls. The
staggered placement of four-tiered windows does not alter the forbidding
look of the vertical walls. The unaltered part of the mosque is the part that
mattered most: its front with a portico, entrance, and minaret.
Husrev Pasa dominated the scene of Ottoman administration in the Eastern
provinces for a considerable time. 3D He acted as the governor of Diyarbekir,
Aleppo, and Egypt, among other provinces his name is commemorated with
buildings in Diyarbekir, Aleppo and Cairo. The mosque-medrese combination
in Diyarbekir was built between 928-935/1521-28. 31 The building is a large
square, which has a deep rectangular courtyard in the middle. The prayer hall
is on the kible side, and the main entrance from the street is on the opposite
side; the medrese cells are positioned opposite each other on the long sides of
the court. The courtyard is surrounded on three sides, and one enters the
prayer area directly. The minaret was added to the structure in 1141/1728.
Leaving the origins of such a plan aside, let us look at the facade.
The portal of the structure is within a block that is placed projecting from
the wall. The doorway is set back in a deep, round-arched niche. Two slim
engaged columns support the arch. The founding inscription is above the
door. The portal block is constructed in alternating rows of black and white
stone, that is, in eblak or striped colors. From this sketchy description it is
clear that the facade is in the Mamluk tradition as it appears in Syria.32 Husrev
Pasa was the patron of a remarkable sebil-kuttab in Cairo while he was briefly
governor of Egypt in 942/1535. It is a very close copy of the sebil-kattab of
the al-Ghawri complex in the same city (the sebil-kuttab shall be reviewed in
the context of Ottoman Cairo in the following pages).
The monumental mosque-medrese complex that Husrev Pasa founded in
Aleppo in 944/1537 (the inscription above the door gives the year of
completion as 953/1545-1546), was known as the Khosrawiyya (figure 2).33
The complex, and especially the mosque, are so close in conception and
design that they have been attributed to Sinan, the chief royal architect to
Sultan Suleyrnan. The complex is arranged around a courtyard that is entered
by means of staircases enclosed in vaulted corridors. The mosque is on the
kible side of the court and dominates its surroundings. It is on this facade of
the mosque, on the courtyard, that the power and authority of the Ottoman
governor is eloquently announced. The harmonious composition of the
portico in front of the mosque and the tall, slim minaret are its outstanding
elements. The portico is considerably higher than the floor of the courtyard.
Six columns raised on bases support five domes, the central one being slightly
higher and wider in diameter. The arch spans are lined with alternating black
and white stones. The entrance into the mosque is set within a mukarnes-
headed niche. Flanking the door are two windows; these are topped in the
tympana with blue and white tile panels made specifically for the mosque, the
earliest of this type of tile decoration in Ottoman Syria.34
The obvious question here is twofold: Why did Husrev Pasa sponsor such
different structures in three cities, and how do they represent his authority as
the Ottoman governor of those provinces? Specific information or
docwnentation is lacking on these matters. It could be argued that there is a
stylistic evolution from the earliest building in Diyarbekir to the Aleppo
edifice, which might explain the Ottoman appearance of the latter. But it is
more likely that the construction of the Diyarbekir and Cairo buildings were
entrusted to local craftsmen whereas an Ottoman-trained builder, perhaps the
chief imperial architect, Sinan, was responsible for the Aleppo mosque. The
choice could have been made by the pasa himself He might have employed
local iconography in order to emphasize a continuity of rule with the
conquered Mamluks, signaling a smooth transition from one government to
the other. By repeating Mamluk architectural traditions in Diyarbekir and
Cairo, the governor might have been placing himself in solidarity with the
older elite. This feature of the architecture would have been clearly recognized
by the public. It should be remembered that the Mamluk establishment in
Egypt was left more or less intact by Sultan Selim in 1517, to the extent that
Hayr Bey, a high-ranking Mamluk from the previous regime, was appointed
governor of Egypt, an anomaly in the Ottoman administrative system.
In Aleppo, we can clearly see the entrenchment of the Ottoman power. By
the time the complex in this city was completed (1544-1546), the Ottomans
Fig. 2
Mosque-medrese
complex that
Husrcv Pasa
founded in Aleppo
in 944/1537 (the
inscription above
the door gives the
year of completion
s 953/1545-1546),
was known as the
Khosrawiyya.
were at the height of their political power. Aleppo was an important city on
the route to Mecca from Istanbul. The architect Sinan is known to have
stopped in Aleppo in the 1540s, to and from the pilgrimage. He could have
supervised the project funded by Husrev Pasa, then a vezir. Whatever the
actual reason for the choice of an Ottoman style by Husrev P~, there was a
developed facade (iconography) for this type of structure, the most important
type in an Islamic country. On the other hand, the medrese or the sebil-kuttab
were not within the vocabulary of the Ottoman imperial repertory of "power
signals." As will be apparent when the Cairo buildings are examined, the type
of building most representative of Ottoman officialdom was the mosque. The
exteriors of mosques proclaimed the presence of Ottoman power in that city
more than any other building type. The "tower" of the mosque, the minaret,
with its implications of triumph as invested in its vertical form, complements
the message of the mosque on the part of its patrons.
FACADE INNOVATIONS IN THE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Two of the buildings in Cairo to be examined in this paper are named after
Ottoman sultans of the eighteenth century: the Takiya (or as the documents
call it, the Medrese) and the sebil-kuttab of Sultan Mahmud I (1730-1754) and
the sebil-kuttab of Sultan Mustafa III (1747-1774). The sultans had these
structures built through their agents, the dar iissadet agasl in Cairo. If the
portico before the main entrance into the prayer hall was the main facade of a
mosque, and if the isolated position of an imperial structure was a sign of the
supremacy of the emperor, why did the architects of the edifices of the sultans
Mahmud and Mustafa abandon such elements? Did the Ottomans give up
their conventional symbols and signs of imperial power in the eighteenth
century? Or did they develop substitutes to signal a changing political, social,
economic, and philosophical atmosphere in their empire?
It has been mentioned more than once that the social, political, and
architectural scene showed overt signs of change following the popular revolts
of 1711.35 In fact, during the 16405 when Evliya Celebi spent quite a few
years in Cairo, the city was not particularly hospitable to the Ottoman
govemors.w In the latter part of the seventeenth, and certainly in the
eighteenth century, the governors became virtual prisoners in the citadel, and
they were accepted or rejected by the ever-powerful Mamluk beys in Egypt.s?
The general situation in the Ottoman empire, in the political as well as in the
economic sphere, was far from being secure. Notwithstanding the weakening
of the central government and of its agents in the provinces, it seems unlikely
that the Ottoman sultans would have flaunted the current weakness of the
system architecturally. The Medrese and sebil-kuttab of Sultan Mahmud and the
sebil-kuttab of Sultan Mustafa in Cairo are stylistically in accord with the
architecture in Istanbul. Although these two foundations fell within the
tradition of pre-Ottoman architectural practice in Cairo they also responded
142 OZka Bates
Fig. 3 Istanbul, sebil and mausoleum of Sinan Pasa
to the Ottoman tradition in Istanbul where architectural facades addressed the

street directly. The mosques founded by the sultans Mahmud and Mustafa
both have "faces" of considerable length, consisting of enclosure walls with
windows, multiple staircases, high platforms, impressive portals, sebils, and in
the case of the Laleli mosque of Sultan Mustafa, and elegant mausoleum. This
development of facades did not, of course, occur overnight, but has a history
of about 150 years. The patrons of these structures were the members of the
military-administrative class of the empire, some of whom had served as
provincial governors. The evolution of facades in Istanbul was an essentially
urban development.
A number of powerful and wealthy Ottoman pasas followed the model set
by Sinan Pasa and founded small-scale complexes in central sections of
Istanbul (figure 3). Sinan Pasa, the conqueror of Yemen, twice governor of
Egypt, the founder of a mosque at Bulaq near Cairo and many others in
various provinces where he served, and a man of legendary wealth,
commemorated himself in Istanbul in 1003/1593. His complex consisted of
his mausoleum, a medrese of which the main room serves as a mesad, and a
sebil, arranged around a courtyard and surrounded by a low wall pierced with
windows and a portal. 38 It is located on the main street of the city which was
the processional road between two palaces, the Topkapi and the "Old Palace"
near Bayezid mosque. The most prominent position in Sinan Pasa's complex
belongs to the sebil because it projects into the street, nearly breaking away
from the enclosure wall. The six-sided sebil opens on five sides to the street
through windows covered with elegantly worked bronze grilles. The
windows are separated from each other by engaged marble colonnettes. The
sebil is topped with a low dome, but the eaves jut out from above the walls.
The mausoleum of the pasa is behind it, and the medrese cannot be easily seen
from the street. This complex becomes the forerunner of the type of complex
built during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is very tempting to
attribute to Sinan Pasa the conception of this type. He could have adapted a
Cairene model in Istanbul when he wanted to set up a number of buildings in
the center of the city, but was faced with the problem of shortage of space. A
solution would have been to face the street and (communicate) with the
public space through prominent facades, as was traditional in pre-Ottoman
Cairo. Whoever was responsible for the conception of Sinan Pasa's
foundation, it proved successful. As Istanbul became heavily built and the
streets became unalterable, patrons sought to outdo one another by
sponsoring small-scale buildings with elegant facades.
The facade composition popular in the buildings oflesser Ottoman officials
was incorporated in the Nur-u Osmaniye mosque begun by Mahmud I and
finished during the reign of Osman III in 1169/1755 (figure 4). The
monumental portal of the precinct of this mosque stood across from the
entrance to the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul. A few yards from this gate are the
fountain and the sebil. 39 The mosque itself rises from behind a wall. Departing
from the traditional imperial mosque type, it is a cubic structure topped with
a low dome. Each side of the cube is spanned with a heavily projecting arch
enclosing five-tiered windows. The walls seem to dissolve into openings
under the arches. The mosque and its precinct linking smaller secondary
buildings facing the street mark the middle ground between the classical
Ottoman style and one that emphasizes the facade, The Nur-u Osmaniye
mosque displays considerable European-inspired "baroque" elements,
particularly in surface treatment, which harmonizes well with the newly-
evolved facades.
The foundation of Musdfa III, the "Laleli mosque" (dated to 1173-1177/
1759-1763) is even more remarkable for its daring facade cornposition.w
Raised high above a basement with windows, the mosque dominates the
secondary buildings that surrounded it. The basement contains a shopping
area, a combination that is common to the monumental architecture of
Cairo. The mosque is approached from the street level through a planted
outer precinct, through its own courtyard, and finally through of the portico
into the prayer hall. This approach into the hall follows the tradition of
imperial mosques. What is unusual is the relationship between the mosque
building and the street. The full height of the mosque is visible from the
street. The gate on the street is monumental and its wide and high arch
permits a full view of the precinct and the mosque, establishing a direct visual
Fig. 4 Istanbul, Nur-u Osmaniye Mosque:
the sebil and the gate to the courtyard
connection between the street and the building. Moreover, the wall of the
precinct is demarcated by the projecting buildings of the round sebil next to
the gate and, after an interval, by the polygonal mausoleum of the sultan.
Large rectangular windows with bronze grilles play an important role in
lightening the effect of the enclosure wall. The mausoleum and the sebil have
windows with round arches; the openwork of the grilles displays floral motifs
(which are also found in the contemporary architecture of Ottoman Cairo).
Having sketched the development of facades of Ottoman buildings in the
capital city and provincial towns, I shall review the facades of nine structures
in Cairo founded by Ottoman governors and members of the Ottoman ruling
elite through their agents. The following brief description will attempt to
isolate novel aspects of facade design in Cairo during the Ottoman period,
and raise the question as to whether these particular innovations might be
connected with the representation of the Ottoman patronage in that city.
THE FACADE IN OTTOMAN CAIRO

The first building to be examined was founded by Hadim Suleyman Pasa who
was the governor of Egypt twice, conquered Yemen, and later rose to the
position of Grand vezir, the highest post in the administration of Sultan
Suleyrnan (figure 5). The foundation is on the Citadel of Cairo and incorporates
within its enclosure the tomb ofSayyid Sari'a (twelfth century). Suleyrnan Pasa's
mosque might have been built over an older one. In addition to the mosque and
its courtyard, a mekteb or school and possibly a zaviye are extant." The tombs are
within a building with nine flattened domes; the tombstones themselves have
yeniferi headgear. The tomb building is entered from the courtyard of the
mosque as well as from the cemetery that lies to the south.
The Citadel was the official residential area of the Ottoman provincial
council headed by the governor. Evliya Celebi visited the mosque and found
its congregation small, consisting of the yeniferi alasl (the chief of the yeniceri)
and his men, and therefore, as he notes, very clean. 42 The rebuilding of the
interior of the Citadel in the nineteenth century by Muhammad 'Ali
obliterated any signs of the Ottoman occupation of the site. As a result, the
mosque and its dependent buildings have been deprived of surrounding
kindred structures.O The only building that might have had an indirect
relation to the mosque is one suggested by K.A.C. Creswell, the burc (tower)
known as the Imam, the nearest tower to the mosque, which might have been
the residence of the staff of the foundation.ss Towers were used as dwellings
by the occupants of walled-in citadels in the Ottoman period, and Evliya
Celebi, as an Ottoman officer, stayed in such residences.
The mosque and dependencies are surrounded by a partly demolished low
wall, as were the mosques of A~e Kadin in Edirne and of Sultan Selim in
Istanbul. An arched gate that is hooded by a heavy but flat gabled roof is
approached by a double staircase from the square in front of it. In the
tradition of the late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Ottoman imperial
146 UZku Bates
mosques, that of Suleyrnan Pasa is on a higher level than its surroundings.
Behind the wall the most astonishing part of the complex is the minaret. It is
unusually tall and rises above a hefty square base. The minaret has two
balconies, which is unusual for a structure patronized by someone other than
the sultan. It is likely that Suleyrnan Pasa emphasized the minaret through its
height because it would have been the most visible sign of an Ottoman
building. And being the representative of the sultan he might have
appropriated two balconies while remaining within the regulation that only a
sultan's mosque would have more than one minaret. Here, the minaret seems
to be doubled because of its height and its balconies. The shaft of the minaret
is faceted, and a horizontal ring marks the beginning of the lower third of the
shaft, with double mukames bands that corbeled beneath the balconies. The
minaret shaft, with all its features, including the heavy base, is in the tradition
of early Ottoman minarets. It should be remarked at this point that whatever
liberties may be taken with the rest of a mosque structure and its decoration,
the minaret remains purely Ottoman. This leads me to suggest that the
minaret, more than any other component of the design, specifically indicated
that the patronage and the political power, were Ottoman in origin.
The courtyard of the mosque is adjacent to it on the north side-a
Fig. 5 Cairo, the Mosque of Suleyrnan Pasa

the gate of the outer enclosure
Fig. 6 Cairo, the Mosque ofSiileyman Pasa: the court and porch
customary placement (figure 6). It is arcaded but the portico domes are on
piers, not columns. According to Evliya Celebi, the domes of the portico, as
well as those of the mosque, are rivetted with turquoise-green tiles. The plan
of the mosque is of the so-called inverted-T type, which had its origins in the
early Ottoman period. The arms of the T are covered with half domes, while
the other one is spherical. This is the only mosque of this particular type in
Cairo the type was no longer used in mosque architecture elsewhere in the
Ottoman empire after 1530.
The main entrance into the prayer hall is not very clearly identifiable.
There is a side portal which is set within a niche that has a high mukarnes-
filled hood. Because this entrance is in part overlapped by the base of the
minaret, it is likely that this door has been left over from the earlier structure.
More in the tradition of Ottoman architecture is the door from the courtyard
148 UZku Bates
of the mosque into the hall. The courtyard, shared by the tomb building and
the mosque, is arcaded, and the side that abuts the hall is raised on a platform,
except for the area in front of the doorway, as is common in Ottoman
practice. The domes on this side are higher. The doorway has a round arch
in the customary place, the dedicatory inscription containing the name of
Sultan Suleyman and his governor SUleyman Pasa, the founder and the date
935/1528-1529. 45
The entrance to the courtyard is not axial with the main door to the prayer
hall but is on the side, as the tomb occupies the north end The approach to
the mosque and the entrance into the hall are traditional, as are the portico
between the court and the interior and the placement of the foundation
inscription on the main facade. It diverges from the facades of mosques of the
imperial capital in the decoration that consists of colorful marble incrustation
of the dado, a marble frieze with a Koranic inscription, and paintings on
plaster around the doorway. Such decorative work was usually carried out by
local masters throughout the Ottoman empire. One of the earliest structures
of the Ottomans in Egypt, the Mosque of Suleyrnan Pasa, the Beylerbeyi,
conforms to the architectural traditions of the empire. The exterior of the
mosque, as well as the main entrance into the prayer hall and the
configuration of the approach testify to the presence of Ottoman rule on the
Citadel of Cairo.
The sebil-kuttab of Husrev Pasa is an odd successor to Suleyrnan Pasa's
mosque (figure 7). Built against the west exterior wall of the medrese and the
Mausoleum of the Ayyubid Sultan Salih Najm al-Din,46 it is a very close
replica of the sebil-kattab of the Qansuh al-Ghawri Complex, the last Mamluk
sultan who fell victim to the Ottoman Sultan Selim.f? Husrev Pasa was
appointed to Cairo to fill in for Suleyman Pasa in 1535 while the latter had
joined the campaign in Iran and Iraq with Sultan Suleyrnan. That Husrev Pasa
chose to have a small and compact structure built to commemorate his stay in
Cairo may be understandable given the briefness of his appointment. Much
larger complexes were founded by him in Diyarbekir and Aleppo, where he
remained for considerable stretches of time, as we saw above. His choice of a
model for the sebil-kuttab can be explained by the royal patronage of the
Mamluk structure. Structurally, the sebil-kattab was novel: it is the earliest one
to my knowledge built to stand alone, and not as part of a complex. More
than 350 sebil-kiittab: were erected in the Ottoman period48 Decorative and
compact monuments, they were of great service to the population.
I have no explanation to otTer as to why Davud Pasa chose a remote site in
the southwestern part of Cairo to found a mosque. It was to the west of the
canal known as Halic Misr, in what was then a suburb. According to the
foundation inscription above the entrance the mosque was built in 955/1548,
but in the vakjiye drawn up seven years later. In 962/1555 Davud Pasa is
referred to as the (deceased.r'? He replaced Suleyrnan Pasa as the governor in
945/1538 for one year.50 Therefore, the mosque was founded after Davud Pasa
had left Egypt, which might account for the unusual aspects of the building.
Fig. 7 Ca iro, the sebil-ki.ittab of Husrev Pasa
/
/
/ .
-
j -
.
... ..~.-'--' .....
'
----- ~ ..- ';-
Fig. 8 Cairo, the Mosque of Davud Pasa

Faiades in Ottoman Cairo 151
The exterior of the building has been heavily repaired and thus is not easily
interpreted. Currently, it has a loosely organized facade (figure 8). The
mosque is attached to residential buildings on two sides, an unusual feature in
Ottoman architecture. It originally had neighbors as well, as indicated in the
foundation document. Another unusual element for an Ottoman foundation
is the cresting that runs along the upper edge of the building. This feature is
taken from the pre-Ottoman architecture of Cairo. The mosque is raised
above a basement that contains shops, a feature that had several precedents in
the Mamluk period. Today, the shops are closed, and a doorway, which once
led to a vestibule in the court behind the mosque and to the minaret, no
longer exists. On the mosque level, there are large rectangular windows with
preserved wooden shutters inlaid with mother-of-pearl and bone. Large
windows, although they existed in the late Mamluk period, became especially
common in the Ottoman period. The second tier of windows are triple-
window compositions, two rectangular and one round window grouped
together. This composition is of Mamluk derivation, which in turn is based
on earlier models. The minaret was between the windows and the entrance
porch to the mosque.
The entrance to the mosque, on the upper level (the one presently used) is
the most original feature of the building. On the street level two squat pillars
delineate the approach. The pillars are topped with strangely formed capitals
resembling the headgear of a Sufi order. 51 Entering between the pillars, one
mounts the stairs toward the monumental door-niche. The door is set back
under a trilobed arch. Above the door and below its hood is the inscription
that has the name of the founder and the date. This positioning of the
inscription is certainly of Ottoman derivation. The wooden door wings have
inlaid work of mother-of- pearl and bone set among different types of wood.
The patterns of the decoration are geometric.
The remote location of the mosque from the heart of the city and its un-
Ottomanlike features (such as being attached to neighboring buildings, and
positioning above stores) might be due to the absence of the founder from
Cairo. Among the Ottoman pasas having structures built in Cairo in their
name was Hadim Suleyman P~a, to whom a large tekke is assigned (figure 9)
(called medrese in its inscription).52 The medrese is dated to 950/1543, the year
when Suleyman Pasa was appointed as the grand vezir to the court of the
sultan. The facade of this medrese is again of the Mamluk type, including its
recessed entrance within a trilobed arch. It is located above stores on the
ground level. Although the medrese plan is Ottoman, the facade on the street
does not give any indication of this feature. The portal of the medrese is placed
in the center of the facade, which is not commonly found in late Mamluk
design, where the portal is often on one end of the facade. In Mamluk
medreses the portal leads to a small vestibule, often a separate room. Ottoman
architecture is distinguished by the bilateral symmetry of its facades, whereas
late Mamluk buildings tend to be asymmetrical.
Fig. 9 Cairo, the tekke of Suleyrnan Pasa
Although both were foundations of the same man, the overt difference
between the appearances of the mosque and the medrese facades might be
attributed to the relationship of the patron to the city. The former building
represented him as well as his position in Egypt, while the medrese was
undertaken in his absence. The eclectic features of the mosque of Davud Pasa
can also be attributed to the same circumstance. The asymmetrical placement
of the entrance vestibule into the mosque of Davud Pasa leads me to suggest
that the plans and construction of the building were carried out by local
architects, rather than within the Ottoman office of architects in the province
of Egypt.
By the account of Evliya <;::elebi 53 and according to archival documents'<
and historians.w Mahmud Pasa was a scheming, ungenerous, and, not
surprisingly, an unpopular individual. Although he was the representative of
the Ottoman sultan in Egypt as the beylerbeyi, he took part in the struggles
among the Mamluk beys and was eventually shot and killed by one of them.
Following his death the Ottoman government auctioned off his property to
obtain the money that Mahmud Pasa owed to the imperial treasury and
others, and allotted only a percentage of the money collected for the
completion of his mosque and mausoleum in Cairo. Evliya Celebi attributes
the assassination of the Pasa to his inordinate conceit in having a mosque built
next to the mosque-medrese of Sultan Hasan and drawing away the
congregation from the older structure. He could have added that Mahmud
Pasa did not stop there but, moreover, went on to build his mosque in
imitation of that of the Mamluk sultan.
In fact, the mosque of Mahmud Pasa, dated to 975/1567 but completed
later, is an updated version of Sultan Hasan's monument (figure 10). The
Ottoman mosque stands on a platform at a higher level than the Mamluk
building just at the foot of the Citadel. Seen from the Citadel, Mahmud Pasa's
mosque seems larger than that of Sultan Hasan. The main entrance door of
the mosque is reached by a flight of steps, and it is centered within a niche
with a trilobed arch the hood of which is filled with rows of mukames. The
door composition of the portal is derived from the medrese entrance of Sultan
Hasan. The eblak wall texture is also in the Mamluk tradition. A floriated
cresting tops the building. The most important feature that was derived from
the earlier monument is the location of the mausoleum, which abuts the kible
wall of the mosque.
Some unmistakably Ottoman features exist here. For example, the door is
centered on the facade, unlike the asymmetrical corner positioning of portals
so popular in late Mamluk-period architecture. Also, characteristically
Ottoman is the isolation of the mosque from its surroundings. Like an
imperial structure it stands on its own ground, detached from the neighboring
buildings. Achieving this structural isolation must have been quite a feat for
the Ottoman governor even at that time. The outstanding feature of the
mosque is its tall and slim minaret. It is placed on the southeast corner of the
Fig. 10 Ca iro , the Mosque ofMahmud P~ a
Fig. 11 Bulaq, the Mosque of Sinan P~a

facade, and the cylindrical base does not detract from its Ottoman origins.
The minaret, in Evliya Celebi's words, is "Islambuli," or of the Istanbul type.
The minaret signals the Ottoman patron's presence.
The Mosque of Sinan Pasa in Bulaq, the port of Cairo on the Nile,56 dated
to 979/1571, is a good example of a classical Ottoman mosque built in the
provinces by local architects (figure 11). The mosque is a square topped with
a single dome. The minaret is placed on the southeast corner. The mosque is
surrounded on three sides by arcaded porticoes. The mosque was originally
on the shore of the Nile, and according to Evliya Celebi, a quay was in front
of it, and the river prevented the addition of a courtyard on that side.>? The
side that should have had the court, is of course, opposite the kible, the
customary location. The main entrance to the mosque is on this side behind
the arcade.
The arcade is unlike any Ottoman type, and more common to North
Africa. It is reminiscent of Tunisian mosque facades. The main side of the
arcade overlooking the Nile is divided into five unequal parts, the central
section being the widest. The central section contains three arches (the central
arch being the widest), while the two flanking ones have only two. The bays
of the arcades are covered with slightly oval domes. These are partially hidden
behind a parapet topped with floriated cresting.
The minaret, which Evliya Celebi calls" Rumi," (Anatolian), is on the kible
side, possibly because the shore of the river prevented the builders from
raising a tower on the traditional northeastern corner. Today the minaret is
squat, barely visible from behind the dome of the mosque. But according to
the vakfiye of the building, it originally had two balconies. 58 That high
minaret would have dominated the building. It is also noteworthy that Evliya
singles out the minaret to describe it as "Rumi;" as being distinct in style.
Arcaded porticoes that envelope a mosque structure are rare in Ottoman
architecture. In Istanbul the mosque of Piyale Pasa built in 981/1573 has
arcades of this type. An earlier example in wood was built for another
Ottoman official, Yakub Pasa at Cardak near Istanbul, around 1480. Such an
extended portico must have replaced a courtyard in the absence of space to
expand, yet it gave the building an appearance of large size. This is certainly
true for the mosque of Sinan Pasa,
Bulaq prospered considerably during the Ottoman period as the major port
of Cairo. 59 Many commercial buildings, among them a wakala or warehouse-
cum-caravansary of Sinan Pasa, were the mainstay of this suburb. In the
vakfiye of the mosque this u/akala is said to be to the east, separated from the
mosque by a street. A door from the mosque on that side provided direct
comrnunication.w The part at Bulaq was quite important, for an incoming
Ottoman governor would land there after sailing up the Nile from Rashid
(Rosetta) in the Delta. The governor would then rest for three days at Bulaq
before he proceeded to the processional road near modern 'Abbasiya where
he met with the elite of Cairo.s! The sight must have warmed imperial hearts
156 OZka Bates
to observe the elegant mosque of Sinan Pasa and its imposing Rumi minaret at
this threshold of Cairo.
Sinan Pasa had been the conqueror of Tunisia. His mosque at Bulaq could
be seen as embodying a combination of design elements reflecting the history
of his career. He advanced from Cairo to Istanbul to become a grand vezir,
and was appointed to that post four times, having been dismissed thrice by
Sultan Murad III.62
The mosque of Sinan Pasa is a good example of an Ottoman official's
provincial mosque. It is based on the single-domed square mosque type, yet
its elevation is quite different from its counterparts in Istanbul. The difference
is more than in the decorative elements, but pertains to the structural
elements as well, particularly inside the mosque. It has been pointed out
before that the zone of transition from the cube to the spherical dome is very
peculiar for an Ottoman mosque and has been adapted from a late Mamluk
building known as the Fadawiyya, built between 1479-1481. 63 The trilobed
squinches are enclosed within blind niches that start almost from the ground
level. The low positioning of the large squinches practically truncates the
corners and gives the interior a cylindrical shape, despite its square ground
plan. The circular drum of the dome is pierced with trilobed windows, a
shape peculiar to Cairo. It seems to me that the architect of this mosque must
have been instructed by Sinan Pasa to build a domed square structure, and
perhaps was even given quite specific directives. While the builder designed a
mosque that followed the Ottoman type in general terms, he drew on his
own knowledge and experience of local architecture. With one last look at
the exterior of Sinan Pasa's mosque, my conclusion is that this was an
Ottoman structure, with its correct placement of parts on the facade in
relation to the hall and to the approach to it (figure 12). But it certainly is a
provincial work. If the minaret had not lost its upper story and if the lead that
Sinan Pasa had sent to Bulaq to cover the dome had been put to use, the
Ottoman design features might have been even more palpable.s" As it is, the
mosque partakes of design traditions native to both Istanbul and Cairo.
Mesih Pasa undertook the renovation of an extensive foundation in Cairo,
at the edge of the Southern Cemetery, near the tombs of the 'Abbasid caliphs
and across from the Citadel (figure 13). The rebuilding was ordered by the
Pasa as governor in 983/1575, but when the vakfiye was drawn up in
989/1580 the construction was still not complete. Mesih Pasa remained as the
governor between 1574 and 1580, for the duration of the recorded
construction. The valifiye mentions that the tomb of Seyh Nur AI-Din al-
Qarafi and a medrese were already extant on the site. The Ottoman official
enlarged this important structure by adding a sebil-kiittab, a khulwa or
hermitage, an ablution area, a ribat (underground water storage area), a dergah,
and passageways connecting various units. 65 A document in Istanbul, in
referring to Mesih Pasa's undertaking, calls it a tekke. 66
Only the ribat that serves as the mosque remains of this extensive
Fig. 12 Bulaq, the Mosque of Sinan Pasa
o
••
~
Fig. 13 Cairo, the Mosque of Mesih Pasa

foundation. The prayer hall occupies a small part of the area behind an
extensive facade. The rest is either devoid of any structure or put to some
other use. The facade is not symmetrical, the portal block is to one side, and
next to it is an imposing minaret on a sturdy base that rises above the wall. To
the east is the wall of the nbat, onto which windows on two tiers open. The
complex was freestanding when the vaJifiye was written. Its sebil-kuttab, now
gone, was on one comer, and the entrance to the ribat was on the other,
which is the present side door. On the east a lane divided it from the long-
lost medrese that was attached to the tomb of Seyh al-Qarafa. An unattached
complex of buildings, as we have seen was a characteristic of imperial
foundations. Mesih Pasa's foundation, bordering the tomb of a respected
Seyh, must have been appropriate to his authority as the Ottoman governor.
This complex, partly renovated and partly enlarged by the Ottoman
governor Mesih Pasa, has suffered through the ages. The latest threat to its
integrity came a few years ago when an elevated highway was built past it and
the interior of the remaining parts of the building were repaired with one
room converted into a clinic. Today what towers above all and can be seen
even beyond the elevated highway is the "Rumi" minaret.
The valide sultan or "queen mother" of Mehmed III, Safiye Sultan, was a
willful and powerful woman.s? Under her auspices, the foundation of one of
the largest imperial mosques of Istanbul, the Yeni Valide, was begun in the
1590s. Construction was halted when her great-grandson Ahmed I began the
building of his own imperial mosque. The Yeni Valide mosque was
eventually completed in the mid-1660s by a team of "queen mothers."
During the interruption of work on her mosque, she seems to have ordered
the construction in Cairo of a new mosque to bear her name. She had been
granted land and real estate holdings in Egypt earlier by her son Sultan
Mehmed III. 68 The profits or the income from the holdings probably financed
the building of the Cairo mosque.
The mosque known as al-Malika Safiye in Cairo, according to its
inscription, "was founded by the mother of late Sultan Muhammad Khan
(Mehmed III) by the office of Isma'il aga, the officer of the vakf The present
inscription was placed on the twenty-seventh of Muharrarn of the year 1019
H. "69 Isma' il ala was a dar ussade: agasl at the imperial court, directly
answerable to Safiye Sultan before he retired and was sent to be the supervisor
of the imperial vakJ in Cairo. Apparently he had supervised the building of
the mosque in question but added his name as the founder. Following a
lawsuit brought about by the valide sultan, the inscription plate was changed
and her name was rightfully inserted in 1610.70 This mosque is the one
formally closest to the imperial Ottoman type in Cairo (figure 14).
Evliya Celebi describes the mosque thoroughly, though he mistakenly
attributed it to Davud Pasa because it is located in the Dawudiyya quarter of
Cairo.Z! According to him, the mosque was entered via a staircase of twenty
steps; it was built on sixty columns, and the courtyard was surrounded by
160 OZka Bates
Fig. 14 Cairo, the Mosque of Malika Safiye
sixty domes. In his opinion, the mihrab, the minbar, and the minaret of the
mosque are in the "Rumi" style. Apparently, at the time of Evilya's stay in
Cairo the mosque had a large congregation.
The mosque of Safiye Sultan stands on a high platform and is freestanding,
which is very rare in the heavily populated city. It is still possible to walk
around the building. As indicated by a gate on the north side of the mosque,
about 25 meters away from it, an outer wall enclosed a precinct that wrapped
around the mosque on four sides. The courtyard of the mosque is to the
north of the prayer hall, and the minaret stands on the northeast corner of
that hall. The three gates of the courtyard can be approached from the street
level by means of a steep flight of stairs (only two sides were built). The
staircases form semi-circles against the walls. As seen from the street, the
mosque with its court and minaret is imposing: two-tiered windows are lined
up along the walls; the gates to the court are set within trilobed arches; and
the multiple domes of the prayer hall and of the courtyard cap the silhouette
of the horizontal expanse of the building.
The courtyard is square and arcaded on all sides. The side which joins the
court with the prayer hall is treated as the facade: the foundation inscription is
placed on the central door to the hall, and the door frames are selectively
decorated (figure 15). As in the tradition of imperial mosques ofIstanbul, here
too, the approach is through the gate of the outer precinct, up the stairs of the
courtyard and into the prayer hall facing the mihrab.
The ground pIan of the mosque of Safiye Sultan is a lateral rectangle from
which a smaller rectangle on the kible side projects and contains the mihrab.
The large rectangle is converted centrally into a hexagon by six columns
which support a large dome, while the mihrab area and corners of the hall are
topped with smaller domes. This design is a familiar one in sixteenth-century
Istanbul. It was used by the architect Sinan in 1583 for the mosque known as
Atik Valide Sultan (Nur Banu, mother of Murad III), built for the predecessor
of Safiye, in Istanbul. Despite the Ottoman design of the mosque, a visitor to
the building would find it at odds with models from Istanbul. The elements
and techniques of decoration remain local, as do the proportions of the
building elevation. The plan-design for the mosque in Cairo must have been
prepared in Istanbul, probably in the imperial office of architects, but the
appearance of the mosque reflects the work of the local builders.
The last two Ottoman structures in Cairo belong to the same mode of
facade architecture. Both were constructed, through agents, by eighteenth-
century sultans. The structures are situated in the southwest of Cairo, in areas
developed during that century. The medrese (commonly known as the tekke)
and the sebil-kuttab of Sultan Mahmud I is on a major (new) avenue, which
used to be along the Canal (Halic) (figure 16). The agent of the Sultan, Besir
aga, was a retired dar iissadet agasl and a confidant of Mahmud, and a recipient
of many favors from him. 72 The construction date in the inscription above
the entrance of the sebil is 1164/1750. The structures occupy a corner, the
sebil being at the juncture of the avenue and the street. Facing the main street
are two portals, those of the medrese and the sebil, and the door of the kuttab is
on the side street. The medrese is above a ground level, which contains stores,
and the portal block is slightly off-center. The store level and the medrese
windows are separated by a wide band of floral ornamentation. The windows
have bronze grilles, and above the windows is another band of floriated
ornamentation. A double-leafed cresting runs along the roof A floral theme
in the decorative vocabulary had been very popular in Ottoman Istanbul from
the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The ground level stores and the windows of the medrese and the foliated
cresting above the roofline continue on the side street after an interval with
the sebil-kuttab and the portal to the kuttab. Two facades of the structure
maintain the same facade composition. The sebil-kuttab juts out from the L-
shaped facade, yet, because of its curved form, it relates to the two horizontal
lines of the medrese. This unit of the complex of Mahmud displays Ottoman
architectural features, and may be considered as the "message-bearing" unit of
the composition (figure 17). Its large, elegantly curved windows are separated
by double engaged columns, seen for the first time in Cairo. And the windows
are sheathed with bronze grills displaying intricate floral patterns. The patterns
were first drawn for the buildings in Istanbul, and constitute part of the
Fig. 15 Cairo , the Mosque of Malika Safiya
Fig. 16 Cairo, the tekke of Sultan Mahmud
Fig. 17 Cairo, the sebil-kiWab of Sultan Mahmud

