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196-638: The Beyazid Mosque was commissioned by the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II , and was the second large imperial mosque complex (or selatin mosque ) to be erected in Istanbul after the conquest in 1453. The earlier imperial complex, the Fatih Mosque , was later destroyed by earthquakes and completely rebuilt in a different style. As a result, the Beyazid complex is the oldest imperial complex in Istanbul that

392-399: A caravanserai ; and several mausolea including the türbe of Bayezid II himself. The chief architect of the mosque is not directly known. Based on Ottoman documents that mention architects during Bayezit II's reign, 20th-century scholar Rıfkı Melül Meriç identified Yakubşah ibn Islamşah as the most likely architect. One of Yakubşah's assistants, Yusuf ibn Papas, finished off the work on

588-403: A hospice for wandering dervishes , the wings were integrated into the prayer hall in the sixteenth century and now consist of three consecutive rooms separated by archways. At the ends of these wings are the two minarets . Behind the mosque is a small garden, containing the türbe (tombs) of Sultan Bayezid II , his daughter Selçuk Hatun, and Grand Vizier Koca Mustafa Reşid Pasha . Below

784-401: A matroneum (women's section). The exterior was decorated with elaborate carvings of rich Theodosian-era designs, fragments of which have survived, while the floor just inside the portico was embellished with polychrome mosaics. The surviving carved gable end from the centre of the western façade is decorated with a cross-roundel. Fragments of a frieze of reliefs with 12 lambs representing

980-696: A Christian source, the Crusaders massacred some clerics who had surrendered to them. Much of the interior was damaged and would not be repaired until its return to Orthodox control in 1261. The sack of Hagia Sophia, and Constantinople in general, remained a sore point in Catholic–Eastern Orthodox relations . During the Latin occupation of Constantinople (1204–1261), the church became a Latin Catholic cathedral. Baldwin I of Constantinople ( r.  1204–1205 )

1176-621: A brief time as a Latin Catholic church between the Fourth Crusade and 1261. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, it served as a mosque until 1935, when it became a museum. In 2020, the site once again became a mosque. The current structure was built by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I as the Christian cathedral of Constantinople for the Byzantine Empire between 532 and 537, and

1372-672: A calamitous end in 1683 when Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha led a huge army to attempt a second Ottoman siege of Vienna in the Great Turkish War of 1683–1699. The final assault being fatally delayed, the Ottoman forces were swept away by allied Habsburg, German, and Polish forces spearheaded by the Polish king John III Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna . The alliance of the Holy League pressed home

1568-494: A coup, but he did see the need for military mobilization. In 1883, a German military mission under General Baron Colmar von der Goltz arrived to train the Ottoman Army, leading to the so-called "Goltz generation" of German-trained officers, who played a notable role in the politics of the empire's last years. From 1894 to 1896, between 100,000 and 300,000 Armenians living throughout the empire were killed in what became known as

1764-614: A deacon of Hagia Sophia and an administrative official in for the patriarchate from Antioch in Pisidia . Both George and Theodore, likely members of Sergius's literary circle, attribute the defeat of the Avars to the intervention of the Theotokos , a belief that strengthened in following centuries. In 726, the emperor Leo the Isaurian issued a series of edicts against the veneration of images, ordering

1960-440: A fairly modern conscripted army , banking system reforms, the decriminalization of homosexuality, the replacement of religious law with secular law, and guilds with modern factories. The Ottoman Ministry of Post was established in Istanbul in 1840. American inventor Samuel Morse received an Ottoman patent for the telegraph in 1847, issued by Sultan Abdülmecid , who personally tested the invention. The reformist period peaked with

2156-545: A figure that vastly exceeded the number of Muslim children in school at the time, who were further hindered by the amount of time spent learning Arabic and Islamic theology. Author Norman Stone suggests that the Arabic alphabet, in which Turkish was written until 1928 , was ill-suited to reflect the sounds of Turkish (which is a Turkic as opposed to Semitic language), which imposed further difficulty on Turkish children. In turn, Christians' higher educational levels allowed them to play

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2352-457: A great fire in 859, and again in an earthquake on 8 January 869 that caused the collapse of one of the half-domes. Emperor Basil I ordered repair of the tympanas, arches, and vaults. In his book De caerimoniis aulae Byzantinae ("Book of Ceremonies"), the emperor Constantine VII ( r.  913–959 ) wrote a detailed account of the ceremonies held in the Hagia Sophia by the emperor and

2548-503: A larger role in the economy, with the rise in prominence of groups such as the Sursock family indicative of this. In 1911, of the 654 wholesale companies in Istanbul, 528 were owned by ethnic Greeks. In many cases, Christians and Jews gained protection from European consuls and citizenship, meaning they were protected from Ottoman law and not subject to the same economic regulations as their Muslim counterparts. The Crimean War (1853–1856)

2744-664: A major center for its trade, contributing to its continued prosperity throughout the seventeenth and much of the eighteenth century. Under Ivan IV (1533–1584), the Tsardom of Russia expanded into the Volga and Caspian regions at the expense of the Tatar khanates. In 1571, the Crimean khan Devlet I Giray , commanded by the Ottomans, burned Moscow . The next year, the invasion was repeated but repelled at

2940-590: A medieval artifact, near the probable location and is still visible today. The original tomb was destroyed by the Ottomans during the conversion of the church into a mosque. Upon the capture of Constantinople in 1261 by the Empire of Nicaea and the emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus , ( r.  1261–1282 ), the church was in a dilapidated state. In 1317, emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus ( r.  1282–1328 ) ordered four new buttresses ( Medieval Greek : Πυραμίδας , romanized :  Pyramídas ) to be built in

3136-604: A mosque. The first church on the site was known as the Magna Ecclesia ( Μεγάλη Ἐκκλησία , Megálē Ekklēsíā , 'Great Church') because of its size compared to the sizes of the contemporary churches in the city. According to the Chronicon Paschale , the church was consecrated on 15 February 360, during the reign of the emperor Constantius II ( r.  337–361 ) by the Arian bishop Eudoxius of Antioch . It

3332-467: A planned increase in bread prices, after a stoppage of the Cura Annonae rations resulting from the loss of the grain supply from Egypt. The Persians under Shahrbaraz and the Avars together laid the siege of Constantinople in 626; according to the Chronicon Paschale , on 2 August 626, Theodore Syncellus , a deacon and presbyter of Hagia Sophia, was among those who negotiated unsuccessfully with

3528-659: A prophecy. What was the reason that compelled all to flee to the Great Church? They had been listening, for many years, to some pseudo-soothsayers, who had declared that the city was destined to be handed over to the Turks, who would enter in large numbers and would massacre the Romans as far as the Column of Constantine the Great. After this an angel would descend, holding his sword. He would hand over

3724-483: A result of the earthquake which struck Istanbul in 1766. Extensive new restoration work was started in August 2012 and took eight years to complete. During the process inappropriate materials used during previous repairs were removed, and damaged materials were either cleaned or replaced. The restoration involved a team of approximately 150 people and cost 49 million Turkish liras (approximately US $ 7.2 million). The mosque

3920-514: A sense of Turkish nationalism. In this period, the Ottoman Empire spent only small amounts of public funds on education; for example, in 1860–1861 only 0.2% of the total budget was invested in education. As the Ottoman state attempted to modernize its infrastructure and army in response to outside threats, it opened itself up to a different kind of threat: that of creditors. As the historian Eugene Rogan has written, "the single greatest threat to

4116-481: A smaller scale version of the Hagia Sophia . In addition to the central dome, the semi-domes to the east and west form a nave. To the north and south there are side aisles, each with four small domes, which extend the width of the mosque, but which are not divided into galleries. The dome is supported by huge rectangular piers, with smooth pendentives and stalactite decorations. The space is lit with twenty windows at

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4312-464: A timber roof, curtains, columns, and an entrance that faced west. It likely had a narthex and is described as being shaped like a Roman circus . This may mean that it had a U-shaped plan like the basilicas of San Marcellino e Pietro and Sant'Agnese fuori le mura in Rome . However, it may also have been a more conventional three-, four-, or five-aisled basilica, perhaps resembling the original Church of

4508-523: A transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed II , which marked the Ottomans' emergence as a major regional power. Under Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566), the empire reached the peak of its power, prosperity, and political development. By the start of the 17th century, the Ottomans presided over 32 provinces and numerous vassal states , which over time were either absorbed into

4704-729: A tribute was paid to the Avars . The Avars attacked the extramural areas of Constantinople in 623, causing the Byzantines to move the "garment" relic (Ancient Greek: ἐσθής , romanized:  esthḗs ) of Mary, mother of Jesus to Hagia Sophia from its usual shrine of the Church of the Theotokos at Blachernae just outside the Theodosian Walls . On 14 May 626, the Scholae Palatinae , an elite body of soldiers, protested in Hagia Sophia against

