Constantinople and the New Lords of the Golden Horn
For the efficient control and administration of their new theocratic empire, the Arabs soon found Mecca and Medina, the original centres of their new religion, too peripheral and inconvenient and in 661 the seat of the Omayyad caliphate was moved north to Damascus. This city was in a far more central location, particularly in relation to the newly conquered lands. After the initial movement northwards out of Arabia, the most powerful thrust was directed westwards towards the Byzantine Empire. This was seen by the Arabs as being the heart of Christendom which it was their intention that Islam supersede. Everything changed in the later seventh century with the rapid defeat of the Persian Empire. Since the Byzantines proved to be a much tougher nut to crack, the victory over the Persians reoriented the Islamic empire eastwards. In 750 the successors of the Omayyads, the Abassids, transferred their capital eastwards to Al Kufah (Baghdad). This was situated in the heart of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and close to the ancient capitals of Babylon and Ctesiphon. As a result the Arab empire became more the geopolitical heir to the Babylonians and Persians rather than the Byzantines as they had originally intended.
Baghdad was a new Arab foundation, one of many which the Arabs built at this time. Like Alexander the Great, the Arabs were great builders and ‘new towns’ sprang up widely across their empire. Important among these were Cordoba in Spain, Kairuan in Tunisia, Fustat in Egypt and Basra in the Tigris-Euphrates delta. Although it was chosen by the Abassids to be their principal seat of power, from the outset Baghdad became more a religious and cultural capital than an imperial one. As it evolved, its fine mosques and madrasas, together with its great library, were soon to make it the most important centre of learning in the whole of the Islamic world. Scientists and scholars from other parts of the empire, notably Central Asia, North Africa and Spain, converged on the city. Beside the study of religion, important contributions were soon made in such fields as astronomy, geography, history, medicine and philosophy. The city is associated with such distinguished names as Al Biruni and Avicenna, who came from Central Asia but found Baghdad a more stimulating intellectual environment. In this way, while Baghdad became the great centre of Islamic learning, specific displays of imperial power were less in evidence. This also reflects the fact that central control of the massive Arab empire was difficult to maintain and the devolution of power to regional centres took place at an early stage in its history.
Many of the other new cities built by the Arabs across their empire were soon transformed into important economic, cultural and political centres in their own right. By the eleventh century many of the provinces of which they became the chief cities had become independent emirates conducting their own affairs and even foreign policies. An early example of this was the Emirate of Cordoba, which initially covered virtually the whole of the Iberian peninsula. Meanwhile Cordoba itself became a great centre of Arab learning which had an important influence on Christendom. However, despite an attempt in the eighth century, the Arabs were no more successful in subduing Christendom by attacking it from Iberia than they had been in their earlier assault on Byzantium. While all the emirates existed within the overall embrace of Islam, political control was soon increasingly in their own hands. In this way the great Arabian Islamic empire did not so much fall as gradually fall apart.
This high level of devolution all changed with the arrival of the Turks whom the Arabs had converted to Islam in the eighth century after the conquest of Persia, and who soon became among the most active proselytizers for the faith. It was these Men of Osman, the Osmanlis, who were the most successful in bringing the Islamic empire together again.
The Osmanlis built their first capital at Yenisehir in the interior of Anatolia, but when they were victorious against the Byzantines they moved their capital to the old city of Bursa, closer to the Sea of Marmara and in the main thrust of their advance. This was their new forward capital and, after successfully crossing the Bosphorus at Gallipoli in 1354, followed by a rapid occupation of the southern Balkans, they again transferred their capital westwards to an even more strategic location. The Roman city of Adrianopolis, which they renamed Edirne, was to the north of Constantinople and as a result the great city had by now been virtually surrounded.
It was not until 1453 that they successfully attacked Constantinople itself and the city surrendered after only a short siege. The Sultan Mehmed II was astonished to see the extent to which the great city had been allowed to deteriorate. He made the momentous decision that the city should be his capital. Much as Constantine had done over 1,000 years earlier, Mehmed and his advisers saw the advantages of the site both militarily and economically and this put the Turks in the position of being heirs to the empire that now lay in ruins. This is something that from the outset the Arabs had always wished to do but had never succeeded.
