Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City by John Freely, Hilary Sumner-Boyd Page B

compared to the tabernacle of the seventh heaven, and its dome to the cupola of the ninth. All of those who see it remain lost on contemplating its beauties; it is the place where heavenly inspiration descends into the minds of the devout and which gives a foretaste even here below of the Garden of Eden. Sultan Murat IV, who took great delight in this incomparable mosque, erected a wooden enclosure within it near the southern door, and when he went to prayer on Friday caused cages containing a great number of singing birds, and particularly nightingales, to be hung there, so that their sweet notes, mingled with those of the müezzins’ voices, filled the mosque with a harmony approaching to that of paradise. Every night in the month of Ramazan, the two thousand lamps lighted there and the lanterns containing wax tapers perfumed with camphor pour forth streams of light upon light; and in the centre of the dome a circle of lamps represents in letters as finely formed as those of Yakut Musta’sime, that text of the Kuran: “God is the light of the heavens and of the earth.”
     
    And so, for nearly five centuries after the Conquest, Haghia Sophia served the faithful Muslims of the city, just as it had served devout Christians for more than nine centuries before the Fall. These words which Evliya Çelebi wrote of Haghia Sophia would have been a true description of it in either period, as church or mosque: “Aya Sofya is in itself, peculiarly the place of God. It is always full of holy men who pass the day there in fasting and the night in prayer. Seventy lectures well pleasing to God are given there daily, so that to the student it is a mine of knowledge, and it never fails to be frequented by multitudes every day.”
    THE PRECINCTS OF HAGH İ A SOPH İ A
    Something of the reverence which was accorded to Haghia Sophia in Ottoman times can be gathered from the fact that five sultans are buried in its precincts. These royal sepulchers are located in the garden just to the south of Haghia Sophia. The oldest of these structures is the türbe of the two mad sultans, Mustafa I and Ibrahim, who ruled briefly in the first half of the seventeenth century. This building, which stands at the south-west corner of Haghia Sophia, just to the right of the entrance, was formerly the Baptistry, and is part of the original structure of Justinian’s church. We learn from Evliya Çelebi that when Mustafa I died in 1623 no place had been prepared for his burial and on the suggestion of Evliya’s father it was decided to turn the Baptistry into a türbe for the dead sultan. Beside Mustafa lies his nephew, Crazy Ibrahim, who ruled from 1640 till 1648. Evliya tells us that Ibrahim’s tomb was much visited by women, “because he was much addicted to them.” But, alas, the women of Stamboul can no longer visit the tomb of Crazy Ibrahim, because the Baptistry is not open to the public.
    The other imperial türbes are located in the garden beside the Baptistry; all of these are open to the public. The earliest in date is that of Sultan Selim II, which was completed in 1577. This türbe is important because it is a work of the great Ottoman architect Sinan, and also because both the exterior entrance façade and the whole of the interior are covered with superb Iznik tiles. The building is square, with an outer dome resting directly on the exterior walls; within, a circlet of columns supports an inner dome. The largest of the catafalques which we see there covers the grave of Selim II, who became sultan in 1566, after the death of his father, Süleyman the Magnificent. As Evliya Çelebi wrote of him: “He was an amiable monarch, took much delight in the conversations of poets and learned men, and indulged in wine and gaiety. He was a sweet-natured sovereign but much given to women and wine.” Selim II died in 1574 at the age of 54, after having fallen in his bath while in a drunken stupor. Beside Selim’s catafalque we see that of his favourite