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 THE HAGIA SOPHIA MAUSOLEUMS
AYŞEGÜL DAMLA GÜRKAN


Thesis Abstract
Ayşegül Damla Gürkan, “The Hagia Sophia Mausoleums”
This study examines the dynastic mausoleums constructed in the courtyard of the Hagia Sophia complex between 1574 and 1639 within the context of the Ottoman architectural culture in general and, of the cultural and political framework of the Ottoman court in the last quarter of the sixteenth century in particular.
This thesis has two main focuses. One is the function and meaning of the dynastic mausoleums at Hagia Sophia within the urban choreography of the Ottoman capital of Istanbul; a particular emphasis is made to the Atmeydanı. The changes in the location of the dynastic mausoleums under consideration are analyzed in relation with the changes in the policy of the self-representation of the Ottoman dynasty. The other focus of this study is the architecture of the mausoleums at Hagia Sophia. The architecture and the decoration of the mausoleums are described and interpreted within the contexts of the funerary architectural culture of the Ottoman dynasty and of the cultural institutions of the Ottoman court.
The aim of this thesis is to examine the dynastic mausoleums at Hagia Sophia complex in an analytical way and contextualize them within the cultural and political environment of the Ottoman court in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. The mausoleums under consideration are conceptualized as a part of the dynastic funerary architectural tradition and the products of the cultural and political environment in which they were built. Descriptions and contextual analysis are made together and given equal weight in order to achieve a more insightful examination of the subject.
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Tez Özeti
Ayşegül Damla Gürkan, “Hagia Sophia Mausoleums”
Bu çalışmada, Aya Sofya külliyesinin avlusunda 1574-1639 yılları arasında inşa edilmiş olan hanedan türbeleri, genel olarak Osmanlı mimari kültürü ve özel olarak 16. yüzyılın son çeyreğinde Osmanlı sarayının kültürel ve politik çerçevesi bağlamında incelenmektedir.
Bu tezin iki temel odak noktası vardır. Birincisi, Aya Sofya'daki hanedan türbelerinin Osmanlı'nın başkenti İstanbul'un kentsel koreografisindeki fonksiyonu ve anlamıdır; bu bağlamda Atmeydanı'na özellikle vurgu yapılmaktadır. İncelenen handeana ait türbelerin konumları, Osmanlı hanedanının temsiliyet politikasındaki değişimler bağlamında incelenmektedir. Bu çalışmanın diğer odak noktası, Aya Sofya'daki türbelerin mimarisidir. Türbelerin mimarisi ve dekorasyonu, Osmanlı hanedanının mezar mimarisi kültürü ve sarayın kültürel kurumları bağlamında tarif edilmekte ve yorumlanmaktadır.
Bu tezin amacı, Aya Sofya'daki hanedan türbelerinin analitik açıdan incelenmesi ve bunların 16. yüzyılın son çeyreğinde Osmanlı sarayının kültürel ve politik ortamı çerçevesinde bağlamsallaştırılmasıdır. İncelenen türbeler, hanedanın mezar mimari kültürü ve inşa edildikleri dönemin kültürel ve politik ortamının ürünleri olarak kavramsallaştırılmakta ve betimlenmektedir. Konunun daha derinlemesine incelenmesi için tanımlar ve bağlamsal analizler aynı anda yapılmakta ve bunlara eşit önem verilmektedir.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis is the outcome of the collaboration, valuable helps, suggestions and support that I received from a number of scholars and friends. I have to begin with expressing my gratitude to my advisor Assoc. Prof. Çiğdem Kafescioğlu for her encouragements, methodological and conceptual guidance, patience to my mistakes, ambiguities and questions not only in the process of writing my thesis; but also in the process of the formation of my scholarly interests and background. She has been my guide, source of inspiration and the main promoter in the study of architectural history since four years. Her lectures and writings played a significant role in the consolidation of my decision and enthusiasm for studying architectural history. I am grateful to her for sharing my enthusiasm and curiosity and, giving me moral and scholarly support during my years in the history department of Boğaziçi University.
Secondly, I would like to express my indebtness to Assoc. Prof. Oya Pancaroğlu and Assoc. Prof. Ahmet Ersoy, whose lectures played a significant role in the formation of my theoretical and methodological background in the area of the history of art and architecture. I have felt their support during my years in the department of history and received help from them in a number of ways. They answered my insisting questions; shared my enthusiasm and helped me overcome my ambiguities and ambivalences. Lastly, I would like to thank Assis.Prof. Derin Terzioğlu and Prof. Suraiya Faroqhi, who contributed greatly to this study and became influential in the formation of my background in the area of Ottoman history with their lectures and writings. The name of Anthony Greenwood has also to be mentioned for his help in improving my reading skills in mühimme deeds. This study came into being thanks to the helps and advices of my committee members. The faults throughout the thesis, of course all belong to mine. I would like to express my gratitudes to a number of scholars who contributed to this study with their writings. Gülru Necipoğlu, Howard Crane, Lucienne Thys-Şenocak, Tülay Artan, Edhem Eldem and Baki Tezcan were among scholars, whose writings became influential in the formulation of my questions and the formation of my approach to my subject. I thank to the staff of Boğaziçi University Library, especially to the Near East section and Inter Library Loan section for providing me all materials I needed. Also I owe thanks to the staff of the library of ISAM. I am also thankful to the director of Hagia Sophia Museum, Hayrullah Cengiz, and the art historian of the museum, Servet Kocaçınar, who shared their photographs with me. I owe too much to my friends, who have been with me in the process of writing my thesis. Without the encouragement, support and valuable helps of my friends, the completion of this thesis would be gruelling. First of all, I want to thank Didar Ayşe Akbulut and M. Nureddin Özel for their suggestions and editorial helps in the process of writing. Their moral support and encouragement were as valuable as their suggestions and editorial helps for me. I am also grateful to Hacer Kılıçaslan and Salih Değirmenci for their helps in reading mühimme deeds in places that I had difficulty. I thank also to my brother Cenk Gürkan for his interest and editorial help. Lastly, I want to express my gratitude and love to my friends Ayşe Hicret Altan, Burcu Ertuğrul, Büşra Turgut, Derya Saydam, Esra Özdil, Nur Başer, Hilal and Ali Ulvi Mıhoğlu who are my companions and like my family in the process of writing my thesis.
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To the memory of Fatıma Zehra
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1
Ottoman Dynastic Mausolea as a Part of a Funerary Architectural Tradition ..................... 5
CHAPTER II: A NEW LOCUS FOR DYNASTIC MAUSOLEA ....................................... 16
The Sultans’ Mosque-Complexes ...................................................................................... 17
Hagia Sophia into a Dynastic Funerary Complex .............................................................. 35
The Atmeydanı................................................................................................................... 47
CHAPTER III: THE SULTANS AND THEIR MAUSOLEUMS ....................................... 63
The Mausoleum of Selim II ............................................................................................... 63
The Mausoleum of Şehzadegan ......................................................................................... 72
The Mausoleum of Murad III............................................................................................. 73
The Mausoleum of Mehmed III ......................................................................................... 81
The Mausoleum of Sultan Mustafa I and Sultan Ibrahim (The old Baptistery) ................. 84
On the Architecture and the Decoration of the Mausolea .................................................. 86
CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION: DYNASTIC FUNERARY ARCHITECTURE IN THE EARLY MODERN ISLAMIC CONTEXT ......................................................................... 111
MAPS ................................................................................................................................... 127
IMAGES .............................................................................................................................. 131
APPENDIX A: ORIGINALS OF THE QUOTES USED IN THE THESIS ....................... 176
APPENDIX B: TIMELINE ................................................................................................. 177
APPENDIX C: MÜHİMME DEEDS ................................................................................... 178
Transkriptions: ................................................................................................................. 182
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................ 184
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NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION
The basis for the spelling of Ottoman Turkish words in the text is Sir James‘
Redhouse’s Turkish and English Lexicon (Istanbul, 1890). Terms and titles with
direct English equivalents have been translated; whenever possible the anglicized
version of Ottoman Turkish words is used (ie. sultan, pasha).
Translations are mine unless otherwise noted.
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In the larger Islamic world, the custom of marking the burial spaces of religiously or politically venerated persona was established as early as the second century after the passing away of Prophet Muhammad, who was buried in his own house, and who strictly discouraged the monumentalization of his own grave and those of the believers. After five hundred years from his death, several different kinds of funerary monuments were constructed in the lands where Muslim societies lived or ruled, from Eastern Asia to Western Europe; it was also in that century in which the grave of the Prophet in Madina was adorned with a monumental dome. In the tenth century of the Prophet’s passing away, the shahs of the two largest empires of the Islamic world, who claimed to be the legitimate caliphs and sovereigns of the lands of Islam, constructed funerary monuments to support their political and religious legitimacy. This was when the emperor Akbar erected a gigantic mausoleum for his deceased father Humayun in Delhi and, sultan Selim II ordered the construction of his own mausoleum at the center of the capital city of the Ottoman Empire, in the courtyard of Hagia Sophia.
The very existence of the funerary monuments constitutes a paradoxical situation, if the circulation of the well-known traditions of the Prophet against monumentalizing the graves in the larger Islamic world is taken into consideration. From the early centuries of the Islam, however, this problem had been solved either with different interpretations of the traditions of the Prophet or, unquestionably accepted as an established custom. In the early modern Islamic geography, the
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construction of the funerary monuments for the rulers and religiously venerated persona was already a long-established practice and was part and parcel of the architectural, urban and representational agendas of the sovereigns. Although there were exceptions who engaged in questioning the construction of funerary monuments such as the Mughal shahs Babur and Jahangir; this did not prevent them from erecting such monuments for appreciating their dynasty and the religious leaders to whom they were attached through those edifices; their questioning only helped them construct more innovative and original funerary monuments on which solutions were offered for the problem originating in the disapproval of monumentalizing the graves.
The Ottomans also, as a major actor of the early modern Islamic geography with its sophisticated political, economic and cultural institutions, espoused the construction of funerary monuments for the deceased members of their dynasty and for other religiously and politically significant persons. The Ottoman dynasty, especially after the takeover of Constantinople, constructed one of the most sophisticated institutions of court architecture in the early modern Islamic realms and engaged in massive building projects as a pioneer in their cultural policies as well as their political and religious representations. The funerary complexes constructed for the members of the dynasty were among the architectural projects of the dynasty through which they discoursed to their subjects on multiple layers.
This thesis is on the funerary architectural culture of the Ottoman dynasty within a particular urban and historical context: The dynastic mausolea constructed in the courtyard of the Hagia Sophia complex between 1574 and 1639. In this period of approximately half a century, four dynastic tombs were erected along the western façade of Hagia Sophia framed by an enclosure wall and, the Baptistery of Hagia
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Sophia was converted into a dynastic mausoleum. In the middle of the seventeenth century, the courtyard of the Hagia Sophia complex became like a dynastic graveyard hosting five Ottoman sultans with different members of the dynasty. In this study, my aim is to read these five mausolea in their historical, urban and architectural context. The main question that I attempt to answer is how the changes in the self-representational policy of the Ottoman sultans were manifested in the urban space through their architectural patronage, on the example of the Hagia Sophia mausoleums. My argument is that the construction of the dynastic mausolea in the courtyard of Hagia Sophia complex is related to the sedentarization of the sultan and the changes in his policy of self-representation. The sultans who ruled in the last quarter of the sixteenth century abandoned the established custom of their predecessors to leave their capital for military campaigns and to construct funerary mosque complexes with the booty of their victorious campaigns in the capital cities of Bursa and Istanbul. Constructed at the center of the capital city, the mausoleums of Selim II, Murad III and Mehmed III were built in that particular context in which the sultans began to spend their time in their palace; the palace became the main administrative center and the main locus of political power, and the boundaries of the palace was extended. While the sultan became almost physically invisible because of the increasing seclusion from his subjects and members of his court; he became more and more symbolically visible, or represented, in the urban space through increasing ceremonials and festivities that were held in the Atmeydanı, where the mausoleums were located.
The methodology I use in writing my thesis is derived from a relatively new approach to the writing of the history of art and architecture that emerged in the twentieth century. As opposed to the art-historiographical tradition established in the
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nineteenth century Europe and based on the description of the works of art, this new historiographical approach does not noly describe; but also conceptualizes the works of art and architecture as a part and parcel of the cultural and historical context in which they were produced. Erwin Panofsky, Spiro Kostof, David Summers, Henri Lefebvre and Pierre Nora are among the scholars who produced works on the history of art; architecture and urban space in the twentieth century and offered concepts and methodologies for this new historiography. Oleg Grabar and Robert Hillenbrand are two major scholars who applied this methodology in their studies on the Islamic art and architecture. In the area of the history of the Ottoman art and architecture, this approach is embraced by Gülru Necipoğlu, Ciğdem Kafescioğlu, Tülay Artan and Lucienne Thys-Şenocak. My approach in evaluating my subject is inspired mostly by the works of these scholars. I have to mention that the two articles written by Gülru Necipoğlu on the dynastic funerary mosque complexes in Istanbul and on the history of the Hagia Sophia complex in the Ottoman period1 were my source of inspiration for the choice of my subject and for my approach to it. I conceptualized my subjects, which are architectural monuments constructed in the capital of the Ottoman Empire in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, as cultural entities that are parts of a historical and cultural environment. For that reason, I tried to go beyond the descriptions and asked questions about the place and meaning of the mausoleums in the late sixteenth century Ottoman milieux. In doing this, I used primary sources of different kind including the mühimme defters, the works of the sixteenth and seventeenth century chroniclers, writings of the travelers, and the studies of various
1 Necipoğlu, Gülru, “The Dynastic Imprints on the Cityscape: The Collective Message of Imperial Funerary Mosque Complexes in Istanbul” in Cimetières et Traditions funeraires. Ankara: 1996; “The Life of An Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia After Byzantium” in Muqarnas, Vol. 12, New Haven: 1995.
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scholars who write on the history of the architectural, urban, cultural and political history of the Ottoman dynasty. Before I begin the analyses of the Ottoman funerary architecture, however, it is appropriate to locate it as a part of funerary architectural culture.
Ottoman Dynastic Mausolea as a Part of a Funerary Architectural Tradition
Signifying the burial sites of people with monumental buildings or stones is a very old phenomenon that emerged much earlier than the emergence of mausoleums built by the members of Islam in several different geographies. Muslims were not the first and the only societies to construct monumental buildings over the graves of people whom they attribute meaning and importance. The peculiarity about the Islamic funerary monuments comes from the irony it shelters: It seems there is few, if any, other religions whose principles are strictly against construction of funerary buildings, and on the other hand, whose members developed such diverse and prevalent funerary monuments as theirs. Although the Quran is silent about the legitimacy of erecting funerary buildings; there is a very rich hadith tradition in which the Prophet discourages the monumentalization of graves and elaborate funeral processions after the deceased.2 The Prophet declares that ‘the grave itself was to be level with ground and no structure of any kind was to mark it’; leveling the tombs known as taswiya al-qubur symbolized the equality of all believers.3
2Hillenbrand, “Mausoleum” in Islamic Architecture, New York: 1994, p.253.
3Ibid., p.253.
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In the first two centuries of Islam, Muslim communities seem to have adhered to the religious principles in terms of funerary practices; there were very few funerary monuments built between the seventh and ninth centuries, which all were located in the regions of the Levant, Arabia and Egypt.4 These mausoleums erected in the provinces of the Abbasid Empire are known from textual sources and monumental remains; texts especially indicate that the members of the Alid family were venerated with monumental tomb structures at Najaf, Kerbela, Qum, Mashhad and other sites, which had been repeatedly restored and enlarged in the following centuries.5 Other than very few mausoleums erected over the graves of the Prophet’s Companions, Shi’ite martyrs and important personages from the Old and New Testament6, richly worked silk shrouds, tents and canopies were used to mark the burial places of these religiously venerated persona and to provide shade for the deceased. Different scholars underlined the similarity between the tents providing shade on the burial place of the deceased and the domical and conical mausoleums.7 Abbas Daneshvari further suggests that the provision of shade -as an aspect of paradise- was the major rationale for the construction of tombs; the analogous beliefs of the Arabs and Turks with regard to tent burials support his suggestion.8 In addition to the tent burials and canopies, the use of inscribed funerary “stele”s is worth mentioning, which were put over the graves and oriented towards Mecca just like the
4Ibid., p.254.
5Hattstein & Delius, Islam: Art and Architecture, Cologne: 2004, p. 115.
6Hillenbrand, p.254.
7 Daneshvari, Abbas, Medieval Tomb Towers of Iran, Lexington: 1986, p. 5.
8 Daneshvari, p. 14.
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buried corpses. These were already in common use in the eight century, if not before.9
The earliest surviving mausoleum called Qubbat al-Sulaibiya was built in Samarra in the second half of the ninth century to shelter the remains of the Abbasid caliphs al-Muntasir, al-Mu'tazz and al-Muhtadi. (Figure 1) From this period onwards, mausoleums were erected for the rulers of the Abbasid state as well as for lesser rulers in the provinces.10 Among them, the mausoleum of the Abbasid dynasty’s forefather Qutham ibn Abbas, who was the cousin and a Companion of the Prophet, has particular importance because it was subsequently developed as a shrine and place of pilgrimage after its construction in the tenth or eleventh century, and this place was appropriated again by the members of the Timurid dynasty in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as a dynastic cemetery for the deceased princesses.11 This practice of constructing mausoleums for the members of the ruling family seems to have been established in the ninth and tenth centuries in Northern Iran, if the increasing number of the dynastic tombs in this region at that period is to be considered. The mausoleum of the Samanid ruler Ismail ibn Ahmed in Bukhara that became a dynastic cemetery in the following decades and those of Buyid rulers built in Rayy are important examples of this practice.12 In the eleventh century, the mountains and plains of Northern Iran were already full of small and big mausoleums erected for different rulers13, which started to display common
9Hillenbrand, p.254.
10Hattstein, p.116.
11Hattstein, p.115.
12Ibid., p.116.
13Ibid., p.116.
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characteristics. Two particular types of mausoleum developed in that context, the tomb tower and domed square.14
According to Hillenbrand, the two models of tomb tower and domed square were basic types of mausoleums in medieval Iran.15 The earliest mausoleums erected in Northern Iran were mostly domed squares, whose earliest example was the mausoleum of Ismail ibn Ahmed in Bukhara. The domed square plan was a vernacular architectural model of ancient Iran that was called chahar taq, denominating the Sassanian fire temple. The plan seems to have been adopted into tomb structures by tenth century Iranian architects. The intention or rationale behind the application of this plan type is not clear. Based on the literary references produced in tenth century Iran, Daneshvari claims that the domed squares were designed to symbolize the fourth level of the paradise.16 In time, variations of this type were developed and domed octagonal types seem to have become favored because it creates the maximum space for circumambulation and maximum scope for spatial and other architectural experiments.17 The domed squares were mostly replaced by tomb towers from tenth century onwards under the legacy of the Great Seljuqs.18 The earliest dated octagonal tomb built in Muslim Iran was the Gunbad-i Ali, which was constructed under the reign of the Great Seljuks in 1006-7. The mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar is also worth to mention, which was erected at Merv in 1157 for the last Seljukid ruler. This was an octagonal building that was covered with
14Hillenbrand, pp.281-283.
15Ibid., p. 280.
16 Daneshvari, p. 24.
17Hillenbrand, p.281.
18 Ibid., p.283.
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a double-dome, like the Seljuk tombs preceding it.19 In the following decades, different variations of the domed octagon were experimented with and adopted in the mausoleums erected in the Greater Iran.
The mausoleum of Üljeitu at Sultaniya has particular importance as an example to display the evolution of the type of tomb tower; the opportunities given by the use of octagonal space for architectural experiments, and in displaying a new growing tendency to construct funerary buildings for the members of the royal families as integrated to large complexes. The mausoleum of Üljeitu, the brother and successor of Ghazan Khan who was the first Mongol ruler to convert to Islam, was constructed over a large area at Sultaniya. The building is an enormous octagon crowned with a blue-glazed dome, containing a large rectangular hall with eight arched openings overlooking the interior. A ring of galleries was used as a visual transition from the walls to the dome; the sophisticated treatment of vaults of the galleries complements this subtle design of interpenetrating volumes.20 Besides reflecting the architectural experiments and variations of the mausoleum types, this building is important in reflecting the growing tendency for the construction of the royal mausoleums as a part of larger complexes, which were the largest projects of the Ilkhanid rulers from Ghazan Khan onwards.21 Ghazan’s mausoleum was integrated into a complex with a hospice, hospital, library, observatory academy of philosophy, fountain, pavilion and two madrasas.22 This practice was inherited by the successive rulers of the Ilkhanid court. (Figure 2)
19 Aslanapa, Oktay, The Turkish Art and Architecture, London: 1971, p. 74.
20 I took this description of the mausoleum from Hattstein, p.396.
21Ibid., p. 396.
22Ibid., p.398.
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It is important to note that at about the same time, the Ayyubid rulers started to construct funerary complexes in Egypt and Syria. This custom was favored and continued by the Mamluk rulers in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.23The city of Cairo became a center of funerary complexes in approximately two centuries, which began with the transformation of the mausoleum of Al-Shafi into a funerary madrasa complex under the provisions of Salah al-Din and his successors in the early decades of the thirteenth century. The construction of madrasas that were devoted to the teachings of Sunni theology had particular importance in the context of the thirteenth century Cairo; for the new rulers of Cairo had the aim to transform the capital city of the Fatimid Shi'ites into a Sunni city. Apart from Al-Shafi's mausoleum, the rulers of Cairo constructed madrasa complexes and attached their mausoleums into them.24The building complex of Sultan al-Qalaun was a turning point in the development of Mamluk architecture, which was constructed in the last decades of the thirteenth century. The funerary complex of Sultan al-Qalaun was a multifunctional urban complex consisted of a mosque, four madrasas, five hospitals and the mausoleum of the founder. This was a building program encompassing devotional, civil and memorial elements, which was followed by the rulers of Cairo throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.25 (Figure 3)
Established in the beginning of the fourteenth century in western Anatolia, the Ottoman principality inherited an established funerary architectural culture with its multiple roots and connections. Like the tombs of the rulers of the Seljuks of Anatolia and the members of the Ilkhanid courts, the Ottoman rulers attached their
23Hattstein, p.186.
24 Yeomans, Richard, The Art and Architecture of Islamic Cairo, UK: 2006, pp. 111, 112.
25 Al-Harity, Howayda, “Space in Mamluk Architecture” in Muqarnas vol. 18, Leiden: 2001, p. 83.
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mausoleums into the socio-religious complexes. Architecturally, the types of mausoleums developed in Greater Iran between the tenth and thirteenth centuries were inherited by Ottoman dynasty passing through different filters including the local architectural practices, changes in the geographical and material conditions, as well as in the conceptualization of the rulers and their burial sites. (Figures 4, 5)
According to Bates, the basis for the Ottoman architecture of the sixteenth century was the outcome of the stylistic changes that came after 1250 to Anatolian Islamic architecture from Iran, Syria, Egypt, blending with the architectural traditions of western Anatolia and Byzantium.26 Established as a principality in Anatolia after the Mongol invasions, the Ottoman state was a part of the architectural and cultural milieu of the late medieval Anatolian geography. In this sense, the configuration of its architectural language was in relation with the culture of Anatolian Seljuks and other principalities as well as its sudden neighbor Byzantium. In terms of funerary architecture, the early Ottomans seem to have followed the Anatolian models, but adopted them with some major changes and innovations.
The Anatolian Seljuks considered themselves direct heirs to the Seljuks of Iran27 and carried their architectural heritage into their realms with some changes and adaptations, as in the case of court culture or bureaucratic affairs. In the words of Bates, the main source of inspiration of the configuration of the architecture of the Anatolian mausoleums was the architectural culture of Iran; to a lesser degree Armenian and Byzantine architecture played a role.28 These are different variations 26Ülküsal Bates, Ülkü, The Anatolian Mausoleum of the 12th, 13th and 14th Centuries Dissertation, the University of Michigan: 1970, p.493.
27 Bates, p.490.
28Ibid., p.490.
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of the Iranian tomb towers in their basic plans including polygonal and cylindrical structures mostly covered by spires and domes29 and consisted mostly of two floors. While the first floor was where the mummified body was buried in the crypt; the second floor was designed as a place for ritual dancing and singing as well as the recitation of Quran and of prayers.30
I think, the early Ottoman mausoleums cannot be seen only as a variation of the Iranian tomb tower because it has to do with the cultural geography on which it was established. As the principalities of Saruhan, Menteşe and Aydın, the Ottoman principality was established in the former territories of the Byzantine Empire on which many Byzantine structures and the remnants of the monuments of the ancient civilizations were located. It was also a region with a lively commercial life; the western Anatolia was a stand for tradesmen from Venice and Genoese in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The spoila from Byzantine and antique buildings were used in the edifices constructed by the principalities of western Anatolia including the Ottomans and at the same time, they constituted examples for the architecture of the principalities of western Anatolia.31 It was not only the architectural remnants of the region and ideas brought by tradesmen from Venice and Genoese that had to do with the formation of the architecture of these principalities; but also the agency of the Christian masters from Rhodes, who were trained in the style and the working methods of Gothic. Michael Kiel has detected that these
29Önkal, Hakkı, Anadolu Selçuklu Türbeleri, Ankara: 1994, pp.15-17.
30Bates, p. 488.
31 Öney, Gönül, “Erken Osmanlı Sanatı: Beyliklerin Mirası” in Akdeniz’de İslam Sanatı: Erken Osmanlı Sanatı ve Beyliklerin Mirası, Istanbul: 1999, p. 3.
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masters were summoned by Turcoman lords including the Ottomans and displayed the works of these masters on examples from different cities in western Anatolia.32
The early Ottoman mausoleums, therefore, have to be read both as a continuation of the funerary architectural models of the Iranian and Anatolian regions and in relation with the vernacular and neighboring architectural cultures. The majority of the early Ottoman mausoleums were designed as square tomb chambers, in contrast to that of the other Turcoman principalities that preferred the variations of the tomb tower in general.33 In the Ottoman mausoleums, the first floor seen in the Anatolian mausoleums was abandoned. Almost all of them were built of limestone and started to be preceded by two or three arched porticos. Their plans were mostly square, rectangular and polygonal34; unlike the variety of the plans of the Anatolian tombs, their plans were much defined and restricted. Before the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottoman rulers built mausoleums for their fathers in their first capital Bursa, and this tradition began with the construction of the mausoleum of Murad I continued until Mehmed II. Except the first two rulers buried in the former Byzantine buildings, all others until Mehmed II were buried in mausoleums that were integrated to their convent-mosque complexes built in Bursa.35 The custom to be buried in the mausoleums constructed as a part of religio-social complexes continued in Istanbul until the later decades of the sixteenth century
32 Kiel, Michael, “Cross-Cultural Contacts in 14th Century Anatolia: Gothic Influences on the Architecture of the Turcoman Principalities of Western and Central Anatolia (Examples from Antalya, Bergama, İstanoz, Niğde and Peçin) in Sanat Tarihi Defterleri-10, Istanbul: 2006, pp. 67-83.
33 Crane, Howard, “Art and Architecture: 1300-1453” in The Cambridge History of Turkey-I, Cambridge; New York: 2006, p. 309. 34Daş, Ertan, Erken Dönem Osmanlı Türbeleri, Istanbul: 2007, pp.354-355. 35 Crane, Howard, “The Ottoman Sultan’s Mosques” in The Ottoman City and Its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order, ed. By Bierman, Abou El-Haj & Preziosi. New York: 1991, pp.173-243.
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and, architecturally, the mausoleums of the Ottoman sultans did not acquire a radically different character from the early Ottoman dynastic mausoleums, except the more common use of octagonal plans. The changes and continuities in the urban and the architectural character of the Ottoman dynastic mausoleums in the period after the conquest of Constantinople will be discussed and analyzed in the following chapters, with a focus on and in relation with the dynastic mausoleums constructed in the courtyard of Hagia Sophia complex between 1574 and 1639.
Chapter Summary
Consisting of three chapters, my thesis has two main foci that I try to analyze and discuss. In the first chapter, I attempt to analyze the construction of the Hagia Sophia mausoleums in their urban and historical context. This first chapter consists of three parts, which discuss the location of the mausoleums with reference to the changes in the architectural patronage and the representational policy of the dynasty that occurred in the last quarter of the sixteenth century; the transformation of Hagia Sophia into a dynastic funerary complex and, the appropriation of the Atmeydanı as a new location for the dynastic mausolea.
