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Sinan’s Ambivalence The Triangular Design of the Süleymanıye Schools Complex in Istanbul Author(s): Yasir Mohammad Sakr Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 73, No. 3 (September 2014), pp. 398-416 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jsah.2014.73.3.398 Accessed: 03-01-2017 01:07 UTC

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yasir mohammad sakr Jordan University of Science and Technology

Sinan’s Ambivalence: The Triangular Design of the Süleymanıye Schools Complex in Istanbul

T his article examines the anomalies permeating the planning and the architectural formation of the Süleymanıye complex and its schools as designed by

the great Ottoman master-builder Mimar Sinan in 1548–59.1 These anomalous, or seemingly awkward, aspects of the design as they may appear at first glance include the puzzling asymmetrical plan of the complex and the disposition of its schools, and most importantly the unorthodox angular design of Dar-ul-Hadith (school of the prophetic tradition). Largely unaddressed in the existing scholarship on the Süleymanıye, these anomalies beg an explanation. A paucity of historical texts documenting Sinan’s original design inten- tions for the Süleymanıye is perhaps a reason behind this scholarly silence.2 This silence is also a function of the limita- tions of methods of inquiry adopted thus far in these studies. Indeed, most of the studies have focused on the mosque design, its stylistic and iconographic features, and much less on its school planning, and have dealt with the Süleymanıye as a finished design object.3 Unfortunately, the few historical studies that venture beyond the descriptive stylistic categories of art history are limited by an essentialist perception of the design process itself.4 Because they perceive design as a linear

and unilateral progression from intention to production, these scholars have misunderstood those aspects of design that do not conform to its presumed beginnings. For example, in the existing literature on the subject, the asymmetrical disposition of key components of the complex is viewed as an aberration.5

Rather than assuming that the anomalies are aberra- tions, this article construes the deviations, mutations, and temporal processes that inform the Süleymanıye design through a critical interrogation of the architectural text from within. The Süleymanıye design, as the study demonstrates, is not simply a mere refinement of precedents, i.e., of the preexisting symmetrical school models. More precisely, the Süleymanıye and its seeming anomalies are a function of the architect’s own relentless retrospection; he repeatedly reinterpreted the very new types that he himself previ- ously created. I am describing this process as ambivalent to convey the tensions that are produced in the process of such experimentation. Far from the negative association one may usually attach to ambivalence, Sinan applied experimentation with remarkable consistency in such a way as to signal a viable and coherent design process that legitimized Süleyman the Magnificent’s new social agreement that then was being used to structure Ottoman society and its educational institutions.

Sinan’s design approach is a particular form of elemen- tarism. Elementarism refers to Sinan’s general tendency to

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 73, no. 3 (September 2014), 398–416. ISSN 0037-9808, electronic ISSN 2150-5926. © 2014 by the Society of Architectural Histo rians. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions web- site, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/jsah.2014.73.3.398.

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S i n a n ’ S a m b i v a l e n c e : T h e T r i a n g u l a r D e S i g n o f T h e S ü l e y m a n i y e S c h o o l S c o m p l e x i n i S T a n b u l   399

break down a design program into elementary structural/ spatial/geometric units, both as a starting premise and as a design end. The design project is a juxtaposition and sum- mation of these units put together in such a way that each retains its own autonomy and distinction, as a self-referential element. But Sinan simultaneously engaged in an opposite design act by concentrating and unifying the project’s programmatic and spatial components in preconceived cen- tralized forms, typological configurations, and proportion systems so that the design as a whole would represent legible messages of the state.

Sinan’s ambivalent elementarism synthesizes the ideal- ized Ottoman planning patterns with a vigorous dispersal of its functional and symbolic elements in an innovative hybrid typology for the Süleymanıye schools, especially the trian- gular Dar-ul-Hadith, the most important school in the Ottoman Empire.

The Süleymanıye and the Institutionalization of Sunni Islam

Due to mankind’s civilized nature, various types of buildings

were invented day after day so that refinement (nezaket)

increased and not one moment was lost by any one in attempt-

ing to leave an [architectural] memorial. … Given this, [I] your

servant Sinan of Kayseri, too, has suffered great toil in the

completion of each building. There is no doubt that all of them

came into existence with the help of God, and through the

auspicious sovereignty and lofty aspiration of the country-

conquering Ottoman family, as well as the bountiful sincerity of

our own heart. In short there is no art/craft (san’at ) more difficult

than architecture (mi’marlik ). (Sinan, introduction to Tuhfetu’l

Mimarin [The splendor of architects]).6

Sinan declared that his ultimate mission as an architect was to create new design types. Seeking to fulfill “the lofty aspirations of his imperial patrons,” to legitimize their insti- tutional visions of Ottoman society, and to create new build- ing types, Sinan suggested, was a most “difficult” task. Sinan made this point most likely after the completion in 1559 of the Süleymanıye Külliye in Istanbul. Sponsored by Sultan Süleyman al Qanuni (the law codifier), the Süleymanıye was at the time the largest urban design undertaking and the highest educational institution in the Ottoman Empire. Sinan designed the Süleymanıye in the midst of a crucial transformation of Ottoman society that fundamentally altered its previous institutional structure. This transformation occurred as a result of Sultan Süleyman’s monumental codi- fication of Ottoman law according to the religious law of Sharia and its two sacred canons, the Qur’an and Hadith (the

prophetic tradition).7 This institutionalization of religious Sunni orthodoxy radically altered the previously centralized and simple state of affairs as manifested by the absolute rule of the sultan, legitimated by an ad hoc mixture of customary law (u’rf ) and religious law (Sharia).8 The new legal codes and institutional organization unfolded against the back- ground of the military and ideological clash of the Ottoman Empire and the emergent Safavid Empire. The Ottomans’ new emphasis on Sunni orthodoxy was in many respects a response to the Safavids’ own imposition of Shiism as state doctrine.

As a result of this codification process, the Ottoman sultan emerged as an enforcer of the law (i.e., the executive authority), and the religious scholars emerged as the law’s authoritative interpreters and transmitters (the jurisdictional and educational authority).9 Süleyman’s commissioning of Sinan in 1548 to design the Süleymanıye Külliye was meant to ensconce and elevate this emergent, complex institutional reality: “the growing importance of the Ulema and of Sunni Islam.”10 The Süleymanıye’s four law schools (madrassas) and, above them, Dar-ul-Hadith, were to surmount all of the state’s educational institutions.11 The professor of Dar- ul-Hadith presided over the professors of the other schools at the Süleymanıye. Sultan Süleyman enjoined his grand vizier to meet every week with the professor of Dar-ul- Hadith and his colleagues from the Süleymanıye schools and review state policies with them.

