Edirne, Part I

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I made my first day trip out of Istanbul today, traveling west to the city of Edirne. The trip lasted all day, and I took over 200 pictures… so this is a very quick summary of some of the highlights. Since we visited several mosques, including the one usually designated as the most impressive in Turkey (Selimiye Mosque), I took many videos in the style that you have all come to know and love. Since it is late, and I need to get some reading done for an upcoming midterm on Monday, I haven’t browsed through my videos yet, but have picked a couple of pictures to show a tiny bit of what I saw.

First up in my summary, though not first on our stops, is the Old Mosque, which was very cool, as we were allowed to climb around everywhere. It's a mosque, so there aren't that many places to climb, but there was a platform in the center that we were allowed to ascend, which provided a great encompassing view of the entire mosque. This mosque, unlike the others, which all had a central dome, and then semi-domes coming out of the central dome, had a total of nine separate domes, three-by-three. The other interesting thing about this mosque was the elaborate Arabic calligraphy on the central pillars, which is illustrated by the picture. I don’t know what the symbols behind Hakan mean, but since the others ones were all some of the 99 names of Allah, I think it is a safe bet that these are more names.

Skipping far ahead in the day, we visited a museum showing a bunch of things, from old axes, to fancy ceramic tile work, to elaborately-decorated guns, to cooking utensils. The photo I selected was of the uniform of a 17th century janissary. Since I just had a midterm in which I had to study all about the janissaries, I’ll tell you all a little about them. The term janissary comes from the Turkish words yeni cheri (spelled phonetically, as my computer doesn’t like the Turkish alphabet) (yeni=new cheri=army). The early Ottoman war machine was nomadically powered, and as such, hard to control. As the empire spread and needed centralization, the Ottoman rulers tried to counterbalance the nomadic soldiery with a centralized army. This new army was composed of originally non-Muslim persons, who we taken from lands in the Ottoman Empire (specifically the Christian Balkans), at a very early age, and brought to Istanbul to be educated. By cutting family ties back home, the Ottomans hoped to link these “orphaned” children directly to the state, creating loyalty and devotion to it. These children were educated to become state administrators (like judges), or drafted into the new army.

The museum was right next to the Selimiye Mosque, of which I have included four out of my who knows how many photos taken of it. The magnitude of the mosque was beyond impressive. Unlike, say, the Blue Mosque, which had four huge columns to support the central dome and adjoining semi-domes, the Selimiye Mosque utilized a ring of semi-domes to support the central dome (which according to Hakan, is about 1 meter wider than the dome in Hagia Sofia), and these are supported by columns further out, creating a huge open space in the center of the mosque. It was incredible, and everything, as you can see, was highly decorated. It was a great trip, and I have much more to say, though little of it will end up on the blog. I'll try to get a video or two up though.

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Photos

Old Mosque
The man in blue is Hakan, who served as our guide during the trip. In the background are many students, some of whom you have seen before. In the red is Mark, a student from Hungary, who is pretty cool.

Janissary
The uniform of a 17th Century Janissary.

Selimiye Fountain and Kagan
Kagan, with a small fountain in the Selimiye Mosque. I like this shot.

Selimiye Mosque, and Me
Apparently I don't have arms. I'll crop it later, but I think the shot helps capture some of the vastness of the mosque.

Selimiye Mosque
A shot of epic proportions.

Selimiye Mosque 2
Another shot of epic proportions.