Thus no sooner had the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, died in the fighting than Mehmed, ‘The Conqueror’, proclaimed himself heir to the great city. A Greek scholar is said to have told the sultan, ‘The seat of the Roman Empire is Constantinople … Therefore you are the legitimate emperor of the Romans.’1
Mehmed would certainly have accepted this role with alacrity. He considered himself to be both the supreme ghazi – warrior of Islam – and a new Alexander the Great, thus combining in his person the glorious achievements of past and present. Beside Constantinople’s undoubted geographical advantages, the fact that it had been the capital of the Roman Empire may have been the most conclusive factor in the decision to move the capital once more. It was from here that the Turks now embarked on the creation of their own imperial state which was to become known to history as the Ottoman Empire.
By this time Islam had already been in existence for 800 years but had never had a really effective imperial capital. The Turks, the new masters of Islam, inherited what had 1,000 years earlier been a purpose-built imperial city and they immediately began to adapt it to their own imperial aspirations. Located on the periphery between Europe and Asia, the city which had always been orientated towards Europe was now reoriented eastwards. The golden city of medieval Europe became the golden city of the Islamic world and the leading city of the eastern half of the Christian world was adapted to become the new centre of Islam. In order to do this, new buildings had to be constructed and old ones removed or adapted to their new functions.
The first such building was the great church of Hagia Sofia, the heart of the fallen empire. Mehmed entered this immediately after the conquest and there gave thanks for his victory. He immediately claimed the magnificent building for Islam and proclaimed it to be from then on the mosque of the Aya Sofya. To the Byzantines it had been ‘the earthly heaven, throne of God’s glory’ and it would still discharge this function but now for Islam.
Despite this peremptory beginning, the Ottomans were quite prepared to exercise tolerance, and this particularly applied to Christianity. A year after the conquest, the Patriarchate was reinstated. The new patriarch was consecrated and enthroned with considerable pomp in the great church of the Holy Apostles which became from then on the centre of Christianity in the city. From the outset the new empire displayed a large measure of religious toleration. However, while the religious symbols were usually preserved or turned to new use, the political ones were treated somewhat differently. For instance, the great statue of Justinian, the emperor in whose reign Hagia Sofia had been built, was destroyed, as were many other reminders of Roman imperial power.
Mehmed immediately embarked on a great building programme and for this he needed expertise of many kinds which the Turks did not themselves possess. To obtain it he encouraged a variety of different peoples to come, or to return, to the city. These included Greeks, Jews and Armenians together with people from the newly conquered Balkan lands, notably Serbs and Bosnians. These people brought their knowledge and skills in many areas such as trade and industry, but most of all the sultan was looking for those with expertise in building, architecture and painting. A huge variety of different skills were needed for the grandiose projects he envisaged for his new capital on the shores of the Bosphorus. These people also brought with them their own religions and cultures, and tolerance was extended to them. As Mansel puts it, the city soon became a ‘multinational microcosm’ with each nationality, including the Turks themselves, making their own particular contribution to the functioning of the whole.2
One of the most interesting and unusual of these were the Janissaries, who were given the massive task of running the empire and, if necessary, fighting for it. Originally these were European children, mainly from the Balkans, who had been captured and brought to the Ottoman court. There they were trained in the particular functions for which they were needed and for the offices they were destined to hold. As with the Byzantine eunuchs, they were officially designated as slaves, but many of them rose to positions of authority in the court and army. Eventually they became so indispensable that they were soon virtually in charge of the running the empire. This bizarre system arose from the belief that since these Janissaries did not have associations with particular Turkish families, tribes or regions, their advancement was entirely dependent on the sultan himself. It was believed that their absolute loyalty therefore would be to the Sultanate and there would be none of those other loyalties that Turks might have. Many of them rose to the highest offices of state and even to the highest of all, that of grand vizier, who fulfilled the role of prime minister and confidential adviser to the sultan. The vizier sometimes came to possess more power than the sultan himself and intrigue in the court sometimes resulted in the violent removal of the over-powerful official.
The first specifically Ottoman addition to the architecture of Constantinople was the Rumeli Hisar, the castle, built at great speed immediately after the fall of the city in 1453. It was on the western edge of the city adjacent to the great Wall of Constantine and fitted well into the ring of protective fortifications. It is said that Mehmed himself was involved closely in the architectural planning and even helped out as a labourer. The relationship of the castle to the city was similar to that of the Tower to London, representing both an assertion of the power of the new overlords and a place of security for the sultan and his court should that be necessary.