The Süleymanıye’s Dualist Master Plan

Sultan Süleyman portioned the dedicated site of the Süleymanıye from the premises of Eski Sarayı, which had been the royal palace before the Ottoman sultans moved their residence to the Topkapi palace. The Süleymanıye complex is composed of eighteen buildings corresponding to various religious, educational, and socioeconomic func- tions. They are all neatly arranged in a symmetrical tripar- tite pattern, with the grand mosque occupying the middle on top of a hill with a commanding view overlooking the city ( Figures 1 and 2). Along the central axis, which is aligned toward Mecca, the royal mosque is attached to the walled enclosure of royal mausoleums to the east, which are situated on a raised platform. To the south and north of the mosque precinct, two pairs of schools (for teaching the law) in addition to a school of medicine and a school for children flank this platform. A hospital, hospice, and soup kitchen face the mosque proper to the north; the supreme school of the prophetic tradition (Dar-ul-Hadith) faces it to the south with the building’s main axis rotated on a 45-degree angle.

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The precedent of Süleymanıye’s tripartite arrange- ment, historians contend, is the Fatih educational complex (Fatih Külliye, or Külliye Simaniya), built on a neighboring hill for Sultan Mehmet II in 1451–81.12 Indeed, at the time, the Fatih Külliye was considered to be the grandest Ottoman educational complex. Its powerful symmetrical tripartite plan established a prototype for later Ottoman imperial complexes (Figure 3).13 Until the foundation of the Süleymanıye, the Fatih Külliye’s eight madrassas were

the highest-ranking schools in the Ottoman state. There, the grand mosque, which is attached to the wall proper of the imperial mausoleum, dominates the middle of the colossal plaza. The plaza is flanked identically on the north and south by a row of four higher schools and a row of four preparatory schools and, in the east, by a public soup kitchen and a hospice. The Fatih Külliye’s eight schools are systematically uniform and subordinate in an uncompromising symmetry. They are identical in form and plan and are placed in two

Figure 1  The Süleymanıye Külliye, Istanbul, 1548–59. Master plan (courtesy of Gülru Necipo lu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the

Ottoman Empire [London: Reaktion Books, 2005]).

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S i n a n ’ S a m b i v a l e n c e : T h e T r i a n g u l a r D e S i g n o f T h e S ü l e y m a n i y e S c h o o l S c o m p l e x i n i S T a n b u l   401

low flanks apart from the mosque to emphasize the latter’s monumentality. The standardization of the Fatih schools and their imposed geometrical and spatial subordination to the huge mosque and plaza represent the state of affairs prior to Süleyman’s reign, which centralized power in the Ottoman state under the sovereign sultan—a regional state being transformed into an empire.14

Informed by the transformation of the institutional struc- ture of Ottoman society, the Süleymanıye’s master plan dem onstrates a distinct variance from the Fatih Külliye’s hermetic tripartite master plan. The difference between the two is manifest in the asymmetry of the Süleymanıye’s gen- eral layout, which is synonymous, as I will explain below, with

the opposing elementarist impulse that differentiates and decentralizes almost every single component of the complex. While the Fatih Külliye’s master plan is rendered uniform by the huge platform that homogenizes and subordinates all the schools in the complex to the central vertical mass of the royal mosque, by contrast, in the Süleymanıye, a fence and the unevenly shaped peripheral meydans mediate between the mosque proper (with its attached imperial türbe) on the one hand, and the other buildings lining the periphery of the Süleymanıye on the other (Figure 4). One detects a twofold design process behind these features. The process unfolds in a dual design act; the first is one of knotting while the other unravels in reverse through the process of dis placement.

Figure 2  The Süleymanıye Külliye,

Istanbul, 1548–59 (Google image copyright

2014; digitalglobe, date: 9/4/2011).

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The dual design process recalls Aristotle’s vision of the plot (mythos) in his Poetics: “Identity exists where the Complica- tion and Unraveling are the same. Many poets tie the knot well, but unravel it ill. Both arts, however, should always be mastered.”15

Knotting the Süleymanıye Master Plan

Having deconstructed the presumed typological source of his design into its constituent elements, Sinan’s prelimi- nary design impulse moved toward establishing an idealized symmetrical scheme with the mosque proper at its center.16 Sinan deconstructed the Fatih Külliye tripartite type into

two formative elements or zones, each with a distinct pro- gram. They correspond to two overlapping rectangular pre- cincts, with the large rectangle symmetrically framing the smaller one (Figure 5). Sinan shaped the two rectangles according to the proportion system evident in many of his architectural and civil works that is a variance of the golden section’s width-to-length ratio of a root 2 rectangle. Rotating the diagonal of a square establishes the base of his golden rectangle with a ratio of 1:1.41. The bigger rectangle is 244 meters long and 173 meters wide. Its boundary is lined by a series of educational (madrassas) and charitable build- ings. The smaller rectangle is 205 meters long and 145 meters wide. It frames the rectangular precinct of the imperial

Figure 3  The Fatih Complex (Fatih Külliye), Istanbul, 1451–81. Master plan (courtesy of Gülru Necipo lu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in

the Ottoman Empire [London: Reaktion Books, 2005]).

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S i n a n ’ S a m b i v a l e n c e : T h e T r i a n g u l a r D e S i g n o f T h e S ü l e y m a n i y e S c h o o l S c o m p l e x i n i S T a n b u l   403

mosque with its frontal courtyard and the rear imperial cem- etery, türbe. The intersection of the diagonals of the square base of the inner rectangle and its rotation are the premises for defining the nodes and boundaries of the mosque’s domed prayer hall, its courtyard, the sultan’s own mausoleum, and the triangular area of Dar-ul-Hadith (Figure 6).17 Triangu- lating the base square of the royal rectangle produces a rotated square, whose two southern perpendicular sides mark the edges and walls of the Eski Sarayı (royal palace) and the Dar-ul-Hadith school. They become two equal sides of an isosceles triangle, the base of which is the royal cemetery türbe wall, formed by connecting their intersections with diagonals of the original golden rectangle. This triangular zone symmetrically crowns the otherwise rectilinear master plan of the Süleymanıye (Figure 7; see Figure 6).