164 OZka Bates
"Baroque" decorative vocabulary of the Ottomans. The imperial cipher is
carved on the spandrels of the window arches of the sebil. Sultan Mahmud
could not have decided on a better place to declare his patronage and power
than in this Ottoman structure in Cairo. It is of interest that the tugra of the
Ottoman sultan is inscribed within a roundel, for the roundels of the Mamluks
bearing the blazon of their patronage were similarly displayed. There is no
doubt here that the ruler and owner of a country is an Ottoman. That is
announced in the form of the sebil, and emphasized in the use of the tugra.
It is true that a kiWab on the upper level never occurs in Ottoman
architecture in Istanbul, but is unique to the Mamluk tradition. But in this
monument the kuttab is tacked to the sebil; the kuttah is auxiliary, as it consists
mostly of an open arcade with flimsy columns. Moreover, this upper story is
half-hidden above and behind the strongly projecting eaves that separate the
two floors.
In Cairo there are several medreses or mosques with a sebil-kuttab attached.
The tomb complex of the foundation of Qansuh al-Ghawri (1501-1516), the
last ruling Mamluk sultan, in the heart of Cairo, contains a sebil-kuttab at the
corner of the two main streets. The sebil-kuttab served as a model for Husrev
Pasa's building several decades later. The sebil of Mahmud I is quite different
from its predecessors in Cairo. Rather, it is based on Istanbul models;
particularly on the sebil of the Nur-u Osmaniye complex, the construction of
which was begun during the reign of Mahmud 1. As discussed above, the
street-oriented facade of the precinct wall of the Nur-u Osmaniye was arrived
at after about 150 years of building small complexes created by high-ranking
officials of the Ottoman empire (figure 4, above). These complexes line the
major streets of Istanbul and define the ornate (walls) of the public
thoroughfare. The earliest of these complexes was sponsored by Sinan Pasa,
the governor of Egypt in the late sixteenth century. The Ottoman character
of the medrese and sebil-kiittab of Sultan Mahmud is obvious also in the
articulation of the units of the complex. Different parts of the complex were
not articulated as distinct sections, added on to another, but rather as a unified
whole. The continuous features of the facade on two streets are unmistakable.
So is the sebil-kuttab at the corner. It is from this vantage point that the whole
complex is to be viewed: the sebil is the ideal center of the approach to the
building, and the two sides of the facade are the lateral walls.
The sebil-kuttab of Sultan Mustafa, 1173/1759, is the last monument to be
considered from the Ottoman period of Cairo (figure 18). It stands by itself at
a corner in the southwestern edge of the city, across from the revered tomb of
Sayyida Zainab. Although the sebil-kuttab is by itself, it conveys power and
monumentality because of its prominent position on the street and its striking
polychrome decoration. The entrance into the sebil is from the side street and
it is in the Mamluk architectural tradition. The second entrance, to the kuttab,
is smaller, but it stands on the main street forming a continuous whole with
the facade of the sebil. The dedicatory inscription is above this door. The
Fig. 18 Cairo, the sebil-kuttab of Sultan Mustafa
166 OZka Bates
notched arches of the columns that separate the large curved windows were
imported from Istanbul, as were the grilles; the sebiI would not have been out
of place had it appeared as part of the Laleli complex founded by Mustafa III.
In fact, the mausoleum and the sebil of the Istanbul complex share the same
form and decorative elements with the sebil-kuttab in Cairo. What the Istanbul
facade does not have, though, is the roundel with the tugra of the sultan. In
his hometown, the patron need not necessarily flaunt his name and title; but
in Cairo, in that turbulent provincial capital of the period, Mustafa III
declared his presence boldly and explicitly.
It is not surprising to find sebil-kattabs with exaggerated "Turkish baroque"
elements built in the nineteenth century to commemorate members of the
Muhammad 'Ali Family, which was in power at the time. Muhammad 'Ali
chose to build a mosque, on the Citadel, modeled after classical Ottoman
mosques to proclaim his independence from the Ottomans. In various
quarters of the city, another Ottoman model, the sebil-kiittab, was also
imitated.P The silhouette of the mosque of Muhammad 'Ali dominates the
City of Cairo. It has two very slim minarets in the "Rumi" manner of the
Ottomans. Until this time, only mosques that were sponsored by an Ottoman
sultan could have more than one minaret. The "Rumi" minaret and its
symbolic implications survived into the nineteenth century and were aptly
utilized by the new power-holder in Egypt. This was certainly the end of one
rule and the beginning of another. The architectural symbol, though, merely
changed hands.
CONCLUSION
In this paper I have attempted to identify certain design features
characteristic of the Ottoman period, which can be taken as connoting
Ottoman power.ts In the group of buildings reviewed, there is, with the
exception of the Mosque of Davud Pasa, a strongly marked isolation of the
building from its surroundings. This isolation of the structure enables it to be
seen in its entirety. The architecture of the late Mamluk period seems to
consist of several buildings lined up along a street where they form a
continuous facade punctuated by portals and square minarets, rather than of
individual monuments.Zs In Ottoman architecture, whenever possible,
entrances are placed in the center of a facade or wall, whereas in later
Mamluk architecture asymmetry was preferred, particularly with portals
situated at ends of a wall. In the majority of the mosques reviewed here the
conventional approach into the prayer hall was retained. This involved an
axial entry, facing the mihrab. When this principle of approach is established in
a mosque, the facade proclaims itself as the main "face" ofthe building. Here
were placed the dedicatory and foundation inscriptions. This mosque facade is
traditionally fronted by an arcaded portico that partially hides the entrance
and the inscription. This seemingly negative aspect of the portico can be
explained by the intent to provide a threshold or a transition between the
public space and the interior. This portico, when found in a courtyard, is
distinguished from the three-sided porticoes by the height of its floor and
often the height of the domes. The Turkish language also distinguished that
side of the portico by naming it the son cema-. 'at yeri, or "the late comers'
place," suggesting an annex to the prayer hall.
The eighteenth-century foundations bearing names of the sultans in Cairo
discussed here are markedly different from the earlier structures of the
Ottoman period in that city. The distinction lies in the selection of the type
of buildings for imperial foundations, which resulted in conventional facade
compositions. This development, I suggest, is a consequence of urban and
economic changes in Istanbul in the seventeenth century. The patrons of
public building had to compete with each other with considerably fewer
financial resources than the royalty itself could .muster for convenient sites in
an already crowded city. It is apparent that the centralized power of the
Ottoman state had begun to ebb in the seventeenth century. Other wealthy
groups began to participate in urban affairs; they added many urban
thoroughfares for the convenience of their own residences. The patrons from
the military-administrative class restricted themselves to the cramped sites
along the major streets. New facade elements were developed, and these
facades announced themselves to the public thoroughfares. This point can be
carried further: the popularity of building fountains and sebils in this latter part
of the Ottoman period in both Istanbul and Cairo can be attributed to the
growing importance of newer wealthy groups in the urban centers. Thus,
mosque architecture that was the preferred type for the patrons of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries gradually came to be replaced by smaller
foundations. The proliferation of the sebil-kuttabs in Cairo and the sebils and
fountains in Istanbul can be explained by changes in societal structure in the
Ottoman empire.
The explanation for the persistence of Marnluk-period elements in
Ottoman Cairo is a complex issue. It could be argued that this simply
reflected the inherent superiority of the Mamluk architectural traditions over
those of the Ottoman in 1517. But this answer begs the real question of why
this should have been the case. It is true that Istanbul, as the seat of empire,
was the major showplace or main site for imperial patronage. It was also the
site of the imperial office of the royal architects. The organization of
architects in Istanbul employed the best workers of the day. Although there
was a parallel institution in the provinces that was controlled by, the office in
Istanbul, the architects employed there were trained in traditions different
from those of the capital. The provincial architecture of the Ottoman empire
follows the styles developed in the capital in its general lines, but introduces
many divergent features of local origin.
Yet the persistence of Mamluk-style structures and design features in the
Ottoman period in Cairo can also be attributed to' a need to appropriate the
symbols of powe.r of the conquered ruling class. The use of Mamluk-period
168 OZka Bates
expressions of imperial power would have been especially attractive to the
Ottoman governors. Although they were representatives of the sultan in
Egypt, they held high rank in the provincial government, and the
appropriation of Mamluk imperial signs might have fostered their personal
ambitions in the hierarchy of the land they ruled This type of appropriation
ofMamluk imperial artistic expression is clearest in the case ofMahmud P3.$a,
who copied the mosque-medrese of Sultan Hasan, perhaps the grandest of all
Mamluk buildings. Evliya Celebi, that shrewd gentleman and traveler, did not
miss that point. It might be assumed that many of the inhabitants of Cairo
found such actions equally legible.
FUTURE WORK
There are several avenues of research that need to be carried out which
would enhance our understanding of Ottoman architecture in general and of
Islamic Cairo in particular. A complete understanding of Ottoman
architecture depends to a significant extent on a knowledge of, and
interpretation of, structures built throughout the territories of the Ottomans,
not just in the capital itself The key question here is what are the complete
relationships between the architecture of the capital city, Istanbul, and that of
the provinces? What is the impact of the style, ideas, and forms emanating
from the center of the empire? Where does the province fit in regard to the
larger world of Ottoman architecture? Understanding the nature and extent
of the architectural impact of Istanbul on Cairene architecture can enhance
our view of the political and social relations that linked the two major cities
of the Ottoman period.
NOTES
*Gregory Johnson and Alan Duben made valuable suggestions in the preparation of
this paper. I would like to acknowledge their help and contribution to this study.
1. This peculiar stylistic indifference to imperial models in Istanbul has been
commented on by various scholars. Among the most recent is Andre Raymond, who
lists only four mosques in (Ottoman style) among nearly 200 registered monuments in
Ottoman Cairo. A. Raymond, The Great Arab Cities in the 16th-18th Centuries: An
Introducticm (New York and London: New York University Press, 1984), pp. 93-103.
2. I. H. Uzuncarsih, Osma!l Tarihi, 3rd ed. (Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu, 1975),
II1.278-79. Uzuncarsih's account is largely based on the work of Ibn Iyas: W.H.
Salmon, tr., An Account of the Ottoman Conquest of Egypt in the year A. H. 922 (A.D.
1516), Translated from the Third Volume ofthe ArabicChronicle of Muhammad ibn Ahmed
ibn Iyas, an Eyewitness ofthe Scenes He describes, (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1921).
3. For an illuminating study by Edmund R.Leach of "the iconography which is
used to decorate grandiose entrances" in northern Indian temples in Khajuraho, see
"The Gatekeepers of Heaven: Anthropological Aspects of Grandiose Architecture,"
Journal of AnthropologiCill Research, vol. 39, no.3 (Fall 1983), pp. 243-64; a more in
depth and exhaustive (but difficult) exploration on the subject is by Guy Ankerl,
Experimental Sociology of Ardlitecture: A Guide to Theory, Researdl, and Literature (The
Hague, Paris, New York: Mouton Publishers, 1981).
4. My analysis owes much to the work by Francis O.K. Ching, Architecture: Form,
Space and Order (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1979), particularly, pp. 245-89.
5. The governor or beylerbeyi came from the ranks of p~a until the 15705, and later
from among the vezin,
6. I. Metin Kunt, The Sultan's Servants: The Transformation of Ottoman Provincial
Government, 1550-1650 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), pp. 57-77,
table 4.12, (Duration of Office for Bey/erbeyi.)
7. The number of structures sponsored by governors in the provinces dropped
sharply after 1650. In addition to economic reasons that underlie the decline, a change
in administrative policies directly affected such patronage. In I. M. Kunt's words, "the
beylerbeyi came to depend increasingly on the cooperation of local--and unofficial--
elites, either as agents mwtesellim" or as aides in revenue collection, thereby
contributing to the rise of a powerful group of provincial notables (ayan) in the
eighteenth century. Such developments do not necessarily imply a general decline, but
simply a greater degree oflocalleadership" (The Sultan's Servants, pp. 98-99).
8. In general, Ottoman officials seem to have sponsored construction in the Balkan
provinces, especially in Yugoslavia. Such patronage can be partly explained by the
relative wealth and power of the Ottoman elites over the local Muslim population. A
significant proportion of Ottoman administrative-military officials originally came
from the Balkan provinces as dell§lrme. The question of whether they favored their
place of birth with special patronage remains to be studied. Understandably, no
deviirme youths were recruited in Egypt.
9. I. H. Uzun'ra~lh, "Harem A~alari, ve Dar ils sade ~asi:' in Osmanl, Devleti
Saray T/?§kilatl (Ankara: Tilrk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1945), pp. 172-83.
10. Among these are the Sebil-kilttabs of 'Ali ~a Dar al-Sa'ada (1088/1677; Index
no. 268) and Sir A~a Dar al-Sa' ada (1131/1718; Index no. 309). For a complete list of
the sebil-kwttab, A. Raymond, "Les fontains publiques (sabil) du Caire a I'epoque
ottomane (1517-1798)," Anna/es Islamologiques, vol. XV (1979), pp. 235-93.
11. S. Turan, "Osmanh t~kilatinda hassa rnirnarlari," (Ankara ilniversitesi Oil,
Tarih-Co~rafyaFakiiltesi, Tanh ArlJ§tlrmalall Delisi, vol. I, no. 1 (1963), p. 159, and C.
Orhonlu, "Sehir mimarlari," Journal ofOttoman Studies, vol. 11 (Istanbul, 1981).
12. O. Bates, "Two Ottoman Documents on Architects in Egypt," MuqarnIJS, vol.
III.
13. At times of necessity, for example, during military campaigns or for the
construction of imperial structures, men were summoned from provinces. Turan,
"Hassa mirnarlari," pp. 170-71.
14. Basbakanlik Arsivi, Istanbul, Muhimme Defteri (vol. 50, row 779, p. 306; date:
17 Ramadan 993/12 September 1585). .
15. Turan, "Osmanh te~kilatinda." Builders, craftsmen and workers were recruited
from Egypt and, if necessary from Syria and Palestine, by Ottoman officials (beylerbeyis
and qadis) to work at the sanctuaries in Mecca and Medina. A decree (hukm) issued
from the divan of Sultan Suleyman to the beylerbeyi 'Ali Pasa, governor of Egypt,
concerns the repairs to be carried out on the IIak!property in the Hijaz (Muhimme
Deften, vol. 6, row 586, p. 277; date: 972/1564).
16. Construction materials such as spoil columns, stone, and wood had to be
170 utka Bates
transported to Mecca and Medina (MiJhimme Defteri, vol. 26, row 964, P: 297; date:
982/1574).
17. Recorded in the hukm (Milhimme Defteri, vol. 34, row 286, p. 135, row 286,
date: 986/1578).
18. B. Onsal, "Topkapi Sarayi a~ivinde bulunan mimari planlar iizerine," Gilzel
Sanatlar Aleademisi Dertisi (vol. I, Istanbul, 1963).
19. Concerning the mosque of Mahmud Pasa, Milhimme DeJleri (vol. 15, rows 428
and 717; date: 979/1571-1572; and the mosque of Mesih Pa~a is recorded in
Milhimme Defteri (vol. 42, row 303; date: 989/1581).
20. The construction activities in Mecca and Medina were under the supervision
and jurisdiction of the divan of the Ottoman governor in Egypt. Such activity was
particularly intensified during the reigns of the sultans Siileyman, Murad III, and
Mehmed III.
21. G. Goodwin, A History of Ottoman Architecture (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
Press, 1971), pp. 123-24, fig. 116.
22. Mosque facades of the classical period of Ottoman architecture are the subject of
a study by Jale N. Erzen, Cephie Mimarisi (Istanbul, 1980).
23. Goodwin, A History, pp. 184-87.
24. tus.. pp. 119-21, figs. 112-13.
25. Goodwin, A History, p. 108, fig. 100.
26. Two or more minarets were permitted only for those mosques that were
commissioned by a sultan, although not all such mosques had two or more minarets.
The only exception to this tradition within the Ottoman domains was the Most
Sacred Sanctuary in Mecca, which has seven minarets.
27. Goodwin, A History, pp. 166-67; figs. 159, 161.
28. E.H. Ayverdi, Avrupa' da Osmanl, Mimari Eserleri: Yugoslavya (Istanbul: Fetih
Cemiyeti, 1981), vol. II, bk. 3, pp. 20-21.
29. E. H. Ayverdi, Avrupa' da OsmanI, Mimari Eserleri: Bulgaristan, Yunanistan,
Arllavudlule, (Istanbul: Fetih Cemiyeti, 1982), vol. IV, bks. 4, 5, and 6, pp. 46-47..
30. Mehmed Siireyya, Sicill-i Osmani, vol. II, (Istanbul, 1311).
31. A. Gabriel, Voyages archeologiques dans la Turquie orielltale, (paris: 1940), p. 200;
M. Sozen, Diyarbeleir 'da Tarle Mimarisi (Istanbul, 1971), pp. 70-72, plan no._20.
32. The facade of the mosque at Diyarbekir is stylistically similar to the Medrese
Nuriyya in Tripoli (1333?). C£ H. Salarn-Liebich, The Architecture of the Mamlule City
of Tripoli (Cambridge, Mass.: The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture,
1983),fig. 109.
33. J. Sauvaget, "Inventaire des monuments musulmans de la ville d'Alep," Revue
des etudes Islamiques no. 66, 1931, p. 99; Goodwin, A History, pp. 202-203; A.
Raymond, The GreatArab Cities, pp. 93-94.
34. The telelee and medrese commissioned by Sultan Siileyman in Damascus, between
1554 and 1566, repeat the use of tile panels above the windows and doors.
35. A. Raymond, "Le Caire sous les Ottomans (1517-1789)," in B. Maury, et al.,
Palais et Maisons du Caire, vol. II; epoque Ottomane (paris: C.N.R.S., 1983), p. 30 and
passim.
36. Evliya Celebi gives the clear impression that during the ten years he spent in
Egypt and the Sudan, the political situation deteriorated for the Ottomans. Evliya
Celebi, Misir, Sudan, Habes (1672-1680) Seyahatnamesi, vol. X (Istanbul: Devlet
Basimevi, 1938).
37. SJ. Shaw, ed., and tr., Ottoman Egypt in the Eighteenth Century. The Nizanname-i
Misir ofCezzar Ahmed Pasha (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs
VII, 1962), pp. 3-4. 38. Goodwin, A History, pp. 337-
38. O. Bates, "Davud Agha," in A.K. Plazek, ed., Architects (New York: The Free
Press, 1982), 1.518.
39. Goodwin, A History, pp. 382-87.
40. tsu., pp. 388-91.
41. Document no. 1074; date: to Rajab 936 H. The Archives of the Ministry of
Awqaf of Egypt.
42. Evliya Celebi, Seyahatname, X.220-22.
43. Bo Maury, et al., Palais et Maisons du Caire 11.117-18.
44. K.A.C. Creswell, The Muslim Architecture of Egypt (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1959),11.17 and 20.
45. Published as the Mosque of Sidi Sariah, no. 415; Max van Berchern, Materiaux
pour un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum, Part 1, (paris, 1903), p. 603.
46. Creswell, Muslim Architecture in Egypt, 11.84-103.
47. A very good photograph is reproduced in The Mosques of Egypt (Giza, Egypt:
Ministry ofWaqfs, 1949), vol. II, pI. 150.
48. A. Raymond, "Les Fontains publiques."
49. Document no. 1176; date: 16 Shawwal 962 H. The Archives of the Ministry of
AwqafofEgypt.
50. S!1leyman Pasa "Hadiirn," Islam Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: Milli El!itim Basimevi,
1970), XI.194-97.
51. Gate-pillars with similar capitals are found in the complex of OcV$erefeli Cami
(838/1435) in Edirne. Goodwin, A History, fig. 96.
52. J.A. Williams, "The Monuments of Ottoman Cairo," in A. Raymond, J.M.
Rogers, and M. Wahba, eds., Colloque internationale sur l'histoire du Caire (Cairo: 1972),
p. 461, no. 2.
53. Evliya Celebi, Seyahatname, X.205.
54. MUhimme Defteri (vol. 15, rows 428 and 717, date: 979_H.).
55. Mustafa B. Ahmed "Mustafa 'Ali: 1541-1600", Mustafa 'Ali's Description of
Cairo of 1599, A. Tietze, ed and tr. (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichen Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1975), pp. 18,72.
56. N. Hanna, An Urban History of Bulaq in the Mamluk and Ottoman Periods,
Supplement aux Annales Islamologiques, Cahiers, no. 3, (paris: 1983).
57. Evliya <;:elebi, Seyahatname, X.293-94.
58. Document no. 2869, line 48; date: 20 Rab' al-awwal 989 H. The Archives of
the Ministry of Awqaf of Egypt.
59. N. Hanna, "Bulaq--an Endangered Historic Area of Cairo," in Islamic Cairo,
Art and Archaeological Research Papers (1980), pp. 19-29; and An Urban Historyof Bulaq.
60. Document no. 2869, line 53 (cf. note 58).
61. Evliya Celebi describes the ceremonies that were enacted on the arrival of the
Ottoman governor. Seyahatname, X.167.
62. "Sinan Pasa" in Islam Ansiklopedisi, X.661-66.
63. M. Meinecke, "Architektur des 16. Jarhunderts in Kairo nach dem
Osmanischen Eroberung von 1517," in Proceedings of IVeme Congres International d'Art
Turc (Aix-en-Provence, 1979), pp. 147-48.
64. MUhimme Defteri, (vol. 34, row 286, p. 135, date: 12 Safar 986 H.).
172 Otka Bates
65. Document no. 2839; date: 28 Jumada "l-ula, 998 H. The Archives of the
Ministry of Awqaf of Egypt.
66. Milhimme Defteri (vol. 42, row 303, p. 69; date: 23 Jumada' l-akhira 989: a teklee,
a ribat, and a saleiya are mentioned and several shops that were deeded to the upkeep of
the religious buildings. At the time of the issue of the document, Mesih P~a in Cairo
had been dead for a year.
67. S.A. Skilliter, "Three Letters from the Ottoman 'Sultana' Safiye to Queen
Elizabeth I," in S.M. Stem and R. Walzer, Documents from Islamic Chanceries Oriental
Studies, (Oxford: B. Cassirer, 1965), vol. III. First Series. pp. 118-57; H.G. Rosedale,
Queen Elizabeth and the Levant Compan),: A Diplomatic and Literary Episode of the
Establishment of Owr Trade with Turleey (London: Henry Frowde, 1904), p. 139ff.
68. A Malle-name in The Archives of the Topkapi Sarayi, Emanet 7787, date
1005/1598 (Account Register BooklMilhasebe Deften).
69. JA. Williams, "The Monuments of Ottoman Cairo," no. 12, app. B.
70. In 1610 Safiye Sultan had withdrawn from public life and was banished to the
Eslei Sara)', the residence of the retired court ladies. The date of her death is not
recorded
71. Evliya Celebi, Sayahatname, X. 218-19.
72. A Millie-name in The Archives of the Topkapi Sarayt, £manet 7818, bears the
tu,e'ra of Mahmud I; date: 16 Rajab 1152 and addendum 10 Rabi' al-thani 1152.
73. Raymond, The Great Arab Cities, p. 130.
74. A good study of Mamluk architecture is R.S. Humphreys, "The Expressive
Intent of the Mamluk Architecture of Cairo,) in Studia Islamica, vol. 35 (1972).
75. O. Grabar, "Reflections on Mamluk Art," in Muqarnas, vol. 2 (1984) p. 11.
6
The Ottom.an Sultan's Mosques
Icons of Imperial Legitimacy
Howard Crane
The idea of a dynastic imperial or state-sponsored architecture embodying

and projecting fundamental values of a particular society and linking them
with the power and authority ofthe ruling elite is one that is encountered at
many moments and in many cultures, both past and present. It is a notion that
immediately brings to mind such diverse monuments as the Parthenon in
Athens, Hadrian's Pantheon in Rome, Justinian's Church of the Holy
Wisdom (the Haghia Sophia) in Istanbul, and the U.S. Capitol in
Washington, D.C.
This monumental assertion of state or imperial power, of ideology and
legitimacy, is not, of course, a conception exclusive to the West. It is an idea
that has been as much at home in India, China, and the Near East as it has
been in the Western tradition. In an Islamic context we need only recall the
Umayyad Dome of the Rock atop Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem, al-Mansur's
Baghdad, the Kuwwat al-Islam mosque in Delhi, or the Safavid Masjid-i Shah
of Isfahan, in order to affirm the continuity of effort on the part of Muslim
rulers to create tangible symbols-icons-expressive of the values, authority,
power, and legitimacy embodied in the person of the prince and his state.'
Not surprisingly, such ideas and purposes are standard and lasting features of
the Ottoman architectural tradition as well. Imperial mosque architecture was
a major focus of royal patronage in the Ottoman state from the very first years
of the dynasty and is encountered not only in the traditional Ottoman
heartland-western Anatolia, eastern Thrace, Istanbul-but also throughout
'the empire: in Amasya, Konya, Jerusalem, the Holy Cities of Arabia, the
Balkans, and Central Europe.
It is in Istanbul, Bursa, and Edirne, the three Ottoman capitals, however,
that the Ottoman rulers founded over the space of some six centuries a series
of vast imperial mosque complexes collectively referred to as the great
Sultans' Mosques (cevami-i selatin).2 Conceived and executed on a grand scale,
they are perhaps the most remarkable monuments of the Ottoman
architectural tradition, and have long attracted the attention of traveler and
scholar alike. Yet curiously, despite their impressive monumentality and
imperial associations, little attempt has been made to link their form with
their meaning or to approach them iconographically. What was their
metaphoric significance? What were the types of messages they were intended
to convey? What were some of the values and ideological notions they sought
174 Howard Crane
to articulate? And what were the formal devices used to give expression to
these values, to define and delineate their intended messages?
Imperial mosque architecture, the founding of royal mosque complexes in

