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CONSTANTINOPLE

CONSTANTINOPLE. The city of Constantinople, called Kostantaniyye in Arabic and in formal Ottoman usage and Istanbul in the vernacular, was the most cosmopolitan city in the Mediterranean world and the Middle East during the early modern period. Its geographic location—it connected Asia and Europe as well as the Black Sea and the Mediterranean—enhanced its importance during the Byzantine and Ottoman periods. In addition, its natural beauty, monumental architecture (Byzantine and Ottoman), size, and commercial importance surpassed former Ottoman and Islamic capitals like Bursa, Cairo, and Isfahan in the early modern period. European visitors to the Ottoman capital have left numerous accounts and hundreds of sketches of its beautiful panorama, its magnificent Byzantine and Ottoman monuments, and the colorful daily life of its residents, including women, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. According to Lady Mary Montagu, the wife of the English ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1717–1718, Istanbul surpassed European cities like London and Paris in size in the eighteenth century. It was the most exotic and yet familiar city for visiting Europeans who lived among local Greeks, Armenians, and Jews in the European neighborhood of Pera in the eighteenth century.

THE CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE MAKING OF ISTANBUL

The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed II (ruled 1444–1446, 1451–1481) on 29 May 1453 led initially to its physical devastation as a result of a two-month siege and violent takeover by the Ottoman troops, who pounded the walls with heavy cannon fire. A good number of its residents fled the city during the siege, reducing the defending force to only seven thousand men, which included Venetian and Genoese volunteers. Lack of unity among its Greek residents, who defied Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI's (ruled 1449–1453) call for union with Rome, combined with the superior force of the Ottoman army, which numbered eighty thousand men, made possible the conquest of the city. The sultan assumed the title of Conqueror (Fatih) after this victory, which marked the end of Byzantium and the beginning of an imperial age for the Ottomans.

After witnessing the looting and pillaging of the city by his soldiers, Mehmed II immediately set out to rebuild Constantinople and convert it to an Ottoman-Islamic capital. He first granted amnesty to former residents who had fled and pressed Greeks and Turks from all over the empire to settle in the city in return for tax relief. In the process of occupation and resettlement, many former residents who had survived lost their property to the new settlers. The sultan entered the great Cathedral of Haghia Sophia (Turkish, aya sofya) mounted on his horse and ordered the erection of a minaret and the construction of a pulpit (mimber) and an ornamental niche (mihrab) indicating the direction of Mecca. The magnificent mosaics were obscured by plaster in accordance with the orthodox Islamic ban on human imagery. Many Greek and Armenian churches fell into ruin or were converted into mosques, symbolizing the new status of Islam under the Ottomans. Mehmed II ordered the construction of a new palace, the Topkapi Sarayi, next to the Aya Sofya mosque on the first Hill, which replaced the old palace on the third Hill and became the residence of the dynasty and the center of government until the late eighteenth century. The imperial harem, the residence of the Ottoman household, and its dependents became part of the Topkapi Palace. Mehmed II also ordered the construction of a royal mosque (Fatih Camii) complex with a commercial district that became known as the covered bazaar (Kapali Çarşi) at the heart of the city on the third Hill to revive the economy and promote trade. He commanded the members of the ruling class to set up similar religious and charitable foundations in the vicinity of his mosque.