Displacing the Süleymanıye Master Plan

If the first act of typological manipulation that Sinan per- formed could be described as a linear knotting of elements in a symmetrical configuration of two overlapping con- centric rectangles, the second act could be conceived in reverse: unraveling the first act through lateral displace- ment whereby Sinan displaced the two rectangles with their components from each other. He did so through a vigorous negotiation with the distinct circumstances of the site, program, and the institution’s metaphorical pursuits. Here he confronted, so to speak, the idealized symmetrical configuration, which he had initially established, with con- textual and utilitarian reality, particularly that of the irreg- ular site.

Figure 4  Sketch comparing the planning

patterns of the Süleymanıye and Fatih

Külliye, Istanbul (drawing by the author).

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The dramatic 45-degree rotation of the school of pro- phetic tradition, Dar-ul-Hadith, to the south initiated a series of departures from the orthogonal geometry of the complex and its typological premises. Sinan shifted the centerline of the internal rectangle containing the mosque’s precinct to the north by 10 meters and to the west by 7 meters from the original centerline of the project’s overall master plan, to match the new triangular formulation with the actual site boundar- ies to the south (Figure 8). Moreover, Sinan displaced south- ward the position of the two western law schools from that of their counterparts on the other side of the educational rectan- gular precinct. Consequently, an opposition and a balance are marked, figuratively and geometrically, between two dis- tinct rectangular zones representing the two key authorities of Ottoman society: the sultan and the religious scholar.

As a result of sliding the mosque’s rectangular precinct to the east of the educational rectangular precinct, a resid- ual rectangular space is created along its southern edge ( Figure 9). This spatial displacement forms an indeterminate longitudinal urban space to the west that is lined on one side by shop fronts with the façade of the schools on the upper floor, and the perforated wall of the mosque’s precinct on the other side. Unprecedented in Ottoman architecture,

this unique longitudinal space, or meydan, is proportionally neither a street nor a plaza; rather it is a new urban type that synthesizes both. Though this meydan is supposed to be a frontal threshold for the Süleymanıye schools, no school can be accessed from it. Such convoluted access to the schools enhances the scholastic autonomy of the educational rect- angle of the schools, not only from the mosque’s rectangular precinct, but also, interestingly, from the public space, i.e., the meydan that is supposed to have been dedicated to it. This indeterminate space is indeed not unconnected to the newly emergent situation of institutional ambiguity: the oscillation between autonomy and centralization among the various institutions of Ottoman society, namely, between the sultan and the religious scholars, resultant from the new legal codification. Furthermore, the direct access of the mosque proper that the meydan is supposed to offer to the schools’ students and teachers is interrupted by the interme- diary fence that Sinan installed around the mosque. The wall marks a series of gardens surrounding the mosque proper, amplifying the presence of the mosque, the schools, and the meydan as autonomous elements.

The analysis of specific buildings within the Süleymanıye further underscores the systematic application of this

Figure 5  The Süleymanıye Külliye, Istanbul, 1548–59. Construing

Sinan’s condensation of the initial master plan (drawing by the author

based on a master plan drawing by Gülru Necipo lu, The Age of Sinan:

Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire [London: Reaktion Books,

2005]).

Figure 6  The Süleymanıye Külliye, Istanbul, 1548–59. Construing

Sinan’s preliminary master plan (drawing by the author based on a

master plan drawing by Gülru Necipo lu, The Age of Sinan:

Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire [London: Reaktion

Books, 2005]).

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ambiv alent process of dual opposition, knotting and dis- placement, especially in the unorthodox configurations of its schools.18 The schools also show how Sinan’s particular elementarist approach aimed at representing the school as a dynamic institutional process and not simply presenting it as a static object of functional and formal elements.

Inventing a Hybrid School Type

The architectural arrangement of the first (avli) and second (thani) law schools to the west seems, at first glance, in line with the conventional school model presented at the Fatih Külliye. Each of these schools consists of twenty-two student

Figure 7  The Süleymanıye Külliye, Istanbul, 1548–59. Hypothetical idealized formulation of the master plan prior to its displacement by Sinan

(drawing by the author based on a master plan drawing by Gülru Necipo lu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire

[London: Reaktion Books, 2005]).

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cells organized around a colonnaded courtyard, with the larger and higher mass of the dershane (study hall) occupying the center of its eastern edge (Figure 10; see Figure 3). Nevertheless, Sinan’s incorporation of the peripheral living accommodations for the mudarris (professor) to the madrassa, with the side-walled gardens separating the students’ rooms

from the adjacent street is unprecedented in Ottoman archi- tecture.19 Here Sinan demonstrated his unique elementarist approach in opposition to the uniform, introverted tradi- tional school, which was organized by repetition around a courtyard of identical and functionally interchangeable bays constituting a continuous mass. The unique design

Figure 8  The Süleymanıye Külliye, Istanbul, 1548–59. The final master plan following Sinan’s displacement of the initial idealized scheme (drawing

by the author based on a master plan drawing by Gülru Necipo lu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire [London:

Reaktion Books, 2005]).

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of Süleymanıye’s schools testifies to the two counter-polar actions of concentrating and unraveling that are evident in the master plan.

Concentrating the Madrassa

Sinan deconstructed the school into two fundamental func- tional and spatial elements: the domed concentric space of the dershane, with its attached courtyard, and the peripheral wall, which signified to Sinan a broader category including solid fences, colonnades, and, more importantly, contiguous bays of the student rooms. Sinan concentrated these typo- logical elements according to a symmetrical scheme within

the rectangular boundary of each school plot with a central axis marked by the dominant domed hall and the attached central courtyard. Such a scheme presupposes, as in Fatih Külliye, a direct entrance opposite the dershane from the direction of the main longitudinal meydan of the Süleymanıye complex. But this scheme is peculiarly nonexistent as a result of Sinan’s consequent deviation from this initial idealized schematic premise.

Unraveling the Madrassa

Following the initial territorialization of the schools’ lots within Süleymanıye’s hypothetical educational rectangle,

Figure 9  The Süleymanıye Külliye,

Istanbul. The western plaza (author’s

photo).