the Ottoman capitals, was a key architectural concern of successive Ottoman
sultans from the earliest years of the dynasty. Within little more than a decade
of the conquest of Bursa in 1326 and the establishment there of the Ottoman
capital, a royal mosque was built by Orhan Gazi in the old hisar or fortified
Byzantine town, just south of the walls of the citadel.I Although no longer
intact, its foundation inscription, dated 738/1337-1338, preserved in the east
wall of the nearby Sehadet Camii. Evliya Celebi states that Orhan Gazi was
later buried nearby and it seems probably that the mosque was originally
intended as both a commemorative monument and as the Ulu Cami or
Friday mosque of the newly Ottornanized hisar. 4
Ottoman Bursa soon outgrew the walled hisar, however, and began to
expand into the sloping terrain to the east of the old Byzantine city. Here
Orhan Gazi established a second foundation, a religious and social complex,
completed in 1339. Ranged around the mosque, Orhan Bey founded a series
of social and charitable institutions, for the most part no longer extant but
originally including an imaret-zaviye-medrese (soup kitchen for the poor, dervis
lodge, theological college), a mekteb (primary school), a han, and a hammam.
Because the site has long since been built over, it is today difficult to get an
overall sense of the formal arrangement of the complex. It is clear,
nonetheless, that the various structures that went to make it up were scattered
over irregular terrain in an organic manner and that little attempt was made to
impose a preconceived and arbitrary plan on the site. Considerable debate has
taken place as to whether the reverse-T plan of the present day mosque
reflects the layout of the mosque built by Orhan Bey. From its restoration
inscription we learn that the original foundation was burned by the
Karamanids (probably in 1414) and restored in 1417 by Bayezid Pasa for
Sultan Mehmed I. If indeed the plan of Bayezid Pasa's restoration reflects that
of Orhan Bey's original foundation, the Orhaniye would be the earliest
example of the so-called Bursa-type zaviye mosque.! Whether or not this is in
fact the case, it is clear that the Orhan complex constitutes the oldest sultan's
mosque complex built by the Ottomans, that in terms of site-planning it
established the pattern that will characterize these ensembles into the middle
of the fifteenth century, and that, as a town-planning device, the mosque
ensemble is an early example of what will become a key mechanisms used by
the Ottomans to encourage and facilitate the growth of urban settlement. For
the Orhaniye served not as a religious center, but as the social and educational
focus of a newly developing suburb of early Ottoman Bursa, beyond the walls
of the old Byzantine fortress.s
Although modestly conceived under Orhan Bey, Ottoman imperial
mosque architecture evolved rapidly in size, complexity and sumptuousness
The Ottoman Sultan's Mosques 175
during the reigns of his immediate successors Murad I (1360-1389) and
Bayezid I (1389-1402). Murad, primarily a military figure preoccupied with
expansion in the Balkans, founded his major imperial complex on the lower
slopes of Ulu Dag, below the village of Cekirge, about three kilometers west
of the hisar. Begun about 1366 and completed sometime before 1385, it
includes a hammam, imaret, and the tomb of Murad I (built by his son Bayezid
I after the former's death) ranged around a central mosque-medrese-zaviye. 7
Unique in the evolution of Ottoman architecture, the synthesis of these three
functions within a single structure reflects, perhaps, the uneasy balance and
continuing tension between heterodox Sufi and orthodox ulema in the early
Ottoman court and society. Like the Orhaniye, the Cekirge complex was
probably intended to serve as the center to a growing suburb.
A second mosque, built by Murad within the walls of the hisar, is
mentioned by various sources as having been begun, like the Cekirge
mosque, in 1365, and can be identified as the Sehadet Carnii, situated
immediately to the south of the Citadel. As it stands today, the mosque,
which was heavily damaged in an earthquake in 1855 and arbitrarily restored
by Celaleddin Pasa (the vali of Bursa in 1892), consists of two domed units of
equal size ranged along the axis of the mihrab. Anhegger and EIdem, however,
have shown that the original plan of the Sehadet Carnii was of the multidome
ulu cami type, recalling Murad's Ulu Carni at Plovdiv, built in 1389. 8
Like Orhan Gazi, Murad thus built a pair of major imperial mosques in the
Ottoman capital to accommodate the needs of its growing population, one a
Friday mosque in the heart of the hold hisar, and the second a social-religious
complex in the western suburbs of the city. This pattern was continued in the
reign of Murad's successor Yildmm Bayezid I, who built an Ulu Carni in the
new market quarter directly below the eastern flank of the hisar, and a second
religious-social complex in the eastern suburbs of Bursa, about two kilometers
distant from the old walled town.
Of these, the second, the so-called Yildmrn Bayezid complex, appears to be
the earlier, probably built between 1390 and 1395, and seems originally to
have included a mosque, medrese, imaret, and hammam. All of these were
enclosed by a surrounding wall with a pair of monumental gateways, one at
the north, the other on the west. In his vakfiye of 80211399-1400 Bayezid
adds a second medrese, a darii33ifa (hospital), zaviye, storehouse, han, and
buildings for the staff of the foundation to the list of monuments forming the
complex. The latter, however, appear to have been situated outside the
precinct walls. Finally, Bayezid's son, Suleyman, built a tomb for his father
within the confines of the walled precinct to the north of the mosque.?
Thus, in terms of the variety and number of its functions, the Yildmrn
Bayezid complex goes far beyond any of its predecessors in both scale and
diversity. Like the Orhaniye and Hudavendigar complexes, however, it is
characterized by an irregular and organically conceived site plan, and it
functioned as the social and spiritual focal point of one of the newly
developing quarters of the capital.
176 Howard Crane
Fig. 1 Ulu Cami, Bursa, general view (photo: Denny).
Bayezid's second mosque, the so-called Ulu Cami of Bursa (figure 1), is
said by the historian Hoca Sadeddin to have been begun by Bayezid after the
Battle of Nigbolu (September, 1386) using spoils taken by the Ottoman army.
Located below the eastern flank of the hisar, near the mosque of Orhan Gazi,
it has been regarded for several centuries as the most important religious
edifice of the city, and is referred to locally as the Makam-l Hamis (Fifth
Sanctuary), after Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, and Damascus. In conception it
again belongs to the old Anatolian ulu cami tradition, with twenty domed bays
supported on square piers.t? Its location, in close proximity to the Orhaniye,
was necessitated no doubt by the growth of the city's commercial quarters. I I
In building an ulu cami, however, Bayezid was also continuing the pattern
established by his grandfather of building both a social-religious complex on
the capital's edge and a Friday mosque in the heart of the city.
The defeat of the Ottomans at Ankara and the sack of Bursa by Timur,
followed by the struggle for succession among Bayezid's sons brought a
temporary halt to the foundation of new imperial mosques and mosque
complexes. Nonetheless, Emir Suleyrnan, Bayezid's eldest son who ruled
Rum-iii between 1403 and 1410, having been designated Ottoman ruler by
Timur, initiated construction of a multi bay ulu cami of his own at Edirne.
Known today as the Eski Cami, work was continued by his brother and rival,
Musa, and completed by Mehmed I six months after his conquest of Edirne
in 1414. Consisting of nine domed bays arranged in three rows of three each,
and preceded by a porch of five domed bays, it recalls in overall appearance
the Ulu Cami of Bursa. Like the latter, it was located in the central market
area of the city, its purpose being that of a Friday mosque to serve the needs
of the growing Muslim community of Edime.ts
The end of the civil war between the sons of Bayezid and the reunification
of the Ottoman state under Mehmed I was followed by the construction of a
new imperial mosque complex in Bursa, the so-called Yesil complex (figures
2,3). Dominated by Mehmed I's Yesil Cami, with dependant medrese, imaret,
and tomb of the founder, it is located within what in the fifteenth century
were the eastern suburbs of Bursa, beyond the Gokdere, the quarter that, in
time, grew up around the carni, taking its name and known today as the Yesil
Mahallesi. The most splendid of the Ottoman imperial complexes at Bursa,
the zaviye mosque was completed in 1420, although its decoration and work
on the medrese and tomb continued until 1424, after Mehmed's death.
Ranged on the lower slopes ofUlu Dag, the overall site plan is again organic,
while the social and commemorative character of the complex is made
specifically manifest by the linkage of the mosque with foundations serving
educational, charitable, and commemorative purposes: the zaviye tabhanes
(hospices) flanking the mosque, the medrese, the imaret, and the tomb.P
It was during the reign of Celebi Mehmed that Edirne became a second
capital of the Ottoman state. Although imperial foundations continued to be
built at Bursa, the main focus of dynastic architectural activity now began to
shift from the old capital in Bithynia to the European part of the empire, first to
Edirne and later, after Mehmed II's conquest of Constantinople in 1453, to the
former Byzantine capital. Thus, between 1425 and 1451 Murad II built a
zaviye-mosque, hammam, imaret, tomb, and a splendid medrese, the finest in Bursa,
the so-called Muradiye complex immediately to the west of the hisar. This last
of the imperial mosque complexes erected in the city is, like the earlier Yesil,
Yildinrn Hudavendigar, and Orhaniye complexes, characterized by an organic
site plan and formed the social and religious focal point for still another
suburban quarter, the Muradiye Mahallesi, named for the complex.tt Murad's
most important foundations were built at Edirne, however, which now
gradually eclipsed Bursa as capital until the conquest of Constantinople in 1453,
and after that remained as a second residence of the sultan until the nineteenth
century. Here Murad built two imperial mosque complexes, the first of them
along the lines of the traditional social-religious ensemble that had developed in
Bursa, the second a radically new departure in the history of Ottoman
architecture. The former, the Muradiye of Edirne, completed in 1435, is
located on a hilltop at the northeast edge of the city, and included a Bursa-type
zaviye mosque with central prayer hall and flanking tabhanes (much in the
manner of the Muradiye of Bursa), a wooden teklee and semahane for dervises of
the Mevlevi order (for which Murad felt a special affinity), a stone and brick
mekteb or primary school, and an imaret for the provision of food to the poor.
Although the tekke and mekteb were still standing as late as the early decades of
the present century, no site plan for the entire complex is known to exist. It
seems likely, nonetheless, that the buildings were originally ranged around the
178 Howard Crane
site in an irregular manner. This along with the plan of the mosque would serve
to emphasize the traditional character of the Muradiye's conception, which
finds its models in the imperial mosque complexes of Bursa.1 5
In contrast to the conservatism of the Edirne Muradiye, Murad's other
great mosque in the new capital, the Yeni or O~ Serefeli Cami (1437-1447),
is boldly innovative in conception, and occupies a transitional spot in the
evolution of Ottoman mosque planning between Bursa to Istanbul. Located
in the old market area of Edirne, it seems to have been intended as a Friday
mosque, and its plan is indeed a development from the earlier Ottoman ulu
cami scheme. Its experimentation with a large dome and relatively
unobstructed interior space, as well as its monumental fountain court, while
not wholly satisfactory from either a structural or an aesthetic point of view,
represents a major turning point in Ottoman architecture in the direction of
the great centralizing mosques of the sixteenth century.w More significant for
our purposes, however, is the fact that its formal innovations notwithstanding,
it-along with the nearby Muradiye complex-attests to the continued
survival of the dichotomous tradition of imperial mosque-building, whereby
Fig. 2 Y~iI Complex. Bursa, plan: 1: mosque; 2: tomb of Sultan Mehmed I;

3: medrese; 4: hammam; 5: imaret
NORTH .0-
oI 10
!
20
!
30
!
40
!
SO Mete rs
!
Fig. 3 Yesil Carni, Bursa, general view (photo: Denny)

separate complexes were erected to serve the needs of communal worship on
the one hand and social. and educat ional and charitable ends on the other.
It is in Istanbul after 1453 that, in scale and planning. the Ottoman imperial
mosque complex undergoes its most significant transformation and assumes its
classical form . The changes are apparent already in the earliest of the great
imperial foundations of the new capital, the Fatih complex (figure 4) built by
Sultan Mehmed II between 1459 (or 1463) and 1470 on the site of the
former Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles. The largest ensemble to be
built by an Ottoman sultan until its time, Aga-Oglu has shown that despite
superficial resemblances, the fifteenth-century mosque was in no way a simple
restatement of the ideas embodied in the Haghia Sophia . but an enlargement
(without significant further development) of the traditional Ottoman ulu cami
plan as it had evolved in Bursa and Edirne.
Continuity is apparent as well in the form and funct ion of the mosque
dependencies. These included a darii~~ifa no longer standing. a tabhane,
caravansary, imaret, mekteb, library, the tomb of the founder and that of his
wife Gulbahar, and to east and west of the great meydan surrounding the
mosque. eight medreses, the Karadeniz (Black Sea) group on the east, the
Akdeniz (Mediterranean) group on the west. Ranged parallel to the mosque,
four units on each side, they were the most advanced theological schools of
the empire until the building of the medreses of the Suleymaniye in the
sixteenth century. In their scale and placement they symbolize (along with the
physical separation of Mehmed Fatih's tabhane from the mosque) the growing
strength of the ulema in the Ottoman stare.'?
180 Howard Crane
~"B ffi±[~Ifug B!EBffil:B
~l~lI
o3
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.8. \....l
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. '- ~
c/ NO RTH
10 10 3D ~O SO xte ter s
[ ! I ! !
Fig. 4 Fatih complex. Istanbul, plan. 1: mosque; 2: tomb of Fatih; 3: tomb of

Giilbahar; 4: Akdeniz rnedreses; 5: Karadeniz rnedreses; 6: tabhane; 7: dari1s§iJa
Like the social-religious complexes of Bursa and Edirne, Mehmed's

foundation was intended to provide for the social, charitable, religious, and
educational needs of the newly settled Turkish-Muslim inhabitants of
Istanbul, with which the sultan was forcibly repopulating his new capital.ts In
contrast to the earlier ensembles, however, Fatih's mosque was, both in form
and function, an ulu ,ami, intended to serve the communal religious needs of
the immigrant Muslim population. Moreover, the site plan contrasted sharply
with its predecessors. For, whereas the earlier imperial religious-social
ensembles are characterized by irregular, organic plans, the Fatih complex is
rigidly geometric, marking along with its great scale the transformation of the
Ottoman ruler from gazi warrior-chieftain of a frontier principality to
emperor, presiding over a vast, bureaucratized state administration. In size and
planning, then, the Fatih mosque and its associated structures stand as a fitting
beginning to the sequence of great imperial ensembles erected at Istanbul
over the next two and a half centuries.
The first of its successors, the Mosque of Sultan Bayezid II, (figures 5, 6)
was built, according to the foundation inscription over its main portal,
between 1500 and 1506. The mosque itself, with its great central dome
buttressed by a pair of half domes, can be seen as both a further development
of the centralizing tendencies in the ulu camiplans of the O~ Serefeli and Fatih
mosques, and as restatement of the vaulting system found in the Haghia
Sophia. Whatever the precise source for the ideas embodied in Bayezid's
mosque, its dependencies are neither as extensive nor as functionally diverse
as those associated with the Fatih Mosque. They included, besides the
mosque, a pair of flanking tabhanes, a medrese, imaret, harnrnarn, caravansary,
mekteb, muvkkithane, and the tombs of the founder and his wife Selcuk Hatun.
Although carefully oriented such that their facades (with the exception of that
of the harnrnarn) are parallel one to another, there is none of the rigid
symmetry of site plan that characterizes the Fatih complex; rather, the
dispersed arrangement of its constituent units was perhaps determined by the
location of the lanes, markets, and adjacent houses standing at the time of its
foundation. Whatever the explanation for the ensembles's arrangement, its
placement in close proximity to the Kapihcarsi or Covered Bazaar ensured
that it became the center of religious life for one of the great market areas of
the capital, while its rnedrese was, after those of the Patih and Snleymaniye, the
third-ranked center of theological learning in the City.19
While the Fatih and Bayezid complexes attest to their founders' devotion
to the time-honored Ottoman custom of establishing monumental social
ensembles in the imperial capitals, even these vast efforts were overshadowed
by those of the sultan whose reign coincides with the apogee of Ottoman
power and prosperity, Su leyrnan I, the Magnificent (1526-1566).
Remembered as a gifted administrator and military leader, Suleyman was also
a lavish patron of the arts, commanding vastly enlarged resources-booty
from military campaigns, incomes from hass lands, tax revenues-for the
construction and endowment of public and charitable works. At the same
time, he had available to him the services of the most gifted of Ottoman
architects, Sinan, under whose supervision the wealth and power of the
Ottoman state were given concrete expression in a series of remarkable
imperial mosque complexes in Istanbul and elsewhere.
The earliest of these was the Selirniye, begun by Suleyman's father Yavuz
Selim (perhaps to commemorate his conquest of Egypt), and completed by
the son in 1522 after Selim's death in 1519. Derived conceptually from the
plan of the mosque of Bayezid II in Edirne, the Selimiye is, both in its size
and the number of its dependencies-tabhanes, an imaret, a rnekteb, and tomb
of the sultan-a rather modest complex. (One speculates that the founder
may have originally intended a more extensive ensemble than that realized for
him posthurnously.P?
In both scale and conception Suleyrnan's two later mosque complexes
surpass the rather modest architecture of the Selimiye. The earlier of these, a
commemorative foundation in memory of Suleyrnau's son, Sehzade
Fig. 5 Dayezid complex, Istanbul, plan: 1: mosque; 2: rncdresc; 3: tomb of sultan Dayezid II; 4: tomb of Selcuk
lIatun; 5: imaret; 6: caravanserai; 7: mekteb; 8: hammam
~
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,t .
'
,
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~
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50
I
100 Met er s
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o e 9
11
(0)10
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Fig. 7 Siileymaniye complex, Istanbul, plan.

1: mosque; 2: da~Ja; 3: ima,et; 4: tabhane; 5: medical medrese; 6: sani medrese; 7: ewe! med,ese;
B: Slbyan mektel»; 9: tomb of Sultan Siileyman I; 10: tomb ofHaseki Hurrern; 11: t""beda,odasl;
12: salis medrese; 13: ,abi medrese; 14: hammon; 15: darii/hadis
Fig. 8 Suleyrnaniye complex, Istanbul, general view.
Mehmed, was begun in 1542 (the year of Mehmed's death) and completed
six years later. The first major commission of the imperial architect Sinan, it
realizes on a grand scale the centralizing ulu 'ami plan, with great central
dome buttressed by four semidomes. Ranged around the mosque, an
irregularly shaped court, with a hazire containing the tomb of Suleyrnan's son
on the southeast, is bordered by dependent medrese, tabhane, imaret, and
,mekteb. With a plan presumably conforming to the site restriction imposed by
the sixteenth-century urban architectural environment, the Sehzade complex
achieves an easy harmony in its asymmetrical arrangement of units and avoids
the rigidity of the Fatih cornplex.s!
This same observation holds true for what is unquestionably the greatest
foundation of Suleyrnan's reign, the Suleyrnaniye complex (figures 7, 8).
Conceived on a scale to rival Fatih's foundation, it was built by Sinan
between 1550 and 1557 so as to take advantage of a sloping site (overlooking
the Golden Horn) that enhanced the austere monumentality of its
proportions. Its numerous dependencies were carefully laid out to parallel the
orientation of the mosque; these include a da~ifa, imaret, detached tabhane,
tipmedrese, four theological medreses, mekteb, darulhadis, hammam, and the tombs
of the founder and of his favorite Haseki Hurrern. Standing at the center of
this ensemble of charitable and educational foundations-the spiritual heart of
the entire enterprise-is the mosque itself, enclosed within a great walled
186 Howard Crane
precinct with a hazire contiguous to the kible wall. With its mature proportion
and the ordered asymmetry of its site plan, the Suleyrnaniye was intended as a
center of learning, worship, and charity to supersede the Fatih complex; it is
widely regarded as the climax of the evolutionary process of Ottoman
imperial mosque architecture at Istanbul.P
Sinan's last great imperial mosque, that of Suleyrnan's successor Selim II,
was built not in Istanbul but in Edirne. According to tradition, the sultan
built it in the old Ottoman capital in fulfillment of a promise to build a
mosque in the event that he succeeded in the conquest of Cyprus. According
to Evliya Celebi, the Prophet Muhammad came to Selim in a dream and
commanded that the foundation be made at Edirne.P Whatever the precise
circumstances, there is no denying that the Edirne Selimiye, dominated by a
single vast dome intentionally scaled to exceed the dimensions of the Haghia
Sophia, is conceptually distinct from imperial mosques of Istanbul with their
central domes buttressed by clusters of semidomes.z- The result is a
rectangular prayer hall covered with a single dome vault on a high drum,
creating both an exterior profile and interior space of breathtaking drama.
Built between 1569 and 1575, the Selimiye further stands as a curious
exception to the custom (observed at least since Patih's time) of building an
imperial mosque at the heart of a social complex. Its dependencies are few:
only a medrese and daridkurra symmetrically placed in the kible end of the
rectangular walled courtyard enclosing the mosque. Even the arasta appended
to the west of the complex was a later addition, built by the architect Davud
Aga, while Selirn's tomb is located not at Edirne but in Istanbul. Functionally,
then, the Selimiye departs from the convention of imperial religious and
social complexes which had evolved in Istanbul from the time of Patih and
instead returns to the older ulu cami tradition, devoid of dependencies.es
Some four decades later one last effort was made in Istanbul to found an
imperial mosque complex on the scale of Patih's and Suleyman's.w The
Ahmediye (figures 9, 10), built for Sultan Ahmed I between 1609 and 1617 by
the imperial architect Mehmed Aga, is the largest of all the imperial mosques,
with six minarets, and a replica of the vaulting scheme worked out by Sinan in
the Sehzade mosque. Although in diameter its central dome is a few meters
shy of those of the Suleymaniye and Selimiye, the mosque surpasses aU of its
predecessors in the lavishness of its decoration. Like the Suleymaniye and Fatih
complexes, it physically dominates a diversity of appended social institutions.
But in contrast to the dependencies of these former complexes, those of the
Ahmediye are haphazardly scattered around the southern and eastern borders
of the At Meydam, rather than related to one another in an ordered site plan.
This probably had something to do with the difficulties Sultan Ahmed
encountered in the legal expropriation of properties when he sought to open
up space in the At Meydarn area for the construction of his mosque complex.
Despite this, its dependencies include a variety of functions-medrese,
dariilleurra, mekteb, arasta, hammam , imaret, dariissi]«, sebils, and imperial
tomb-and testify to the continuing hold of the idea of the Ottoman imperial
mosque complex as a center not only of religious life, but of educational,
charitable, social, and even commercial activity.27
Beginning in the seventeenth century, however, this concept starts to
undergo an evolution most apparent in the scale of the mosque and the types
and diversity of its dependencies. These changes are in part explained by
external circumstances-political instability, military reverses, economic
setbacks-all of which served to limit in both number and size the foundation
of new imperial mosques through most of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries.
Indeed, neither the militant Murad IV (1623-1640), nor his immediate
successors through the remainder of the seventeenth century, founded
imperial mosque complexes. During the reign of Muhammad IV (1648-1687)
however, the Yeni Valide mosque in Erninonu, begun half a century earlier in
the reign of Mehmed III, was completed by the sultan's mother, Turhan
Valide Sultan. It is generally referred to as a sultan's mosque, and certainly
continues in the tradition of grand imperial mosque complexes of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Situated on the shore of the Golden Horn,
the freely arranged ensemble included the great mosque itself, a daruleurra,
medrese, the tomb of Turhan Valide Sultan, a mekteb, a sebil, and the covered
arasta knows as the MISJr Carsisi. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the
Yeni Valide complex, however, is the great hunkar kasn or imperial pavilion
attached to the southeast corner of the mosque. A sort of external
antechamber to the hunkar mafifili or imperial loggia on the mosque interior, it
is a lavishly decorated three-story structure; an outsized covered ramp
provided access for the sultan, who could reach its upper floor or horseback
and the Valide Sultan by palanquin. Although its antecedents reach back to
the Ahmediye, where for the first time a similar ramp and kasr adjoin the
mosque's southeast corner and give access to the interior hunkar mahfili, both
in relative scale and absolute dimension the Yeni Valide's pavilion far exceeds
that of the Ahmediye and indicates the direction of things to come. 28
In contrast to the seventeenth century, the eighteenth, despite the
diminished resources available for imperial patronage, witnessed what at times
verged on a building mania on the part of at least certain of the Ottoman
rulers. All of this energy was by no means directed toward the construction of
religious-social and educational foundations, however. Much of it was spent
on palace and water architecture, gardens, and other flights of imperial fancy.
In fact, when imperial mosques were founded, these were for the most part of
a scale far more modest than previously. Nonetheless, imperial mosque
architecture continued to be a prime focus for imperial patronage throughout
the century.
Not surprisingly, Sultan Ahmet III, an avid builder whose love of worldly
extravagance inspired the Tulip Period (LAle Devri) of the early eighteenth
century, was for the most part a patron not of sober religious monuments but
r
"'K)RIH ¢
o1 10
1
10 30 ..0
! ! 1
SO ~"~
!
Fig. 9 Sultan Ahmed complex, Istanbul, plan.

1: mosque; 2: tomb of Sultan Ahmed; 3: medrese; 4: s'byan rnekteb; 5: arasta; 6: harnrnarn;
7: imaret bakery; 8: imaret kitchen; 9: irnaretlarder; 10: da~Ja; 11: palace of Ibrahim Pasa
Fig. 10 Sultan Ahmed complex, Istanbul, general view (photo: Denny)
of palaces, pavilions, fountains, and gardens. Nonetheless, he did build an

