The Grand Turk Page 28
Immediately after the Conquest, Sultan Mehmet built another fortress in the south-eastern corner of the old city, near the Marmara end of the Byzantine land walls at the famous Golden Gate. As Kritoboulos writes, after recording Mehmet’s efforts in rebuilding the city and starting work on the Eski Saray: ‘He further ordered the construction of a strong fortress near the Golden Gate where there had formerly been an imperial castle, and he commanded that all these things should be done with all haste.’
The fortress at the Golden Gate is known as Yedikule, the Castle of the Seven Towers, a curious structure partly Byzantine, partly Turkish. The western side is formed by that part of the ancient Theodosian city walls that includes the Golden Gate, part of a triumphal arch built c. 390 by Emperor Theodosius I. Along this side are four of the seven towers: the two square marble pylons flanking the Golden Gate and two polygonal towers belonging to the Theodosian wall itself. Eastward of these, inside the city, Sultan Mehmet constructed three large towers connected with each other and with the Theodosian walls by tall and massive curtain walls. The area thus enclosed forms a rather irregular hexagon. The structure was never used as a castle in the usual sense, but two of the towers saw service in Ottoman times as prisons; the others were used as storage places for part of the state treasure.
Yedikule has been restored and is now open as a museum, with its entrance in the middle of the inner wall of the enclosure. The bastion to the left of the entrance is called the Tower of Inscriptions, because some of the many unfortunates who were imprisoned there have carved messages on the walls, in Greek, Latin, French and German. The southern pylon of the Golden Gate was used in Ottoman times as a prison and a place of execution, one of the exhibits being the ‘well of blood’, a pit down which the executioner threw the heads of those he had executed. Osman II was executed here on 19 May 1622, although not by being beheaded, according to Evliya Çelebi, who writes that the young sultan, who was only nineteen, ‘was deposed by a rebellion of the Janissaries and put to death in the Castle of the Seven Towers, by the compression of his testicles, a mode of execution reserved by custom for the Ottoman emperors’.
Istanbul’s largest and most famous marketplace is still the Kapalı Çarşı, or Covered Bazaar, which Sultan Mehmet founded on the Third Hill in 1456, three years after the Conquest. The Turkish architectural historian Ayverdi claims that more than half the shops in the bazaar go back to the time of the Conqueror, though they have certainly been restored on several occasions, most recently after the earthquake of 1894 and the fire that ravaged the marketplace in 1954.
The Kapalı Çarşı is probably the largest market of its kind in the world. At first it seems a veritable labyrinth, but its central area forms a regular grid, with shops selling the same kind of merchandise congregated in their own streets, the names of which come from the various market guilds that originally had their establishments in these places in the time of the Conqueror. Thus there are streets of jewellers, goldsmiths, silversmiths and rug dealers, though others named for sword makers, turban merchants and armourers now deal in more modern merchandise. The streets are roofed with vaults and domes, the wide ones often flanked with columned arcades, side alleys leading into ancient hans, or inner-city caravanserais.
The grid is centred on the Old Bedesten, one of the original structures erected by the Conqueror, used then and now for the storage and sale of the most precious objects. Sultan Mehmet built an almost identical bedesten across the Golden Horn in Galata, where it now serves as a market hall for heavy machinery, identified by a sign as the Fatih Çarşısı, the Marketplace of the Conqueror.
The first mosque complex that Sultan Mehmet erected in Istanbul was Eyüp Camii, outside the city walls on the upper reaches of the Golden Horn. Eyüp Camii was built by Mehmet in 1458, and its original külliye, or building complex, included the great mosque itself, the tomb (türbe) of Eba Eyüp Ensari, Companion of the Prophet, a medrese, a refectory (imaret) and a public bath (hamam). The original mosque was destroyed, perhaps by the great earthquake of 1766, and the present structure was erected in 1800 by Sultan Selim III. The medrese has vanished, the imaret is in ruins and only part of the hamam survives (a very fine panel of twenty-four Iznik tiles from this bath is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum). But the türbe of Eba Eyüp Ensari survives intact, and its superb decorations make it one of the masterpieces of Ottoman art.