Figure 10  The Süleymanıye Külliye,

Istanbul, 1548–59. Plan of the first and

second (western) schools (drawing by the

author based on a master plan drawing by

Gülru Necipo lu, The Age of Sinan:

Architectural Culture in the Ottoman

Empire [London: Reaktion Books, 2005]).

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Sinan imposed on it a grid based on the module of 4.5 meters. He used the grid to displace the initial elemental scheme of each school, i.e., the dershane and the courtyard, laterally sliding it along the frontal wall of the meydan.20 This lateral displacement produced a linear space on one side of the school’s plot. Sinan marked this elongated space at its extremity by the raised, vaulted mass of the professor’s resi- dence and accommodations, which was an unprecedented element introduced here for the first time in Ottoman archi tecture. Indeed, this elongated space emerged through a process simulating the aforementioned displacement of the Süleymanıye master plan that generated the elongated meydan between the mosque proper and the educational zone. In that area, one’s attention is also drawn to Sinan’s choice of the shallow elliptical vault covering for the profes- sor’s elevated annex instead of the dome that covers the study hall and student cells to underscore the former’s expression as an effect of displacement.

Sinan was clearly aware that the new institutional pro- gram brought about by the rising status of the religious scholar demanded more than reproducing the traditional model of the school. It called for rethinking the very method and vocabulary with which the school would be designed. I must underscore my disagreement with historians such as Godfrey Goodwin who interpret the final design of the Süleymanıye (and its schools in particular) as a mere accretion to a ready-made scheme; i.e., the result of a simple annexa- tion or juxtaposition of a fenced-land segment containing ancillary facilities overlaid on the traditional symmetrical, introverted Fatih Külliye school model.21 Rather, the act of displacement in Sinan’s design is synonymous with

reworking the typological rules of the school, with the result that each of its internal components retains an exceptionally autonomous geometrical and formal presence. Instead of being traditionally fused with the building’s contiguous mass and external wall, the dershane becomes a semi-independent mass with a fenced garden showcasing the body of the school. Just like the meydan, the traditional courtyard loses a great deal of its original significance as the unifying central enclo- sure of the building. Now the courtyard is as much an out- come as a premise of design (Figure 11). It becomes more of a platform showcasing action as opposed to confining it. The wall and platform in the Süleymanıye compete with the courtyard for the role of ordering and articulating the variegated forms and volumes of the composition.

Hybridization seems to affect almost every element. The resultant space is neither the medieval introverted nega- tive space carved out of the anomalous continuous mass, nor is it the positive extroverted space of a freestanding mass, the kind associated with modernist architectural elementarism.22 Indeed, it is very difficult unilaterally to characterize the elongated lateral outdoor space that Sinan created at the side of the school. Is it a private garden for the professor’s residence? Is it a public forecourt for the school? Perhaps a backyard for the students’ cells? Or, more tellingly, is it an extension of the adjoining street from which it is separated by a mere fence? Moreover, coupling the domed ensembles of the central dershane with the professor’s peripheral resi- dence produces a synthesis that is irreducible to either a school or a house. It is a hybrid of the two.

Rather than focusing exclusively on the formal presen- tation of the building as a juxtaposition of individually

Figure 11  The Süleymanıye Külliye,

Istanbul, 1548–59. Typological elements

of the madrassa and formation of the first

and second (western) schools (drawing by

the author based on a master plan

drawing by Gülru Necipo lu, The Age of

Sinan: Architectural Culture in the

Ottoman Empire [London: Reaktion

Books, 2005]).

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S i n a n ’ S a m b i v a l e n c e : T h e T r i a n g u l a r D e S i g n o f T h e S ü l e y m a n i y e S c h o o l S c o m p l e x i n i S T a n b u l   409

auto nomous functional units that traditionally were used to comprise a building, Sinan’s elementarism aimed at exterior- izing the process underlying the building as an institution. In other words, it is a physical representation of the dynamic relationship among the key educational elements of the building corresponding to the teacher and students; more precisely, it represents the element in action and as an effect. Hybridization thus was Sinan’s way of representing the insti- tution as a process. The institution is, of course, a school, a place of learning. Its representative action is the pedagogy, the flow between formal collective education and informal individual learning and tutoring; through a dialogue between the dershane on the one hand, and the teacher’s residence and/or student’s cell on the other. That Sinan’s unconven- tional elementarism was squarely motivated to present learn- ing as a process is further attested by his design of the eastern third and fourth schools. The design of these schools also demonstrates Sinan’s determination to co-opt a difficult urban context to reinterpret his original typological formula- tion, which he applied in the western schools without relin- quishing their symbolic premise. Sinan seems to have situated the third and fourth schools on their current site, after shifting them northward, from their original hypotheti- cal location in the preliminary symmetrical master plan of the Süleymanıye, which was exactly opposite to their coun- terpart on the other side to the east: the first and second schools. The initial site was too narrow to allow typical orthogonal planning for the third and fourth schools. Unlike the flat site of the western schools, the final site of the two eastern schools consists of very steep terrain descending toward the city. There, Sinan could not simply apply the same school configuration that he codified earlier. Instead, he produced an unprecedentedly bold solution. Sinan flipped

and graded the body of the schools (the third and fourth) toward the surrounding urban fabric, following the sloping terrain (Figure 12). Each one of the domed student rooms is located on a different level and each is connected to all the others by a series of stairs on both sides of the courtyard. Located on the upper street level, the dershane overlooks the student rooms and the surrounding urban fabric on the lower grounds. Once again, Sinan exteriorized the typically introverted courtyard school typology.

To handle the slope, Sinan reinterpreted the duality of the central study hall and the scholar’s vault in the first school by creating a duality between the central lecture hall and the terraced and domed student cells. In both cases, the same objective was achieved, that is, exteriorizing the pedagogical process underlying the school as a distinct institution of learning, while emphasizing the autonomy of the teacher’s elevated domain.

Analogous to the peculiar meydan of the two western schools, an ambivalent space emerged in the two eastern schools, a hybrid of courtyard and terrace. This terracing expresses, on urban terms, the duality between the initial knotting and consolidation of the schools marked by the higher dershane as an integral part of the fort-like periphery of the scholastic rectangle at the Süleymanıye upper plateau and the vertical displacement that breaches it. The vertical displacement is demonstrated by the elemental exterioriza- tion and fragmentation of the school’s body through the graded, vaulted student cells and courtyard cascading toward the city fabric underneath (Figure 13).