The second chapter is devoted to the architecture and decoration of Hagia Sophia mausoleums. In this chapter, I give brief accounts of the reigns, the deaths and funeral ceremonies of the deceased sultans buried in the mausolea under consideration. Then, I introduce the architects of the mausoleums and describe the architecture and decoration of each mausoleum in a chronological order. A second part in this chapter is devoted to an architectural analysis of the mausoleums with a stronger focus on their decoration. The analyses of the architecture and decoration of the mausolea were made with reference to the Ottoman architectural culture and the
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institutions that were pioneers in the construction and transformations of the Ottoman architectural culture in the late sixteenth century context.
The third and last chapter is thought as a conclusion in which I describe and analyze the architecture of Ottoman dynastic mausolea including the urban and ceremonial contexts in a comparative perspective with the dynastic mausoleums of the shahs of Mughal India and Safavid Iran with an overview. My aim is to read the Ottoman dynastic mausoleums in a larger historical and geographical context and to gain a deeper insight into the cultural practices of the early modern Muslim empires.
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CHAPTER II
A NEW LOCUS FOR DYNASTIC MAUSOLEA
The Ottoman sultans espoused a custom to be buried inside the enclosures of the convent and mosque complexes they constructed formerly in Bursa, then in Istanbul. This tradition began with Murad I and continued uninterruptedly until Selim II, who chose to be buried on the courtyard of Hagia Sophia. The following two sultans, Murad III and Mehmed III, were also buried on the same courtyard with their murdered şehzades and other deceased family members in addition to the sultans Mustafa I and Ibrahim I, who were buried under the ground of the old Baptistery that was converted into a mausoleum after the death of sultan Mustafa I. This was a process in which a part of the courtyard of Hagia Sophia turned to be a dynastic cemetery gradually with the construction of the mausolea between 1572 and 1639.
For the sultans to be buried alongside Hagia Sophia was a major break with dynastic tradition in general for they were not buried on the courtyards of their mosque complexes. It was also a break in particular for Istanbul; a hundred years old tradition to be buried on the courtyards of monumental mosque-complexes located on the hilltops of the city was to be left and, the Atmeydanı became the new location for dynastic mausolea. Thus, this was a twofold process in which a dynastic cemetery was constituted in front of the southern façade of Hagia Sophia and, the Atmeydanı and its surroundings gained more importance with an intensive construction activity including the Hagia Sophia mausoleums and the tomb of Ahmed I facing the Atmeydanı. The emergence of this new location for dynastic mausolea had to do with changes and innovations in the practices of architectural patronage of the Ottoman sultans; in the meaning and function of the Hagia Sophia complex; and in
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the re-structuring of an urban center, the Atmeydanı. In this chapter, I will try to examine the appropriation of this new location for dynastic mausolea in relation with the changes in the architectural patronage of the dynasty, the transformation of Hagia Sophia into an Ottoman mosque complex, and the transformantion of the Atmeydanı.
The Sultans’ Mosque-Complexes
The burial place of an Ottoman sultan was first and foremost two capital cities of the Ottoman dynasty –Istanbul and Bursa-, and then the mausoleum built as a part of his royal mosque complex. While the custom to be buried in these two cities was continued by the Ottoman dynasty until its very end; the tradition to be buried in the tombs in their mosque complexes was abandoned at a certain point. Bursa and Istanbul were significant for they were the capital cities of the dynasty. It does not explain, however, the reason behind the dynasty’s choice for their burial places; none of the members of the dynasty was buried in Edirne- the second capital city of the dynasty-. It seems that these two cities were associated with dynastic lineages with reference to the founders of the dynasty in the case of Bursa and, to the Byzantine imperial tradition inherited and appropriated by the Ottomans in the case of Istanbul. As it is mentioned above, the Ottoman sultans from Murad I to Selim II continued this dual tradition to be buried in Bursa and Istanbul and in the tombs built as a part of their convent-mosque complexes. The custom to be buried within the enclosures of their own sultanic mosque complexes was abandoned with Selim II, Murad III and Mehmed III, who did not construct mosque-complexes in Istanbul. The Ottoman sultans, continued to be buried in Istanbul in Suriçi -the walled city- up to the last one, Sultan Mehmed V (d. 1918), who was buried in a mausoleum he constructed
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during his life time near Eyüp; but they were not buried in the tombs in their mosque-complexes after Süleyman with the exceptions of Ahmed I and Mustafa III. Ahmed I constructed his sultanic mosque-complex in the early decades of the seventeenth century at Atmeydanı and was buried in his mausoleum located in the same place; while Mustafa III, who died in 1774, was buried in a tomb next to the mosque of Laleli he had previously built. Between 1617 and 1918, the sultans except Ahmed I and Mustafa III were buried in the mausoleum of one of their ancestors.36 The mausoleum of Hadice Turhan Sultan near her mosque complex in Eminönü is of particular importance, where Mehmed IV, Mustafa II, Ahmed III, Mahmud I and Osman III were buried; this monument was originally the mausoleum of a female member of the dynasty.37 (Map 1)
Before analyzing the reasons and the context of this change in sultans’ architectural patronage, it is appropriate to define and examine the tradition itself, namely building convent- mosque complexes in the capital cities. The tradition to construct convent-mosque complexes began under the reign of Orhan with hi complex in Bursa. Located outside the citadel, Hisar, this consisted of a convent- mosque, a soup kitchen, a madrasa, a han and a hammam. The madrasa, the soup kitchen and the convent were located in proximity with one another, as Ayverdi indicates; but the madrasa, the soup kitchen and other dependencies did not survive. While the imaret/soup kitchen was standing until 1935; the madrasa was not mentioned in the archival deeds after the eighteenth century.38 In terms of function
36 Eldem, Edhem, Death In Istanbul: Death and Its Rituals In Ottoman-Islamic Culture, Istanbul: 2005, pp. 26-36.
37 Ibid., p. 32.
38 Ayverdi, Ekrem, Osmanlı Mimarisinin İlk Devri, Istanbul: 1966, p. 94,95.
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and site planning, it established the pattern that will characterize the ensembles of the Ottoman royal mosque complexes into the middle of the 15th century. Named as imaret –and as cevamî-i selâtin in the following decades-, these building complexes had been instrumental for the Ottoman sultans as a town planning device, a key mechanism used to encourage and facilitate the growth of urban settlement.39 At the same time, as Necipoglu indicates, these early Ottoman sultanic imarets were instrumental in encouraging the Islamization the Ottoman subjects, whose majority were Turkmen tribesmen with 'heterodox' leanings or newly converted populations.40
As the name used to denote one of the leading institutions of the Ottoman state, the word ‘külliye’ is derived from the Arabic word ‘külli’ and refers to a building complex that is consisted of two or more complementary edifices with different functions.41 Significant in terms of depicting the structure of the institution, the term ‘külliye’ is a modern denomination, however. Throughout the Ottoman period, the word ‘imaret’ had been used to designate the whole complex. 'The turkish term imaret is generally used in inscriptions and written sources for early Ottoman socio-religious complexes, grouped around t-shaped convent-masjids and hospices, derived from the Arabic word al-imara. The term semantically embodies the concept of improvement by cultivating, building, inhabiting, populating and civilizing. During the age of Sinan the term imaret generally came to denote a hospice (soup kitchen) built as the freestanding dependency of a Friday mosque 39 Crane, Howard, “The Ottoman Sultan’s Mosques” in The Ottoman City and Its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order, ed. By Bierman, Abou El-Haj & Preziosi. New York: 1991. p. 174.
40 Necipoğlu, Gülru, The Age Of Sinan, Princeton: 2005, p. 49.
41 Kuran, Aptullah, “Osmanlı Külliyelerinde Yerleşme Düzeni: Bir Tipoloji Denemesi” in Selçuklular’dan Cumhuriyet’e Türkiye’de Mimarlık, p.496.
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complex.'42 According to Ergin, Neuman and Singer, imaret, as a word that could be used to denominate soup kitchen as from the fifteenth century in the Ottoman context, ‘came into use over time because the kitchens were the feature of the complexes that most captured the attention of the largest number of people.’43The convent-mosque and madrasa were the two key components of an early Ottoman sultanic imaret of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in addition to the soup kitchen-, which was included only to the imarets of the sultans.44 All imarets constructed by the Ottoman sultans in Bursa before the conquest of Constantinople had these three components, namely the convent-masjid, madrasa and soup kitchen. Other than these edifices, the imarets of Orhan, Murad I, Beyazıd I and Murad II each had hammams; while the imaret of Orhan in Hisar had a han –inn-, and that of Beyazıd I had a darüşşifa additionally.45 Except Orhan, the four other sultans had their mausolea built as a part of their imarets.
With Mehmed II’s mosque-complex constructed in Istanbul, in scale and planning, the Ottoman imperial mosque-complexes underwent its most significant transformation and assumed its classical form46 with its stricter geometrical plans and new edifices serving different functions. In the words of Kafescioğlu, the complex of Mehmed II was ‘a monument to the new rule in the ancient city, designed to
42 Necipoğlu, The Age Of Sinan, p. 71.
43 Ergin, Nina; Neumann, C. K.; Singer, Amy, Feeding People, Feeding Power: Imarets in the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul: 2007, p 13, with reference to Ergin, Osman Nuri, Türk Şehirlerinde İmaret Sistemi, İstanbul: 1939, pp. 8-15.
44 Kuran, Aptullah, “ Form and Function In Ottoman Building Complexes” in Architecture in Turkey from the Seljuks to the Republic, edited by Kafescioğlu, Çiğdem; Thys-Şenocak, Lucienne, and Kuran, Timur, Istanbul: 2012, p.445.
45 Crane, “The Ottoman Sultan’s Mosques”, pp.174-177.
46 Ibid., p.179.
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reproduce and represent a newly configured imperial order’47 and ‘the institutional framework as much as the modalities of siting and visuality of the royal complex was among Ottoman imports into the Constantinopolitan cityscape.’48First of all, the imarets of Mehmed II and of his successors in the sixteenth century were not building complexes centered on a convent- mosque; but rather the location and the function of these two was departed from each other. They were centered on monumental mosque edifices; while zawiyes were sidelined from these complexes. Thus, the imarets of sultans in Istanbul had mosques, madrasas, soup kitchens and caravanserais as their fundamental components49. Added to these, there were mektebs in the imarets of Mehmed II, Beyazıd II and Süleyman; hammams in that of Mehmed II, Beyazıd II and Süleyman; a muvakkithane in that of Beyazıd II, and a darülhadis in the monumental mosque complex of Süleyman.50 The mausoleums of these four sultans were all located behind the qibla wall of their mosques.
Understanding the social, economic and religious function and meaning of the imarets patronized by Ottoman sultans is crucial for being able to contextualize them as the loci of the mausolea of Ottoman sultans. Because the mausolea were part and parcel of these monumental complexes both physically and symbolically, I think, they have to be associated with, and read in the context of the imperial mosque-complexes. In my reading of the dynastic mausolea, I will draw on some extent on
47 Kafescioğlu, Çiğdem, Constantinopolis/Istanbul: cultural encounter, imperial vision, and the construction of Ottoman capital, Pa: 2009, p. 68.
48 Ibid., p. 70.
49 Kuran, “Osmanlı Külliyelerinde Yerleşme Düzeni: Bir Tipoloji Denemesi”, p.445.
50 Crane, “The Ottoman Sultan’s Mosques”, pp. 179-185.
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Howard Crane’s article in which he tries to conduct an iconographical interpretation of the mosque-complexes of the Ottoman sultans.51
As almost all architectural products, the edifices built by the Ottoman Sultans were not only stones cut according to plans, but also embodiments of different concepts and meanings related to politics, religion, social and economic networks. Related to all these, they served to represent the identity of patrons, namely the Ottoman Sultans. Understanding this representational power and meaning of the imarets necessitates going beyond the formal and structural aspects of these edifices and looking at their functions as well as relations with the ideas and values they intended to represent. Given that the central/ dominant element of all imarets constructed by sultans were mosques (or convent-mosques) and madrasas, in my eyes, it is appropriate to assume that these imarets were first and foremost manifestations of religious, or religio-political agendas of the Sultans. Both before and after the takeover of Constantinople, religion was one of the most important bases of the Ottoman Sultans in their claim to be legitimate despite the fact that there was a gradual change in the politics of religion as well as its manifestation from a less institutionalized and less defined understanding of religion towards what is to be called “orthodoxy”52. Because the Ottomans had no a genealogical linkage as in the case of the Safavid and the Mughal dynasties53, they mostly relied on the success in
51 Ibid., pp. 173-298.
52 The term “Orthodoxy”, I think, can be problematic when it is used in the context of Islam, or for the other religious structures because the term underlines the existence of a central religious institution defining the borders of the doctrine and practices of the religion in question. In the context of Islam, there has not been such a central institution like the church, although there have been different religious institutions in different historical and geographical contexts.
53 The Safavids and the Mughals used genealogical linkages they had in supporting their claim of political and religious sovereignty. The Safavids did this by ascribing their genealogy to the family of Prophet and to the former sovereigns of the greater Iran, like the Akkoyunlu dynasty. The Mughals,
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the holy war and on their claims to be supporters of the religion and justice, in establishing religious and political legitimacy. Thus, both in pre-conquest era and afterwards, supporting the holy war had been central in this context; even though its character evolved in the process from the fourteen to the seventeenth century.54 The fact that constructing an imaret in the capital city for the sultan was possible only after a victory against the infidels, namely holy war, underlines the above-mentioned linkage between the ideology and the representational power of those structures.
By all means, the imarets constructed by Ottoman sultans did not only serve to represent the religio-political agenda of the dynasty; but also different values and roles attributed to the dynasty. Among these, notions of charity, justice, generosity were mostly pronounced, which were manifested in the parts of the imarets. The message given and perceived about the charity of the sultan seems to have been so strong that the name used for soup kitchens was associated by the whole complex. Soup kitchens, caravanserais, hospices and public baths were constructed to serve the daily needs of people such as food, health care and accomodation; the Ottoman sultan was represented as the protector of his subjects by those edifices. It has to be considered that the royal mosque with its components was a meeting place for the urban community; a forum for their major religious, political, judicial affairs as well as for trading, socializing and entertainment.55 In this respect, it was the space par excellence for the sultan to give his message(s) to his various subjects. Thus,
on the other hand, highlighted their links to Timur and Chinggis Khan. For further information: Dale, Stephen, The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals, New York: 2010, chapters 2, 3, 6.
54 For an extensive analysis of the Notion of holy war, or gaza, its appropriate to look at Cemal Kafadar’s study on the structure and nature of the early Ottoman state: Kafadar, Cemal, Between Two Worlds, London: 1996, pp. 62-90.
55 Inalcık, Halil, “Istanbul: An Islamic City” in Essays in Ottoman History, Istanbul: 1998, p.260.
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answering the needs of his communities repeatedly became customized and ceremonialized in a sense and, both functionally and physically, imarets can be seen as ‘public statements of Ottoman adherence to certain of the traditional ideals of Perso-Islamic kingship’ and ‘metaphorically proclaiming the temporal power, majesty, wealth and grandeur of the sultan and his dynasty.’56
Besides the social and religious values identified with the sultan and his dynasty, the sequential order of the sultans were declared with the funerary mosque-complexes in Istanbul. Dynastic continuity was one of the most significant codes of legitimacy defining the Ottoman polity, which was inherited from the Turco-Mongol political tradition. The continuity of the dynasty was manifested with these mosque-complexes commemorating the deceassed sultans after whom they were named; as the visibility of the sulltan and his dynasty was procured with these monumental edifices. For that reason, the sultans took into consideration the Byzantine memory and the skyline of the city, when they decided the location of their funerary complexes that punctuated the hill-tops of Istanbul, which were linked together by sultanic processions. In addition to the skyline of the city, the Divan Yolu avenue was another important location in terms of being a reference to the Byzantine past and as a part of the ceremonial order of the Ottoman sultans. Divan Yolu partly overlapped with the Byzantine imperial Mese on which the processions of the emperors took place, and the Church of Holy Apostles was linked to the Hippodrome, where Hagia Sophia and the imperial palace were located.57 The fact that the same ceremonial route was used by Ottoman sultans and that the domed
56 Crane, “The Ottoman Sultan’s Mosques”, p. 201.
57 Necipoğlu, “The Dynastic Imprints on the Cityscape: The Collective Message of Imperial Funerary Mosque Complexes in Istanbul”, p.26.
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mausoleum of Mehmed II was built on the site of the Byzantine imperial mausoleums attached to the Church of Holy Apostles58 seems not to be coincidental but symbolic: They seem to be indicators of the claim of the Ottoman sultans to be the new Roman emperors, “Kayser-i Rum” in the words of Mehmed II.
The Divan Yolu avenue was the main processional route of the Ottoman sultans, especially of their funeral processions that stressed the sequential relationship of the sultanic mausoleums. The first funerary procession seems to be that of Mehmed II, which was very similar to processions of the Byzantine emperors.59 An anonymous report indicates that the coffin of the sultan was carried from the Topkapı Palace to his burial place following the Divan Yolu route.60 This seems to become a tradition in the next century; there are increasingly detailed descriptions of funeral processions especially after the mid sixteenth century. Indeed, it was the second half of the sixteenth century in which the processions took their definitive form, when the number of sultanic mosque complexes lined up along the Divan Yolu increased considerably.61 The evolution of the funerary processions from Mehmed II to Ahmed I has also particular importance in this context. While the funerary procession of Mehmed II was like a familial ceremony; the funerary processions took a more imperial form after that of Süleyman I with the growing participation of the high level bureaucrats and members of 'ulama.62 According to
58 Ibid., p.26.
59 Necipoğlu, “The Dynastic Imprints on the Cityscape: The Collective Message of Imperial Funerary Mosque Complexes in Istanbul”, p.26, 27.
60Necipoğlu, “The Dynastic Imprints on the Cityscape: The Collective Message of Imperial Funerary Mosque Complexes in Istanbul”, p.26.
61 Ibid., p.26.
62 Vatin & Veinstein, p. 295.
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Vatin and Veinstein, these processions became scenes during which the power and glory of the empire was displayed with ceremonial atmosphere of the funerary cortege, which was configured according to the rules of protocol.63
The sultans’ visits to their predecessors’ mausoleums following one another in a sequential order were not restricted to funerary processions. Visiting mausoleums in certain occasions was another custom; we know from the writings of chroniclers and travelers that Ottoman sultans made sequential visits to the mausoleums of their ancestors after their girding ceremonies64 or before leaving the capital for campaigns.65 Occasional visits to the dynastic mausoleums did also happen as in Mehmed III’s visits to his predecessors’ mausoleums to make ayak-divanı, which was a court meeting made in walking.66 Selaniki gives the account of these visits: The sultan first went to Eyüp by boat; visited the shrine of Eyüp and made sacrifice and gave alms to people. He entered the city from the gate of Edirnekapı and prayed for deceased Muslims. After that the viziers came near him and they discussed the preparations for the following campaigns. Then, the mausoleums of Selim I, Mehmed II, Şehzade Mehmed and Cihangir, Süleyman I, Beyazıd II, Selim II and Murad III were visited respectively and alms were given to the poor.67 This example displays that the same order in the visits of funerary processions seem to be de facto for all kinds of imperial processions.
63 Ibid., p.295.
64 Kafadar, Cemal, “Eyüp’te Kılıç Kuşanma Törenleri” in Eyüp: Dün/Bugün, Istanbul: 1994, p.55.
65 Necipoğlu, “The Dynastic Imprints on the Cityscape: The Collective Message of Imperial Funerary Mosque Complexes in Istanbul”, p.23, 30.
66 Selaniki Mustafa Efendi,Tarih-i Selaniki-II, ed. Mehmet İpşirli, Istanbul: 1989, p.455.
67 Ibid., p.455.
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As a pharanthesis, it is worth mentioning that the visits to mausoleums of the sultans were not restricted to royal processions. We learn from Evliya that the mausoleums of the sultans were not only visited by their successors, members of the dynastic family and bureaucrats in a ceremonial context; but also by “common people”. He describes the mausoleums of the sultans and of the members of the dynastic family buried in Istanbul and depicts some dynastic mausoleums as ziyaretgah, which means basically “place of pilgrimage”.68 He emphasizes three particular mausoleums as being visited very often by folk, namely the mausoleums of Beyazıd II, Selim II and Murad III.69 It is not explicit why Evliya did not mention the other mausoleums as being visited frequently; neither does he give evidence about whether they were also visited frequently or not. Their names as “site of pilgrimage”, however, suggest that all these mausoleums were more or less visited either only by the members of the court, or both by the members of the court and folk. The burial sites of the sultans seem to have had further meaning and functions than being spaces constructed for commemoration of the deceased; we learn from Evliya and Selaniki that they were visited also for asking for help and healing. Evliya describes the mausoleum of Beyazıd II as a place that was visited by everybody and claims that if a patient would visit this mausoleum once; he would recover with the permission of God.70 Selaniki cites that Mehmed III asked for help from the spiritualties of his predecessors, when he visited them with his courtiers.71
68 Evliya Çelebi Günümüz Türkçesiyle Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi: İstanbul, 1.Cilt, 1.Kitap, Istanbul: 2003, p.292,296,301,306,309,311,313.
69 Ibid., pp.296, 311, 313.
70 Evliya Çelebi, Günümüz Türkçesiyle Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi:İstanbul:, p.296.
71 Selaniki Mustafa Efendi, Tarih-i Selaniki-II, p.607.
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If one contextualizes the sultanic mosque-complexes as a part of ceremonial and representational order of the dynasty, it can be claimed that the close association of the Ottoman sultans’ mausolea with mosque complexes was far from being coincidental. Because the whole complex had a strong commemorative and representational power manifested in the capital city, which was by itself the symbol of the sovereign being the pâ-i taht (feet of throne) and makarr-ı saltanat (the seat of sovereignty)72, it can be interpreted with an analogy as the face, or the presence of the segregated sultan- both in his life time and his death. The mosque-complexes were monuments through which values and meanings of the sultan's religio-political agenda were manifested Thus, the mausolea of the sultans were like their faces that remained after their passing-away, which were ‘reinforcing the appearance of the founder’s piety, making explicit the commemorative aspect of these ensembles.’73
The dynastic tradition of constructing mosque-complexes in the current capital city was abandoned by Selim II for the first time; he was the first Ottoman sultan who did not go on an expedition with his troops and died in Istanbul at the same time.74 After he became sultan, he did not leave Istanbul during his eight years of sovereignty, except his travels to Edirne for the royal hunting grounds.75 He spent most of his time within the walls of his palace and gave the responsibility of the state affairs to his grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed pasha, who served as grand vizier for three sultans, Süleyman, Selim II and Murad III. His era was the climax of the Ottoman patrimonial system in terms of the political agency of the grand vizier; for
72 Necipoğlu, “The Dynastic Imprints on the Cityscape: The Collective Message of Imperial Funerary Mosque Complexes in Istanbul”, p. 26.
73 Crane, “The Ottoman Sultan’s Mosques”,p. 208.
74 Uzunçarşılı, İbrahim Hakkı. Osmanlı Tarihi 3. Cilt 1. Kısım, Ankara: 1951, p. 40, 41.
75 Finkel, Caroline, Osman’s Dream, London: 2005, p. 154.
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he had the control of political and military affairs under his hands during the reign of Selim II. The destiny of the grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, and the grand vizierate itself, changed in the later years of the reign of Murad III, who was summoned to the capital city to sit on the throne by the grand vizier himself.76
At this point, it is worthwhile to open a pharanthesis to describe the Ottoman patriarchal system in order to gain a deeper insight in the transformation of the Ottoman elite in the late sixteenth century. After the conquest of Constantinople, Mehmed II established a new imperial elite recruited primarily from slaves of Christian background, trained in the imperial palace under the sultan's personal supervision; the sultan relied on this new elite to articulate his new political and ideological order. The centralized empire of Mehmed II 'functioned through a web of personal networks, connected with personal loyalties and patron-client relations that converged on the sultan, rather than through bureaucratic institutions.'77The sultans after the conquest delegated most of the routine tasks of government to their principal officials, who had access to royal prerogative; this gave the ruling elite the opportunity to use their immense power to advence their own interests and consequently made them shareholders of the sultan's authority.78Between 1453 and 1520, the Ottoman bureaucracy was immature; its branches were relatively undifferentiated, and the individual at the top of the bureaucracy was more important than the position itself. Under the reign of Süleyman, the bureaucratic apparatus of
76 Tezcan, Baki, The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World, New York: 2010, p. 98.
77 Turan, Ebru, “The Marriage Of Ibrahim Pasha (CA. 1495-1536): The Rise of Sultan Süleyman’s Favorite to the Grand Vizierate and the Politics of the Elites in the Early Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Empire” in Turcica, 41, 2009, p. 17.
78 Turan, p. 20.
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the state became professionalized and after his death, the tendencies towards professionalization became more marked.79
The professionalization of the bureaucracy increased the power of the state elites, especially of the viziers, which led them to develop a new self-perception allowing them to justify their own existance and power separately from the person of the sultan.80 It was Süleyman who made an innovation at the uppermost level of the Ottoman bureaucracy, namely the delegation of nearly autonomous power to his grand viziers. 'The grand vizier became the empire's de facto ruler at the head of a central bureaucracy.'81 It was also Süleyman who generated the solution to avert the challenge to his authority that came from his own grand vizier, his slave. The story of Ibrahim pasha is a very harsh example of an Ottoman vizier's life, who ascended in the bureaucratic hierarchy with the agency of Sultan Süleyman and became grand vizier in a very short time; shared the political power and wealth of the sultan, and was killed by the same sultan because of his increasing power overshadowing that of the sultan. The same solution will be put in practice almost half a century after the execution of Ibrahim pasha by Murad III, who got rid of the challenge that came from his grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed pasha. Murad III, however, did not settle for the execution of his grand vizier; he also created a more fundamental solution to diminish the power of the viziers.
The reign of Murad III had been interpreted as a point of change leading to breakdown of the dynasty’s political power, both by his contemporary chroniclers
79 Fleischer, Cornell, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire:The Historian Mustafa Ali (1541-1600), Princeton: 1986, pp. 214-219.
80 Turan, p. 22.
8181 Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, p. 38.
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and the mainstream Ottoman historiography during much of the twentieth century. This period was named as the era of “the sedentary sultan” by Caroline Finkel82 because the sultans began not to leave the capital city for campaigns; they left their palace only occasionally as in the case of Selim II’s hunting travels to Edirne. Verily important was the sultan’s withdrawal from military campaigns as a cardinal change in the sultan’s image; it was not the mere and most significant change defining the nature of that particular political conjuncture of the Ottoman dynasty. If one looks at the writings of the contemporary chroniclers; it is seen that the complaints were mostly about ‘Murad III’s personal style of government, the increasing influence of royal women and palace officials in imperial government during his reign, the sale of offices’; ‘all the complaints made about his ruling style add up to a portrait of a monarch who wanted to have absolute control of his empire from within the walls of his palace.’83 His main target was the power base of the grand vizierate and vizierate, which was the main political power base sharing the authority of the sultan. For that, he increased the frequency of posting new grand viziers; he appointed five viziers for a total of nine terms within fifteen years.84 In addition, he tried to limit the agency of the viziers and retain the control of state affairs. His denial to give the imperial seal to his vizier Mustafa Paşa illustrates his policy, which was related by Selaniki in his chronicle.85
82 Finkel, p. 152.
83 Tezcan, p. 56.
84 Ibid., p. 100.
85 “Ve mesâlih-i müslimin ve kazâyâ-yı dîn u devlet, umûr-ı cumhûr-ı mülk ü millet ve mühimmât-ı saltanat vezîr-i dindâr ve şerî’at-vakâr Mustafa Paşa-yı nâm-dâr hazretlerinün re’y-i rezîn ve fikr-i sâkıb-ı ber-savâblarına vâbeste olup, anlarun elinden ve dilinden görülüp sürülirdi. Halk-ı âlem “mühürsiz arza amel olunmaz pâdişahum” diyü nice nice kağıdlar sundılar, müfid olmadı. “lazım değil mühr virilmek, şimdiden-girü kimseye mühr virilmez. Cümletü’l-mülk vekîl-i saltanatımdur. Her kim
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To diminish the power of the viziers, the sultan further created new loci for stable power centered within the court by empowering new offices at the imperial court: the chief black eunuch –darüssa’ade ağası-, the chief white eunuch –babüssa’ade ağası- and the chief gardener –bostancıbaşı-.86 These officers were all raised in the palace schools and their posts were also within the palace; thus they were directly attached to the sultan and had direct access to him. As Tezcan indicated, ‘the rise of the court as a center of administrative power was also reflected in the role that royal women were playing in the politics’, whose constructions of madrasas created new channels of patronage in the educational-scholarly hierarchy of the empire.87 Thus, under the reign of Murad III the court became the main locus of the political and administrative power; the sultan being at its very center. The palace both as institutionally and spatially gained importance in the last decades of the sixteenth century and, the enlargement of its boundaries and the increase of its population should be read in that political context. The sultan was genuinely ‘sedentary’ for he was not leaving the capital city for campaigns and spending most of his time behind the walls of his palace; but this does not mean that the sultan withdrew from state affairs by leaving them to his mother or servants completely. On the contrary, he has to be seen as ‘seated’ at the very center of the new locus of power, namely the palace. This led to the extension of the palace into the city’s public spaces including the Atmeydanı, which was the center of the royal festivities and precessions as well as the locus of the elites’ architectural patronage. This will be
itâ’at u inkıyâd itmezse kapusı öninde salb ü siyâset eyleyesin.” diyüp mufassal u meşruh hatt-ı hümâyunlar çıkardı.”, Selaniki Mustafa Efendi, Tarih-i Selaniki-I, p. 128.
