Good morning from
Istanbul, Turkey! What an adventure this has been. The first thing I want to
say this morning is another THANK YOU to Fund for Teachers! I am so thankful
for this great opportunity to explore a culture unlike any other I have visited
in my entire life!
We have been here
two days. My daughter came with me. We have walked all over the historical
area, seen so many historical sights, and experienced the food culture, the
Grand Market, the Spice Market, and really just had a sensual experience with
all of our five senses. I really had no idea what to expect, but can easily say
that life inside the historical district is wonderful, full of color and zest,
peaceful and friendly.
It seemed a bit
different outside the historical district, actually quite a lot different. More
about that later. Maybe when I get home!
This morning I’ll
leave you with one of the most significant first impressions I have had. There
are around 3,000 mosques in Istanbul, a city that is 90% Muslim.
Some of them are quite huge.
Towering over our hotel is The Blue Mosque.
It’s real name is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. It’s affectionately named The Blue
Mosque because its ceilings and walls are filled with over 20,000 Turkish tiles
which have a lot of blue coloring on them. It was built from 1609-1616, in only six years. Ahmet I commissioned the mosque to be built after having an unsuccessful war with Persia to "calm God down." Interestingly, the mosque was built on where the Grand Palace stood, the home of the Byzantine (Christian) palace and directly across from the Hagia Sophia Church (a Christian Church). Because Ahmet I had been unsuccessful in war and had no spoils to pay for the building of the mosque, he had to borrow money from the Turkish treasury, which wasn't received very well by the Muslim jurists. It has one main dome, 6 minarets, and 8 sub-domes. It uniquely combines Islamic architecture with some Christian elements seen in the Hagia Sophia. It is still used as a mosque with people coming there to pray. The men pray in the large main area of the mosque. Women pray in a small, back alcove. We toured it our first day here, having to don scarves on our head to enter.
Such an incredible architectural wonder. I was especially interested in the Turkish tiles that fill the ceiling and walls and took probably one hundred pictures of them.
We can also see the Hagia Sophia
Church from our hotel. This church has an almost unbelievable history and its purpose has been redefined multiple times by whatever group fought and won Istanbul (or Constantinople as it was formerly called). The emperor Justinian I ordered the building of the church on the site where two other churches had been built. Building began on February 23, 532 and finished five years and ten months later. It looks very similar to The Blue Mosque, and it's easy to get them mixed up because they are not only so close to each other, but look so much alike. It was originally a Greek Orthodox Basilica (church) from 537-1453. It took a tiny detour from its Greek Orthodox purpose, when from 1204-1261 it was converted to a Roman Catholic Cathedral under the Latin Empire. The church was desecrated by the Latin Christians and relics from the church, said to be a rock from the tomb of Jesus and bones of the Saints, were sent to museums in the west. It was then recaptured by the Byzantines and Emperor Andronicus II ordered repairs using Irene, his deceased wife's, inheritance. Then, on May 29, 1453-1931 it became a mosque after a gruesome three day pillaging by Ottoman invaders as they took Constantinople (now Istanbul). Sultan Mehmet II allowed the elderly, women and children hiding in the church during the sacking of Constantinople to be killed, tortured, and sold into slavery. He walked into the church after three days of pillaging it and declared it immediately a mosque. Finally in 1935 it was secularized, after being closed for a few years and became a museum on February 1, 1935.
This church is known for the beautiful mosaics that are on its walls. The most famous restoration of the Hagia Sophia (Also called the Aya Sofya) was ordered by Sultan Abdulmecid and completed between 1847 and 1849 by 800 workers and under the supervision of Gaspare and Giuseppe Fossati, brothers who were Swiss-Italian. They consolidated the dome and vaults, straightened the columns, and revised the decoration of the exterior and the interior of the building. The mosaics in the upper gallery were cleaned. Old chandeliers were replaced by new pendant ones. New huge medallions were hung on columns and inscribed with the names of Allah, the Prophet Muhammad, the grandchildren of Mohammed (Hassan and Hussain), and the first four caliphs (Abue Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali). The minarets were altered so they were all the same height. The minarets are the "lighthouses" of these older churches and mosques. The Islamic religion also uses them as the location for where the call to prayer is done five times a day. In the 1930's another team worked on Hagia Sophia restoration. A team led by Thomas Whittemore of Harvard University in the United States and associated with the Byzantine Institute of America carefully uncovered a large number of Hagia Sophia's mosaics that had been plastered over by the Islamic leaders of the church. They left some cross images covered by the plaster, but uncovered all major mosaics found, including mosaics of Jesus and Mary.