4900-454: A victory over the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto (1571), off southwestern Greece; Catholic forces killed over 30,000 Turks and destroyed 200 of their ships. It was a startling, if mostly symbolic, blow to the image of Ottoman invincibility, an image which the victory of the Knights of Malta over the Ottoman invaders in the 1565 siege of Malta had recently set about eroding. The battle

5096-467: Is constructed with bricks stamped with brick-stamps dating from the 5th century, but the lower part is of constructed with bricks typical of the 4th century. This wall was probably part of the propylaeum at the west front of both the Constantinian and Theodosian Great Churches. The building was accompanied by a baptistery and a skeuophylakion . A hypogeum , perhaps with an martyrium above it,

5292-603: Is possible that both they and John the Lydian considered Hagia Sophia a great temple for the supreme Neoplatonist deity who manifestated through light and the sun. John the Lydian describes the church as the " temenos of the Great God" (Greek: τὸ τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ Τέμενος , romanized:  tò toû megálou theoû Témenos ). Originally the exterior of the church was covered with marble veneer , as indicated by remaining pieces of marble and surviving attachments for lost panels on

5488-419: Is preserved in more or less its original form, making it of considerable historical and architectural significance. The mosque was constructed between 1500 and 1505, with a külliye (religious and charitable complex) added immediately afterwards. This included a medrese (theological college), completed in 1507; a large hamam (bathhouse) , completed some time before 1507; an imaret ( soup kitchen );

5684-453: Is roofed with 24 small domes and has a pavement of polychrome marble . The mosque itself is square measuring approximately 40 metres (130 feet) per side and its dome is approximately 17 metres (56 feet) in diameter. The central dome is supported by two semi-domes along the main axis and two arches running along the secondary axis. The mosque is constructed entirely of cut stone using coloured stones and marbles. The mosque interior resembles

5880-574: Is said to have "changed the history of architecture". The present Justinianic building was the third church of the same name to occupy the site, as the prior one had been destroyed in the Nika riots . As the episcopal see of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople , it remained the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years, until the Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520. Beginning with subsequent Byzantine architecture, Hagia Sophia became

6076-507: The khagan of the Avars. A homily , attributed by existing manuscripts to Theodore Syncellus and possibly delivered on the anniversary of the event, describes the translation of the Virgin's garment and its ceremonial re-translation to Blachernae by the patriarch Sergius I after the threat had passed. Another eyewitness account of the Avar–Persian siege was written by George of Pisidia ,

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6272-468: The 12 apostles also remain; unlike Justinian's 6th-century church, the Theodosian Hagia Sophia had both colourful floor mosaics and external decorative sculpture. At the western end, surviving stone fragments of the structure show there was vaulting , at least at the western end. The Theodosian building had a monumental propylaeum hall with a portico that may account for this vaulting, which

6468-618: The Anatolian Beyliks . One of these, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman I ( d. 1323/4), a figure of obscure origins from whom the name Ottoman is derived. Osman's early followers consisted of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, with many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along

6664-512: The Arab Revolt . During this period, the Ottoman government engaged in genocide against Armenians , Assyrians , and Greeks . In the aftermath of World War I , the victorious Allied Powers occupied and partitioned the Ottoman Empire, which lost its southern territories to the United Kingdom and France . The successful Turkish War of Independence , led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk against

6860-458: The Battle of Molodi . The Ottoman Empire continued to invade Eastern Europe in a series of slave raids , and remained a significant power in Eastern Europe until the end of the 17th century. The Ottomans decided to conquer Venetian Cyprus and on 22 July 1570, Nicosia was besieged; 50,000 Christians died, and 180,000 were enslaved. On 15 September 1570, the Ottoman cavalry appeared before

7056-649: The Bosporus Strait made it difficult to conquer. In 1402, the Byzantines were temporarily relieved when the Turco-Mongol leader Timur , founder of the Timurid Empire , invaded Ottoman Anatolia from the east. In the Battle of Ankara in 1402, Timur defeated Ottoman forces and took Sultan Bayezid I as prisoner, throwing the empire into disorder. The ensuing civil war lasted from 1402 to 1413 as Bayezid's sons fought over succession. It ended when Mehmed I emerged as

7252-594: The Bulgarian Tsardom of Vidin in 1396, regarded as the last large-scale crusade of the Middle Ages , failed to stop the advance of the victorious Ottomans. As the Turks expanded into the Balkans, the conquest of Constantinople became a crucial objective. The Ottomans had already wrested control of nearly all former Byzantine lands surrounding the city, but the strong defense of Constantinople's strategic position on

7448-583: The Cape of Good Hope in 1488 initiated a series of Ottoman-Portuguese naval wars in the Indian Ocean throughout the 16th century. Despite the growing European presence in the Indian Ocean, Ottoman trade with the east continued to flourish. Cairo, in particular, benefitted from the rise of Yemeni coffee as a popular consumer commodity. As coffeehouses appeared in cities and towns across the empire, Cairo developed into

7644-479: The Chronicle of John Malalas , during a subsequent earthquake on 7 May 558, the eastern semi-dome collapsed, destroying the ambon , altar, and ciborium . The collapse was due mainly to the excessive bearing load and to the enormous shear load of the dome, which was too flat. These caused the deformation of the piers which sustained the dome. Justinian ordered an immediate restoration. He entrusted it to Isidorus

7840-561: The Column of Theodosius closer to Hagia Sophia; in others, it occurs at the Column of Constantine , which is closer still. Hagia Sophia is mentioned in a hagiography of uncertain date detailing the life of the Eastern Orthodox saint Andrew the Fool . The text is self-attributed to Nicephorus, a priest of Hagia Sophia, and contains a description of the end time in the form of a dialogue, in which

8036-534: The Constitution of the Ottoman Empire and brought in multi-party politics with a two-stage electoral system ( electoral law ) under the Ottoman parliament . The constitution offered hope by freeing the empire's citizens to modernise the state's institutions, rejuvenate its strength, and enable it to hold its own against outside powers. Its guarantee of liberties promised to dissolve inter-communal tensions and transform

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8232-511: The Danishmendids at the siege of Kastamon in 1133. After proceeding through the streets on foot carrying a cross with a silver quadriga bearing the icon of the Virgin Mary, the emperor participated in a ceremony at the cathedral before entering the imperial palace. In 1168, another triumph was held by the emperor Manuel I Comnenus , again preceding with a gilded silver quadriga bearing

8428-808: The Great Northern War of 1700–1721). Charles XII persuaded the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III to declare war on Russia, which resulted in an Ottoman victory in the Pruth River Campaign of 1710–1711, in Moldavia. After the Austro-Turkish War , the Treaty of Passarowitz confirmed the loss of the Banat, Serbia, and "Little Walachia" (Oltenia) to Austria. The Treaty also revealed that the Ottoman Empire

8624-534: The Greek revolt (1821–1829) that ultimately ended with the formal independence of Greece in 1830. It was a costly enterprise for Muhammad Ali, who had lost his fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827. Thus began the first Egyptian–Ottoman War (1831–1833) , during which the French-trained army of Muhammad Ali, under the command of his son Ibrahim Pasha , defeated the Ottoman Army as it marched into Anatolia , reaching

8820-769: The Greeks declared war on the Sultan. A rebellion that originated in Moldavia as a diversion was followed by the main revolution in the Peloponnese , which, along with the northern part of the Gulf of Corinth , became the first parts of the Ottoman Empire to achieve independence (in 1829). In 1830, the French invaded the Deylik of Algiers . The campaign that took 21 days, resulted in over 5,000 Algerian military casualties, and about 2,600 French ones. Before

9016-653: The Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (Turkish: Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi ; Greek : Μεγάλο Τζαμί της Αγίας Σοφίας ), is a mosque and former church serving as a major cultural and historical site in Istanbul , Turkey . The last of three church buildings to be successively erected on the site by the Eastern Roman Empire , it was completed in AD 537. The site was an Eastern rite church from AD 360 to 1453, except for

9212-403: The Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki , Panagia Ekatontapiliani , the Şehzade Mosque , the Süleymaniye Mosque , the Rüstem Pasha Mosque and the Kılıç Ali Pasha Complex . The patriarchate moved to the Church of the Holy Apostles , which became the city's cathedral. The complex remained a mosque until 1931, when it was closed to the public for four years. It was re-opened in 1935 as a museum under

9408-399: The Hamidian massacres . In 1897 the population was 19   million, of whom 14   million (74%) were Muslim. An additional 20   million lived in provinces that remained under the sultan's nominal suzerainty but were entirely outside his actual power. One by one the Porte lost nominal authority. They included Egypt, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Lebanon. As

9604-628: The Hippodrome of Constantinople , and the second Hagia Sophia was burnt to the ground on 13–14 January 532. The court historian Procopius wrote: And by way of shewing that it was not against the Emperor alone that they [the rioters] had taken up arms, but no less against God himself, unholy wretches that they were, they had the hardihood to fire the Church of the Christians, which the people of Byzantium call "Sophia", an epithet which they have most appropriately invented for God, by which they call His temple; and God permitted them to accomplish this impiety, foreseeing into what an object of beauty this shrine