Yet no task could be more daunting to Sinan than apply- ing his ambivalent elementarist design and its symbolic intentions to the angular configuration of the Dar-ul-Hadith, the school of prophetic tradition. In designing the most

Figure 12  The Süleymanıye Külliye,

Istanbul, 1548–59. Plan of the third and

fourth (eastern) schools (drawing by the

author based on a master plan drawing by

Gülru Necipo lu, The Age of Sinan:

Architectural Culture in the Ottoman

Empire [London: Reaktion Books, 2005]).

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410    j S a h / 7 3 : 3 , S e p T e m b e r 2 0 1 4

important school of the Ottoman Empire, Sinan defied the very typology he had already invented for the other afore- mentioned schools in the Süleymanıye.

Cracking the Riddle of the Supreme School Dar-ul-Hadith

Dar-ul-Hadith’s linear arrangement, tilted axially, and the odd angular meydan are at extreme variance with the careful orthogonal planning and madrassa typology of the rest of Süleymanıye. Scholars construe the Dar-ul-Hadith area to be merely an irregular, residual space at the southern edge of the site: the space left over between the orthogonal wall of the Süleymanıye türbe and the tilted street pattern to the west and the angled wall of Eski Sarayı to the east.23 Unable to explain the peculiar rationale of Dar-ul-Hadith, or its seeming lack thereof, scholars either completely ignore it in their studies of the Süleymanıye or judge it to be an unfortu- nate concession that Sinan had been forced to make to adapt to the preexisting urban context. Yet this interpretation raises more serious questions than provides answers.

The dichotomy between the extreme programmatic pri- ority of Dar-ul-Hadith (being the most important imperial school and the Süleymanıye’s actual imperial gate) and its superficially undignified handling of design is striking. Dar-ul-Hadith is denied those functional and spatial design privileges that its lesser counterparts, i.e., the four law schools, possess. Reduced to a mere row of student cells covered by a single pitched roof, Dar-ul-Hadith lacks a private central

courtyard and dershane, not to mention the vaulted residence and accommodations for the professor that feature in the design of the other schools. It is inadequate to explain the sheer magnitude of these anomalies in the design of the most important school in the Ottoman Empire as simply Sinan’s exceptional instance of forced concession, ad hoc adaptation, or worse, technical incompetence in dealing with a disordered urban context. It is incomprehensible that Dar-ul-Hadith, whose teachers preside over the other schools, would be denied the architectural and symbolic traits of the other schools of the Süleymanıye and treated as an impoverished residual space within the master plan.

The design of the Dar-ul-Hadith zone clearly warrants closer scrutiny and an adequate explanation. If one recalls how Sinan unfailingly co-opted the difficult contextual and programmatic challenges confronting him elsewhere in the Süleymanıye, especially in the design of the third and fourth schools, through continuous experimentation and reinter- pretations as per his ambivalent design process, it would make sense to suspect the process’s application too in the design of Dar-ul-Hadith. Indeed, Sinan had already demon- strated that in his ambivalent elementarism, anomaly is not an aberration or liability, but rather a rule and an asset to be celebrated.

Knotting the Supreme Madrassa

What may at first have seemed an amorphous area of Dar-ul-Hadith is actually a geometrical derivation from the

Figure 13  The Süleymanıye Külliye, Istanbul,

1548–59. The third and fourth (eastern)

schools and Dar-ul-Hadith school (drawing by

the author).

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S i n a n ’ S a m b i v a l e n c e : T h e T r i a n g u l a r D e S i g n o f T h e S ü l e y m a n i y e S c h o o l S c o m p l e x i n i S T a n b u l   411

orthogonal plan of the Süleymanıye. In fact, this area consists of an isosceles triangle created by rotating a hypothetical square corresponding to the Süleymanıye mosque at an angle of 45 degrees from the center of its main dome, which is then halved by the square of the royal türbe. The resultant figure is an isosceles triangle, the broad base of which is the türbe wall bisected by the massive Qur’anic school. The Qur’anic school faces the linear Dar-ul-Hadith and the wall of the Eski Sarayı (the royal palace), which comprise the other two sides of the triangle, equal and perpendicular to each other. More importantly, the aforementioned lateral and longitu- dinal displacement of the whole master plan, especially the central rectangle of the mosque proper, allows for a perfect triangular formulation of Dar-ul-Hadith and the spatial abundance for its plaza to be in line with the angular south- ern boundaries of the site.

Bearing in mind that the site of the Süleymanıye had been sectioned by Süleyman from the preexisting royal premises of Eski Sarayı, it would be hard to believe that the location and alignment of the newly constructed wall sepa- rating the Süleymanıye from the Eski Sarayı had not been conceived from the very beginning as a formative element in the scope of the overall planning of Süleymanıye and the triangle that links it with Dar-ul-Hadith.24 Melchior Lorck’s 1570 engraving of the Süleymanıye is informative in this regard. It shows the elevated northern wall of the royal palace articulated as a monumental element at a right angle with Dar-ul-Hadith’s extended form (Figure 14). This novel triangular space, with its three sides, is thus a knotting of the triad of authority in Ottoman society: the divine revela- tion represented by the Qur’anic school at the middle of the türbe wall facing the direction of Mecca (kiblah); the

prophetic tradition (Sunnah) with religious scholars, ulama (who as an educational/jurisdictional institution had just been elevated by Süleyman) represented by Dar-ul-Hadith; and finally, the sultan himself, the executive authority repre- sented by the wall of the royal palace.

