The Ottoman City and Its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order

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

Howard Crane Glossary Index

245

253

173

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 contained in the structures themselves that comprise that environment, but is rather a complex function of interrelations among objects, users, and their historical circumstances."

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 architectural 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 volume made up of essays by several scholars whose research into the relationships between Ottoman political power and urban structure provides a multidisciplinary 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 overlapping 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 ViceChancellor 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 understanding the extraordinary diversity and complexity of urban design and history 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 architectural 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 windows 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 architectural 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 platform. 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.

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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 individual subject, into the very site for the production of meaning, where the individual 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 arrangements that sustain the relationships in which individuals and groups are caught up. While cities afford opportunities for action and interaction, they also constrain 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 perspective, intention and circumstance. Thus, the complex set of associations projected 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 circumstances. 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 established 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 routines, and episodic frameworks for inter-personal contact and avoidance. In this sense, an urban structure is a matrix of ideological instruments for creating 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 tabricates and maintains are invariably fictive-an ideologically-invested perspective 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 positions or places for the social subject to inhabit, both physicallyand metaphorically. A given ideology establishes and maintains a particular form of subjectivity-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 "represents' 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 inhabits 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, dynamically 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 complex picture of that history. Each of these perspectives overlaps with the others, 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 interests 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 subjects 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 relationship 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 foundations 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, thesaurization, 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 imperiurns, 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

The Mechanisms

of Urban Meaning

7

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 structure 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 palpable 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 environment. 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, holding 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 transformed 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 transformation 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 themselves 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 concerns 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 approximately 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 religious 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 monumental Venetian urban core. The Ottoman conquest of the island resulted in an eradication of Latin Christian institutions and foundations and the deportation 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 characteristic 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 transformed 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

The Mechanisms of Urban Meaning

9

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 17thcentury 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 "skyline" in the provincial cities of Crete resonates with the iconographic programme 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 institutional support within the empire had come to be different from those characteristic 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 tenaciously 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 AbouEI-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 institutions and foundations during the period 1600-1800. Abou-El-Haj's study indicates quite clearly that while the form of the kanun remains constant during this period, its social usages and practical referents shift, often very dramatically. 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 sixteenth 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 connotations. All three essays in this section exemplify and reinforce this historical specificity. 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 architectural, 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

The Mechanisms of Urban Meaning

11

canonically proper tableau or perspective locks into place. Such phenomena are characteristic 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 formations 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 introduction 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 (surrounded on three sides by the sea), maritime advantages (sheltered deep harbor), 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 receptacle 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 reorientations 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 imperial iconography of the city long after the death of their prototypes, but historical 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 encomium 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 personalities the student can better interpret their historical acts. The first characteristics 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 lifetimes 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-

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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 century manuscript of Arrian's Anabasis of Alexander in his own palace library.? Julian Raby has recently indicated that Mehmed frequently read of

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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 committed to writing Critobulus' history of'Mehmed.t? It is thus clear that the motive force giving direction to the political intelligence and military genius of Constantine and Mehmed was the desire to create, 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 imitated 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 accomplishments, 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 specifically 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 during his long reign. 12 If we are to believe the contemporary eyewitness accounts ofJacopo de Promontorio, who was among the advisors of the sultan 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

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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 "daemonic personalities" that do not behave according to the established morality of a society. Quoting Goethe, Babinger remarks, "In reality...only the observer 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 creation first of Constantinople and then of Istanbul 1,130 years later are cosmogonic 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

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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 complex (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 brilliance 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 historical, political, and economic background. I choose to concentrate here only on the personality factor, it being understood that without these broader factors 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 capitals 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 preexisting 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.

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The rise of the two successive cosmopoleis on the Bosphorus entailed basically a nine-fold integration of the great political power which Constantine and Mehmed had amassed: imperialization, sanctification, mandarinization, literalization, militarization, demographization, thesaurization, monumentalization, sacralization.is Imperialization called for the final localization of the head, heart, and sensory nerve system of empire; it therefore entailed the specific centralization of power about the person of the ruler within the super-city. As mentioned earlier, 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 mandarinization, that is, the creation of a huge bureaucracy with its intricate network 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 militarization, for imperial capitals with strongly centralized imperium are very vulnerable to seizure both from within and without. This gave rise to a militarization that is to be seen in what one would call the Maginot line mentality. 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,