9800-434: The Iberian Union . The Ottomans were holders of the Caliph title, meaning they were the leaders of Muslims worldwide. The Iberians were leaders of the Christian crusaders, and so the two fought in a worldwide conflict. There were zones of operations in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean , where Iberians circumnavigated Africa to reach India and, on their way, wage war upon the Ottomans and their local Muslim allies. Likewise,

9996-489: The Köprülü era (1656–1703), effective control of the Empire was exercised by a sequence of grand viziers from the Köprülü family. The Köprülü Vizierate saw renewed military success with authority restored in Transylvania, the conquest of Crete completed in 1669, and expansion into Polish southern Ukraine , with the strongholds of Khotyn , and Kamianets-Podilskyi and the territory of Podolia ceding to Ottoman control in 1676. This period of renewed assertiveness came to

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10192-467: The Mausoleum of Helena ), it is possible it originally had a funerary function, though by 405 its use had changed. A later account credited a woman called Anna with donating the land on which the church was built in return for the right to be buried there. Excavations on the western side of the site of the first church under the propylaeum wall reveal that the first church was built atop a road about 8 m (26 ft) wide. According to early accounts,

10388-451: The Oriental Crisis of 1840 . Muhammad Ali had close relations with France , and the prospect of him becoming the Sultan of Egypt was widely viewed as putting the entire Levant into the French sphere of influence. As the Sublime Porte had proved itself incapable of defeating Muhammad Ali, the British Empire and Austrian Empire provided military assistance, and the second Egyptian–Ottoman War (1839–1841) ended with Ottoman victory and

10584-434: The Rus'–Byzantine War of 941 and the death of the Grand Prince of Kiev , Igor I ( r.  912–945 ), his widow Olga of Kiev – regent for her infant son Sviatoslav I ( r.  945–972 ) – visited the emperor Constantine VII and was received as queen of the Rus' in Constantinople. She was probably baptized in Hagia Sophia's baptistery, taking the name of the reigning augusta , Helena Lecapena , and receiving

10780-472: The Sakarya River . A Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Bapheus in 1302 contributed to Osman's rise. It is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbors, due to the lack of sources surviving. The Ghaza thesis popular during the 20th century credited their success to rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam , but it is no longer generally accepted. No other hypothesis has attracted broad acceptance. In

10976-477: The Spanish garrison of Castelnuovo on the Adriatic coast ; the successful siege cost the Ottomans 8,000 casualties, but Venice agreed to terms in 1540, surrendering most of its empire in the Aegean and the Morea . France and the Ottoman Empire, united by mutual opposition to Habsburg rule, became allies. The French conquests of Nice (1543) and Corsica (1553) occurred as a joint venture between French king Francis I and Suleiman, and were commanded by

11172-462: The Sultan Ahmed Mosque . Upon its conversion, the bells , altar , iconostasis , ambo , and baptistery were removed, while iconography , such as the mosaic depictions of Jesus, Mary , Christian saints and angels were removed or plastered over. Islamic architectural additions included four minarets , a minbar and a mihrab . The Byzantine architecture of the Hagia Sophia served as inspiration for many other religious buildings including

11368-454: The Treaty of Nasuh Pasha , which ceded the entire Caucasus, except westernmost Georgia, back into the possession of Safavid Iran . The treaty ending the Cretan War cost Venice much of Dalmatia , its Aegean island possessions, and Crete . (Losses from the war totalled 30,985 Venetian soldiers and 118,754 Turkish soldiers.) During his brief majority reign, Murad IV (1623–1640) reasserted central authority and recaptured Iraq (1639) from

11564-443: The medrese . That the architect was a nephew of the Greek architect of the Fatih Mosque ( Atik Sinan or Christodoulos), is known from a grant of Bayezid II. This grant confirms the endowment by Mehmed II of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols , the only church in Istanbul that was never converted into a mosque, to the mother of Christodoulos (the Bayezid II Mosque's architect's grandmother) in acknowledgment of

11760-399: The secular Republic of Turkey, and the building was Turkey's most visited tourist attraction as of 2019 . In July 2020, the Council of State annulled the 1934 decision to establish the museum, and the Hagia Sophia was reclassified as a mosque. The 1934 decree was ruled to be unlawful under both Ottoman and Turkish law as Hagia Sophia's waqf , endowed by Sultan Mehmed, had designated

11956-419: The synthronon . He adds that mules and donkeys were brought into the cathedral's sanctuary to carry away the gilded silver plating of the bema, the ambo, and the doors and other furnishings, and that one of them slipped on the marble floor and was accidentally disembowelled, further contaminating the place. According to Ali ibn al-Athir , whose treatment of the Sack of Constantinople was probably dependent on

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12152-416: The "Great Church", likely on 15 April 428. According to the anonymous Letter to Cosmas , the virgin empress, a promoter of the cult of the Virgin Mary who habitually partook in the Eucharist at the sanctuary of Nestorius's predecessors, claimed right of entry because of her equivalent position to the Theotokos – the Virgin Mary – "having given birth to God". Their theological differences were part of

12348-446: The 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe , between the early 16th and early 18th centuries. The empire emerged from a beylik , or principality , founded in northwestern Anatolia in c.  1299 by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I . His successors conquered much of Anatolia and expanded into the Balkans by the mid-14th century, transforming their petty kingdom into

12544-465: The 4th-century skeuophylakion survived the fire. According to Dark and Kostenec, the fire may only have affected the main basilica, leaving the surrounding ancillary buildings intact. A second church on the site was ordered by Theodosius II ( r.  402–450 ), who inaugurated it on 10 October 415. The Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae , a fifth-century list of monuments, names Hagia Sophia as Magna Ecclesia , 'Great Church', while

12740-407: The 4th-century church was not yet known as Hagia Sophia. Though its name as the 'Great Church' implies that it was larger than other Constantinopolitan churches, the only other major churches of the 4th century were the Church of St Mocius , which lay outside the Constantinian walls and was perhaps attached to a cemetery, and the Church of the Holy Apostles . The church itself is known to have had

12936-408: The 5th century Theodosian basilica could have been built surrounded by a complex constructed primarily during the fourth century. During the reign of Theodosius II, the emperor's elder sister, the Augusta Pulcheria ( r.  414–453 ) was challenged by the patriarch Nestorius ( r.  10 April 428 – 22 June 431 ). The patriarch denied the Augusta access to the sanctuary of

13132-406: The Arabic name ʿUthmān ( عثمان ). In Ottoman Turkish , the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿO s mānīye ( دولت عليه عثمانیه ), lit.   ' Sublime Ottoman State ' , or simply Devlet-i ʿO s mānīye ( دولت عثمانيه‎ ), lit.   ' Ottoman State ' . The Turkish word for "Ottoman" ( Osmanlı ) originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in

13328-486: The Balkan Peninsula during the Congress of Berlin , and in return, Britain assumed the administration of Cyprus in 1878. Britain later sent troops to Egypt in 1882 to put down the Urabi Revolt (Sultan Abdul Hamid II was too paranoid to mobilize his own army, fearing this would result in a coup d'état), effectively gaining control in both territories. Abdul Hamid II was so fearful of a coup that he did not allow his army to conduct war games, lest this serve as cover for

13524-445: The Balkans . Osman's son, Orhan , captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326, making it the new capital and supplanting Byzantine control in the region. The important port of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387 and sacked. The Ottoman victory in Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe. The Battle of Nicopolis for

13720-453: The CUP became increasingly radicalized and nationalistic, leading a coup d'état in 1913 that established a one-party regime. The CUP allied with the German Empire hoping to escape from the diplomatic isolation that had contributed to its recent territorial losses; it thus joined World War I on the side of the Central Powers . While the empire was able to largely hold its own during the conflict, it struggled with internal dissent, especially

13916-409: The Church of the Wisdom, at the top of the window, a large flame of fire issuing forth. It encircled the entire neck of the church for a long time. The flame gathered into one; its flame altered, and there was an indescribable light. At once it took to the sky. ... The light itself has gone up to heaven; the gates of heaven were opened; the light was received; and again they were closed." This phenomenon

14112-614: The Conqueror , reorganized both state and military, and on 29 May 1453 conquered Constantinople , ending the Byzantine Empire. Mehmed allowed the Eastern Orthodox Church to maintain its autonomy and land in exchange for accepting Ottoman authority. Due to tension between the states of western Europe and the later Byzantine Empire, most of the Orthodox population accepted Ottoman rule, as preferable to Venetian rule. Albanian resistance

14308-601: The Constitution, called the Kanûn-u Esâsî . The empire's First Constitutional era was short-lived. The parliament survived for only two years before the sultan suspended it. The empire's Christian population, owing to their higher educational levels, started to pull ahead of the Muslim majority, leading to much resentment. In 1861, there were 571 primary and 94 secondary schools for Ottoman Christians, with 140,000 pupils in total,

