The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories by Edward Hollis Page A
Authors: Edward Hollis
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dazzling blue with
iznik
tiles, to the pale radiance of the Mihrimah Mosque by the city’s ancient walls. All of them are variations on the themes of Ayasofya: a dome that glows with light, supported on a cascade of vaults, as the circle of heaven negotiates its way to the square of the earth. Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles would have understood—and would have envied—the mosques of Sinan.
In the centuries after Mehmet cast his spell, Hagia Sophia became a mosque, and every mosque became a Hagia Sophia. The skyline of Istanbul is the masterpiece of Sinan, but also the last testament of Justinian and his wife, Theodora, who told him not to leave the city.
I N 1922, IN the last days of the Ottoman Empire, a new potentate was anointed in the courtyard of the imperial palace, next door to Ayasofya. It was a quiet affair. “What a travesty it is!” one traveler wrote. “Instead of the solemn ritual in the Mosque of Eyoub and a Sultan girded with the sword . . . here is a delegation of . . . deputies notifying an elderly dilettante that he has been elected by majority vote like any other leader.” The ceremony wasn’t much to see: “A little ring of curious sightseers and correspondents crowds around, there is a short prayer, and a comic Palace dwarf, with some eunuchs, give a note of local colour.”
Local color was all it was; the last sultan had fled to exile in Malta,and his successor was not even allowed to take the sultan’s title. He was restricted to using the title
caliph
, leader of the faithful. He wrote to the real ruler of his country, Mustapha Kemal, asking for an increase in his meager allowance, and received a curt reply: “The Caliphate, your office, is no more than an historical relic. It has no justification for existence. It is a piece of impertinence that you should dare to write to one of my secretaries.” Soon enough the caliph was sent into exile like his predecessor. Mustapha Kemal, once an obscure officer of middling rank, was given the title
Gazi
, or warrior, as Mehmet had once been given it; and eventually that of
Atatürk
, which means “Father of the Turks.” But he did not take the title of
sultan or caliph
. These he regarded with scorn as decadent anachronisms in a modern, progressive age.
In 1925, in a move controversial even to this day, Atatürk abolished Islamic rules for headgear: no longer would women have to wear the veil, nor would the status of a man be defined by the shape and color of his fez. Atatürk preferred a panama hat and a linen suit, himself. At the same time he closed all the imperial mausolea, to which the faithful had long gone to pray, and all the dervish lodges, in which mystics had danced themselves into distinctly unmodern trances. In 1928, he abolished the use of the Arabic alphabet, ordering his officials to concoct a version of the Latin one, and not long after, the last practices of sharia law were brought to an end. In short, Mustapha Kemal did everything in his power to break the hold of Islam over his people; and he moved the center of the Turkish world away from Istanbul to a new capital in Ankara, in the heart of Anatolia.
Having done so, he went to the National Assembly and addressed himself to the largest, most visible, and perhaps most inconvenient relic of the past: the Ayasofya Mosque. In 1920 the European victors of the First World War, in a vengeful mood, had demanded that the spell of Sultan Mehmet be reversed, and that Ayasofya should become Hagia Sophia once again. In other words, the terms of the humiliating Treaty of Sèvres demanded that the greatest mosque of the greatest city of the Ottoman Empire become a church.
Everybody knew that Ayasofya had not always been a mosque. Everybody knew that under the whitewash and the carpets, behind the mihrab and the
minbar
and the minarets, there was another buildingthat, some five hundred years ago, had been placed under the spell of Islam. But surely the tribe of
iznik
tiles, to the pale radiance of the Mihrimah Mosque by the city’s ancient walls. All of them are variations on the themes of Ayasofya: a dome that glows with light, supported on a cascade of vaults, as the circle of heaven negotiates its way to the square of the earth. Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles would have understood—and would have envied—the mosques of Sinan.
In the centuries after Mehmet cast his spell, Hagia Sophia became a mosque, and every mosque became a Hagia Sophia. The skyline of Istanbul is the masterpiece of Sinan, but also the last testament of Justinian and his wife, Theodora, who told him not to leave the city.
I N 1922, IN the last days of the Ottoman Empire, a new potentate was anointed in the courtyard of the imperial palace, next door to Ayasofya. It was a quiet affair. “What a travesty it is!” one traveler wrote. “Instead of the solemn ritual in the Mosque of Eyoub and a Sultan girded with the sword . . . here is a delegation of . . . deputies notifying an elderly dilettante that he has been elected by majority vote like any other leader.” The ceremony wasn’t much to see: “A little ring of curious sightseers and correspondents crowds around, there is a short prayer, and a comic Palace dwarf, with some eunuchs, give a note of local colour.”
Local color was all it was; the last sultan had fled to exile in Malta,and his successor was not even allowed to take the sultan’s title. He was restricted to using the title
caliph
, leader of the faithful. He wrote to the real ruler of his country, Mustapha Kemal, asking for an increase in his meager allowance, and received a curt reply: “The Caliphate, your office, is no more than an historical relic. It has no justification for existence. It is a piece of impertinence that you should dare to write to one of my secretaries.” Soon enough the caliph was sent into exile like his predecessor. Mustapha Kemal, once an obscure officer of middling rank, was given the title
Gazi
, or warrior, as Mehmet had once been given it; and eventually that of
Atatürk
, which means “Father of the Turks.” But he did not take the title of
sultan or caliph
. These he regarded with scorn as decadent anachronisms in a modern, progressive age.
In 1925, in a move controversial even to this day, Atatürk abolished Islamic rules for headgear: no longer would women have to wear the veil, nor would the status of a man be defined by the shape and color of his fez. Atatürk preferred a panama hat and a linen suit, himself. At the same time he closed all the imperial mausolea, to which the faithful had long gone to pray, and all the dervish lodges, in which mystics had danced themselves into distinctly unmodern trances. In 1928, he abolished the use of the Arabic alphabet, ordering his officials to concoct a version of the Latin one, and not long after, the last practices of sharia law were brought to an end. In short, Mustapha Kemal did everything in his power to break the hold of Islam over his people; and he moved the center of the Turkish world away from Istanbul to a new capital in Ankara, in the heart of Anatolia.
Having done so, he went to the National Assembly and addressed himself to the largest, most visible, and perhaps most inconvenient relic of the past: the Ayasofya Mosque. In 1920 the European victors of the First World War, in a vengeful mood, had demanded that the spell of Sultan Mehmet be reversed, and that Ayasofya should become Hagia Sophia once again. In other words, the terms of the humiliating Treaty of Sèvres demanded that the greatest mosque of the greatest city of the Ottoman Empire become a church.
Everybody knew that Ayasofya had not always been a mosque. Everybody knew that under the whitewash and the carpets, behind the mihrab and the
minbar
and the minarets, there was another buildingthat, some five hundred years ago, had been placed under the spell of Islam. But surely the tribe of
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