86 Tezcan, p. 100-104.
87 Tezcan, p. 104.
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examined in the last section of this chapter in relation to the construction of the Hagia Sophia mausoleums.
*****
Among the three sultans who were buried beside Hagia Sophia, Selim II and Murad III constructed royal mosque complexes, both outside Istanbul. Mehmed III did not conduct such a project. Selim II preferred to build his complex in Edirne, the former capital city of the empire. His mosque, the Selimiye, was constructed with the spoils of Selim II’s Cyprus campaign.88 In addition to his love for Edirne as his hunting place, the location of the city on the military road to Europe and the overland route travelled by the envoys of European powers bound for Istanbul on diplomatic missions seem to be the reasons behind Selim II’s choice for the location of his mosque complex.89 The mosque complex of Murad III was constructed in Manisa, where he stayed as the crown prince and lived with his favourite Safiye for years. The city later became the seat of the provincial court of his elder son Mehmeh III also, and Necipoğlu interprets the choice for the locus of the mosque complex as a sign of Murad III’s intention for trumping Safiye and her son prince Mehmed.90
In this context, the new definition of the sultan as “sedentary” has direct relationship with his patronage for his royal mosque complex. According to the Ottoman ‘ulama, the sultan could and should construct a mosque complex only after his victorious campaign against one non-Muslim army, with the booty of such a
88 Necipoğlu, “The Süleymaniye Complex in Istanbul: An Interpretation” in Muqarnas, Vol.3, New Haven: 1985,, p. 113.
89 Finkel, p. 163.
90 Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, Princeton: 2005, p. 265.
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campaign.91 It was not only the ‘ulama, but also Mustafa ‘Ali, a member of the court, who defended the construction of imperial mosque complexes only with the gains of a campaign towards non-Muslim armies:
As long as the glorious sultans, the Alexander-like kings, have not enriched themselves with the spoils of the Holy War and have not become owners of lands through gains of campaigns of 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, 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 his personal pleasures, and engages to prove this by the erection of public buildings.92
This attitude of the ‘ulama and the court members displays the existence of a defined/ established notion for the requirements and the very legitimacy of the construction of the mosque complexes by the sultans. The accounts of the sixteenth century traveler Lubenau are also noteworthy in this context; he relates that ‘Murad III did not build a royal mosque in his capital because he had won no important victories and, according to the Turkish custom, only sultans who led armies that had conquered Christian lands had the right to build a royal mosque in the capital.’93 Thus, this established custom for the construction of the royal mosque in the capital city seems to be the reason behind the choice for the loci of the mosque complexes of Selim II and Murad III outside the capital city.
Hagia Sophia, in that context, was a wise choice as a location of the mausoleum of the sultans who did not have the chance to construct imperial mosque complexes in the capital city. The symbolic importance of the edifice
91 Goodwin, Godfrey, A History of Ottoman Architecture, New York: 1971, p. 343.
92 Mustafa ‘Ali Gelibolulu, Mustafa ‘Ali’s Counsel for Sultans of 1581, translated by A. Tietze, Vienna: 1979, pp. 54, 146.
93 Necipoğlu, “The Süleymaniye Complex in Istanbul: An Interpretation”, p. 113.
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commemorating the takeover of the city and “the empire” and, its proximity to the palatial complex of the sultans and the hearth of the city -the Atmeydanı- were significant agents for the choice of this location, which I will try to discuss in detail in the following section.
Hagia Sophia into a Dynastic Funerary Complex
The church of Emperor Justinian, the cathedral of the Crusaders, the imperial mosque of the sultan, the museum of the Turkish Republic: Hagia Sophia, one of the most perennial monuments on the world, has been subject to several ‘remakings’, and innovations throughout its history, both in the physical and the symbolic sense. The new meaning and function the monument acquired in the Ottoman context was different from its earlier and later makings and re-makings in terms of the duration and extent of its change: Unlike its earlier and later transformations, the Ottoman re-making of the monument was not rapid and clear-cut; but rather, it happened in a longer process. The church that had been converted into the mosque and Ottomanized by Mehmed II took a much longer time to Islamicize and, subtle changes in its architecture and decoration were realized over the centuries.94
The construction of the dynastic mausolea in the courtyard of Hagia Sophia has to be read as a part, as a corner stone of the longer process of the monument’s re-making under the Ottoman patronage. Virtually, it corresponds to a stage in the history of the Ottoman Hagia Sophia in which it attained all necessary components of a royal funerary complex with the construction of the two or three additional
94 Necipoğlu, Gülru, “The Life of An Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia After Byzantium” in Muqarnas, Vol. 12, New Haven: 1995,, p. 202.
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minarets95 and of a walled garden enclosure in addition to the construction of the dynastic mausolea.96 The completion of this transformation was realized under the patronage of Selim II to a large extent; it is significant, however, to describe and analyze the changes and additions conducted by the former Ottoman sultans for apprehending the gradual transformation of the monument both in function and meaning. The Ottoman intervention to Hagia Sophia began just after the conquest of Constantinople with Mehmed II's decision to convert the church into a mosque. His decision seems to be more symbolic than being functional; the city had acquired several other mosques in the following years erected under the patronage of Mehmed II and his viziers as a part of his ambitious building program in his new capital. Hagia Sophia remained the main imperial mosque even after the construction of Mehmed II's own mosque complex at the site of the Byzantine Church of Holy Apostles, which has been known as “Ebu’l Feth” mosque since its construction. The reason was that Hagia Sophia was not only the main church of the conquered city and of the eastern Roman Empire; but also it was one of the most significant sanctuaries of the whole Christian world. Thus, converting this symbolically loaded and highly venerated monument into a mosque became a declaration of the victory of Islam over Christianity and more importantly, of the new owner of the city and of the Roman Empire: Mehmed II declared himself the new Caesar of the Roman Empire - the Kayser-i Rum- and espoused the notions of kingship of the Roman emperors in addition to the many institutional, political and cultural facilities of the Eastern
95 There is consensus on the argument that the patron of the third and fourth minarets was Murad III; while there is discussion among scholars about who was the patron of the second minaret. I will refer to different arguments on this matter in the following pages.
96 Necipoğlu, “The Life of An Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia After Byzantium”, p. 210.
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Roman Empire, all blended with earlier Ottoman notions and practices. As Necipoğlu indicated, ' his restoration of Hagia Sophia as his royal mosque was part of an ambitious program to restore the new Ottoman capital to its former magnificence and prosperity in the golden age of the Byzantine Empire.97 Mehmed II's restoration of Hagia Sophia was not merely the conversion of the church into his royal mosque; he also conducted some changes within the main edifice and made some additions strengthening the monument’s Islamic and imperial character. Most probably, his first actions in Hagia Sophia were to clear the images on the walls that were visible to those who prayed and to add a mihrab, minbar and mahfil, as the chronicler Solakzade Mehmed Çelebi accounted in his chronicle.98 The figural mosaics on the walls were plastered except the ones situated above or beyond the view of the praying congregations.99 The mosaics that were not plastered over remained intact at least until the mid-seventeenth century; the traveler Thevenot reported that the church was full of mosaic figures; only half of them being covered by the Turks and the other half remained intact.100 The relics, crosses and icons were also removed out and replaced by ‘Muslim relics and mementos of victory, including one of the four prayer carpets of the Prophet hanging to the right of the mihrab and his own banners of victory commemorating the conquest of Constantinople’.101 Mehmed II’s architectural patronage includes also constructions added to the main structure. One is the construction of the madrasa located on the northwestern
97 Necipoğlu, “The Life of An Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia After Byzantium”, p. 198.
98 Solakzade Mehmed Hemdemi Çelebi, Solakzade Tarihi, vol.1, edited by Vahid Çabuk, Ankara: 1989, p. 286, 287.
99 Ibid., p. 203.
100 Thevenot, Jean, Thevenot Seyahatnamesi, edited by Yerasimos, Stefanos, Istanbul: 2009, p. 49.
101 Necipoğlu, “The Life of An Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia After Byzantium”, pp. 203-204.
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side of the mosque, which was built in 1466 and remained as the only high level madrasa of the city until the construction of the Samaniye madrasas –eight madrasas- as a part of the Fatih mosque complex in 1471.102 The other annex attributed to Mehmed II is the southeastern minaret, which has been known as the brick minaret. (Figure 6) Ayvansarayi103, Evliya Çelebi104 and Edmondo De Amicis105 relate the construction of this minaret to Mehmed II. Emerson and Van Nice challenge this view and based on documentary evidence, they claim that this brick minaret on the southeastern corner of the mosque was not erected by Mehmed II.106 This argument is supported by Semavi Eyice, who claims that Mehmed II placed a wooden minaret on top of the sustaining tower at the southern corner of the western semi-dome; that ‘this tower was used as a minaret lies in the fact that the staircase inside it is so well worn.’107 Thus, according to Eyice, ‘the only building that Mehmed II had added to Hagia Sophia is the madrasa on the north side.’108 In his book “Hadikat’ül Cevami”, Ayvansarayi depicts the construction activity of Beyazıd II in Hagia Sophia as follows: “medrese hücerâtının üzerine bir tabaka dahi bina olunub hücerât tarh olunmak … ve Bâb-ı Hümâyun köşesine bir
102 Akgündüz, Ahmet; Öztürk, Said, and Baş, Yaşar, Kiliseden Müzeye Ayasofya Camii, Istanbul: 2006, p. 133, 134.
103 Ayvansarayi Hüseyin Efendi, Hadikatü’l Cevami (İstanbul Camileri ve Diğer Dini-Sivil Mimari Yapılar), edited by Galitekin, Ahmed Nezih, Istanbul: 2001, p. 42.
104 Evliya Çelebi, Günümüz Türkçesiyle Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnames, p. 90.
105 De Amicis, Edmondo, Constantinople, Surrey: 2010, p. 112.
106 For the discussion of the history of the minarets of Hagia Sophia: Emerson, William and-Van Nice, Robert L., “Hagia Sophia and the First Minaret Erected After the Conquest of Constantinople” in American Journal Of Archaeology, Vol. LIV, No.1, 1950.
107 Eyice, Semavi, Aya Sofya, Istanbul: 1986, p. 36.
108 Ibid., p. 37.
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minare dahi onlar icad eylemişdir.”109 While his addition of a second story to the madrasa constructed by Mehmed II is a matter of fact accepted by scholars; there is discussion about which minaret was built by Beyazıd II. If one accepts the account of Ayvansarayi, the northeastern minaret built of stone is the one Beyazıd II erected. This view is challenged by Semavi Eyice, who claims that it was the brick minaret on the southeastern corner Beyazıd II erected.110 In any case, there is consensus that Beyazıd II erected a minaret on one of the corners of Hagia Sophia. Lastly, Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi attributes the restoration of the marble mihrab made by Mehmed II to the patronage of Beyazıd II in Hagia Sophia.111
Süleyman did not engage in a large scale innovation or construction activity in Hagia Sophia despite the fact that he was one of the most enthusiastic patrons of architecture among the former and later members of the Ottoman dynasty. The only adornment he made to the Hagia Sophia was to offer two bronze candle sticks removed from the cathedral of Buda as waqf in 1526.112 Ayvansarayi depicts these two candlesticks as booty taken from Üngürüs ;113 he seems to prefer to make his mark on the monument in a way accepted by his great grandfather Mehmed II, who adorned the building with Muslim relics for commemorating his victory over Byzantium and Christianity.114 Süleyman’s gift of two candlesticks taken from a cathedral to one of the most important monument of Christianity converted into a
109 Ayvansarayi, p.42.
110 Eyice, p. 37.
111 Ayverdi, Ekrem Hakkı, Osmanlı Mimarisinde Fatih Devri-III, Istanbul: 1973, p. 143.
112 Necipoğlu, “The Life of An Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia After Byzantium”, p. 204.
113 Ayvansarayi, p. 42: “ mihrab önüne iki şem’dan dokuz yüz otuz üç tarihinde va’z edüb, aslunda Üngürüs’den Devlet-i ‘Aliyye’ye ganimeten alınmışdır.”
114 See footnote 31.
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mosque by his predecessors seems to be also a symbolic gesture highlighting the victory of the Ottoman dynasty in general, and of Süleyman in particular, over one of the Christian dynasties.
The architectural patronage of Selim II in Hagia Sophia has particular significance because he was the sultan who took the first step in Hagia Sophia's acquisition of a funerary character by his decision to be buried on the courtyard of Hagia Sophia. He wanted to transform the monument into a ‘classical’ sultanic funerary mosque complex with its major distinctive elements, although his project was completed after his death by his successor Murad III. The imperial edicts issued by Selim II and the accounts given by contemporary historians offer relatively detailed information about his construction and renovation project in Hagia Sophia. (Figure 7) Selim II’s intervention into Hagia Sophia began with his deportation of the five enormous marble tablets from the mosque -the synod decrees of 1116 inscribed in the stone wall of the narthex and dating from the reign of Byzantine emperor Manuel-, which was related by Marco Antonio Pigofetta who came to Istanbul in 1567.115 (Figure 8) His decision to make a large-scale renovation of the edifice followed and it could be the impulsive force behind his further construction activity in the complex of Hagia Sophia. Eyice indicates that ' Hagia Sophia was in an advanced state of dilapidation during the reign of Selim II, the building was leaning precariously to one side and was surrounded by a large number of excrescent buildings and houses.'116 Selaniki relates the situation of the mosque in his chronicle
115 Eyice, p. 37.
116 Ibid., p. 38.
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as follows: “Ayasofya-ı Kebîr Câmi-i şerîfi etrafına halk-ı âlem bir vechile gelüp, cevânib-ı erba’asın üşüp ihâta eylemişlerdi ki rûşenâya mecâl kalmayup tenk ü tar olmışdı. Ve binâ-i kadîme, ki bin yıldan mütecavizdür, halel müretteb olup benna zırâ’iyle bir buçuk zirâ’ bir cânibe meyl eyleyiü az kaldı ki münhedim ola.”117 The precarious situation of the edifice reached to the sultan by a record written by the architect Ahmed, who was the architect in charge of Hagia Sophia and complained about people's constructions of wooden and adobe houses attached to the walls of the mosque with their lavatories and kitchens causing the wetting of the carpets inside the prayer hall.118 In his first edict about Hagia Sophia issued in 1572, Selim II settled for a denunciation sent to the kadı of Istanbul to protect the edifice by alerting people who caused the above-mentioned damages in the building.119 One year later, Selim II issued another imperial edict sent to the kadı of Istanbul and the mutesellim of Hagia Sophia. In this edict Selim II indicated that he went to Hagia Sophia for an inspection with his chief imperial architect Sinan and observed the damages made by the houses and structures surrounding the edifice. For that he ordered the cleaning up of the environs of the mosque and the madrasa120; the destruction of the state-owned depository and the minaret above the half-dome; the construction of another minaret on the front rank of the former one and of an
117 Selaniki Mustafa Efendi, Tarih-I Selaniki-I, p. 95.
118 BA Mühimme Defteri nr 10, page 194, hüküm 291.
119 BA Mühimme Defteri nr. 10, page 194, hüküm 291.
120 In the endowment deeds of Istanbul from 1009/ 1600, there is information about the houses and shops destructed with Selim II’s order for cleaning the environs of Hagia Sophia. See, İstanbul Vakıfları Tahrir Defteri 1009(1600), edited by Mehmet Canatar, Istanbul: 2004, pp. 1-6.
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enclosure around the building; and the restoration and renovation of the inner and the outer sections that were in precarious situation.121 The restoration of the building began in 1573 and was conducted by the chief architect Sinan. According to Kinross, Sinan had the ability to restore Hagia Sophia because he 'himself had made a profound and detailed study of the plan of Hagia Sophia and in designing his earlier buildings he had experimented with ideas for its adaptation to Muslim ritual uses' and 'was as well qualified to supervise certain works of restoration that it came to require in the sixteenth century.'122 The restoration of the ruined sections began in the life time of Selim II, but was completed in the first years of the reign of Murad III.123 Selim could also not see all the sections he wanted to add to the complex except one minaret erected after the devastation of the wooden one; Evliya Çelebi attests the construction of this minaret in his Seyahatname.124 As we learn from the accounts of Peçevi125 and Mustafa
121 “Cami i şerifin sağ ve sol caniblerinde otuz beşer arşın yer hali olmak ve medresesinin etrafında üç zira' yol kalmak ve miri ambar bozulub ref' olunmak ve nim kubbe üzerinde olan minare ref' olunub önünde olan payenin üstünde minare bina olunmak ve etrafında hali kalacak otuz beşer arşın yerde payeler ve karizler bina olunmak ve cami i mezburun içerisinde ve dışarısında ta'mir ve örtüye muhtac olan yerleri meremmet te tahthir olunmak, hududunda olan za'id yapıları yıkılıp taş ve tuğlasıyla lazım olan yerleri ve ta'mir ve örtüye muhtac olan yerleri kurşun ile örtülmek lazım olduğun...”, Altınay, Ahmet Refik, Onuncu Asr-ı Hicri’de İstanbul Hayatı (1495-1591), Istanbul: 1988, pp. 22, 23, 24.
122 Lord Kinross, Hagia Sophia, Italy: 1972, p. 106.
123 Necipoğlu, “The Life Of An Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia After Byzantium”, p.209
124Evliya Çelebi, Türkçesiyle Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi: İstanbul, p. 90.
125 “ Sene 981. Emr-i Sultan Selîm Hân ‘aleyir’rahme ver’rıdvân sâdır olûb Ayâsofya Câmi’-i şerîfinin kubbe’-i ‘azîmesine ihtiyât-ı ‘azîm pâyeler ve iki minâre-i lâ-nazîre ile iki medrese-i ‘aliyye ve kendilere medfen içün bir türbe’-i şerîfe binâsı fermân olunûb müddet-i karîbede etmâma erişdirildi. Ancak türbe’ ba’de’defn etmâm buldı.” Tarih-i Peçevi, vol. 1, Matbaa-i ‘Amire: 1283/ 1867-1869), p. 501.
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Ali126, his project actually included the construction of two additional minarets, two Selimiye madrasas and his own mausoleum. While the minarets and his mausoleum were completed under the reign of Murad III127; the madrasas he planned to build were never constructed. (Figure 9 ) The patronage of Murad III in the complex of Hagia Sophia began with the completion of Selim II’s mausoleum and minarets, and continued with renovations as well as adornments. That the two minarets were erected under the reign of Murad III was attested both by the late 16th century Ottoman geographer Mehmed Aşık128 and Evliya Çelebi.129 (Figure 10) Two edicts issued by Murad III inform us that restorations took place in 1573; the sultan ordered foot soldiers (piyade) to be sent to Istanbul from Hamidili and Karahisar for working on the repairs conducted in Hagia Sophia.130 Evliya also relates that he had adorned the building with two large urns made of white marble brought from Pergamum131, which was repeated by Edmondo De Amicis.132 In his gifting of these urns taken from an ancient realm under Ottoman sovereignty, he seems to follow the way of his predecessors Mehmed II and Süleyman, who made their marks on the monument also with symbolic adornments.
126 “…ve iki minaret-I azimesinden gayri iki minaret-yi cedide inşası dahi buyrıldı. Ve kendülere medfen olacak mahall-I latif tayin kılınub medrese-I kadimeden gayri iki medrese-I celile- Selimiyyesi dahi emr olundı. Lekin ömr-I aizileri vefa itmemegin sayirleri temamen tertib kılındı. Ancak ol iki medreseye mübaşeret müyesser olmadı.” Ali, Mustafa bin Ahmet, Gelibolulu Mustafa Âli ve Künhü’l Ahbarında II. Selim, III. Murat ve III. Mehmet Devirleri, Kayseri: 2000, p. 86.
127 Necipoğlu, “The Life of An Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia After Byzantium”, p. 208.
128 Necipoğlu refers to Mehmed Aşık in “The Life of An Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia After Byzantium”, p. 209.
129 Evliya Çelebi, Günümüz Türkçesi’yle Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnames: İstanbul, p.90.
130 BA Mühimme Defteri, nr. 24, p. 67, hüküm 182; BA Mühimme Defteri nr. 27, p. 218, hüküm 497.
131 Evliya Çelebi, Türkçesiyle Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi: İstanbul, p.90.
132 “To the right and left of the entrance are two anormous alaboster urns, found among the ruins Pergamum and brought to Constantinople by Murad III.” De Amicis, p. 114.
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Four marble mahfils for hafızs (one who has memorized the Quran) and one for the muezzins were added, as Evliya indicated, in addition to general cleanup and reparation in the edifice.133 (Figure 11) The additions of the mahfils seem to have reinforced the function of the edifice as a mosque. It seems the need for the clearing of a wider area around the complex was felt by Murad III also; he issued two edicts for that purpose like his father Selim II. In the first edict he orders the extension of the empty area around the complex134 and the other one declares a ban of the construction of new structures near Hagia Sophia.135 The reason for these orders are not clear, however, it could be for protecting the monument from further damages or related to new configuration of the Atmeydanı, which I will discuss in the next part. Selim II's decision to raise the number of the minarets to four (a privilege reserved for the sultanic mosques); to construct his own mausoleum in an enclosed area within the courtyard of Hagia Sophia and, to clear a wide area around the complex seem to have been taken with the aim of leaving his personal stamp on the monument as well as for consummating its character as an imperial mosque complex.136 As I discussed in the earlier part, the main components of a sultanic funerary mosque complex were a mosque (convent-mosque in Bursa), madrasas and, other social and charitable structures as well as the mausoleums of the sultans. It has also to be underlined that the configuration of Hagia Sophia differed from the earlier sultanic mosque complexes in Istanbul; it lacked the geometrical order of the porticoed inner courtyard. With the construction of the enclosure wall and the
133 Evliya Çelebi, Günümüz Türkçesi’yle Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnames: İstanbul, .p 90.
134 BA Mühimme Defteri nr.49, page 25, hüküm 93.
135 BA Mühimme Defteri nr.69, page 249, hüküm 496.
136 Necipoğlu, “The Life of An Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia After Byzantium”, p.210.
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fountain, however, the area in front of the mosque was splinted up from the surrounding urban fabric with strict lines and, the enclosure transformed it into an outer courtyard, which is seen in the mosque complexes in question.137 The clearing of a wide area around the monument displays 'an attempt to adopt Hagia Sophia to the standard layout of the Ottoman imperial complexes, all of them occupying vast open precincts that can be seen as Mediterranean-Islamic counterparts to contemporary Italian Renaissance plazas.'138 The emergence of this configuration of the Ottoman sultanic mosques in relation with the contemporary Italian architectural practices, which is beyond the limits of this study, was discussed by Kafescioğlu in detail.139 Lastly, it is worth mentioning that the Hagia Sophia as the main royal mosque of the city functioned as a social space which members of the dynasty, the elites, as well as the common people visited in certain occasions, that was turned into a sultanic mosque complex gradually in approximately one hundred years. As the other royal mosques of the city, the Hagia Sophia had been a site which the sultan visited with the members of his court for the Friday prayers, to the Eid Prayer, for funeral and daily prayers. As an example, Selaniki recorded that Murad III went to Hagia Sophia to perform Friday prayer, to the Eid Prayer and for night al-Qadr140 and Mehmed III visited the mosque for Friday prayers and to attend the funeral prayer of his grand vizier Sinan Pasha.141 It seems there was no definite custom about when to
137 Tansuğ, Sezer, “Ayasofya Çevresi” in Ayasofya Müzesi Yıllığı, No.7, Istanbul: 1967.
138 Necipoğlu, “The Life of An Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia After Byzantium”, p. 210.
139 Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul: cultural encounter, imperial vision, and the construction of Ottoman capital, pp. 70-75.
140 Selaniki Mustafa Efendi, Tarih-i Selaniki- I, p. 104, 107, 109.
141 Selaniki Mustafa Efendi, Tarih-i Selaniki-II, p. 440, 543, 582.
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perform the Friday prayers in Hagia Sophia; the sultans performed their Friday prayers in one of the royal mosques of the city such as the mosques of Süleyman and Beyazıd II142 or in Hagia Sophia. This was the same for the funeral prayers too; Hagia Sophia was one of the royal mosques in which the funeral prayers were performed.143 Hagia Sophia was a site visited not only by the sultan and his grandees; but also by different members of the society including the members of the ‘ulama, the sheikhs and Sufis. The mosque hosted the members of the ‘ulama for their everyday preaching as well as at certain occasions as the prayers offered for the inception of the month of Muharram by the members of ‘ulama with the sheikhs in the royal mosques of Istanbul including Hagia Sophia.144 Another such occasion was the examinations opened for the assignment of the high rank müderrises, which took place either in Hagia Sophia or in the mosques of Zeyrek and Vefa.145 Evliya relates that every day, preceptors taught the religion to the crowds; the mosque was full of pious people and Sufis fasting and praying day and night.146 Grelot, who visited Istanbul in the later decades of the seventeenth century and entered the Hagia Sophia in the costume of a Muslim with the help of the lamp-lighter, depicts the building as crowded by people ‘at their devotions’147, ‘with their heads to the earth and killing
142 Ibid., p. 545, 568.
143 For example, the funeral prayer of Lala Mehmed Pasha was performed in Süleymaniye Mosque. Tarih-i Selaniki-II, p. 542.
144 Selaniki Mustafa Efendi, Tarih-i Selaniki-II, p. 626.
145 Baltacı, Cahit, XV.-XVI. Asırlarda Osmanlı Medreseleri, Istanbul: 1976, p. 27.
146 Evliya Çelebi, Türkçesiyle Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi: İstanbul, p. 91.
147 Grelot, A Late Voyage to Constantinople, London: 1683, p. 114.
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the ground and crying out Alla hecher’148, giving an account of a day of Ramadan in Hagia Sophia.149
Hagia Sophia, which was not constructed as an Ottoman mosque complex, but was a Byzantine monument absorbed by the city's new regime, was a unique case in the Ottoman architectural practice in terms of its very transformation into a sultanic funerary complex and the gradual nature of its transformation; the process that began with Mehmed II's conversion of the church was completed by Selim II. Additions made after Selim II were only to reinforce the royal funerary architectural character of the complex, including the construction of the mausoleums of Murad III, princes, Mehmed III, and the conversion of the old Baptistery into a mausoleum for the members of the dynasty.
