Istanbul Day 2 - Blue Mosque & Topkapi Palace

Part II - Blue Mosque

From the Hippodrome we walked to the Blue Mosque.  This mosque is one of the most beautiful I have seen.  In the picture above my parents are standing in front of the entrance which has two huge bronze doors that lead into a courtyard.  This courtyard is where you are supposed to take your time, as a Muslim, to abolish thoughts of the outside world and prepare yourself for prayer.  From here you walk up some steps and go through another entrance, which I am standing in front of, to enter another courtyard.  At the bottom of these steps are numerous faucets where Muslims are supposed to do the ritual ablutions by washing their feet, hands, face and mouth as a purification before entering the holy mosque.  As you enter the actual mosque you can see where it gets it's name from.  The inside is adorned with blue mosaic tiles and beautiful stained glass windows with blue as the predominant color, giving the inside of the mosque a blue hue.  This mosque is one of the most famous religious buildings in the world.  Sultan Ahmet I commissioned the mosque during a period of declining Ottoman fortunes, and it was built between 1609-16 by Mehmet Aga, the imperial architect.  The splendour of the plans provoked great hostility at the time, especially because a mosque with six minarets was considered a sacrilegious attempt to rival the architecture of Mecca itself.  From the picture above you can see the floating lanterns but you do not get a sense of the blueness that associates it with it's name.  From here we walked to the Topkapi Palace.

Part III - Topkapi Palace

Between 1459 and 1465, shortly after his conquest of Constantinople, Mehmet II built Topkapi Palace as his principal residence.  Rather than a single building, it was conceived as a series of pavilions contained by four enormous courtyards, a stone version of the tented encampments from which the nomadic Ottomans had emerged.  Initially, the palace served as the seat of government and contained a school in which civil servants and soldiers were trained.  In the 16th century, however, the government was moved to the Sublime Porte.  Sultan Abdul Mecit I abandoned Topkapi in 1853 in favour of another palace.  The palace is a city within itself.  The kitchen alone was made to be able to cook enough food for thousands of people and has around 10 giant smoke stacks just for itself.  The grounds sit atop a hill and have the most beautiful view of the city and the Golden Horn.  We started our tour seeing the exhibition of the imperial costumes.  They were mostly kaftans for the Sultan and were made from the most beautiful silk prints.  It was a palace tradition that on the death of a sultan his clothes were carefully folded and placed in sealed bags.  As a result, it is possible to see a perfectly preserved kaftan worn by the sultan as an adult and child.  

From here we moved on to the Treasury.  For some reason there was an exuberant number of children visiting this day.  It must have been field trip day and we were crammed into the small rooms peeking into the small cases to look at the extravagant jewels with little munchkins stepping on our toes.  It hurried us along but the palace holds an impressive amount of treasure and we were sure to see every bit.  Some of the most impressive stones were giant emeralds that adorned swords,thrones and aigrettes, which adorned imperial turbans.  What is interesting is that there are so few women's jewels on display.  Whereas the treasures of the sultans and viziers were owned by the state and reverted to the palace on their deaths, those belonging to the women of the court did not and they were able to keep theirs.  The most impressive of all stones there and probably in the world is that of an 86 carat diamond, called the Spoonmaker's diamond.  It is said to have been discovered in a rubbish heap in Istanbul in the 17th century, and bought from a scrap merchant for three spoons.  

After the treasury we walked through the Pavilion of the Holy Mantle.  Some of the holiest relics of Islam are displayed in these five domed rooms, which are a place of pilgrimage for Muslims.  Most of the relics found their way to Istanbul as a result of the conquest by Selim the Grim of Egypt and Arabia, and his assumption of the caliphate in 1517.  When you walk in you notice the reading of the Qu'ran (Koran), which is chanted 24hrs a day, 7 days a week in these rooms.  The most sacred treasure is the mantle once worn by the Prophet Mohammed.  There are also other important relics, including locks of hair, teeth, parts of a skull and hand of other prophets, including their most important Mohammed.  There are also on display locks and keys to the holy Kaaba, the first sacred shine built in Mecca, and also the birthplace of the Prophet Mohammed where Muslims, if they can afford it and are healthy enough, should make their pilgrimage once in their lifetime.  There are also four other basic duties for Muslims.  These include the profession of their faith: "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet."  They are enjoined to pray five times a day (the first being at 5AM, which we can brightly hear from our hotel), give alms to the poor, and fast during the month of Ramazan.  It is a religion defined by ritual which the people follow strictly.

The one part of the palace which we did not see, which I wish we had, was the Harem.  Sultans were known to have hundreds of wives and concubines which lived in these parts of the palace.  I can only imagine what those quarters must have been like.  Unfortunately we did not have time to see them and from here we moved on to our next stop.  The Haghia Sophia.