The city was divided into four districts: Eyüp, which contained the tomb of Abu Ayyub (Eyüp) al-Ansari, one of the companions of the Prophet Muhammed who had taken part in the first Muslim siege in the seventh century; Galata, the Genoese town; Istanbul, the walled royal district; and Usküdar, on the Asiatic shore. Galata and Istanbul were the most populated towns. The city expanded beyond the walls and on both shores of the Bosphorus in the eighteenth century. In the absence of detailed and regular surveys, it is impossible to reach any firm conclusions about demographic trends in the city before the nineteenth century. The earliest Ottoman census for the two districts of Galata and intra muros Istanbul in 1477 records a civilian population of 16,324 tax-paying households, 9,486 of them Muslim, 3,743 Greek Orthodox, 1,647 Jewish, 434 Armenian, 332 European, 31 Gypsy (Roma), and various others (İnalcik, 1973, p. 141). According to some estimates, the population of the city, including its immediate suburbs, rose from 80,000 or so in the late fifteenth century to 500,000 in the sixteenth century. Foreign travelers estimated the population of the city to have been anywhere from 300,000 to 700,000 in the mid-eighteenth century, with Muslims making up 58 percent of the population. Orthodox Greeks continued to be the most dominant non-Muslim element in the capital as in the empire as a whole. Jews made up about 10 percent of the population of Istanbul in the eighteenth century. The Latin Catholic population of Galata is said to have numbered around 3,000 in 1714. Several hundred French households resided in the neighborhood of Bereket-zade in Pera, the neighborhood above Galata, in the eighteenth century.

The fires, plague, and earthquakes so often recorded in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries periodically reduced the population and destroyed whole neighborhoods. Rural migration, however, more than restored demographic balance. The state had to impose limits on rural migration to the city and deported unemployed single men regularly in the eighteenth century. The first formal census survey estimated the population of greater Istanbul to be around 359,000 people in the early decades of the nineteenth century. It rose to 1,077,000 in 1897. The population of greater Galata alone reached 291,406 persons (49.8 percent Muslim) in 1927.

CONSTRUCTING AN ISLAMIC CAPITAL

The Ottoman dynasty played an important role in the physical and economic development of the city. The sultan ordered the members of his household and his grandees to endow pious foundations (vakf) all over the city and particularly in the district of Istanbul, which became the residence of the dynasty. The female members of the Ottoman dynasty, like valide-sultans ('queen mothers') and princesses of the blood, also played an important role in founding the new complexes. These vakf complexes provided religious services, education, health care, shelter, and food for the population. The income to support the foundations came largely from commercial properties attached to these complexes. Philanthropy through vakf also enhanced the legitimacy of the dynasty and integrated the city physically, socially, and economically. The Süleymaniye mosque in the district of Istanbul on the seventh Hill and the Hürrem Sultan (d. 1558) mosque in Usküdar, built by Sultan Süleiman (1520–1566) and Hürrem, his beloved wife, are two outstanding examples of such vakf complexes.

The city was divided into thirteen districts (nahiye), each subdivided further into neighborhoods (mahalle). Every district, with the exception of one, was named after a mosque complex established by sultans and viziers, for example, Süleymaniye, Mahmud Pasha, Fatih, Beyazit, Aya Sofya, and so on. The districts were mixed in their ethnic and religious makeup while individual mahalles developed around mosques, churches, and synagogues.

The non-Muslim community was generally forbidden from building new churches and synagogues but received permission from the state to repair religious buildings, particularly after major fires. Sometimes the state urged communities to move and settle in new neighborhoods after major fires. In the late sventeenth century, the Jewish community of Bahçe Kapi was forced to move after a major fire to clear the way for the construction of a new imperial mosque, Yeni Cami. The displaced Jews were resettled in Hasköy, on the Golden Horn (an estuary that divides European Istanbul). The district of Galata housed Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and European communities. The Muslims settled in increasing numbers in the neighborhoods of Kasim Pasha and Tophane in the same district. Rural migrants and other single men settled in the bachelor lodges (bekar odalari) in these two neighborhoods, where jobs were available in the arsenal and the cannon foundry. The villages along the Bosphorus, Beşiktaş, Ortaköy, Arnavütköy, Bebek, Kuskunçuk, and so on also remained mixed in their ethnic composition. The neighborhoods enjoyed great autonomy and were usually divided along religious lines. Religious strife and tension, however, rarely undermined the harmony of intercommunal life. The city had become more cosmopolitan with the settlement of a growing number of western European merchants and visitors in Pera.