14504-539: The Eastern Orthodox Church upon the restoration of the Byzantine Empire in 1261. Enrico Dandolo , the doge of Venice who led the Fourth Crusade and the 1204 Sack of Constantinople , was buried in the church. After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, it was converted to a mosque by Mehmed the Conqueror and became the principal mosque of Istanbul until the 1616 construction of

14700-563: The Empire or granted various degrees of autonomy. With its capital at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) and control over a significant portion of the Mediterranean Basin , the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interactions between the Middle East and Europe for six centuries. While the Ottoman Empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline after the death of Suleiman

14896-482: The French invasion the total population of Algeria was most likely between 3,000,000 and 5,000,000. By 1873, the population of Algeria (excluding several hundred thousand newly arrived French settlers) had decreased to 2,172,000. In 1831, Muhammad Ali of Egypt revolted against Sultan Mahmud II due to the latter's refusal to grant him the governorships of Greater Syria and Crete , which the Sultan had promised him in exchange for sending military assistance to put down

15092-645: The Greek historian Doukas , the Hagia Sophia was tainted by these Catholic associations, and the anti-union Orthodox faithful avoided the cathedral, considering it to be a haunt of demons and a "Hellenic" temple of Roman paganism . Doukas also notes that after the Laetentur Caeli was proclaimed, the Byzantines dispersed discontentedly to nearby venues where they drank toasts to the Hodegetria icon, which had, according to late Byzantine tradition, interceded to save them in

15288-668: The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem . The building was likely preceded by an atrium , as in the later churches on the site. According to Ken Dark and Jan Kostenec, a further remnant of the 4th century basilica may exist in a wall of alternating brick and stone banded masonry immediately to the west of the Justinianic church. The top part of the wall

15484-764: The Iberians passed through newly-Christianized Latin America and had sent expeditions that traversed the Pacific to Christianize the formerly Muslim Philippines and use it as a base to attack the Muslims in the Far East . In this case, the Ottomans sent armies to aid its easternmost vassal and territory, the Sultanate of Aceh in Southeast Asia. During the 1600s, the world conflict between

15680-853: The Islamic clergy successfully objected under the grounds of theodicy . In 1754 the artillery school was reopened on a semi-secret basis. In 1726, Ibrahim Muteferrika convinced the Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damat Ibrahim Pasha , the Grand Mufti , and the clergy on the efficiency of the printing press, and Muteferrika was later granted by Sultan Ahmed III permission to publish non-religious books (despite opposition from some calligraphers and religious leaders). Muteferrika's press published its first book in 1729 and, by 1743, issued 17 works in 23 volumes, each having between 500 and 1,000 copies. In North Africa, Spain conquered Oran from

15876-572: The Janissary revolted . Selim's efforts cost him his throne and his life, but were resolved in spectacular and bloody fashion by his successor, the dynamic Mahmud II , who eliminated the Janissary corps in 1826. The Serbian revolution (1804–1815) marked the beginning of an era of national awakening in the Balkans during the Eastern Question . In 1811, the fundamentalist Wahhabis of Arabia, led by

16072-610: The Justinianic Hagia Sophia revealed the western remains of its Theodosian predecessor, as well as some fragments of the Constantinian church. German archaeologist Alfons Maria Schneider began conducting archaeological excavations during the mid-1930s, publishing his final report in 1941. Excavations in the area that had once been the 6th-century atrium of the Justinianic church revealed the monumental western entrance and atrium, along with columns and sculptural fragments from both 4th- and 5th-century churches. Further digging

16268-515: The Magnificent (1520–1566) captured Belgrade in 1521, conquered the southern and central parts of the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Ottoman–Hungarian Wars , and, after his historic victory in the Battle of Mohács in 1526, he established Ottoman rule in the territory of present-day Hungary and other Central European territories. He then laid siege to Vienna in 1529, but failed to take

16464-454: The Magnificent, modern academic consensus posits that the empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society and military into much of the 18th century. However, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind those of its chief European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian empires. The Ottomans consequently suffered severe military defeats in

16660-527: The Ottoman Caliphate and Iberian Union was a stalemate since both were at similar population , technology and economic levels. Nevertheless, the success of the Ottoman political and military establishment was compared to the Roman Empire , despite the difference in size, by the likes of contemporary Italian scholar Francesco Sansovino and French political philosopher Jean Bodin . In the second half of

16856-631: The Ottoman Empire gradually shrank, 7–9   million Muslims from its former territories in the Caucasus, Crimea , Balkans, and the Mediterranean islands migrated to Anatolia and Eastern Thrace . After the Empire lost the First Balkan War (1912–1913), it lost all its Balkan territories except East Thrace (European Turkey). This resulted in around 400,000 Muslims fleeing with the retreating Ottoman armies (with many dying from cholera brought by

17052-557: The Ottoman admirals Hayreddin Barbarossa and Dragut . France supported the Ottomans with an artillery unit during the 1543 Ottoman conquest of Esztergom in northern Hungary. After further advances by the Turks, the Habsburg ruler Ferdinand officially recognized Ottoman ascendancy in Hungary in 1547. Suleiman died of natural causes during the siege of Szigetvár in 1566. Following his death,

17248-532: The Ottoman economy, and used its position to ensure that European capital continued to penetrate the empire, often to the detriment of local Ottoman interests. The Ottoman bashi-bazouks suppressed the Bulgarian uprising of 1876, massacring up to 100,000 people in the process. The Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) ended with a decisive victory for Russia. As a result, Ottoman holdings in Europe declined sharply: Bulgaria

17444-547: The Ottomans were said to be declining, although this has been rejected by many scholars. By the end of Suleiman's reign, the Empire spanned approximately 877,888 sq mi (2,273,720 km ), extending over three continents. The Empire became a dominant naval force, controlling much of the Mediterranean Sea . The Empire was now a major part of European politics. The Ottomans became involved in multi-continental religious wars when Spain and Portugal were united under

17640-795: The Russian Empire (2 November 1914) and its allies France (5 November 1914) and the British Empire (5 November 1914) declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Also on 5 November 1914, the British government changed the status of the Khedivate of Egypt and Cyprus , which were de jure Ottoman territories prior to the war, to British protectorates . Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia ( Turkish : Ayasofya ; Ancient Greek : Ἁγία Σοφία , romanized :  Hagía Sophía ; Latin : Sancta Sapientia ; lit.   ' Holy Wisdom ' ), officially

17836-644: The Russian intervention, Sultan Mahmud II could have faced the risk of being overthrown and Muhammad Ali could have even become the new Sultan. These events marked the beginning of a recurring pattern where the Sublime Porte needed the help of foreign powers to protect itself. In 1839, the Sublime Porte attempted to take back what it lost to the de facto autonomous, but de jure still Ottoman Eyalet of Egypt , but its forces were initially defeated, which led to

18032-546: The Russians. After this treaty the Ottoman Empire was able to enjoy a generation of peace in Europe, as Austria and Russia were forced to deal with the rise of Prussia . Educational and technological reforms came about, including the establishment of higher education institutions such as the Istanbul Technical University . In 1734 an artillery school was established to impart Western-style artillery methods, but

18228-617: The Safavids. The resulting Treaty of Zuhab of that same year decisively divided the Caucasus and adjacent regions between the two neighbouring empires as it had already been defined in the 1555 Peace of Amasya. The Sultanate of Women (1533–1656) was a period in which the mothers of young sultans exercised power on behalf of their sons. The most prominent women of this period were Kösem Sultan and her daughter-in-law Turhan Hatice , whose political rivalry culminated in Kösem's murder in 1651. During

18424-508: The Turks, but was again defeated at the Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448. According to modern historiography, there is a direct connection between the rapid Ottoman military advance and the consequences of the Black Death from the mid-fourteenth century onwards. Byzantine territories, where the initial Ottoman conquests were carried out, were exhausted demographically and militarily due to

18620-621: The Younger, nephew of Isidore of Miletus, who used lighter materials. The entire vault had to be taken down and rebuilt 20 Byzantine feet (6.25 m or 20.5 ft) higher than before, giving the building its current interior height of 55.6 m (182 ft). Moreover, Isidorus changed the dome type, erecting a ribbed dome with pendentives whose diameter was between 32.7 and 33.5 m. Under Justinian's orders, eight Corinthian columns were disassembled from Baalbek , Lebanon and shipped to Constantinople around 560. This reconstruction, which gave

18816-460: The advance of the Turks. The identity of the emperor was often confused with that of other famous saint-emperors like Theodosius I and Heraclius . The orb was frequently referred to as an apple in foreigners' accounts of the city, and it was interpreted in Greek folklore as a symbol of the Turks' mythological homeland in Central Asia, the "Lone Apple Tree". The orb fell to the ground in 1316 and

