During the reign of Selim i, the Ottomans conquered Mamlukcontrolled
Palestine, Syria, Egypt and the Hijaz. They then
C a s p i a n S e a
undertook building and maintenance projects in Jerusalem,
Mecca and Medina. The Ottomans oversaw the Hajj, maintained
and protected pilgrimage routes (shown on map) and enacted
ceremonies for the departure of Hajj caravans from Istanbul,
Damascus, and Cairo. In addition to the Hajj, the Ottomans
encouraged pilgrimage to Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock.
Istanbul
Black Sea
Ankara
Ashgabat
Bukhara
Selim’s successor, Sulayman (d. 1566) commissioned the
recladding of the building’s exterior in coloured glazed ceramic
tiles, which brought a distinctive Ottoman look to the structure.
Aleppo
Tehran
Mashhad
Herat
Detail of a painting of the arrival of the Hajj caravan at an
oasis en route to Mecca by the German painter Georg Emanuel
Opiz (d. 1841). Ottoman officials, dignitaries and soldiers are
shown meeting a religious official (dressed in green robes).
A camel draped in fine textiles carries the mahmal, a ceremonial
palanquin made of silk embroidered fabric that symbolised
the ruler’s authority and accompanied the Hajj caravan from
Egypt to Mecca. Originally established under the Mamluks,
the mahmal ceremony was adopted by the Ottomans. After the
Ottoman Empire’s dissolution in 1923, the ceremony began
to lose its significance. It remained a popular tradition
in Egypt until 1952.
Mediterranean Sea
Jerusalem
Cairo
Nile
pilgrimage
Damascus
H i j a z
Medina
Jedda
Mecca
R e d S e a
Baghdad
Euphrates
Isfahan
Basra
Shiraz
Bushehr
P e r s i a n G u l f
c o f f e e
The word ‘coffee’ comes from the Turkish ‘kahve’
which is derived from the Arabic ‘qahwa’. Coffee began
its journey in the Muslim world and Europe from
Yemen where the coffee-berry was cultivated (Yemeni
coffee plantations shown here) and where Sufis used it
to remain alert during their long devotional practices.
By the end of the 15th century, coffee was available
throughout the Muslim world. Its consumption
became controversial when some ʿulamaʾ likened it
to alcohol, an intoxicant, and deemed it impermissible
to consume.
Coffee was also censured because some ʿulamaʾ and rulers regarded coffee-houses as
hotbeds of impious behaviour and rebellion. Coffee-houses, like the one in Istanbul
shown here in a 19th-century painting by the Turkish Armenian painter Megerdich
Jivanian (d. 1906), were male abodes whereas women consumed coffee in private as
shown below in an 18th-century French painting of an Ottoman woman and her
server. During the 16th century the Ottomans imposed a tax on coffee and at various
times both coffee and coffee-houses were banned, most famously under the sultan
Murad iv (r. 1623–1640).
Ottoman traders introduced coffee into Europe between the 16th and 17th centuries.
European coffee-houses and paraphernalia were often replete with Ottoman
references including coffee tokens produced in London (shown opposite) inscribed
with a ‘Turk’s head’. Referred to as a ‘drink of the Muslims’, attempts were made to
ban coffee. Pope Clement viii (d. 1605), who liked its taste and preferred its effects to
those of alcohol, then sanctioned the drink. By the mid-17th century, coffee, coffeehouses
or cafés, along with chocolate, tea and tobacco became fashionable. Cafés
became places for literary, political, and economic gatherings. A London coffee-house
opened by the publisher Edward Lloyd (d. 1713) in 1686 was frequented by merchants,
seamen, traders and brokers. Eventually, Lloyd’s café became Lloyd’s of London, one
of the world’s largest insurance brokers. But there were also efforts to ban coffeehouses
in Europe owing to their potential to foment political dissent or as alleged in
a London women’s petition (shown below right), the drink’s ability to make men
‘feeble’ and ‘dull-witted’.
Portrait of Mihrimah Sultan (d. 1578),
daughter of Sulayman I and his favourite
wife Hürrem Sultan (Roxelana), by the
Cristofano dell’Altissimo (1605), second half
of the 16th century, Italy. Mihrimah Sultan
had political connections and economic
means and was the patron of a number of
building projects including two mosques
bearing her name built in Üskudar (1548)
and Istanbul (1565).