imperial mosque complex in Uskudar-e-the Yeni Valide Mosque-in honor
of his mother GU1n~ Emetullah Sultan. Erected between 1708 and 1711, its
plan is highly traditional, based on that of Sinan's Rustem Pasa mosque, and it
shows very little of the European influence that was beginning to appear in
Ottoman secular architecture at this time. Its associated complex includes a
mekteb, sebil, imaret, muvkkithane, the tomb of the valide sultan, and a wooden
hunkar kasn, all on a rather modest scale and situated in an informally organic
arrangernent.s?
The imperial mosque complex of Ahmed's successor, the Nur-u Osmaniye
of Mahmud I, far exceeds the Yeni Valide in size and originality. It is,
however, the last attempt by a member of the Ottoman ruling house to build
a sultan's mosque in the grand tradition. Located immediately to the east of
the Kapihcarsi, it was begun in 1748 and completed in 1755, during the reign
of Mahmud's brother and successor Osman III (for whom the mosque is
named). Built in the Baroque style, the mosque is covered by a single large
dome. But with its half-oval forecourt and apse at the center of the kible wall,
it departs sharply from its classical antecedents. Baroque, too, is its surface
treatment, with curvilinear moldings and flowing profiles, scallops, and fluted
minarets. A vast hunkar kasn off the southeast corner of the mosque, with
great arcaded ramp and numerous antechambers, gives external access to the
hunkar mahfili within the mosque. Additional dependencies include a medrese,
an oval library, imaret, sebil, tomb, iesme, han, and an arasta of 142 shops. The
190 Howard Crane
last of the great imperial social complexes, the Nur-u Osmaniye at once
testifies to the overall conservatism of Ottoman religious architecture and to
its remarkable inventive and assimilative powers.P
The Nur-u Osrnaniye's successors are but pale reflections of the grand
tradition to which they belong. Mustafa Ill's modest but elegant Laleli
complex in Aksaray, built in the Baroque style between 1759 and 1763,
consisted of a small mosque with a grand ramp on the southeast giving access
to the hunkiir ma1ifili, plus a medrese, sebil, tomb, hammam, and arasta ranged
freely around its precinct.u While the Laleli ensemble still retains its social
functions, the Beylerbeyi Mosque, built on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus
by Mustafa's successor, Abdulharnid I and completed in 1778, has become
little more than an imperial place of prayer to be used by the sultan when
residing at one of his many pavilions north of the capital. Built on the
grounds of the old Istavroz Palace, it is a single-domed structure strongly
influenced by Baroque design and richly decorated on the interior with tiles
taken from earlier buildings. Among its most prominent features is the
integration of the hunkiir kasn-which had previously stood as a semi-
detached structure on the southeast of the imperial mosques-into its north,
entry facade, a feature that came to characterize many nineteenth-century
imperial mosques as well. For this purpose the mosque interior was given a
two-story elevation, the upper story being used as the kasr. With these
changes, the Beylerbeyi Mosque gives concrete expression to a major shift in
function in the late sultans' mosques: instead of functioning as ulu camis for
the entire Muslim community, they undergo transformation into private
places of worship for the sultan and members of his official entourage, a
metamorphosis still further emphasized by the stripping away from the
imperial mosque of its ensemble of social foundations.x
Selim III also built an imperial mosque on the Asian shore, just north of the
great barracks erected to house his New Order troops at OskUdar. Named the
Selimiye, it was completed between 1801 and 1805 and is a single-dome
structure with a large hunkiir kasn on its northeast. Built in the Baroque style,
it formed part of the large complex of religious, social, industrial, and military
buildings erected by Selim at Haydarpasa; this complex includes a mekteb,
muvkkithane, iesme, and sebil in close proximity to the mosque and a hammam,
a textile factory and the vast Selimiye Kislasi at a slightly greater distance.P
The process of transformation of the imperial mosque from social complex
into court chapel-the function of which did not extend beyond its being a
setting for royal worship-continued unabated through the nineteenth
century. Mahmud II's imperial mosque, the Nusretiye (figure 11), built near
the barracks of Tophane north of the Golden Horn, is done in a mixed
Baroque and Empire style. The work of the imperial architect Kirkor Balyan,
it is characterized (as was the Beylerbeyi Mosque) by a great hunkiir kasn
across the second floor of the entry facade and by an ensemble of
dependencies now limited to a muvkkithane and a pair of sebils. The
unrestrained eclecticism of the Nusretiye's decoration has little connection
with Turkish traditions but graphically suggests the evolution of late Ottoman
taste under the influence of Europe. The virtual absence of a surrounding
social complex, however, makes clear the changed function of the late
imperial rnosques.s-
Through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries there had been a
gradual move by the Ottoman sultans out of the old Topkapi Palace in
Istanbul to a series. of newer suburban residences. Beylerbeyi, on the Asian
side of the Bosphorus, and Besiktas, on the European side, were favorite
choices; it was natural, therefore, for the later imperial mosques-the
Beylerbeyi, Nusretiye, and those of the later nineteenth-century sultans-to
be located in these newly developing districts along the Bosphorus.
In 1853 Sultan Abdulmecid completed and moved into the Dolrnabahce
Palace, on the shore at the southern edge of Besiktas, an event marking the
definitive abandonment of the Topkapi Palace as a place of residence for the
Ottoman sultans. 35 Not surprisingly, Abdulmecid selected for his imperial
mosque a site on the Bosphorus in Ortakoy, about two kilometers north of
his new residence. Known as the Buyuk Mecidiye or Ortakoy Mosque, it was
built in the Empire style between 1854 and 1855, by the imperial architect
Nigogos Balyan. It consists of a single-domed prayer hall on a quay at the
water's edge, with a vast hunkar kasn on the north. Significantly, the mosque
stands alone, without any accompanying architectural dependencies.X
Although Sultan Abdulaziz (1867-1876) planned and began work on a large
imperial mosque with four minarets, the Aziziye, on the slopes of Macka
above the Dolrnabahce Palace, it remained uncompleted at the time of his
dethronement and dearh.P It was apparently designed in the same eclectic
style as the mosque of his mother, Pertevniyal, built in Aksaray in 1871, and
that of his successor, Abdulharnid II, near the grounds of Yildiz Palace. This
last of Ottoman imperial mosques (figure 20), the work of the imperial
architect Sarkis Balyan, is a confused mixture of styles, Gothic, Moorish,
Indian, Classical, with a single-domed prayer hall preceded by a narthex-like
vestibule on the north and flanked east and west by suites of rooms, the
selamlik and haremlik of the hunkarkasn. Neither in plan nor in design does the
Hamidiye belong to the tradition of Ottoman mosque architecture. Rather, it
is a notably unsuccessful attempt to recast the Ottoman mosque in terms
wholly alien to Ottoman architecture, and it signals the final intellectual
exhaustion of the Ottoman tradition. Located contiguous to the grounds of
the Abdnlharnid's Yildiz Palace, its dependencies are limited to a single three-
story clock tower in the same style as the mosque.P
With the Hamidiye, the tradition of the Ottoman sultan's mosque comes to
the end of its half-millennium long development. It was a tradition that grew
out of earlier patterns of princely architectural patronage, which had been
defined in the Islamic world as early as the Umayyad period. In Ottoman
hands this pattern of royal patronage was first given clear expression in Bursa
Fig. 11 Nilsretiye Mosque, Istanbul, general view (photo: Denny)
by Orhan Bey, Murad Hudavendigar, and their successors, who on the one
hand founded ulu camis or Friday mosques for public worship by the entire
Muslim community of the capital, and on the other, built religious and social
complexes in the suburbs to provide charity to the poor, promote education,
assure commemoration of the founder, and in general establish the social and
religious infrastructure required for the development of new quarters as the
city expanded.
With the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, these two functions were
merged and the ulu cami and the social-religious complex were joined
together in a single ensemble. This evolution can nowhere better be seen
than in the Fatih, Suleymaniye, and Ahmediye complexes. Built within the
confines of the old city of Istanbul, these royal ensembles incorporate a great
range of functions and serve as the social and spiritual foci of the quarters in
which they lay.
Beginning in the eighteenth century, as the Ottoman sultans gradually
shifted their residences into the suburbs at the head of the Golden Horn and
along the European and Asian shores of the Bosphorus, they transferred their
imperial mosque building efforts out of the old city as well. At the same time,
in part perhaps for want of resources, the complexity and scale of these
foundations dwindle as they lose their dependencies and experience an overall
decrease in size. The single exception to this tendency is the hankar kasn,
which had its origins in the seventeenth century when monumental exterior
entrances to the hankar mahfili first made their appearance in mosques such as
the Ahmediye. Gradually, this attached imperial pavilion grew in scale while
that of the mosque diminished. Finally, in the nineteenth century the imperial
mosque, built in an eclectic European style and devoid of dependencies save
for a hankar kasn almost equal in size to the mosque proper, undergoes a last
transformation-the BUyUk Mecidiye and the Hamidiye being little more
than court chapels serving the needs not of the Muslim public but of the
imperial household and entourage.
What were the reasons for this imperial patronage of great mosque
complexes spanning virtually the entire six century history of the Ottoman
state? Why did the Ottoman sultans feel compelled to expend such vast sums
on the construction and endowment of these monuments? What advantages
did the Ottomans derive from their foundation? What precisely was the
message these buildings sought to articulate?
There can be little question that the motives behind the building of the
Ottoman imperial mosque ensembles were as complex and varied as the
personalities of their founders, and that, as architectural statements, they were
intended to give expression to the diverse sets of values with which the
Ottoman rulers wished to associate themselves. Among the most important of
these was the desire of the ruler to be seen as avid in his support of religion,
orthodox in his faith, and legitimate in his claim to authority.
194 Howard Crane
It is, of course, an open question as to just what the impact of personality
may have been on this patronage, to what degree a particular sultan's
founding of religious and social institutions may truly have been a reflection
of his own personal piety. Certainly, some of those Ottoman rulers who were
noted as builders of pious foundations were not only publicly orthodox but
were genuinely pious as well. Murad II, for example, is depicted in a variety
of sources as deeply religious and much concerned for the welfare of his
subjects. Indeed, he bore the epithets ebu'l-hayr(Father of Charity) and ebu'1-
hayrat (Father of Pious Works). His abdication in 1444 in favor of his son
Mehmed and his subsequent retirement to Bursa are attributed in a number of
sources to a desire to lead a life of solitude and ascetic meditation. His support
for the Sufi orders, in particular the Mevleviyye, is well known, while his
modest and unpretentious faith is attested in the instructions he left for his
burial in his vasiyetname. His charity is frequently remarked in the Ottoman
sources where he is depicted as tolerant, generous to the poor, faithful and
learned, and a lover of peace, qualities acknowledged even by the Greek
historian Ducas, who states that in death, "he suffered less than his father
because God, I suppose, judged the man according to the good deeds he
performed for the benefit of the common folk and the sympathy he expressed
for the indigent. "39
Similarly, Bayezid II was renowned for his piety and religious zeal and is
often referred to as veli (saint) or sofu (devout). A generous patron of the
ulema, it was in his reign that Istanbul became a major center of Islamic
learning. He showed special favor to the Sufi brotherhoods, especially the
Halveti order, which began to establish itself widely throughout Anatolia
during his years as a sultan. He is described by contemporaries as attentive
to prayer, frugal in his personal habits, virtuous, and generous. In contrast to
Murad's tolerance, however, Bayezid was rigidly orthodox in his personal
religious outlook and was strongly influenced by narrow zealots such as
Hatib-zade Tacuddin and Molla Izari. Nonetheless, he resembled his
grandfather in his devotion to the building of lavish religious and charitable
foundations, the most famous being the Bayezid complex in Istanbul, his
ensemble at Edirne, and his mosque, medrese, zaviye, and mekteb at
Arnasya.w
It is tempting, given the repeated references in the sources to Murad's and
Bayezid's piety and charity, to explain their architectural patronage as being
an expression of personal religious conviction. That this may to some degree
actually have been the case is suggested by the fact that the Muradiye of
Edirne was originally built as a Mevlevi cloister and that Murad's tomb in
Bursa was conceived in such a way to give expression to the Islamic
injunction against pretentious commemorative monuments.
Yet the plausibility of this explanation as the sole or even major cause
behind imperial patronage is cast into doubt when we consider the religious
attitudes and concrete acts of architectural patronage of Sultan Mehmed II,
the conqueror of Istanbul. Son of Murad and father of the Bayezid,
Mehrned's personal religious views stand in startling contrast to the tolerant
mysticism of the one and the narrow orthodoxy of the other. In his official
capacity as ruler of an Islamic state, he publicly observed and strictly
enforced the Sunni orthodoxy of the Hanifi school. Privately, however, he is
known to have shown sympathy for heterodox and even heretical ideas, as is
clear from his association with freethinkers such as his librarian Molla
Lutfullah ibn Hasan, his general predilection for things Persian, and his
apparent leaning toward certain Shi'ite doctrines that ran counter to his
professed adherence to the official Sunni Islam. Contemporary observers
leave little doubt about his curiosity with respect to Judaism and Christianity,
and his tolerance for Christians and Jews within the context of Islamic
judicial theory. Toward the Sufi orders, however, he was openly hostile,
although this was probably motivated less by religious conviction than by
their interference in political affairs. Yet despite his freethinking and even
skeptical outlook, Mehmed was an active patron of pious and charitable
foundations, the most significant being the first of the great imperial mosque
complexes of the new capital, the Fatih.s!
While it is clearly simplistic to attribute Ottoman imperial patronage of
architecture in general and the building of great imperial mosque complexes
in particular, exclusively to the personal religious devotion of the Ottoman
sultans, it is nonetheless certain that observance of the forms of piety was
considered by the Ottomans to be of the utmost importance. Hence, it was
standard practice to include long accounts of the pious works of the Ottoman
sultans in the official histories of the dynasty. Pecevi, for one, includes an
extensive list of Sultan Suleyrnan I's gifts, donations, foundations, and
restorations, including alms for the inhabitants of Mecca and Medina, the
building of four great medreses, one for each of the four schools of law, in
Mecca for students from Rum, repair of the Mosque of the Prophet in
Medina and of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the erection of the
mosque-complex of Mihrimah Sultan in Uskudar, and the building of
mosques in all towns and fortresses newly captured from the infidels by the
Ottoman armies. But most important, continues Pecevi, were Suleyrnan's
pious foundations in and around Istanbul: the building of his bridge at BUyUk
Cekrnece; the enlarging of the aqueduct of'Kirkcesme; his construction of the
Selimiye and Sehzade complexes; and his "great reputation and fame-
proclaiming mosque, the Suleyrnaniye, the description and enumeration of
the uniquenesses of which is hardly possible. "42
So important was the assertion of pious motives on the part of the Ottoman
sultans in the building of imperial architectural ensembles that they were
frequently assigned anachronistically in the court histories. For example, the
sixteenth-century historian, Hoca Sadeddin, writing in the Taj al-Tevarih-his
history of the Ottoman state from its origins to his own times-carefully
describes not only the major foundations of all the rulers of the dynasty but
196 Howard Crane
makes reference to their builders' motives and to the rewards they could
expect. Thus, with regard to Orhan Gazi, concerning whose piery or lack
thereofSadeddin can hardly have had very precise information, he writes,
Because all of Orhan Gazi's efforts were bound up with the attempt to spread the
bright works of Islam [and) to gain great merit through secret acts of piety, in the year
736 [1335-1336), simply in order to carry out God's injunction and obtain his
approval, in accord with the command, "A place of worship founded upon duty to
God:' [Kuran IX.10B), he ordered a mosque built at Bursa as a shelter to pious
people and a halting place for the religious. And contiguous to the mosque, desiring
that there be found the buildings necessary for religious persons, the poor, the
destitute, and the learned, he established a tabhane, ribat, and imatet provided with trays
of food. In addition, in the fortress of the city, he ordered the conversion of a church
known as Manastir into a medrese, and the construction there of rooms for students to
live in. Establishing the required sound vakfs, he caused their income to be distributed
between the maderris, the students, servants working in the imatet, and other
workers.... In accord with [the hadith), "Those persons who long after paradise hasten
after good works," Sultan Orhan Gazi was the world-possessing pillar of justice, the
vanguard of the House of Osman in the doing of good works and the construction of
edifices to house them, the builder of monuments for Islam [and] the source of
security and peace. Subsequently, his fine natured children and grandchildren-may
God support them until the Day of Judgment-taking this way as an example for
themselves, followed his benevolence, founding good works.... Their pious deeds
captured the world, their favor and generosity spread to all directions. The world-
dignifying padishahs [of the dynasty) became as legends with their good works and
pious deeds, their fine conduct and behavior.... 43
The reason for this insistence by the Ottomans on at least the appearance of
piety had much to do, of course, with the nature of the institution of
sultanate as described in Ottoman political theory. As elsewhere in the Islamic
world, Ottoman political thought was deeply concerned with the problem of
legitimacy. But as Islam recognized no distinction between spiritual and
temporal realms, between religious and secular activity, how was the secular
ruler, the sultan, to justify his claims to political power? How could authority
seized by force acquire sanction and legitimacy within the context of an
Islamic political and social order based on the all embracing authoriry of
seti'at or religious law?
An answer to this contradiction was seen to reside in the notion that the
Ottoman sultans (as well as other late Islamic secular rulers) were, in fact, the
agents through which spiritual authoriry was actualized in the secular realm.
Thus, it became a prime necessiry for the Ottomans to link themselves and
their state as closely as possible with aims and purposes of the Islamic faith as
expressed in the seri'at. This attempt to blur the distinction between state
power and religious authoriry is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the
titulature used by the Ottomans for their protocols. Indeed, from the very
earliest moment in the history of the state, the Ottoman sultans laid claim to
the title gazi (fighter for the Faith), a title that is retained to the last years of
the dynasry (and even subsequently as in the epithet of the founder of the
Turkish Republic, Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasa). Many years ago, Paul Wittek
called attention to its use as a legitimizing device in commenting on the
versified romance of the poet Ahmedi, the lskendemame, composed in 1402
for Emir Soleyman, son ofBayezid 1.44 Toward the end of his work, Ahmedi
includes a brief "History of the Rulers of the House of Osman and Their
Wars against the Infidels", in which he states that the reign of the gazis has,
with the appearance of the Ottoman dynasty, finally come to pass. And "Who
is a gaze" Ahmedi asks. "A gazi is the instrument of the Religion of God, a
servant of God who purifies the world of the filth of polytheism; the gazi is
the sword of God; he is the protector and refuge of the believers."45
That Ahmedi's depiction of the Ottomans as gazis, as protectors of the
Faith and servants of the religion of God, was far more than simply a literary
device is clear from the fact of the title's inclusion among the protocols of the
Ottoman rulers dating back to the very earliest years of the dynasty. In an
inscription dating to 738/1337-1338, found today on the Schader Camii in
Bursa, for example, Orhan Bey describes himself as "the great emir... fighter in
the Holy Wars, Sultan of the Sultans of the Gazis, Gazi son of a
Gazi ... warden of the horizon, hero of the world, Orhan ibn Osman. "46 Or
again, Mehmed I, in the foundation inscription of the Eski Cami in Edirne
dated 816/1414, asserts himself to be, "the sultan supported by God, who
wages the Holy War, who is stationed on the frontier, whose banner is raised,
who subdues the enemies [of religion], who spreads justice and beneficence
over the people of the world, the Sultan, son of the Sultan, Sultan Giyas al-
Dunya wa "l-Din Mehmed ibn Bayezid Han-may God perpetuate his power
and make manifest to the world the proof of his [divinely approved exercise
of power. ]"47
Not only do the Ottoman sultans lay claim to the title of gazi, however.
They are also eager, at least from the early sixteenth century, to style
themselves hadim al-haremeyn al-~eriJeyn, "Protector of the Two Holy Cities of
Mecca and Medina." Historically, the Ottoman sultans had shown great
liberality in their donations and gifts (sUrre) to the Holy Cities. Bayezid and
his son Mehmed I, for example, both set aside certain sums of money to be
distributed there among the poor. Murad II every year sent sUrre to Mecca,
Medina and Jerusalem of 3,500 filori each, and in his vasiyetname set aside the
incomes ofa number of villages in the region ofBahkhisan in the province of
Ankara for the poor of Mecca and Medina. Mehmed Fatih sent a lavish siure
to mark his conquest of Istanbul, and Bayezid II's annual sUm, sent at the time
of kurban bayram, consisted of 14,000 gold duka for the people of Mecca and
Medina. This amount was doubled by Selim I, who, after the conquest of
Egypt, also sent 500 gold duka to each of the Jerifs of Mecca as well as gifts for
the ~eyhs, notables and poor of the Holy Cities. Subsequently of course, it
became customary for the Ottoman sultans to send an annual sUrre to the JeriJ
of Mecca-the departure of the sUrre alaYl from Istanbul under the supervision
of an emin taking place with great fanfair on the twelfth day of the month of
Receb (from the end of the nineteenth century in the month ofSaban).48 '
198 Howard Crane
It was not until Selim I's conquest of Syria and Egypt in 1517, however,
that the Ottomans actually laid formal claim to the title hadim al-haremeyn al-
5erifeyn. The title itself seems to date back to the time of Saladin, its first
attested epigraphic occurrence being in a restoration text on the Kubbat
Yusuf in Jerusalem dating to 1191.49 Subsequently, it was used intermittently
with some variants by the Mamluk sultans, and was first applied to Selim,
according to the Arab historians Ibn Iyas and Kutb ai-Din, in hutbes in Aleppo
and Cairo in January, 1517.50 In August of the same year Serif Abu Nurnayy,
the thirteen-year-old son of Serif Barakat ibn Muhammad Hasani, the emir of
Mecca, came to Cairo to offer the keys of the city to Selim in formal
recognition of Ottoman suzerainty; from that date the name of the Ottoman
sultan was included in the hutbe in the mosques of Mecca and Medina.J'
In later times the title hadim al-haremeyn al-5eriJeyn was used by a number of
Selim's successors. Suleyrnen I included it among his father's titles in the
foundation inscription for the Selimiye in Istanbul dated 909/1522, and struck
coins in his own name in Baghdad dated 942/1535-1536 and 943/1536-1537
with the formulae, "Sultan of the Two Continents and Two Seas, the
Victorious, Suleyman Sah ibn Selim Sah, Protector of the Two Holy Cities,"
and "Sultan of the Two Continents and the Two Seas, Sultan Suleyrnan Sah
ibn Selim Sah, Protector of the Two Holy Cities."52 Similarly, Ahmed I uses
the title as pan of his protocol in the foundation inscription over the main
. portal of the Ahmediye in Istanbul. Mahmud I included it in his signatures, as
did Selim III; Abdulhamid II continued to describe himself as "Protector of
the Two Holy Cities" into the first decades of the present century.53
As with their claims to the title gazi, so too in their ostentatious lavishing of
gifts on the Holy Cities and their assumption of the title hadim al-haremeyn al-
~eriJeyn, the Ottomans sought in the eyes of their Muslim subjects and in their
dealings with other powers, to strengthen their claims to legitimacy-e-claims
that in terms of the Muslim law, were of course questionable at best.
The Ottoman sultans not only laid claim to being fighters for the true faith
and servants of the Holy Cities, however: they also asserted their right to the
titles halife (caliph), and zillullahifi 'l-'alem (Shadow of God in the World),
titles that historically had been associated with the spiritual and temporal
leadership of the Muslim community. Although in its classical formulation,
the Sunni theory of the caliphate, limiting succession to those adult male
members of the Meccan tribe of the Kuraysh who are possessed of piety, legal
knowledge, and administrative capacity, asserted both the secular and religious
sovereignty of the office within the context of the seti'at, the rise of defacto
independent provincial governors soon stripped 'Abbasid claims of temporal
authority of much of their reality. In an attempt to preserve the fiction of
caliphal sovereignty, resort was had to the granting of diplomas to temporal
rulers, by means of which governments established by military force were
legitimized and the illusion of the caliph's being the source of legitimate
authority was maintained.
Even before the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in 1258, however, the
view had gained favor among Sunni jurists that the Muslim ruler derived his
authority directly from God and that in fact the institutions of sultanate and
caliphate were synonymous. In their final form these ideas were enunciated
by the fifteenth-century Iranian jurist Jalal al-Din al-Dawwani, in his treatise
Akhlak-l Jalali. 54 Following in the tradition of such earlier Iranian political
thinkers as Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, al-Dawwani argued that sovereignty is a gift
bestowed by God on His most eminent servant, that God establishes His
chosen servant on his throne as His viceroy in order that all His creatures can
turn to him in time of need as representative of Heaven. Hence, the
sovereign is the Shadow of God on earth and righteous government, a
government that labors for the temporal and spiritual welfare of its subjects
through the enforcement of the seri'at, is imamate or caliphate. Al-Dawwani
quotes well-known verses of the Ku'ran (VI.165 and XXXVII I. 26) to the
effect that the first duty of the viceroy of the world is to uphold the authority
of the religious law and goes on to say,
The governor [i.e., righteous sovereign] is a penon distinguished by divine support
that he may lead individual men to perfection and provide a corrective order to them
[i.e., enforce the ~eri'at]. The philosophers designate: him the: absolute: sovereign and
the modem [Islamic philosophers] call him imam and his function imamate. 55
Later, the notion was perpetuated, by European authorities in particular,

that the Ottoman house assumed the title hal!fe by a formal act of transfer to
Selim I on the part of the last 'Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil, at the time of
the conquest of Egypt in 1517.56 In fact, none of the contemporary sources
make reference to any such event, nor does the inclusion of the title haJife
into the protocols of the Ottoman sultans date to that late moment. Rather, it
was already used by the Ottomans in their official correspondence as early as
the end of the fourteenth century. Bayezid I, in afethname of1395, proclaims
that "God has fitted me whose nature bears the mark of the Caliphate, to be
sultan and world-conqueror, and has set [His words] 'We have made thee
halife in the world,' in my royal cipher and device. "57 Similarly, in a
foundation inscription for an imaret in Edirne dated 1399/1400, Bayezid I
describes himself as the Shadow of God in the World (zillullahifi 'l-'alem), a
title used as well, by Murad II in his foundation inscription for the Muradiye
in Bursa, dated 830/1426. Further, it is used by Ahmed I in the foundation
inscription for the Ahmediye in Istanbul, dated 1025/1616, and by Abdulaziz
I in his restoration text for the tomb of Osman Gazi in Bursa dated
1280/1863-1864. Stlleyman I styles himself "glorious halife" in the foundation
inscription for the Suleymaniye, dated 964/1557, and Abdulharnid II
repeatedly describes himself in terms such as "the one who adorns the exalted
post of the Islamic caliphate," (zinetefeza-Yl makam-t hiltifet-t islamiye).58
Thus, in both their epigraphy and epistolography, Ottoman sultans style
themselves halife. But what were the qualities of the halife? What attributes
distinguished the true sultan-imam from the simple military usurper of
200 Howard Crane
temporal power? What were the sorts of concrete acts through which a claim
to the vice-regency of God could be justified?
The same formal protocols in which the Ottomans assert their pretentions
to the caliphate also hint at the virtues implied by their use of the title. These
include generosity, justice, the support of religion, furtherance of the general
propriety, and power. 59 The Seljuk vezir Nizam al-Mulk had earlier, in the
twelfth century, given a more detailed enumeration of the kingly virtues with
which God endows the divinely appointed ruler. These included, he said,
good character, justice, courage, a taste for the arts and sciences, solid faith,
and obedience to the duties imposed by God. Among these latter were
respect and support for men of learning and wisdom, honoring the devout
and pious, giving alms, doing good to the poor, dispensing kindness to
subordinates and relieving people of oppression. In addition,
he will bring to pass that which concerns the advance of civilization, such as the
construction of underground channels, digging main canals, building bridges across
great waters, rehabilitating villages and farms, raising fortifications, building new towns
and erecting lofty buildings and magnificent dwellings; he will have inns built on the
highways and schools for those who seek knowledge; for which things he will be
renowned forever; he will gather the fruit of his good works in the next world and
blessings will be showered upon him. 60
A somewhat more worldly end for virtuous royal behavior is suggested by

the sixteenth-century Ottoman historian, critic, and man of letters,
Gelibolulu Mustafa 'Ali. According to 'Ali, the behavior appropriate to the
divinely designated kings of the House of Osman included the distribution of
public treasure, the rewarding and honoring of those deserving royal favor, in
particular men of learning, generosity to the poor, the weak, the pious, and
the devout, attention to the rectification of injustices and the punctilious
performance of religious duties. .
If the kings lead a pious life, if they take care of the people who are their subjects, if
they always mix and associate with wise men•••if they again and again study the
teachings of history, if they restrain as much as possible their own violence and aim
at equality and justice••. and if they always protect the weak and the poor under
their rule from the fire of poverty and destitution by means of their liberality and
limitless patronage, they will tie the people's hearts to themselves in affection and
will motivate the people after the five ritual prayers to pray for the continuation of
their might and glory. 61
Perhaps the simplest and most general definition of the qualities

distinguishing the military usurper from the true sultan-imam was given by al-
Dawwani, however, who states that the latter's key attribute is righteous
government. Only that ruler who labors for the temporal and spiritual welfare
of his subjects, writes al-Dawwani, who aids them in their time of necessity,
who upholds the authority of the seri'at can claim to be the Shadow of God
in the World, that is halife and imam. For God, having appointed such a ruler
to his high state, it is the ruler's duty to lead with justice all His creatures.62
For the Ottomans, then, the public manifestation of faith, the promotion of
orthodoxy, charity, justice, and generosity served to validate their claims to
personal and dynastic legitimacy. The zealous and ostentatious patronage of
public and pious works was tangible evidence of the truth of the dynasty's
pretentions to religious sanction,63 and as a corroboration of the ruler's piety
and solicitude for the good of his subjects, advanced his claims to the Vice-
Regency of God. In short, the Ottoman imperial mosque complexes stood as
testimonials to the possession by the Ottoman house of those qualities and
behavioral norms that distinguished the sultan in his guise as imam. And along
with other imperial activities-s-support for the Holy War, protection of the
two Holy Cities-they served to enhance Ottoman claim to sovereignty by
giving concrete public expression to the ideological justifications that
underlay and conferred legitimacy on the Ottoman state.
Yet the construction by the Ottoman sultans of vast religious and social
complexes centered on their imperial mosques did not function solely as
legitimating devices, as public statements of Ottoman adherence to certain of
the traditional ideals of Persian-Islamic kingship. It is clear that they also
served the very immediate and concrete purpose of metaphorically
proclaiming the temporal power, majesty wealth, and grandeur of the sultan
and his dynasty.
In their efforts at self-glorification the Ottomans employed a variety of
devices. Ottoman Divan literature, for example, is filled with elaborate and
prolix panegyrics to the ruling sultans, praising their wisdom, justice, and
generosity, and comparing them with the legendary kings of Sassanian Iran
and the great figures of the Islamic past. Typical of this is Puzuli's introduction
to his great verse romance Leyla and Mejnun, in which he includes couplets in
praise of his patron Suleyman 1.
o padi§ah, so perfect, so compact

In all thy parts that the subtlest mind of all
Still fails in comprehension, still remains
In sad bewilderment, with never a word
To name thee, most unmatched ofmankindJ
Thy honored person is a pearl unique,
Chief prize in Fortune's casket full ofjewels;
Thy soul is bright with wisdom, while the world
Is all thy garden, fair beneath thy feet....
While thou, the son of Osman, on the throne

Of Osman keep est thy estate, no change
No Fear of change, for justice and the cause
Of righteousness are in thy soul enthroned.
Beneath thy gaze corruption flies afar
And honor worships Siileyman the Great,
Who found success and gained the victory
That gave his people bounty as of God. 64
202 Howard Crane
Protector of the Faith, the refuge sure

For all of Islam, Mecca sings his praise,
Medina knows him, lightning of revenge
Protector of the right, dread foe of wrong....
Like Fortune's wheel, his kindness manifests
And prodigality spreads his treasure around
Like all the sun when in munificence
It scatters pile on pile its golden coin.
Great Siileyman, the emblem of the line
That first in Osman brightened the world,
The breaker of the petty lords of war
Remains apart in purity and in faith
That should his tupa slip his hand and fall,
The earth would boast a treasure and a prize. 65
Literary conceits such as these are paradigmatic of the terms used to

describe the Ottoman sultans in this court literature. Yet the authority and
majesty of the Ottoman ruler and state were not proclaimed through the
agency of the poet alone. A great variety of other metaphorical devices were
available for the expressing of these notions as well: public festivities, military
demonstrations, official ceremonial patronage of scholar and ulema, alms for
the poor, and support for lavish programs of public architecture, to mention
just a few of a vast range of possibilities. .
With regard to this last, Muslim writers had long recognized architecture's
potential as a metaphor for princely power and authority. Ibn Khaldun in the
Mukaddima, for example, explicitly commented on this connection, noting,
"The monuments of a given dynasty are proportionate to its original
power.... "66 And elsewhere, "Only a strong royal authority is able to construct
large cities and high monuments .... The construction of cities can be achieved
only by united effort, great numbers and the cooperation of workers. When
the dynasty is large and far-flung, workers are brought together from all
regions and their labor is employed in a common effort."67 He then further
illustrates his point with an anecdote from al-Mas'udi concerning the attempt
by Harun al-Rashid to tear down the Tak-i Kisra at Ctesiphon.
One should see with one's own eyes the Reception Hall ofKhosruw [iwan kisra] that
powerful achievement of Persian [architecture]. AI-Rashid intended to tear it down
and destroy it. He could not do so for all his trouble. He began the work, but then
was not able to continue. The story of how he asked Yahya ibn Khalid for advice in
that affair is well known. It is worth noting that one dynasty was able to construct a
building that another dynasty was not able to tear down, even though destruction is
much easier than construction. That illustrates the great difference between the two
dynasties. 68
That the Ottomans were intensely conscious of the metaphoric character of

the imperial mosque ensembles can hardly be doubted The Ahmediye, for
one, is specifically described in a number of sources as a symbol of the
Ottoman dynasty, the fourteen ~erefes of its minarets indicative of the number
of occupants of the Ottoman throne through the reign of Sultan Ahmed I. 69
Similarly, Sa'i Mustafa Celebi records the intention of Sinan and his patron
Selim II that as a sign of the victory ofIslam over the Christians, the dome of
the Selimiye in Edirne should exceed in diameter that of the Haghia Sophia
in Istanbul.70
On a more general level, it is obvious that for the subjects of the Ottoman
sultans the scale and grandeur of the imperial mosques must have been
profoundly impressive and that they would have been seen as ever present
reminders of the majesty and power of their imperial founders. This link is
given explicit expression in the verses of an early seventeenth-century
panegyrist, Ca'fer Efendi, who in his Risale-i Mi'mariyye describes the pious
foundations-and in particular the imperial mosque-of Ahmed I. In a kaside
entitled Esasiyye he begins by comparing the phenomena of nature and the
world to the form and furnishings of the Ahmediye. He then continues,
As the world revealed itself with beautiful images
The mosque of [Sultan Ahmed] the Ruler of the World
proclaimed his aspect;
Shadow of the unique and eternal God, His Majesty Sultan
Ahmed,
Lord of reason and wisdom, sublime ruler,
Master of all grandeur, shah with the majesty of Feridun,
Khusraw who is a moon as bright as the sun andJamshid of
dignity....
Hero of time and sultan of the sultans of the nations,
Rustem of the world and Yusuf-faced Kaykhusraw
Modest shah of the House of Osman, true with a sineere heart,
Who is a Faruk in hi~ justice, a Karrar in his
munificence.
Desirous of charity and good works, he is a Caesar-like
Alexander,
A ruler like strong Haydar, a follower of the-path of
righteousness.
Observe the munificence and kindness of the Shah of the World!
How he roamed the world to perform acts of charity.71
Similarly, in his kaside entitled Bahariyye, Ca'fer, after describing the

Ahmediye, writes,
The entire artifice [the mosque] is naught but a symbol.
In it are many of these unique sorts of creations.
That holy place proclaims all the sultans.
Is it any wonder that it is the commander of the army of
mosques?
No one [but Sultan Ahmed] could build a mosque like this,
For there is not another dignified ruler of the people his
equal.
The victorious shah and sovereign sultan, Ahmed Han,
What works he created in that most crafted Ka'ba!72
204 Howard Crane
For Ca'fer, then, as no doubt for most Ottomans, the imperial mosques
stood as silent but ever present affirmations of the wealth, power, piety,
permanence, and majesty of the Ottoman dynasty, of the sultans who were
their builders and of the social order that these rulers embodied.A By their
physical presence, dominating the architectural environment in each of the
Ottoman capitals, they bore witness to the ideals and ideology by which
Ottoman society and the Ottoman polity lived. Indeed, the sheer power of
their symbolism must have served as one of the most enduring stimulants to
the continuing architectural ambition of the Ottoman sultans through the six
hundred years of the dynasty, sustaining the tradition of grandiose imperial
mosque buildings even in those periods when the fortunes of the dynasty had,
as in the nineteenth century, sunk to a low ebb.
The importance of imperial mosque building as an emblem of royal
authority and legitimacy was such that they continued to be erected by the
Ottoman sultans even when resources sanctioned by the religious law for
such purposes were no longer available. Indeed, already in the sixteenth
century Mustafa'Ali had felt compelled to criticize the vanity of sultans who
sought to glorify themselves through extravagant architectural projects and
unlawful expenditure on pious foundations.
As long as the glorious sultans...have not enriched themselves with the spoils of the
Holy War and have not become owners of land through the gains of campaigns for
the faith, it is not appropriate that they undertake to build soup kitchens for the poor
and hospitals or to repair libraries and higher medreses or, in general, to construct
establishments of charity, and it is seriously not right to spend and waste the means of
the public treasury on unnecessary projects. For the Divine Laws do not permit the
building of charitable establishments with the means of the public treasury, neither do
they allow the foundation of mosques and medreses that are not needed, unless a
sultan, after conducting a victorious campaign, decides to spend the booty he has
made on pious deeds rather than on personal pleasure, and engages to prove this by
the erection of (public) buildings....
Forget about mosques and schools, build men!

Building men has the merit of rebuilding the Ka'ba.
Why think ofstone blocks and timber, my king.
To build people is what brings honor to kings. 74
That the requirements of the seti'at were as much violated by the Ottoman
sultans in their mosque-building projects as they were honored is implied by
other Ottoman writers as well. We are told by Evliya Celebi, for example,
that the D~ Serefeli Mosque in Edirne was built by Murad II with seven
thousand purses, booty from the conquest of Izmir, and that the Selimiye of
the same city cost seventeen thousand purses, spoils from the capture of
Cyprus. In other instances, however, he carefully avoids mention of either the
expenditures devoted to the founding of an imperial mosque, or the sources
of this wealth. And in describing the Bayezid complex in Istanbul, he feels
compelled to note that the "mosque is entirely built with lawful money and
therefore has great spiritual advantage,"7S an assertion that leaves one
wondering about the circumstances surrounding the founding of other
imperial mosques.
Finally, however, the building of the imperial mosques was a matter that
transcended questions of narrow legalism. For these monuments served as
perhaps no other symbol could to link the two key elements defining
Ottoman legitimacy, namely temporal power and spiritual authority.
Certainly, it was in large part precisely for this reason, because the imperial
mosques functioned so effectively to give metaphoric expression to these twin
foundations of the Ottomans' collective and historical identity, that the
tradition of imperial mosque-building endured with such persistence even to
the last moment of the dynasty's existence.
Up to this point we have concerned ourselves with two questions: the