The mosque is approached through a picturesque outer courtyard with two great baroque gateways. Another gateway leads into the inner court, bordered by an unusually tall and stately colonnade along three sides. The inner court is shaded by venerable plane trees, in which grey herons and storks nest in the spring, a few of the latter remaining behind in a hollow of one of the trees when they can no longer fly. The flocks of pigeons are as numerous and pampered as those of the Piazza San Marco in Venice, and the courtyard is always thronged with pilgrims and with young boys celebrating their rites of circumcision. The tomb of Eyüp is opposite the central door of the mosque. Although the tomb was restored and redecorated in later times, its interior still appears to retain the form that it had in the days of the Conqueror.
From the time of Beyazit II onwards it was the custom for new sultans to be girded with the sword of their ancestor Osman Gazi at Eyüp’s tomb, a ceremony equivalent to coronation. The newly girded sultan would then lead a procession to Fatih Camii, the Mosque of the Conqueror, where he would pay obeisance to Sultan Mehmet II. The first to do so was Beyazit II, who had buried his father there earlier that day, 21 May 1482, beginning a practice that continued down to the end of the empire.
Fatih Camii is on the Fourth Hill of the city, built on the site of the famous church of the Holy Apostles, which the Conqueror demolished to make way for his külliye, the first imperial mosque complex to be erected in Istanbul. The complex was built in the years 1463-70, dates given in the calligraphic inscription over the main gateway to the outer courtyard. The architect was Atik (Old) Sinan, tentatively identified as a Greek named Christodoulos, who was apparently executed by Sultan Mehmet in 1471, supposedly because the dome of the Conqueror’s mosque was smaller than that of Haghia Sophia, although that story is most probably apocryphal.
The original mosque was completely destroyed by an earthquake on 22 May 1766, and the other buildings in the complex were damaged in varying degrees. Sultan Mustafa III immediately undertook the reconstruction of the complex, and the present baroque mosque, completed in 1771, was designed on a wholly different plan from the original. The caravanserai, hospital and library have disappeared, but all of the other structures in the külliye survive from their restoration by Mustafa III, presumably in their original form.
Fatih Camii was the largest and most extensive mosque complex ever built in the Ottoman Empire, laid out on a vast, nearly square area - about 325 metres on a side - with almost rigid symmetry. This and other külliyes became the civic centres of the new Ottoman city of Istanbul, with the mosque itself surrounded by other religious and philanthropic institutions serving the Muslims of the surrounding quarter, which in this case is still known as Fatih. The original Fatih Camii külliye consisted of the mosque, eight medreses, a refectory, a hospice, a caravanserai, a hospital (darüşşifa), a library (kütüphane), a primary school (mektep), a market (çarşı) and two tombs (türbe), one for Sultan Mehmet and the other for his wife Gülbahar, mother of his son and successor Beyazit II.
The graveyard behind the mosque contains the tombs of Sultan Mehmet and his wife Gülbahar, both of which were reconstructed after the 1766 earthquake though on the old foundations. Mehmet’s tomb is very baroque and its interior decorations extremely sumptuous in the Empire style. Gülbahar’s is simple and classical and must reproduce the original fairly closely.
Old prints show that Mehmet’s tomb was filled with captured weapons and other trophies, placed there by sultans after victorious campaigns. When newly girded sultans visited Mehmet’s tomb they are said to have prayed to him to endow them with the courage
he exhibited in his many conquests, particularly in his capture of Constantinople. Anatolian peasants still offer their prayers to the Conqueror when they visit his tomb, continuing a practice that dates back to the time of his death.
Gülbahar’s tomb has never been open to the public, which legend says is due to the fact that she was a Christian who never converted to Islam, a tradition first recorded by Evliya Çelebi in his Narrative of Travels:I myself have often observed, at morning prayer, that the readers appointed to chant lessons from the Kuran all turned their backs upon the coffin of this lady, of whom it is so doubtful whether she had departed in the faith of Islam. I have often seen Franks [Europeans] come by stealth and give a few aspers to the tomb-keeper to open her türbe for them, as the gate is always kept locked.
The same story is told by the Italian traveller Cornelio Magni, in a work published at Parma in 1679, in which he says that the custodian of Gülbahar’s tomb told him that it remained closed and shuttered because the deceased was a Christian princess who lived and died in her faith. ‘The türbe,’ he says, ‘remains always shut, even the windows.’ He asked the reason for this and was told by the custodian: ‘The sepulchre of her whose soul lives among the shades deserves not a ray of light!’ After much entreaty and the intervention of an emir who was passing by, the custodian finally let him in. ‘I entered with veneration and awe,’ he writes in conclusion, ‘and silently recited a De Profundis for the soul of this unfortunate princess.’
