Well, we're into our first full day in Istanbul. We went on a "foot-trip" around the city's ancient sites, whose bazaar-littered alleyways ran alongside modern buildings and boulevards, thus covering more than 1700 years' worth of history in a matter of hours. At Istanbul University, our short-cut to the Suleymaniye Complex, an array of Roman-Byzantine remains can be found co-existing with Ottoman buildings.

 

Our group in front of Kamal Attaturk's Statue at Istanbul University:

The Sulemaniye contains the Suleyman Mosque, built in the sixteenth century as a tribute to the Ottomans' most splendid ruler, Suleyman the Magnificent. In its time, the whole complex contained schools, hospitals, a mental facility, merchant houses, a business district, and a large park. The monument is on prime real-estate, as Ottoman engineers drained swampy land to build a landmark that could be seen from ships coming from the Aegean Sea, the Mediterrenean, and the Bosphorus as well as travellers by land from the west.The inside is even more spectacular.Our group was awed by the mosque's architectural marvel and decorative ornaments. None of us felt any hurry to leave the building as the atmosphere was so peaceful and calm.

Sulemaniye Mosque

 

   

The market alleys in the Suleymaniye complex  

 

    Our next stop was the Sultan Ahmet Mosque, built about sixty years after the completion of the Suleymaniye. Known as the Blue Mosque, one will realize why it is called as such. The interior was tiled and decorated with blue and turqoise furnishing and mosaics. No photo will give justice to the real sensation one gets being in the mosque in person. How the artisans and craftsmen were able to paint, write, and inscribe the various calligraphic scriptures,decorative ornaments, and mouldings so high up in the curvatured ceilings is anyone's guess. Sorry Sistine Chapel, you got beat in our books.

The Sultan Ahmet Mosque (Blue Mosque)







The Egyptian Obelisk at the Hippodrome



   Outside the Mosque lies the Hippodrome. This was the epi-center of Byzantine Emperor Theodorus's Constantinople. What is left are the columns imported from Egypt and Greece. The city was rivalling its other Christian competitors - Antioch, Jerusalem, Rome, and Alexandria, and thus wanted to showcase its splendor by transporting monuments from other parts of the world.
  Across from the Blue Mosque was the St. Sophia Mosque, known as the AyaSofia.This building was different from the others. It had different features, and in many ways, exuded a more ancient ambience.The inside was nevertheless marvellous and breathtaking. The Ottomans had always been impressed with Byzantine works, thus they decided to preserve the whole structure, including the name, when they turned it into a mosque. Even the paintings of the Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus still stands prominently in the center, and flanked only by the words "Allah" and "Muhammad." The Ayasofia is testimony as to why the Eastern Romans were much more superior in architectural attainments than their western counterparts.



St. Sophia Mosque (Ayasofia)





     We had a nice lunch in the square, which was adorned with sidewalk cafes, restaurants, craftshops, fountains and parks, and just bustling with people and activities. The call to prayer loomed abruptly as I was eating my lamb doner right from the small mosque across the street in front of me. Feeling guilty, I told Astrid that I decided to join the congregation. I was most impressed with how gracious everyone was in the mosque, even offering me a drink (probably noticed that my doner had to be stuffed away quickly) after the session.
     The last stop was the Topkapi Palace. The Ottomans really knew how to seal their greatness. This complex is the White House, the Capitol, Treasury, and Federal Reserve all combined in one. The Palace overlooks the Bosphorus and the path taking visitors there is lined with sweet-smelling flowers and placid scenery. Despite the thousands of visitors the serenity was omni-present. Just an observation  - like the Suleymaniye Mosque, the Topkapi also seemed to have a resident dog that freely roams the area. Hopefully one of us in the group took a picture of the Lab mix. The Topkapi is a museum now and houses Islamic relics, weapons of war, and Ottoman costumes and attires. Not many know that the Ottomans's greatness as a  military power partly lay in their navy, which was the first in the world to use cannons.
  

Photos of the Topkapi Palace grounds..... 

 

 The journey back to the hotel was on the tour bus, which we used again to get us to our dinner site overlooking the Bosphorus.What a great day it was. All that I ever dreamed about visiting, all that I only reached as far as sharing with students in my Islam in the World classroom about these sites  through texts and literature finally materialized in my being there in person. This was truly humbling...
All in all, we are having a great and rewarding experience. We have a good group of people who share the same cultural interests and same sense of adventurism that Istanbul can surely provide.
Azlan