The Atmeydanı
The mausoleum of Selim II was the first dynastic mausoleum constructed around the district named as the Atmeydanı throughout the Ottoman era. This was the space where the Byzantine Hippodrome was located, which was constructed by the Roman Emperor Septimus Severus in the second century A.C. as a walled platform on which the chariot races and other entertainments took place. Rebuilt and enlarged by Constantine in the first half of the fourth century A.C., the Hippodrome continued to be used as the center of various social activities of the Byzantine capital. The Byzantine Hippodrome also functioned primarily as a sports center where chariot races and circuses took place and many of momentous occasions celebrated
148 Ibid., p. 115.
149 Ibid., pp. 111-117.
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including the acclamation of the emperor after his accession to the throne; victories of many emperors and generals, and the execution of the emperors after being deposed.150 The main ceremonial and public space of the Byzantine city was transformed into an "open space" in the Ottoman system151, whose boundaries were not defined by its contemporary inhabitants; though it was depicted as a wide place in the words of Peçevi, as the ninth sphere of the heavens.152 The Ottoman Atmeydanı surmounted the boundaries of the Hippodrome and included a wider area that was not identified by an enclosure or walls; although major monumental edifices seem to have marked its boundaries -the Ibrahim Pasha Palace and the Firuzağa Mosque on its northern side and the Sultan Ahmet Mosque Complex on its southern side- in the process of the Ottomanization of the space. (Map 2)
In approximately half a century after the construction of Selim II's mausoleum in 1574, five other dynastic mausolea were erected to the north-west of the Atmeydanı, if one includes the Baptistery of Hagia Sophia that was converted into a mausoleum. (Map 2, 3b-c-d-e) In the second half of the sixteenth century and the early years of the seventeenth, the site became a new locus for dynastic mausolea. In this section, I will try to find out and analyze the reasons behind the choice of this new location with reference to multiple changes in the urban and architectural activity of the dynasty, as well as in the self-definition and representational policy of the Ottoman sultans. My analyses will be two-folded; first I will read the construction of the mausolea as a part of the re-making of the Atmeydanı realized approximately in one hundred years between 1520s and 1620s.
150 Freely, John, Istanbul: The Imperial City, London: 1998, pp. 25-40.
151 Işın, Ekrem, “Atmeydanı: The Problematic of a Cross-Cultural Venue” in Hippodrome/ Atmeydanı: A Stage for Istanbul’s History I, Istanbul: 2010, p. 12.
152 Peçevi İbrahim Efendi, Peçevi Tarihi-I, edit. Bekir Sıtkı Baykal, Ankara: 1991, p. 50.
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Second, I will try to read the mausoleums in relation with the changes in the image of the sultan and of his court that occurred in the second half of the sixteenth century during which the palace was extended both physically and metaphorically and, the city came to resemble a courtly scene. It has to be underlined, however, that the construction of the mausolea near the Atmeydanı was neither a reason nor a result of these two-folded process directly; rather it is part and parcel of a larger picture.
From early decades of the sixteenth century into the seventeenth, the Ottoman dynasty and the elites engaged in an intensive construction activity in the Atmeydanı. Although construction activities were held in the decades after the takeover of Constantinople, they were not enough for the place to gain a more conspicuous "Ottoman" character; they were more likely the early marks on the former Constantinopolitan cityscape made by the new owners of the city for underlining the change in the character of its sovereign. After the conversion of Hagia Sophia into the main mosque of the city, the construction of the New Palace/ Topkapi Palace has to be noted as the major Ottoman construction around the region of the Byzantine Hippodrome. The sixteenth century chroniclers defined the reason behind the choice of the location of Mehmed II's New Palace -the Old one being on the site of the Byzantine Forum Tauri- as its proximity to two great imperial monuments, Hagia Sophia and the Hippodrome.153 It was erected on the actual place of the Byzantine Acropolis, thus, 'through the site it was located on, the New Palace reproduced the spatial configuration of the symbolic and the actual center of the Byzantine city,
153 Necipoğlu, Gülru, Architecture, Ceremonial and Power: The Topkapı Palace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, Cambridge: 1991, p. 12.
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where the loci of rule, of faith, and of urban ceremonial were embodied in the triad of the Great Palace, Hagia Sophia and the Atmeydanı/ Hippodrome.'154
Apart from the reconstruction of the above-mentioned tripartite in their 'production of space' with reference to the Byzantine past, members of the Ottoman dynasty and of the military-bureaucratic class constructed different edifices around the Atmeydanı and 'other structures from the Byzantine era were restored and allocated to various functions'155 in the decades following the conquest. Among these were small mosques as the Güngörmez Masjid, Üskübi Ibrahim Ağa Masjid (Map 2, 4), Ishak Pasha Mosque (Map 2, 9a), Nahilbend Mosque (Map 2, 11) and Firuzağa Mosque (Map 2, 8); public baths as the Ishak Pasha Hammam (Map 2, 9b), Acı Hammam (Map 2, 11); and other religious structures like convents and schools as the Sinan Erdebili Tekke (Map 2, 13), Iskender Pasha Primary school and tomb (Map 2, 12), which were all commissioned by the members of the Ottoman bureaucratic class. The Arslanhane (Map 2, 4), one of the most important edifices that survived from the Byzantine era, has also to be mentioned, which was a former church converted into a menagerie for lions in the Ottoman times.156 These structures built before 1530s seem to be erected first for answering the needs of the populace living around the area -their architectural monumentality were not much pronounced-; though they were also small steps for transforming the place into an Ottoman site.
According to Kuban, construction around the Atmeydanı gained pace with the complete transference of the palace into the Topkapı, with Sinan's construction of
154 Kafescioğlu, Çiğdem, “The Ottoman Imperial Capital: Istanbul between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries” in Bisanzio, Constantinopoli, Istanbul, Milan: 2008, p. 6.
155 Tanman, M. Baha, and Çobanoğlu, A.Vefa, “Ottoman Architecture in Atmeydanı and Its Environs” in Hippodrome/ Atmeydanı: A Stage For Istanbul’s History II, Istanbul: 2010, p. 36.
156 Tanman and Çobanoğlu, pp. 37-40.
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the palace kitchens and, the construction of the Ibrahim Pasha Palace on the western side of the square (Map 2, 1).157 The exact date of the Ibrahim Pasha Palace's construction is not known yet, however, the existence of a repair report from 1520 displays that it was constructed at some point before 1520.158 The palace of Ibrahim pasha mirrors the palace of the sultan in several respects; it seems the sultan wanted to present Ibrahim in public 'as his beloved friend with whom he wanted to share all that he had, including his royal prerogatives.'159 The palace's significance comes from its central location overlooking the Atmeydanı, designating its southern border at the same time; throughout the sixteenth century, the façade of the palace had been used as the belvedere for the sultans on which they viewed the festivities held at the square. The seventeenth century chronicler Peçevi refers the place as sûrgah-ı kadîm (the old wedding place) because the sultans viewed the festivities from this belvedere. The location and the structure of the edifice makes one think that it was designed as an equivalent of the Byzantine Cathisma Palace on which the emperors viewed the games and festivities at the Hippodrome.160 Here again, it seems the imperial choreography was recreated on the urban scale by appropriating the Byzantine past, as in the case of the construction of the New Palace. The Ibrahim Pasha Palace was not used as the palace of Ibrahim Pasha for long, it was assigned to different pashas and bureaucrats after his death and part of it was devoted to acemi
157 Kuban, Doğan, “Atmeydanı” in Hippodrome/ Atmeydanı II: A Stage For Istanbul’s History, Istanbul: 2010, p. 23.
158 Atasoy, Nurhan, Atmeydanı ve İbrahim Paşa Sarayı, Istanbul: 1972, p. 13.
159 Turan, p. 14.
160Atasoy, p. 14.
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oglanlari after 1580.161 Its usage as the stage for the imperial festivities continued throughout the century, however. (Figure 12)
Several other vizier palaces were constructed at the Atmeydanı and its environs in the sixteenth century; a great majority belongs to its later decades. Because they were wooden palaces in general, a great majority of them were damaged during the fires; only two of them could survive until today: the Ibrahim Pasha Palace and the Taşoda.162 Contemporary chronicles mentioned the names of some palaces around this area -most of them belonging to the 1570s- as the palaces of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha (taken down during the construction of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque), Rüstem Pasha, Semiz Ali Pasha, Güzel Ahmed Pasha, Behram Pasha and Kapudan Sinan Pasha.163 It is not clear, however, whether each pasha had his own palace or some palaces were used by different pashas in that process. What has to be considered is the very existence of this crowd of monumental vizier residences at the heart of the city, as a part of the main urban scene, in such a proximity to the palace: The later decades of the sixteenth century witnessed the transition of the court beyond the walls of the imperial palace. The actors of the court all became visible and represented by the architectural monuments and ceremonial settings in that particular era at the stage of the Atmeydanı, including the sultan, his viziers, and his family.
The construction of the Haseki Hamam (Map 2, 26) next to the Atmeydanı can be read in this particular context, as the intensive construction activity at the southern part of Hagia Sophia complex including the dynastic mausolea. (Figure 13)
161 Artan, Tülay, “Alay Köşkü Yakınlarında Babıali’nin Oluşumu ve Süleymaniye’de Bir Sadrazam Sarayı” in Bir Allame-I Cihan: Stefanos Yerasimos (1942-2005), Istanbul: 2012, p. 79.
162 Artan, p. 74-75.
163 Ibid., p. 79.
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Designed by the architect Sinan and commissioned by Haseki Hürrem in 1556, the Haseki Hammam was constructed across Hagia Sophia on the northeastern corner of the Atmeydanı.164As the first woman whom the sultan married in the period after the conquest and the first haseki who became the patron of monumental architecture in Istanbul, Haseki Hürrem was seen as the first among the royal women with increasing agency and visibility at the court, as well as at the urban scene, through their architectural projects located at significant points of the urban and ceremonial topography of Istanbul.165 Constructing a monumental public bath in her name at the very center of the city, in proximity to the imperial palace and Hagia Sophia, would pronounce her existence as an actor by reinforcing her visibility at the urban scene.
The last construction activity around the Atmeydanı relevant in our context was the Sultan Ahmed Mosque Complex (Map 2, 29a), which was constructed between 1609 and 1620 by Ahmed I. The mosque complex is located between the first two hills of Istanbul, at the southern and southwestern side of the Atmeydanı, across the Ibrahim Pasha Palace.166 Naima relates that this imaret was erected on the places of two vizier palaces, the palaces of Ahmed Pasha and Mehmed Pasha, which can belong to the two-storied wooden palaces seen in the miniature of the Matrakçı Nasuh depicted in the early sixteenth century.167 (Figure 14) The construction of this large complex on the southern edge of the Atmeydanı seems to be far from being functional, if its proximity to the main imperial mosque Hagia Sophia is taken into
164 Tanman and Çobanoğlu, p. 42.
165 Thys-Şenocak, Lucienne, Ottoman Woman Builders: The Architectural Patronage of Hadice Turhan Sultan, Aldershot and Burlington: 2006, chapters 1&3.
166 Nayır, Zeynep, Osmanlı Mimarlığında Sultan Ahmet Külliyesi ve Sonrası (1609-1690), Istanbul: 1975, p. 36.
167 Ibid., p. 37.
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consideration. The motive(s) behind this choice of locus needs more contextual investigation; but it was presumably related to the new configuration of the Atmeydanı in the context of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. The enclosure of the mosque complex facing the Atmeydanı and the mausoleum of Sultan Ahmed seem to have marked the southern and southeastern borders of the square. If one considers the Ibrahim Pasha Palace and the Firuz Ağa Mosque as markers indicating the northern and northeastern borders of the Atmeydanı, then, with the construction of the Sultan Ahmed Complex, the process of the transformation of the former "open space" into a square with more or less defined borders was completed. This was an almost one hundred year-long process conducted by different patrons with no single defined urban agenda, unlike the construction of the Maidan-e Naqsh-e Jahan in Isfahan, which was a "project", if the use of the term would not seem anachronistic, of one single patron -Shah Abbas I- with one defined religio-political agenda manifested in the making of an urban center. Related to that, the borders of the maidan of Isfahan was more clearly defined than those of the Atmeydanı.168
The construction of the dynastic mausolea at the southern façade of the Hagia Sophia complex, within the visual frame of the Atmeydanı seems to be far from being coincidental; if it is read in relation with the construction boom and the increasing ceremonial activity held at the Atmeydanı at the turn of the seventeenth century. If the mausoleum of the deceased sultan was constructed to commemorate
168 For more extensive information about the construction of the Naqsh-e Jahan square see: Babaie, Sussan, Isfahan and Its Palaces: Statecraft, Shi’ism and the Architecture of Conviviality in Early Modern Iran, Edinburgh: 2008; Blow, David, Shah Abbas: The Ruthless King who became An Iranian Legend, London; New York: 2009.
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him and to manifest the continuity of the dynasty,169 a series of monumental dynastic mausoleums constructed as a part of an urban choreography would be the visual and physical signifiers intensifying the message of the very existence and the continuity of the sultan and his dynasty. Conceptualizing the edifices in question including the dynastic mausolea as representational structures necessitates associating them with an audience, thus the Atmeydanı should be depicted in its social context. As Kuban indicated, ' as far as urban structure is concerned, the defining factor here is not the location and effect of the architecture around the square, but rather the functional variety of its uses.'170 (Figure 15)
The sixteenth century poet Taşlıcalı Yahya depicts the Atmeydanı as "menba'ı huban ü aşıkan olan Atmeydanı" (the place of the beauties and lovers) at the beginning of his poem about the Atmeydanı: "oldı şehr içre Atmeydanı/ hublar mecma'ı safa kanı/ cem olurlar oraya hasile 'am/ sanki adem denizidür o makam".171 As the poet's description indicates, the site was a crowded place where people from the lower and higher ranks of the society came together. Virtually, the Atmeydanı was the main public square of the Ottoman capital city where festivities and ceremonies took place, as was the Hippodrome of the Byzantine Constantinople. The memory of the place was inherited and appropriated not only architecturally; but also socially because architectural monumentality imbued with imperial grandeur and representation necessitates an addressee to discourse the identity and legacy of the sovereign. ‘The Hippodrome was the center of social activities of the Byzantine
169 Necipoğlu, “The Dynastic Imprints on the Cityscape: The Collective Message of Imperial Funerary Mosque Complexes in Istanbul”, p. 33.
170 Kuban, “Atmeydanı”, p. 22.
171 From the masnawi “Şah u Geda” of Taşlıcalı Yahya; Levend, Agah Sırrı, Türk Edebiyatında Şehrengizler ve Şehrengizlerde İstanbul, Istanbul: 1958, p. 104.
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capital with its races, festivities, ceremonies and occasional uprisings and massacres.’172 It was a place where the emperors were crowned and the uncrowned heads of some emperors were thrown into this place173; the place was embedded with an intense political memory, also. The Ottoman Atmeydanı was also used as the site of festivities, ceremonies, games and feasts held for foreign ambassadors and it witnessed uprisings and massacres.174
In the period under consideration, namely the turn of the seventeenth century, the Atmeydanı was first and foremost associated with royal festivities rather than massacres and uprisings. Although there are a few accounts of penalties belonging to the earlier period175, the place gained character as the site of penalties and uprisings in the first half of the seventeenth century. Thus, my focus will be more on the festivities and ceremonials because they give clearer clues for apprehending the context in question.
The festivities held at Atmeydanı were organized on various occasions including religious holidays, weddings and circumcision ceremonies, the army going off to war, a victory at the end of a war, and the birth of a şehzade.176The first royal festivity in Atmeydanı was held in 1490 under the reign of Beyazıd II; it was organized for the circumcision of şehzades and wedding of the sultan’s daughter.177
172 Kuban, “Atmeydanı”, p. 20.
173 Konyalı, İbrahim Hakkı, İstanbul Sarayları: Atmeydanı Sarayı, Pertevpaşa Sarayı, Istanbul: 1984, p. 7.
174 Nutku, Özdemir, “Festivities In Atmeydanı” in Hippodrome/ Atmeydanı II: A Stage For Istanbul’s History, Istanbul: 2010, p. 72.
175 See: Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul: cultural encounter, imperial vision, and the construction of Ottoman capital, p. 137.
176 Nutku, p. 74.
177 Ibid., p. 75.
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Under the reign of Süleyman I, four such festivities were held at the Atmeydanı in 1524, 1525, 1530 and 1539, all organized for the circumcision of the şehzades except the first one held for the marriage of Ibrahim Pasha and the daughter of Iskender pasha.178 Peçevi gives detailed accounts of these three festivities conducted at the Atmeydanı in his chronicle. He relates that the site was decorated with tents of the high rank bureaucrats, nahıls (a kind of artificial tree) and other luxury objects; people from different ranks of the society were dined; craftsmen displayed their works and, different kinds of entertainments were held.179
The second half of the sixteenth century witnessed the longest, the most impressive and splendid festivities held at the Ottoman Atmeydanı. While three small festivities were organized at Atmeydanı during the short reign of Selim II; a number of brilliant festivities were held under the reign of Murad III, the most impressive being the circumcision festival of 1582.180 It was the biggest festivity in Ottoman history, which lasted for more than fifty days and nights and the greatest international festival of the sixteenth century with ambassadors and guests from different realms.181 Among the guests the ambassador of Safavid Iran had particular
178 Ibid., p. 75, 77.
179 Peçevi İbrahim Efendi, Peçevi Tarihi-I, p. 84, 85, 86, 118, 119.
180 Nutku, p. 80.
181 “Merhum Sultan Süleyman hazretleri asr-I şeriflerinde iki defa sur-ı hattan-ı şehzadegân vâki’ olmağla ol cemiyetlerin ihrâcâtı defterleri görüldi. Vesâ’ir levâzım ve mühimmâta mübâşeret etdirildi. Evvelâ mülûk-u etrâf da’vetine nâmeler yazılub müteferrikalardan benâm ademler irsâli mukarrer oldı. Cümleden Kırım hânına ve serif-i Mekke cenâblarına ve bazı mülûk-u Hind ve Fars’a ve cânib-i Rum’da kefere-i fecerenin ‘azam-ı mülûki Çâsâr nâmına olan bednâm Franço ve Venedik ümerâsına ve hükkâm-ı ehl-i İslam ve ‘ibâd-ı inâyet-mu’tad pâdişâh-ı enâm olân Mısır ve Haleb ve Şâm ve Bağdat ve Yemen ve Diyarbekir ve Basra ve Lahsa ve Erzurum vesâ’ir mîr-i mîrân behcet-rüsûm ve mülûk-u Ekrâd’dan olân ümerâ-yı benâm taraflarına ve umumâ zikr olunân ayetlerde ümerâ-yi kirâm ve defterdârân-ı zevî-yi ihtirâm ve tımâr derterdârlarına ve defter kethudâlarına vesâ’ir erbâb-ı münâsib add olunân vâcibü’l-ikrâma evâmir-i şerîfe zümre-yi çeşnigirândan ve çâvuşlardan mu’temed ademler irsâl olundı ve sene-yi ‘âtiye evvel bahârında sûr-u hümâyûnum ve cemiyet-i behçetmakrûnum mukarrerdir deyu bildirildi.” Tarih-i Peçevi, vol. 2, p. 71.
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importance as a target audience it seems, because of the ongoing war between the Ottoman and the Safavid armies on the eastern Anatolia. Various mock plays performing battle scenes in which the Safavids were defeated seem to have been displayed to overcome the actual defeat of the Ottoman army, both in the eyes of the Ottoman and the foreign audiences including the Safavid ambassador.182 (Figure 16)
There was one particular difference of this festivity from the former ones. Here for the first time, the sultan did not attend the receptions given for the ‘ulama, the notables and the viziers, as it had been the custom. The historian Mustafa Ali interpreted his absence from the receptions as a divergence from the kanun, from the dynastic tradition.183 Peçevi also underlines the difference of the sultan's attitude from the earlier sultans'; 'he objected to the sultan's absence because the new arrangement did not allow for even a modicum of intimacy between the sultan and his grandees.'184 The new attitude of the sultan seems to reflect the changes in the policy of the sultan towards its notables and viziers that I discussed earlier in this chapter. He seems to display his changing relationship with his viziers to a larger audience by not attending their protocols; thus he would manifest that his authority and sovereignty were out and beyond that of his viziers, his slaves.
For the circumcision festival, during days and nights, several shows and games were performed at the Atmeydanı -decorated with nahıls-; it witnessed the parade of the trade guilds and the presents the tradesmen gave to the sultan.185 Peçevi narrates the festivity in his chronicle in detail:
182 Terzioğlu, Derin, “The Imperial Circumcision Festival of 1582: An Interpretation” in Muqarnas Vol. 12, Leiden: 1995, p. 86.
183 Ibid., p. 88, 89.
184 Ibid., p. 89.
185 Ibid., 83-85.
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The royal gathering began with the appointment of a staunch for the festivity with three hundred responsible incumbents. …At the beginning of that month, the sultan came to the Atmeydanı Palace (Ibrahim Pasha Palace) and seated. First, the notables layed their gifts before the sultan. Than,craftsmen displayed their arts and, gifts and money were given to them. The events and shows of this festivity was too much and it is impossible to depict all of them.
186
The audience of the processions of the craftsmen was divers and crowded, thus the message they conveyed would be perceived by different groups and different layers of the society. That was a scene that gave the sultan a great opportunity to discourse the splendor of his order and sovereignty. As Kafescioğlu indicates: “such processions, where artisan communities, alongside other largely urban professional groups passed before the sultan and his entourage of grandees and prestigious guests, added up to an imperial self-portrait, an ideal construction of the Ottoman social order as choreographed by the palace… Their display of crafts, techniques, and objects was in effect a spectacular display of Ottoman wealth at large, while simultaneously locating each group in relation to each other and to the larger social order…where court and city met at the ancient Hippodrome for a multivalent display of self-representation.”187 (Figures 17, 18)
The Atmeydanı was not only the site where the splendor, generosity and the order of the sultanate was manifested during the festivities. The most splendid festival conducted at the Atmeydanı ended with turmoil, the massacre of two cavalry men. Peçevi relates that a few young men from the Janissaries were seen together with prostitutes in their cages by the subaşı, who tried to take the women out. The Janissaries opposed the subaşı and did not let the women go out, than they punished the cavalrymen and brought them to the public square, before the sultan. The events
186 Peçevi, İbrahim, Tarih-i Peçevi , vol.2, p. 71, 72.
187 Kafescioğlu, “The Ottoman Imperial Capital: Istanbul between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries”, p. 32.
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ended up with a fight between the cavalrymen and the Janissaries, and the festivities were ended by the sultan after two cavalry men were killed. This was neither the first nor the last turmoil the Atmeydanı witnessed during its Ottoman period. In the following decades, the site began to be associated more with the uprisings, especially of the Janissaries,188than with imperial festivities and processions. As from the middle decades of the seventeenth century, royal festivities began to be conducted either in Edirne or in different loci of Istanbul such as the Okmeydanı, the Golden Horn and the Bosporus in the following centuries. (Figures 19, 20)
As I discussed earlier in this chapter, in this period the image and the representational policy of the sultan began to change under the reign of Murad III in a way that established the sultan as the sovereign who retained all authority in his hands; for that he had to diminish the power of his viziers, the main and most powerful shareholders of sultan’s power, even overshadowing his authority. The sultan’s solution was to create a new locus of power within his court by the establishment of new offices at the imperial court, whose members were raised within the palace and devoted to the sultan. This went hand in hand with a change in the structure and the borders of the palace: It was no longer functioning as a seasonal stop where the sultan and his court could rest in between campaigns, but it was ‘expanded into a full-time residence inhabited by a considerably increased population.’189 In this era when the sultan was seated in the capital city in his palace, according to Necipoğlu, ‘the sultan’s seclusion turned stately royal processions through the city into highly charged events’.190 The frequency of the sultan’s
188 Tezcan, p. 213-225.
189 Necipoğlu, “The Dynastic Imprints on the Cityscape: The Collective Message of Imperial Funerary Mosque Complexes in Istanbul”, p. 23.
190 Ibid, p.30.
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processions was increased and they were complemented by boat processions along the Golden Horn and the Bosporus; the palace ceremonial displaying the imperial power was extended into the larger fabric of Istanbul.191
Constructed in such an historical context in which the number and frequency of royal festivities and ceremonials were increased, the mausoleums of Selim II, Murad III and Mehmed III were located in a relevant space. The Hagia Sophia complex was the main imperial mosque complex of the dynasty, which was the proximate monument to the Topkapı Palace. Hagia Sophia and the dynastic mausoleums were the first steps on the way from the Topkapı Palace to the Divan Yolu avenue, which was the main processional road of the dynasty. The mausoleums located to the southwest of the Hagia Sophia were in the visual sphere of the Divan Yolu avenue and the Atmeydanı at the same time; these were two main sites on which royal processions and festivities took place. Located in a corner where the Divan Yolu met with the Atmeydanı, the positioning of the dynastic mausolea seem to have been relevant in the urban and ceremonial context of the late sixteenth century. (Map 1, Selim II, Murad III, Mehmed III; Map 2, 3b-c-e)
The increase in the number and frequency of the imperial festivals and royal processions, thus, has to be read in relation with the sultan’s new policy of self-representation, shaped in the second half of the sixteenth century. The sedentary sultan, who no longer went to the campaigns with his army and was not mentioned with his military victories, seems to prefer to compensate this with ceremonial arrays held at different significant points of the city, the most central being the Atmeydanı. The building boom and the intensive and frequent royal ceremonies at the Atmeydanı have to be read together for gaining a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the
191 Ibid., p. 30.
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transformation of the place in the later decades of the sixteenth century; as a matter of fact, the Hagia Sophia mausoleums were part and parcel of that particular conjuncture.
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CHAPTER III
THE SULTANS AND THEIR MAUSOLEUMS
The Hagia Sophia complex gained a funerary character with the construction of four dynastic mausolea and the conversion of the Baptistery into a tomb in approximately half a century. The mausoleums of Selim II, şehzadegan, Murad III and Mehmed III were constructed one after the other between 1574 and 1603. The southern facet of Hagia Sophia was marked by four monumental mausolea in thirty years, all facing the Atmeydanı, in dialogue with this urban center; but separated from the street by an enclosure wall at the same time. This process in which the courtyard of the Hagia Sophia complex transformed into a dynastic graveyard was completed with the conversion of the Baptistery into a dynastic mausoleum in 1639. The construction of these mausoleums was discussed in the first chapter in its urban context with reference to a larger political and historical frame. In this chapter, I will try to describe and analyze the architecture of the mausolea in relation to the architectural culture of the dynastic milieu. First, I will give brief accounts of the reigns and deaths of each sultan and present formal descriptions of the architecture of their mausoleums in a chronological order. In the last section, I will analyze the architecture, epigraphy and decoration of the mausolea together, in relation with the mausoleums of the previous Ottoman sultans and, with reference to the cultural and institutional context in which the mausoleums were constructed.
The Mausoleum of Selim II
The first mausoleum constructed in the courtyard of the Hagia Sophia complex was erected for Sultan Selim II, the successor of Süleyman. Selim II acceded to the throne as the eleventh sultan of the dynasty in 974/ 1566 at the age of forty four
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although he was the less-favorite heir apparent in the early years of his princedom. Mustafa ‘Ali relates that unlike his three brothers, he was not favored or supported by any contemporary locus of power. The majority of the military class as well as the ‘ulama favored Mustafa; the palace-educated aghas supported Cihangir; while Beyazıd was the favorite of his father, mother and the grand vizier Rüstem Pasha.192 Despite his position among his brothers, he became the only heir to the throne before his father's death. While his brothers Mehmed and Cihangir died of an illness; Mustafa and Beyazıd were executed by their fathers because they were seen as threats for the throne of Süleyman .193Mustafa 'Ali relates that Selim spent his years of princedom with his affiliated companions consisting of poets, musicians and courtiers; while his brothers were preparing themselves to the throne in different ways. For that reason his accession was found unexpected by his contemporaries, even by his own courtiers, including Mustafa ‘Ali.194His eight year-long reign was also spent with his companions in his palace, as was his princedom years; various contemporary accounts relate that during his reign, he did not engage in state and military affairs; he vested them to his grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, and spent most of his time in his court in Istanbul.
The short reign of Selim II ended with his death in 982/ 1574. Contemporary chroniclers offer different reasons for his death. According to Selaniki, the sultan decided to leave his old habits including wine, music and entertainment; came together with the Halveti Sheikh Güdüslü Mehmed Efendi and repented; this was
192 Çerçi, Faris, Gelibolulu Mustafa ‘Ali ve Künhü’l-Ahbar’ında II. Selim, III. Murat ve III.Mehmet Devirleri- II, Kayseri: 2000, p.1.
193Imber, Colin, The Ottoman Empire: 1300-1650, New York: 2002, pp. 96-115.
194Çerçi, p. 2-3.