19012-524: The advantage of the defeat at Vienna, culminating in the Treaty of Karlowitz (26 January 1699), which ended the Great Turkish War. The Ottomans surrendered control of significant territories, many permanently. Mustafa II (1695–1703) led the counterattack of 1695–1696 against the Habsburgs in Hungary, but was undone at the disastrous defeat at Zenta (in modern Serbia), 11 September 1697. Aside from

19208-564: The al-Saud family, revolted against the Ottomans. Unable to defeat the Wahhabi rebels, the Sublime Porte had Muhammad Ali Pasha of Kavala , the vali (governor) of the Eyalet of Egypt , tasked with retaking Arabia, which ended with the destruction of the Emirate of Diriyah in 1818. The suzerainty of Serbia as a hereditary monarchy under its own dynasty was acknowledged de jure in 1830. In 1821,

19404-414: The all-holy dedicatory offerings". After a successful sally by Renier and his knights, Maria requested a truce, the imperial assault ceased, and an amnesty was negotiated by the megas doux Andronikos Kontostephanos and the megas hetaireiarches John Doukas . Greek historian Niketas Choniates compared the preservation of the cathedral to the efforts made by the 1st-century emperor Titus to avoid

19600-450: The army to destroy all icons – ushering in the period of Byzantine iconoclasm . At that time, all religious pictures and statues were removed from the Hagia Sophia. Following a brief hiatus during the reign of Empress Irene (797–802), the iconoclasts returned. Emperor Theophilus ( r.  829–842 ) had two-winged bronze doors with his monograms installed at the southern entrance of the church. The basilica suffered damage, first in

19796-485: The autonomous Deylik of Algiers . The Bey of Oran received an army from Algiers, but it failed to recapture Oran ; the siege caused the deaths of 1,500 Spaniards, and even more Algerians. The Spanish also massacred many Muslim soldiers. In 1792, Spain abandoned Oran, selling it to the Deylik of Algiers. In 1768 Russian-backed Ukrainian Haidamakas , pursuing Polish confederates, entered Balta , an Ottoman-controlled town on

19992-451: The base of the dome and seven windows on each semi-dome, in addition to two tiers of windows on the walls. An elevated sultan's loge ( hünkâr mahfili ), located to the right of the mihrab , is supported by ten small marble columns which were reused from earlier Byzantine churches. On the west side, a broad extended corridor extends considerably beyond the main structure of the building. Originally designed as four domed cells to serve as

20188-579: The border of Bessarabia in Ukraine, massacred its citizens, and burned the town to the ground. This action provoked the Ottoman Empire into the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 . The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774 ended the war and provided freedom of worship for the Christian citizens of the Ottoman-controlled provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia. By the late 18th century, after a number of defeats in

20384-549: The building we now see, it seems to me that they would have prayed that they might see their church destroyed forthwith, in order that the building might be converted into its present form. Upon seeing the finished building, the Emperor reportedly said: "Solomon, I have surpassed thee " ( Medieval Greek : Νενίκηκά σε Σολομών ). Justinian and Patriarch Menas inaugurated the new basilica on 27 December 537, 5 years and 10 months after construction started, with much pomp. Hagia Sophia

20580-484: The building with 4,000 Roman pounds of gold, but he was dismissed from office in October 532. John the Lydian wrote that Phocas had acquired the funds by moral means, but Evagrius Scholasticus later wrote that the money had been obtained unjustly. According to Anthony Kaldellis , both of Hagia Sophia's architects named by Procopius were associated with the school of the pagan philosopher Ammonius of Alexandria . It

20776-457: The building's western face. The white marble cladding of much of the church, together with gilding of some parts, would have given Hagia Sophia a shimmering appearance quite different from the brick- and plaster-work of the modern period, and would have significantly increased its visibility from the sea. The cathedral's interior surfaces were sheathed with polychrome marbles, green and white with purple porphyry , and gold mosaics. The exterior

20972-559: The building. Construction of the church began in 532 during the short tenure of Phocas as praetorian prefect . Although Phocas had been arrested in 529 as a suspected practitioner of paganism , he replaced John the Cappadocian after the Nika Riots saw the destruction of the Theodosian church. According to John the Lydian , Phocas was responsible for funding the initial construction of

21168-637: The century after Osman I, Ottoman rule had begun to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans . The earliest conflicts began during the Byzantine–Ottoman wars , waged in Anatolia in the late 13th century before entering Europe in the mid-14th century, followed by the Bulgarian–Ottoman wars and the Serbian–Ottoman wars in the mid-14th century. Much of this period was characterised by Ottoman expansion into

21364-504: The church its present 6th-century form, was completed in 562. The poet Paul the Silentiary composed an ekphrasis , or long visual poem, for the re-dedication of the basilica presided over by Patriarch Eutychius on 24 December 562. Paul the Silentiary's poem is conventionally known under the Latin title Descriptio Sanctae Sophiae , and he was also author of another ekphrasis on the ambon of

21560-565: The church was dedicated to the Holy Wisdom . It was where the excommunication of Patriarch Michael I Cerularius was officially delivered by Humbert of Silva Candida , the envoy of Pope Leo IX in 1054, an act considered the start of the East–West Schism . In 1204, it was converted during the Fourth Crusade into a Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire , before being returned to

21756-698: The church, the Descripto Ambonis . According to the history of the patriarch Nicephorus I and the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor , various liturgical vessels of the cathedral were melted down on the order of the emperor Heraclius ( r.  610–641 ) after the capture of Alexandria and Roman Egypt by the Sasanian Empire during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 . Theophanes states that these were made into gold and silver coins, and

21952-448: The city of Kütahya within 320 km (200 mi) of the capital, Constantinople. In desperation, Sultan Mahmud II appealed to the empire's traditional arch-rival Russia for help, asking Emperor Nicholas I to send an expeditionary force to assist him. In return for signing the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi , the Russians sent the expeditionary force which deterred Ibrahim Pasha from marching any further towards Constantinople. Under

22148-528: The city's capture. Despite the ill-repute and empty state of Hagia Sophia after December 1452, Doukas writes that after the Theodosian Walls were breached, the Byzantines took refuge there as the Turks advanced through the city: "All the women and men, monks, and nuns ran to the Great Church. They, both men and women, were holding in their arms their infants. What a spectacle! That street was crowded, full of human beings." He attributes their change of heart to

22344-611: The city. In 1532, he made another attack on Vienna, but was repulsed in the siege of Güns . Transylvania , Wallachia and, intermittently, Moldavia , became tributary principalities of the Empire. In the east, the Ottoman Turks took Baghdad from the Persians in 1535, gaining control of Mesopotamia and naval access to the Persian Gulf . In 1555, the Caucasus became partitioned for

22540-660: The civil strife, Austria-Hungary officially annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. The last of the Ottoman censuses was performed in 1914 . Despite military reforms which reconstituted the Ottoman Modern Army , the Empire lost its North African territories and the Dodecanese in the Italo-Turkish War (1911) and almost all of its European territories in the Balkan Wars (1912–1913). The Empire faced continuous unrest in

22736-554: The complex with locals and mercenaries, and despite the strong opposition of the patriarch, made the "house of prayer into a den of thieves or a well-fortified and precipitous stronghold, impregnable to assault", while "all the dwellings adjacent to Hagia Sophia and adjoining the Augusteion were demolished by [Maria's] men". A battle ensued in the Augustaion and around the Milion , during which

22932-406: The construction process. This new church was contemporaneously recognized as a major work of architecture. Outside the church was an elaborate array of monuments around the bronze-plated Column of Justinian , topped by an equestrian statue of the emperor which dominated the Augustaeum , the open square outside the church which connected it with the Great Palace complex through the Chalke Gate . At

23128-399: The controversy over the title theotokos that resulted in the Council of Ephesus and the stimulation of Monophysitism and Nestorianism , a doctrine, which like Nestorius, rejects the use of the title. Pulcheria along with Pope Celestine I and Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria had Nestorius overthrown, condemned at the ecumenical council, and exiled. The area of the western entrance to

23324-404: The culmination of their dispute with the empress Maria of Antioch , regent for her son, the emperor Alexius II Comnenus . Maria Comnena and Renier occupied the cathedral with the support of the patriarch, refusing the imperial administration's demands for a peaceful departure. According to Niketas Choniates, they "transformed the sacred courtyard into a military camp", garrisoned the entrances to

23520-399: The defenders fought from the "gallery of the Catechumeneia (also called the Makron)" facing the Augusteion, from which they eventually retreated and took up positions in the exonarthex of Hagia Sophia itself. At this point, "the patriarch was anxious lest the enemy troops enter the temple, with unholy feet trample the holy floor, and with hands defiled and dripping with blood still warm plunder

23716-405: The destruction of a city founded on seven hills in the Book of Revelation was frequently understood to be about Constantinople, and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius had predicted an " Ishmaelite " conquest of the Roman Empire. In this text, the Muslim armies reach the Forum Bovis before being turned back by divine intervention; in later apocalyptic texts, the climactic turn takes place at