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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 governor 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 confines. 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 peripheries, 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 understood, 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 development 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 megalopolis, but it was to have (in addition to the nobles) the inhabitants who would feed the capital with specialized skills: bureaucrats, literati, priests, rnullas, 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 striking. 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

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"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 polycentric 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 centralization or concentration of wealth to the Bosphorus, a "translatio abundantiae"--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 foundation was based. The expenditures on the hospital personnel and patients were 2,375 hyperpers, 216 new hyperpers, 17,917 kilograms of bread, 39,392 kilograms of wheat, 5,554 liters of wine, 1,110 liters of olive oil, 96,216 kilograms of wood for fuel. More significant, however, in terms of the economically parasitic character of the super-city, is the sou~ce of the revenues. 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

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impressive. It included the following institutions with a total of 496 personnel: 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, militarization, demographization, and thesaurization. Such an evolution needed concretization 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 capital, 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 ceremony 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 inharmoniously 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

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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 succession 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 consonance 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 incubation. It was in these same structures that the succession of emperors and sultans 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 transformed the wine and bread in such a manner that it enabled the communicant 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-

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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), AIMahrusa (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 institutions 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 buildings 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 centuries, 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 buildings 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" museum. 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-

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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 presence 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 TheodosiusJustinian 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-

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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 halfboots 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 socalled University of Constantinople). and which was graced by various statues. 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 citizens 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 victory over the Persians at the battle of Platea, and other adornments. The colonnaded sphendone, or curve of the hippodrome, had among the more famous

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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 hippodrome 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 robbers, the vase ofperfume, and the pagan Palladium brought from Rome. The column, the statue, and the sacred objects allegedly placed underneath constitute 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 ceremonies 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-

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al iconography are obviously of great importance. They were central to imperialization 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 consummated 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 memory 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 accordingly 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 sacralized 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:

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Graeco-Roman imperium, Christian eschatology, and Greek paideia. The Ottoman conquest of the city on 29 May 1453 was a momentous historical 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 (residence 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 completed; by 1457 he had his officials draw up the document establishing the vakif(religious economic foundation) of Aya Sofya.46

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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 building 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 FatihSultan 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 prepare 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 marvelous 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 speedily, 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 professions and all sorts of good things, as well as in public and private buildings and monuments. 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 children'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

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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, hospices, 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 provide 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 constitute 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 kiilliyat, 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 middle-Byzantine times when the Great Palace had been located next to the hippodrome, the public baths, Hagia Sophia, the public library, and the central boulevard with its groups of business establishments. 54 There was a slight displacement 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 boulevard 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

32 Speros Vryonis, Jr. 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, dernographization, 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 peninsula 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 transformed 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 ofporphyry 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

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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 represents 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 imperial 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 iconography. 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 preserved 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, lawlessly 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 reckoned in many tens of thousands of minas of silver, and of the purest silver, thickly covered with gold. And since they lacked money (there is no satiety of wealth when the barbarian people 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

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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 monument 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 ambiguity 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 interest 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 comparison 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 disappearance 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 religion [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 statues that had survived. The classical portion of the imperial iconography of Constantinople had largely disappeared. The Ottoman Turks, because of reli-

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gious proscriptions and unfamiliarity with classicalart had no interest in statuary 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 barbarous 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 measure 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

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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 radically 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 education, 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 constructed 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 socalled 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 immediately 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 imperial 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 number 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

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When Mehmed created an Ottoman Imperial iconography in his new capital, what was his attitude to the Greek-Christian literatization which he found before him? In the new Ottoman imperial iconography, as we saw, the geographic 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 bureaucratization 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 bureaucratization 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 fascinated 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 eyewitness 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, prisoners...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,

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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 collection 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 illuminated 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, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, poetry, Old and New Testaments, the antiquities 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 westerners, and his reliance on Greek secretaries in the earlier years of his reign. He

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has concentrated his analysis on the paleography and codicology of some of these works, and he has shown that of some sixteen Greek manuscripts produced 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: CritobulusHistoriae, 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 analysis Raby came to the interesting conclusion that Critobulus' Historiae and Arrian's Anabasis (of Alexander the Great) were bound as companion volumes. 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 fortunate 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 companion volume to Critobulus. The last two texts, the Diegesis of the construction 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 remainder 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 administrators in a language which they did not know. 84 Thus we come back to the larger question of Mehmed's attitude to the literary 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

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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 bargaining 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 statues 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 having 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

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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 disdaining 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 statues 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 fortune. 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.