formal evolution of the Ottoman imperial mosque complexes, and the
metaphoric significance of these ensembles. We have noted how the classical
imperial mosque complex of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries derived
from the earlier twin traditions of the princely ulu cami and the social complex
of the early Ottoman period, and have seen how these great ensembles were
finally transformed in the last period of the dynasty's history into little more
than royal oratories. And we have examined at least certain aspects of their
iconographic significance, the manner in that the imperial mosque complexes
functioned as rhetorical devices in the Ottomans' continuing discourse on the
themes of legitimacy and authority.
But how did the imperial mosque complexes convey these notions? What
were the elements in terms of which this discourse was carried on? What
were the visible signs and symbols that served to suggest those ideals of
temporal power and spiritual piety with which the Ottomans sought to
associate themselves?
Here, of course, the key problem has to do with Ottoman perceptions of
the imperial mosques. How did the Ottomans see these buildings? Which of
their features were perceived as meaningful in terms of the Ottoman
consciousness? A major shortcoming of much of the scholarly and critical
literature on the imperial mosques has been precisely that it has sought to deal
with the iconography of these monuments in terms of devices and elements
the meaningfulness of which in an Ottoman context has not been established.
Martin Charles in an article in the Art Bulletin, for example, saw the great
imperial mosques of Istanbul as directly inspired by the Haghia Sophia but
failing to equal their predecessor in aesthetic significance because of the
narrow logic and clarity of their design, a rationality that robbed them
spiritual impact.7 6 Aga-Oglu, Kuban, Gebhard, Kuran, and others have
considered the achievement of a unified, non-directional, neutral interior
space to be the key aim of the Ottoman architect, and have seen in this
quality a symbol of the unity of the Muslim community."? Yet, to my
206 Howard Crane
knowledge, the Ottoman sources nowhere convey an explicit and self-
conscious awareness of these aspects of Ottoman mosque architecture, let
alone a sense that they carried with them symbolic significance.
What, then, did the Ottomans find to be iconographically meaningful in
their buildings? What were the visual terms, the signs, used to convey the
meanings intended by the imperial mosques? Among the difficulties
encountered in any attempt to answer this question is the problem of sources.
Ottoman literature, hardly rich in texts having to do with architecture and
the visual arts in the first place, is even less well endowed with works dealing
in any explicit sense with their iconography. Indeed, where Ottoman literary,
historical, and descriptive accounts deal with architecture at all, they tend to
treat it in terms of fixed sets of topoi and superlatives. Among the few
exceptions to this pattern are works such as Ayvansarayi's Hadikat al-Cevamt, a
description of the eighteenth-century Muslim religious architecture of
Istanbul, Sa'i Mustafa's Tezkiret aI-Bunyan on the architecture of Sinan, Ca'fer
Efendi's Risale-i Mi'mariyye, an account of the life and works of the imperial
architect Mehmed Aga, and Evliya Celebi's great ten-volume Seyahatname. 78
A reading of these sources makes it clear that the Ottomans saw the
imperial mosques as expressive on two levels. On the one hand, they found
meaning in their formal aspects: the shaping of space, the selection of
materials, the treatment of surfaces, the presence of particular architectural
features. Thus, their symbolic character was defined to at least some degree in
terms of tangible qualities of form, structure, planning, and decoration. Not
only did identifiable formal qualities confer significance on the imperial
mosques, however. Equally if not more important for their iconography were
the activities-e-chariry, education, worship, and state ceremonial-that took
place within their confines. For the imperial mosques were defined and made
metaphorically significant not simply as forms but also as settings for a variety
of functions with which the Ottoman sultans wished to associate themselves.
What were these formal and functional qualities? What were the
architectural and social attributes and properties of these ensembles which
were seen as significant within the context of the Ottoman cultural tradition?
One way of approaching this question is to examine the imperial mosque
ensembles through the eyes of a traditional Ottoman observer, that is,
through the writings of an individual who was a product of the cultural and
intellectual environment that he describes. For this purpose perhaps no source
is more useful than the Seyahatname of Evliya Celebi, a vast compendium of
history, folklore, topography, social customs, religious beliefs, and personal
observation written by a minor Ottoman official of the mid-seventeenth
century. Included in Evliya's work are long and detailed accounts of the
imperial mosques of Istanbul, Bursa, and Edirne, their histories, outstanding
formal features, and the functions and social activities that took place within
their confines. Although in no sense a critical account, Evliya's descriptions
are, nonetheless, valuable precisely for the insight, albeit at times naive, that
they provide into a seventeenth-century Ottoman's perception of his
architectural environment.
Among the formal aspects of Ottoman imperial mosque architecture which
Evliya Celebi finds to be particularly meaningful, three broad groups of
elements can be distinguished: specific and tangible forms, aesthetic and
structural qualities, and epigraphy. Examining each of these separately, we
find with respect to the first category that Evliya returns time and again in his
descriptions to a pair of formal features as identifying the imperial mosque
complexes: the tomb of the sultan-founder, which typically stands in close
proximity to the mosque (frequently in a hazfre behind the ktble wall), and the
imperial loggia or hiinkar malifiil79 on the interior of the prayer hall of the
mosque.
The tombs of the Ottoman sultans were typically placed in the immediate
vicinity of their imperial mosque complexes if the relevant personage was .
himself the founder of the ensemble, or if not, close by the imperial mosque
of one of his predecessors. Leaving aside the problematic tomb of Ertugrul
Gazi in S~Ut and that of the last Ottoman sultan, Mehmed VI,8o all thirty-
five of the remaining Ottoman sultans are buried either at Bursa or Istanbul,
the first six in the former city, the remainder in the latter. The earliest tomb,
of course, is that of Osman Gazi. Originally buried in Sogllt, Osman's remains
were later transferred to Bursa and placed in a late Byzantine martyrium or
baptistry known in Turkish sources as the GUm~IU Ktimbed by the side of the
Bey Sarayi, Nearby Orhan erected his first royal mosque complex (see p. 154
above), and appropriated a small Byzantine cruciform church as his own
tomb. None of these buildings remain standing today, the mosque having
entirely disappeared in the mid-nineteenth century and the two tombs having
been rebuilt in a late Ottoman style by Sultan AbdUlaziz I after the disastrous
Bursa earthquake of 1855. Nonetheless, it is clear in spite of their
disappearance, that the placement of imperial tombs close by the imperial
mosque of the deceased is a tradition reaching back to the earliest years of the
Ottoman dynasty and that it was already firmly established at Bursa by Orhan
Gazi and his immediate successors. Murad I's tomb was built by his son
Bayezid I immediately to the northwest of his mosque complex after the
former's assassination at Kossovo in 1389; that of Bayezid I (figure 12), who
committed suicide in 1403 at Aksehir while a prisoner of Timur, is located
north of his mosque in the Yildmrn Bayezid complex, having been built in
1406 by his eldest son Emir Suleyrnan; Mehrned I's tomb, the famous Yesil
Turbe, is situated on the high ground to the south (that is, behind the kible
wall) of his Yesil Cami. Begun by the sultan before his death at Edirne in
1421, it was not completed until some years after that date. The tomb of
Murad II (d, Edirne, 1451), apparently built during the sultan's own lifetime,
is placed to the southwest of his Muradiye mosque.si
After the conquest of Istanbul in 1453, the new capital became the site for
the later imperial tombs. Typically these were hexagonal or octagonal domed
208 Howard Crane
tower tombs, in the tradition of that of Mehmed I, although a few (Selim II,
Ahmed I) are of the low, domed quadrangular type, recalling those of Murad I,
Bayezid I, and Murad II. The first four Ottoman sultans in Istanbul were all
buried in tower tombs situated in hazires behind the kible walls of their
imperial mosques: Fatih who built his tomb (figure 13) behind the Fatih
mosque prior to his death from gout in 1481; Bayezid I, whose tomb was
built behind the Bayezid mosque after his suicide or assassination at Dimetoka
in 1512; Selim I, whose tomb was erected in the hazire of the Selirniye by his
son Suleyrnan I after the former's death of cancer at Corlu in 1520; and
Suleyrnan, who died of a stroke at Sigetvar in Hungary in 1566, and whose
tomb was built by Sinan at the time of the erection of the Suleyrnaniye
(1550-1557). As at Bursa, then, the tradition of building imperial tombs in
close proximity to the mosques of the deceased sultans was continued.
Whether the tombs were built by the founders themselves or by their sons
seems to have made little difference and to have been dictated, in any case, by
the specific circumstances surrounding the sovereign's demise (his sudden,
early, or unexpected death, for example). For, whatever the details of their
construction, the close association of mosque, tomb, and social complex
could not but reinforce the appearance of the founder's piety, as well as make
explicit the commemorative aspect of these ensembles.P
That the linking of the deceased sultans with institutionalized Islam was a
central purpose of the Ottoman imperial tombs is given clear expression by
the fact that Suleyrnan's three successors, while not themselves building large
imperial mosque ensembles in Istanbul, were nonetheless buried in
monumental tombs in the haram of the greatest imperial mosque of the city,
the Haghia Sophia, symbol of the triumph of Islam, transformed into a
mosque on the day of Fatih's conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Indeed,
Selim II, Murad III, and Mehmed III are all interred in exceptionally large
and fine tombs, built or completed by their sons, and ranged along the south
side ofJustinian's great church.
With the reign of Ahmed I, the traditional placement of the imperial tomb
in close proximity to the sultan's major mosque ensemble was briefly revived
(though its placement to the northeast of the mosque, dictated perhaps by the
overall plan of Ahmed's ensemble, fails to conform to earlier precedent).
During the remainder of the seventeenth century and the first half of the
eighteenth, however, the Ottoman sultans cease to be memorialized by
monumental commemorative structures. Frequently deposed and assassinated,
they were hurriedly buried in the tombs of their imperial ancestors or in
other preexisting buildings: Mustafa I and Ibrahim were buried in a Byzantine
baptistry on the west of the Haghia Sophia; Osman II and Murad IV were
interred in the tomb of Ahmed I at the Ahmediye; Mehmed IV, Mustafa Il,
Ahmed III, Mahmud I, and Osman III were placed in the tomb of Turhan
Hatice Sultan near the Yeni Valide Carnii in Erninonu; Suleyman Il and
Ahmed Il, in the tomb of Suleyman I at the Suleyrnaniye. Indeed, it is only
Fig. 12 Tomb of Sultan Yildmrn Bayezid, Bursa (photo: Denny)
in the middle of the eighteenth century, with the renewal of the tradition of
imperial mosque building and efforts to revive and restore the empire and
dynasty, that separate, monumental tombs were once again built for the
Ottoman sultans. In some instances these were placed close by the imperial
mosque complexes of the deceased or some earlier sultan. Thus, Mustafa III
built his tomb (later used for the burial of Mustafa's deposed and executed son
Selim III, as well) behind the kible wall of the Laleli Camii; Abdulrnecid I,
who died a suicide in 1861, was interred in the tomb he had built for those of
his sons who had preceded him in death, located in the hazfre of Se1imiye
,mosque; Murad IV was placed in a tomb built for the sons of Abdulrnecid
contiguous to the tomb ofTurhan Valide Sultan at the Yeni Valide complex
in Eminonu; and Mehmed V Resid, the next to last of the Ottoman sultans,
was buried near the Mosque of EyUp. 83 Others were buried in tombs
conceived as independent monuments, located apart from their mosque
complexes; Abdulharnid I's tomb (which was intended as well to house the
grave of his son Mustafa IV) is in Bahcekapi, where it was built by the sultan
himself between 1777 and 1780, and formed part of a larger social and
educational complex consisting of imaret, mekteb, sebil, iesme, medrese, and
library. Mahmud II's, built in 1840 by his son Abdulrnecid I (and containing,
as well, the graves of Abdulaziz I and Abdulharnid II) stands on the Divan
Yolu near Cernberlitas with attached sebil and walled garden.
The isolation of these two sultan's tombs from the mosques that they
founded may have something to do with the fact that these latter, the
210 Howard Crane
Fig. 13 Tomb of Fatih Sultan Mehmed (rebuilt after the earthquake of1766), Istanbul
Beylerbeyi and Nusretiye mosques, are located outside the old city of
Istanbul. The placement of these tombs outside the context of imperial
mosque ensembles in no way undermines the overall perception of imperial
commemorative architecture as emphasizing the religious piety and the
temporal power of the Ottoman sultans, however, for Abdulharnid I's and
Mahmud II's tombs, while detached from their imperial mosque complexes,
are closely linked to a variety of related pious, social, and educations
foundations.e'
If, in Evliya Celebi's view, imperial commemorative architecture was one
of the identifying formal features of the sultans' mosque complexes, a second
such element was surely the hankar mahfili or imperial loggia. Its origin
extends back to the late Seljuk and Beylik periods, modest wooden
prototypes of the later Ottoman hankar maJifili being found in the Esrefoglu
Mosque in Beysehir (1297), the Kararnanid Ulu Cami ofErmenak (1302) and
the Candarid Mahmutbey Mosque of Kasaba Koyu (early fourteenth
century), and Ismail Bey Mosque of Kureihadit Koyu (1451) in Kastarnonu.
The earliest surviving Ottoman example dates to the beginning of the
fifteenth century and is found in Mehmed I's Yesil Cami of Bursa (1424).
Wholly distinct in character from the later evolution of the Ottoman imperial
loggia, it consists of a richly tiled balcony flanked by a pair of antechambers
situated above the entryway and overlooking the fountain court on the
mosque interior. Unique in its decoration as well as its design, the placement
of the Yesil Carni's loggia would seem to derive from the earlier tradition of
Candarid and Karamanid mafifi/s.
It is only with the conquest of Istanbul that the hanka, maJifili becomes a
standard element of the Ottoman imperial mosque and is given a
characteristic form and placement. Whether or not the original Fatih mosque
contained a loggia is unclear. By the reign of Bayezid II, however, it had
become a standard element of imperial mosque furnishing. Thus it is found in
Bayezid's great mosque in Edirne completed in 1488, where it is formed of a
raised platform enclosed by a low balustrade, which is supported on columns
carrying arches of red and white stone. Located in the southeast corner of the
prayer hall, to the left of the mihrab, its placement there is with few
exceptions (notably the Bayezid mosque in Istanbul of 1506) typical of that
found in later imperial mosques. Access is had via a stairway in the southeast
corner of the mosque's prayer hall. In Bayezid's Istanbul mosque, on the
other hand, access is through a separate entrance at the southwest corner of
the mosque, a feature that although here modestly conceived, in time comes
to be increasingly elaborate and monumentalized as in the Sehzade and
SuIeymaniye in Istanbul and the Selimiye ofEdirne.
Beginning with the Ahmediye this imperial portal undergoes a further
transformation in both conception and scale. In place of a simple portal, a
great ramped corridor, a tahtuevan yolu (palanquin way) was constructed at the
southeast corner of the mosque, giving onto a series of antechambers through
which access was had to the hanka, mahfili. The antechambers, usually
referred to as the hanka, kasn (imperial pavilion), were used by the ruler and
his entourage as place of rest and relaxation before and after prayer, and
occasionally for the conduct of state business. The gentle grade of the ramp,
along with its width and height, were designed so as to make it possible for
the sultan to ascend to the upper story of the pavilion on horseback without it
being necessary, as had previously been the case, for him to dismount outside
the mosque. Although none of the original faience decoration of the
Ahmediye's hanka, kasn survives, its richness is suggested by the fact that
according to the account books dealing with the construction of the Sultan
Ahmed complex, 13.5 yak (1,350,000 akte) were expended for this purpose.
While in absolute terms the size of the Ahmediye's hanka, kasn far
exceeded previous imperial portals, its overall scale in proportion to the
mosque itself was rather modest. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, however, these ramp and pavilion ensembles grew rapidly in both
relative and absolute dimension. This is clearly apparent in the case of the
sumptuously appointed hanka, kasn of the Yeni Valide mosque in Erninonu,
which included a great tahtuevan yolu, salon, bed chamber, water closet, and
kitchens. Even grander in scale is the entry complex giving access to the
hanka, maJifili of the Nur-u Osmaniye Mosque (figure 14), which consists of
an open arcaded ramp, a hanka, kasn; and a long raised and covered
passageway linking the kasr to the southeast corner of the mosque. In the
Laleli Mosque the antechamber to the hanka, mahfili includes the entire
eastern gallery of the prayer hall, access to which is had via a great ramped
212 Howard Crane
and arcaded tahttrevan yolu, recalling that of the Nur-u Osmaniye.
At the same moment this elaboration of the imperial portal takes place, the
hunkar mahfili itself-which until the early seventeenth century had remained
open to view from the floor of the prayer hall, bounded merely by a low
balustrade (figure 15)-comes to be enclosed by a bronze or wooden screen
or cage. This transformation was perhaps necessitated in part by the
increasingly frequent use of the loggia by members of the harem.
Encountered first in the Yeni Valide Mosque, it continues to characterize
imperial loggias into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as in the Nur-u
Osmaniye, Laleli, rebuilt Fatih, EyUp, and later mosques (figures 16).
In the late eighteenth century the imperial loggia with its antechambers
undergoes its final and most massive transformation. Beginning with
Abdulharnid I's Beylerbeyi Mosque built in 1778, the hunkar kasn is radically
altered, becoming a pair of apartments ranged symmetrically on the northeast
and northwest corners of the mosque, while the imperial loggia is transformed
into a sort of bay window overlooking the interior of the prayer hall. This
feature, a design element typical of the work of the Balyan family, members
of which occupied the post of chief imperial architect through most of the
nineteenth century, was repeated again and again in the imperial mosques
which they designed including the Nusretiye, Ortakoy and Harnidiye (figures
11, 20). In the course of the nineteenth century these apartment suites grew
rapidly in size until they rivaled the scale of the prayer hall itself At the same
time, though still provided with a separate imperial portal, the old tahtirevan
ramp disappears as the sultan was more often than not conveyed to the
imperial mosques by imperial barge or carriage, rather than on horseback.ss
Thus, the imperial tomb and loggia, and later the hunkar kasn are, as noted
by Evliya Celebi, key distinguishing features of the imperial mosques, their
presence symbolizing in concrete terms the link between the dynasty and the
faith, between palace and mosque. They are, in effect, visible signs of the
physical presence of the sultan-founder both in life and in death, tangible
witness to his piety and his zeal in the promotion of the orthodox faith.
The imperial mosques were not distinguished and made iconographically

meaningful simply through the inclusion of specific formal elements,
however. As Evliya makes clear, they are also defined by the fact of their
possession of certain less tangible, less concrete aesthetic and structural
qualities such as scale, fine materials, superior workmanship, and durability.
Time and again Evliya makes reference to the vast dimensions of the imperial
mosques, a favorite device of his being to compare them with Justinian's
Haghia Sophia, which, according to popular legend, was built by the folk
saint Hizir using materials of the highest quality carried from the great
monuments of ancient and prophetic history. Indeed, the great Byzantine
church was, Evliya notes at one point, the largest mosque in Istanbul, the
Ka'ba of the mystics, without equal in the world, comparable only to the
Fig. 14 Hwnkar kasn and tahtuevan yol,., Nuruosmaniye Mosque,

Istanbul (photo: Denny)
tabernacle of the Seventh Heaven and the vault of the cupola of the ninth,
and "all those who see it remain lost in astonishment on contemplating its
beauties."86
Of course, the implication of such assertions was that just as the imperial
mosques were possessed of the extraordinary qualities of the former church,
so their patrons, the Ottoman sultans, by analogy exhibited the charisma of
the great rulers of the ancient and prophetic past. It is in this light, for
example, that we must understand the importance for Evliya of the fact that
the dome of the Selimiye in Edirne exceeded in diameter that of the Haghia
Sophia, as well as the metaphoric impact of seemingly hyperbolic statements
such as, "in truth it [the Selimiye's dome] appears to be an azure vault like the
vault of the heavens;"87 or, with regard to the Suleymaniye, "Its azure dome
at the highest summit of this great mosque is more circular than Aya Sofya's
and seven Mecca cubits in height. It is the vault of the world. "88
The dimensions, height, and perfection of the great domical vaults of the
imperial mosques are not the only significant elements for Evliya, however.
He likewise sees their massive structure, durability, and permanence as
iconographically meaningful. Concerning the building of the Suleymaniye,
for example, he writes that Sultan Suleyman assembled all the perfect masters
of architecture, stone cutting, and marble carving from the farthest reaches of
the empire, and that they were employed three years in laying the mosque's
foundation. The workmen charged with digging them penetrated so far into
the earth "that the sound of their pickaxes was heard by the bull that bears up
the world at the bottom of the earth." Then, a further three years elapsed
214 Howard Crane
Fig . 15 Hunka, mahjili, Sultan Ahmed Mosque, Istanbul (photo: Denny)
before the foundation walls emerged from the excavations. The next year
building was suspended while materials were assembled and cut. Finally, in
the seventh year the mihrab was set, the walls, " extending to the vault of
heaven ," were completed, and "on those four solid foundations they placed a
lofty dome. " 89
Elsewhere, Evliya quotes the Suleymaniye's architect, Sinan, as praising to
the sultan the mosque's great strength .
I have built for you, my padisah, such a mosque that if on the Day of Judgement
Hallaj -i Mansur were to come and were to toss about the great mountains of the earth
like cotton with his cotton-fluffer's bow, the mosque would fly from the string of his
bow in a piece like a ball.90
Such naive and fanciful tales were not, of course, intended by Evliya Celeb i
to be understood as literal accounts of the circumstances surrounding the
construction of the imperial mosques. Rather, they were metaphorical devices
used to suggest the strength, durability, and grandeur of the mosques as
structures and, indirectly, to project these same qualities onto the persons and
reigns of the mosque's patrons, the Ottoman sultans.
A similar iconography was implied, for Evliya, in the types of materials and
quality of workmanship that defined the imperial mosque. Thus, the author
of the Seyahatname carefully notes the rare and sumptuous building stone, the
bright faience and the excellent craftsmanship that characterize these
buildings. He compares var ious aspects of both the Bayezid and the
SuJeymaniyc mosques with paradise, and goes into lengthy detail enumerating
Fig. 16 Hiinka, mahfili, Nuruosrnaniye Mosque, Istanbul (photo: Denny)
the rare and costly materials used in their construction.P! In connection with
the Suleyrnaniye, he pays particular note to the great porphyry columns used
to support the central dome, each fifty cubits in height and worth, he says,
ten times the hara; from Egypt, the likes of which "are to be found nowhere
else in the world"92 Or again, commenting on its muezzin mahfili, he writes
that although it is only of plain white marble, it is, nonetheless, "of such
exquisite workmanship that it seems to be the mahfil of paradise." The
minbar, he continues, is "surmounted by a conical tiara-like canopy, the like
of which is nowhere to be found, and the mihrab is like that of the prophet
Solomon himself."93
Concerning the Ahmediye, he writes, "the pen fails in attempting to
describe the beauty of the mihrab on both sides of which are candle sticks
containing candles weighing twenty quintals."94 And he continues,
No other mosque can boast such precious hanging ornaments as those of this mosque,
which by persons learned in precious stones are valued at one hundred treasuries of
Egypt. For Sultan Ahmed being a padi$ah of the greatest generosity and the finest taste,
he used all his jewels and the presents which he received from foreign sovereigns in
ornamenting this mosque. 95
Finally, Evliya also shows an awareness of the metaphoric and aesthetic

significance of epigraphic decoration. He comments, for example, on the
beauty of the Yakuti inscription above the windows of the courtyard of the
Fatih rnosque.w on the excellence of the calligraphy of Ahmed Karahisan,
who designed the inscriptions of the Suleymaniye.t? and the perfection of the
216 Howard Crane
epigraphs in the mihrab of the Bayezid mosque.P Architectural epigraphy
served not only as a visual metaphor, however; its iconographic significance
was of a literary character as well. Thus, the large roundels on the interiors of
the Ottoman imperial mosques bearing the names of God, the Prophet
Muhammad and the four "Rightly Guided" caliphs attested to the Ottoman
dynasty's adherence to the views of the great twelfth-century Hanifi jurist al-
Nasafi, who held that the true caliphate had lasted only thirty years, until the
death of 'Ali, and that thereafter there was only government by kings.P?
Similarly, the great sulus medallion at the center of the dome of the Haghia
Sophia, bearing a Kuranic inscription from the Surat al-Nur (sura XXIV.35) is
an affirmation by the Ottoman sultans of their belief in God's mystery and
majesty.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Evliya should have considered the
content of the monumental epigraphs of the imperial mosques to be equally
as noteworthy as their form. And although he nowhere systematically records
the entire epigraphical program of anyone imperial mosque, he does include
numerous readings in the text of his narrative. Thus, he makes reference to
the Fatiha inscribed in the arches above the window of the courtyard of the
Fatih rnosque.tw an affirmation by the sultan of his monotheistic faith and
dependence on divine favor.
Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds,
The Beneficent, the Merciful,
Master of the Day of Judgement.
Thee [alone] we worship, Thee [alone] we ask for help.
Show us the straight path,
The path of those whom Thou has favored; Not the [path] of those
who earn Thine anger nor those who go astray.
Similarly, above the south portal of the Suleymaniye he reads sura VI. 79,101
again an attestation to the monotheism of the mosque's imperial builder.
I have turned my face to Him Who created the heavens
and the earth, a man of pure faith. I am not of the idolaters.
Or again, in the courtyard of the Fatih mosque he notes the existence of a

square marble pier inscribed in gold and blue celi script by the calligrapher
Demirci Celebi with the hadith linking Sultan Mehmed II, the Conqueror,
with the praises of the Prophet Muhammad, "Truly, Konstantiniyye shall be
conquered! How excellent a commander is that commander! How excellent a
host is that host!"l02
Thus, like structure, materials, and decoration, epigraphy too is seen by
Evliya to be an important part of the overall iconography of the imperial
mosques. For not only do inscriptions function on a formal level as elegant
and sophisticated decorative devices. They are also textually significant,
serving to proclaim doctrinal and ideological positions with which the sultans
and the ruling institutions of the Ottoman state wished to identify themselves.
Indeed, their placement in the imperial mosques constituted acts of public
witnessing, affirmations of belief and manifestations of faith, by means of
which explicit links were established between the imperial patron, on the one
hand, and religious orthodoxy, the ultimate source of all spiritual and
temporal legitimacy, on the other.
It is clear, then, that the imperial mosques served as vivid symbols of

interacting and related notions of piety and legitimacy, concepts that were
given concrete visual definition by means of a variety of devices: the presence
of the imperial tomb, hankar mahfili and kast, the scale and swnptuousness of
the imperial complexes, their fine craftsmanship and lavish decoration, and
their epigraphy. The iconography of the imperial mosques was not simply a
consequence of their formal character, however. It was equally, if not even
more so, an expression of the functions that took place within these great
architectural ensembles, of the activities, observances, and ritual for which
they were the setting: charity, hospitality, education, worship; and the great
state ceremonies by means of which the sultan was able to manifest his
religiosity and his patronage of learning, the poor, and the needy.
It is significant that Evliya Celebi's account of the imperial mosques
conveys a concern for this social aspect of their institutional existence at least
as profound as his interest in their physical character. In discussing the Fatih
mosque he describes the medreses ranged east and west of the mosque, the
refectory, hospital, caravansary, hammam, and sibyan mektebi which made up its
associated social and educational complex and continues "when all these
buildings, crowded together, are seen from high above, they alone appear like
a town full of lead-covered domes."103 Similarly, for the Bayezid Mosque he
notes, "Round the inner and outer courts of this mosque there are shops of
all kinds of trades, with a public butcher, a refectory and a hostel for travelers;
a school for instructing the poor and the rich in the Kuran; and a college for
lectures on the art of reciting it."104 And concerning the institutional and
architectural ensemble of the Suleyrnaniye he writes,
To the right and left of this mosque there are four great colleges for the education of
Islamic scholars in the four orthodox schools of law, which are now filled with
servants, scholars and students. In addition, there is a dara/hadis (for instruction in the
recitiation of the Kuran), a medical medrese, a school for children, a hospital, a
refectory, a tabhane, a caravansary for travelers, a residence for the aga of the Janissaries,
a market for goldsmiths, metal workers and shoemakers, a bright and well-lighted
hammam and a thousand chambers for their servants so that around this mosque there
are altogether a thousand domes counted.. 10 S
Evliya not only concerns himself with the enumeration of the institutions
that go to make the architectural ensembles of the imperial mosque
complexes, however. He also directs his attention to their staffing and to the
vakfs or pious endowments that supported their activities and personnel.
Concerning the Haghia Sophia, he states that its servants nwnber more than
218 Howard Crane
two thousand, that they include imams (prayer leaders), hatibs (preachers),
~eyhs (preachers), devirhan (Kur ' an reciters), ders ami! (lecturers), talebe
(students) muezzin (callers to prayers), eczahan (lesson readers), na'than (singers
of praises of the Prophet Muhammad), bevvab (door keepers) and kayyum
(caretakers of the mosque), and that they are supported by the revenues of
large valifs.l06 Similarly, with regard to the Suleyrnaniye he records'P? its staff
as numbering some three thousand and notes that they are maintained by
extensive and secure vakfs, all of the islands of the Aegean, including Rhodes,
Chios, and Istankoy, having been established as pious endowments for it by
Sultan Suleyrnan, and their revenues being collected by the endowment's
miitevelli (administrator) with a staff of five hundred men.
While Evliya's accounts of the dependencies, staffing and the valifs of the
imperial mosques are spotty and incomplete at best, his descriptions do
suggest something of the functional complexity of these architectural and
institutional ensembles. It is only through an examination of the actual
va"ifiyes of the imperial mosques, however, that a full appreciation can be had
of the involved sets of social and economic relationships within which the
ensembles existed. In recent years a number of imperial vakfiyes have been
published, including those of the Sultan Mehmed II for the Fatih complex, of
Bayezid II for his mosque in Edirne, and Suleymari's vakjiye for the
Silleymaniye. 108 Characteristic of these is the vakfiye of Bayezid II dating to
the year 911/1505 providing for the maintenance and staffing of the Bayezid
Mosque and its associated educational and charitable establishments in
Istanbul. An enumeration of its religious personnel indicates something of the
size of the mosque's staff and the variety of specialized activities carried out
within its confines. Thus, the vakfiye stipulates the appointment of a hatip
(preacher), two imams (prayer leaders), nine devirhan (Kuran reciters), a
sermahfil (chief of devirhan), a na'than (singer of praises of the Prophet
Muhammad), a muarrij(reciters in thanksgiving before Friday noon prayer the
names of benevolent people), thirty ,uzhan (Kur' an readers), five en'amhan
(reciters of sura VI of the Kuran), two yasinhan (reciters of sura XXXVI of
the Kuran), twenty tevhidhan (reciters of the sura LXII of the Kuran), ten
musallin (reciters of prayers for the founder), eight muezzin (callers to prayer),
a muvakkit (time keeper), a noktaa (supervisor of Kuran readers) four namaz-
guzar (performers of special prayer), four waiCl (lamp lighters), six kayyim
(caretakers), fourjerr~ (mosque sweepers), a buhuriye (incense lighter), a htifiz
(Kuran memorizer), two kennas (toilet cleaners), and two ibnkc! (supervisors
of abolutions). Finally, it designates five thousand akte to support of pilgrims
undertaking the haec (hac, bedell).
Similarly detailed provisions are stipulated in the vakf for the staffing of the
charitable institution that made up Bayezid's complex: imaret, tabhanes, and
caravansary. To supervise and administer its charitable activities there were to
be appointed a 5eyh (chief supervisory official) of the imaret, a kilerd (official in
charge oflarder), four nakibs (overseers), two responsible for cooking, two for
the making of bread, six eIf3I (cooks), six ekmekd (bakers of bread), two kapUi
(doorkeepers), a bugday dogucu (miller of grain), four pirinc eritici (rice
polishers), an anbara (storekeeper), an oduncu (procurer of firewood), an et
hammali (meat carrier), two kapkacak (accountants), two ahir kapias:
(gatekeepers for the stable), three meremmetci (cobblers), and two mutemed
ylkaylClS (scullions for washing pots and pans). These appointees were charged
with the provision of cooked meals, morning and evening, for all poor
Muslims who presented themselves at the imaret, as well as to widows and
orphans, such that none were turned away wanting. In addition, seyyids,
ulema, dervishes and other pious or needy Muslim travelers or guests who
stayed in the imaret were to be given two meals a day for up to three days
and their animals were to be given oats. Moreover, a ku~ncu (lead worker),
six su )'ouu (rnaintainers of water conduits), and four §aklrd (apprentices) were
appointed to assure that the canalization system bringing water to the kitchen
and to the other fountains of the complex were kept in repair.
The education-related provisions of Sultan Bayezid's vakf stipulated the
appointment of a muallim (master), to the sbyan mektebi (primary school for
boy children), and a halije (assistant) who were to supervise thirty male
students selected from among the poor and orphaned. Both teachers and
students were to be provided with meals from the imaret. 109
Finally, concerning the overall administration of the endowment, the
vakfiye provided for a nazlr (superintendent), a katib (clerk), a vekilharc
(steward), a naib (assistant), fifteen cabi (collectors of revenue from vakJ
properties) and seven cabi katibi (collector's clerks). Thus, the vakfiye stipulates
a total staff of 190 and a daily expenditure of 776 akfe on salaries alone.
Additional large expenditures would have been required for the purchase of
provisions and supplied for the iman?t for the maintenance of the mosque and
other buildings, and for the other charitable works stipulated in the vakfiye.
These expenses were met by the rents and incomes from the vakf properties
designated in Bayezid's deed, which included a total of 165 villages and
twenty-six gardens and arable fields, a beezazistan, an underground storeroom
(mahzen) , a han, shops and three hammams in Salonika, a caravansary in
Edime, and a han and shops in Bursa.110
Although hardly the richest or most extensive of the imperial vakJs
established for the sultan's mosques of Istanbul, Bayezid's pious donation of
911/1505 suggests the functional complexity of these foundations. Less clear
from the text, however, is the range of purposes behind the vakJs' creation,
that is the actual raison d' etre for the making of such a grant. In their
preambles, of course, the imperial vakfiyes are virtually uniform in attributing
the endowment to motives of disinterested piety. In fact, however, the intent
behind the creation of a pious foundation such as Bayezid's was far more
involved and less straightforward than it was made to appear. And while not
denying that piety was one of the factors prompting such a donation, many
other purposes-political, social, economic, ideological, and religious-were
220 Howard Crane
clearly at work as well. On a political level, for example, the manipulation of
appointments and dismissals to the posts and offices established under the terms
of an imperial vakf was a powerful tool assuring the loyalty of the groups and
individuals favored This was particularly true for the ulema, the imams, hatips,
and vaiz (preachers) who staffed the imperial mosques, the muderris of the
medreses, and the seyhs of the tekkes, all of whom exercised in turn a potent
spiritual influence over the Muslim masses of the capital. Through their
preaching and teaching they could incite the masses to disorder and revolt, as
was the case in 1730 when the activities of Ispartazade, the vaiz of the Haghia
Sophia sparked a revolt against Ahmed III and the downfall of the sultan and
high officials of the state administration. It was not necessary, of course, for
appointees to become active, conscious apologists for the status quo. Simple
passive cooperation and nonparticipation in opposition movements was
sufficient to neutralize many potential threats. Nonetheless, it was not
uncommon for the terms of an appointment to mandate specific public
expressions of loyalty and support for the ruler and the dynasty and thereby to
co-opt members of the ulema into the religious and political establishment.
Similarly, on a religious and ideological level, the system of imperial
medreses endowed in conjunction with the great imperial mosques was used to
create a class of trained, orthodox, and loyal ulema ready and able to justify
and serve the needs of the ruling institution. Of panicular importance in the
realization of this end were the great medreses associated with the Fatih,
Bayezid, and Suleyrnaniye mosques, through which those members of the
learned class aspiring to the highest grades in the religious hierarchy were
required to pass first as students and later as professors, in order to qualify for
such appoinrments.ut
Or again, the imperial foundations could be used to promote desired social,
economic, or personal ends. For example, it was not uncommon, despite its
being suspect under Islamic law, for imperial vakfiyes to set aside a portion of
vakf income for distribution among members of the imperial family or
household Thus, a vakfiye of Abdulhamid I stipulated that each of the sultan's
sons and in turn, each of their children be given a monthly stipend of fifteen
hundred kuru~ plus an annual allowance of five thousand ku~ from the
income of the vakf.112
Likewise, imarets, tekkes, caravansary, and shelters for the poor and destitute
aided in the maintenance of social tranquillity by providing for the needs of
those with otherwise minimal resources. And although such provisions were
usually extremely limited-two meals a day and shelter for up to three
days-the existence of this social safety net was undoubtedly of great
importance in deflecting at least some of the anger of the dispossessed and
alienated masses of the capital. That such a system was needed is apparent
from D'Ohsson's statement that in the late eighteenth century the imarets of
Istanbul daily provided food for more than thirty thousand people.u>
Finally, the imperial vakfs facilitated the development and populating with
Turkish immigrants from Anatolia of new quarrers in the Ottoman capitals by
providing some of the social, economic and cultural infrastructure required to
attract and sustain such settlement. Their expenditures stimulated the district's
economy, their staffs of functionaries and complements of students caused a
growth in the local population, and the presence of an institutionalized setting
for worship and learning secured the neighborhood for the immigrant
Turkish-Islamic culture, all of which factors can be seen to have been at work
o
in the growth of the rhaniye , Hudavendigar, Yildmm, Yesil, and Muradiye
quarters in Bursa, and in that of the Fatih district in Istanbul.us
Thus, the iconography of the imperial mosques was in pan manifested in

the functions, some explicitly acknowledged, others implicitly present,
sustained by the system of imperial vakJs set up to provide for the needs of the
imperial mosque complexes. These functions, education, charity, and
worship, and ideological, social, and political control, settlement, and
economic development, all served metaphorically to suggest the power, piety,
and hence the legitimacy of the Ottoman sultan. Yet such institutionalized
activities hardly exhausted the range of functions centered in and around the
imperial mosques, functions that served to proclaim publicly this idealized
image of the Ottoman ruler and dynasty. On the operative level, expression
was given to these notions perhaps most dramatically through the use of the
imperial mosques as settings, or, better, as theatrical backdrops for much of
the ritual and ceremonial associated with the great public religious, state, and
dynastic celebrations which occupied the Ottoman ruler through the cycles of
succession and military success of any particular reign.
Evliya Celebi alludes to this use of the imperial mosques when he mentions
Sultan Muhammed IV's girding in 1648 of the sword of Osman at Eyup in
the ceremony known as the taklid-i sey[, the formal act of investiture of the
Ottoman sultans (figure 17).115 Elsewhere, he describes his participation as a
Kuran reciter in the ceremonial observance of Kadir Gecesi (the Night of
Power, or twenty-seventh of Ramazan when the Kur'an is believed to have
been revealed) in the mosque of Haghia Sophia, with Sultan Murad IV and
several thousand members of the imperial court present in the year 1735. 116
In the same year, he recounts the events surrounding Murad's return to
Istanbul from his victorious campaign against the Safavids in Azerbaijan. It
was celebrated in the capital with the illumination of the imperial mosques
and seven days and nights of festivities and rejoicing, culminating in the
sultan's participation in Friday prayers at EyUp, and followed by prayers of
thanksgiving at the Fatih mosque and visits to the tomb of Fatih, the Sehzade
mosque, and the mosques and tombs of Sultan Bayezid and Murad's father,
Sultan Ahrned.u?
In each of these instances, the imperial mosques were used as settings for
important ceremonial events in which the sultan was called upon to
participate, events associated with succession to the throne, with the
222 Howard Crane
Fig. 17 Ktll~ alaYI of Sultan Mahmud II, early 19th century