Ideally, each one of these institutions would have been represented as a school with its own complete typological set: first, the central-domed dershane with a courtyard, second, the peripheral vaulted space for the mudarris, mediated by the third element, a wall comprising student cells and fences. Yet none of these schools wholly present this typology and its constituent elements at the triangle. The Qur’anic school is without a courtyard, student cells, or teacher’s residence. Dar-ul-Hadith is not only deprived of these elements but it is also split off from its own study hall. The royal palace is present there as simply an opaque wall (which was most likely marked by a gate at some point).25 These omissions make clear that Sinan treated all these three institutions as ele- ments of one condensed superlative school. Rather than repeating three school models, Sinan used only a single set of his original school typology. He broke it down into three formative (symbolic) elements and assigned each to represent one of these three institutions. Knotting worked in tandem with displacement in Sinan’s design of the triangle of Dar-ul-Hadith. The triangle’s broad base centered by the dershane of the Qur’anic school stands for the divine scripture; the wall of contiguous cells of Dar-ul-Hadith school stands for the scholars, ulama, the prophet’s heirs in interpreting the sacred word; and the opaque fence of the royal palace stands for the sultan.26 But what is the equiv- alent of the vaulted room of the teacher’s residence that is missing? It is Sinan’s peculiar handling of the dershane of

Figure 14  Woodcut by Melchior Lorck (1527–after 1583) of the Süleymanıye Külliye, Istanbul, 1570.

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Dar-ul-Hadith that, through the act of displacement, pro- vides the clue.

Unraveling the Supreme Madrassa

Sinan dislocated the cubical study hall of Dar-ul-Hadith ( dershane) from its schematic position in the middle of the row of student rooms, away to the eastern-end corner of the triangle. Marking the corner, the study hall of Dar-ul-Hadith is also rotated from the axis of its affiliated students’ rooms, in alignment with the kiblah axis of the centrally positioned, domed mass of Dar-al-Quran (Figure 15). Just as the dershane of the eastern third and fourth schools is placed on higher ground over the graded courtyard and student cells, the der- shane of Dar-ul-Hadith is placed on higher ground overlook- ing the city, on one hand, and its internal domain, i.e., the triangular meydan, in perspective, on the other.

This displacement and reorientation are nothing other than Sinan’s reinterpretation of the typology of the schools he established elsewhere in the Süleymanıye. The pairing of the central domical Dar-al-Quran and the cubical mass of the study hall of Dar-ul-Hadith in the corner is but a sublimation of Sinan’s typical school’s own pairing of the central domed dershane and the peripheral cubical residence of the mudarris at its corner. Symbolic consistency overrules literal utility. The displacement of Dar-ul-Hadith’s dershane from its class- rooms and its rotation to mark the corner Qur’anic school side are necessitated by the semantic consideration that the prophetic tradition (Hadith), or Sunnah, is not a counterpart of the Qur’anic revelation, rather, serves as a second source of Sharia; it is its explanatory subsidiary. Likewise, the jurist could not symbolically dominate the sultan, with the central dome of the dershane. Seeming parity between the two, the sultan and the jurist, is expressed through their representa- tives as two equal, opaque walls. The sensitivity to the scale, location, and number of architectural symbols and their rapport with each other in expressing the patron’s social sta- tus is indeed a well-established doctrine in Ottoman monu- mental architecture.

The Triangular Spectacle of Dar-ul-Hadith

The resultant triangular geometrical formulation of Dar- ul-Hadith is evidently an icon of Süleyman’s new social arrangement: a supreme sacred school in which institutions, the sultan and the jurist, rather than common students, are disciplined by the canonical law. A hybrid of a private court- yard and public meydan, the triangle seems to publicize and authenticate the metaphoric negotiation between the state’s institutions, especially in various ceremonies such as the

grand vizier’s weekly procession (to meet the four teachers of Süleymanıye’s schools and their head, the professor of Dar-ul-Hadith), and most importantly, the royal procession to Friday prayers and, very likely, the yearly celebration of Prophet Mohammad’s birthday, mawlid.27 Although we do not have exact documentation of Sultan Süleyman’s Friday processions to Süleymanıye (and none for the more important mawlid procession), one can speculate, based on a sixteenth- century eyewitness account supposedly made prior to the completion of the Süleymanıye, about Sultan Süleyman’s Friday procession to Hagia Sophia.28 The account vividly describes a well-ordered, spectacular parade: a testament to Süleyman’s well-known obsession with monumental public organization and order (as epitomized by his codification of Ottoman law). It would thus be imprudent to assume (although written sources documenting this assumption are lacking) that the Süleymanıye program that Süleyman handed to Sinan did not feature as one of its basic require- ments a distinctive spatial design for the royal spectacles.

Indeed, the geometry of the triangular plaza perfectly accommodates the kind of elaborate spectacular imperial procession that one would expect to take place whenever Sultan Süleyman visited the mosque to perform the Friday congregational prayers (Figure 16). In such an unusual hybrid space, with features both private and public, the frame of one’s gaze is controlled as the perspectival space of the triangular open space vanishes to the east at the upper entry point of a rising ramp. Mounted on his horse, the sultan would theatrically emerge from a ramped tunnel at the spot crowned by the colonnaded dershane of Dar-ul-Hadith, where state politics were debated weekly by the Süley- manıye teachers and the grand vizier. Standing in for the mudarris residence, the dershane of Dar-ul-Hadith repre- sented, in this superlative school, the house of the superlative teacher—the prophet. There, at the climax of the procession the sultan faced his subjects (i.e., the ulama, state officials, notables, and janissary), who would most likely be lined up hierarchically facing the wall extending between the school of the holy Qur’an and the school of prophetic tradition.29 At that focal point, where the two walls and axis representing the canonical sources of the divine law, Sharia, converge in a fleeting moment of humility permeated by majesty, before he dis appeared inside the mosque precinct, the sultan affirmed, along with his subjects, his submission to the prophet and Sharia and his mission as its enforcer. Such the- atrics and the ephemeral appearance of the sultan in line with Ottoman royal protocol well suited the aloof personality of Sultan Süleyman himself, who, especially at a later stage of his life, was not comfortable with extended exposure at public parades.30

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S i n a n ’ S a m b i v a l e n c e : T h e T r i a n g u l a r D e S i g n o f T h e S ü l e y m a n i y e S c h o o l S c o m p l e x i n i S T a n b u l   413

Emblem of Sinan and the New Social Order

The peculiar design of the Süleymanıye complex narrates the emergent importance of the role of the madrassa and its teacher vis-à-vis that of the sultan in the new social

agreement that Süleyman the Magnificent sponsored in order to vindicate the orthodox Sunni identity of the state. This was inaugurated by the establishment of the college of Dar-ul-Hadith (the prophetic tradition) as the top school in the hierarchy of educational institutions and its introduction

Figure 15  Plotting the triangle of authority in Ottoman society: analysis of Sinan’s design process of Dar-ul-Hadith school (drawing by the author).

