Conquest of the Most All Blissful

On Saturday morning, March 2, 2013, I continued exploring Istanbul with the help of two books:

1. Hilary Sumner-Boyd & John Freely, Strolling Through Istanbul, revised and updated edition (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010).
2. Reha Günay, A Guide to the Works of Sinan the Architect in Istanbul (Istanbul: YEM Yayın, 2006).

Sumner-Boyd & Freely is useful for providing guided tours all over the old city. Günay lets one appreciate Sinan without leaving home, because it is full of color photos, as well as text explaining what is in the photos. Moreover, its maps show many attractions, besides the works of Sinan; and these attractions are color-coded on the maps, according to whether they are Byzantine, or pre-Sinan Ottoman, or post-Sinan.

I left home at 7:30—a bit late, since the sun had been shining for about half an hour. I was still early to see the Chora Museum, which would open at 9:00. But that was OK: I would see other structures in the area, as described in Chapter 13, “The Fifth and Sixth Hills”, of Sumner-Boyd & Freely. In the event, these other structures provided me so much occupation that I postponed Chora till another day.

I took the metrobüs from Mecidiyeköy. I stood up, but might have been able to find a seat. I was not going far. I got off at Edirnekapı, that is, the Adrianople Gate, the gate in the old city wall through which the road passed that went to the previous capital of the Ottoman Empire. One might as well say that the road from Adrianople or Edirne passed through this gate. As Heraclitus says, as Eliot quotes at the beginning of Burnt Norton, ὡδός ἄνω κάτω μία καὶ ὡυτή—the road up and the road down are one and the same.

I avoided the wide breach in the city wall through which the modern highway passed. I used a smaller entrance to the city, one not available to cars. It was labelled as follows, in golden letters, spelling out archaic Turkish (albeit in the modern alphabet; but there was a bit of Arabic):

BİZ SANA BİR
FETH-İ MÜBİN AÇDIK

---

HİCRETİN 20 [Jumādā al-Ūlā]
857 VE MİLÂDIN 29
MAYIS 1453 SALI
SABAHI BU CİVARDA
AÇILAN GEDİKDEN
FATİH'İN ORDUSU
İSTANBUL'A
GİRMİŞDİR

(We opened to you a manifest victory. On the 20th of Jumādā al-Ūlā, in the 857th year of the Hegira; on May 29, in the 1453th year of the Birth [of Jesus Christ]; Tuesday morning, near here, through an opened breach, the Conqueror's army entered Istanbul)

Just through that entrance was my first destination: the work of Sinan known as the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque. I had visited in 2009, but the mosque was closed for renovation then. This time, renovations were still going on, at least on the surrounding külliye; but the work on the mosque itself seemed to be complete.

What is more, the western door of the mosque was standing open. I removed my boots and went inside. The sun shone through the windows onto the thick red carpet. I could see nobody else. I could however hear somebody, chanting behind a closed door.

Apparently the dome of the mosque was supported by four pendentives erected between four semicircular arches. There were no demidomes bracing the arches against the expansive force of the dome; I suppose these forces must have been counteracted simply by the thickness of the arches themselves. But this thickness could be seen only from the outside of the mosque. The arches were not set on freestanding columns, but rather on pilasters; again, the bulk of these was outside the building. Bearing no weight, the walls beneath the arches could be filled with windows. Reha Günay well describes the mosque interior as “a neatly cut crystal”.

In fact the Mihrimah Sultan Complex was on Sumner-Boyd & Freely's “Along the Land Walls” tour in Chapter 17. The Chapter 13 tour began in the south, at the Fatih Complex, and proceeded clockwise. I picked it up in the north, and followed it counterclockwise. I first passed the modern stadium, evidently under renovation as well, situated inside an old Roman reservoir. This reservoir was called the Cistern of Aetius, after the Prefect of the City who had it constructed in the year 421. (This is what the guide book said; I do not know how such information is found originally.)

At the southern end of the cistern, I angled left, away from the wide and busy Fevzi Paşa Caddesi onto Hasan Fehmi Paşa Caddesi. (I did not actually use street names for navigation.) Here is where I had to decide how closely I wanted to follow the guide book. I did not want to carry it in my hands; but I could not remember all of the structures that it described. Plus, the writers admitted that many of the structures were not of great interest; it was the neighborhood itself, well off the tourist track, that was of interest.

I did not try to find out what this structure was; it could be the back of the Semiz Ali Paşa Medresesi.