(after Allom, Constantinople, [London, 1838])
celebration of one of the great Muslim religious festivals, and with the giving
of thanks for military successes in the field. Evliya's somewhat casual
references to these observances hardly exhausts the list of occasions on which
the imperial mosques were used for such purposes by the Ottoman sultans. In
addition to temporal occasions as, for instance, the investiture of a new sultan,
military victories and the birth of male heirs to the imperial house, the sultans'
mosques were used as settings for religious observances including the Night of
Power, the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (marked by the annual Mevlid
service, figure 18), the first day of Ramazan and of Kurban Bayrarm, and
most importantly, the weekly performance of the Friday Prayer, the cuma
namaZl, known as the selamlik (figures 19, 20).
The celebration of these events was marked, as is hinted at by Evliya in his
description of Murad's visit to Eyup and various other imperial mosques, by
the alay, a formal procession by the sultan accompanied by members of ruling
and learned institutions and by elements of the army, from the palace,
through the streets of the capital, to one of the imperial mosques, followed by
a religious observance, and a return to the palace. With the exception of the
girding at EyUp, there was no fixed rule as to which of the imperial mosques
was to be used for such celebrations. Nonetheless, it became customary in
certain periods for one mosque or another to function in a particular capacity.
Thus, in the eighteenth century, the annual Mevlid service tended to be
celebrated in the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, while prayers at the beginning of
the two bayrams were said either in Sultan Ahmed or the Haghia Sophia.
Selim III frequently performed the cuma selamllgt in the Selimye in Uskudar,
while Abdulharnid II rarely ventured beyond the Hamidiye Mosque just
outside the grounds of Yildiz Palace in B~iktas.1I8
Concerning the actual character and specfic events surrounding these
formal visits to the imperial mosques, a large nwnber of more or less detailed
accounts are to be found in both Ottoman and Western sources, particularly
for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.U? Such descriptions make it
clear that while details of the alar in particular changed over time, in their
fundamentals these observances remained remarkably conservative. Of them
all, it was the cuma alayi, culminating in the selamllk at one of the imperial
mosques that was the oldest and most frequently performed of these public
ceremonies, being enacted weekly at the time of the Friday noon prayer and
dating back, apparently, to the earliest years of the dynasry.P? Although it was
simplified in the second half of the seventeenth century by Muhammed IV,
and of necessity further changed after the destruction of the Yeniceri corps in
1826, its broad outlines remained unaltered. Traditionally, after selection of
the imperial mosque at which prayers were to be performed, detailed
arrangements were made, both in the palace and at the mosque itself by the
silahdar aga. On the day of the selamhk the btl$ cavU$ ala, richly robed in
ceremonial dress, journeyed to the mosque a half hour in advance of the
sultan, accompanied by forty has odali and fifteen miilazim mounted on richly
caparisoned horses. Two of the midazim, identifiable by the aigrette feathers
fixed in their headgear, were charged with carrying the two imperial turbans
tdestar-i humarun), which were respectfully saluted by onlookers along the
route. On arrival at the mosque, this advance party prepared the hunkar
mahfili and then, arranging themselves in ranks, formally saluted the sultan on
his arrival in a ceremony known as the sank alaYl'
The actual selamhk alayi, the formal progress of the sultan accompanied by
the sadrazam and other high state officials, began at the palace, made its way
to the mosque, and after prayer retired again to. the palace. Security on the
route along which the alay passed was given over to the Yeniceri corps.
Participation in the alar was fixed by palace regulations, which strictly
mandated the position of each member in the procession as well as the special
ceremonial robes and headgear that each participant was to wear. Thus, the
b~ iukadar walked at the sultan's right and a second fukadar marched on his
left, carrying the sultan's slippers in a red, satin pouch. A third fukadar, known
as the cizmeti (boot maker), followed with a spare set of slippers in a similar
pouch and was in turn followed by a fourth iukadar and various agas. The
sultan rode to the selamlik on horseback, he and his entire party being
screened and protected on all sides by ranks of solaks (guards for imperial
processions), and was only preceded by the haseki agas who went on foot.
Fig. 18 Mevlid service in the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, late 18th century
(after D'Ohsson, Tableau, [paris, 1788-1824])
Taking up the rear of the sultan's immediate entourage were the darussaade
agasl, silahdar aga, rikabdar aga, sir katlbl, bii$ kapia, zUliiflu baltaa kethudast and
other high court officials,all of whom rode on horseback.
Along the route through which the alay passed the sultan was acclaimed by
the onlooking populace proclaiming "Long live my padisah and his state" and
"Let not my padisan be proud.. Greater than thee is God!" On his arrival at
the mosque he was again acclaimed by the party of waiting officials and
populace and was formally greeted by the miitevelli of the mosque and aga of
the Yeniceri, who removed the sultan's shoes and replaced them with slippers.
The sultan then retired to his loggia for prayer and listened to the hutbe. At
the selamlik the Yeniferi aga were empowered to submit matters to the sultan
for decision and, in addition, when the sultan emerged from the mosque he
would receive petitions from his subjects and dispense redress of grievances.
Finally, he departed the mosque, again with great ceremony, and returned to
the palace with the selamlik alay«.
The symbolic significance attached to the selamhk by the Ottomans and their
subjects is vividly suggested by the fact that it survived until the very final
moment of the dynasty's history. Indeed, the last selamlIk was carried out by the
caliph Abdulmecid II on February 29, 1924, just four days before the abolition
of the caliphate by the republican Turkish government and Abdulrnecid's
preemptory exile to Europe. l21 The selamlik, creating again a visible link
between the palace and the mosque, between the state and religion, proclaimed
publically the sultan's central role in each of these two foundations of the
Ottoman social order. At the same time, the glittering public display of the alay
served to show the sultan, his court, and army in all their majesty, a testament
to the power and grandeur of the Ottoman ruler. And finally, the selamhk,
providing as it did a setting for public redress of grievances, was a reminder that
it was the sultan, God's Viceroy in the world, who was the ultimate source of
justice in the Ottoman state.
Thus, it was in substantial part the activities that took place within the
precincts of the sultans' mosque complexes that conferred meaning on this
architecture. The message that it sought to convey was the legitimacy of the
Ottoman sultans and of their house. It was a message given definition by a series
of specific acts and events: piety and zeal were demonstrated through support
for and participation in the ritual of the orthodox faith; charity through the
provision of food and shelter to the needy; learning in the Islamic sciences
through the foundation and staffing of medreses; and power and justice through
the events surrounding the ceremony of the selamllk. For, ultimately, it was by
means of the concrete and public display of the virtues of the ideal Islamic
prince in settings such as the imperial mosque complex that the Ottoman sultan
was able to sustain his claim to possession of the attributes and qualities of
rightful sovereignty.
In seeking for the mechanisms by which meaning is imparted to