23912-435: The destruction of the Second Temple during the siege of Jerusalem in the First Jewish–Roman War . Choniates reports that in 1182, a white hawk wearing jesses was seen to fly from the east to Hagia Sophia, flying three times from the "building of the Thōmaitēs " (a basilica erected on the southeastern side of the Augustaion) to the Palace of the Kathisma in the Great Palace , where new emperors were acclaimed . This

24108-445: The destruction of the Theodosian Hagia Sophia and comparing the new church with the old, Procopius lauded the Justinianic building, writing in De aedificiis : ... the Emperor Justinian built not long afterwards a church so finely shaped, that if anyone had enquired of the Christians before the burning if it would be their wish that the church should be destroyed and one like this should take its place, shewing them some sort of model of

24304-402: The dome; a burial cloth of Christ shown on Fridays, and on the apse a new depiction of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus, between the apostles Peter and Paul. On the great side arches were painted the prophets and the teachers of the church. According to the 13th-century Greek historian Niketas Choniates , the emperor John II Comnenus celebrated a revived Roman triumph after his victory over

24500-445: The eastern and northern parts of the church, financing them with the inheritance of his late wife, Irene of Montferrat ( d. 1314). New cracks developed in the dome after the earthquake of October 1344, and several parts of the building collapsed on 19 May 1346. Repairs by architects Astras and Peralta began in 1354. On 12 December 1452, Isidore of Kiev proclaimed in Hagia Sophia the long-anticipated ecclesiastical union between

24696-416: The eastern and southern frontiers by defeating Shah Ismail of Safavid Iran , in the Battle of Chaldiran . Selim I established Ottoman rule in Egypt by defeating and annexing the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and created a naval presence on the Red Sea . After this Ottoman expansion, competition began between the Portuguese Empire and the Ottomans to become the dominant power in the region. Suleiman

24892-421: The edge of the Augustaeum was the Milion and the Regia, the first stretch of Constantinople's main thoroughfare, the Mese . Also facing the Augustaeum were the enormous Constantinian thermae , the Baths of Zeuxippus , and the Justinianic civic basilica under which was the vast cistern known as the Basilica Cistern . On the opposite side of Hagia Sophia was the former cathedral, Hagia Irene. Referring to

25088-439: The edifice was built by Constantius' father, Constantine the Great ( r.  306–337 ). Hesychius of Miletus wrote that Constantine built Hagia Sophia with a wooden roof and removed 427 (mostly pagan) statues from the site. The 12th-century chronicler Joannes Zonaras reconciles the two opinions, writing that Constantius had repaired the edifice consecrated by Eusebius of Nicomedia , after it had collapsed. Since Eusebius

25284-514: The empire into a more harmonious place. Instead, this period became the story of the twilight struggle of the Empire. Members of Young Turks movement who had once gone underground now established their parties. Among them " Committee of Union and Progress ", and " Freedom and Accord Party " were major parties. On the other end of the spectrum were ethnic parties, which included Poale Zion , Al-Fatat , and Armenian national movement organised under Armenian Revolutionary Federation . Profiting from

25480-422: The end of the Caucasian Wars , 90% of the Circassians were ethnically cleansed and exiled from their homelands in the Caucasus, fleeing to the Ottoman Empire, resulting in the settlement of 500,000 to 700,000 Circassians in the Ottoman Empire. Crimean Tatar refugees in the late 19th century played an especially notable role in seeking to modernise Ottoman education and in first promoting both Pan-Turkism and

25676-418: The end of the seventeenth century, and instead the word increasingly became associated with the Greek population of the empire, a meaning that it still bears in Turkey today. In Western Europe, the names Ottoman Empire, Turkish Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favoured both in formal and informal situations. This dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–1923, when

25872-417: The first Hagia Sophia was built on the site of an ancient pagan temple, although there are no artefacts to confirm this. The Patriarch of Constantinople John Chrysostom came into a conflict with Empress Aelia Eudoxia , wife of the emperor Arcadius ( r.  383–408 ), and was sent into exile on 20 June 404. During the subsequent riots, this first church was largely burnt down. Palladius noted that

26068-433: The first time between the Safavids and the Ottomans, a status quo that remained until the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) . By this partitioning as signed in the Peace of Amasya , Western Armenia , western Kurdistan , and Western Georgia fell into Ottoman hands, while southern Dagestan , Eastern Armenia , Eastern Georgia , and Azerbaijan remained Persian. In 1539, a 60,000-strong Ottoman army besieged

26264-415: The former sieges of Constantinople by the Avar Khaganate and the Umayyad Caliphate . According to Nestor Iskander's Tale on the Taking of Tsargrad , the Hagia Sophia was the focus of an alarming omen interpreted as the Holy Spirit abandoning Constantinople on 21 May 1453, in the final days of the Siege of Constantinople. The sky lit up, illuminating the city, and "many people gathered and saw on

26460-417: The former cathedral Hagia Irene is referred to as Ecclesia Antiqua , 'Old Church'. At the time of Socrates of Constantinople around 440, "both churches [were] enclosed by a single wall and served by the same clergy". Thus, the complex would have encompassed a large area including the future site of the Hospital of Samson . If the fire of 404 destroyed only the 4th-century main basilica church, then

26656-404: The fourteenth century. The word subsequently came to be used to refer to the empire's military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term "Turk" ( Türk ) was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population and was seen as a disparaging term when applied to urban, educated individuals. In the early modern period , an educated, urban-dwelling Turkish speaker who was not a member of

26852-450: The garden is an arcade of shops ( arasta ), designed by Mimar Sinan in 1580 , whose rents were originally intended to support the mosque. It was extensively restored in the 1960s. In 1882 the former soup kitchen was converted into the State Library of Istanbul by Sultan Abdulhamid II ; it now houses over 120,000 books and 7000 manuscripts. The former medrese now houses a small Museum of Turkish Calligraphy Art that has been closed to

27048-407: The icon of the Virgin from the now-demolished East Gate (or Gate of St Barbara, later the Turkish : Top Kapısı , lit.   'Cannon Gate') in the Propontis Wall , to Hagia Sophia for a thanks-giving service, and then to the imperial palace. In 1181, the daughter of the emperor Manuel I, Maria Comnena , and her husband, the caesar Renier of Montferrat , fled to Hagia Sophia at

27244-438: The independence of the Middle East" in the 19th century "was not the armies of Europe but its banks". The Ottoman state, which had begun taking on debt with the Crimean War, was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1875. By 1881, the Ottoman Empire agreed to have its debt controlled by the Ottoman Public Debt Administration , a council of European men with presidency alternating between France and Britain. The body controlled swaths of

27440-415: The interlocutor, upon being told by the saint that Constantinople will be sunk in a flood and that "the waters as they gush forth will irresistibly deluge her and cover her and surrender her to the terrifying and immense sea of the abyss", says "some people say that the Great Church of God will not be submerged with the city but will be suspended in the air by an invisible power". The reply is given that "When

27636-413: The kingdom, together with the sword, to some insignificant, poor, and humble man who would happen to be standing by the Column. He would say to him: "Take this sword and avenge the Lord's people." Then the Turks would be turned back, would be massacred by the pursuing Romans, and would be ejected from the city and from all places in the west and the east and would be driven as far as the borders of Persia, to

27832-409: The last Venetian stronghold in Cyprus, Famagusta. The Venetian defenders held out for 11 months against a force that at its peak numbered 200,000 men with 145 cannons; 163,000 cannonballs struck the walls of Famagusta before it fell to the Ottomans in August 1571. The Siege of Famagusta claimed 50,000 Ottoman casualties. Meanwhile, the Holy League consisting of mostly Spanish and Venetian fleets won

28028-491: The late 16th and early 17th centuries. With the Empire's population reaching 30 million people by 1600, the shortage of land placed further pressure on the government. In spite of these problems, the Ottoman state remained strong, and its army did not collapse or suffer crushing defeats. The only exceptions were campaigns against the Safavid dynasty of Persia, where many of the Ottoman eastern provinces were lost, some permanently. This 1603–1618 war eventually resulted in

28224-435: The late 18th and early 19th centuries, culminating in the loss of both territory and global prestige . This prompted a comprehensive process of reform and modernization known as the Tanzimat ; over the course of the 19th century, the Ottoman state became vastly more powerful and organized internally, despite suffering further territorial losses, especially in the Balkans, where a number of new states emerged. Beginning in

28420-412: The late 19th century, various Ottoman intellectuals sought to further liberalize society and politics along European lines, culminating in the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 led by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which established the Second Constitutional Era and introduced competitive multi-party elections under a constitutional monarchy. However, following the disastrous Balkan Wars ,

28616-441: The late 5th-century Column of Leo . A large lintel of the skeuophylakion 's western entrance – bricked up during the Ottoman era – was discovered inside the rotunda when it was archaeologically cleared to its foundations in 1979, during which time the brickwork was also repointed . The skeuophylakion was again restored in 2014 by the Vakıflar . A fire started during the tumult of the Nika Revolt , which had begun nearby in