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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 reverence 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 greatwinged 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 proclaim their orgies, he raised up on a column an eagle, a sight 'dripping' pleasure 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 serpent. 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 frightened 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,

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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 encountering 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 generations. 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 lighted 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

44 Speros Vryonis, Jr. 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 piercingly 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 charioteers. 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 wonderous 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.

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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 bellicose 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: 420435. 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): 127130. 8. Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror, 500. Ahmedi, lskendemame, IncelemeTipkibasim, 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 diligentissime 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

46

Speros Vryonis, Jr.

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 greatly 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 survey of the literature, sources, and figures: a. Under Constantine I the city covered 700 hectares and may have had a population 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. PhilosophischHistorische 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

Byzantine Constantinople and Ottoman Istanbul

47

of households recorded for the taxes (though we cannot tell whether the survey is comprehensive):

Muslims Greek Orthodox Jews Kaffans Annenians of Istanbul Annenians & Greeks from Karaman Gypsies

Households 8,951 3,151 1,647 267

% 60 21.5 11 2 2.6

372

384 31 14,803

2.7 .2 households

These figures have been emended by Inalcik in his article "Istanbul," EI2, 243, to read: Muslims Christians Jews

9,517 5,162 1.647 16,326

households

46,635 25,295 8.070 80,000

hearths or households

In the registers of 1535 there are: Muslim hearths Christian hearth Jewish hearths

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 colonize 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 magistroi-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 building 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 cistern 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 (14511481) 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.

Byzantine Constantinople and Ottoman Istanbul

49

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 repertoire 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 mahalleleri, ~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 documents. 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 interesting details. 57. Christodoros, Eephrasis, ed. and tr. P. Waltz, I: 51-90. 58. They were obviously understood differently according to social affiliations, religiosity 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

Byzantine Constantinople and Ottoman Istanbul

51

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 stoicheia, 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, 2354. 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, brilliance, 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 statuary, 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

52

Speros Vryonis, Jr.

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 witnesses 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, 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.

su;

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 LatinChristian 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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The Ottomanization of Crete

57

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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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, seventeenthcentury 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

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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 LatinChristian 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.

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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.

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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

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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 deOttomanizing 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

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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 seventeenthcentury 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

The Ottomanization

of Crete

73

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

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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 Godgiven. 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

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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

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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

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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 taxfarming was a financial transaction for the highest bidder. as much as it was for the central authorities, those who held office while they acquired taxfarms 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

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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.iAs 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 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 I

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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.

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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.

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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

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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 selfenrichment. 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,

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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 classstate. 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

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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

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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

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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 semiindependent 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

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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

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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

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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 16001800. 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), OttomanHabsburg 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

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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.

96 Rifa'at Ali Abou-EI-Haj 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 alimtihan 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

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be taken into consideration that must have convinced at least some of the merchantinvestors 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 'adaletnames 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.

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Rifa'at Ali Abou-EI-Haj 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

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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,

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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 arthistorical 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

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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

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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

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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

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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, 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, HochscJll~le,

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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 administrativereligious 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

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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 alFustat 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

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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

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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

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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

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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 alSalam, 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 alkhadra. 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 alMahdi (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

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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 alSharqiyah, 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 alAqsa mosque, that is, on the qibla side of it, and separated from the Herodian

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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

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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

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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

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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 politicoreligious 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

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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

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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

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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 alDin began work on the citadel in Cairo while his brother al-'Adil (12001218) 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,

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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 preIslamic 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

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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.

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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. 5. Creswell, EMA, 1.41. 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. 13. Creswell, EMA, 11.3. 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.

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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. 22. Hoag, Islamic, p. 28. 23. Wladyslaw Kubiak, al-Fustat: Its Foundation and Early Urban Development (Warsov: Wydawnietwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 1982), p. 205, 207, 214, AlMaqrizi, 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. 36. Hoag, Islamic, p. 188. 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. 71215. 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. 6421850 (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

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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 sebilkattab 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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 mukarnesheaded 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.

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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

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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"

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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 newlyevolved 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

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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

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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

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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 mukarnesfilled 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

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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

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Fig. 8 Cairo, the Mosque of Davud Pasa

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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 triplewindow 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 unOttomanlike 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

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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

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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 warehousecum-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

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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 alQarafi 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

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Fig. 13 Cairo, the Mosque of Mesih Pasa

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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 longlost 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

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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

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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 eighteenthcentury 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 Lshaped 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

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"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

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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

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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,

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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

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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).