architecture, Western art historians have generally searched for concrete
systems of formal symbols: the cruciform plan defines the Christian church;
the shikara of the Hindu temple represents the cosmic mountain in which the
god resides; the height and light of Gothic architecture are symbols of the
divine. Given this tendency, it would be satisfying to see clear symbolic
meaning in the specific forms of the Ottoman imperial mosques. One might
wish, for example, to see the dome as a cosmic symbol, as an image of the
universality and omnipotence of God, or as a testament to the cosmic
pretensions of the sultans. The minaret could be understood as an image of
his power, a symbolic appropriation of the land, witness to the sovereignty of
Islam and of the Ottoman padisah. And the unity of interior space in the
imperial mosques could be taken as emblematic of the unity of the Muslim
community.
The problem with such interpretations is that they fail to find confirmation
~tc l'lcrZilrtf'tIC6 &'cllfcr III ~trc6cn rcff. 'Jl. fill (ll,r,&I~lnt'r4.91I.,
~t ·- ... - ---- ;=;- "' ...... .. ~_ .. _-== . + ;... ~ -:z J -' ~ _e-.-", -~ -o-''--d"7''F---'- ''' ~ -':::- ' '.:c ",,:,;-;:;_ .- '. ~ , 1'··htt S, _
~~~f~~~:~~f~alrt'JltT'l D.~~~::~t!~~C:;~K~ruct, ~,~g.~(~:*bag·~~:~;~ndt~:;,~~~tf~n1t:.U~!~~~:r~,~~I~~:~/~=~n~~~r~;~~::~~N.T~;~~.ln:;i~~~~:~~~~., ~~~~q,~~~~~~~t~r;:

fUhtC'lQ'3..al1Ml-ft'm~I(<ntto.f@d, rNf'd;4 l fi( ~ll\'fln't kf:.\l,,¥rmnf.rrr((\'n IImnd1.ut.Nlji(m~mkfi'ttM'fft'ft'NII.I~&o. M~~n. K.l. tl'aI.~fifl(nIM. e('pn k' ,)«(\Irct' l"d(\l(ntllnt' ' ? r.s,~lJ.Q. K.. fmN./nhun~ci"dUbrrtnd.~.D<f .)ta»n"f ,()(~nr 1 ~rmn~n t1ul~
<Onk"o '00. c.~"bn ?"'~ t<'t 10. r. e"",~ ,~'rmtt ,0.""" ran II. :o.~~ n.41 l<m p, ft4l901<1911I. u"en,L.6qn 1.01« ,. e-"lnln~,' 1 Cmn" m C'lIlnv ').'<t~i<lI'U1C I::MlI. mu ~~n4 nun lO,l(OlWU" .'e.>d onSlol(<t>mml4 ~llIIetlol<1 J(..,ucriinilco '00.
Fig. 19 Se!aptllk alay., late 16th century

(after Schweigger, Ei« "ewe Reyflbesdmilnmg aufl Teutschland nad« Constanti"ople [Nurnberg, 1608))
in contemporary Ottoman texts. That is not to deny that at some more or less
conscious level associations such as these might not have been made by
Ottoman patrons and architects, as well as by the populace at large. Nor can
we deny that occasionally references are made in Ottoman literature to a
concrete, formal iconography in the imperial mosques: the illumination of
their interiors is occasionally linked with the Surat al-Nur (Kuran XXIV.35)
and seen as a symbol of God (as in the apex of the domes of the SUleymaniye
and the Haghia Sophia); and the number of balconies of the minarets of the
imperial mosques are sometimes related to the numerical place of the
mosques' founders in the line ofsuccession of the Ottoman Dynasty.
Nonetheless, insofar as we can see these monuments through traditional
Ottoman eyes, it is not specific details of form or esoteric symbolic
associations that rendered them potent icons of Ottoman power and
legitimacy. Rather, their formal meaning derived from considerations of a
more general nature-their vast scale, their sumptuous materials and fine
workmanship, their strength and durability. And where, in fact, specific forms
were employed to convey meaning, this was done in a direct and obvious
manner, using structures clearly functional in nature. Thus, while the hankar
mahfili served to isolate and, hence, emphasize the uniqueness of the sultan
even as he was engaged in the act of prayer, and the tomb functioned to
reinforce the commemorative character of the mosque as a device for
ensuring the memory of its founder, both together also served to underscore
the intimate bond that linked ruler and faith, temporal power and spiritual
appearance in the Ottoman system.
Even more than concrete form, however, it was the activities that took
place within the environment of the imperial mosque complexes, the uses to
which they were put, the social ends which they were intended to meet, that
gave these great ensembles meaning and definition. For they served as settings
for the expression of a set of legitimatizing values and qualities-religious zeal,
charity, learning and wisdom, justice, permanence-central to the political
ideology of the Ottoman dynasty and indeed to the older Persian-Islamic
conception of ideal kingship with which the Ottomans sought to associate
themselves. In effect, the activities, the day to day functions, as well as the
great religious and state ceremonies and festivals celebrated in the imperial
mosques, gave expression to a set of images in terms of which the Ottoman
ruler was able to cast himself as an ideal Islamic prince, as sultan caliph, as
imam, and was thus able to garner unto himself an appearance, if not
necessarily the actuality, of those qualities of power and piety that conferred
on him and on his dynasty the aura oflegitimacy.
228 Howard Crane
r1
Fig. 20 Selam.k alay. of AbdiiIhamid II at the Hamidiye Mosque, Istanbul, late 19th century
ABBREVIATIONS
Aslanapa, Edirne Oktay Aslanapa, Edirnede Osman I. Devri

Abideleri (Istanbul: Ucler Basirnevi, 1949).
AyvansaraYl, Hadikat Hafiz Hiiseyin Efendi ibn Haci Ismail Ayvansarayi
Hadikat al-Cevami (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Arnire, 1281).
Ayverdi, OMID Ekrem Hakki Ayverdi, Osmanl. Mi'mansinin
Ilk Devri, vol. I (Istanbul: Baha Matbassi, 1966).
Ayverdi, 9SMD Ekrem Hakki Ayverdi, Osman I. Mi'marisinde
9elebi ve II. Sultan Murad Devn, vol. II
(Istanbul: Baha Matbaasi, 1972).
Ayverdi, FD Ekrem Hakki Ayverdi, Osmanlt Mi'mansinde
Fatih Devti, vol. III
(Istanbul: Baha Matbaasl,1973).
Ceeintas, TMA Sedat Cetintas, Turk Mirna" Anitlan, Osmanl:
Devri, Bursada Murad I ve Bayezid I Binalar:
(Istanbul: Milli E~itim Basimevi, 1952).
Dijkema, OHMIE F. Th. Dijkema, The Ottoman Historical
Monumental Inscriptions in Edime
(Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1977).
EI The Encyclopedia oj Islam, 1st ed.
(Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1913-1942).
EJ2 The Encyclopedia of Islam, 2d ed.
(Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1960-)
Evliya, Seyahatname Evliya Efendi, Narrative ofT,avels in Ewope, Asia
and AJrica in the Seventeenth Century, Ritter
Joseph von Hammer, tr, (London: Oriental
Translation Fund, 1834).
Evliya, Seyahatname (D) Evliya Celebi, Seyahatnamesi, Zuhuri
Darnsman, ed. (Istanbul: Zuhuri Danisman
Yaymevi, 1971).
Gabriel, Bursa Albert Gabriel, Une Capitale tu'qve,
B,ousse(Bu,sa) (paris: E. de Boccard, 1958).
Goodwin, HOA Godfrey Goodwin, A History of Ottoman
Aroutecture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1971).
Islam Ansielopedisi (Istanbul: Milli E~itim
Basimevi, 1950-).
Kuran, MEOA AptulIah Kuran, The Mosque in Ea,ly Ottoman
Ardutectute (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1968).
Mantran, BEO Robert Mantran, "Les inscriptions arabes de
Brousse," Bulletin d'etudes orientales, XIV
(1952-1954), pp. 87-114.
Mantran, Oriens Robert Mantran, "Les inscriptions turques de
Brousse," Oriens, Xll (1959), pp. 115-70.
M iilIer-Wiener, BTl Wolfgang MiilIer-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur
Topographic Istanbuls (Tiibingen: Wasmuth,1977).
Nayir, OMSAKS Zeynep Nayir, Osmanlr Mima,II~lrlda Sultan
Ahmet Kulliyesi ve Sonrasi (1609-1690)
(Istanbul: ITO Mirnarlik Fakultesi, 1975).
Oz,IC Tahsin Oz, Istanbul Camileri (Ankara: TTK,
1962-1965).
RCEA Repertoi,ech,onologique d'epigraphie a,abe (Le Caire:
Institut francais d'archeologie orientale,1931-).
Yuksel, BYSD I. Aydm Yiiksel, Osmanlr Mi'mansinde II. Bayezid
YallUz Selim Devn (Istanbul: Giinliik Ticaret
Gazetesi Tesisleri, 1983).
230 Howard Crane
NOTES
1. For the Dome of the Rock see Oleg Grabar, "The Umayyad Dome of the
Rock," Ars Orientalis, 1lI (1959), pp. 33-62. Baghdad and its imperial symbolism are
described in Jacob Lassner, The Topography ofBaghdad in the Early Middle Ages (Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1970). Concerning the Kuwwat al-Islam Mosque, see
J.A. Page, A Memoir on the Qutb: Delhi (Calcutta: Archaeological Survey of India,
1926).
2. The term tevami-i selatin, though often translated as "sultans' mosques," is perhaps
better rendered as "imperial mosques" as it is used to designate mosques built both by
the sultans themselves and by women of the imperial household. I will use the term in
a somewhat more restrictive sense to refer only to the great mosques of the Ottoman
sultans built in the capitals of Istanbul, Edime, and Bursa. Of course, neither the
sultans nor the valide sultans and other court women limited their patronage of
religious architecture to the Ottoman capitals, nor did they necessarily found during
their reigns only a single great imperial mosque complex. Frequently they built several
mosques-both cami and mescid (quarter mosques)-in the capital as well as elsewhere.
In this paper, attention will be limited to the great imperial, that is sultans' mosques.
3. Neither the semi-legendary Ertu~rul Gazi nor the eponyous founder of the
Ottoman dynasty Osman Gazi can be securely associated with the patronage of
mosque architecture. While a small mosque outside SogUt is named for Ertugrul Gazi,
it is not at all clear that the present restored building occupies the site of a foundation
dating back to the thirteenth century. For discussion, see Ayverdi, OMID, pp. 2-3;
also Goodwin, HOA, p. 1, who sees it as not unlikely that the site was originally that
of a mosque built by Ertugrul but offers no specific evidence to support this view.
Osman Gazi seems to have founded a new residence in the year 1300 at Yeni Sehir,
and to have built there, in addition to a saray, a hammam, han, and perhaps other
structures. Today, traces of only the first two survive; see Ayverdi, OMID, pp. 14-16.
4. For the mosque of Orhan Gazi in the hisar, see Ayverdi,. OMID, pp. 58-59.
Several modem writers, including Gabriel (Bursa, pp. 45-46) and Mantran (BEO, pp.
89-90) have suggested that the Sehadet Camii is, in fact, the foundation described in
the inscription referred to. Evliya Celebi, however, makes it clear that this is not the
case; see Seyahatname, (H) 1104.
5. Descriptions and discussions of the Orhaniye complex are found in Gabriel,
Bursa, pp. 46-49, and Ayverdi, OMID, pp. 61-89,94-101,111-16. For the
foundation-restoration inscription on the mosque, see Mantran, BEO, p. 4.
6. The use of social-religious complexes to promote settlement and serve as
organizing foci for new towns and urban quarters has been discussed at length in
Orner Lufti Barkan, "Osrnanh Imparatorlugunda bir iskan ve kolonizasion metodu
olarak vakitlar ve ternlikler,' Vakiflar Dergisi, II (1942), pp. 279-386.
7. For descriptions and historical discussions of the complex, and in particular the
mosque medrese-zaviye with its curiously Gothic features, see Gabriel, Bursa, pp. 50-63;
Ayverdi, OMID, pp. 231-64; Kuran, MEOA, pp. 102-4.
8. The identification of the Sehadet Camii as Murad's foundation has not been
without controversy. Gabriel (Bursa, p. 45), for example, noting the inscription above
the entry portal and the orientation of the Sehadet Carnii, believed it to be Orhan
Gazi's mosque of 1339, referred to above (note 3). However, a subsequently published
vakf registration made clear the fact that the mosque was endowed by Murad I
(Ayverdi, OMID, p. 267), and this. plus local folklore and planning concepts all
support the view that Murad was the builder. For reconstructions of the Sehadet
Camii, see Sedad H. Eidem, "Bursada Sehadet Camii Konusunda bir Arasnrrna,"
Tilrk San 'atl Tarihi Arasftmlla ve Incelemeleri. I (1963), pp. 313-26; also Robert
Anhegger "Beitrage zur fruhosmanischen Baugeschichte," Zeki Veledi Togan Armalam,
(Istanbul: 1950-1955), pp. 301-30; Ayverdi, OMID, pp. 267-74; Gabriel, Bursa, pp.
45-46.
9. Concerning the date of the Yildmrn complex, see Cetintasc, TMA, 11.22-23;
Ayverdi OMID, p. 419; Gabriel, Bursa, p. 71. As no foundation inscription giving the
year of its completion is known, its date has to be established by reference to the not
always consistent information found in a variety of historical sources including
~Ikp~azade and Taskopruzade, according to which the mosque was completed in
1394 after six years of work. For the existence of the no longer extant saray, see
Cetintas, TMA, 11.23; also Gabriel, Bursa, p. 65. For the precinct walls, see Cetintas,
TMA, 11.48; also Gabriel, Bursa, p. 65-66, where they appear on the site plan. For a
summary of Bayezid's vakjiye of 1399-1400, see Ayverdi, OMID, pp. 420-22. The
locations of the second medrese and dari4siJa are given on the site plan published by
. Cetintas as levha 25. For the tomb, see Ayverdi, OMID, pp. 464-69; also Gabriel,
Bursa, pp. 75-76; and Cetintas, TMA, 11.30.
10. For architectural and historical discussions, including date of foundation, see
Ayverdi, OMID, pp. 401-18; Gabriel, Bursa, pp. 31-41, Kuran, MEOA, pp. 146-50.
11. OMID, p. 401.
12. For architectural and historical descriptions, see Ayverdi, OMID, pp. 150-60;
Aslanapa, Edime, pp. 6-13; Kuran, MEOA, pp. 154-58. The foundation text is
_published by Dijkema, ORMIE, No.2. pp. 15-17.
13. In addition, the complex included a pair of mektebs, no longer extant. their
location indicated on the site plan published in Gabriel, Bursa, p. 80. The so-called
Yesil Rammam, located between the medrese and tomb, was built about 1480 as a vakJ
for the complex; see ibid., p. 175. For epigraphy, see Mantran, BEO, No.6, 7, 8. 9,
10, pp. 92-94, and 31. 32, 33, pp. 105-6. Regarding the existence of a saray, see
Goodwin. ROA, p. 65. For overall architectural descriptions of the complex, See
Gabriel, Bursa, pp. 79-104; Ayverdi, C;:SMD, pp. 46-118; Kuran, MEOA pp. 115-19.
14. With regard to dating, the foundation inscription on the Muradiye Mosque
(Mantran, BEO, No. 11, p. 94) states that its construction was ordered in 828/1425
and that it was completed in the month of Muharrem 830/1426. The other
monuments that make up the complex are anepigraphic. Murad's death, according to
the inscription on his grave, occurred in Muharrem, 855/February, 1451. Although
this would appear to provide a terminus ad quem for the construction of his tomb, the
fact that the attached tomb is that of his sons Ahmed (d. 1441) and Alaeddin (d. 1443),
suggests that the tomb was probably completed some years before the sultan's death.
For architectural descriptions of the Muradiye, see Ayverdi, C;:SMD. pp. 298-326,
Gabriel, Bursa, pp. 104-21.
15. For foundation inscription, see Dijkerna, ORMIE, No.7, p. 23, the
chronogram of which gives the date 839/1435-1436. Architectural descriptions of the
Muradiye of Edime, are found in Ayverdi, C;:SMD pp. 405-15; Kuran, MEOA, pp.
124-235; Aslanapa, Edirne, pp. 83-90. For a photograph showing the mekteb c. 1920
see Ayverdi, C;:SMD, p. 415.
16. For description and evaluation of the architectural significance of the 0<;:
Serefeli mosque for the later history of Ottoman architecture, see Ayvcrdi, C;:SMD,
pp. 422-62; Goodwin, ROA, pp. 97-101; Kuran, MEOA, pp. 177-91; Aslanapa,
232 Howard Crane
Edirne, pp. 14-31. The name Yeni Carni, sometimes applied to the O~ Serefe1i
mosque, was apparently intended to differentiate it from the Eski Carni of Edime and
is the older of the two designations.
17. The arguments in support of the notion that the Fatih and later sultans' mosques
of Istanbul and Edime evolve out of the earlier Ottoman "I" cami plan are found in
Mehmet Aga-Oglu, "The Fatih Mosque at Constantinople," The Art B"lletin, XII
(1932), pp. 179-95. See also Kuran, MEOA, pp. 209-13. Interesting for its comments
on facade treatment is a A. M. Schneider, "Sophienkirche und Sultansmoschee,"
Byzantinische Zeitschrift, (1951), pp. 509-16. For descriptions of the Fatih complex, see
Ayverdi, FD, pp. 356-406; also Goodwin, ROA, pp. 121-31; MUller-Wiener, BTl,
pp. 405-11 (with bibliography and site plan).
18. Patih's efforts to repopulate Istanbul and settle it with Turkish Muslims are dealt
with in the article by Halil Inalcik, "The Policy of Mehmed 11 Toward the Greek
Population of Istanbul and the Byzantine Buildings of the City," Durnbarton Oaks
Papers, XXII (1970), pp. 213-49.
19. Descriptions of the Bayezid complex are found in Yuksel, BYSD, pp. 184-217;
Goodwin, ROA, pp. 168-74; MUller-Wiener, BTl, pp. 385-90 (with bibliography).
For site plan, see Yuksel (p. 187). Bayezid also built a great mosque complex in Edime
on the banks of the Tunca (completed 1488). Today it lies in the country beyond the
edge of the city. In the fifteenth century, at the time of its construction, however, the
city extended out to it. Like the Bayezid complex in Istanbul, its
dependencies-darilnifa, timathane, tip medrese, tabhanes, and irnaret-enclosed in an
irregular precinct wall, are oriented along parallel lines although the site plan as a
whole is assyrnetrical. The result, as at Istanbul, is simultaneously a sense of order and
of freedom. For a discussion of the site plan, see Yuksel, BYSD, pp. 103-27;
Goodwin, HOA, pp. 143-51; Aslanapa, Edirne, pp. 62-82.
20. The foundation inscription over the main portal of the Selirniye states that its
construction was ordered by Sultan Selim I and that it was completed by his son
Suleyrnan in 929/1522; for its text, see OZ, IC, 1.129. According to Evliya
(Seyahatname, 1.150-51) the mosque was begun by Selim shortly after his return from
the conquest of Egypt (probably 1518) and was half finished at his death in 1519. After
a year's interruption, SUleyman resumed work on the mosque (1520) and completed it
in 1526 as a monument to the memory of his father. Although Sin an claims the
mosque as his own (see T"hJet al-Mi'marin in Mirnar Sinan Hayatl, Eseri vol. I, Rifki
Melul Meri .., ed, [Ankara: TTK, 1965], p. 23) its date would seem far too early to
justify such a claim. It is generally attributed to 'Acem 'Ali, the architect supposedly
brought back to Istanbul from Tabriz after Selirn's campaign in Azerbaijan in 1514; see
L.A. Mayer, Islamic Architects and Their Works (Geneve: Albert Kundig, 1956), p. 50.
For architectural descriptions, see Goodwin, ROA, pp. 184-87; OZ, IC, pp. 129-31;
MUller-Wiener, BTl, pp. 476-78 (with bibliography and site plan).
21. Architectural descriptions and historical discussions Of the Sehzade complex, are
found in MUller-Wiener, BTl, pp. 479-83 (with site plan and bibliography);
Goodwin, ROA, pp. 206-08; OZ, IC, 1.137-41.
22. For architectural descriptions, see Miiller-Wiener, BTl, pp. 464-69 (with site
plan and bibliography); Goodwin, ROA, pp. 215-39; OZ, IC, 1.131-35. The
foundation text is given in Culpan, "Istanbul SUleymaniye Carnii Kitabesi," Kan"ni
Armagam, (Ankara: TTK, 1970) pp. 291-99.
23. Evliya, Seyahatname (0), V.316-17; Dogan Kuban, "Selirniye at Edime," IVeme
Congres international d'art Turc (Aix: Universite de Provence, 1976), pp. i06-7, offers
various plausible but textually unsupported reasons for its being at Edirne.
24. Concerning Sinan's pride in the diameter of his dome for the Selimiye, see
Tezkuet al.&nyan, where the poet Sa'i Mustafa Celebi has the architect state,
The deceased Sultan Selim Han II, out of the perfection of his favor, ordered a
mosque unequaled in the age for the city of Edime. And this humble servant made the
fine plan which is admired by people in Edirne. Its four minarets are on the four sides
of the dome. All have three balconies. Each has its own staircase and the staircases of
two of those are separate. The previously built 0\= Serefeli [minaret] is like a very
stout tower. But its [the Selimiye's] minarets, being both slender and with three
staircases, it is obvious that they were very difficult [to build]. One reason why people
said it [the mosque's construction] was impossible is because those that pass for
architects among the Christians say, "We are victorious over the Muslims, since no
dome the equal of that of the Hagia Sophia has been built in the lands of Islam." Their
saying that to build so great a dome was so difficult greatly afflicted the heart of this
humble servant. Exerting myself on the abovementioned mosque, with the help of
God, in the reign of Sultan Selim Han, displaying my strength, I made this dome six
cubits wider and four cubits deeper than the dome of the Hagia Sophia.
For Turkish text, see Aslanapa, Edime, pp. 57-60.
25. For architectural descriptions of the Selimiye, see Goodwin, HOA, pp. 261-70;
Aslanapa, Edime, pp. 33-61. Inscription is found in Dijkema, OMHIE, No. 37, pp.
58-59. A full bibliography can be found in K. Kreiser, Bdirne im 17. Jahrhundert 'lam
Evliya <;e1ebi, (Freiburg: Klaus Schwarz, 1975), pp. 56-60.
26. In the meantime, of course, Sultan Murad IV had founded his imperial mosque
complex not in the Ottoman capital but in Manisa, where he had resided as governor
prior to his succession to the Ottoman throne in 1574. Built by Sinan between 1583
and 1586, the complex lies on the lower slopes of Sandik Tepe (Mt. Siphylus). Its scale
is much smaller than that of Sinan's other imperial mosques. The ensemble seems
originally to have included the mosque itself, a medrese, an imaret, and a library (or
mekteb). For a description, views, and site plan, see Erdem YUcel, "Manisa Muradiye
Camii ve Kulliyesi," Vakiflar Dergisi VII (1968), pp. 267-314; also Goodwin, HOA,
pp. 317-21. Its foundation inscription was published by Paul Wittek in Rudolf M.
Riefstahl, Turkish Architecture in Southwestern Anatolia (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1931), pp. 113-15. Murad's son Mehmed III, on the other hand, founded no
imperial mosque of his own. This should not, perhaps, be surprising, given the fact
that his reign was dominated by his mother Safiye Sultan, whose primacy is
symbolically manifested in the fact that it was she who founded the major imperial
mosque complex of the period, the so-called Yeni Valide Camii. The work of the
architect Dalgic Ahmed Aga, its foundations were laid in 1597. But when the
mosque's elevation had reached the arches of the first range of windows, work was cut
short by the death in 1603 of both the sultan and his mother. For historical discussion
and notes, see Ibrahim At~, ed.., Istanbul Yeni Cami ve Hank1ir Kasn (Ankara: Vakiflar
Gene! MUdUrlUgil, n.d.), pp. 9-12.
27. For description of the Ahmediye see MUller-Wiener, BTl, pp. 470-74; (with
partial site plan and bibliography); Goodwin, HOA, pp. 342-50; OZ, IC, 1.125-29.
For a full monographic treatment, see Zeynep Nayir, OMSAKS, pp. 35-133.
28. In terms of size, the Yeni Valide is the fourth largest of the mosques of Istanbul.
Evliya (Seyahatname, 1.1.164) designates it the tenth of the sultans' mosques of the
capital. For descriptions, see Nayir, OMSAKS, pp. 143-63; Ate~, Yeni Cami, pp. 14-
70; Goodwin, HOA, pp. 340-42,356-59.
29. Descriptions of the Uskudar Yeni Valide complex and plans of the mosque are
found in OZ, IC, 11.15; Goodwin, HOA, pp. 365-66. Although sources conflict on
234 Howard Crane
the question of patronage, Ayvansarayi (Hadikat, 11.187) states that it was Ahmed III
who built it for his mother (Sultan Ahmed Han Salis Hazretleri Valideleri Galsam
Emetallah Sultan ifiln bina etm~dir).
30. For descriptions of the Nur-u Osmaniye complex, see Goodwin, HOA, pp.
382-87; OZ, IC, 1.111-12; D~an Kuban, Tark &rok Mimarisi hakkinda bir Deneme
(Istanbul: Pulhan Matbaasi, 1954), pp. 27-29. For an important Ottoman account,
Tarih-i Cami-i Sereji Nw-» Osmaniye, published in Tarih-i Osman! Endlmeni Mecmeas«,
(Istanbul, 1335-1337), pp. 1-51.
31. Descriptions of the Laleli complex will be found in OZ, IC, 1.96-97; Goodwin,
HOA, pp. 388-91 (with mosque plan); Kuban, &rok, pp. 30-31. Mustafa III also built
a Baroque mosque in honor of his mother, Mihrisah Emine Sultan-the Ayazma
Camii-between 1757 and 1760 on the heights above Oskildar. A smaller version of
the Nur-u Osmaniye, it has neither courtyard nor subsidiary buildings. Likewise, in
1767, he began the rebuilding, again in a Baroque style, the Fatih mosque which had
been badly damaged by an earthquake in 1766.
32. In this connection it is significant to note that Abdulharnid I built an
independent social complex around his tomb in Erninona between 1777 and 1790.
Consisting of an imaret, mekteb, medtese, library, sebi/, and f£5me, all were built in the
Baroque style. Only the tomb remains standing today; see OZ, IC, 1.1.124-25. For the
Beylerbeyi Mosque, see OZ, IC, n.12; Goodwin, HOA, pp. 397-400. Ayvansarayi
(Hadikat, 11.171) states, and this is confirmed by inscription over the outer gate, that
the mosque was built to honor the valide sultan, Rabia Sultan.
33. For descriptions of the Selimiye, see OZ, IC, n.58; Goodwin, HOA, p. 213. A
fine early nineteenth-century engraving of the Selimiye was'done by Thomas Allom
and published in Robert Walsh, Constantinople and the Sanery of the Seven Churches of
Asia Minor, vol. I. (London: Peter Jackson, 1838), opp. p. 74, where it is noted (ibid.,
p. 75) that it was to the Sc1imiye mosque that Sc1im III "usually repaired to perform
his Friday devotion."
34. For the Nilsretiye, see Pars Tuglacl, Osman II Mimar/1llnda BatllllQ6ma Diinemi ve
Balyan Ailesi (Istanbul: Inkilap ve Aka, 1981), pp. 29-33; Kuban, &rok, pp. 34-35;
OZ, IC, II.50.
35. The moving of the sultans' residences out of Istanbul and into its suburbs during
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is described in Barnette Miller, Beyond the
Sublime Porte, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1931), pp. 115-33.
36. On the Buyuk Mecidiye Mosque, see OZ, IC, II.51 and Tuglacl, Balyan, pp.
198-302 (with plan and sections). In addition, in 1853 Abdulmecid completed the
Dolrnabahce Mosque located just south of the Dolrnabahce Palace, begun by his
mother Valide Sultan Bezrni-Alem Sultan in 1852 (sec OZ, IC, 11.20-21; TuglacI,
Balyan, pp. 62-64). He also built the Hirka-i Serif complex near Eski Ali Pass,
completed in 1851 (Oz, IC, 1.71; Goodwin, HOA, pp. 422-23).
37. For the Aziziye, see "Istanbul," (Semavi Eyice) lA, V.1214-63. Abdulaziz also
rebuilt the Sa'dabad Carni in Kagithane (1862); see OZ. IC, 1.117; also TuglacI,
&Iyan, pp. 261-64.
38. A description, plan, and views of the Hamidiye mosque can be found in
Tuglacl, Balyan, pp. 268-73.
39. For a general survey (with bibliography) of Murad II's life and character, see
"Murad II," (Halil Inalcik), LA, VIII.598-615. The reasons for Murad's abdication are
still the subject of controversy. While many have seen the act as reflecting a personal
spiritual orientation and a psychic crisis induced by the death of his son Alaeddin, it
also seems likely that it was part of an attempt to secure the succession of his son
Mehmed while he himself was still alive and in good health. Murad's support for the
Mevlevi order is apparent in his foundation of the Muradiye in Edirne. His
vasiyetname with instructions regarding his burial is published in Halil Inalcik, Fatih
DevriiJzerinde Tetkikler ve Vesilealar, (Ankara: TIK, 1954), 1.209-12. As is well known,
Murad's grave and his tomb are unusual for their simplicity. In conformity with
Murad's wishes, its dome has an open oculus, which permits the rains to fall on his
grave; see Gabriel, Bursa, 1.116-18 and plates 66-67. For Ducas's evaluation, see the
Historia Turco-Byzantina, XXXIII.6. Murad's numerous pious works, including
mosques, medreses, hospitals, imatets, caravansaries and other foundations, attest to his
concern for the welfare of his subjects.
40. Bayezid II's life and character, patronage of learning and relations with the
ulema and sufi brotherhoods are dealt with in "Bayezid II," (I. H. Uzuncarsih), lA,
11.392-98. A foreigner's description ofBayezid is given by Audrea Gritti, the Venetian
ambassador in Constantinople in 1503, (reprinted in Theodore Spandouyn Cantacasin,
Petit Traicte de l'Origine des Turcqi, Charles Schefer, ed. (paris: Ernest Leroux, 1896),
pp.lix-Ix. Gritti writes,
The Sultan is of a height somewhat more than average; his complexion is olive and
his appearance shows that his intellect is always occupied with serious thought. He is
by nature melancholy.... He never shows any gladness even when coming across the
most pleasing events. He never drinks any wine and does not partake of but the most
modest meals. He gives himself up to the riding of horses with great pleasure and does
so with skill when not prevented by the gout which renders him very fatigued and
forces him to rest when he devotes himself to his most lively pleasure which is the
hunt. He does not neglect any of the rules of his religion and betakes himself to the
mosque very frequently; he distributes abundant alms. He boasts having some
familiarity with philosophy, and he much occupies himself with cosmography, a
science in which he is well versed
41. Sultan Mehmed I, the Conqueror, has been the subject of a fairly extensive
scholarly literature both in Turkish and in European languages. Surveys of the major
events and problems of Mehmed's reign are found in Salahattin Tansel's Fatih Sultan
Mehmed'in Siyasi ve Askeri Faaliyeti (Ankara: TTK, 1953), and Ismail Hikmet Ertaylan's
Fatih ve Filtuhatl (Ankara: Milli Egitim Basimevi, 1953-1966). The most significant
European contribution to the study of Mehmed is Franz Babinger's German
biography, now translated into English as Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), Book Seven of which (pp. 409-32,
462-94), deals specifically with the personality of the sultan and his attitudes and
activities in the spheres of art, science, literature. and religion. As to the motives
behind Mehmed's building activities in his new capital Istanbul and the reason for his
founding of the vast Fatih mosque-social complex, personal piety would seem to have
had little role to pay. Rather, Mehmed's aims appear more practical, having to do with
the creation and institutionalization of a loyal and orthodox religious establishment,
and the rebuilding and repopulation of his new capital.
42. Pecevi Ibrahim Efendi, Pefevi Tarihi, vol. I, Bekir Sitki Baykal, ed. (Ankara:
Kultur Bakanl.g. Yaymlan, 1981), pp. 297-300.
43. Hoca Sadeddin Efendi, TacU't- Tevarih, vol. I, Ismet Parmaksizoglu, ed. (Istanbul:
Milli Egitim Basirnevi, 1984), pp. 77-78.
44. See (Les Ghazis dans l'histoire ottomane,) part of two of Paul Wittek, "Deux
chapitres de l'histoire des Turcs de Rourn," Byzantion, XI (1936), pp. 302-19; also his
Rise of the Ottoman Empire (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1938), particularly pp. 13-
15 and 33-51; and the article "Ghazi," (I. Melikoff), EJ2, 11.1043-45.
236 Howard Crane
45. A facsimile of the Istanbul University manuscript of Ahmedi's Iskendername (Ty, 921)
has been published with introductory notes by Ismail Onver under the title Ahmedi,
Iskender-name (Ankara: TUrk Dil Kurumu, 1983). The account of the history of the
Ottoman dynasty in which Ahmedi develops his gazi theme is found on f.65b-f.68a.
46. For variant readings of the inscription see Mantran, BEO, No.1, p. 89; also
Ayverdi, aMID, P: 59 (with photograph). Ayverdi argues that the inscription
originally belonged to Orhan Gazi's no longer standing mosque in the hisar of Bursa.
47. For the text and a photograph, see Dijkema, OHMIE, No.2, pp. 15-16. The
inscription begins with the hadith, 'Whoever builds for God a place of worship, for
him God builds a dwelling in paradise."
48. For the su"e of the Ottoman sultans, see I.H. Unzuncarsih, Osmanll Devieuni«
Saray Tqkilatl (Ankara: TIK, 1945), pp. 181-83; also the same author's Mekke-i
Make"eme Emirleri (Ankara: TTK, 1972), pp. 13-15, and 35-48.
49. RCEA, No. 3447.
50. Sir Thomas Arnold, The Caliphate (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), pp. 140-41,
145, citing Ibn Iyas, Tarikh Misr, 1II.98, and Kutb al-Din, Chroniken Der Staat Mekka,
III, pp. 278-79.
51. Uzuncarsih, Mekke, pp. 17-18.
52. For the foundation inscription of the Selimiye, see OZ, IC, 1.129. The coins are
noted in Nuri Pere, Osmanillarda Madeni Paralar (Istanbul: Yapi ve Kredi Bankasi,
1968), nos. 160, 199,200, pp. 110, 113-14.
53. Concerning Mahmud I and Selim III, see Uzuncarsih, Saray, p. 293; for
AbdUlhamid II, Dijkema, OHMIE, No. 134, 142, pp. 176-77; 185-86.
54. For al-D aww ani, see E.I.]. Rosenthal, Political Th014ght in Medieval Islam: An
Introductory Outline (Cambridge: University Press, 1968), pp. 210-23; also "al-Dawwani,"
(Ann K.S. Lambton), EJ2, 11.174. The Akhlak-i Jalali, which has been described as a
"modernized and popularized version" of the thirteenth century Ilkhanid vizier Nasir
al-Din Tusi's Akhlak-i Nasiri, was written late in the fifteenth century for the Ak
Koyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan. Its impact on the Ottomans is well known. Bayezid II
sent gifts to al-Dawwani and the famous Ottoman jurist Abdulrahman Celebi studied
under him for seven years; see E.G. Browne, A Literary History oj Persia, III.
(Cambridge: University Press, 1953), III.423. Kmahzade 'Ali Efendi, the highly
regarded seventeenth-century Ottoman writer on ethics, borrowed extensively from
al-Dawwani, A translation into English of the Akh1tJk-i Ja1tJ1i was done by Fakir Jany
Muhammad Asaad with notes by W.E Thompson under the title Practical Philosophy of
the Muhammaden People (London: Oriental Translation Fund, 1839), now much out of
date.
55. Ibid., pp. 324-35 and 377-79. Lutti Pasa makes many of these same points in his
defense of Ottoman claims to the caliphate written for Si.ileyman I, Khalas al-umma fi
ma'riJat al-'a'imma; see H.A.R. Gibb, "Lutfi Pasha on the Ottoman Caliphate," Onens,
XV (1962), pp. 287-93.
56. Constantine Mouradgea D'Ohsson, Tableau gemiral de l'Empire Othoman (Paris:
Imprimerie de monsieur, 1788), 1.269-70.
57. Arnold, Caliphate, p. 123, after Ahmed Firidun Bey, Matl$a'at al-Selatin
(Constantinople: Matbaa-i Amire, 1264),1.120.
58. For the inscription of Bayezid I, see Dijkema, OHMIE, No.1, pp. 13-15;
Murad II's inscription of 830/1436 for the Muradiye is published in Mantran, BEO,
No. 11, P: 94. The inscription commemorating Abdalaziz l's restoration of the tomb
of Osman Gazi can be found in Mantran, Ottens, XII (1959), No. 23, p.137. For the
foundation text on the SUleymaniye see Culpan, Kanuni ArmaJatll, pp. 291-99; for
AbdOlhamid II. see Dijkerna, OHMIE, Nos. 142 and 144. pp. 185-86. and Mantran,
Onens, Nos. 12 and 71. pp. 129. 169. Other caliphal titles occasionally used by the
Ottoman sultans in their epigraphy include amir-i mu'minin (Commander of the
Believers) and imam al-muttakin (Certain Imam). Concerning the appearance and use of
the former see H.A.R. Gibb, "Some Considerations on the Sunni Theory of the
Caliphate." Archives d'histoire du droit oriental, III (1939), pp. 401-10. The latter is
attested in the foundation inscription on the Selimiye in Oskodar dated 1219/1804;
see OZ, IC, 1.58.
59. For typical examples. see Dijkerna, OHMIE, Nos. 2, 37. 83. 104. 117, 122.
131.134. pp. 15-16.58.115,139-140.153-54.161. 172-73. 176-77.
60. Nizam al-Mulk, The Book of Government or Rules Jor Kings. tr. Hubert Drake.
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1960), pp. 9-10.
61. MustaJa 'Ali's CounselJor Sultans oj 1581. Part I. ed. and tr. Andreas Tietze.
(Vienna: Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1979), pp. 39,41.
62. Al-Dawwani, pp. 377-78.
63. In their epigraphy the Ottomans repeatedly describe their pious foundations as
evidence of their "sovereign zeal for religion." and refers to the sultans with epithets
such as "diffuser of pious works;" for examples. see Dijkema, OHMIE, Nos. 7, II, 24.
pp. 23, 27-28. 44: Mantran, Gtiens, No.5, pp. 123-24.
64. Filzilli, Leyla and Mejnu«, tr, Soft Huri (London: George Allen and Unwin.
1970). pp. 145-47.
65. »u.. p. 144.
66. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah. An Introduction to History, tr. Franz Rosenthal
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1958), 1.356.
67. Ibid., 11.238.
68. nu.. 1.356.
69. The assertion is made by Evliya, Seyahatname, 1.78; Nairna, Tasih-i Naima,
(Istanbul: Zuhuri Dadisman, 1968), 11.700; and by Ca'fer, Risale-i Mi'mariyye. ff. 54r.
61r. A similar tale is told by Evliya Seyahatname. (D) V.320, regarding the twelve
/iereJes of the Selimiye in Edime, which are related to Selim Il's being the twelfth
Ottoman sultan.
70. See note 24 above.
71. Ca'fer, ff. 52r-53r.
72. tsu., f. 61r.
73. It might be added that the imperial mosques, in at least some instances, served a
more specific commemorative purpose. The Sehzade. for example was built in
memory of Siileyman's son, Mehmed, and the Selimiye in Edime seems to have been
intended to commemorate the conquest of Cyprus. In a broader sense. of course. all of
the imperial mosques served to perpetuate the memory of their royal founders. That
this was intended is clear from the manner in which the majority of them were named
(i.e., Fatih, Selirniye, SOlemaniye, Ahmediye).
74. 'Ali, p. 54.
75. Concerning the Ot; Serefeli and Selimiye mosques, see Evliya, Seyahatname. (0),
V.313, 316-17. For the Bayezid mosque in Istanbul, ibid., 1.71.
76. Martin A. Charles. "Hagia Sophia and the Great Imperial Mosques," The Art
Bulletin. XII (1930). pp. 321-44.
77. For discussions of the character and significance of the interior space in
Ottoman mosque architecture see Mehmet Aga-Oglu, "The Fatih mosque at
Constantinople," The Art Bulletin XII (1930), pp. 179-95; Do~an Kuban. Osman I.
Dini Mimarisinde If Mekan Te/iekkilla (Istanbul: Giiven Basim ve Yaymevi, 1958); David
238 Howard Crane
Gebhard, "The Problem of Space in the Ottoman mosque," The Art Bvlletin, XLV
(1963), pp. 271-75; and Kuran, MEOA, especially pp. 202-13.
78. For the Hadikat al-Cevami, see Franz Babinger, Die Geschichtsschreiber der
Osmanen und Ihre Werke (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1927), pp. 315-16. A printed
edition was published in 1281 by the Matbaa-l Amire in Constantinople, and a
summary translation can be found in Volume XVlll of the French edition of J. von
Hamrner-Purgstall, Histoire de I'empire ottoman depuis son originejUS'lU'iJ nos jours, J.-J.
Hellert, tr, (paris: Bellizard, 1843), pp. 1-136. For the Tezkiret al-Bvnyan see Babinger,
Geschichtsschreiber, pp. 137-38; a printed edition was prepared by Ahmed Cevdet Bey
(Istanbul: Ikdarn, 1315). Other texts having to do with Sinan's life and works (Risalet
al-Mi'mariyye, Tezkiret al-Ebniye, etc.) have been published under the editorship of
Rifki Melul Meric in Mimar Sinan, Hayatl, Eseti, vol. I (Ankara: TTK, 1965). An
edition and translation of the Risale-i Mi'mariyye, prepared by the author, has been
published by EJ. Brill (Leiden, 1987). Evliya Celebi's vast Seyahatname is the subject of :
considerable literature; see Pierre A. MacKay, "The Manuscripts of the Seyahatname of
Evliya Celebi,' Det Islam, LII (1975), pp. 278-98, in particular. For Evliya's life, a
summary of his work and bibliography, see "Ewliya Celebi," (J.H. Mordtmann and
H.W. Duda), EI2, 11.717-20. A defective printed edition in ten volumes was published
in Istanbul between 1896 and 1938 (Vols. I-VI, Ikdam Matbaasi, 1314-1318; VII,
Devlet Matbaasi, 1928; Vlll Orhaniyye Matbaasi, 1928; IX-X Devlct Matbaasr, 1935-
1938). A fifteen volume printed edition in modernized Turkish, based on the earlier
printed version, was prepared by Zuhuri Damsrnan and is entitled, Evliya (:elebi
Seyahatnamesi (Istanbul: Zuhuri Darnsman Yaymevi, 1971). An English translation of
Volumes I and II was done by J. von Harnrner-Purgstall under the title Narrative of
Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa by Ewliya EJendi (London: Oriental Translation Fund,
1834-1838).
79. For Evliya's references to the imperial tombs, see Seyahatname, 1.2.1-14, and
11.19-23; for the imperial loggias, 1.1.58, 66,70,74,76.
80. The tomb just outside Sllgilt revered as that of Ertuerul Gazi, father of the
founder of the Ottoman dynasty, Osman Gazi, remains problematic, as does the very
historicity of the personality supposedly buried there. It was heavily restored by
Abdillhamid II in 1886. For a description, inscriptions (none early), and photographs,
see Ibrahim Hakki Konyah, Sogut'de Ertugrwl Gazi Turbesi ve Ihtifali (Istanbul: Sinan
Matbaasi, 1959). The tomb of the last of the Ottoman sultan, Mehmed VI (abdicated
and fled into exile, 1 November 1922; d. San Rerno, May 15, 1926), is in Damascus;
that of Abdulrnecid II, the last caliph (deposed and exiled, 4 March, 1924; d. Paris,
August, 1944) is located in Medina.
81. For the tombs of Osman Gazi, Orhan Gazi, Murad I, Bayezid I, Mehmed I and
Murad II, see Gabriel, Bursa, pp. 44, 60-63, 75-76, 94-100, 116-18; also Ayverdi,
OMIDI, pp. 105-10, 198-200,290-93,464-69; Ayverdi, (:SMD, pp. 101-18,221-36.
82. The tomb of Fatih is described by Ayverdi, FD 1I1.404-5; for its Baroque
restoration, see Kuban, Barok, p. 37. That of Bayezid II is dealt with by Ytiksel in
BYSD, pp. 215-17. For the tombs ofSelim I and Silleyman I, See OZ, IC, 1.130-31,
134-35; also Goodwin, HOA, pp. 237-38.
83. No serious publication has appeared having to do with the tombs of Selim II,
Murad III, or Mehmed III, all located in the haram of the Hagia Sophia; for a brief
notice, see OZ, IC, 1.27-30. The tombs of Ahmed I and Turhan Hatice Sultan are
discussed in Nayrr, OMSAKS, pp. 86-87, 159-60. For the tombs of Mustafa III,
Abdulmecid I, Murad V, and Mehmed V Resid, see brief notices, ibid., 1.55,97,131,
155.
84. The tomb of Abdiilhamid I is dealt with briefly in Kuban, Barak, p. 37. For that
of Mahmud II, see Tuglacl, Balyan, pp. 159-62. A number of the later sultans built
their mosques outside the old city of Istanbul. In addition to Abdiilhamid I and
Mahmud II, Selirn III built his imperial mosque in OskUdar, AbdUlmecid I built his in
Ortakoy, AbdUlaziz began his Asisiye in Macka, and AbdUlhamid II built the
Hamidiye in Besiktas. Although with the exception of Abdiilmecid, none of these