The oldest extant mosque in Istanbul that retains its original form is Mahmut Pasha Camii, erected in 1462 on the Second Hill. The market quarter in which it stands is still named after Mahmut Pasha, the greatest of the Conqueror’s grand vezirs.
Besides the great mosque, Mahmut Pasha’s original külliye included a medrese, an imaret, a primary school, a türbe, a hamam, a han and a mahkeme, or Court of Justice. All that remains of the medrese are its lecture hall and one or two ruined cells in a corner of the garden. The imaret, mektep and mahkeme have vanished, but the türbe, hamam and han survive. Mahmut Pasha’s magnificent and unique türbe stands a short way to the south-west of his mosque, dated by its inscription to AH 878 (AD 1474), the year in which he was executed by the Conqueror.
The other two surviving structures of the külliye are some distance to the west of the mosque, both of them on or near a street named Mahmut Pasha Yokuşu, which leads past the Kapalı Çarşı on its way down to the Golden Horn.
A short way down Mahmut Pasha Yokuşu after leaving the Kapalı Çarşı one comes on the left to a turning that leads to an imposing domed building. This is what remains of Mahmut Pasha’s hamam, which is now used as a market hall. The building, dated by an inscription to the year AH 871 (AD 1476), was completed by his heirs two years after his death.
A short way further down Mahmut Pasha Yokuşu one comes on the left to an archway that leads to the Kürkçü Hanı, the Han of the Furriers. This is the han of Mahmut Pasha’s külliye, the oldest building of its kind in Istanbul. The furriers for whom it is named have been doing business here since at least 1638, when Evliya Çelebi describes them in his Narrative of Travels. Evliya mentions more than twenty-five hans by name that still stand in Istanbul, most of them in the area in and around the Kapalı Çarşı, some going back to the time of the Conqueror, many of them built on Byzantine foundations. They were designed as inns for merchants, with storage space for the goods that they brought to Istanbul on camel caravans, later replaced by lorries. Typically they are buildings of two or three storeys around a central courtyard, or even two courtyards, as in the case of the Kürkçü Hanı and one or two others.
A number of mosques and other structures founded by the Conqueror’s vezirs are still standing. The earliest of these are Murat Pasha Camii and Rum Mehmet Pasha Camii, which rank just after Mahmut Pasha Camii as the second and third oldest mosques in the city that retain their original form. Like Mahmut Pasha, Murat Pasha and Rum Mehmet Pasha were of Greek origin and converted to Islam when they joined the service of Mehmet the Conqueror.
Murat Pasha Camii was built on the Seventh Hill in 1469, a date recorded in an inscription over its main doorway. The founder, Murat Pasha (also known as Hass Murat), was from the Byzantine imperial family of the Palaeologues, and attained the rank of first vezir under the Conqueror, who numbered him among his special favourites. He died as a relatively young man in 1473 during Sultan Mehmet’s campaign against Uzun Hasan, commanded by Mahmut Pasha, whom the sultan blamed for the death of his favourite.
Rum Mehmet Pasha Camii is on the Asian side of the city in Üsküdar, standing on a hill above the point where the Bosphorus flows into the Marmara. According to an Arabic inscription over the door of the mosque, it was founded in 1471 by Rum Mehmet Pasha, the year that he became grand vezir, only to be executed the following year by the Conqueror. The founder is buried in an octagonal türbe in the garden behind his mosque. Josef von Hammer, the nineteenth-century Austrian historian, wrote of Rum Mehmet Pasha that ‘he left in Ottoman history no other memories than those of his crimes’.
The oldest functioning Turkish bath in the city is the Gedik Pasha Hamamı on the Third Hill, built c. 1475. Its founder was Gedik Ahmet Pasha, who served as grand vezir in the years 1473-4 and again in 1476, commanding victorious armies for both Mehmet II and Beyazit II, who executed him in 1482. The whole bath glistens with bright new marble; it is much patronised by the inhabitants of the surrounding district, as indeed it has been since the days of the Conqueror.