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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. 33738. 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.).

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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.'?

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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.

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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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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 semidetached 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

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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.sThrough 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 threestory 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)

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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.

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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'1hayrat (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,

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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 fameproclaiming 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

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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 worlddignifying 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

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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 alDunya 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 '

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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 al5erifeyn. 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.

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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

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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 alDawwani, 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

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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 ViceRegency 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

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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

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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

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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

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knowledge, the Ottoman sources nowhere convey an explicit and selfconscious 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

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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 thirtyfive 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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 alNasafi, 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.

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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

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two thousand, that they include imams (prayer leaders), hatibs (preachers), (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 namazguzar (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 ~eyhs

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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

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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

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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 in the growth of the rhaniye , Hudavendigar, Yildmm, Yesil, and Muradiye quarters in Bursa, and in that of the Fatih district in Istanbul.us

o

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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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).

The Ottoman Sultan's Mosques 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).

229

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

The Ottoman Sultan's Mosques

231

(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 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.

"I"

The Ottoman Sultan's Mosques

233

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. 1470; 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

The Ottoman Sultan's Mosques

235

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. 1315 and 33-51; and the article "Ghazi," (I. Melikoff), EJ2, 11.1043-45.

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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

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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, 19351938). 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.

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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. 7779. 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

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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. 18485.

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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. 189200; 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

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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

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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 patronclient 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 ofEdirne, 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 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

249

Makarn-i Hamis

Fifth sanctuary

malikane

Life-long tax law

Mamluks

Muslim Dynasty that ruled over Egypt and Syria (12501517)

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

.Tulunids

Sultan's monogram, the imperial signature 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

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

~osul

(1127-1233)

Index

Architects, Ottoman: training of, 131, 132, 167; deployment of, 135, 139; locally trained, 148, 153, 161 Aya Sofya. See Hagia Sophia Baths, as arena for civic iconography: 22,26,33 Cemeteries, Ottoman: 70 Ceremony, civic: laying city limits (limitatio,) 17-18, 22-25; 26; as element of Byzantine Imperial iconography, 24-25, 27; Imperial mosques as settings for, 221-22; as element of Ottoman Imperial iconography, 202, 221-25; as symbol oflegitimacy, 217ff, 241 n.115 Citadels: as locale of government, lOS, 112, 122, 123ff, 145; as empty sign of government, 121-22; as independent cities, 124, as symbolic of ruler-ruled relationship. 124 City planning: siting of Sultan's Mosque as a tool of. 174, 176. See also Constantine, Mehmed, Neighborhoods Class, social. See Stratification Constantine the Great, as creator of Constantinople: 14-16, 17,24,32 Construction practices, Ottoman: 131, 138, 148, 161 Dar al-'imara. See Palace-complexes; Mosque-Administrative complexes Dernographization (as an aspect of creating an Imperial city) 20, 22

Economy, Ottoman: 16th-17th centuries, 79ff; privatization of public property, 84-85, 87-88. See also Elites; Stratification Education, Bystantine, 26, 36; Ottoman: 217,218,219,220,240 n.l02. See also Literalization Elites, Ottoman: classical period, 79ff; local dynasts, 84; local elites, 85-86; rights of, 88ff Epigraphy: iconographic significance of, 215-17 Fora, as arena for civic iconography: 27, 33 Hagia Sophia: as icon ofImperium, 28, 29, 31; Diegesis' tenth century history of, 39, financial support of (Ottoman) 48 n.24 Hippodrome, as arena for civic iconography: 34 Hankar Kasri: placement and characteristics of, 187, 193, 211-212; funding of, 211; as emblem of legitimacy, 212 Hankar Mahjili: placement and characteristics of, 187, 193,210-212; as emblem oflegitimacy, 207, 212 Iconography. Imperial: 5,9,31,37; city site as, (Byzantium) 13; shared Byzantine and Ottoman forms of. 22; Byzantine built elements as, 22, 27; churches as, 28; Ottoman skylines as. 9, 133; palaces as, 29, 116; walls as,