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| Hagia Sophia Museum (originally built as a church) |
Finally, in 1935 the first Turkish President and founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, ended the Hagia Sophia's uncomfortable history by turning it into a museum. The carpets were removed and the marble floor decorations were seen for the first time in centuries and the mosaics were restored by Whittemore, as mentioned in the previous paragraph. The structure continued to deteriorate and in 1996 the World Monuments Fund placed Hagia Sophia on the 1996 World Monuments Watch and also again in 1998. With the help of the American Express Company, WMF received a series of grants from 1997-2002 for the restoration of the dome, which had cracked, and the Turkish Ministry of Culture participated. By 2006 the WMF project was complete. Although use of the complex as a place of worship (mosque or church) was prohibited, in 2006 the Turkish government allowed a small room to be used as a prayer room for Christian and Muslim staff. The call to prayer has been sun twice a day, in the afternoon, from the minarets since 2013. The church continues to be the subject of much debate. Since the early 2010's several campaigns and government officials have been demanding that Hagia Sophia be converted into a mosque again. Others have created organizations championing the cause of returning it to its original function as a Christian Church. One things if for sure, if the building's walls, mosaics, and minarets could talk they would tell the tale of the tragedies that have occurred there. One would think a church would be immune to that kind of violence and tragedy, rather than the subject of it. (I'll post some pictures after we go there tomorrow and add them to this Blog post.)
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| My daughter and I at The Blue Mosque. |
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This is an example of the blue tiling seen all over inside
The Blue Mosque and responsible for its nickname. |
Last night we went to a dinner with the mosaic
group, across Istanbul from where we are staying. In front and back of our
beautiful, scenic window view of the city there were two huge mosques. I took many pictures of the mosques, but the pictures of the sun setting and its affects on the mosques was breath taking. As the sun set it beautifully shadowed one of the mosques, the Suleymaniye Mosque, from
behind. The golden hue glowing off the other one, the Yeni Camii, the one with the sun
shining on it, nearly took my breath away and made it look dramatically different than before the sun was setting.
The Yeni Camii mosque was originally named the Valide Sultan Mosque. It was started in 1597 on the order of Sultana Safiye, wife of Sultan Murad III, and later Valide Sultan who was the Queen Mother of Sultan Mehmed III. She ordered it after Mehmed III's ascension to the Ottoman throne. An interesting aspect of this mosque was it was built right in the middle of the Jewish quarter of Istanbul and in the hopes of broadening the scope of Islam. It took more than 50 years to build and its completion was hindered by political problems, discontent of the Jewish population, and monetary issues. The mosque has 66 domes and semi-domes and two minarets.
In contrast, the Suleymaniye Mosque was built in only eight years and was started in 1550. It is the largest mosque in Istanbul. It was built on the orders of Sultan Suleyman, also known as Suleyman the Magnificient. An interesting fact about the mosque is it was built using both Byzantine and Islamic architectural styles and has four minarets. The number of minarets a mosque could have was determined by who ordered the mosque to be built. If a prince or princess ordered a mosque to be built it could have two minarets.
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The Yeni Camii Mosque is known as the new mosque.
It was built in the 1600's.
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| This is the Yeni Camii Mosque in 1903. |
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This was one view from our restaurant.
I took this picture as the sun was setting behind the Suleymaniye Mosque. |
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| Another view of the Suleymaniye Mosque. |
It's nearly impossible to fathom how
these huge buildings were built over five hundred years ago, before electricity
and power tools, and are such ornate, gorgeous architectural wonders! They have such tales to tell. Tales of power and victory, God and Allah, good times and bad, and of the real rawness of being human. They each have their own unique story to tell and I am sure there is triumph and tragedy each. Yet, somehow the Hagia Sophia is a place that seems to have seen more than its fair share of what is not the best of humanity. Hopefully the Hagia Sophia, in its grandeur and majesty, can find some peace for the rest of its existence on this earth.