Another ancient hamam, now unfortunately disused, forms part of a little külliye just outside the walls of Topkapı Sarayı on the Marmara slope of the First Hill. The külliye consists of just the hamam, a monumental structure now partially in ruins, and a much-restored little mosque. Both were built in 1476 by Ishak Pasha, who served as the Conqueror’s grand vezir in the years 1468-71 and held the office again under Beyazit II. His contemporary Kritoboulos describes Ishak as ‘a man of the wisest sort, experienced in many spheres, but especially a military leader and a man of courage’. The mosque is of the simplest sort, a square room covered by a dome, the same style as the earliest extant Ottoman mosques of the 1330s. The mosque has been restored several times, not very well, and it has lost its porch in a street widening.
Ishak Pasha Camii is one of eight small mosques in Istanbul dating from the time of the Conqueror that have been rebuilt so that they no longer have their original form. Only two of these mosques are definitely dated, though the others are almost certainly from the first quarter-century after the Conquest, when Sultan Mehmet was rebuilding and repopulating his new capital.
Yarhisar Camii is on the slope of the Fourth Hill leading down to the Golden Horn. According to the Register of Pious Foundations, it was built in 1461, thus antedating Mahmut Pasha Camii by a year or so. Its founder, Musliheddin Mustafa Efendi, was chief judge of Istanbul under the Conqueror. It was once a handsome edifice, but it was badly damaged in the great fire of 1917 that consumed most of this district, and then in 1954-6 it was restored so badly that it lost all its original character.
Another ancient mosque ruined by an appalling restoration is Kumrulu Mescit, which stands on the Fifth Hill. This mosque is of interest because its founder and builder, Atik Sinan, was chief architect to Sultan Mehmet II and built the original mosque of Fatih Camii. Kumrulu Mescit, the Mosque of the Turtle Dove, takes its name from a fragment of Byzantine sculpture used in the adjoining fountain. Atik Sinan’s grave is in the garden of the mosque; the inscription records that he was executed in 1471, the year after Fatih Camii was completed, but the reason for his execution is not given.
The other five ancient mosques from the Conqueror’s time are all on the slope of the Third Hill leading down to the Golden Horn, a district that has been the city’s principal market area since Byzantine times and which, under Mehmet II, became the city’s first Turkish quarter.
Yavaşça Şahin Camii is a small mosque on Uzun Çarşı Caddesi, the Avenue of the Long Market, which follows
the course of an ancient Byzantine colonnaded way that led down from the summit of the Third Hill to the Golden Horn. The mosque was founded soon after the Conquest by Yavaşça Şahin Pasha, who was captain of the Ottoman fleet in the Conqueror’s siege of Constantinople. It is one of a small group of early mosques that form a distinct type. The mosque was badly damaged by fire in 1908 but well restored in 1950.
Just opposite Yavaşça Şahin Camii a street leads steeply uphill, and at the first corner on the left it comes to Samanveren Camii, the Mosque of the Inspector of Straw. This ancient and dilapidated structure was built in the time of the Conqueror by a certain Sinan Ağa, who was the sultan’s samanveren, or inspector of straw - hence the name of the mosque. Though in a very advanced state of decay it is a quaint and interesting building of brick and stone construction; what is left of the minaret has some curious leaf-like decorations in brick.
Across from Samanveren Camii a street with the picturesque name of Devoğlu (Son of the Giant) rambles downhill to the north until it debouches opposite another ancient mosque, Timurtaş Camii, which was completely restored in the 1960s. The Turkish architectural historian Ayverdi has established that the mosque was built in the time of the Conqueror by a certain Timurtaş Ağa, who may have been an associate of Sinan Ağa, the founder of Samanveren Camii, since their two mosques are (or were) almost identical.
Two other old mosques from the time of the Conqueror stand on the shore road that runs along the Golden Horn between the Galata Bridge and the Atatürk Bridge. One of them, Kazancılar Camii, the Mosque of the Cauldron Makers, is midway between the two bridges in the district of Küçük Pazar (the Little Market) while the other, Sağrıcılar Camii, the Mosque of the Leather Merchants, is beside the Atatürk Bridge in the quarter known as Unkapanı (the Flour Store), the names of the mosques and the areas in which they stand going back to the time of the Conqueror, when Turks first settled in this part of the city.