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approximately one month before his death. Thus, Selaniki relates the reason behind Selim II’s death as his sudden withdrawal from wine195; while Peçevi recounts that he became ill and died after he fell in his private bath.196 Peçevi’s account is supported by Mustafa ‘Ali, who relates that Selim II came down with pyrexia after his fall in his private bath.197What is certain is that Selim II was the first sultan who died in Istanbul. The death of the sultan was concealed with the agency of Haseki Nurbanu and, his corpse was kept in the icehouse until Murad III, the successor of Selim II, arrived in Istanbul and ascended the throne. It was the eigth day of the Ramadan, when Murad III was enthroned and ordered the murder of five şehzades and, when the coffin of Selim II was taken out of the palace.198 (Figure 21)
Selaniki gives a detailed account of Selim II’s funeral in his chronicle. He recounts that the corpse of Selim II was prepared for the burial and the müezins (caller of daily praying of Muslims) were told to announce the death of the sultan. The viziers and other bureaucrats were present in front of babüssa’ade. The coffin of Selim II was carried to the third courtyard after Murad III came with his purple velvet caftan. A wooden throne was placed amongst cypresses in the courtyard on which the coffin was put in the direction of the qibla. The Sultan, the grand vizier and other viziers performed the funeral prayer with Müfti Hamid Efendi, who was the prayer leader. Then, the coffin was taken out of the palace on the shoulders of the viziers accompanied with lamentations of people and brought to the western side of Hagia Sophia mosque, where a grave for the deceased sultan was dug. A temporary
195Selaniki Mustafa Efendi, Tarih-i Selaniki-I, p. 98.
196Peçevi, p.
197Gelibolulu Mustafa ‘Ali ve Künhü’l-Ahbar’ında II. Selim, III. Murat ve III.Mehmet Devirleri- II, p. 90.
198Tarih-i Selaniki-I, p. 98, 99, 100.
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tent was erected over the grave around which people from ulama and sheiks were praying for the deceased.199Stephan Gerlach, who visited this tent during his visit to Istanbul with the Austrian ambassadors as a Protestant preacher, relates that the sarcophagi of Selim II and his five sons were covered with precious textiles and the clothes of the deceased; vases with roses and other flowers were surrounding them.200 Witnessing the funeral of Selim II, Gerlach also relates that Murad III sacrificed four hundred sheep for his deceased father at the day of the funeral.201 In the following years, Nurbanu Sultan -the wife of Selim II and mother of Murad III-, Ismihan Sultan -the wife of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha- with her sons and daughters, and the daughters and şehzades of Murad III were buried in the mausoleum of Selim II.202
Based on a deed, Danişmend claims that the construction of the mausoleum began in the life-time of Selim II.203 This is quite possible because Peçevi and Mustafa ‘Ali recounted that Selim II planned to construct his own mausoleum as a part of his renovation and construction activity in the Hagia Sophia complex, as I mentioned in the previous chapter.204The mausoleum’s construction was completed in 984/ 1576 according to the Turkish foundation inscription on the entrance door, which was written in thuluth calligraphy on a tile panel. The inscription written in verse includes prayers for the deceased sultan and his five sons; likens the
199Tarih-i Selaniki-I, p. 101.
200Gerlach, Stephan, Türkiye Günlüğü, edited Kemal Beydilli and translated Turkis Noyan, Istanbul: 2007, p. 169.
201Gerlach, p. 160.
202Dursun, A. Haluk, Ayasofya Müzesi Kültür Envanteri, Istanbul: 2011, p. 51.
203Danişmend, İsmail Hami, İzahlı Osmanlı Tarihi Kronolojisi III, Istanbul: 1972, p. 2.
204See chapter 1,footnotes 62 and 63.
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mausoleum to the gardens of heaven and, gives the construction date of the pious sultan’s mausoleum as 984.205 (Figure 22 ) The architect of Selim II's mausoleum is Sinan, who has been associated with the so-called "Ottoman classical architecture", both in the Ottoman architectural tradition and much of the modern scholarship. Recruited as a devşirme from a village of Kayseri -Ağırnas- under the reign of Selim I, he passed through his provincial service and his terms of cadetship quickly; he began to participate in the military campaigns as a full-fledged janissary beginning in 1521, with the Belgrade campaign of Süleyman. Successively, he took part in the campaigns of Rhodes(1522), Mohacs (1526), Germany (1529), Two Iraqs (1534), Corfu and Apulia (1537) and Moldovia (1538), which gave him the opportunity to rise in the ranks of the Janissaries as well as to see various architectural works and urban cultures of different realms including the architectural cultures of the Mediterranean, Persian and Arab lands. His appointment as the Chief Court Architect towards the end of his Janissary career cannot be associated only with his competence as an architect and an engineer; his wide knowledge of different architectural and urban practices as well as his experience acquired during military campaigns must have also played a role.206 In 1538, Sinan was appointed as the Chief Court architect and held this office for half a century (1538-1588) under the reigns of Süleyman I, Selim II and Murad III. He was responsible for the erection and reparation of more than three hundred edifices including the mosques, masjids, tombs, madrasas, palaces, caravanserais,
205 “Rıhlet etdi Sultan Selim/ Ana rahmet ide Rabbü’l-Âlemin
Geçdi evlâd-ı kirâmıyla o Şah/ Rahmetu’llâhi aleyhim ecme’ıyn
Yapdılar bir türbe-i cennet missal/ Türbe-i Sultan Selim-i pâk-i dîn. 984”, Doğanay, Aziz, Osmanlı Tezyinatı, Istanbul: 2009, p. 291.
206Kuran, Aptullah,Sinan: The Great Old Master of Ottoman Architecture, Istanbul: 1987, pp. 23-26.
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baths, aqueducts and bridges located in different parts of the Ottoman realms.207 Three tezkires composed by Sinan's contemporaries -Tezkiretü'l-Bünyan, Tezkiretü'l-Ebniye and Tuhfetü'l-Mimarin- attributed forty five mausoleums to Sinan.208 The mausoleum of Selim II was not the first tomb structure he was responsible for; beforehand, he engaged in the design and construction of different tombs including the mausoleums of the members of the Ottoman dynasty, those of şehzade Mehmed, Haseki Hürrem and Süleyman. Thus, for the mausoleum of Selim II, he was adequately experienced and designed one of the most beautiful tombs among the mausolea of the members of the Ottoman dynasty.
The mausoleum is designed as a square in its plan, with chamfered corners. (Figures 23, 24) The result is an irregular octagon, whose four walls on its corners are narrower than the others. This octagonal plan resembles a particular plan type called muthamman baghdadi, which is often used in the contemporary funerary and palatial monuments of the Safavid and Mughal architecture such as the mausolea of Hümayun and the Taj Mahal, and the Safavid palaces of Chihil Sütun and Hesht Behesht in Isfahan.209As far as I know, Selim II's mausoleum is the only tomb structure in the Ottoman architecture on which this plan is applied. The tomb is preceded by a three-arched portico on its eastern side. The outer façades of the cut-stone edifice are covered with white marble adorned by elegant rosettes and twisting motifs. (Figure 25) The use of marble to cover the outer walls of the Ottoman dynastic mausolea was a relatively new practice, it matured in the mausoleum of Süleyman it can be claimed. Beforehand cut-stone had been mostly preferred in the
207 Kuran, pp. 23-26.
208Necipoğlu, Gülru (editor), Sinan’s Autobiographies: Five Sixteenth Century Texts, Leiden; Boston: 2006, pp. 66-69, 78-81, 96-97.
209Koch, Ebba, Mughal Architecture, New York: 1991, p. 45.
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tombs of Istanbul.210 The more extensive use of marble, that is a more expensive and precious material than stone, seems to be related to the increasing wealth and splendor of the dynasty reflected also in the patronage of arts and architecture, or the aspiration to display them. The marble is used also in the floor paneling the portico, which is covered by lead. The portico is defined by three arches established in a bilateral geometrical configuration; the arches are composed of ablaq masonry obtained by the sequential use of white and red marbles. The central arch leads one to the wooden entrance door of the mausoleum, which is decorated with kündekari design and inlaid mother of pearl.
The interior space displays a square layout that is crowned by a double-shell dome whose height measures 15.42 meters and its width measures 11.34 meters.211Eight columns preceeding on fronts of the walls form a perfect octagonal inner arcade carrying the dome. (Figure 26) The edifice does not have an outer arcade; its layered façades were articulated by cornices and horizontal moldings. The link between the inner arcade and the façades is achieved with flange arches; while the corners of the square are linked to the inner arcade with exedras. As a typical feature of Sinan’s mosques and mausoleums, the façades are fenestrated with multiple lines of windows creating a luminous inner space. The lowest register of the three-layered walls are adorned with four windows that is repeated in the second stage; while there are five windows in the third layer. Over the entrance door, there is a balcony constructed for the reciters of the Quran, whose first example is seen in the mausoleum of Süleyman I and that is used in the mausoleums of Murad III and Mehmed III in addition to that of Selim II.
210Önkal, Hakkı, Osmanlı Hanedan Türbeleri, Ankara: 1992, p. 24.
211Dursun, p. 51.
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The interior and exterior decoration of the mausoleum is achieved with the extensive use of ceramic tiles; the wood work used in the entrance door, and the window shutters is also noteworthy. Tiles on the exterior of the mausoleum are concentrated on the right and left wings of the portico as well as on the monumental portal over the entrance door. The construction inscription is written on a square panel and placed onto the center of a larger panel laid out in a blind pointed arch, written in thuluth-style calligraphy in white on a lapis-lazuli ground; the lines are divided into compartments.212 The area between the square inscriptional panel and the larger frame is decorated with floral leaf motifs painted on a white ground. The composition is completed with red tiles forming cartouches. Two identical tile panels decorating the portico to each side of the entrance door measure 240x152 cm.213The panel on the left side was stolen by a French doctor named Dorigny and a replica of the original was put there instead. The original panel is now in Louvre Museum in Paris. The panel is framed by a narrow tile band that is decorated with white cloud motifs painted on a lapis-lazuli ground. At the center of the panel is a large elliptical rosette that is ornamented with spring branches and flowers. The white ground around the rosette is filled with hatayi and rumi motifs. (Figure 27) Two additional semi-circular tile plates are put on these main large panels, which are decorated with intersected ten pointed star motifs and framed by the same narrow red tile borders as the main large panels.214
Inside, the entire wall surface of its four walls from the ground to the second window level is covered with tiles. Between two tiers of windows is a dense
212See footnote 13.
213Doğanay, p.298.
214Ibid., p. 297, 298.
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inscriptional band divided into compartments fitting each wall surface circulating the whole interior surface. Four ayat (passages from Quran) from the surah of Bakara (2/ 255-258)215 are inscribed on this zone in white on a lapis-lazuli ground, which is again in cursive monumental thuluth-style calligraphy.216 Above and below this inscriptional zone, there are narrow bands decorated with white Chinese cloud motifs painted on a blue ground, which are used also as contours for the panels between the windows and on the corners. The surfaces between windows are covered with panels of different compositions. One consists of tiers of sequent repetitive medallions attached to each other, which are painted on a white ground and filled with floral motifs. The other composition is of thin lines of unattached medallions, which are decorated with white and lapis-lazuli floral motifs and surrounded with hatayi designs that are attached to the medallions with leaf motifs. These panels are put into place symmetrically in a repetitive manner. The tile decoration of the interior is completed with circles laid out on the pendentives. Each of the eight pendentives is furnished with one lapis-lazuli circular ceramic panel on which Çihar Yâr-ı Güzîn –the names of Allah, Prophet Muhammed, Four Rightly-guided Sunni Caliphs, Hasan
215“ 255.Allah! There is no God save Hİm, the Alive, the Eternal. Neither slumber nor sleepovertaketh Him. Unto Him belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever in the earth. Who is the intercedeth with Him save by His leave? He knoweth that which is in front of them and that which is behind them, while they encompass nothing of His knowledge save what He will. His throne includeth the heavens and the earth, and He is never weary of preserving them. He is the Sublime, the Tremendous. 256.There is no compulsion in the religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And who rejecteth false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm hand hold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower. 257.Allah is the Protecting Friend of those who believe. He bringeth them out of darkness into light. As for those who disbelieve, their patronsa re false deities. They bring them out of light into darkness. Such are rightful owners of the Fire. They will abide therein. 258.Bethink thee of him who had an argument with Abraham about his Lord, because Allah had given him the kingdom; how, when Abraham said: My Lord is he who giveth life and causeth death, he answered: I give life and cause death. Abraham said: Lo! Allah causeth the sun tor ise in the East, so thou cause it to come up from the West. Thus was the disbeliever abashed. And Allah guideth not wrong-doing folk.” The Glorious Koran, Surah II: “The Cow”, with English translation Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, London: 1969, p. 57.
216Doğanay, p.300.
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and Hüseyin- are written in white in thuluth-style calligraphy. On the lapis-lazuli ground are leaf, flower and knot motifs, and the panels are circled with white contours decorated with rumi designs.217 (Figures 28, 29)
The Mausoleum of Şehzadegan
The second mausoleum constructed in the courtyard of the Hagia Sophia complex is that of şehzadegan, which is a small edifice located to the western side of Selim II’s mausoleum. The exact construction date of the tomb is not known; but it seems it was constructed at some point between 1576 and 1595, i.e. the completion date of Selim II’s mausoleum and the beginning date of the construction of the tomb of Murad III. This suggestion is based on the fact that one wall of this mausoleum was shaved off during the construction of the mausoleum of Murad III.218 There are five sarcophagi in this small mausoleum that belong to four sons and one daughter of Murad III, as Ayvansarayi relates.219If the mausoleum was constructed during the life time of Murad III, the sarcophagi have to be of his children who died before Murad III and accordingly, its architect has to be either Sinan or Davud Ağa.
The tomb is built of cut stone and designed as an octagon in its interior and exterior plan. The entire edifice is covered by a double-shell dome that measures 8.2 meters in height and 4.04 meters in width.220 It has a three-arched portico on its northeastern façade leading to the wooden entrance door, which is framed by a two-colored marble casement. The interior space is designed in a cross-like configuration,
217Ibid., p.300.
218Önkal, p. 176.
219Ayvansarayi, p. 46.
220 Dursun, p. 52.
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whose branches are completed with pointed arches and covered by the inner dome with pendentives. Theinterior is lit by two registers of windows. The lower level windows are arranged in pairs; while in the upper level there are twenty more windows arranged in pairs. Unlike the contemporary dynastic tombs, ceramic tiles and inscriptions are not used in the decoration of the edifice.221 (Figures 30, 31, 32)
The Mausoleum of Murad III
The third mausoleum in the courtyard of the Hagia Sophia complex was erected for Sultan Murad III, who acceded to the throne in 982/ 1574 as the twelfth sultan of the Ottoman dynasty at the age of twenty eight.222His reign was described as a turning point for the dynasty by his chroniclers; as he was portrayed as a sultan whose regime and personality was the propellant behind the change and subversion that occurred in the fabric of the state. Peçevi and Mustafa ‘Ali were among the chroniclers of his time; they indicated that the changes occurring under the reign of Murad III and the problems related to his policies were dependent on the weakness of his character. Peçevi criticized him for his love and fondness for women; for the fact that under his reign the successful viziers and statesmen were disfavored and replaced by persons like Şemsi Pasha and Şeyh Süca’, who influenced the sultan and his policies negatively, leading also to the proliferation of bribery.223 Mustafa ‘Ali, a bureaucrat in the court of Murad III under his entire reign who witnessed the events and changes in the court in this process, gives a more detailed description of the reign of Murad III, as well as offering more explicit criticism of the sultan. In his
221Önkal, p. 175.
222Çerçi, p. 226.
223Peçevi Tarihi-II, edited by Murad Uraz, Istanbul: 1969, pp. 276, 278-9, 291-2.
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analysis of Mustafa ‘Ali’s Künhü’l Ahbar, Cornell Fleischer summarizes the criticisms offered by Mustafa ‘Ali for the reign of Murad III and his personality as the sultan’s irresponsibility and susceptibility to influence; destruction of vizirial authority and respect for government; politization of ‘ilmiye and decline in learning; his inability for distinguishing true and false in spirituality; corruption at the highest level of government; the unfortunate prominence and moral corruption of the financial service; inflation and economic crisis; military disorder; growing factionalism and, useless warfare.224
As I discussed in the previous chapter, the reign of Murad III witnessed changes in the structure and working of the highest level of the government, for Murad III tried to diminish the vizirial power challenging his authority and aimed to establish himself as the center of the state, with complete authority. For that he tried to diminish the power of his viziers by creating alternative loci of power within his palace; his project seems not to be as successful as he expected because it was only a replacement of the alternating powers with one another; but not getting rid of all them. The criticisms of Murad III and his reign have to be read in relation to these changes in question. They can be seen as responses to the changes offered by the members of the court, the central group affected by the changes in the power base of the government. These challenges to Murad III by his chroniclers are further important for understanding the self-representational policy of the sultan, whose manifestations in the urban space I discussed in the previous chapter. His concern with his representation was not limited to his urban and ceremonial projects; the sultan created a dream book for himself that is called Kitabü’l Menamat, which consisted of the dreams of Murad III shared by his sufi master Şeyh Şüca, collected
224Fleischer, p. 301.
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by a member of the harem named Nuh Ağa. He used his dreams as a tool of self-fashioning and shaped his stories and characters in a way representing his own idealized self-portrait. This portrait depicts him as a Sufi, who rose in the path of the mystical order step by step and became the religious guide at the end and at the same time, he was depicted as the temporal ruler.225 This book is important for understanding the changes in the representational policy of the image and identity of the sultan, as were the manifestations in the urban and ceremonial contexts.
The inducer of corruption and disorder in the eyes of his chronicles, the Padişah-ı Islam (the Sovereign of the Muslim world), the Sahib-kirân (Lord of Auspicious Conjunction)and the Kutbu’l Aktab (the pole of the poles)226of his hagiographic dream book died in the year 1003/ 1594 in Istanbul, when he was forty eight. Naima relates his reason of death as stomach ache227; while Peçevi claims that he died of kidney disease that occurred as a result of his excessive contact with women.228 The assertion of Peçevi is supported by a Jewish doctor named Salamon, who relates that Murad III died of a disease in his kidneys in his report written for the English ambassador Barton recounting the death of Murad III and the enthronement of Mehmet III. 229 The same doctor gives a detailed account of the death and funeral of Murad III in his report. With reference to this report, the death of the sultan was concealed from the public until Mehmed III’s arrival to the capital to replace his
225Felek, Özgen, “(Re)Creating Image and Identity” in Dreams and Visions in Islamic Societies, Felek and Knysh, New York: 2012, pp. 254-263.
226Ibid., p. 261, 263.
227Mustafa Naima Efendi,Tarih-i Naima-I, edited by Mehmet İpşirli, Ankara: 2007, p. 237.
228Tarih-i Peçevi-II, p. 276.
229Reyhanlı, Tülay, İngiliz Gezginlerine Göre XVI. Yüzyılda İstanbul’da Hayat (1582-1599), Ankara: 1983, p. 62.
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father, in order to avert a probable uprising of the Janissary corps in Istanbul. The death of Murad III and the enthronement of the new sultan were commemorated in all squares of Istanbul and preparations for the funeral of the deceased sultan began in the same day. The coffin of the deceased was taken out of the palace on the shoulders of the palace’s grandees, who all dressed in black and crowned their turbans with small gems. The coffin was made of cypress wood and covered with a shroud brought from Mecca, which was decorated with silver and gold ornaments as well as inscriptions. The deceased sultan was taken to his grave prepared near his father’s mausoleum alongside Hagia Sophia, accompanied with a procession consisting of aghas and the Janissaries. During the night of the same day, the new sultan had his nineteen brothers choked and they were buried near the grave of their father in the following day.230
The construction of Murad III’s mausoleum began in 1595 under the supervision of the architect Davud Ağa, who became the chief court architect after the death of Sinan.231 The birth date and place of Davud Ağa is not known; but various deeds inform us that he was appointed as the minister of waterways of Istanbul in 1575 and worked with the chief architect Sinan for years. In those years, he partook in the military campaign against Iran as among the craftsmen. After this experience, he began to work with Sinan again on the major architectural projects conducted in Istanbul, including the construction of the Has Oda and bath in the Topkapı Palace, of Kızlarağası Mehmet Ağa Mosque near Koca Mustafa Paşa, and of the Atik Valide Complex in Üsküdar. Under the reign of Murad III,after he became the chief architect, he constructed the Pearl Kiosk on the Sarayburnu shores,
230Reyhanlı, p. 62, 63.
231Önkal, p. 180.
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and Shore Kiosk in Sirkeci.He remained the chief court architect under the reign of Mehmed III also, until his death in 1598. Along with the erection of the mausoleum of Murad III near Hagia Sophia, he began the construction of the Yeni Valide Complex in Eminönü in this later period of his carreer.232
The construction of the mausoleum was completed in 1600 by Dalgıç Ahmed Ağa, who became the chief court architect after the death of Davud Ağa. It seems that he worked not only in the construction of the mausoleum; but also did inlay work using mother of pearl for the entrance door on which his name was signed.233 The architect Dalgıç Ahmed Ağa held the office under the reigns of Mehmed III and Ahmed I. As an architect, his name was first mentioned in 999/ 1590-91 in the construction deeds of a kiosk in Yalıkapısı. Then, he became the superintendent of watercourses and held this office until the death of Davud Ağa. After 1598, the year he became the chief architect, he took part in various repairs in the Old and New Palaces, the palaces of Galata and Ibrahim Pasha, and different edifices such as mosques, baths, kiosks and tombs. He not only took part in the construction of Murad III’s mausoleum; but also he was the architect of the mausoleum of Mehmed III. Lastly, a deed from 1011/ 1603 indicates that he worked in the construction of the Yeni Valide Complex in Eminönü, whose foundation was laid in the era of Davud Ağa.234
The mausoleum of Murad III is based on a hexagonal plan and is covered by a double-shell dome 15.49 meters in height and 11.24 meters in width,235 which is
232Altınay, Ahmet Refik, Türk Mimarları, Istanbul: 1977, pp. 61-69.
233 Önkal, p. 181.
234Akalın, Şehabettin, “Mimar Dalgıç Ahmed Paşa” in Tarih Dergisi-9, Istanbul: 1958, pp. 71-80.
235Dursun, p. 54.
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covered by lead with a metallic banner on it. Because it is constructed in a narrow space between the tombs of Selim II and şehzadegan, its symmetry is disturbed to a certain extent and it caused a wall of the mausoleum of şehzadegan to be cut off. The edges of the northeastern wall are chamfered, comprising two narrow facets at the edges and creating an irregular octagon. The entire surface of the edifice is covered with marble plaques, adorned with a lotus motif and bounded with a muqarnas cornice. The entrance is located on the northeastern side of the edifice, which is preceded by a three-arched portico designed in bilateral symmetrical order. At the center of the wall behind the portico is the entrance whereon there is a muqarnas voussoir. The wooden entrance is decorated with geometrical engravings, gemstones and mother of pearl inlay, constituting an example of the wood-work and mother of pearl inlay work of the period.236 (Figures 33, 34, 35)
The plan of the interior space repeats that of the outer one; it is hexagonal in its basic configuration, which turns to be an octagon with the cutting of the edges of the northeastern wall. Eight marble columns with muqarnas capitals circulate the central space on which the sarcophagi are placed, constituting a perfect octagon. The columns are attached to each other with pointed-arches, which constitute a base for the inner dome with pendants. As in the mausoleum of Selim II, the dome does not have an outer arcade; rather it sits upon the walls, which are attached to the columns of the inner arcade with iron tensors. With their lines of ternary windows, maximum brilliance is achieved in the interior space.237 (Figures 36, 37, 38)
236Önkal, pp. 178-180.
237Önkal, p. 179.
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As in the mausoleum of Selim II, the interior and the entrance of the tomb of Murad III are decorated with ceramic tiles. The exterior ceramics concentrate on the two sides of the portico. Two identical tile panels furnishing each side of the portico are put in two different frames and they measure 220x100 cm. The rectangular space reaches up to the level of arches and is laid out in a pear-shaped marble frame. At the center of the rectangular space is a hatayi motif with two symmetrical appendixes painted in lapis-lazuli on a white ground, decorated with white cloud motifs and framed narrow red lines. This central hatayi is surrounded with symmetrically ordered flower and leaf designs and painted in red, blue and lapis-lazuli. The whole panel is surrounded by a tile fringe decorated with symmetrical blue and white rumi motifs painted on a red ground. The composition of the tiles on spandrels consists of white and red cloud motifs painted on a lapis-lazuli ground and is different from the central composition of the panel as well as from that of the fringe. There are inscriptions on the pediments of each tile panel on either side of the portico, which are written in monumental thuluth-style calligraphy in white on a lapis-lazuli ground and include sentences of prayer. Unfortunately, tiles on the left pendentive are completely removed and tiles on the left side of the right pendentive are denested.238 (Figure 39)
The entire surface of the interior is covered with tiles from the ground to the second window level. Between the first and the second tiers of windows is an inscriptional band divided into compartments. The inscriptions include the first twenty two ayat of the surah of Mülk (29/1-22)239 written in monumental thuluth-
238Doğanay, p.373.
239 “1.Blessed is He in Whose hand is the Sovereignty, and, He is Able to do all things. 2. Who hath created life and death that He may try you which of you is best in conduct; and He is the Mighty, the Forgiving, 3. Who hath created seven heavens in harmony. Thou (Muhammad) canst see no fault in
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style calligraphy in white on a lapis-lazuli ground and decorated with rumi and hatayi motifs. The final section of the inscriptional band is damaged or removed, and was completed in painting at a later date. The entire band is sandwiched by two narrow tile fringes above and below, which are decorated with white cloud motifs as well as blue and red lines. The areas between the windows are covered with large tile panels following the same sequence and composition. The white ground of the panel is decorated with repetitive rumi designs attached to each other by knuckles and surrounded by symmetrically ordered half hatayi motifs on either side symmetrically. The rumi motifs at the center are painted in red, while flower and leaf designs are painted in lapis-lazuli, blue, turquoise and red. The interior’s tile decoration is completed with circular panels on pendentives on which Esma-i Hüsna (the names of
the Beneficent One's creation; then look again: Canst thou see any rifts ?4. Then look again and yet again, thy sight will return unto thee weakened and made dim. 5. And verily We have beautified the world's heaven with lamps, and We have made them missiles for the devils, and for them We have prepared the doom of flame. 6. And for those who disbelieve in their Lord there is the doom of hell, a hapless journey's end! 7. When they are flung therein they hear its roaring as it boileth up, 8. As it would burst with rage. Whenever a (fresh) host is flung therein the wardens thereof ask them: Came there unto you no warner ?9. They say: Yea, verily, a warner came unto us; but we denied and said: Allah hath naught revealed; ye are in naught but a great error. 10. And they say: Had we been wont to listen or have sense, we had not been among the dwellers in the flames. 11. So they acknowledge their sins; but far removed (from mercy) are the dwellers in the flames. 12. Lo! those who fear their Lord in secret, theirs will be forgiveness and a great reward. 13. And keep your opinion secret or proclaim it, lo! He is Knower of all that is in the breasts (of men). 14. Should He not know what He created ? And He is the Subtile, the Aware. 15. He it is Who hath made the earth subservient unto you, so Walk in the paths thereof and eat of His providence. And unto Him will be the resurrection (of the dead). 16. Have ye taken security from Him Who is in the heaven that He will not cause the earth to swallow you when lo! it is convulsed ?17. Or have ye taken security from Him Who is in the heaven that He will not let loose on you a hurricane ? But ye shall know the manner of My warning. 18. And verily those before them denied, then (see) the manner of My wrath (with them)! 19. Have they not seen the birds above them spreading out their wings and closing them ? Naught upholdeth them save the Beneficent. Lo! He is Seer of all things. 20. Or who is he that will be an army unto you to help you instead of the Beneficent ? The disbelievers are in naught but illusion. 21. Or who is he that will provide for you if He should withhold His providence ? Nay, but they are set in pride and frowardness. 22. Is he who goeth groping on his face more rightly guided, or he who walketh upright on a straight road ?“, The Glorious Koran, Surah LXVII “The Sovereignity”, pp. 407-409.