28812-423: The loss of the Banat and the temporary loss of Belgrade (1717–1739), the Ottoman border on the Danube and Sava remained stable during the eighteenth century. Russian expansion , however, presented a large and growing threat. Accordingly, King Charles XII of Sweden was welcomed as an ally in the Ottoman Empire following his defeat by the Russians at the Battle of Poltava of 1709 in central Ukraine (part of

29008-416: The military supremacy of the Islamic caliphate over the Christian empire. In Niccolò Barbaro 's account of the fall of the city in 1453, the Justinianic monument was interpreted in the last days of the siege as representing the city's founder Constantine the Great, indicating "this is the way my conqueror will come". According to Laonicus Chalcocondyles , Hagia Sophia was a refuge for the population during

29204-459: The military-administrative class typically referred to themselves neither as an Osmanlı nor as a Türk , but rather as a Rūmī ( رومى ), or "Roman", meaning an inhabitant of the territory of the former Byzantine Empire in the Balkans and Anatolia. The term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. As applied to Ottoman Turkish speakers, this term began to fall out of use at

29400-439: The need for greater numbers of Ottoman infantry equipped with firearms, resulting in a relaxation of recruitment policy. This contributed to problems of indiscipline and outright rebelliousness within the corps, which were never fully solved. Irregular sharpshooters ( Sekban ) were also recruited, and on demobilisation turned to brigandage in the Celali rebellions (1590–1610), which engendered widespread anarchy in Anatolia in

29596-421: The new conditions of the seventeenth century and remain powerful, both militarily and economically. Historians of the mid-twentieth century once characterised this period as one of stagnation and decline, but this view is now rejected by the majority of academics. The discovery of new maritime trade routes by Western European states allowed them to avoid the Ottoman trade monopoly. The Portuguese discovery of

29792-404: The newly established Ankara -based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. At present, most scholarly historians avoid the terms "Turkey", "Turks", and "Turkish" when referring to the Ottomans, due to the empire's multinational character. As the Rum Sultanate declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as

29988-408: The occupying Allies, led to the emergence of the Republic of Turkey in the Anatolian heartland and the abolition of the Ottoman monarchy in 1922, formally ending the Ottoman Empire. The word Ottoman is a historical anglicisation of the name of Osman I , the founder of the Empire and of the ruling House of Osman (also known as the Ottoman dynasty). Osman's name in turn was the Turkish form of

30184-400: The paradigmatic Orthodox church form , and its architectural style was emulated by Ottoman mosques a thousand years later. It has been described as "holding a unique position in the Christian world " and as an architectural and cultural icon of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox civilization. The religious and spiritual centre of the Eastern Orthodox Church for nearly one thousand years,

30380-410: The patriarch. Early in the 10th century, the pagan ruler of the Kievan Rus' sent emissaries to his neighbors to learn about Judaism, Islam, and Roman and Orthodox Christianity. After visiting Hagia Sophia his emissaries reported back: "We were led into a place where they serve their God, and we did not know where we were, in heaven or on earth." In the 940s or 950s, probably around 954 or 955, after

30576-406: The plague, which facilitated Ottoman expansion. In addition, slave hunting was the main economic driving force behind Ottoman conquest. Some 21st-century authors re-periodize conquest of the Balkans into the akıncı phase , which spanned 8 to 13 decades, characterized by continuous slave hunting and destruction, followed by administrative integration into the Empire. The son of Murad II, Mehmed

30772-411: The public for more than a decade. In 2022 this was undergoing restoration. The monumental Bayezid II Hamam was restored in the 2000s and early 2010s before being reopened as the Museum of Turkish Hamam Culture in 2015. Embedded in the lowest part of the walls are fragments of sculpture from the lost triumphal arch from the Forum of Theodosius , more remains of which are scattered on the ground across

30968-404: The repairs. He erected again and reinforced the fallen dome arch, and rebuilt the west side of the dome with 15 dome ribs. The extent of the damage required six years of repair and reconstruction; the church was re-opened on 13 May 994. At the end of the reconstruction, the church's decorations were renovated, including the addition of four immense paintings of cherubs; a new depiction of Christ on

31164-411: The restoration of Ottoman suzerainty over Egypt Eyalet and the Levant . By the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire was called the " sick man of Europe ". Three suzerain states – the Principality of Serbia , Wallachia and Moldavia – moved towards de jure independence during the 1860s and 1870s. During the Tanzimat period (1839–1876), the government's series of constitutional reforms led to

31360-400: The road from the mosque. During restoration of the hamam traces of an old Byzantine church beneath the hamam were uncovered. (See also: Ottoman architectural decoration ) Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire ( / ˈ ɒ t ə m ə n / ), also called the Turkish Empire , was an imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe , West Asia , and North Africa from

31556-422: The second church in Kiev, Saint Sophia's , was founded in anno mundi 6460 in the Byzantine calendar , or c.  952 . The name of this future cathedral of Kiev probably commemorates Olga's baptism at Hagia Sophia. After the great earthquake of 25 October 989, which collapsed the western dome arch, Emperor Basil II asked for the Armenian architect Trdat , creator of the Cathedral of Ani , to direct

31752-501: The site a mosque; proponents of the decision argued the Hagia Sophia was the personal property of the sultan. The decision to designate Hagia Sophia as a mosque was highly controversial. It resulted in divided opinions and drew condemnation from the Turkish opposition, UNESCO , the World Council of Churches and the International Association of Byzantine Studies , as well as numerous international leaders, while several Muslim leaders in Turkey and other countries welcomed its conversion into

31948-467: The sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire came under increasing strain from inflation and the rapidly rising costs of warfare that were impacting both Europe and the Middle East. These pressures led to a series of crises around the year 1600, placing great strain upon the Ottoman system of government. The empire underwent a series of transformations of its political and military institutions in response to these challenges, enabling it to successfully adapt to

32144-427: The soldiers), and 400,000 non-Muslims fled territory still under Ottoman rule. Justin McCarthy estimates that from 1821 to 1922, 5.5   million Muslims died in southeastern Europe, with the expulsion of 5   million. The defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908—1922) began with the Second Constitutional Era , a moment of hope and promise established with the Young Turk Revolution . It restored

32340-412: The steps outside the atrium of the Constantinian Old St Peter's Basilica in Rome. Near the staircase, there was a cistern, perhaps to supply a fountain in the atrium or for worshippers to wash with before entering. The 4th-century skeuophylakion was replaced in the 5th century by the present-day structure, a rotunda constructed of banded masonry in the lower two levels and of plain brick masonry in

32536-413: The subsequent Sack of Constantinople in 1204, the church was further ransacked and desecrated by the Crusaders, as described by Choniates, though he did not witness the events in person. According to his account, composed at the court of the rump Empire of Nicaea , Hagia Sophia was stripped of its remaining metal ornaments, its altar was smashed into pieces, and a "woman laden with sins" sang and danced on

32732-562: The sultan and restored Ottoman power. The Balkan territories lost by the Ottomans after 1402, including Thessaloniki, Macedonia, and Kosovo, were later recovered by Murad II between the 1430s and 1450s. On 10 November 1444, Murad repelled the Crusade of Varna by defeating the Hungarian, Polish, and Wallachian armies under Władysław III of Poland and John Hunyadi at the Battle of Varna , although Albanians under Skanderbeg continued to resist. Four years later, John Hunyadi prepared another army of Hungarian and Wallachian forces to attack

32928-403: The terms of the Convention of Kütahya , signed on 5 May 1833, Muhammad Ali agreed to abandon his campaign against the Sultan, in exchange for which he was made the vali (governor) of the vilayets (provinces) of Crete , Aleppo , Tripoli , Damascus and Sidon (the latter four comprising modern Syria and Lebanon ), and given the right to collect taxes in Adana . Had it not been for

33124-406: The third. Originally this rotunda, probably employed as a treasury for liturgical objects, had a second-floor internal gallery accessed by an external spiral staircase and two levels of niches for storage. A further row of windows with marble window frames on the third level remain bricked up. The gallery was supported on monumental consoles with carved acanthus designs, similar to those used on

33320-472: The titles zōstē patrikía and the styles of archontissa and hegemon of the Rus'. Her baptism was an important step towards the Christianization of the Kievan Rus' , though the emperor's treatment of her visit in De caerimoniis does not mention baptism. Olga is deemed a saint and equal-to-the-apostles ( Ancient Greek : ἰσαπόστολος , romanized :  isapóstolos ) in the Eastern Orthodox Church. According to an early 14th-century source,

33516-459: The two architects' work. Little else is known about Yakubşah ibn Islamşah other than that he also built a caravansarai in Bursa . However, the polished style of the mosque suggests experience with earlier Ottoman and western architectural techniques. In 19th-century and early 20th-century accounts of the city it is often referred to as "the Pigeon Mosque" because of the large number of birds that congregated nearby to be fed by worshippers. The dome