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414    j S a h / 7 3 : 3 , S e p T e m b e r 2 0 1 4

to the Süleymanıye design program. The challenging task of monumentalizing this new social arrangement in a dis- tinctly irregular site informs the peculiarity of Sinan’s design of the Süleymanıye complex. Placed on the summit of one of Istanbul’s hills, the site is characterized by variable terrain, crooked boundaries, and adjacency to the royal palace Eski Sarayı. Sinan’s initial response to this dual challenge may have been predictable: applying the preexisting symmetrical tripartite master plan of the imperial madrassa complex established by Süleyman’s predecessor Mehmet II. But Sinan realized, upon its application, that the conventional madrassa typology was too rigid to accommodate the new functional and symbolic program of the Süleymanıye within its distinct site. The design required a dramatic level of transformation that went far beyond the ad hoc adaptation of a typological precedent through a process of localized addition or subtrac- tion. It compelled Sinan to subvert the idealized premises of the traditional type and even of his own design process in such a way that the odd features of the program and the site, rather than being liabilities to be glossed over, were invariably celebrated compositionally and symbolically as assets—a language reinventing the typology of the imperial

educational complex. This peculiarly vacillating design approach is what I have defined as ambivalent elementarism. Accordingly, the programmatic elements of the Süleymanıye are subject to the dual operations constituting Sinan’s design process: both concentration and displacement.

The main elements of the Süleymanıye, the mosque, the imperial türbe, and the madrassas, are concentrated accord- ing to triangulation of the golden section. Sinan applied the golden section to define the symmetrical boundaries of the two overlapping main zones of Süleymanıye’s master plan: the educational rectangle and the royal rectangle. The centers of the royal precinct are respectively defined as the mosque’s main dome and Süleyman’s mausoleum. The trian- gular Dar-ul-Hadith madrassa is the ultimate derivation of this initial idealized scheme, which co-opts the angular boundary of the adjacent Eski Sarayı palace.

The unprecedentedly triangular Dar-ul-Hadith school, a dramatic departure from the Ottoman symmetrical orthog- onal typology of the imperial madrassa, instigated Sinan’s subsequent move to unravel his initial concentric scheme. This is achieved through asymmetrical displacement and spatial differentiation of its elements, whether within the

Figure 16  Diagram of the proposed route

of Süleyman’s procession to the

Süleymanıye mosque for Friday prayers

(drawing by the author).

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S i n a n ’ S a m b i v a l e n c e : T h e T r i a n g u l a r D e S i g n o f T h e S ü l e y m a n i y e S c h o o l S c o m p l e x i n i S T a n b u l   415

overall master plan, i.e., the imperial mosque precinct and the educational precinct, or from within the madrassa: the study hall and teacher’s residence (affiliated with the dome), students’ rooms (treated as a wall), and the courtyard (turned into a frame). The dome of the study hall, the walls of the students’ rooms, and Eski Sarayı palace frame the triangular plaza of Dar-ul-Hadith: the two equal and perpendicular sides of the triangle representing the duality of sultan and scholar, with the third side being the broad base of the tri- angle bisected by the dome, representing the overarching divine scripture and law. These symbolic elements are spec- tacularly suited for processional public display and ceremony establishing the Süleymanıye as a supreme emblem of the new social arrangement of the Ottoman Empire.

Dar-ul-Hadith distinctly exteriorized Sinan’s design process of ambivalent elementarism. While embedded else- where in the Süleymanıye, the design’s multiple elements, symbolic themes and actors, voices, and rules of their com- bination and recombination (knotting and unraveling) are all staged free of utilitarian distraction.

Notes 1. I would like to express my gratitude to Aptullah Kuran, Gülru Necipo lu, and Joseph Rykwert, whose comments on the first draft of my manuscript contributed to the eventual development of this article. 2. The problem of the scarcity of sources on Sinan’s design thinking was discussed by Do an Kuban, “Süleymanıye and Sixteenth-Century

Istanbul,” Environmental Design: Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design Research Centre, nos. 1–2 (1987), 62. The few autobiographical essays attrib- uted to Sinan are mostly rhetorical. According to Gülru Necipo lu, they still await critical edition and reliable translation into English. See Gülru Necipo lu, “Challenging the Past: Sinan and the Competitive Discourse of Early Modern Islamic Architecture,” Muqarnas 10 (1993), 179. 3. The following are the most representative art-historical texts in English on Ottoman architecture and the Süleymanıye in particular: Oktay Alsanapa, Turkish Art and Architecture (New York: Praeger, 1971); Godfrey Goodwin, A History of Ottoman Architecture (London: Thames and Hudson, 1971); Aptullah Kuran, Sinan: The Grand Old Master of Ottoman Architecture

(Istanbul: ADA Press, 1987); Do an Kuban, “Architecture of the Ottoman Period,” in The Art and Architecture of Turkey, ed. Ekrem Akurgal (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1980), 136–52; Do an Kuban, “The Style of Sinan’s Domed Structures,” Muqarnas 4 (1987), 72–97. Though self-admittedly stylistic and formalist, Kuban’s study is a pioneering theo- retical design analysis of the Süleymanıye that underscored its “elementa- rist” orientation. Necipo lu (“Challenging the Past,” 180) criticized the dominant descriptive narrative in these studies of the stylistic evolution of Sinan’s design. Although it did not specifically focus on the formal analysis of Süleymanıye design, Necipo lu’s own study made some useful proposi- tions about the use of geometric systems in the design of royal Ottoman monuments including the Süleymanıye. See also Gülru Necipo lu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire (London: Reaktion Books, 2005).

4. Among the few noteworthy exceptional studies that focused on the plan- ning and urban design aspects of the Süleymanıye is a selection of essays published in Environmental Design: Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design Research Centre, nos. 1–2 (1987) by scholars such as Godfrey Goodwin, “Sinan and City Planning,” 10–19; Pierre Pinon, “Sinan’s Külliyes: Inscriptions into the Urban Fabric,” 106–11; Do an Kuban, “Süleymanıye

and Sixteenth-Century Istanbul,” 62–69. 5. Maurice M. Cerasi’s “Place and Perspective in Sinan’s Townscape,” Envi- ronmental Design: Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design Research Centre, nos. 1–2 (1987), 52–61, is an exceptionally penetrating theoretical study that addressed the urban complexity inherent in Sinan’s design and thus the methodological challenge it poses to the scholar. 6. Riki Melul Meric, “Mimar Sinan, Hayati, Eseri I: Mimar Sinan,” in Hayatina Eserlerine Dair Metinler (Ankara: TTK Publication, 1965), 21; cited by Necipo lu, “Challenging the Past,” 401–27.