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God) are inscribed in monumental-thuluth style, painted in white on lapis-lazuli ground.240 (Figures 40, 41)
The Mausoleum of Mehmed III
The fourth mausoleum in the courtyard of the Hagia Sophia complex was constructed for Mehmed III, who acceded to the throne as the thirteenth Ottoman sultan in 1003/ 1594, when he was at the age of thirty five and seated in Manisa as the crown prince. After the death of his father Murad III, he was summoned to the capital by Bostancıbaşı Ferhat Ağa to replace his father.241 Naima depicts him as a pious person, who was carefully following the rules and obligations of religion attentively, he also wrote poems with the pen name of "Adli". Unlike his predecessors Selim II and Murad III, he left the capital city for attending a military campaign known as "ada seferi" -the island campaign- in 1012/ 1603. He became ill on the way back to Istanbul, in that same year and died in Belgrade at the age of thirty eight,in the ninth year of his reign. His death was announced and people were summoned to the funeral prayer, which was performed in the courtyard of the Topkapı Palace by Şeyh'ül İslam Ebü'l Meyamin Mustafa Efendi. Viziers, members of ‘ulama and the palace grandee attended to the funeral, who all dressed in black. The coffin of Mehmed III was brought to the grave prepared for him near the mausolea of Selim II and Murad III.242
240Doğanay, p.375.
241Tarih-i Peçevi-I, p. 151.
242Tarih-i Naima-I, p. 257, 263, 264.
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The architect of Mehmed III's mausoleum is Dalgıç Ahmed Ağa, who is introduced earlier in this chapter. The edifice is located on the southeastern side of the mausoleum of Selim II. It has an octagonal plan, with no differentiation between the exterior and the interior. The exterior surfaces are covered with marble plaques. The three-arched portico is placed the eastern façade, whose columns are of marble and placed in a manner forming bilateral symmetry. The decoration of the portico seems to have been made in a later period than its construction because the wall paintings with baroque and rococo designs and the ionic column heads were not used in the architectural decoration before the eighteenth century. The wooden door is not original either and as the decoration of the walls, there is no evidence about its original design. What is worth underlining is the inscriptions on the wings of the door that quotes a verse from the Quran, the surah of Ankebut, 57th Ayah: “Every soul will taste of death. Then unto Us ye will be returned”.243
The interior space is configured as a perfect octagon. As the mausolea of Selim II and Murad III, it is covered by a double-shell dome, whose height is 15.90 meters and whose width measures 11.24 meters.244 While the inner dome is carried by the eight columns connected by eight large arches; the outer dome is seated on the walls. There are fourteen sarcophagi under the dome at the center of the inner arcade that belong to Mehmed III, his haseki Handan Sultan, three şehzades and six sisters of Ahmed I, fifteen daughters of Murad III including Ayşe Sultan; while twelve additional sarcophagi that belong to other daughters of Murad III are placed under
243The Glorious Koran, p. 288.
244Dursun, p. 54.
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the outer roofing.245 The interior is illuminated by windows, with two windows to each tier of the wall surfaces. (Figures 42, 43)
The interior is covered with ceramic tiles up to the second window level, with only the entrance wall featuring tiles are of a different configuration. 246 An inscriptional band circulating the interior covers the area between the first and the second window tiers. Besmele and the entire surah of Cum’a247are inscribed in monumental thuluth-style calligraphy painted in white on a lapis-lazuli ground.248 This band is framed by narrow polychrome tile contours decorated with floral motifs. The same narrow tile bands frame also the windows. The space between each window of the first tier is covered with flat green tiles, which are also framed by the
245Ibid., p. 54.
246The description of the tiles of this mausoleum is based mostly on my own observations in the actual place as well as on photographs because I cannot find any detailed description of them in the sources.
247“1. All that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth glorifieth Allah, the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One, the Mighty, the Wise. 2. He it is Who hath sent among the unlettered ones a messenger of their own, to recite unto them His revelations and to make them grow, and to teach them the Scripture and wisdom, though heretofore they were indeed in error manifest, 3. Along with others of them who have not yet joined them. He is the Mighty, the Wise. 4. That is the bounty of Allah; which He giveth unto whom He will. Allah is of Infinite Bounty. 5. The likeness of those who are entrusted with the Law of Moses, yet apply it not, is as the likeness of the ass carrying books. Wretched is the likeness of folk who deny the revelations of Allah. And Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk. 6. Say (O Muhammad): O ye who are Jews! If ye claim that ye are favoured of Allah apart from (all) mankind, then long for death if ye are truthful. 7. But they will never long for it because of all that their own hands have sent before, and Allah is Aware of evil-doers. 8. Say (unto them, O Muhammad): Lo! the death from which ye shrink will surely meet you, and afterward ye will be returned unto the Knower of the Invisible and the Visible, and He will tell you what ye used to do. 9. O ye who believe! When the call is heard for the prayer of the day of congregation, haste unto remembrance of Allah and leave your trading. That is better for you if ye did but know. 10. And when the prayer is ended, then disperse in the land and seek of Allah's bounty, and remember Allah much, that ye may be successful. 11. But when they spy some merchandise or pastime they break away to it and leave thee standing. Say: That which Allah hath is better than pastime and than merchandise, and Allah is the Best of providers. “ The Glorious Koran, Surah LXII “The Congregation”, p. 399.
248Önkal, p.189.
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same narrow contours of the inscriptional band and of the windows. In my eyes, the narrow band circulating the walls on the ground level is the most remarkable element of the whole decoration. On this narrow band are red flowers painted on a white ground that are depicted in a very naturalistic manner. Almost half of them are depicted in vases and this strengthens the visual effect of naturalism; flowers stay in the vases and on the ground independently creating the environment of a garden, which presumably reflects the paradisiacal gardens promised to believers. Inscriptions on the exterior quoting a poem say “Firdevs oldu merkadi Sultan Mehmed’in”249 –the grave of the Sultan Mehmed has become paradise ( Firdevs) - and, it supports the suggestion that the grave of the deceased sultan is designed as a reflection of the gardens of paradise. (Figures 44, 45, 46)
The Mausoleum of Sultan Mustafa I and Sultan Ibrahim (The old Baptistery)
The Baptistery of the Byzantine Hagia Sophia located in the southwestern side of the edifice was converted into a mausoleum in 1639, after the death of Mustafa I and, Sultan Ibrahim was also buried here after his death in 1648.250 Sultan Mustafa I acceded to the throne twice. Firstly, he was enthroned by Müfti Esad Efendi and other men of influence in the court in 1617 after the death of his brother Ahmed I because the sons of Ahmed I were very young. He was replaced with Osman II, the son of Ahmed I, because of his inability to govern. In 1622, he was brought to the throne again after the massacre of Osman II in Yedikule Citadel.251 Naima depicts
249Önkal, p.190.
250Dursun, p. 56.
251Peçevi, p. 265, 363.
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him as an indifferent and dervish-like person, who spent most of his time behind the walls of his palace reclusively. He died in 1049/ 1639 and was buried in the mausoleum alongside Hagia Sophia.252 Ibrahim I acceded to the throne in the same year after the death of Mustafa I. Evliya depicts him as an extremely generous person and his reign as prosperous. After his death, he was buried in the mausoleum and beside the grave of his father.253 The reason behind the conversion of the Baptistery into a dynastic mausoleum in not clear; though these two sultans could be buried in the mausoleum of Ahmed I or another tomb could be constructed around the same region, the Atmeydanı. My suggestion is that the reason behind the choice of a converted edifice as the burial place of these two sultans can be related to their political carreers; the deposition and the execution of a sultan were not customary in the Ottoman political tradition until this period. The execution of Ibrahim and the deposition of Mustafa can be the reasons behind the fact that new monumental mausoleums were not constructed in their names and, they were buried in an old building, which was converted into a dynastic mausoleum.
The mausoleum is a very plain edifice in its plan and decoration. It has a square outer plan and an undecorated dome carried by eight buttresses. The dome is in 16.28 meters in height and 12.74 meters in width.254Under the dome, there are nineteen sarcophagi that belong to Mustafa I, Ibrahim I, the daughters of Ahmed I, one daughter of Murad IV and the sons of Ahmed II.255 (Figures 47, 48)
252Naima, p. 919.
253Evliya Çelebi, p. 316.
254Dursun, p. 57.
255Ibid., p. 56.
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On the Architecture and the Decoration of the Mausolea
The mausoleums of Hagia Sophia have particular architectural and decorative elements in common, as a part of an established architectural culture, reflecting a defined aesthetics. Constructed in the last quarter of the sixteenth century in the Ottoman capital, the tombs have to be read in the cultural context of the time and place in which they were produced and, in relation with the Ottoman funerary architectural tradition. In this section, I will analyze the plans and shared architectural features of the mausoleums in question, with reference to earlier dynastic mausolea, especially that of Süleyman and, define the decorative repertoire in relation with the court workshops that is a pioneer in establishing that repertoire.
For an insightful architectural analysis of the dynastic mausolea in question, it is necessary to contextualize them as a part of a funerary architectural culture espoused by the Ottoman dynasty, and to give a brief description of the Ottoman dynastic mausolea at this point, before conducting an architectural analysis. The Ottoman sultans were buried in the tombs constructed for them until the beginning of the seventeenth century, except the first two ones, who were buried in former churches converted into mausolea in the first capital city Bursa. The first mausoleum constructed for an Ottoman sultan belonged to Murad I, which was constructed at some point between the years of 1389-1400.256 This is a building square in plan with a portico in front of its entrance door and a dome carried by eight columns at the center of the interior space. The sarcophagus is seated at the center of this domed chamber. The three successors of Murad I were also buried in Bursa in their own mausolea constructed one after the other by each enthroned for his deceased father.
256 Önkal, p.42.
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In the tombs of Beyazıd I (constructed in 1407) and of Murad II (constructed in 1446)257, architects repeated the plan of Murad I’ mausoleum; they are square in plan with porticos at their entrances; and in the interior the dome rises over ieght columns. They have only minor differences in details. For example, the portico of Beyazıd I’s mausoleum is tripartite with three smaller domes over its arches and, the mausoleum of Murad II has an oculus on its dome, following his will to be buried under the open sky because of his religious concerns.258 Among these mausoleums of the pre-conquest era, only the mausoleum of Mehmed I (constructed in 1421) has a relatively different plan: it is an octagonal edifice with a monumental dome, sitting on a transitional zone of “Turkish triangles”.259 This building is an exception among all mausolea in consideration; this is the only sultanic mausoleum without a portico and ornamented with ceramic tiles on its exterior entirely, following the Timurid-Turcoman tradition.
As I have mentioned in the previous chapter, after the takeover of Constantinople, the city became the new capital of the Ottoman state and all Ottoman sultans from the conqueror Mehmed II to the very last Ottoman sultan were buried in this new capital city. Among them, the first eight sultans have different mausolea, each of them constructed by their successor after their passing-away. After Ahmed I
257Ibid., p. 55, 79.
258 In his testament written in 1446, Murad II defines his will about the shape of his mausoleum and his religious concerns as follows“…ve dahi vasiyet edüp şöyle buyurdı ki … ve zir-i zemin etmeyüp sünnet mucibince yire gömeler…üzerime bir çar divar türbe yapalar üstü açık ola ki üzerime yağmur yağa amma çevre yanını örtme edeler altında hazıflar Kuran okumağıiçün…” (…he made a bequest and said that … and do not burry me underground and follow the Sunnah as you burry me into the soil…make a four walled tomb over my grave which has to be open sky so that rain can reach to me, but the sides of my tomb should be covered so that the reciters would read the Quran…) Önkal, p. 79. English translation belongs to me.
259Önkal, p.58.
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(the fourteenth Ottoman sultan and the eighth sultan seated in the new capital), the Ottoman sultans were buried in different places, either in the existing mausolea of their predecessors or in the tombs of the queen mothers; but they were rarely buried under their own mausolea.The mausoleums of the first four sultans seated in Istanbul -Mehmed II, Beyazıd II, Selim I and I- share a common architectural layout with minor differences and innovations in details; here, actually, one sees the appropriation of the dome covered octagon, recalling the architectural layout of the Dome of the Rock. The mausoleums constructed just after that of Süleyman were not designed as octagonal units; but they share particular architectural elements of their predecessors as the porticos preceding their entrances and the domes carried by eight-columned inner arcades, which are among definitive elements of the Ottoman dynastic mausola.
The mausoleum of Mehmed II was constructed after his death 1481, behind the qibla wall of his monumental mosque. Because the original edifice was demolished in an earthquake in 1776, we do not have the exact plan of that first layout with detail. The current mausoleum of Mehmet II is a domed decagonal building made of cut-stone, which was constructed after that earthquake and reflects the architectural and decorative trends of the eighteenth century. Even though there is no archaeological evidence, the plan of the original edifice seems to be octagonal with little doubt; a map of the city’s aqueduct system from the seventeenth century depicts the mausoleum of Mehmed II as an octagonal building with a dome. The fact that the mausoleums constructed in that period and its beforehand was either square
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or octagonal, and the polygonal tombs became widespread in later periods supports the argument about the layout of the tomb.260
The mausoleums of Beyazıd II (constructed in 1513), of Selim I (instructed in 1522) and of Süleyman (constructed in 1566) follow the architectural layout of the mausoleum of Mehmed II in their basic structure. They are all octagonal buildings with porticos in front of their entrance doors and covered by domes carried by eight columns. As in the earlier mausolea, the wooden sarcophaguses of the sultans stand under these domed chambers. The mausoleum of Süleyman has some structural differences; unlike the two-tier window setting of the mausolea of Beyazıd II and Selim I, the architect Sinan preferred to open the windows in a bilateral symmetrical order in the mausoleum of Süleyman as the window settings of the Süleymaniye mosque. More important is the use of double dome and a very distinguished tile revetment in the interior space, which may seem to be minor practical or aesthetical innovations in architectural perspective. This should however be read in the context of Süleyman’s architectural patronage in the Dome of the Rock and his self-representational policy in architectural context. The mausoleum of Süleyman is the one most closely resembling the architecture of the Dome of the Rock among the other dynastic tombs with its monumentality and architectural layout. The mausoleum has a close affinity to the Dome of the Rock with its octagonal plan, its monumental double-dome and its outer arcade with eight columns. It is the only Ottoman mausoleum in questions that repeats these three features of the Dome of the Rock in one single building; preciously, octagonal tombs with eight columned arcades were experimented with,
260Önkal, p. 225.
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but they did not have double-domes as the Dome of the Rock. This only and direct reference and resemblance to the Dome of the Rock makes one contemplate the possibility of a symbolic association with the building –or what it represents-, and the mausoleum of Süleyman as the face of the sultan seen after his death and like his religio-political identity cut in stones. To my knowledge, there is no direct reference to the Dome of the Rock in the writings of the chroniclers or accounts of the architect Sinan in the context of the construction and architecture of the mausoleum. Süleyman’s patronage in the Dome of the Rock and in Jerusalem was very well known both by the architects and the public, as was his close association with the kings Solomon and David in the context of his political identity. Süleyman was portrayed as the new David and Solomon, as the messianic emperor of the age, mostly with reference to his imperial and legislative program.261 His political and religious image associated with Solomon and David was reinforced with his renovation projects conducted in Jerusalem and especially in the Dome of the Rock; his court historian Mustafa Ali accounts Süleyman’s renovations in the Dome of the Rock among his major projects. These include the restoration of the finial of the Dome of the Rock, the addition of the external tile revetments in Iznik style and the renewal of the marble revetments.262 If the renovations conducted in the Dome of the Rock, the political portrayal of Süleyman as the second Solomon and David, and the association of the Dome of the Rock with those two Prophets –the eastern gate of the Dome of the Rock was
261Necipoğlu, Gülru, “The Dome of the Rock As Palimpsest: ‘Abd al-Malik’s Grand Narrative and Sultan ’s Glosses” in Muqarnas XXV , Leiden: 2008, p. 57,58.
262Ibid., p. 62
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associated with and named after David263- are to be read together in the context of architectural patronage and its representational power in that particular era; the possibility for the existence of an architectural reference to the Dome of the Rock in the mausoleum of Süleyman will appear. This questions, however, needs further investigation. After the mausoleum of Süleyman, the use of the octagonal plan was less frequent, while double domes and eight columned interior arcades continued to be used until the construction of the mausoleum of Ahmed I. In approximately fifty years after the construction of the tomb of Süleyman, four mausolea were built for his successors Selim II (constructed in 1574)264, Murad III (constructed after 1595), Mehmed III (constructed in 1603) and Ahmed I (constructed in 1617)265, all facing or near the Atmeydanı. Constructed by the chief architect Sinan, the mausoleum of Selim II is very similar to that of Süleyman with its splendid tile decoration and inner arcade with eight columns; however, its plan is not octagonal but rather square turned into an octagon in its interior.266 The mausoleum of Murad III is hexagonal, which is an exception for the mausolea of the Ottoman sultans. The reason behind the choice for this shape is most probably the narrowness of the space left for this mausoleum; it was constructed between two mausoleums and even damaged one side of the mausoleum built for princes.267 The mausoleum of Mehmed III is again an octagon with a double dome carried by eight columns. The mausoleum of Ahmed I is
263Ibid., p. 68.
264Necipoğlu, Gülru, The Age of Sinan, p. 233.
265Önkal, p. 187,194.
266Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, p.233.
267Önkal, p. 178.
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the last monumental sultanic tomb of the “classical” period, as the monumental mosque-complex of Ahmed I. In that square edifice, the use of the double-dome was abandoned; but the scheme of eight-columned dome chamber was repeated, as in all its predecessors. The mausolea of the Ottoman sultans were designed as different variations of a single architectural model. From the very early years of the dynasty to the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Ottoman sultans were buried under domed chambers surrounded by eight columns; the buildings were either square or octagonal in plan, except for the mausoleum of Murad III. Although there are differences in the configuration of some details like the window settings or arches; they share particular architectural features such as the use of porticos in front of the entrance doors –except the tomb of Mehmed I-; the domes carried by eight columns and extensive use of tile decoration. The reason behind the choice for domed octagons or squares is not certain; but they can be seen as a part of the medieval Anatolian funerary architectural tradition. They follow the basic plan of the medieval Islamic tomb towers of Anatolia with particular changes. In the Ottoman tombs, however, some features of the Anatolian tomb towers were abandoned such as the use of conical roofs and the rooms for the mummified bodies in addition to a decline in the verticality of the edifices.268 One of the most innovative features in the Ottoman mausolea is the use of porticos in front of the entrance doors. The use of porticos in the tomb structures was not seen in the medieval Anatolian tombs and was applied in the early Ottoman tombs for the first time. The reason for this innovation is not clear, however, I have
268Önkal, pp. 7-12.
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some suggestions. One possibility is the tendency to liken the tombs to the mosque structures, because the entrance porticos were a dominant feature of that geography in the early Ottoman period. If one considers the use of mihrabs in the tombs of the early Ottoman sultans, which is a feature of the contemporary royal funerary architecture of the Timurid and the Mamluk rulers such as the mausoleums Gur-i Amir in Samarqand and of sultan Qalaun in Cairo at the same time; this possibility of such an effort seems more comprehensible. It is, however, only a suggestion and needs further contextual investigation. The other possibility is that the entrance porticos would only be used as an existing architectural element that can be applied into different kinds of edifices, as they started to be used in the libraries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The use of domed chambers with eight columns is another common feature in the mausoleums of the Ottoman sultans. Because there was an insistence for the use of domes in the tombs –which were not abandoned even in the mausolea of Murad II and Beyazıd II despite their objections-, it was unavoidable for the architects to find solutions for carrying the domes and transition from square and octagonal plans to the circular dome bases. To use piers and columns for such a transition and load bearing system was one of the easiest and most practical solutions.269 The possibility of a symbolic reference to the architecture of the Dome of the Rock from the early period onwards should be considered; Murad II’s endowment of Quran readership on his behalf at the Dome of the Rock in 1430 is known.270 It is quite possible that the architectural features of the Dome of the Rock was known in that era and geography if one considers the mobility of the architects and pilgrims; but there seems to be no
269Günay, Reha, Sinan the Architect And His Works, Istanbul: 1998, pp.156-158.
270Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, p. 62.
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direct evidence for an awareness of such a resemblance in the earlier periods.271 For the later period, as in the case of Süleyman discussed above, the possibility for the existence of such a reference to the architecture of the Dome of the Rock is relevant, if one considers the political, military and architectural policies of the Ottoman sultans in Jerusalem and the region.
The mausoleums of Selim II, Murad III and Mehmed III have particular architectural and structural elements in common with each other and with the earlier dynastic mausolea. They are made of cut-stone, as earlier dynastic tombs of Istanbul; but they are distinguished by marble revetments on the exteriors. As I have mentioned earlier in this chapter, covering the outer façades of the mausoleum with marble revetments began with the tomb of Süleyman, most probably because of the value of the material, in addition to its ornamentative possibilities. Another element is the three-arched portico preceding the entrance portal, which is consisted of marble columns and defined by bilateral symmetry. The porticos had been used in the royal mosques, zawiyas and dynastic tombs from earlier periods onwards. In mosque structures, it has a practical use as a prayer space; at the same time it became a marker of the Ottoman mosques. The porticos of the tomb structures do not have a practical function; offering prayers inside or in front of the royal tombs has not been a custom espoused, at least to my knowledge. Neither have they served as places for the Quran reciters and people praying for the soul of the deceased. As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, I think, porticos preceding the royal tombs would have been adopted to make the mausolea resemble the royal mosques, signifying them as royal
271This argument is again shaped according to my knowledge and ideas; but needs more historical and contextual investigation.
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monuments. This is only a suggestion, however, that needs further contextual investigation.
In terms of their architectural plans, the mausoleums of Hagia Sophia share the same architectural layout because they are shaped as variations of a model applied by Sinan in the mausoleum of Süleyman. ( Figure 49) The use of the double-shell domes and the eight-columned inner arcades are the defining features of this architectural plan. Although the first mausoleum with a double dome is that of Hürrem Sultan and the eight-columned inner arcade is used in the mausoleum of Murad II for the first time; the combination of these two elements is achieved first in the plan of Süleyman’s mausoleum.272 In this model, the eight columns circulating the inner space constitute a base for the inner dome; while the outer dome is based on the outer walls, which are connected to the interior columns by pointed arches.273 The same structure defines the plan of the mausolea of Selim II, Murad III and Mehmed III with minor differences such as the features of the arches linking the columns and the outer walls or the configuration of the fenestration. According to Doğanay, the use double-shell domes in the tomb structures offers a solution for an aesthetical problem emanating from the increasing verticality in the dynastic mausolea of the sixteenth century, which was the result of the will to construct more monumental tomb structures. The proportional distortion was tried to be countered by application of multiple-layers of windows; but the solution could not be achieved with the application of multiple-layers of windows. In the mausoleum of Süleyman, Sinan addressed this problem of proportional distortion with the application of the double-shell dome. Because the mausolea of Selim II, Murad III and Mehmed III
272Doğanay, p. 41.
273Günay, p. 151.
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have domes that are higher than 15 meters, the use double-shell domes and multi-layered windows constitutes an architectural solution for proportional distortion emanating from the high verticality of the edifices. At the same time, the high monumental domes of these mausolea achieved through the use of double-shells creates a visual harmony with the gigantic dome of Hagia Sophia; while the multi-layered fenestration of the façades enhance the mausoleums' dialogue with the urban center.
The increase in the verticality of the buildings in Istanbul was a general trend in late sixteenth century architecture patronized by the members of the Ottoman court. From 1570s onwards, the increasing verticality of the edifices went hand in hand with layout and structural changes occurring in architecture, especially in mosques. The mosques erected in these decades are smaller edifices in proportions than their predecessors because they were built on narrower construction areas. There was a building boom that went hand in hand with an increase in the population in the capital city in the second half of the sixteenth century. This caused the construction areas to become narrower and architects found new visual solutions to emphasize the religious and royal buildings erected in smaller scales on these narrower construction areas. This was achieved by higher domes emphasized as independent architectural elements and the rise in the verticality of the walls, which became monumentalized façades textured with more window openings of different manners. The aesthetical problem originating from the increase in the verticality of the domes was solved with the use of double domes in mausoleums under consideration. In the mosque structures, it was solved with the use of inner arcades carrying the domes and freeing the exterior walls from load bearing functions. The
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result was edifices distinguished with monumental high domes in a crowded urban environment.274
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The decorative program of the mausoleums is dominated by the extensive use of ceramic tiles. Decorating the dynastic tombs with tiles is not an innovation for the Ottoman culture in that period; from the earlier dynastic mausoleums onwards ceramic tiles had been the dominant decorative element of the Ottoman dynastic tombs. The techniques, materials and designs had displayed changes in time. In the second half of the sixteenth century, tiles produced in cuerda seca method decorating the inner walls of the dynastic tombs was replaced by a new kind of underglaze ceramics and ornamented with a new decorative vocabulary. Beginning with the mausoleum of Haseki Hürrem and continuing until the mid-seventeenth century dynastic mausolea, the tombs had been decorated with "Iznik tiles", which were ornamented with particular motifs, colors and compositions.
The tiles decorating the inner walls and the porticos of the dynastic mausoleums of the period under consideration were mostly produced in the Iznik workshops, afact displayed by various deeds.275 The organization of Iznik tiles' production as well as the features, quality and even the concept of the output displayed changes in that particular period. The output produced in the Iznik workshops was new hard white paste china accompanied by the changes in decoration techniques in which the designs were executed under a brilliant
274Erzen, Jale Nejdet,Mimar Sinan Cami ve Külliyeleri: Tasarım Süreci Üzerine Bir İnceleme, Ankara: 1991, pp. 17-33.
275Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, pp. 104-106.
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transparent glaze.276 A frit paste was generally used for Iznik tile, with its high proportions of silica compared to clay and this paste was responsible for the creation of a hard white body.277 According to Ara Altun, the key to the superior quality of Iznik ceramics lies in the compatibility between paste and glaze and its firing temperature that was as high as 1260 degrees Centigrade, which would have resulted in a soft porcelain.278According to Blair and Bloom, the use of an artificial ceramic body, the development of underglaze-painting and tin glazes, and the fascination with Chinese porcelain all affected the production of ceramics in the Ottoman Empire from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century.279
It was a high-quality type of ceramic with a well defined decorative repertoire dominated by rumi and saz motifs, naturalistic floral designs and Chinese clouds; and a color palette dominated by the tomato red, blue, turquoise, blue, green and black.280The designs and compositions of the tiles used in the decoration of the dynastic tombs display a parallelism with that of other buildings and other artistic media produced in the court workshops for the members of the court. At this point, it is essential to acknowledge the organization and structure of the court workshops for understanding the unified aesthetics seen in the decorative vocabulary of the dynastic mausolea. Under the reign of Süleyman, important developments occurred in the organization of the court workshops that went hand in hand with the court’s
276 Altun, Ara. The Story of Ottoman Ceramics, Istanbul:1997, p.93.
277Ibid., p.99.
278Ibid., p.100.
279 Blair & Bloom, The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture, Vol.I, New York: 2009, p.470.
280 Carswell, John, “Ceramics” in Tulips, Arabesques and Turbans, ed. Yanni Petsapulos, New York:1982, p.85.
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patronage of a series of architectural projects. It was not only the sultan, but also his wives and children, as well as the members of the court, who were responsible of mass architectural projects in the capital city and the provinces of the empire. Sinan was behind the organization of these projects, both as the chief architect and as the institution himself, in the words of Gülru Necipoğlu.281 It was not only the maturation of the guild of imperial architects; but also the time when the Iznik workshops came to resemble a court workshop, and the Nakkaşhane –the Royal Design Workshop, which was established as an institution under the reign of Beyazıd II, took its mature form.
The development of the Nakkaşhane in the sixteenth century has particular importance both in terms of its relationship with Iznik workshops and of the emergence of a new aesthetic idiom defining the courtly patronage of different media from manuscripts to textiles including architecture and its decorative elements. According to Degeorge and Porter, the Nakkaşhane was the dynamo that powered the Ottoman artistic establishment, which reached its fullest size, influence and economic importance in the sixteenth century, primarily during the reigns of Süleyman I, Selim II and Murad III.282 In the sixteenth century, the Nakkaşhane became the constitutive center responsible for the emergence of a new unified aesthetics accross different media from textiles to ceramic tiles with their designs drawn on papers, sent to different workshops producing different materials for the court.283 The Nakkaşhane was important for the production of the Iznik tiles also
281Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, p.125.
282Degeorge, Gerard & Yves, Porter. The Art of Islamic Tile, Paris:2002,p. 25.
283Ibid., p.30.