latter rulers have independent tombs of their own (in part a result of the fact that
Selim, Abdiilaziz, and AbdUlhamid were deposed), it is significant to note that all were
buried in the old city. This is true as well of the next to last Ottoman sultan, Mehrned
V Resid, who founded no mosque but was, nonetheless, buried at Eyap; see Oz, IC,
1.55 and pis. 51, 52.
85. For the loggias of the Esrefoglu Mosque, the ulu (ami of Ermenak, and the
Candarh mosques of Kasaba Koyil and KUreihadit Koyil, see Ali Krziltan, Anadolu
Beyliklerinde Cami lie Mesatler, (Istanbul: Giiven Matbaasi, 1958), pp. 20,36-46, 55-62,
64-67. For the hunka, mahjili of the Yesil Cami in Bursa, see Ayverdi, CSMD, pp. 77-
79. A brief, incomplete, and superficial survey of the imperial loggia in Ottoman
mosque architecture was published Muzaffer Sudah, entitled Hanka, Mahjille,i
(Istanbul: Giiven Matbaasr, 1958). On the hanka, kasn of Ahmediye, see Nayir,
OMSAKS, P: 78-79. The hunka, kasn of the Yeni Valide Camii is extensively
documented in Ates, Yeni Cami; see also Nayir, OMSAKS, pp. 157-59. For the
imperial pavilions of the Nusretiye, Ortakoy, and Harnidiye mosques, see Tu~lacl,
Balyan, pp. 29-33, 198-202,268-73.
86. Evliya, Sevahatname, 1.57-59.
87. tus.. 1.73.
88. Ibid., 1.152-53.
89. Ibid., 1.75. A similar description of the strength and permanence of the
foundations of the Ahmediye can be found in Ca'fer, Risale-i Mi'mariyye, f. 61r.
90. Evliya, Seyahatname (D) 1.162. A somewhat less clear translation is found in
Seyahatname, 1.80.
91. Ibid., 1.71,76.
92. uu., 1.75.
93. tus.. 1.75.
94. tsu., 1.113.
95. Ibid.
96. nu., 1.67.
,97. tu«, 1.76-77.
98. tu«, 1.71.
99. On Ottoman views regarding the "Rightly Guided"caliphs, with references,
see Arnold, Caliphate, p. 163.
100. Evliya, Serahatname, 1.67.
101. tu«, 1.77.
102. Ibid., 1.67. Elsewhere (ibid., 1.171) he describes these at greater length,
The first college founded at Constantinople .;eter its conquest by Sultan Mohammed
was that of Aya Sofia; the next was the foundation of the eight colleges on the right
and left, that is, on the north and south of Sultan Mohammed's mosque; these eight
colleges may be compared to the eight regions of Paradise. The Sultan also founded a
school for the reading of the Koran on a spot adjoining the college, and on the east a
hospital for the poor. This hospital is a model for all such foundations. On the north
and south of the eight colleges are the cells of the students, three hundred and sixty in
number, each inhabited by three or four students, who receive provisions and candles
240 Howard Crane
from the trust (lIakj). There is also a conservatory (dar-uz-zitifat) and kitchen lighted by
seventy cupolas, which may be compared to the kitchen of Kaikaus, where the poor
are fed twice a day. Near the refectory there is a caravanserai, and a large stable capable
of holding three thousand horses and mules.
103. Concerning the imaret and hospital of the Fatih complex, he writes (ibid., 1.174),
Praise be to God! Who ... has provided a plentiful supply for the poor by the
foundation of Sultan Mohammed 11 at the new palace [i.e., the Padih Mosque] in
which food is distributed to them three times a day .... The T'imar-khaneh of
Mohammed II, which consists of seventy rooms, covered with eighty cupolas, is
attended by two hundred servants, a physician-general and a surgeon. All travelers
who fall sick are received into this hospital, and are well attended to. They have
excellent food twice a day; even pheasants, partridges, and other delicate birds are
supplied. If such are not at hand in the hospital, it is provided by the charter of the
foundation that they shall be furnished from the imarets of Sultan Saleyrnan, his son
Prince Mohammed, Sultan Ahmed I, Khaseki Sultan, Vefa Sultan, Eyiib Sultan,
Prince Jehangir, Mehrrnah Sultaneh and of the Valideh's mosque in Scutari. There
are musicians and singers who are employed to amuse the sick and insane, and thus to
cure their madness. There is also a separate hospital for infidels.
104. Ibld., 1.71. Elsewhere (p. 171), he notes, "The medreseh of Sultan Bayezid is
situated on the south side of the grand court of his mosque. The Sheikh-ul-Islarn is
the chief lecturer and attends its affairs."
105. nu.. 1.80.
106. nu.. 1.59.
107. tu«, 1.81.
108. See Osman Ergin, Fatih lmateti Vakjiyesi (Istanbul: Belediyesi, 1945) for the
lIakjiye of Sultan Mehmed II. The lIakJiyes of Bayezid II for his mosque ensemble in
Edirne can be found in M. Tayyib Gokbilgin, Edirne lie Pl13a Lillasl (Istanbul: Oc;:ler
Basirnevi, 1952), appendix, pp. 1-184. Siileyman I's lIakjiye for the Siileymaniye was
published by Kernal Edib KiirkC;:Uoglu, SiJleymaniye VakJiyesi (Ankara: Vakiflar Umum
Mildurlilga, 1962), and that of Abdiilhamid I was published by M. Cunbur under the
title "Abdiilhamid I in Vakfiyesi," Ankara Onillersitesi Dil lie Ta,ih-Cog,afya Fakaltesi
Dergisi. XXII (1964), pp. 17-69. For Murad I's lIakJiye for the Hudavendigar complex
in Bursa, see M. Tayyib Gokbigin, "Murad I Tesisleri ve Bursa lmareti Vakjiyesi,"
Tarkiyat Mecmuasl, X (1953), pp. 217-34.
109. The medrese of the Bayezid complex, being incomplete at the date of the
registration of Sultan Bayezid's lIakfiye, it was not included in the terms of the
document of7 Muharram 912/11 May 1506. Apparently a second lIakjiye, was drawn
up specifically covering the staffing and operations of the medtese and designating an
independent set of lIa/if lands to produce the incomes necessary for its upkeep. This
document has not survived. It is known from other sources, however, that one of its
stipulations was that the Seyh Ul-Islam was to be miJderris of the medtese, and that the
first milde"is was Zenbilli 'Ali Efendi; see Yiiksel, BYSD, p. 204. Some notion of the
number of appointments and the expenses involved in the staffing of an imperial
medrese is suggested by the lIakjiye of the Siileymaniye complex. which stipulates for
each of the medreses: one miiderris at 60 akfe per day, one muid at 5; fifteen dani3mend,
each at 2; one bellllab at 2; one Jerrl13 at 2; one kennas-I hela at 2; and one Slrao at 2.
Thus, the total staff of each of the Siileymaniye's medreses came to twenty-one persons,
with the total annual expense for salary alone of72,924 akff.
110. For a summary of Bayezid's lIakjiye of 91211506, see Yuksel, BYSD, pp. 184-
85.
111. For the ranking of medteses and grades of vlema, see Ismail Haklu Uzun..a~ili,
Osmanl. Devletinin Ilmiye Tqkilat. (Ankara: ITK, 1965), pp. 5-17,33-38; also H.A.R.
Gibb, Harold Bowen, Islamic Society and the West, (London: Oxford University Press,
1965),1.2.83-84,144-47.
112. Vakiflar Genel MUdiirlU~ii Arsivi, kasa no. 159, p. 139, cited in Bahaeddin
Yediyildiz, "Vakif Miiessesesinin XVIlI. Am TUrk Toplumundaki. Rolu," Vakiflar
Dergisi, XIV (1982), p. 8.
113. D'Ohsson, Tableau, 11.461.
114. For a discussion of the role of vakfs as a device for the promotion of Turkish
colonization and settlement, see Orner Lutfi Barkan, "Osmanh Imparatorlugunda bir
iskan ve kolonizasion methodu olarak vakiflar ve ternlikler," VakifiarDergisi, II (1942),
pp. 279-386. For a brief general survey of the social role of vakfs with particular
reference to the eighteenth century, see Yediyildiz, Vakiflar Detgisi, 1982, pp. 1-27.
115. Evliya, Seyahatname, 1.150. It is significant to note that subsequent to the
girding, Evliya records Sultan Muhammed as having journeyed to the tomb of Sultan
Mehmed 11 at the Fatih complex, thereby symbolically associating himself and the new
reign with perhaps the greatest of the earlier Ottoman rulers, the conqueror of
Constantinople. For the ceremony of the taklid-i seyf. see Uzun..a~w, Saray, pp. 189-
200; also EW. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1929), 11.604-22. Evliya (p. 120) also gives an account of the girding
of Murad IV, who was recognized as sultan by the Janissary corps and sipahis of the
capital on 14 Zilkade 1032/10 September 1623, after the chaos and anarchy of the last
months of the reign of Sultan Mustafa I.
On the following day, Sultan Murad repaired to the mosque of Eyilp, where two
swords were girded on him; one being that of Sultan Selim and the other that of the
blessed Prophet (on whom be the peace of God!); no monarch was ever girded in this
manner. On his return he entered by the Edirne gate, and in passing he saluted the
people who had assembled in crowds on his right and left and received him with loud
acclamations. He then proceeded to the saray in the inner apartment of which he
saluted the Hrrka-i Serif (cloak of the Prophet); placed on his head the turban of Yusuf
(on whom be peacel) which had been brought to Istanbul from the treasure of the
Egyptian Sultan Ghuri; he then offered up a prayer of two prostrations and begged,
"God! Make me not to be vile and despicable among the people. Enable me to
perform worthy service to religion and the state."
116. Evliya, Seyahatname, 1.132.
117. Ibid., 1.131.
11B. For the alay and various of the observances associated with it, see the articles
"Alay," "Bayram Alayi," "Kadir AlaYI," "Kili.. Alayi," "Mevlid AlaYI," and "Selaml.k
AlaYI," in Mehmet Zeki Pakahn, Osmanl, Tanh Deyinllen ve Terimleri Sl1zlilg;J (Istanbul:
Milli Egitim Basirnevi, 1946-1952), 1.44-45, 181; 11.131,259-64,521-22; II1.153-54.
For the Bayram AlaYI and Kili.. Ala)'l, see also Uzun..arsih, Sarar, pp. 188-211. Two
late Ottoman descriptions of the Kili.. AlaYI can be found in the account of the
Ottoman court historiographer, Lutfi Efendi, Tasih-i Lvifi (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Amire:
1303), VI.51 (for Sultan AbdUlmecid); and in the memoirs of the novelist and
secretary of Sultan Mehmed V Resid, Halid Ziya Usakhgil, entitled Sarar ve Otesi Son
Hatiralar (Istanbul: Hilmi Kitabevi, 1941), 11.123-25 (on the girding of Mehmed V). A
western account of the Bayram AlaYJ during the reign of AbdUlmecid can be found in
Chapter 20 ofTheophile Gautier's Constantinople.
119. For a late Ottoman description of the Mevlid Alayi, see Tanh-! Ata, (Istanbul:
Matbaa-r Amire, 1294), 1.234-38. An outstanding Western description of the
242 Howard Crane
celebration of the same event during the eighteenth century is preserved in D'Ohsson,
Tableau, 11.358-68.
120. The Selamhk AlaYI is by far the best known and most frequently described of
these ceremonial observances involving the imperial mosques. In addition to the
articles by Pakalm, (Deyimler, Ill.153-54) cited above. Reference should be made to
entry "Cuma Selamligi," in the same work (1.304-8); and the articles "Selarnhk,' "A.
Cevad Eren,' lA, XII.334-37; and "Selarnhk,' 'TH. Krarners," EI, IV.95. Numerous
firsthand descriptions are found by both Turkish and in Western writers. Most of these
date to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however. See for example,
Osman Nuri Ergin, Tilrkiye Maarij Tarihi (Istanbul: Osmanbey Matbaasi, 1941),
Ill.860-68.
121. Krarners, EI, IV.95, citing the newspaper Vatan for 1 March 1924.
POSTSCRIPT
The foregoing paper has dealt, perhaps in an overly narrow manner, with the
political iconography of the Ottoman imperial mosques. Only passing reference has
been made to the broader historical and socio-economic context within which these
building complexes, both individually and as a group, evolved. Reasons of space alone
would have precluded close examination of these issues, although they are certainly
rewarding subjects for further research. How, for instance, are we to account for the
changes in scale and the increase and later waning of the types and numbers of
dependencies that characterize the Ottoman imperial mosque complexes? What are
the ideological, economic, social, political, and other factors that account for the
reduced dimensions of the imperial mosques after the seventeenth century, for the
diminished number and the limitation of types of charitable and educational
dependencies surrounding the imperial mosques, and for the vast enlargement of the
imperial loggia and leasr? In a general way, of course, the change in scale can be related
to the erosion of resources and the economic crisis through which the Ottoman state
passed in its later period. But is a rigid economic determinism sufficient to explain the
full range of these changes? Why, for example, does the imperial mosque in its latest
phase evolve into a palace chapel? Does this not reflect certain changes in the manner
in which imperial legitimacy was seen to be manifested? It is, of course, interesting to
note the inverse relationship between the real power of the Ottoman sovereigns, on
the one hand, and, on the other hand, the scale and sumptuousness of those
dependencies appended to the imperial mosques intended for the personal use of the
sultan and his immediate entourage. Nonetheless, the specific details and causes of
these changes, whether they are indicative of shifts in taste or should be accounted for
in terms of broader social, economic, and political factors, remain difficult to define
with any precision and, without question, constitute an important subject for
investigation.
Another area that would richly repay efforts at further examination has to do with
the epigraphy of the imperial mosques. What is the specific nature of the changes in
the protocols of the Ottoman sultans found in the inscriptions on the imperial
mosques? What are the implications of such change for the iconography of these
foundations? Do they relate in any way to changes in the formal character of the
imperial mosques? How does the content of the nonhistorical epigraphy of the
imperial mosques change over time and what is the significance of these shifts?
Certainly, a systematic study of the epigraphy of the imperial mosques would be
profoundly rewarding, not only for the iconographer and art historian, but for the
student of intellectual, religious, and political history as well. Unfortunately, until now
only the most tentative beginnings have been made in the study of the epigraphs of
the Ottoman imperial mosques. The historical inscriptions of Bursa and Edime have
been published by Mantran and Dijkema, respectively, but those of Istanbul remain
almost untouched. Similarly, but for Ayverdi's efforts, the nonhistorical epigraphs of
the imperial monuments of all three capitals remain terra incognita. Thus, basic field
work in Ottoman epigraphy remains to be done. Unquestionably, the study of these
documents should illuminate many facets of Ottoman art. culture and society but their
use to answer questions such as those posed above must await the painstaking process
of their collection and decipherment.
Finally, it would be useful for an understanding of the legitimizing function of the
imperial mosques to examine in greater detail the social and economic impact of these
institutions on their human environments. How did the imperial mosques function as
devices for the distribution of material rewards and honors? How did they serve to
promote loyalty and build alliances between the ruling institution and the other classes
of the Ottoman society? In what ways did they serve to promote social peace? What
were the specific services that they provided to the community at large? And how and
why did the character of this patronage and charity change over time? Here again, as
with the epigraphy of the imperial mosques, much of the basic research remains to be
done. The imperial lIakfiyes need to be studied not only individually but
comparatively, and historical sources-the Ottoman court histories, tezkere literature,
and the like-need to be combed with an eye to distinguishing the web of patron-
client relations formed within the context of the imperial mosque complexes and their
lIakfs·
The means by which the Ottoman imperial mosques served as legitimizing devices
for the Ottoman dynasty is, thus, a subject of immense breadth and complexity. Their
iconographic significance depended not only on their formal character but on their
social and economic context, their epigraphy and the historical and intellectual
tradition to which they belonged. My purpose in this paper has been limited to
suggesting some of the general features of this iconography and indicating various of
the means by which this imagery was given definition. That the topic is one
demanding far more detailed and specialized examination goes without saying.
Glossary
'Abbasid Muslim Dynasty centered in Baghdad (749-1258).

Abd al-' Aziz Governor of Egypt (684-704)
adab Customary law, protocol
adaletnameler Supplemental codes, reaffirmations and revisions of state
legislation issued by the Ottoman Sultan
Title given to certain offices especially of the military
agora Greek public square, often a market
akc;:e Small silver coin, asper
alay (pI alais) Parade, procession
Almohads Islamic Dynasty founded by Ibn Tumart that ruled in
North Africa and Spain from 1130-1269
Almoravids Islamic dynasty that ruled over North Africa and Spain
from 1056-1147
amsar Garrison centers
Aphrodito papyri Body of papyri found in Egypt
arasta Shops of the same trade built in a row
askeri Member of the military ruling class
atabeg Turkish title applied to guardians of minor rulers
a'yan "Notable" local notables with control over districts
Ayyubid Muslim Dynasty (1169-1250) centered in Egypt and
Syria
Bayezid II Ottoman Sultan (1481-1512)
bayt al-rnal Treasury
bedestan Large hall for sale and storage of valuable goods
beylerbeyi Military governor
burc Tower
cami (Arabic, ]ami') The mosque where official Friday services are held
246 Glossary
caravansary Han, inn, large commercial building
cerairn Infractions in violation ofkanun
cizye Poll tax, tax collected from non-Muslim
cevamci-i selatin Term used to designate mosques built both by the
sultans themselves and women of the imperial
household Used in Crane's article to mean the Great
mosques of the Ottoman Sultans in the capitals of-
Edirne, Bursa and Istanbul
Chalce High ceremonial entrance with various halls
Constantine the Great Emperor of the Byzantine Empire (306-337)
Constantius II Emperor of the Byzantine Empire (337-361)
cosmopolicy Universal character, cosmopolitan
cumhur General public
"e,me Fountain
"iftlik Country estate, variation on a fief or plot ofland
Dailamites People from the province ofDailam in the north of Iran
dar al-timara Palace complexes where governmental activities were
situated, usually including the residence of the Ruler
dariilhadis School where Hadis (qv) is taught
dariilkurra School for Kuran readers
darussade agasl Chief black eunuch of the sultan's palace
darii~ifa Hospital
deir Temple
defterdar Chief finance officer named immediately after the
Grand Vezir
dergah Dervis convent
c;lervi, "One who has renounced the world," an exponent of
Sufism
devsirrne Levy or conscription of non-Muslim children into
Ottoman military and palace service
divan (diwan) Governmental department, place where
members of the imperial institution met; collection of
poetry or prose; register
dustur Statute, regulation, constitution
eblak (ablaq) Black and white inlay
Ebu'l-hayr "Father of charity"
Ebu'l-hayrat "Father of pious works"
effiln Trustee
episkepseis Inspectors, ministers
Glossary 247
Evliya Celebi Famous traveler of the 17th century who wrote the
Seyahatname (1611-1684)
eyalet Province
Fatimids Muslim Dynasty that ruled over Egypt and North Africa
(909-1171)
fethname Official victory announcement including an account of
the battle
fetva Legal opinion
Forum Public square
Gazi "Warrior of the Faith," a person fighting non-Muslims
in march zones and conquering non-Muslims territories
Ghaznavids Muslim dynasty with capitals at Ghazna and Nishapur
(979-1186)
gulam Young male slave, recruited from non-Muslims for
military and government service in Muslim Dynasties
gilmrack Excise tax, custom, duty, tariff
al-Haiiaj al-Hsjjaj ibn Yusuf, Governor ofIraq (694-714)
halife Caliph, officially ordained assistant to a ~eyh
Halveti Dervis order popular in Istanbul during the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries
hammam A public or private bath
Hanafi A follower of Abu-Hanifa who founded the Sunni
madhhab known as Hanafi
hankah Lodge or convent of a Tarikat
han Travel lodge, caravansaray
harac Land tax
Haram Sanctuary Usually used to designate particular areas in
Mecca and Medina
harem Portion of a house which male guests cannot enter and
is usually designated for women (also daraI'agasl and
kizlar agasl)
Harun al-Rashid 'Abbasid Caliph (786-809)
hass Land revenue grant attached to high administrative
offices in provincial or central government
hatib Preacher. member of the ulema authorized to deliver
the Friday sermon
hazine Treasury
hisar Fortified town, castle
hulwa Hermitage
248 Glossary
hilnkar kasn An imperial pavilion attached to the southeast comer of
the mosque
hilnkar mahfili Sultan's pew in a mosque, generally elevated and placed
to the east of the mihrab
hutbe Sermon delivered after the Friday prayer
Hyperpers Byzantine gold coin, equivalent to solidus
imam Leader of the salat worship
irnaret ('imaret) Soup kitchen for the distribution of food to the poor
imperium Empire
Iskandamame A Turkish poem by Ahmedi which treats the Persian
context of the Alexander legend
iwan (eyvan-Turkish) Recessed room usually enclosed on three sides with the
fourth opening onto a courtyard
janissary (yeniceri) Member of an Ottoman infantry corps formed at one
time from captured or conscripted Christian converts to
Islam (lit. "new troops ")
Justinian Byzantine Emperor (527-65)
kanun (pI kavamn) Regulations instituted by the Sultan as a support and
supplement to the Seri'at These were composed of
customary usage and decree, and matters that ranged
from court ceremonial and salaries to provincial tax
regulations
kapI1l/faql Covered Bazaar
Karamanids Muslim Turkish Dynasty that ruled over Central
Anatolia (1256-1483)
kasr (qasr) Palace
kible (qibla) The direction of prayer for a Muslim
kul "Slave," usually designates a slave of the sultan recruited
through the devsirrne
kurban bayram Muslim Festival of the sacrifice
killliye Complex of buildings
kiltilphane Library
Leprosarium A hospital for the treatment oflepers
liva Province
liva kanunnameler Provincial tax codes
loggia A covered passage or gallery with an open arcade or
colonnade on one or more sides
Glossary 249
loutra A bath or spring
mahalle Smaller neighborhoods that were usually centered
around a small mosque (mescid) or other religious
buildings
mahfil Private pew or gallery in a mosque
Makarn-i Hamis Fifth sanctuary
malikane Life-long tax law
Mamluks Muslim Dynasty that ruled over Egypt and Syria (1250-
1517)
mandarinization The creation of a huge bureaucracy with an intricate
system of bureaus, clientele and memory system which
transmitted the laws
maksura (maqsura) Protective partition surrounding the mihrab and rninbar
medrese (madrasa) School for higher learning, especially for fiqh
Mehrned Aga Imperial architect
Mehmed the Conqueror Mehmed II, Ottoman Sultan called Fatih or Conqueror
(1444-1446, 1451-1481)
mekteb Primary school
mescid (masjid) Any place of worship for Muslims where the salat is
performed in a group
rnesrutiyet Second constitutional period
Mevlevi Member of a Sufi Tarikat centered at Konya and
organized by the followers ofJaIal al-din Rumi (d
1273), often referred to as the "Whirling Dervishes"
meydan Square, open place, field
mihrab Niche in the kible wall of the mosque, indicating the
direction of Mecca
minbar Pulpit
min Imperial, especially state lands and revenues
monas (mevla) Theological student, chiefjudges: doctor of Muslim law
Mu'awiya Caliph in (661-680)
mukames (muqamas) Stalacite niches
Murad IV Ottoman Sultan (1623-1640)
Mustafa II Ottoman Sultan (1695-1703)
Mustafa III Ottoman Sultan (1747-1774)
muvakkithane Clock room of the timekeeper at the mosque
milderris Teacher, professor in a medrese (qv)
nahiye A large self-contained urban unit
nasihatnameler A genre ofliterature designated as advice to the prince
250 Glossary
Orhan Gazi Epinomous founder of the Ottoman Dynasty
Ottoman One of the Turkoman tribes that were established in
Western Anatolia in the early thirteenth century and
eventually conquered Constantinople from the
Byzantines in 1453 Their dynasty came to an end with
the Turkish Revolution (1281-1924) The term
Ottoman (Osmanh) is used to designate a Muslim that
was trained in Ottoman ways
P~a Governor
Pronoia A system in which the administration and revenue from
property was handed over to eminent Byzantines to
administer as a reward for specified services
qal'a Fortress
qasaba Name for above in West
qasr al-dhahab The Gold palace
qubbat al-khadra Green Dome
re'aya Tax paying subjects, Muslim and non-Muslim,
including peasants, artisans and merchants
reisii!kiittab Secretary in chief of the imperial council
ribat Sufi hospice, originally designated a military garrison
Salah al-Din Founder of the Ayyubid Dynasty (1169-1193)
sancak Province, subdivision, military emblem
sancakbeyi Governor of a sancak (qv)
sanctus locus The abiding sanctity of a given and well-defined
geographical site that retains its holy character forever
saray Palace
sarachane Harness shop
sayyid "Master, Lord," honorific title for Muhammad's
descendants
scholae A group of buildings in which imperial troops are
lodged
sebil Fountain
sebilhane Building where water is distributed without charge
sebil-kiittab A building that serves the dual purpose of distributing
water and instructing young boys in the Kuran
segban corps Division of the Janissaries
Selim I Ottoman Sultan (1512-1520)
Selim II Ottoman Sultan (1566-1574)
Selcuk (Saljuq) Muslim Dynasty, originally a branch of the Oguz Turks,
divided into the Great Selcuks, the Selcuks of Iraq, the
Glossary 251
Selcuks of Syria, the Selcuks ofKirman, and the Selcuks
of Rum (Anatolia) that ruled from 1037-1300
semahane Dervis meeting house, usually associated with religious
music and dancing
Septimus Serverus Roman Emperor who ruled from 193-211 and is
known for founding a personal dynasty and converting
the government into a type of military monarchy
Seyahatname Travel account written by Evliya Celebi (qv)
sibyan mektebi Primary school
Sinan Pa,a Governor of Egypt (1567-1568, 1571-1573)
sipahi A soldier, especially cavalry
sofu Devout
sphendome Layer or curve of the hippodrome
Sufi An exponent of Sufism, an aspect of Islam based on the
"mystical way"
Siileyman, Kanuni Ottoman Sultan (1520-1566), known as "Suleyman the
Lawgiver"
SUleyman II Ottoman Sultan (1687-1691)
Surre Gifts sent to Mecca every year by the Sultan
$erefe Balcony
$eri'at The whole body of rules guiding the life of the muslim,
sometimes called sacred laws or canon law
$erifs Descendant of Muhammad
$eyhiilislam Chiefjurisconsult or mufti
tabaka Layer (of society)
tabhane Hospice
tac-kapi Crown gate
tarikat (tariqat) Dervis order
ta'tif A bending or inclining thing
tekke Monastery
temlik In perpetuity
temenos Roman sacred precinct or temple
Theodosius II Byzantine Emperor (408-450)
thesaurization The accumulation and centralization of the empire's
economic wealth
timar A grant of agricultural revenue from a specified portion
ofland, or "fief"
tip medrese Medical school
Topkapi Palace in Istanbul
252 Glossary
tugra Sultan's monogram, the imperial signature
.Tulunids Muslim Dynasty in Egypt founded by Ahmad ibn Tulun
(808-844)
tUrbe Mausoleum, building over tomb
typikon Document of foundation
ulema ('ulama) Learned men, in particular in Islamic legal and religious
studies
Ulu-cami Friday Mosque, used in crane's article to refer to the
mosque built by Orhan Gazi in Bursa which, according
to the foundation inscription, was built in 1337-1338
Ummayad The first Muslim Dynasty (661-750)
Uthman Caliph (644-656)
vakf(waqf) A pious endowment of certain incomes set aside for the
upkeep of a mosque, hospital, or other religious
building
vakfiye Deed setting out the conditions of the vakf
vall "Governor," usually presiding over an Ottoman
administrative unit, equivalent to sancak (qv) or head of
eyalet (qv)
Valide Sultan Sultan's mother
vasiyetname Written will, last will and testament
veli Saint
vezir (wazir) An officer (minister) to whom a ruler delegated the
administration of his realm
wakala Warehouse
al-Walid Ummayad Caliph who ruled from (705-715)
xenodocheion Han or caravansary
yagrna Three days of intense pillaging
Yedi kule The citadel, castle of seven towers
yeniceri agasl Chief of the Janissaries
Zangids Muslim Dynasty, based in ~osul (1127-1233)
zaviye Lodge or convent of a Tarikat (qv), could also function
as a hospice
zimmi "a protected subject," follower of a religion tolerated by
Islam within Muslim territory
Ziyad ibn Abihi Government ofBasra and, then ofKufa from 662-675
Index
Architects, Ottoman: training of, 131, Economy, Ottoman: 16th-17th

132, 167; deployment of, 135, 139; centuries, 79ff; privatization of public
locally trained, 148, 153, 161 property, 84-85, 87-88. See also
Aya Sofya. See Hagia Sophia Elites; Stratification
Education, Bystantine, 26, 36; Ottoman:
Baths, as arena for civic iconography:
217,218,219,220,240 n.l02. See
22,26,33
also Literalization
Cemeteries, Ottoman: 70 Elites, Ottoman: classical period, 79ff;
Ceremony, civic: laying city limits local dynasts, 84; local elites, 85-86;
(limitatio,) 17-18, 22-25; 26; as rights of, 88ff
element of Byzantine Imperial Epigraphy: iconographic significance of,
iconography, 24-25, 27; Imperial 215-17
mosques as settings for, 221-22; as
Fora, as arena for civic iconography: 27,
element of Ottoman Imperial
33
iconography, 202, 221-25; as symbol
oflegitimacy, 217ff, 241 n.115 Hagia Sophia: as icon ofImperium, 28,
Citadels: as locale of government, lOS, 29, 31; Diegesis' tenth century history
112, 122, 123ff, 145; as empty sign of of, 39, financial support of (Ottoman)
government, 121-22; as independent 48 n.24
cities, 124, as symbolic of ruler-ruled Hippodrome, as arena for civic
relationship. 124 iconography: 34
City planning: siting of Sultan's Mosque Hankar Kasri: placement and
as a tool of. 174, 176. See also characteristics of, 187, 193, 211-212;
Constantine, Mehmed, funding of, 211; as emblem of
Neighborhoods legitimacy, 212
Class, social. See Stratification Hankar Mahjili: placement and
Constantine the Great, as creator of characteristics of, 187, 193,210-212;
Constantinople: 14-16, 17,24,32 as emblem oflegitimacy, 207, 212
Construction practices, Ottoman: 131,
Iconography. Imperial: 5,9,31,37; city
138, 148, 161
site as, (Byzantium) 13; shared
Dar al-'imara. See Palace-complexes; Byzantine and Ottoman forms of. 22;
Mosque-Administrative complexes Byzantine built elements as, 22, 27;
Dernographization (as an aspect of churches as, 28; Ottoman skylines as.
creating an Imperial city) 20, 22 9, 133; palaces as, 29, 116; walls as,
254 Index
29, 116, fortifications as 54; mosques also Iconography; Ottomanization
as, 29, 31, 59,133, 141; minarets as, Libraries: Byzantine, 26, 36-39;
68-9, 141, 202; mosque fa~ades as, Ottoman, 37-40. See also Education
141; imperial mosque-complexes as, Literalization (creating an educated
59,201,205, 207ff; tombs as, 208- strata) 19, 220; building schools,
210; sebil kiittab as, 161, 164; imperial libraries, 22, 36, 39-40. See also
monogram (Tugra) as, 164,166; Education
mosque-administrative complex as, Loggia, Imperial. See Hilnkar mahfili
113ff; Ottoman appropriation of
Mandarinization (creating bureaucracy)
Mamluk iconography, 153, 167-8,
9,85
epigraphy as, 215-17; public ritual as
Materials, building: Ottoman use of.
a form of, 221-25; vocabulary of, 141.
See Construction practices, Ottoman
See also Ottoman Identity in
Medreses, Ottoman, characteristics of:
provincial settings; Ceremony, civic,
138,141-43,151,220; in service of
Hiinkar Kasri, Hilnkar Mahfili
power, 220. See also Education
Imperial Capitals: 6, as reflection of
Mehmed the Conqueror, as creator of
founder's personalities,14; as
Imperial Istanbul: 13-18,30,32,37
receptacles of world power,18. See
235 nAl; personality of, 195
also Constantine, Mehmed
Militarization: as an aspect of creating an
Istanbul: fragmentation of power in, 84-
Imperial city, 19-20
86, change to centralized modem
Minarets: as a sign of independence
state,86ff
from Ottomans, 166; as a sign of
Kanu« (Ottoman Law) 10; as unlike Ottoman identity. See Ottoman
modem law, 78; as a means of social identity, minarets
control, 79; as a variable of political Monumentalization: as icon of
power, 82-84; functionally replaced Imperium, 22; Byzantine palace as,
by companion literature 24; 27; in Istanbul 31; as index of
(nasihatnameler,) 90-92; as framework authority, 203ff; 212-15
for Ottoman constitution, 89-90, 92; Mosque-Administrative complexes
political re-interpretations of, 89-91, (Mosque-dar al-'imara complexes) pre-
92-93 Ottoman:l05,l12ff
Kill/ires: Sec Mosque-Complexes, Mosque-complexes, Imperial (kill/ires )
Imperial characteristics of, 175ff, 186ff;
personnel of, 218-19; in Candia, 60-
Landmarks, civic. See Baths, Statues, 65; in Cairo, 145ff; in Bursa, 174-
Fora, Hippodrome, Minarets, 175,176, 177; in Edime, 177, 178,
Mosques, Mosque-Complexes 186; in Istanbul, 22, 132, 179ff;
Legal institutions, role of: in linkage of funding of, 21-22, 204; civic roles of,
center to provinces (mandarinization,) 59,60-62,64-65,180,217,220-22;
19. See also Kanun privatization of, 190-191; as a symbol
Legibility (how cities manifest signs of of political legitimacy, 201, 205, 212-
power relations and provide clues to 217,220; as a symbol of power, 201-
the population) 5,9, 104, 107, 126, 4, 205; 214; as empty symbols, 62-3;
129,205ff as a means of political/social control,
Legitimacy: Kanun used for historical, 220-21. See also Patronage, Siting,
93; by linking state to religion, 113ff, Skyline, Walls
193ff; 199ff; by linking ruler to Mosques, Imperial. See Mosque
personal piety, 196-7,201, 208ff. See complexes, Imperial.
Index 255
Mosques, Ottoman, characteristics of: n.73, 204; rules governing, 204; in
147-8; In Istanbul, 132-34, 135,142, provincial settings, 9, 10; 61-62, 66-
143, 179ft; in Bursa, 174-176; in 67, 69, 106, 130-32; changes in, 62-3,
Edime, 176-77; in provincial settings: 167,187; as a link between ruler and
135 138; compared to classical ruled,125, 139; minaret as sign of, 63,
Ottoman, 135-6, 137, 138,143, 73 n22, 146; chronogram plaque as
148,151,153,155,161,166;in display of, 69; mosque facade as sign
Yugoslavia 63,138; in Bulgaria, 138; of, 145fT. See also Constantine;
in Diyarbekir, 138; in Aleppo, 139; as Mehmed; Vakf
affected by local artisans, 148,153, Political polemics, 200. See also Kanun;
156; as imitating local work, 153, Nasikatname
156; con.l1ation with Mosque Portals, Ottoman Mosque: significance
complexes, 193; funding of, 204; See and characteristics of, 133ff, 138,147-
also Mosque complexes, Imperial; 8, 151, 153
Vakf Porticoes, Ottoman Mosque:
Mosques, pre-Ottoman, characteristics significance and characteristics of,137,
of: 119ff; in Cairo, 145ff, 151 139,155
Public projects. See City planning,
Nasihatname (political advice literature)
Mosque complexes, Patronage,
86; as defining rights of elites, 88ff; as
Religious foundations, Streets, Vakf
functionally replacing Kanun , 91-92;
Public vs private property: 79fT
role of in framing Ottoman
constitution, 92 Religious foundations: Byzantine, 21.
Neighborhoods and quarters: in For Ottoman, see Mosque-complexes
Byzantine Constantinople, 21, 27-8; Renovations: as"re-writing" the visual
in Ottoman Istanbul 30-31; environment, 6-7, 69,104; of
relationship of Mosques to, 176-77, churches by Ottomans, 30, 65-6, 68.
181, 193 See also Translatio Imperii
Ritual, civic. See Ceremony, civic
Ottoman identity in provincial settings:
signs of, 64; the Sultan's Mosque, 59, Sacralization (making monuments sacred
63; as ambiguous 61-2, 148-152; in service of Imperium) 22, 29
minarets, 63, 68, 73 n.22, 139, 146, Sanctification (inhabiting the Imperial
153, 155-6,202; the chronogram city with holy presences such as relics
plaque, 69, 151; tombstones, 70; and tombs )19, 22,27
siting of cemeteries, 70, isolation of Sebil-KiiUabs: Ottoman character of,
mosques 166; mosque facades, 139ff, 141, 164; Ottoman patronage of in
166; Tugras (Imperial Cairo, 139,148, as icon oflmperium,
Monograms,) 164, 166. See also 161
Epigraphy Siting: as an aspect of an iconographic
program: Byzantium, 13; as a divine
Palace complexes (daral-'imara), pre- act, 17; of the palace, 20,122-123; of
Ottoman: siting of, 113ff the Sultan's Mosque, 59, 63, 133,
Palaces: as sign of Imperium, 22; 166, 176, 185; of cemeteries, 70, of
Byzantine: 24-25; Islamic: 30, as the dar al'imara, 113-115. See also
separated from urban centers, 120-23; City Planning, Tombs
in citadels, 125; abandonment of, 191 Skyline features: as part of an
Patronage practices: Ottoman, reasons iconographic program, 59,60, 153,
for, 193ff, 201, 219, 235 n.41, 237 166; mosque complexes as, 134, 160,
256 Index
185,217 as receptacles of world power, 18; as
Social class: See Stratification centers of science and knowledge, 19;
Statues: as Byzantine urban iconography, Imperial capitals as a, 20
27-28,3:>-34,36; Ottoman Symmetry/ Asymmetry (architectural )
destruction of, 35, 40-45 1,181; Ottoman vs. Mamluk, 151,
Stratification and diversity of 153, 159, 166,
populations: Byzantine, 19-20;
Tax-farming: 80-81
Ottoman: 20-22, 46 n.22b, 82;
Thesaurization (centralizing economic
marked by tombstone styles, 70;
wealth) 21
defined and reinforced by law, 79;
Tombs, Imperial Ottoman: placement
blurring of distinctions in, 81-82;
and characteristics of, 207-10, 239
changes in, 85, 87; elites vs lower
n.84
classes, 79, 88-89; military-
Translatio Imperii: (transfonning of
administrative class, 87. See also
elements of older culture) 7; in
Kanun
Constantinople/Istanbul, 18-19,23,
Streets: used for militarization, 22; uses
29fT. See also Renovation
of in public ritual, 22, 26, 27, 66,
Urbanization as natural or enforced
222-25; iconographic significance of,
resettlement: 20, 62, 72 n.4, 74, n32,
22; siting of Ottoman Mosques vis a
89
vis, 132, 133, 137, 138, 143, 151,
166, 181; siting of Ottoman Sebil- Vakf as support for major monuments,
Kattabs vis a vis, 143, 161, 164; siting 21-22, 68, 130, as support of
of Mamluk Mosques vis a vis, 134-5, personnel and services, 218-19
166; Siting of Mamluk Sebil-Kattabs Walls, city: Byzantine and Ottoman as
vis a vis, 164; chronogram plaque vis a militarization, 19,20,22; in Venetian
vis, 69, building of public, 169 Candia 54; as linking city with
Sultan's Mosques. See Mosque- citadel, 124. See also Citadels
complexes, Imperial Walls, Mosque enclosure: Ottoman, 32,
"Super-City": Constantinople and 134,142, 143,145,175,185-6;
Istanbul as cosmogonic creations, 17; Mamluk,134

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Subsidia Balcanica, Islamica et Turcica, 3

The Ottoman City and Its Parts

Aristide D. Caratzas, Publisher

Copyright © 1991 by Aristide D. Caratzas, Publisher

Aristide D. Caratzas, Publisher

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Part I: THE CITY AS A WHOLE

1. Byzantine Constantinople & Ottoman Istanbul: Evolution in a

2. The Ottomanization of Crete 53

3. Power and Social Order: The Uses of the Kanun 77

PART II:' THE CITY AND ITS PARTS

4. Administrative Complexes. Palaces. and Citadels: Changes in the

5. Facades in Ottoman Cairo 129

6. The Ottoman Sultan's Mosques: Icons of Imperial Legitimacy 173

Rifa'at Ali Abou-El-Haj Ottoman historian and Professor of History,

The essays comprising this interdisciplinary volume are each concerned in

In the registers of 1535 there are:

Muslim hearths 46,635

The text is edited in T. Preger, Saiptores originum constantinopolitanarum (Leipzig, 1901)

He [Constantine] having been persuaded by the words of God, expanded greatly

This study reports on one aspect of the Ottornanization of Crete: the

It is evident on architectonic and archival grounds that the Venetians had

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Ottomanization, the next layer in the archaeology of the Cretan urban

The External System

Fig.2b Contemporary view of Sultan's cami; original minaret is missing.

The Internal System

Fig. 4 Contemporary view of cami ofKil~iik Hasan p~a.

Kanun, from the Greek word for rule,names "the tabulation of

THE KANUN IN EARLY MODERN HISTORY:

THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD:

acute observers of their respective contemporary scenes. They both singled

THE EARLY MODERN OTTOMAN

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

In this essay, my intention was not to embark on a comprehensive study of

Ad Hoc Tax Rates: (Mallye Defleri 10304, pp. 14-15).

The petition of the unworthy servant is the following:

Janeb ..: -i bedel bildarat vilayet-i

KANUN TO CONFORM TO SERI'A

Dated: Beg. Z.K., 1107 (May, 1696).

1. M. Krampen, "Zur heutigen Wirkung von Nazi-Architektur," in Kunst,

PATRONS, BUILDERS, AND BUILDING MATERIALS

orr OMAN MOSQUE FA<;ADES IN ISTANBUL

PROVINCIAL OTTOMAN MOSQUE FACADES

FACADE INNOVATIONS IN THE

Fig. 3 Istanbul, sebil and mausoleum of Sinan Pasa

to the Ottoman tradition in Istanbul where architectural facades addressed the

THE FACADE IN OTTOMAN CAIRO

Fig. 5 Cairo, the Mosque of Suleyrnan Pasa

----- ~ ..- ';-

Fig. 8 Cairo, the Mosque of Davud Pasa

Fig. 11 Bulaq, the Mosque of Sinan P~a

Fig. 13 Cairo, the Mosque of Mesih Pasa

Fig. 14 Cairo, the Mosque of Malika Safiye

Fig. 17 Cairo, the sebil-kiWab of Sultan Mahmud

The idea of a dynastic imperial or state-sponsored architecture embodying

Imperial mosque architecture, the founding of royal mosque complexes in

Fig. 1 Ulu Cami, Bursa, general view (photo: Denny).

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