The real centre of Ottoman imperial power, however, was built in a more leisurely manner. This was the Serai (palace) which occupied the whole of the eastern end of the peninsula. The construction of this huge complex was begun in 1459 and took some twenty years to complete. It was surrounded by a formidable wall, the principal entrance through which was the Imperial Gate. Inside the wall was a series of courtyards surrounded by buildings, each designed for a specific set of purposes.
These courtyards were connected to one another by a series of ‘gates’ which were in fact highly decorated archways. The First Courtyard was designed to be an impressive entrance leading to the Second Courtyard, which housed the Imperial Divan where the grand vizier conducted the business of state, often watched from behind a curtain by the sultan. At the end of this courtyard the Bab-i-Aali (High Gate) connected to the Third Courtyard in which were the harem (women’s quarters), the bathhouses and the private apartments of the sultan. In the centre of this courtyard was the Throne Room of the sultan which was said to be ‘like a jewel box’ in its magnificence. This was the epicentre of the palace and the heart of the power structure of the whole vast Ottoman Empire. Here the sultan, seated on his throne and robed in great splendour, would receive his ministers, foreign embassies and honoured guests. The Bab-i-Aali was also known as the Bab-i Sa’adet, the Gate of Felicity, and this became a synonym for the Ottoman government. This government came to be known simply as ‘The Gate’ and the officials of the palace the Kapi Kulu, meaning ‘Slaves of the Gate’. This concept of ‘The Gate’ eventually came to be known to Europeans, who referred to the Ottoman government as the ‘Porte’. ‘The Sublime Porte’ soon became a synonym for the Sultanate and its power and the term added to the increasing respect and even fear felt by Europeans towards the Islamic empire which by then occupied a large part of eastern Europe. The inscription in Arabic above the Imperial Gate read, ‘The Sultan of the Two Continents, the Emperor of the Two Seas, the Shadow of God in this world and the next … the Monarch of the Terraqueous Orb’. The palace later became known as the Topkapserai – or just the Topkapi – from Top Kapi, meaning cannon gate.
Aya Sofya, the central church of eastern Christendom, now transformed into the central mosque of Islam, continued to retain its special role under its new masters. It was changed and adapted to its new function with the addition of four minarets and the interior was given the usual Islamic geometrical decoration with quotations from the Koran in Arabic. Mehmed II also embarked on the construction of his own mosque some distance away. This was the Fatih (Conqueror) Mosque, the principal architect of which, known as Atik (‘Old’) Sinan, was probably Greek and had made a very careful study of the architecture of Aya Sofya. The great dome was replicated in the new mosque and many other Byzantine influences can be detected. It was a building of considerable magnificence and was surrounded by a complex of other buildings which included a madrasa and a library. It was in this mosque that the conqueror was himself buried in 1481 and from that time on it always held a special place in Islamic worship. A number of other mosques, with their domes and minarets, were subsequently added to the skyline of the city and many later sultans built their own mosques which they dedicated to themselves. They all followed the same architectural patterns, with domes, semi-domes, minarets, columns and fine stone carving.
The most splendid of these was the Süleymaniye built during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent (1520–66). This was intended by the sultan not only to be a place of religious worship but also an ‘assertion in stone’ of the power of the dynasty and in particular of the sultan himself, ‘God’s Shadow on Earth’.3 At the beginning of his reign he had added another title to all the others he held: caliph, successor to the Prophet, an office surrendered to him by the Mameluks in 1520. The Caliphate had remained in Baghdad until 1258 but, following the turbulence of the Mongol conquests, it had been transferred to the relative safety of Egypt. Now it moved to Constantinople where it was to remain for the rest of its existence. The Süleymaniye mosque, designed by the sultan’s chief architect Sinan (c. 1500–1588), was in many ways a celebration of the bringing together of the secular and religious in the Turkish Islamic empire. This mosque is at the heart of a large complex of buildings which included colleges, a bathhouse (hamam), kitchens and a hostel for pilgrims and visitors.
The reign of Süleyman proved to be the high-water mark of Ottoman power. By then the empire covered a vast area, including much of North Africa, Arabia, the Balkans and the lands around the Black Sea. Its wealth was enormous, and much of this was spent on the continued embellishment of the capital and other cities with more mosques and further additions to the palace. Little was spent on improving the conditions of the people. As with other empires before and since, this neglect was a major cause of the onset of decline.