This was the Atik Ali Paşa Mosque, under renovation and inaccessible, named for, and built around 1500 by, a Grand Vizier of Sultan Beyazid II (son and successor of Mehmet the Conqueror). The mosque apparently had no central dome, but was covered with a two-by-three array of six domes. In that case, Sinan's Piyale Paşa Mosque would come to resemble it.

On the left, an abandoned madrasah; on the right, the short stubby minaret of the Üç Baş Camii, said to be of no interest, but for its name: Three Heads.

The Nişancı Mehmet Paşa Mosque was said by Sumner-Boyd & Freely to be “one of the very best of the classical mosques—and it is not by Sinan” (despite attributions to him by, for example, the Turkish Wikipedia page just linked to). Günay thinks Sinan must have directly influenced the design, in which the transitional figure from the circle of the dome to the rectangle of the floor was octagonal. I arrived at the mosque at five minutes to nine. An old woman sitting opposite the entrance signed to me with fingers that the mosque would open at nine. When I addressed her, she confirmed her assertion with spoken Turkish. I wandered around a bit and sat on a bench in the adjacent park. I tried the garden door of the mosque again, and it still did not open; moreover, a passing young man said it would not open till noon prayers. He first tried to say this in English, apparently not noticing that I was responding to him in Turkish. I went on my way, but not before seeing the mosque from another side, as here:

This bit of brick wall with tiles was opposite the little graveyard above.

The Kumrulu Mosque or Mosque with Doves is so called for this relief—Byzantine, according to the guide book; the description under the relief itself does not date it.

I turned left, that is east, and headed downhill towards the Golden Horn. I passed another great Roman reservoir, the Cistern of Aspar. According to the book, until 1985, this “was occupied by a very picturesque little farm village”. Now it is occupied by market stalls and exercise facilities.

As for Aspar, his father, himself, and his son had all commanded the armies of the Eastern Roman Empire. Aspar might have become Emperor when Marcian died in 457; but he did not subscribe to the Creed established 133 years earlier at the Council of Nicea. He was apparently Arian, not Orthodox. Edward Gibbon describes what happened next, which included an institution that would profoundly affect relations between Church and State in centuries to come:

[Aspar] recommended the obscure name of Leo of Thrace, a military tribune, and the principal steward of his household. His nomination was unanimously ratified by the senate; and the servant of Aspar received the Imperial crown from the hands of the patriarch or bishop, who was permitted to express, by this unusual ceremony, the suffrage of the Deity. (Footnote: This appears to be the first origin of a ceremony which all the Christian princes of the world have since adopted; and from which the clergy have deduced the most formidable consequences.) This emperor, the first of the name of Leo, has been distinguished by the title of the Great, from a succession of princes who gradually fixed in the opinion of the Greeks a very humble standard of heroic, or at least of royal, perfection.

Leo seems to have stood firm against what some would call corruption, while others might call it returning favors:

Yet the temperate firmness with which Leo resisted the oppression of his benefactor showed that he was conscious of his duty and of his prerogative. Aspar was astonished to find that his influence could no longer appoint a praefect of Constantinople: he presumed to reproach his sovereign with a breach of promise, and, insolently shaking his purple, It is not proper (said he) that the man who is invested with this garment should be guilty of lying. Nor is it proper (replied Leo) that a prince should be compelled to resign his own judgment, and the public interest, to the will of a subject. After this extraordinary scene, it was impossible that the reconciliation of the emperor and the patrician could be sincere; or, at least, that it could be solid and permanent.

Leo ultimately had Aspar murdered. I suppose Aspar would have been too young to effect the appointment, as prefect, of the Aetius for whom the cistern visited earlier was named.

East of the Cistern of Aspar was the Mosque of Selim the Grim, who in 1512 seized power from his father, Beyazit II; at the same time, he had his brothers put to death. He doubled the size of the Empire, and he took the title of Caliph. His son became Süleyman the Magnificent.

The garden of the Mosque overlooked the Golden Horn. On the far horizon were the skyscrapers that Ayşe and I spend most of our time among. Our own university building stood among them, though itself was not so tall.

Here is the view from our university, two days later. I tried to aim where the Selim Mosque should be, though I could not be sure I actually saw it.

I think there was an active religious school attached to the mosque. Boys in white skullcaps sat on the porch of one of the outbuildings. In the courtyard, a man was cleaning around the entrance to the mosque itself. He invited me to enter, but warned me to remove my shoes. There was no sign making this warning. From this, I inferred that the mosque was not thought to be on the tourist trail, despite its beautiful location and its spanking cleanness.