7. Halil nalcık, “Learning, the Medrese and the Ulema,” The Ottoman Empire, the Classical Age, 1300–1600 (London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1973), 165–72. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., 184–85. The codification process caused a dichotomy between the religious scholars as part of the state structure and as possessors of an independent structure of their own. Although placed on the state payroll, the ulama still maintained a considerable independent financial resource as they were both the overseers and the beneficiaries of the autonomous waqf institution. 10. Süleymanıye’s endowment record (waqfiyya) explicitly states this political and institutional objective behind the construction of Süleymanıye.

See Gülru Necipo lu, “The Süleymanıye Complex in Istanbul: An Inter- pretation,” Muqarnas 3 (1985), 96. 11. Ibid. The highest positions of public influence in Ottoman bureaucracy rested upon education and scholarship in religious sciences thereby confer-

ring upon the mudarris (professor) a prominent status. See nalcık, “Learn- ing, the Medrese and the Ulema,” 165–72. 12. Goodwin, A History of Ottoman Architecture, 219; Necipo lu, “The Süleymanıye Complex in Istanbul,” 96. 13. According to some historical reports, the Italian architect Filarete contributed to the design of the Fatih Külliye complex in response to an invitation by Mehmet II. The modular geometry of the complex seems a direct three-dimensional projection of his gridded “linee occule.” Indeed, the overall design of the Fatih Külliye bears a certain resemblance to some of the designs in Filarete’s treatise such as the idealized plan of the Ospedale Maggiore in Milan and its slender minaret-like towers. See Gülru Necipo lu, “Plans and Models of Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Architectural Practice,” JSAH 45, no. 3 (Sept. 1986), 224–43.

14. Necipo lu, “The Süleymanıye Complex in Istanbul,” 96. Mehmet II conceived the complex in the then-dilapidated city of Istanbul as an unmistakable message to his new Byzantine subjects of the supreme power of the Ottoman Empire and the religion of Islam superseding the van- quished Byzantine Empire. 15. Aristotle, Poetics, trans. Samuel Henry Butcher (New York: Courier Dover Publications, 1997), 35. 16. Limiting it to structural functionalist features, the term for Sinan’s “elementarism” was first coined by Kuban, “The Style of Sinan’s Domed Structures.” Without labeling it as such, the notion of Sinan’s tendency to break down his designs into elementary units was also tackled by Cerasi, “Place and Perspective in Sinan’s Townscape.” See also a more recent study by Alpaslan Ataman, Bir Göz Yapidan Külliyeye: Osmanli Külliyelerinde

Kamusal Mekan Mantı i (Istanbul: Mimarlar Tasarimyayinlari, 2000).

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17. Necipo lu, “Plans and Models of Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Architectural Practice,” 242. 18. See Cerasi, “Place and Perspective in Sinan’s Townscape.” Cerasi’s essay is perceptive of the paradox in Sinan’s Süleymanıye design between sym- metrical ordering and informal configurations as a problem challenging historians that demand an effective method of analysis. 19. Goodwin, A History of Ottoman Architecture, 219. 20. See Alain Borie, “Sinan’s Külliyes: Architectural Compositions,” Environmental Design: Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design Research Centre, nos. 1–2 (1987), 112–23. Borie noted Sinan’s general tendency to use “combined types and not only isolated ones” in his design of the madrassas. 21. See Goodwin, “Sinan and City Planning,” 14. 22. On elementarism in modern architecture, see Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1980). 23. Goodwin (“Sinan and City Planning,”14) stated: “Among the buildings elegantly mutilated by the shape of the site is the drawn-out Dar-ul- Hadith.” This view was less negatively reiterated by Pinon, “Sinan’s Külliyes,” 107. 24. See Evliya Celebi, Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa in the Seventeenth Century, trans. Ritter von Hammer (New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1968), 74. Kuban (“Süleymanıye and Sixteenth-

Century Istanbul,” 6o) cites Celebi’s contemporaneous report that con- struction of the Süleymanıye was simultaneous to the reconstruction of Eski Sarayı palace walls and gates to augment his argument that the siting of the Süleymanıye in juxtaposition to the royal palace was prefigured and was a symbolically informed decision.

25. The eastern gate of Eski Sarayı palace, which faces the Süleymanıye, was named after the latter according to Celebi, Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, 74. 26. Occupying the middle of the outer wall of the royal türbe, the Qur’anic school is also spiritually associated with the sultan. 27. Celebi (Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, 80) relates that the area between the Süleymanıye mosque and the old sarayı was used as wrestlers’ ground when afternoon prayer was over. 28. André Thevet (Cosmographie de Levant [Lyon, 1554], 59) is quoted at length by Necipo lu to challenge common interpretations of Sultan Süleyman’s procession. Necipo lu stated that Thevet’s sixteenth-century text actually described the sultan’s procession to Hagia Sofia and not to the Süleymanıye, since “the Süleymanıye mosque was under construction during Thevet’s visit.” See Necipo lu, “The Süleymanıye Complex in

Istanbul,” 98. Nevertheless, I argue that Thevet’s account of the royal parade to Süleymanıye cannot be dismissed so easily. Its description of the manner of the sultan’s entry to the mosque, which was by means of “the ramp on the east which led to the royal east gate and the royal box beyond,” corresponds exactly to the area of Dar-ul-Hadith in Süleymanıye and not to the flat site of Hagia Sofia. Further scrutiny is thus required. 29. On the politics of gaze in Ottoman court, see Gülru Necipo lu, “Fram- ing the Gaze in Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Palaces,” Ars Orientalis 23 (1993), 303–42. 30. On the growing influence of prophetic tradition on the pious and aging Süleyman the Magnificent and his policies, see Gülru Necipo lu, “Süleyman the Magnificent and the Representation of Power in the Context of Ottoman- Hapsburg-Papal Rivalry,” Art Bulletin 71 (Sept. 1989), 422.

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