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because it played a major role in the configuraftion of their designs that were drawn on full-size paper cartoons by the members of the Nakkaşhane ; sent to the Iznik workshops and applied to the body of tiles.284 Because the court demanded the Iznik workshops to produce mass quantities of tiles of particular compositions, a new organization of production necessitated the division of labor among those who created the shapes, applied the slip, drew the designs and colored the outlines.285
The changes in the Iznik industry and ceramic tiles have to be read in relation with the changes in the architectural and artistic patronage of the court. Gülru Necipoğlu argues that Sinan as the chief architect was instrumental in the formulation of a novel decorative idiom since artisanal workshops and the Iznik tile industry came under his jurisdiction. She supports this argument with passages from Sinan’s autobiographies revealing that he regarded decoration and calligraphy as integral components of mosque architecture. Imperial degrees sent to Iznik and Sinan’s report of the Selimiye mosque-complex give important clues about the court’s intervention with the decisions about the tile decoration of their buildings; it seems the prestige of tile revetments largely depended on the privileged access of the sultan and the ruling elite to Iznik workshops.286 It has been pronounced by different scholars that the new Iznik tiles were shaped hand in hand with Sinan’s new architectural aesthetics, which resulted in the particular architectural idiom of the second half of the sixteenth century. Under-glaze painted tiles were used first in Süleymaniye mosque that was constructed in 1550s and thereafter, 'shiny white-
284Ibid., p.77.
285 Blair & Bloom, The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture, Vol.I, New York: 2009, p.470.
286Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, p. 104.
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ground tiles replaced the matte-surfaced cuerda seca tiles used in Sinan's early mosques, as they more effectively match the color of sandstone walls with white marble revetments.'287The change in the material used in the construction of the mosques and the tombs, therefore, went hand in hand with innovations in the decorative elements; aesthetically harmonious and brilliant spaces were created with the use of cut stone as the main construction material and the use of underglaze-painted tiles as decorative elements as well as the excessive use of white marble revetments on the walls.
There were two names that have to be mentioned for they were responsible for the emergence of designs that will be the basis of the decorative repertoire in the second half of the sixteenth century. These persons are Shah Kulu and Kara Memi, who had become ser-bölük, the head of the Nakkaşhane, in the sixteenth century. The person renown as Shah Kulu was from Baghdad; he attained the rank of master and became the head of Nakkaşhane in 1545. The early sources record that he studied first in the Persian court at Tabriz with three masters of the early Safavid style before he came to Istanbul in the early sixteenth century.288The name of Shah Kulu is important because of his introduction of “saz”style with which he is identified in the history of Ottoman court art. In Ottoman art, the term “saz” refers to a particular style composed of thin-stemmed plants with long feather-like leaves, interspersed with complex floral palmettes derived mainly from Chinese artistic forms such as the lotus; while the term “hatayi” is much more straightforward, meaning quite literally the “Chinese” style, which is used as another name for the
287Ibid., p. 104.
288Degeorge & Porter, p.30.
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compositions.289 It is obvious that, as an artist who worked both in the Safavid and Ottoman courts; Shah Kulu was responsible for the introduction of a new language inspired from Turkic, Persian and Chinese elements into the artistic realm of the Ottoman court.
Shah Kulu was followed by Kara Memi, who was his apprentice and became the chief of the Nakkaşhane after him in 1557.290 Like his master Shah Kulu, he is associated with a design called “the Quatre Fleurs”, so called after the four floral types of the tulip, carnation, rose and hyacinth, which will also be a definitive element of the decorative repertoire of the “classical” Ottoman idiom. The saz style remained in fashion in Iznik tile work as well as in different media, but in the second half of the sixteenth century it was supplemented by the Quatre Fleurs that was a more naturalistic floral style. This style was a move towards greater realism in floral depiction compared to the saz design of Shah Kulu; its illumination favored axial compositions incorporated into small panels of cartouches and their naturalism precluded them from being expanded infinitely to wide surfaces.291
In the words of Degeorge and Porter, “these two artists-Shah Kulu and Kara Memi-are in many ways the central figures in the molding of the distinctively Ottoman court style reflected in virtually all Ottoman artistic media from about 1530 onward, and from their creative genius emerged one of the great artistic achievements of the history of art.”292Designs introduced to the decorative vocabulary were excessively used in the dynastic mausoleums under consideration,
289Degeorge & Porter, pp.33,36.
290Ibid., p.41.
291Raby, Julian & Atasoy, Nurhan. Iznik: The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London: 1994, p.222.
292Degeorge & Yves, p.41.
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namely the saz and hatayi motifs as well as Chinese clouds. The visual effect created by the colorful floral motifs on a white background fits the concept of a dynastic mausoleum metaphorically; the mausoleum thus resembles a “paradisiacal garden”, a cultural phenomenon of the historical context under consideration. The mausoleums of the members of the dynasty were often compared with the gardens of paradise in the contemporary texts as well as the inscriptions of the mausoleums. Evliya Çelebi depicts the mausoleum of Beyazıd II as “ravza-yı rıdvan” and the mausoleum of Süleyman as "bihişt-i 'aliyyin", which mean the garden of paradise.293 The inscriptions of the mausoleum of Selim II and Mehmed III include expressions comparing the mausoleums in question to paradise. The inscriptions of the tomb of Selim II include a phase: “yapdılar bir türbe-i cennet-misal” “they constructed a tomb that is like heavens”; while the phase of the mausoleum of Mehmed III is “firdevs oldı merkadi sultan Mehmed’in” that means “the grave of sultan Mehmed became firdevs (name of a garden in the paradise).294 (Figures 50-53)
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The analogy established between the mausoleums and the gardens of paradise is not peculiar to the Ottoman culture; but it has its roots in the earlier architectural culture of the larger Islamic world and, has been shared by contemporary Islamic states such as the Mughals of India. This analogy has been established especially with the funerary monuments of the religiously venerated persona and the members of the ruling elites; the mausoleums of the rulers, sheikhs or imams were designed and decorated with visual and structural elements evoking paradisiacal imagery. The
293The Seyahatname of Evliya Çelebi: facsimile of Topkapı Sarayı Bağdat 304, Cambridge: 1993, p. 338, 348.
294Ayvansarayi, p. 45, 46.
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kiosks, pools and gardens are concepts used both physically and metaphorically in the architecture of the mausoleums. Floral elements and gardens have been used in the decoration and as physical elements of several funerary monuments, especially in the regions of India and Greater Iran as well as in Anatolia. The inscriptional programs were composed in accordance with this paradisiacal imagery; verses form Quran, the traditions of the Prophet Muhammed as well as poetry referring to the paradise are chosen. As a result, the analogy between the residence of the deceased and the kiosks of paradise is established both visually and conceptually.
Apart from the decorative and inscriptional elements used to establish an analogy between the mausoleums and paradise, another dimension of the articulation of this idea has been the application of similar architectural plans and elements in the palatial and funerary monuments of the rulers, which is a phenomenon shared in the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal emperors that I will briefly discuss in the conclusion. Particular architectural and decorative elements were used in the palatial and funerary monuments of the Ottoman rulers, marking the royalty of the edifice and distinguishing them from other buildings. Gülru Necipoğlu depicts the pavilions built in the classical Ottoman style as small domed structures with lavishly gilded decorations provided by Iznik tiles, colored marble revetments and columns and windowed projections.295The marble columns and revetments, monumental Iznik tiles and, lead-covered domes are architectural elements differentiating the royal buildings from other buildings that emphasize their importance;296they are used in the royal funerary and palatial buildings as well as in other structures like mosques or baths constructed by the members of the dynasty. It is the inscriptional programs and
295Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, pp. 218-220.
296Ibid., p. 94.
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conceptualizations by contemporary audiences, however, what distinguishes the funerary and palatial monuments from other royal buildings with a strong emphasis on the paradisiacal references. Lokman, for example, indicates that the bedroom pavilion of Murad III resembles the lofty heavenly paradise (qasr-ı felek-i arjmand)297; which is supported by the inscription of the same hall: ‘The inscription on the marble portal of the domed royal hall attributes the construction of this noble pavilion (qasr-ı serif) to the just Sultan Murad, likens its breezy site and flowing fountains beneath it to paradise.’298Constructed by Sinan under the patronage of Murad III, this bedroom hall displays parallels with the mausoleums constructed in this same period by the same architect: They are domed halls covered with Iznik tiles of floral designs and monumental inscriptional bands circulating their interior spaces.
The shore pavilions constructed in this period by Davud Ağa are also worth mentioning in this context; though they offer us further examples of the architectural resemblance between funerary and palatial buildings of the period under consideration. ‘The shore pavilions built by Davud, like Süleyman’s pavilions in the hanging garden of the third court were essentially domed halls with windowed projections, incorporating the natural surroundings as much as possible.’299Although they were covered with conical roofing over their domes that is a feature distinguishing them from royal mausolea, they were single monumental buildings with multiple windows, colored marble revetments and columns and lavishly gilded decorations dominated by tiles. The proportions of these kiosks became smaller than earlier monumental pavilions like the Tiled Kiosk because they were not designed to
297Ibid., p. 165.
298Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, p. 165.
299Ibid., p. 219.
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serve as settings for crowded ceremonials, while proportions of the royal mausoleums began to increase in width and length in the second half of the sixteenth century. In terms of architectural design, scale, and decoration, the royal mausoleums and pavilions display striking parallels and similitude in this particular period. Their architecture and inscriptions help us suggest the existence of a conscious and intended reference to the paradisiacal kiosks, which is supported by the accounts of some contemporary observers. This needs, however, more contextual investigation to make a clear statement about the existence of such an analogy between the royal funerary and palatial monuments and if there is, whether it is established consciously or not.
Paradisiacal symbolism is not the only theme emphasized in the inscriptional programs of the mausoleums of Selim II, Murad III and Mehmed III; they have intensive epigraphic programmes consisting of construction inscriptions, verses from the Quran and other religious phrases. The inscriptions are concentrated on the panels over entrance doors; on the panels circulating the inner space on the dado level and, on the center of the dome as well as the pendentives. They are written either on tile panels, especially on the panels on the dado level circulating the interior space, or directly on the surface, as the inscriptions on the domes and the construction inscriptions of the mausoleum of Mehmed III written in gold on the marble surface. The inscriptions seem to have been integrated as principal elements of the mausoleums both aesthetically and conceptually. They serve as decorative elements written in the well-proportioned calligraphic style thuluth, coherent with architectural monumentality and constituting a visual harmony with surrounding decorative elements such as the other tile revetments with floral.
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In terms of their contents, they are coherent with the concept of a dynastic tomb, referring to concepts of sovereignty and the glorified sovereign at the same time and on the same place. The construction inscriptions of the mausoleums of Selim II and Mehmed III portray the deceased sultans as religiously devoted sovereigns -"Sultan Selim-i pak-i din" and "Ruh-ı pak-ı hazret-i sultan Mehmed Han"; at the same time, verses from the Quran on the concept of sovereignty are chosen for the interior inscriptions in these same mausoleums. Other than this obvious connection of the sovereign and the concept of sovereignty manifested via inscriptions, themes of death and after-life are emphasized as in the surah of Cuma' circulating the interior space of the mausoleum of Mehmed III and in the verse from the surah of Ankebut written on the entrance door of Murad III 's mausoleum.300 The Çehar Yar-ı Güzin (the names of the first Sunni caliphs) and the names of Hasan and Hüseyin written on the pendentives are interesting in the context of a mausoleum; that is a scheme used in the mosque structures emphasizing the Sunni identity of its targeted audience and especially of its patron. To my knowledge, the first sultanic tomb in which this scheme is used belongs to Süleyman, who is known with his policies of Sunnitization manifested both in his legislative reforms as well as in his own image of a sovereign. The use of this scheme in the sultanic mausoleums can be read as elements emphasizing the Sunni identity of the deceased sultan -and of the sovereign dynasty; at the same time architecturally, it likens the tomb structure to a mosque. It needs more contextual investigation, however, to answer the question of whether this parallelism is constructed intentionally.
Last, the wooden and metal objects, and textiles used in the decoration of the mausolea are also worth mentioning both as functional and decorative elements. The
300 See footnote 243.
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entrance doors, the window shutters of windows and inner wheels, the cases of the Quran and the sarcophagi of the mausolea are made of wood. The entrance doors and the tomb covers under consideration seem to be original except the entrance door of the mausoleum of Mehmed III; they could survive because of certain treatments that enhance their durability. The most common trees used in wood-work were cedrus libani, walnut tree, trees of apple, ebony, rose, cherry and bloodwood. Grown to be used as materials for wood-work, the trees were cut during seasons in which their juices lessened and they were completely dried. Then, wet lime and certain oils were used to protect them from moisture and fidget. The doors and shutters of Hagia Sophia mausoleums are of walnut tree, as the majority of the period,301and some of them are decorated with inlaid gold and mother in pearl. The doors and shutters consist of three sections and are hallowed in a certain kind of composition consisting of star-shaped grips, which is called kündekâri. The window shutters of the tomb of şehzadegan patterns are excptions, as they are decorated with entwined rectangles.302 (Figures 54, 55)
There were also wooden objects in the tombs such as Quran cases and relics that are not in the tombs currently; they are either lost, or exhibited in museums. Accounts of travelers such as William Harborne, an English ambassador, who came to Istanbul and visited the mausoleums of Hagia Sophia in 1583 give clues about the situation and the usage of the objects in the sixteenth century. He relates that there was a case for the relics of Prophet Muhammed in the mausoleum of Selim II, which was made of wood, inlaid with mother in pearl, one or one and a half meters in
301Doğanay, p. 67, 68.
302Barışta, H. Örcün, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu Dönemi İstanbul Cami ve Türbelerinden Ağaç İşleri, Istanbul: 2009, p. 115, 121.
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height.303 The situation of the rugs and textiles is similar to that of cases; they are either lost or taken to the museums, such as the Uşak rug with chintamani motifs of the mausoleum of Selim II that is exhibited in the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum. There are also shrouds and robes of the deceased sultans or şehzades; some members of the dynasty were even buried with their robes. Silk robes and shrouds were found in the mausoleum of şehzadegan during excavations. The shrouds seem to be brought from Mecca; they were probably used as the covering of Kaba beforehand. The account of the English ambassador Barton supports this argument, who relates that the sarcophagus of Murad III was covered with the veil of Kaba;304 it displays an example for the use of the Kaba’s covering over the sarcophagi. (Figures 56-62)
Erected in the second half of the sixteenth century, the mausoleums constructed in the courtyard of Hagia Sophia complex were designed as variations of an architectural model, the domed octagon, and decorated with floral Iznik tiles and monumental inscriptions. Their architectural configurations and decorative repertoires reflect a certain aesthetical idiom that is a part of the late sixteenth century culture and at the same time, they are linked to the earlier royal mausoleums of the Ottoman dynasty. The culture of architecture of the Ottomans, as any cultural realm I think, has to be read as a part of its cultural context and in relation with its historical connections with the conjunctions as well as continuities. Equally important and thought-provoking is to read the contemporary cultural practices in a comparative perspective with the cultural milieu in question, the Ottomans in our case, to achieve an insight on the larger context. In the next chapter, I will try to
303Reyhanlı, p. 39.
304See footnote 29.
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engage in a comparative analysis of the funerary architectures of the Ottoman and the Mughal dynasties.
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CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION: DYNASTIC FUNERARY ARCHITECTURE IN THE EARLY MODERN ISLAMIC CONTEXT
The early modern period that partly overlape with “the age of empires” in the larger Euro-Asian geography and in the Islamic world. Although there is no consensus among scholars and historians on the beginning and end of the “early modern” era; the existence of definitive political, institutional, cultural and religious patterns shared by the states established in that period has been accepted.305 The Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals were the three empires that dominated the larger Islamic world with their sophisticated military, administrative and cultural institutions in the early modern period. While their territories were enlarged by their military power; they disposed their political power and legitimacy with their administrative solutions and cultural networks discoursing and incorporating to their subjects. This lead to the emergence of highly sophisticated cultural institutions such as the court ateliers of arts and architecture. Different kinds of arts including the arts of book and painting, architectural projects, literary works as well as the historiography were instrumentalized in these cultural environments.
The large scale architectural projects of these three empires can also be read as a part of these cultural institutions. Especially in the Ottoman and Mughal contexts, architectural projects of the rulers were more large-scaled in comparison
305 See: Goffman, Daniel, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe, Cambridge: 2002; Aksan, Virginia H & Goffman, Daniel, The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire, Cambridge: 2007, pp. 1-12. Dale, Stephen F., The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals, New York: 2010, pp. 1-9 argues against the use of the “early modern” framework in the study of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires.
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with that of the Safavid shahs. Among these projects were the construction of mosques, madrasas, palatial buildings, mausoleums and different kinds of public edifices like public baths or caravanserais. In the configuration of each of these projects, particular modes of construction and codes of representation played different roles and became influential. Funerary architectural projects, which were realized by the members of these three dynasties, were among them.
Established at the turn of the fourteenth century in western Anatolia and enlarging their territories in one and a half century from the Balkans to western Iran, the Ottomans had an established courtly architectural culture, at the same time the Safavids in Iran and the Mughals in India started to claim sovereignty in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. From the early decades of the empire, the members of the Ottoman dynasty engaged in the construction of social and religious building complexes in major cities in their territories; royal socio-religious and educational complexes built in the capital cities became the markers of the dynasty that were answering the needs of the populations and commemorating the victories of the dynasty over non-Muslim armies at the same time. After the first two rulers who were buried in Byzantine churches converted into mausoleums, the Ottomans sultans began to be buried in the mausoleums constructed as parts of their roya complexes in Bursa until the conquest of Constantinople and in Istanbul after the conquest of that city. The mosque-complexes erected with the booty of victorious campaigns against non-Muslim armies were associated with the names of their patrons. The sultans who gained victory during military campaigns and constructed the monumental edifices to serve the needs of their subjects were attached both physically and symbolically to their monumental complexes through their mausoleums.
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The custom of being buried in the mausoleums constructed behind the qibla walls of the convent-masjids began in Bursa with Murad I and, the following four sultans were also buried in mausoleums erected by their successors, one after the other. The mausoleums of the Ottoman sultans who were buried in Bursa were designed as domed squares with porticos preceding their entrances, except the mausoleum of Mehmed I, which is an octagonal building. Eight-columned inner arcades, monumental domes and tile revetments covering the inner walls were definitive architectural elements of the sultanic mausoleums in Bursa, which continued to define the sultanic mausoleums in Istanbul as well. The first four sultanic mausoleums constructed in Istanbul were also located behind the qibla walls of royal mosques as were the sultanic mausoleums in Bursa; but octagonal plans were preferred rather than square ones. The mausoleum of Süleyman I has particular significance because it represents a new degree of architectural monumentality with its double dome, sheer size and Iznik tile decorations. The mausoleums of the three successors of Süleyman I were designed as variations of the tomb of Süleyman I with their monumental double-domes and tile decorations; but they display a rupture from the tradition in terms of their location. The custom of being buried behind the qibla walls of the royal mosques was abandoned with Selim II; Selim II, Murad III and Mehmed III were buried in mausoleums constructed in the courtyard of Hagia Sophia complex. The mausoleum of Ahmed I was the last sultanic mausoleum that was attached to a royal mosque complex; though it was located to the north of the royal mosque in a manner of facing the Atmeydanı, and not behind the qibla wall.
The Ottoman mausoleums were designed to address different audiences; neither the architectural features and qualities nor the location of the mausoleums were coincidental. Particular architectural elements were used in the design and
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decoration of the sultanic mausolea that indicated the royal character of the edifices and distinguished them from the urban fabric. These were their monumental domes, precious marbles, high-quality tile revetments and porticos preceding their entrances that emphasized the dynastic and monumental character of these edifices. The use of monumental inscriptions is also worth mentioning as a defining aspect of the sultanic tombs; the inscriptional programs including references to the concepts of religion and sovereignty were significant especially in the context of visitations to the mausoleums. The mausoleums were sites for regular and occasional visits of the sultan and the elites; visiting the dynastic mausoleums in the Divan Yolu became a part of the sultanic processions in the sixteenth century. Accounts of contemporary observers indicate that it was not only the sultan and the state bureaucrats, but also “common people”, who visited the mausoleums of the Ottoman sultans in Istanbul. Thus, their location on the main ceremonial avenue of the Ottoman Istanbul, the Divan Yolu; their placement as a part of the royal sultanic mosque complexes, and their architectural, decorative and inscriptional features made the sultanic mausoleums a part of the urban and ceremonial choreography of the imperial capital city.
Even though the mausoleums of the Ottoman sultans were monumental in the context of the architectural and ceremonial order of the Ottoman dynasty; they will be seen as modest edifices in comparison with the mausoleums of the Mughal shahs. Established in the first quarter of the sixteenth century in northern India, the shahs of the Mughal dynasty claimed to be successors of Timur and inherited the legacy of the Timurids as well as their cultural codes and institutions.306 The Mughal dynasty
306 See: Balabanlılar, Lisa, Imperial Identity in the Mughal Empire: Memory and Dynastic Politics in Early Modern South and Central Asia, New York: 2012.
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became one of the major inheritors of the Timurid architectural culture along with the Safavids; constructing funerary monuments was one of the practices inherited by the Mughals and Safavids alike. While the Safavids concentrated their architectural patronage on their ancestral shrine and others associated with Shi’i and Sufi figures307 and did not erect major monuments for the deceased shahs; the Mughal dynasty produced the most innovative and monumental funerary structures of the early modern Islamic realms.
The first six Mughal shahs have mausoleums constructed for themselves by their successors. They did not espouse one single architectural model in their mausolea; but three different types of tomb were constructed. One was the open-sky mausoleum preferred by the first and the last of the Mughal emperors in the period in question. The tombs of Babur (d. 1530) and Aurangzeb (d. 1707) are simple open-sky graves with marble enclosures, which were constructed in this manner upon the will of Babur and Aurangzeb to be buried in accordance with the Sunnah.308 The second type of mausoleum is seen in the tombs of Humayun and that of Mumtaz Mahal built by Shah Jahan, which were modeled after the ninefold plan and adorned with monumental bulbous domes. The ninefold plan is basically a layout that consists of a square (or rectangle), whose corners are fortified with towers in some cases, but more often chamfered in order to form an irregular octagon (muthamman baghdadi in Mughal terms). Four intersecting construction lines divide the layout into nine parts, composing a domed chamber in the center, rectangular open halls in the middle of the sides and two-storey vaulted rooms or blocks in the corners. Another term that
307 Rizvi, Kishwar, The Safavid Dynastic Shrine: Architecture, Religion and Power in Early Modern Iran, New York: 2011, p. 3.
308 See: Zajadacz-Hastenrath, Salome, “A Note on Babur’s Lost Funerary Enclosure at Kabul” in Muqarnas XIV, Leiden: 1998, pp. 135-142.
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is used to designate this model is hasht bihisht (eight paradises in Persian); the reason behind this is the analogy established between the eight paradises and the eight rooms surrounding the central chamber.309 The reason behind the choice for this model seems to be related to the vision and will of the patron of each mausoleum. The patron of Humayun’s tomb Akbar and Shah Jahan as the patron of the mausoleum of his wife Mumtaz Mahal (where he was also buried) had been conductors of imperial visions and, engaged in large scale architectural projects reflecting their imperial identity and splendor. Their monumental mausoleums can be both seen as a part of the extensive architectural projects they undertook during their reigns.310 The third type of tomb is the open-air platform mausoleum, which was shaped under the light of Jahangir’s religious vision, for his father Akbar’s tomb as well as for his own mausoleum. (Figure 63) Although the mausoleum of Jahangir was not constructed by himself in his life-time; his will to be buried under the open-sky and the model of his father’s mausoleum were major factors shaping the design of his own mausoleum. As an architectural model, the multi-level platform mausoleum is a Mughal innovation. The sarcophagus of the deceased is located on an elevated open-air platform that is monumentalized with architectural elements such as chatris and minarets; but the deceased was buried in the ground level. In this model of mausoleum, the need for imperial representation and splendor was negotiated with the emperor’s concern with the Sunnah; the result is an intelligent
309 Koch, Mughal Architecture An Outline of Its History and Development (1526-1858), Münich: 1991, p. 45.
310 See: Asher, Catherine B., The New Cambridge History of India: Architecture of Mughal India, New York: 1992, pp. 39-98, 169- 214; Koch, Ebba, Mughal Architecture: An Outline of Its History and Development (1526-1858), pp. 43-69, 93-133.
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solution for the mausoleum, being both open-sky and crowned with imperial architectural elements like chatris and minarets.311 Although the Mughal tombs were not designed according to one single architectural plan; they have some common features and elements in common. One is the use of red sand stone and white marble either as construction material or for decoration; only the tombs of Babur and Aurangzeb did not have red sand stone, but were made of white marble. This color dualism espoused by the Mughal has its origins in the older Indian concepts and was already adopted by the Delhi sultans; in the older Indian tradition, white stones and merbles were used for buildings for the priestly caste and red sandstones for buildings of the warrior caste.312 According to Koch, ‘by using white and red in their buildings the Mughals identified themselves with the two highest levels of the Indian social system’. Red had further imperial connotations within the Mughal tradition: it was the exclusive color of imperial tents.313 Other two common features are char bagh garden settings, excessive use of chatris and other architectural elements used in palatial edifices. These two elements have been interpreted by scholars as related with paradisiacal imagery in reference to heavenly gardens and pavilions.314
Unlike the Ottoman sultanic mausoleums concentrated in two cities following a sequence, the mausoleums of the Mughal emperors were all constructed in different
311 Brand, Michael, “Orthodoxy, Innovation, and Revival: Considerations of the Past in Imperial Mughal Tomb Architecture” in Muqarnas X, Leiden: 1997, pp. 12-22; Koch, Mughal Architecture: An Outline of Its History and Development (1526-1858), pp. 70-82, 97-98.
312Koch, The Complete Taj Mahal, London: 2006, p.215.
313Ibid., p. 215.
314 See: Ruggles, D. Fairchild, “The Here and Hereafter” in Islamic Gardens and Lanscapes, Philadelphia: 2008, pp. 103-116.
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cities. The tomb of Humayun is in Delhi; that of Akbar is in Sikandra, that of Jahangir is in Lahore, and that of Shah Jahan is in Agra. Rather than following a single defined custom, different mechanisms seem to have played roles in the decision about the locations of these mausoleums. The mausoleum of Humayun was built in Delhi, very close to the shrine of Nizamuddin Evliya, who was one of the spiritual leaders of the Chisti order and, Akbar Shah is known with his very close ties to this person and his order. This spatial proximity may have played a role in Akbar’s decision of the locus of his father’s mausoleum. In addition to its proximity to the shrine of Nizamuddin Evliya, the proximity to the Din-Panah that was the citadel constructed by Humayun and in which he resided, may have played a role in the decision of Akbar. It seems the proximity of the mausoleums to the shrines of Sufi leaders and to the palace-forts built by the deceased played an importanct role for the choice of the burial place; it wa probably not coincidental that the mausoleum of Jahangir was built in Lahore where he built a palace-fort and close to which to the Ajmer shrine of Muinaddin Chisti is located. However, proximity to the palace-forts and to the shrines of spiritual leaders is not sufficient for explaining the mechanisms behind the choice of the location of the mausoleums of all Mughal emperors. One can safely claim, however, that in general they were built in major cities of the empire, which became the sites of different architectural projects of the dynastic family.
Unlike the Ottoman sultanic mausoleums again, the mausoleums of Mughal emperors were not necessarily built as a part of larger complexes. The mausoleums of Humayun and Akbar are large monumental structures that stand by themselves without any complementary structures. This seems to have changed under the reign of Shah Jahan. The mausoleum of Jahangir was built by Shah Jahan in addition to
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Taj Mahal, which he built for his beloved queen Mumtaz Mahal and would be his own burial place after his death. (Figure 64) These two mausoleums were supplemented by other buildings: Jahangir’s mausoleum contained a mosque and a ceremonial forecourt; while Taj Mahal was a complex with bazaars and caravansarais financing the upkeep of the mausoleum, in addition to a mosque and garden pavilions.315
A definitive feature of the mausoleums of the Mughal emperors is their garden settings. All of them were situated in geometrically ordered gardens and a very particular type of configuration was favored, called Chahr Bagh, which consisted of four equally-proportioned gardens intersected by water channels.316 This necessitated the mausoleums to be built near rivers or water sources, otherwise artificial pools were constructed for the irrigation of the gardens. In Agra, the Chahr Bagh garden setting was negotiated with the riverfront image, as was manifested in Taj Mahal and other mausoleums along the Jumna River. In general, the gardens were elements consolidating the image of the mausoleums as paradisiacal mansions, when they are evaluated in relation to their decorative and epigraphic programmes.