By the 17th century, when their number may have
been as high as 100,000, the Janissaries had become closely
affiliated with the Bektashi Sufi dervish tariqa founded in
the 13th century. The Bektashis were inclined towards Shiʿism
and upheld the centrality of ʿAli b. Abi Talib, the Twelver
Shiʿi line of Imams and extremist (ghulat) beliefs, and
through their dervish lodges (tekkes) influenced the education
of the Janissaries, who eventually regarded the founder
of the tariqa, Haji Bektashi Wali (d. ca. 1271) as their patron
saint. If anything, this association with the Bektashis highlighted
the importance of the Janissaries to the Ottoman
sultans, since their championing of Sunni Islam was downplayed
in order to ensure the support of these elite regiments.
Calligraphic tiles in the Valide Sultan Mosque
(or Yeni Camii) built in Istanbul’s Eminönü
district upon the order of Safiye Sultan
(d. 1603), the consort of Sultan Murad iii
(d. 1595) and completed in 1665 under the
patronage of Turkhan Sultan (d. 1683), who
served as Ottoman regent for her son Sultan
Mehmed iv (d. 1693). The mosque is part of
an endowed complex (külliye) that included
a hospital and school as well as a market
that is known today as the Spice Bazaar
(or Mısır Çarşısı), one of Istanbul’s most
famous tourist attractions.
The Sultanate of Women and
the Gates of Vienna
In the decades after Sulayman i’s death in 1566, the extent of
the Ottoman Empire made it difficult to govern and protect on
all sides. In addition, Suleyman’s successors proved ineffective
rulers and their authority was weakened by palace intrigues
and cabals. Some sultans came to power as minors and were
controlled by viziers or relatives serving as regents, while
the decline of some of the sultans’ power encouraged royal
mothers, wives and concubines to take an active role in
political life, thus giving rise to the term the Sultanate of
Women to describe this period in Ottoman history.
One of the most powerful regents was Kösem Sultan
(d. 1651), the wife of Ahmad i (d. 1617) and mother (affording
her the title valide sultan) of Murad iv (d. 1640). In 1638,
Murad vi had managed to take Baghdad from the Safawids
of Persia, but his controversial attempts to ban alcohol,
tobacco and coffee, and issuing penalties of execution for
those who did not obey, proved unsuccessful. His mother,
who was highly intelligent and politically astute, managed
to outlive and outmanoeuvre Murad and see her second
son, Ibrahim (d. 1648), followed by grandson Mehmed iv
(d. 1693), ascend the throne. But Kösem Sultan was eventually
killed when she was implicate in a plot to overthrow
Mehmed, probably by her daughter-in-law, the mother of
274
A watercolour painting made in Mughal India in ca. 1615–1618
depicting a bejewelled and haloed Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) favouring the
Sufi Shaykh Husayn with a book. The painting is an allegory. Jahangir,
who adopted the name meant ‘Seizer of the World’ and honorific title of
Nur al-Din (‘Light of Faith’), is shown to prefer the poor and pious
shaykh to the kings depicted at a distance from the ruler and
represented by the Ottoman sultan and King James i of England
(r. 1603–1625). The painting’s artist Bichitr (active ca. 1610–1660), a Hindu,
has also included himself in the painting with a self-portrait bowing
before the king on the lower left. The painting also has a number of
European styled cherubs, two of whom write in Persian at the base
of the hourglass pedestal of Jahangir’s throne, ‘O Shah, May the Span
of Your Life be a Thousand Years’. The painting’s frame is densely
decorated with colourful flowers. Jahangir was known for his
patronage of botanical paintings and drawings.
seeking the eternal
Jahangir’s successor, Shah Jahan (r. 1628–1658) built the Taj Mahal
in Agra as a mausoleum for his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal
(d. 1631). Built on the banks of the Yamuna, the Taj Mahal is a complex
of buildings within a garden, at the north end of which is the main
mausoleum built of brick faced with white marble decorated with
precious and semi-precious stones including lapis lazuli, sapphire,
cornelian, jasper, chrysolite and heliotrope.
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