Another important reason for the decline of the empire in the seventeenth century was the poor quality of the sultans themselves. This was caused by the bizarre selection process which resulted in the pretenders to the throne, and even the heir himself, being imprisoned in the palace for long periods of time before they succeeded. This incarceration was to ensure that there were no rivalries or alternative centres of power to the sultan and that no disputes over the succession could break out. The Empire had one indisputable head and no potential rivals were permitted. The incarceration was usually in the so-called ‘Cage’, a building in the third courtyard of the palace on the edge of the harem. In this, heirs were kept for most of their lives as virtual prisoners until they eventually succeeded to the throne. By the time they did so they were often mentally ill or so weak that they were incapable of exercising power. This produced a situation of almost perpetual intrigue in the palace in which the grand vizier and other officials exercised an absolute, if often precarious, hold on the reins of power of the empire.
At the end of the seventeenth century the Ottomans began to lose territory in eastern Europe to the newly expanding Austrian Empire, and by the nineteenth century the contraction had become a constant process. The Ottoman Empire was so weakened that it came to be labelled ‘the sick man of Europe’, and a famous cartoon in Punch depicted the sultan being propped up by the other European powers. By this time the Ottoman Empire was in fact only still in existence because the great powers needed it. They were so suspicious of one another, and particularly of their conflicting ambitions in the Middle East, that they found that allowing the continued existence of the Ottomans was for the time being more convenient. The two most strident of these powers were Britain and Russia, both of whom had considerable interest in the region. Russia still retained the idea of Byzantium as the true heart of Orthodox Christianity, and a revived Christian empire with its capital in Constantinople which they called Tzarigrad – the City of the Emperor – remained an ever-present dream. The British had their own interests and were not prepared to accept any such outcome. In fact in the Crimean War (1854–6) the British, together with the French, took the side of the Turks in an attempt to thwart the ambitions of the Russians. By then Constantinople had virtually lost its historic role as a centre of power that it had possessed since the fourth century. However, located on the vital ‘straits’ routeway between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, it had gained a new significance in the nineteenth century as a focus of the global imperial rivalries.
The Süleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul.
It was not until the First World War that the Ottoman Empire finally collapsed. The Ottomans took the German side and their defeat came together with that of their ally. In 1918 much of the Ottoman Empire was occupied by the victorious powers led by Britain. A Turkish republic was proclaimed and the new republican government led by Mustafa Kemal, ‘Atatürk’, moved the capital away to the old Turkish stronghold of Ankara in the middle of Anatolia. This was thought by the Turks to be their real homeland in contrast to the cosmopolitanism of Constantinople and the Marmara region. They had become increasingly suspicious of the non-Turkish inhabitants of the empire and this was a cause of the perpetration of many of the wartime atrocities of which the Turks were accused.
The sultan remained in Constantinople until 1922 when the republican government in Ankara finally abolished the sultanate. The Caliphate, however, remained and the former sultan retained the title of caliph only. One year later this was also abolished and the Islamic unity imposed four centuries earlier by the Ottoman Empire finally came to an end. The former sultan and caliph was taken away on a British ship and spent his final years in San Remo on the Italian Riviera, well away from both the new republic and Islam.
Constantinople, no longer capital but still the largest city in the new Turkey, was renamed ‘Istanbul’. Interestingly, this was a Turkish corruption of the Greek ‘eis ten polin’, meaning quite simply ‘into the city’. It had ceased to be an imperial city, and even lost its role as capital, but its new name retained in it a reminder of the Greek polis which it had been in ancient times. For many centuries it had been considered the most magnificent – and most desirable – place in Europe and in the Middle Ages had come to be known throughout Europe simply as ‘the city’. Was this name change a final tacit recognition by the Turks of the role which they and those before them had always accorded to it as the greatest city in their world?
After 1,700 years, the purpose for which ‘the city’ had been originally intended had at last come to an end. It had first been built as the new Rome, capital of the Christian empire. In the seventh century it had been designated capital of the newly styled Byzantine Empire, centre of the eastern Christian world. Finally it had become capital of the Ottoman Empire and the seat of the Caliphate. Now, for the first time in its long history, it was no longer a capital city. The principal centres of world power had long moved away and the Mediterranean had declined into a backwater. The nineteenth-century empires were far more global than those of the Mediterranean and the Middle East had ever been. However, centuries before their rise, an earlier people had paved the way for them with the creation of the first empire to possess a truly global reach – that of the Mongols in the thirteenth century.