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I'm feeling Blue (Mosque)
Oct. 25th, 2015 12:53 pmLet us all pause a moment and think kind thoughts for Sultan Ahmet I, the George W. Bush of the Ottoman Empire.
A poet, scholar, and unwavering religious fanatic, Ahmet (or Ahmed in many Western sources) had one or two minor failings. He was politically incompetent and an utter disaster as a military strategist. Which wouldn't have mattered if his father had been a fisherman, but no poor Ahmet was the son of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliph of the Faith, and he inherited the family business.
He was a disaster. Under his rule, the Empire lost huge areas on both the eastern and western frontiers. At home, his attempts to enforce rigid religious orthodoxy infuriated the bulk of Constantinople's population, who disliked being told how to conduct their faith, and caused near riots among the large non-Muslim population out of fear that forced conversions were coming. When he died of typhus in 1617, his brother took the throne as Mustafa I. This was odd, as Ottoman tradition was that on ascension to the throne the new sultan would have his brothers killed. But not Ahmet! No, he let his mentally disturbed and possibly developmentally disabled brother live. Which led to several years of ineffective government as palace factions fought to control the puppet on the throne.
So, with this track record, why is there an entire district of Istanbul's Old City called Sultanahmet? Because the one thing Ahmet did right was order the destruction of the old Byzantine palaces ruins and the construction of a mosque in its place. He spared no expense creating a building which is breathtaking. Two tiny problems, though. Remember those wars Ahmet lost? It was expected that the sultan would fund his victory mosques by having, you know, victories. Plunder paid the bills! Since Ahment had managed to lose close to a third of the empire, he emptied the treasury to build his mosque. Which got the religious courts furious with him. Then he decided that his mosque had to be far more impressive than the Ayasafya (the Hagia Sophia, which will be the next entry), which is literally just down the street. So Ahmet somehow came to the conclusion that putting up six minarets would be just the thing, since the Ayasafya only had four. This set the traditionalists off, as the Masjid al-Ḥarām, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, was the only mosque in the world with six minarets. To make up for this gaffe, Ahmet funded a seventh minaret for Mecca.
Now the part where I nudge people. Thanks to your incredible generosity and support, with the match from EarthBaby, we are just $1,895 from reaching our goal. That this has happened in a little under two months is staggering and humbling. We are in the homestretch, and if just 40 people can find $50 we can close the books. Please help out of you can, and if you can't, please boost the signal.
As a reminder, any gift of $50 or more gets the sure to be Hugo-nominated, and equally sure to lose, Penguins of the Bosphorus, a collection of my "best" journal entries created using only the finest electrons, dew-picked and flown from the Large Hadron Collider, cleansed in the finest quality cheap beer, lightly killed, and sealed in a succulent, ghost pepper infused, four-alarm, treble-burrito envelope, and lovingly frosted with sarcasm. This was compiled by Chris Garcia, who know a thing or nine about losing Hugos. I'm still giving out places in my NaNoWriMo project for donations as well.
A poet, scholar, and unwavering religious fanatic, Ahmet (or Ahmed in many Western sources) had one or two minor failings. He was politically incompetent and an utter disaster as a military strategist. Which wouldn't have mattered if his father had been a fisherman, but no poor Ahmet was the son of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliph of the Faith, and he inherited the family business.
He was a disaster. Under his rule, the Empire lost huge areas on both the eastern and western frontiers. At home, his attempts to enforce rigid religious orthodoxy infuriated the bulk of Constantinople's population, who disliked being told how to conduct their faith, and caused near riots among the large non-Muslim population out of fear that forced conversions were coming. When he died of typhus in 1617, his brother took the throne as Mustafa I. This was odd, as Ottoman tradition was that on ascension to the throne the new sultan would have his brothers killed. But not Ahmet! No, he let his mentally disturbed and possibly developmentally disabled brother live. Which led to several years of ineffective government as palace factions fought to control the puppet on the throne.
So, with this track record, why is there an entire district of Istanbul's Old City called Sultanahmet? Because the one thing Ahmet did right was order the destruction of the old Byzantine palaces ruins and the construction of a mosque in its place. He spared no expense creating a building which is breathtaking. Two tiny problems, though. Remember those wars Ahmet lost? It was expected that the sultan would fund his victory mosques by having, you know, victories. Plunder paid the bills! Since Ahment had managed to lose close to a third of the empire, he emptied the treasury to build his mosque. Which got the religious courts furious with him. Then he decided that his mosque had to be far more impressive than the Ayasafya (the Hagia Sophia, which will be the next entry), which is literally just down the street. So Ahmet somehow came to the conclusion that putting up six minarets would be just the thing, since the Ayasafya only had four. This set the traditionalists off, as the Masjid al-Ḥarām, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, was the only mosque in the world with six minarets. To make up for this gaffe, Ahmet funded a seventh minaret for Mecca.
Now the part where I nudge people. Thanks to your incredible generosity and support, with the match from EarthBaby, we are just $1,895 from reaching our goal. That this has happened in a little under two months is staggering and humbling. We are in the homestretch, and if just 40 people can find $50 we can close the books. Please help out of you can, and if you can't, please boost the signal.
As a reminder, any gift of $50 or more gets the sure to be Hugo-nominated, and equally sure to lose, Penguins of the Bosphorus, a collection of my "best" journal entries created using only the finest electrons, dew-picked and flown from the Large Hadron Collider, cleansed in the finest quality cheap beer, lightly killed, and sealed in a succulent, ghost pepper infused, four-alarm, treble-burrito envelope, and lovingly frosted with sarcasm. This was compiled by Chris Garcia, who know a thing or nine about losing Hugos. I'm still giving out places in my NaNoWriMo project for donations as well.
"Inside Blue Mosque 3" by Christian Perez - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons.