COMMERCIAL LIFE AND URBAN GROWTH

Istanbul had become an important center of commerce between the Middle East, western Europe, and Russia in early modern Europe. Its commerce with western Europe, particularly with France, expanded greatly in the eighteenth century. The European merchants exchanged bullion, woolen textiles, sugar, coffee from the colonies, and other luxurious goods for Russian furs, Iranian silks, carpets, hides, and cotton textiles. The Greek, Jewish, and Armenian merchants played an important intermediary role in trade with western Europe and Russia. The neighborhood of Pera, on the northern hills of Galata, the former Genoese colony, became the residence of western European diplomats and merchants. Galata and Pera also emerged as the center of banking and international commerce in the eighteenth century, overshadowing the traditional commercial center, the bazaar in the old district of Istanbul. This shift also symbolized the incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the world economy and the dominance of Western trade in the economic life of the city. The new urban bourgeoisie composed of Greeks, Armenians, and, to a lesser extent, Jews and members of the Muslim elite, who enjoyed strong ties to European houses of commerce and credit networks, set up business in fashionable shops in Pera, later known as Beyoǧlu.

The royal household also moved out of the old district and settled in newly built palaces like the Dolmabahçe and the Yildiz Palace on the European shores of the Bosphorus. These palaces displayed European artistic and architectural influences like the baroque and rococo of the eighteenth century. In addition, the members of the dynasty, particularly the Ottoman princesses like Fatma Sultan, the daughter of Ahmed III (ruled 1703–1730) and wife of the Tulip era grand vizier Nevşehirli Ibrahim, built public parks and gardens and erected public fountains to supply water for the new neighborhoods. An air of leisure and festivity dominated the private and public lives of the Ottoman ruling class and, to some extent, that of the masses during the Tulip period (1718–1730). The royal household took every occasion to celebrate publicly new victories in the Morea (1715) and Tabriz (1725), the birth and circumcision of Ottoman princes, and the weddings of Ottoman princesses. This period came to an end with the Patrona Halil rebellion in September 1730 that led to the overthrow of Ahmed III and his grand vizier Ibrahim. The rebels, led by disgruntled janissaries and guildsmen, also destroyed the Sa'dabaâd palace in Kaǧithane and numerous others to express their resentment of ruling-class frivolities and perceived decadence.

Despite frequent outbreaks of popular discontent, the city continued to grow and attract rural migrants and Western visitors. Because inflation and food shortages caused numerous riots in the city (1687, 1703, 1730, and 1740), the provisioning of the Ottoman capital assumed a central importance in the urban administration. The courts sentenced bakers to the galleys for short-weighting and violating official prices of bread in the eighteenth century. The police department, which primarily consisted of the janissary corps, expanded its authority to reach into hitherto autonomous quarters of the city. Community policing under the control of the local Muslim, Christian, and Jewish religious authorities and notables also assumed greater importance in keeping the criminal elements, the unemployed, and single rural migrants out of residential neighborhoods. The ruralization of Istanbul, however, continued at a regular pace during the nineteenth century. The Tanzimat reforms of 1839–1868 led to the physical and administrative reorganization and centralization of the city along European lines such as the widening of streets, construction of pavements, street gas-lighting, the establishment of municipal councils, and a mayorship to enforce new municipal regulations.

See also Architecture; Commerce and Markets; Harem; Holy Roman Empire; Islam in the Ottoman Empire; Janissary; Jews and Judaism; Mehmed II (Ottoman Empire); Mercantilism; Ottoman Dynasty; Ottoman Empire; Suleiman I; Sultan; Topkapi Palace; Tulip Era (Ottoman Empire); Turkish Literature and Language; Vizier; Women.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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——. "The Wealth of Ottoman Princesses during the Tulip Period." In The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilization, edited by Güler Eren, pp. 696–701. Ankara, 2000.

FARIBA ZARINEBAF