The mausoleums of the Mughal emperors became subjects of imperial visits both deliberate and spontaneous as in the case of the Ottoman sultanic mausoleums. We know from his chroniclers’ accounts that Akbar visited his father’s tomb in Delhi nine times for seeking intercession, circumambulated the tomb and, made offerings. Jahangir went to Delhi six times and visited the mausoleum of his ancestor, namely Humayun, for seeking intercession and made offerings there. Unlike that of his
315Koch, Ebba, The Complete Taj Mahal, pp. 201- 207.
316 Ibid., pp. 23-25.
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fathers’, however, his visits seem to be more spontaneous and did not follow a defined order; but he visited the tomb when he passed by it on his way to other destinations. This seems to be relevant for his visits to the mausoleum of Babur in Kabul and that of Akbar in Sikandra.317 As we learn from his memoirs, Jahangir visited the mausoleum of Babur when he made a journey to Kabul and the mausoleum of Akbar, when he went Agra for another purpose. 318The practices of making offerings and seeking intercession seem to be customary for all, however. Lastly, we know that Shah Jahan also made visits to the mausoleum of Humayun in Delhi.319
The Safavid shahs’ practice was different from that of the Ottoman and Mughal rulers, just as was their religious affiliation. Unlike the Ottoman and Mughal rulers who were buried in mausoleums that were either single monuments or constructed as parts of dynastic funerary complexes, the Safavid shah did not contruct mausoleums or funerary complexes in their names.Except the first one, Shah Ismail I, the Safavid shahs were not buried in monumental mausoleums that were constructed as single monuments or as parts of dynastic funerary complexes. Ismail I was buried in the shrine of Sheikh Safi in Ardabil, in a tomb tower constructed for himself. (Figure 65) Sheikh Safi was the ancestor of Ismail I, who was a Sufi master and who founded the Safaviyya order in the thirteenth century. His dargah in Ardabil was turned into a dynastic shrine with the patronage of Ismail I and his successors in
317 See: Koch, Ebba, “The Delhi of the Mughals Prior to Shahjahanabad as Reflected in the Patterns of Imperial Visits” in Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology: Collected Essays, New Delhi; New York: 2011, pp. 163-182.
318Jahangir, The Tuzuk-i Jahangiri or Memoirs of Jahangir, translated by Alexander Rogers and edited by Henry Beveridge, Delhi: 1978, p.58, 110, 152, 249.
319 Koch, “The Delhi of the Mughals Prior to Shahjahanabad as Reflected in the Patterns of Imperial Visits”, pp. 171-172.
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the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Although there is no shah except Ismail I who was buried in this shrine; the successors of Ismail I and other members of the dynasty constructed several edifices in the shrine and, some princes and female members of the dynasty were buried here.320 The significance of this shrine comes from the fact that Sheikh Safi was the ancestor of the Safavid shahs, who was a venerated Sufi master with a huge heterogeneous crowd of followers including the Sunni and Shi’i Muslims with “orthodox” and “unorthodox” affiliations. Although the successors of Ismail I gradually became orthodox Shi’ites; they did not completely leave behind their role of being the successors of a Sufi sheikh.321
There is a mausoleum attributed to Tahmasb in the city of Sabzavar; but it is not certain whether he was buried here or not. It is known that Tahmasb died in his capital city of Qazvin.322 If it is true that Tahmasb was buried in Sabzavar; the reason behind this choice is unknown. In my view, there is a possibility that Tahmasb was buried in Qazvin where he died; it is known that he made enlargements in the Qazvin shrine, which belongs to an Imamzade and is the resting place of several prominent figures including the female members of the dynasty and the viziers of the shah.323 To my knowledge, there is no mention in the chronicles about where Tahmasb was buried and, whether a tomb was constructed for him in Sabzavar or not. My suggestion is that for a Safavid shah, to be buried in a Shi’i shrine was more possible and meaningful in the religio-political context of the time and, this practice was
320 See: Rizvi, Kishwar, The Safavid Dynastic Shrine: Architecture, Religion and Power in Early Modern Iran.
321 See: Babayan, Kathryn, “The Safavid Synthesis: From Qizilbash Islam to Imamite Shi’ism” in Iranian Studies vol. 27, New Haven: 1994, pp. 135-161.
322 Newman, Andrew J., Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire, New York: 2006, p. 38.
323 Ibid., p. 36.
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customized by the successors of Tahmasb. This is, however, only a hypothesis and needs further investigation. It was in the period of Shah Abbas I, when the practice to be buried near the mausoleums of the relatives of Imam Musa al-Kazim, the seventh Imam of the Twelver Shi’is, was established. Shah Abbas was buried in Kashan in the crypt of the mausoleum of Habib ibn Musa, who was one of the sons of Musa al-Kazim. The four subsequent shahs were buried in Qum in the shrine of Fatimeh Ma’sumeh, who was the sister of Musa al-Kazim and whose shrine became one of the centers of the Shi’ite learning in the seventeenth century.324 (Figure 66) From the beginning, the Safavid shahs made donations to and renovations in the shrines of Musa al-Kazim and his relatives. Shah Ismail I claimed to be descendent of Imam Musa al-Kazim and declared Twelver Shi’ism the religion of his state; Twelver Shi’ism was the main constitutive aspect of the Safavid polity. The mausoleums of the Imam Musa al-Kazim and his relatives became sites on which the Safavid shahs displayed their affiliation with the Shi’i imams through their patronage in these shrines as well as their visitations to these sites.325
If one reads the Ottoman dynastic funerary architecture in comparison with those of the Mughals and the Safavids; it will be seen that there are both similarities and differences in their styles of architecture and, the meanings attributed to the funerary monuments. While the parallels, or similarities, took root from their common origins established in Greater Iran in medieval era; differences emanated from interactions with vernacular cultures and the meanings attributed to the mausolea and their dwellers. First and foremost, the existance of the funeray
324 Gleave, Robert, “The Ritual Life of the Shrines” in Shah ‘Abbas: The Remaking of Iran, edited by Sheila R. Canby, London: 2009, p. 94.
325 See, Melville, Charles, “Shah ‘Abbas and the Pilgrimage to Mashad” in Safavid Persia: the History and Politics of an Islamic Society, edited by Charles Melville, London; New York: 1996, pp. 191-221.
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architectural monuments has to be underlined; the rulers of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal dynasties espoused the custom of erecting funerary monuments for themselves. As I discussed in the introduction, a funerary architectural culture was already established in the larger Islamic world in general and in the region of Greater Iran, Anatolia and India before the emergence of the early modern Islamic empires and, it was inherited by the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal rulers as an established custom. These three dynasties inherited major elements of the funerary architectural culture of medieval Iran and collated them with the elements of the vernacular architecture in their regions. Architecturally, the dynastic mausolea of the three empires can be connected to the tomb towers and domed octagonal mausoleums of medieval Iran. Although there are differences in the materials, decorative elements and architectural styles in the funerary architecture of these three empires; major architectural elements are common to all three. The monumental domes; octagonal plans and epigraphic decorations are among such common elements that emanated from funerary architecture of medieval Iran.
The monumental domes; octagonal plans and the prominently displayed epigraphic programmes are among defining architectural elements of the Ottoman dynastic mausoleums like those of the Mughals and the Safavids, despite differences in preferred plan types, scales, and volumetric arrangements. The construction material is a further example for the differences in the architecture of the mausoleums. In the Ottoman mausoleums, cut stone is the main contruction material; while the Safavid mausoleums are made of brick and, marble and sand-stone are used as contruction materials in the mausoleums of the Mughal emperors. Differences in the construction material further affected the emergence of differences in the decoration of the edifices. Architectural decoration is achieved with the use of
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under-glazed tile revetments in the interiors and entrance facades of the Ottoman mausolea because of the aesthetical and material concordance between Iznik tiles and ashlar stone masonry; while glazed-bricks and tiles predominted in tones of blue are used in the decoration of the Safavid mausoleums and the Mughal mausoleums are often adorned with marble inlay or relief decoration on stone.
The locations and spatial connections of the mausoleums are significant agents in understanding the meaning of the funerary monuments of the rulers under consideration. The agency of the patrons affected the choices for the location and the architecture of the mausoleums; the patrons were the rulers themselves, who had particular political and religious agendas. The funerary monuments patronized by the rulers of these three dynasties became agents through which the religious affiliations, political power and dynastic continuities were manifested to different audiences including the subjects, the state elites, the members of the rival dynasties, as well as the members of the dynasty itself. Differences in the religio-political agendas of the rulers and in the meanings attributed to the royal mausola became manifest in their spatial connections. The mausolea of the Ottoman sultans were attached to their royal convent or mosque complexes and designed as less monumental edifices in comparison with the royal mosques they were attached to. The Ottoman sultans’ affiliation with Sunni Islam and their emphasis on holy war were manifested in their royal mosque complexes, which were built by the sultans with the booty of the military campaigns.
The religious and political agendas of the Mughal and Safavid shahs were different from those of the Ottoman sultans and, this affected their choice for location and spatial connections. The Mughal emperors’ mausoleums were designed as single monuments except Taj Mahal, which was built with other complementary
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buildings. The mausoleums of the Mughal emperors dominate the environment in which they were built; even in the complex of Taj Mahal, the mausoleum is the biggest and the most dominant edifice of the funerary complex. The monumentality and spatial dominance of the mausoleums of the Mughal rulers seem to be related to the meaning attributed to the Mughal shahs; especially after Humayun, they began to define themselves both as the political and spiritual leaders of their community. They established strong connections with the leaders of the Sufi orders, particularly the Chistiyya and, shared their role and the power of their spiritual aura eventually. In this context, the spatial proximity of the mausoleums of the Mughal shahs and their resemblance to the shrines of venerated Sufi figures in some respects seem not to be coincidential.
A similar incentive was valid for the Safavid shahs too; they preferred to be buried in mausoleums in the shrines of religious figures they were attached to. As the character of the religious figures had changed over time from Sufi leaders to Shi’i figures; the choice for the location of the mausoleums of the Safavid shahs also changed. Being buried under the shadow of a sprititual figure was a custom that continued until the end of the dynasty. Unlike the mausoleums of the Mughal shahs, however, they were designed as less monumental edifices, in a manner avoiding over shadowing the mausoleums of the religious figures; since they were those religious figures, who constituted the religious and political legitimacy of the Safavid shahs.
The locations, the architectural plans and features, and the social settings of the mausolea were chosen carefully; they were intended to be in dialogue with the targeted audience(s). The early modern period witnessed the sacralization of
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imperial authority in three Muslim empires326; dynastic mausolea, with their architecture, settings, and practices of visitation, although diverse in their particularities, can be seen as one manifestation of such a trend. At the end of the first Islamic millennium, the sultan in Istanbul, the shah in Isfahan and the padeshah in Delhi all claimed to be the legitimate caliphs of the Muslim communities and the sublime power of their realms. To be buried under monumental domes or under the shadows of the religiously venerated persona did not affect the future of their dynasties; but it helped them to construct and represent identities that have been manifested to different audiences, including the historians.
326 See: Azmah, Aziz, Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in the Muslim, Christian and Pagan Polities, London; New York: 2001, pp. 115-189.
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MAPS
1. The Mausoleums of the Ottoman sultans in Istanbul (Edhem Eldem, Death in Istanbul: Death and Its Rituals In Ottoman-Islamic Culture, p. 27.
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2. The Atmeydanı and its Environs ( Hippodrome/ Atmeydanı: A Stage for Istanbul’s History- II, edited by B. Pitarakis, p. 48, 49)
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1: Ibrahim Pasha Palace
3a: Hagia Sophia
3b: The Mausoleum of Selim II
3c: The Mausoleum of Murad III
3d: The Mausoleum of Şehzadegan
3e: The Mausoleum of Mehmed III
8: Firuz Ağa Mosque
26: Haseki Hürrem Bath
29a: The Sultan Ahmed Mosque Complex
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IMAGES
1. Qubbat al-Sulaibiya, Samarra. (Photography by Alastair Northedge) http://archnet.org/library/images/one-image.jsp?location_id=9354&image_id=59973 (accessed on 20.06.2013)
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2. Tomb of Üljeitü (Photography by Nandini Bagchee) http://archnet.org/library/images/one-image.jsp?location_id=3782&image_id=11877 (accessed on 20.06.2013)
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3. Sultan al-Qalaun Complex (Photography by John A. and Caroline Williams) http://archnet.org/library/images/one-image-large.jsp?location_id=3499&image_id=113501 (accessed on 20.06.2013)
4. Tomb of Mama Hatun, Tercan (Photography by Walter B. Denny) http://archnet.org/library/images/one-image-large.jsp?location_id=14221&image_id=141196 (accessed on 20.06.2013)
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5. Döner Kümbet, Kayseri (Photography by Yasser Tabbaa) http://archnet.org/library/images/one-image-large.jsp?location_id=10504&image_id=71916 (accessed on 20.06.2013)
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6. The southeastern minaret/ the brick minaret (Photography by the author)
7. View of the Atmeydanı, Freshfield Album, fol. 20, 1574.
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8. The Synod decrees (Photography by the author)
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9. Hagia Sophia, Seyyid Lokman, Şehname-i Selim Han, 1581, TSM, A. 3595, 145a.
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10. The western minarets completed under the reign of Murad III (Photography by the author)
11. One of the mahfils constructed by Murad III (Photography by the author)
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12. The Plan of Hagia Sophia (Gülru Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, p.81)
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13. Interior view from Ibrahim Pasha Palace: Admittance of the scholars (‘ulama) by the sultan, Hünername II, Topkapı Palace Library, H. 1524, 123a.
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8. Haseki Hammam (right) and Hagia Sophia facing the Atmeydanı (Photography by the author)
14. The Atmeydanı, Detail of the panorama of Constantinople, Matrakçı Nasuh, 1537-8.
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15. Hagia Sophia masuoleums behind the enclosure wall, near the Atmeydanı. (Photography by the author)
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16. Battle simulation with two castles in 1582 festivity, Surname-i Hümayun, Topkapı Palace Library, H. 1344, 289a.
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17. Brocade-makers, Surname-i Hümayun, Topkapı Palace Library, H. 1344, 330b.
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18. Performances of horsemen in 1582 festivity, Surname-i Hümayun, Topkapı Palace Library, H. 1344, 43a.
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19. Hagia Sophia and Mausoleums: Josephus Grelot, A Late Voyage to Constantınople, 1683.
20. Atmeydanı: Marchebens, Voyage de Paris a Constantinople par bateaua vapeur, Paris, 1839, p. 140-141.
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21. Anonymous Austrian Artist. Burial tent of Selim II and his sons at Hagia Sophia, c. 1574, watercolor on paper. (Gülru Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, p. 112)
22. The construction inscription of the mausoleum of Selim II (Photography by the author)
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23. The mausoleum of Selim II (Photography by the author)
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24. The plan of the mausoleum of Selim II ( Hakkı Önkal, Osmanlı Hanedan Türbeleri, p. 170)
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25. Rosettes and twisting motifs (Photography by the author)
26. The dome of Selim II’s mausoleum (Photography by the author)
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27. Tile panel in the portico of the mausoleum of Selim II (Photography by the author)
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28. Detail of the interior tile revetments of the mausoleum os Selim II (Photography by the author)
29. Detail of the interior tile revetments of the mausoleum os Selim II (Photography by the author)
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30. The mausoleum of Şehzadegan (Photography by the author)
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31. The plan of the mausoleum of Şehzadegan. ( Hakkı Önkal, Osmanlı Hanedan Türbeleri, p. 176)
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32. The interior of the mausoleum of Şehzadegan (Photography by the author)
33. The mausoleum of Murad III (Photography by the author)
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34. The plan of the mausoleum of Murad III. ( Hakkı Önkal, Osmanlı Hanedan Türbeleri, p. 183)
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35. The muqarnas voussoir of the mausoleum of Murad III (Photography by the author)
36. The interior of the mausoleum of Murad III (Photography by the author)
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37. The dome of the mausoleum of Murad III (Photography by the author)
38. The windows of the mausoleum of Murad III (Photography by the author)
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39. Tile panel in the portico of the mausoleum of Murad III (Photography by the author)
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40. Detail of the interior tile revetments of the mausoleum of Murad III (Photography by the author)
41. Detail of the interior tile revetments of the mausoleum of Murad III (Photography by the author)
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42. The interior of the mausoleum of Mehmed III (Photography by the author)
43. The sarcophagi in the mausoleum of Mehmed III (Photography by the author)
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44. Detail of the tile revetments of the mausoleum of Mehmed III (Photography by the author)
45. Detail of the tile reventments of the mausoleum of Mehmed III (Photography by the author)
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46. The plan of the mausoleum of Mehmed III ( Hakkı Önkal, Osmanlı Hanedan Türbeleri, p. 193)
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47. The mausoleum of Ibrahim I and Mustafa I (Photography by the author)
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48. The mausoleum of Ibrahim I and Mustafa I (Photography by the author)
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49. The plan of the mausoleum of Süleyman I (Hakkı Önkal, Osmanlı Hanedan Türbeleri, p. 158)
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50. Floral motifs- detail of the inner tile revetments of the mausoleum of Murad III (Photography by the author)
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51. Floral motifs- detail of the inner tile revetments of the mausoleum of Selim II (Photography by the author)
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52. Chinese clouds- detail of the inner tile revetments of the mausoleum of Murad III (Photography by the author)
53. Detail of an incriptional panel-the mausoleum of Mehmed III (Photography by the author)
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54. Woodwork- detail of the entrance door of the mausoleum of Selim II (Photography by the author)
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55. Kündekari- detail from the entrance door of the mausoleum of Selim II (Photography by the author)
56. Anonymus Austrian Artist, domed mausoleum of Selim II and princes at the renovated Hagia Sophia mosque, c. 1570, watercolor on paper. (Gülru Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, p. 113)
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57. Textile from the mausoleum of Şehzadegan (from the archive of Hagia Sophia Museum)
58. Caftan from the mausoleum of Şehzadegan (from the archive of Hagia Sophia Museum)
59. The cover of Kaba from the mausoleum of Şehzadegan (from the archive of Hagia Sophia Museum)
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60. Caftan from the mausoleum of Şehzadegan (from the archive of Hagia Sophia Museum)
61. The cover of Kaba from the mausoleum of Şehzadegan (from the archive of Hagia Sophia Museum)
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62. Caftan from the mausoleum of Şehzadegan (from the archive of Hagia Sophia Museum)
63. The mausoleum of Akbar, Sikandra (Photography by Gauvin Bailey http://archnet.org/library/images/one-image.jsp?location_id=3648&image_id=77020 accessed in 20.06.2013)
64. Taj Mahal, Agra (Photography by Alfred De Costa http://archnet.org/library/images/one-image.jsp?location_id=3527&image_id=188928 accessed in 20.06.2013)
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65. The Tomb of Shah Ismail (right), Ardabil (Photography by S. Blair and J. Bloom http://archnet.org/library/images/one-image.jsp?location_id=12841&image_id=115496 accessed in 20.06.2013)
66. The Shrine of Fatima Masumeh, Qum (Photography by Bijan Saadat http://archnet.org/library/images/one-image-large.jsp?location_id=9662&image_id=143743 accessed in 20. 06.2013)
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APPENDIX A: ORIGINALS OF THE QUOTES USED IN THE THESIS
1- “Cemiyet-i hümâyûna mübâşeret olunub evvela emîn-i sûr ve nâzır-ı sürûr üç yüz mu’temed-i mevfûr ve bir nice ashâb-ı vukûf ve şu’ûr ta’yîn olundı… Pâdişâh-ı ‘âlempenâh mâh-ı mezbûrun evvelinde atmeydanı sarayîn menzilgâh edindiler. Pes ibtidâ da’vet olunân mülûkun vüzerâ-i ‘azâm ve mîr-i mîrân-ı kirâm vesâ’ir erbâb-ı ihtişâmın her gün hediyeleri ‘arz olunurdı. Ba’de erbâb-ı hurûfun sanâyi’garîbe ve ucûbesi seyr ettirilüb armağân ve peşkeşleri çekilürdi. Fâmen bu sûr behçetmevfurda ihdâs olunân ‘acâyib ve garâib had ve hasrdan bîrûndur.” Footnote 186: Ibrahim Peçevi, Tarih-i Peçevi, vol. 2., p. 71, 72.
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APPENDIX B: TIMELINE
Sultan
Reign
Patronage in the Hagia Sophia Complex
Mehmed II
1451-1481
The restoration and conversion of the church into mosque; addition of a mihrab, minbar and mahfil; the removal of some figural mosaics on the walls; the construction of a madrasa and a minaret.
Beyazıd II
1481-1512
The construction of a second story to the madrasa and of one minaret (the northeastern or the southeastern minaret)
Selim I
1512-1520
Süleyman
1520-1566
The gifting of two bronze candle sticks taken from the Cathedral of Buda as booty.
Selim II
1566-1574
The deportation of marble tablets on which the Synod decrees of 1116 were inscribed; a large-scale restoration of the edifice; the clarification of the environs of the complex and the construction of the enclosure wall; the construction of two minarets and the mausoleum of Selim II.
Murad III
1574-1595
The completion of the constrution of the two minarets and the mausoleum of Selim II; the restorations; the gifting of two marble urns from Bergamum; the addition of four mahfils for müezzins
Mehmed III
1595-1603
The construction of the mausoleum of Murad III and repairs in the mosque
Ahmed I
1603-1617
The construction of the mausoleum of Mehmed III and repairs in the dome of the mosque, mihrab, minbar, mahfil and madrasa
Mustafa I
1617;1622-1623
Ibrahim I
1623-1640
1. Timeline of the sultans and their patronage in the Hagia Sophia complex (Kiliseden Müzeye Ayasofya Camii, edited byA. Akgündüz; S. Öztürk and Y. Baş, pp. 115-201)
178
APPENDIX C: MÜHİMME DEEDS
1. BA Mühimme Defteri nr. 10, page 194, hüküm 291.
3. BA Mühimme Defteri, nr. 24, p. 67, hüküm 182.
179
4. BA Mühimme Defteri nr. 27, p. 218, hüküm 497.
180
5. BA Mühimme Defteri nr.49, page 25, hüküm 93
181
6. BA Mühimme Defteri nr.69, page 249, hüküm 496.
182
Transkriptions:
1. İstanbul kadısına hüküm ki, südde-i saadetime suret-i sicil gönderip hala Ayasofya Camii’nin mimarı olan Ahmed meclis-i şerʻi şerife gelen bazı kimesneler cami-i şerifin duvarına (ve) damına dahl eylediklerin[i] bildirmeğin nâibin Mevlana Abdurrahman ile südde-i saadetim çavuşlarından Mehmed Çavuş ve imam ve sair Müslümanlar’dan bî-garaz ve ehil-i vukûf kimesneler(i) gönderip varıp gördüklerinde İbrahim nam kimesne caminin zemininde bir kuyu kazıp duvarlarına muttasıl bir fevkâni hela ve duvarını oyup içinde tahtâni hela bir …. ihdâs edip ve bir kemer ayağı içinde bir hela dahi ihdâs edip ve iki kemer ayağı içinde delip bir matbah ve bir .. fekâni ve tahtâni evler bünyâd edip ve zikr olunan fevkânî helaları olduğundan mâʻadâ camiin duvarında neşf edip hasırların nem-nâk olup üzerinde namaz mümkün olmayıp cemâat … oldukların ve … Hâce nam kimesne dahi camii-i şerifin kapısı kurbünde duvara muttasıl bir hela ihdas eylediğin gelip haber verdiklerinde bu zikr olunan hadisât menʻ ve kalʻ olunmak lazım olduğunu bildirmişsiz. İmdi buyurdum ki, vardıkta bizzat üzerine varıp eğer suret-i sicilde mastûr olandır ve eğer bunlardan gayri camii şerife şerrî [ve] zararları olanlardır menʻ ve kalʻ edip şer-i şerife muhalif kimesneye iş ettirmeyesin. Anlamayıp inat edenleri yazıp bildiresin.
2. Hamid ili Piyadeleri Beğine hüküm ki,
Hamid ili beği evvelki nevbetlisi ki 593 neferdir bundan evvel mahrûse-i Edirne’de bina olunan imâret-i amirem hizmetine tayin olunup ihrâcı için hüküm irsal olunmuş idi. Hala imâret-i mezburede tâife-i mezkûrenin hizmetine çendân ihtiyâc olmadığı ilan olunup mahruse-i İstanbul’da Ayasofya binasında lazım olmağın imâret-i mezbûre hizmetinden refʻ ve Ayasofya hizmetine tayin edip buyurdum ki, vusul buldukta te’hîr ve terâhî etmeyüp taife-i mezkurenin evvelki nevbetlisin(i) kânun üzre altışar aylık zâd u zevâdları ve mukaddemleri ve Çeribaşıları ile bî-kusûr ihrâc edip ber-vech-i istiʻcâl gönderip adem-i mübâşeret eylemeyesin ve geç ve eksik göndermekten hazer eylemeyesin, sonra özrün makbul olmaz bilmiş olasın.
3. Karahisar Piyadeleri Beğine hüküm ki, sancağını müteallik piyâdelerin bir nevbetlisi hala Ayasofya-i Kebir hizmetine gelmek emr edip buyurdum ki, vusul buldukta asla tevakkuf etmeyip sancağını müteallik olan piyadelerin bir nevbetlisi ale’t-taʻcîl ihrâc edip mukaddemleri ve yayabaşıları ile ve altı aylık zâd u zevâdlarıyla İstanbul’a getirip camiʻ-i mezbur hizmetinde olup, bî- tavakkuf gelip piyadeler ve geç (ve ) eksik getirmekden ve geç gelmekten hazer edesin.
4. Sabıkâ Edirne’de müderris olup hâlâ mütekāid olan Ağazâde’ye hüküm ki, hâlâ merhûm ve magfûrun-leh ceddim Sultan Süleyman Han tâbe serâhü evkâfı mütevellisi Abdi mektub gönderüp bundan akdem Ayasofya’nın etrafı tevsîʻ olunmak ferman olundukda …. bazı maʻmûr olan evkâf-ı selâtîne taksîm olundukda merhûm müşârun-ileyhin evkâfına yevmî bin akçe tayin
183
olunup lâkin evkâf-ı mezbûrenin mahsûlü senevî olup birkaç yıl mahsûl- vakf ziyâde olmakla mürtezikaya kifâyet edip ve Sultan Selim Han evkafı zîk üzre olmakla onun dahi mürtezikasının bazı, müşârun-ileyhin evkâfına tahmîl olunup hâlâ terki ziyâde üzre olmakla mürtezikanın vazîfesine kifâyet etmeyip küllî muzâyak olduğun ve vekâf-ı selâtîn îrâd ve masrâfı görülüp senevî ne mikdâr mahsûl olup masrafı ne kadar olduğu malum olup arz olunmasın(ı) bildirmeğin adâlet ve istikāmetle … müteşerriʻ olup kemâl-i diyânet ve halâsına itimâd-ı hümâyûnum olmağın mahrûse-i istanbul’da vaki olan evkâf-ı selâtîn ahvâlin sen görüp îrâd ve masrafları ne olduğu malum edinip arz etmek emr edip buyurdum ki, varıcak fermân-ı hümâyunum mûcebince bizzât mukayyed olup bir münâsib yerde oturup dahi mahrûse-i mezbûrede olan selâtînin mütevellilerin(i) getirtip tasarruflarında olan vakıfların îradları senevî ne mikdâr akçe olur ve mürtezikaya ve sâir mesârif-i vakf ne kadar gider, cümlesin onat vechile dikkat ve ihtimamla teftîş ve tefahhus eyleyip tamam … edinüp dahi her birine müstakil ve mufassal yazıp sıhhat üzre bildiresin. Husus-ı mezburde benim ziyâde ihtimâmım vardır, onat mukayyed olup dikkat ve ihtimamda kusur etmeyesin.
5. Ayasofya mütevellisine hüküm ki, imamlarının meskeni olmamağın tedâriki lazım olmakla Ayasofya Cami-i şerifi etrafında müceddeden yakın ev bina olunmamak ferman olunub bazı evlerin altında dükkan bina olunur ise vakfa nâfidir deyu i’lam olunmağın buyurdum ki vardıkta göresin fi’l-vâki’ bina olunan evlerin altında dükkan binası enfa’ ise ol dükkanlar üzerinde emrim üzere imamlara mesken bina ettiresin.
184
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