33712-466: The wars with Russia, some people in the Ottoman Empire began to conclude that the reforms of Peter the Great had given the Russians an edge, and the Ottomans would have to keep up with Western technology in order to avoid further defeats. Selim III (1789–1807) made the first major attempts to modernise the army , but his reforms were hampered by the religious leadership and the Janissary corps. Jealous of their privileges and firmly opposed to change,

33908-401: The western Catholic and eastern Orthodox Churches as decided at the Council of Florence and decreed by the papal bull Laetentur Caeli , though it would be short-lived. The union was unpopular among the Byzantines, who had already expelled the Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory III , for his pro-union stance. A new patriarch was not installed until after the Ottoman conquest. According to

34104-405: The whole city sinks into the sea, how can the Great Church remain? Who will need her? Do you think God dwells in temples made with hands?" The Column of Constantine , however, is prophesied to endure. From the time of Procopius in the reign of Justinian, the equestrian imperial statue on the Column of Justinian in the Augustaion beside Hagia Sophia, which gestured towards Asia with right hand,

34300-410: The years leading up to World War I , including the 31 March Incident and two further coups in 1912 and 1913 . The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers and was ultimately defeated. The Ottoman participation in the war began with the combined German-Ottoman surprise attack on the Black Sea coast of the Russian Empire on 29 October 1914. Following the attack,

34496-400: Was a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion on the Italian peninsula. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ottoman Empire entered a period of expansion . The Empire prospered under the rule of a line of committed and effective Sultans . It flourished economically due to its control of the major overland trade routes between Europe and Asia. Sultan Selim I (1512–1520) dramatically expanded

34692-450: Was abandoned for fear of harming the structural integrity of the Justinianic building, but parts of the excavation trenches remain uncovered, laying bare the foundations of the Theodosian building. The basilica was built by architect Rufinus. The church's main entrance, which may have had gilded doors, faced west, and there was an additional entrance to the east. There was a central pulpit and likely an upper gallery, possibly employed as

34888-432: Was built next to the area where the Great Palace was being developed. According to the 5th-century ecclesiastical historian Socrates of Constantinople , the emperor Constantius had c.  346 "constructed the Great Church alongside that called Irene which because it was too small, the emperor's father [Constantine] had enlarged and beautified". A tradition which is not older than the 7th or 8th century reports that

35084-585: Was clad in stucco that was tinted yellow and red during the 19th-century restorations by the Fossati architects. The construction is described by Procopius in On Buildings ( Greek : Περὶ κτισμάτων , romanized :  Peri ktismatōn , Latin: De aedificiis ). Columns and other marble elements were imported from throughout the Mediterranean, although the columns were once thought to be spoils from cities such as Rome and Ephesus. Even though they were made specifically for Hagia Sophia, they vary in size. More than ten thousand people were employed during

35280-405: Was crowned emperor on 16 May 1204 in Hagia Sophia in a ceremony which closely followed Byzantine practices. Enrico Dandolo , the Doge of Venice who commanded the sack and invasion of the city by the Latin Crusaders in 1204, is buried inside the church, probably in the upper eastern gallery . In the 19th century, an Italian restoration team placed a cenotaph marker, frequently mistaken as being

35476-433: Was designed by the Greek geometers Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles . It was formally called the Church of God's Holy Wisdom (Greek: Ναὸς τῆς Ἁγίας τοῦ Θεοῦ Σοφίας , romanized:  Naòs tês Hagías toû Theoû Sophías ) and upon completion became the world's largest interior space and among the first to employ a fully pendentive dome. It is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and

35672-452: Was destined to be transformed. So the whole church at that time lay a charred mass of ruins. On 23 February 532, only a few weeks after the destruction of the second basilica, Emperor Justinian I inaugurated the construction of a third and entirely different basilica, larger and more majestic than its predecessors. Justinian appointed two architects, mathematician Anthemius of Tralles and geometer and engineer Isidore of Miletus , to design

35868-471: Was discovered before 1946, and the remnants of a brick wall with traces of marble revetment were identified in 2004. The hypogeum was a tomb which may have been part of the 4th-century church or may have been from the pre-Constantinian city of Byzantium . The skeuophylakion is said by Palladius to have had a circular floor plan, and since some U-shaped basilicas in Rome were funerary churches with attached circular mausolea (the Mausoleum of Constantina and

36064-414: Was established as an independent principality inside the Ottoman Empire; Romania achieved full independence; and Serbia and Montenegro finally gained complete independence, but with smaller territories. In 1878, Austria-Hungary unilaterally occupied the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Novi Pazar . British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli advocated restoring the Ottoman territories on

36260-484: Was far more damaging to the Ottoman navy in sapping experienced manpower than the loss of ships, which were rapidly replaced. The Ottoman navy recovered quickly, persuading Venice to sign a peace treaty in 1573, allowing the Ottomans to expand and consolidate their position in North Africa. By contrast, the Habsburg frontier had settled somewhat, a stalemate caused by a stiffening of the Habsburg defenses. The Long Turkish War against Habsburg Austria (1593–1606) created

36456-409: Was on the defensive and unlikely to present any further aggression in Europe. The Austro-Russian–Turkish War (1735–1739), which was ended by the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739, resulted in the Ottoman recovery of northern Bosnia , Habsburg Serbia (including Belgrade), Oltenia and the southern parts of the Banat of Temeswar ; but the Empire lost the port of Azov , north of the Crimean Peninsula, to

36652-423: Was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. The financial burden of the war led the Ottoman state to issue foreign loans amounting to 5   million pounds sterling on 4 August 1854. The war caused an exodus of the Crimean Tatars , about 200,000 of whom moved to the Ottoman Empire in continuing waves of emigration. Toward

36848-452: Was partially rebuilt after an earthquake in 1509 , and Mimar Sinan conducted further repairs in 1573–74. The minarets were burned separately by fires in 1683 and 1754. They were also damaged by a lightning strike in 1743. A document dated October 1754 states that a special type of stone was brought from Karamürsel to repair the mosque. An inscription above the courtyard entrance suggests that repairs were also carried out in 1767 as

37044-482: Was perhaps St Elmo's fire induced by gunpowder smoke and unusual weather. The author relates that the fall of the city to "Mohammadenism" was foretold in an omen seen by Constantine the Great – an eagle fighting with a snake – which also signified that "in the end Christianity will overpower Mohammedanism, will receive the Seven Hills , and will be enthroned in it". The eventual fall of Constantinople had long been predicted in apocalyptic literature . A reference to

37240-423: Was reopened for worship in 2020. The mosque is oriented along the northwest-southeast axis with a courtyard to the northwest with an area almost equal to that of the mosque itself. The courtyard has monumental entrance portals on three sides and is surrounded by a colonnaded peristyle supported by twenty columns. Two of the columns are made of porphyry , ten are of verd antique , and six are of pink granite . It

37436-413: Was replaced by 1325, but while it was still in place around 1412, by the time Johann Schiltberger saw the statue in 1427, the "empire-apple" ( German : Reichsapfel ) had fallen to the earth. An attempt to raise it again in 1435 failed, and this amplified the prophecies of the city's fall. For the Turks, the "red apple" ( Turkish : kızıl elma ) came to symbolize Constantinople itself and subsequently

37632-407: Was supposed to presage the end of the reign of Andronicus I Comnenus ( r.  1183–1185 ). Choniates further writes that in 1203, during the Fourth Crusade , the emperors Isaac II Angelus and Alexius IV Angelus stripped Hagia Sophia of all gold ornaments and silver oil-lamps in order to pay off the Crusaders who had ousted Alexius III Angelus and helped Isaac return to the throne. Upon

37828-405: Was the bishop of Constantinople from 339 to 341, and Constantine died in 337, it seems that the first church was erected by Constantius. The nearby Hagia Irene ("Holy Peace") church was completed earlier and served as cathedral until the Great Church was completed. Besides Hagia Irene, there is no record of major churches in the city-centre before the late 4th century. Rowland Mainstone argued

38024-429: Was the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and a principal setting for Byzantine imperial ceremonies, such as coronations . The basilica offered sanctuary from persecution to criminals, although there was disagreement about whether Justinian had intended for murderers to be eligible for asylum. Earthquakes in August 553 and on 14 December 557 caused cracks in the main dome and eastern semi-dome . According to

38220-449: Was thought by the original excavators in the 1930s to be part of the western entrance of the church itself. The propylaeum opened onto an atrium which lay in front of the basilica church itself. Preceding the propylaeum was a steep monumental staircase following the contours of the ground as it sloped away westwards in the direction of the Strategion , the Basilica, and the harbours of the Golden Horn . This arrangement would have resembled

38416-420: Was understood to represent the emperor holding back the threat to the Romans from the Sasanian Empire in the Roman–Persian Wars , while the orb or globus cruciger held in the statue's left was an expression of the global power of the Roman emperor. Subsequently, in the Arab–Byzantine wars , the threat held back by the statue became the Umayyad Caliphate , and later, the statue was thought to be fending off

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