254

Index

29, 116, fortifications as 54; mosques as, 29, 31, 59,133, 141; minarets as, 68-9, 141, 202; mosque fa~ades as, 141; imperial mosque-complexes as, 59,201,205, 207ff; tombs as, 208210; sebil kiittab as, 161, 164; imperial monogram (Tugra) as, 164,166; mosque-administrative complex as, 113ff; Ottoman appropriation of Mamluk iconography, 153, 167-8, epigraphy as, 215-17; public ritual as a form of, 221-25; vocabulary of, 141. See also Ottoman Identity in provincial settings; Ceremony, civic, Hiinkar Kasri, Hilnkar Mahfili Imperial Capitals: 6, as reflection of founder's personalities,14; as receptacles of world power,18. See also Constantine, Mehmed Istanbul: fragmentation of power in, 8486, change to centralized modem state,86ff Kanu« (Ottoman Law) 10; as unlike

modem law, 78; as a means of social control, 79; as a variable of political power, 82-84; functionally replaced by companion literature (nasihatnameler,) 90-92; as framework for Ottoman constitution, 89-90, 92; political re-interpretations of, 89-91, 92-93 Kill/ires: Sec Mosque-Complexes, Imperial Landmarks, civic. See Baths, Statues, Fora, Hippodrome, Minarets, Mosques, Mosque-Complexes Legal institutions, role of: in linkage of center to provinces (mandarinization,) 19. See also Kanun Legibility (how cities manifest signs of power relations and provide clues to the population) 5,9, 104, 107, 126, 129,205ff Legitimacy: Kanun used for historical, 93; by linking state to religion, 113ff, 193ff; 199ff; by linking ruler to personal piety, 196-7,201, 208ff. See

also Iconography; Ottomanization Libraries: Byzantine, 26, 36-39; Ottoman, 37-40. See also Education Literalization (creating an educated strata) 19, 220; building schools, libraries, 22, 36, 39-40. See also Education Loggia, Imperial. See Hilnkar mahfili Mandarinization (creating bureaucracy) 9,85 Materials, building: Ottoman use of. See Construction practices, Ottoman Medreses, Ottoman, characteristics of: 138,141-43,151,220; in service of power, 220. See also Education Mehmed the Conqueror, as creator of Imperial Istanbul: 13-18,30,32,37 235 nAl; personality of, 195 Militarization: as an aspect of creating an Imperial city, 19-20 Minarets: as a sign of independence from Ottomans, 166; as a sign of Ottoman identity. See Ottoman identity, minarets Monumentalization: as icon of Imperium, 22; Byzantine palace as, 24; 27; in Istanbul 31; as index of authority, 203ff; 212-15 Mosque-Administrative complexes (Mosque-dar al-'imara complexes) preOttoman:l05,l12ff Mosque-complexes, Imperial (kill/ires ) characteristics of, 175ff, 186ff; personnel of, 218-19; in Candia, 6065; in Cairo, 145ff; in Bursa, 174175,176, 177; in Edime, 177, 178, 186; in Istanbul, 22, 132, 179ff; funding of, 21-22, 204; civic roles of, 59,60-62,64-65,180,217,220-22; privatization of, 190-191; as a symbol of political legitimacy, 201, 205, 212217,220; as a symbol of power, 2014, 205; 214; as empty symbols, 62-3; as a means of political/social control, 220-21. See also Patronage, Siting, Skyline, Walls Mosques, Imperial. See Mosque complexes, Imperial.

Index 255 Mosques, Ottoman, characteristics of: 147-8; In Istanbul, 132-34, 135,142, 143, 179ft; in Bursa, 174-176; in Edime, 176-77; in provincial settings: 135 138; compared to classical Ottoman, 135-6, 137, 138,143, 148,151,153,155,161,166;in Yugoslavia 63,138; in Bulgaria, 138; in Diyarbekir, 138; in Aleppo, 139; as affected by local artisans, 148,153, 156; as imitating local work, 153, 156; con.l1ation with Mosque complexes, 193; funding of, 204; See also Mosque complexes, Imperial; Vakf Mosques, pre-Ottoman, characteristics of: 119ff; in Cairo, 145ff, 151 Nasihatname (political advice literature) 86; as defining rights of elites, 88ff; as functionally replacing Kanun , 91-92; role of in framing Ottoman constitution, 92 Neighborhoods and quarters: in Byzantine Constantinople, 21, 27-8; in Ottoman Istanbul 30-31; relationship of Mosques to, 176-77, 181, 193