Inside, the mosque was like the Mihrimah Sultan, with dome supported by four arches, the arches having vertical walls beneath. But the bases of the arches were nearly on the ground, and the walls did not have so many windows. A man in robe and bushy beard was lying on the carpet to the right; he eyed me. The cleaning man came in, told the reclining man something, and then tried to show me around. There was not much he could do or say. Pointing up to the medallion in one of the pendentives, he said “Allah”. Pointing to another pendentive, he said, “Muhammad”. He pointed out and named the mimber and the mihrab. I said Yes, the mihrab points towards Mecca. The man went back to work, but not before telling me that I could make a “donation”.

A bunch of men entered the mosque together. Some prayed; some photographed each other. As I was going out, the cleaning man came back in. He held out his hand, not quite in begging position, but so that it would be ready to accept anything that I might put into it.

In the courtyard, the shadows of the arches framed the designs over the windows in the northern wall.

I walked back along the northern edge of the Cistern of Aspar. I had already noted the Islamic garb—the robe and long beard—of a man selling fruit from a cart on the street. Now I saw, down in the Cistern, young boys in white skullcaps playing football with their masters from Quran school.

I was headed back north towards Edirnekapı. I was in a highly religious neighborhood. Some women were uncovered; but others wore the chador. Shops sold the all-covering tesettür clothing. Men had bushy beards.

Next to the İsmail Ağa Mosque, the entrance to this beautiful courtyard was labelled as, “Manyasızade Madrasah Library”.

I was aiming for the Church of the Theotokos Pammakaristos, the Church of the Most All-Blissful Mother of God. Fearing to miss it, I turned down a street where I saw an old building; but this was “only” the 18th-century Library of Murat Molla, closed for renovation. From the maps, it seemed I could take back streets to the church I sought.

I did find the church, but not before walking past two İmam Hatip schools—schools that were originally vocational schools for imams, but now have a more controversial position in society. The current prime minister is a graduate of one of them.

Boys clowning around outside one of these schools addressed me, so I went to speak with them. In response to my query, they told me they were all students at the school. They also seemed to say that one of them—the one who had initially spoken to me—was planting bombs for the PKK. However, I could not understand them very well. They were all laughing, including the one accused.

We were across the street from the church. It was now the Fethiye Mosque, the Mosque of the Conquest, having been so named around 1592 by Sultan Murat III, because he had just conquered Georgia and Azerbaijan. The former church had been the seat of the Patriarchate after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople.

The seat of the Patriarchate seems to have been several places over the centuries:

1. Hagia Irene
2. Hagia Sophia
3. Somewhere in Nicea, presumably, during the Latin occupation of Constantinople
4. Church of the Holy Apostles (now the site of the Fatih Mosque)
5. Church of the Theotokos Pammakaristos
6. Church of St George

Today the Parecclesion of the Pammakaristos is open as a museum, displaying some of the old frescos and mosaics. There was one other visitor when I went in. He was from Greece, and his wife was Turkish. We talked for quite a while about life in Turkey. Later a group of French visitors came in.

The Jesus with suppressed organ of generation recalls to me a Diane Arbus photo called Man Being a Woman.

Here looking back from the apse:

This is from the garden of the museum. I think the pool was formed by a flat roof that did not drain completely. The tower must belong to the Phanar Greek Orthodox College.

I walked back to the metrobüs. These dogs lay outside the old city walls.

Between the walls and the highway on which the bus ran, there was a cemetery. This monument says, One Turk is worth a thousand enemies. Happy the man who says I am a Turk.

And here is the tomb of Mehmet Akif Ersoy, author of the words of the National Anthem, shown.

In the evening, Ayşe and I dined with friends at the restaurant of our university, by the side of the Bosphorus.

Ours is a Fine Arts University, and art posters line the one wall of the restaurant that is not glass. On the left is my favorite of the posters, apparently based on the New York City subway (right). But if you can look at the full-size photo of the poster, you will see that the stations are named for cities around the world, with Istanbul at the center (where the 1st Avenue L station would be).

Istanbul was an Imperial capital for almost 1600 years. It continues to sit on two continents. Some people say that Copernicus removed the Earth from its exalted place at the center of the Universe. Others would say that to be at the center is to be at the bottom, to be (as one scholar said when visiting my college) the garbage pit of the Universe.