Ottoman identity in provincial settings: signs of, 64; the Sultan's Mosque, 59, 63; as ambiguous 61-2, 148-152; minarets, 63, 68, 73 n.22, 139, 146, 153, 155-6,202; the chronogram plaque, 69, 151; tombstones, 70; siting of cemeteries, 70, isolation of mosques 166; mosque facades, 139ff, 166; Tugras (Imperial Monograms,) 164, 166. See also Epigraphy Palace complexes (daral-'imara), preOttoman: siting of, 113ff Palaces: as sign of Imperium, 22; Byzantine: 24-25; Islamic: 30, as separated from urban centers, 120-23; in citadels, 125; abandonment of, 191 Patronage practices: Ottoman, reasons for, 193ff, 201, 219, 235 n.41, 237

n.73, 204; rules governing, 204; in provincial settings, 9, 10; 61-62, 6667, 69, 106, 130-32; changes in, 62-3, 167,187; as a link between ruler and ruled,125, 139; minaret as sign of, 63, 73 n22, 146; chronogram plaque as display of, 69; mosque facade as sign of, 145fT. See also Constantine; Mehmed; Vakf Political polemics, 200. See also Kanun; Nasikatname Portals, Ottoman Mosque: significance and characteristics of, 133ff, 138,1478, 151, 153 Porticoes, Ottoman Mosque: significance and characteristics of,137, 139,155 Public projects. See City planning, Mosque complexes, Patronage, Religious foundations, Streets, Vakf Public vs private property: 79fT Religious foundations: Byzantine, 21. For Ottoman, see Mosque-complexes Renovations: as"re-writing" the visual environment, 6-7, 69,104; of churches by Ottomans, 30, 65-6, 68. See also Translatio Imperii Ritual, civic. See Ceremony, civic Sacralization (making monuments sacred in service of Imperium) 22, 29 Sanctification (inhabiting the Imperial city with holy presences such as relics and tombs )19, 22,27 Sebil-KiiUabs: Ottoman character of, 141, 164; Ottoman patronage of in Cairo, 139,148, as icon oflmperium, 161 Siting: as an aspect of an iconographic program: Byzantium, 13; as a divine act, 17; of the palace, 20,122-123; of the Sultan's Mosque, 59, 63, 133, 166, 176, 185; of cemeteries, 70, of the dar al'imara, 113-115. See also City Planning, Tombs Skyline features: as part of an iconographic program, 59,60, 153, 166; mosque complexes as, 134, 160,

256

Index

185,217 Social class: See Stratification Statues: as Byzantine urban iconography, 27-28,3:>-34,36; Ottoman destruction of, 35, 40-45 Stratification and diversity of populations: Byzantine, 19-20; Ottoman: 20-22, 46 n.22b, 82; marked by tombstone styles, 70; defined and reinforced by law, 79; blurring of distinctions in, 81-82; changes in, 85, 87; elites vs lower classes, 79, 88-89; militaryadministrative class, 87. See also Kanun Streets: used for militarization, 22; uses of in public ritual, 22, 26, 27, 66, 222-25; iconographic significance of, 22; siting of Ottoman Mosques vis a vis, 132, 133, 137, 138, 143, 151, 166, 181; siting of Ottoman SebilKattabs vis a vis, 143, 161, 164; siting of Mamluk Mosques vis a vis, 134-5, 166; Siting of Mamluk Sebil-Kattabs vis a vis, 164; chronogram plaque vis a vis, 69, building of public, 169 Sultan's Mosques. See Mosquecomplexes, Imperial "Super-City": Constantinople and Istanbul as cosmogonic creations, 17;

as receptacles of world power, 18; as centers of science and knowledge, 19; Imperial capitals as a, 20 Symmetry/ Asymmetry (architectural ) 1,181; Ottoman vs. Mamluk, 151, 153, 159, 166, Tax-farming: 80-81 Thesaurization (centralizing economic wealth) 21 Tombs, Imperial Ottoman: placement and characteristics of, 207-10, 239 n.84 Translatio Imperii: (transfonning of elements of older culture) 7; in Constantinople/Istanbul, 18-19,23, 29fT. See also Renovation Urbanization as natural or enforced resettlement: 20, 62, 72 n.4, 74, n32, 89 Vakf as support for major monuments, 21-22, 68, 130, as support of personnel and services, 218-19 Walls, city: Byzantine and Ottoman as militarization, 19,20,22; in Venetian Candia 54; as linking city with citadel, 124. See also Citadels Walls, Mosque enclosure: Ottoman, 32, 134,142, 143,145,175,185-6; Mamluk,134