This article was automatically translated from the original Turkish version.
The most prominent and enduring traces of human history are the cities we refer to as centers of settlement. A city’s foundation, development, geographical location, topography, climate, commercial relationships, and transportation networks continuously enhance its significance. Historical processes and political conditions also profoundly influence the fate of cities. Communities sharing the same historical experiences become strongly attached to their cities through the necessity of coexistence.
A city is the tangible manifestation of the complex network of relationships established by humanity on Earth. Architecture, which plays a fundamental role in shaping urban spaces, simultaneously lays the groundwork for the emergence of civilization. For civilizations flourish within cities. From this perspective, the history of civilization is, in essence, the history of cities. The city is the stage of civilization, and every object displayed upon it reflects human history, journey, and the art crafted with care and labor. Urbanization, civilizational development, and cultural advancement are inevitable processes through which people lead secure, comfortable, and healthy lives. Within this process, the inhabitants of a city share their worldviews, social ties, and communal bonds in a peaceful environment. The most fundamental purpose of a city is not only to serve the living but also to ensure and regulate the highest possible development of the spiritual and cultural life, perceptions, and behavioral preferences of future generations.
(Cansever, 1997: 121). The shared historical journey and similar destinies of communities have clearly demonstrated the importance of city-building. The idea of living together in safety and securing daily commercial and economic activities has rendered the adoption and collective development of cities indispensable.
It must be acknowledged that urban identity is a complex concept that cannot be analyzed through a simple definition. However, the relationships between a city’s identity, self-perception, worldview, and cultural perspectives manifest across many domains, including architecture, economics, and even daily life. Therefore, the culture and identity of cities are deeply embedded in the lives of their inhabitants (Arlı, 2019: 54). Guided by their geographical conditions and traditional ways of life, people have shaped the fabric of cities throughout history. Each community, consciously or unconsciously, has contributed to the formation of shape and identity within the urban structure according to its worldview and historical experiences.
Some views suggest that the Turks never built cities from scratch but instead settled in pre-existing urban centers. To support this thesis, comprehensive archaeological findings regarding the cities of Central Asia—the Turkic homeland—are required. Hasty conclusions on this matter would be inappropriate. Indeed, it is difficult to claim that the Western Turkic world possesses detailed knowledge about the urban and architectural history of the Turkic homelands.
It is well known that the Turks, as they spread from their homelands across the world, made significant contributions to pre-existing urban structures in the regions they dominated. During the Great Seljuk Period—spanning approximately two centuries from Central Asia and Iran to Anatolia—the Oghuz tribes migrated intensively into Anatolia. The Seljuk State, which revitalized Islamic cities and produced brilliant examples of urban development, greatly enriched the history of Turkish urbanism.
After the 1071 Battle of Manzikert, the Seljuks adopted Anatolia as their homeland and transformed the cities they settled into Turkish-Islamic towns. The Turks, who placed great importance on urban development, constructed buildings according to their own civilizational ideals within these cities. The Anatolian Seljuks demonstrated significant advancements in construction, enriching the Anatolian landscape extensively through their architectural monuments and the values they imparted to cities. Among Eastern peoples, the Turks most successfully adapted the Islamic conception of the city. In Islamic culture, the image of the city—as the most important and grandest physical product designed to organize human life—is a reflection of the concept of paradise (Cansever, 1997: 124).
The impressive sculptural elements of Seljuk-style portal gates, built in the stone architectural tradition, constitute remarkable examples of this era’s architecture. Particularly, the Seljuk State played a pivotal role in popularizing madrasa architecture throughout the entire Islamic world, enabling students to pursue their education in boarding, tuition-free conditions. The Seljuks also made a major breakthrough in the design of caravanserais. Over a hundred caravanserais constructed between Anatolian cities provided immense opportunities for travel and commerce by enhancing regional economic vitality. Another successful innovation of this period, the Seljuk kümbet (tomb monuments), stand out as original structures in tomb architecture. Furthermore, urban fabrics revitalized by mosques, mosques, hans, bedestens, and baths acquired a new identity. Thus, settlements such as Erzurum, Sivas, Kayseri, and Konya emerged prominently as principal urban identities representing Seljuk civilization.
The Seljuks, who ensured security in Anatolia, placed great emphasis on the development of trade. The construction of caravanserais, which enabled caravans to travel safely along the increasing trade routes between Anatolian cities, stands as one of the Seljuk State’s major achievements. The more than a hundred caravanserais built in Anatolia functioned as small cities capable of meeting all human needs. Within these caravanserais, fortified with thick and sturdy walls like castle ramparts, one could find mosques, eyvans (open-air lounges for rest and summer use), reading and seating areas, baths, sleeping quarters, kitchens, and dining halls. Hot meals from the caravanserai’s imaret were served to all, allowing travelers to rest and be hosted within. Caravanserais also featured spacious stables suitable for the rest of pack and riding animals such as horses, camels, and donkeys. The state ensured the care and feeding of these animals. Thanks to the Seljuk State’s establishment of security across the land, the population lived in great peace and tranquility and could travel freely in all directions. During this period, the importance of castles and city walls in Anatolian cities diminished, and urban fabrics began to expand beyond the walls. Thus, Anatolia, a land of peace and security, became a significant center of attraction as a rule-of-law state. All kinds of artisans and merchants from neighboring countries, who came to Anatolia to settle and conduct trade and artistic activities under the state’s guarantee of order and safety, chose to continue their lives on Anatolian soil.
The Seljuk sultans made great efforts to establish religious institutions and transform them into centers of social life. Consequently, the urban fabric began to develop around mosques, the centers of social life. The statement of Tugrul Bey, “I would be ashamed before God if I built myself a palace without constructing a mosque beside it,” clearly underscores the sultans’ emphasis on mosque construction.
The Seljuk State established waqfs for scholars and students and constructed madrasas offering free education. The Nizamiye madrasas founded in Baghdad in 1067 under Alp Arslan rapidly spread throughout all Islamic countries. The first madrasas established in major centers such as Isfahan, Rey, Nishapur, Merv, Balkh, Herat, Basra, and Mosul also bore the name Nizamiye; later, other madrasas were founded under different names. The Seljuk State enriched the Islamic world with madrasa architecture and firmly established the madrasa culture in Anatolia. Students educated in these madrasas completed their studies under state patronage as boarding students, then disseminated throughout the Islamic world. Thus, the groundwork was laid for the emergence of hundreds of valuable individuals who became messengers of the Age of Enlightenment. As a result, cities that gained prominence in the Islamic world became centers of learning and knowledge, nurturing countless valuable individuals in the fields of culture, art, thought, and philosophy (Turan, 2009: 324–330). Anatolian cities continued their development as neighborhoods formed around mosques, madrasas, darüşşifas, imarets, bazaars, bedestens, and markets. These architectural elements integrated into settlement fabrics became the most distinctive monuments of Anatolian cities. Cities where people lived in brightness, peace, and security began to take shape according to the tastes and preferences of those sharing the same worldview. The Erzurum Çifte Minareli Medrese, Sivas Gök Medrese, Kayseri Döner Kümbet, and Divriği Ulu Camii and Şifahanesi are original monuments of Turkish-Islamic civilization constructed during the Seljuk and Beylik periods that established the tradition of Anatolian Turkish architecture. Mevlana, a universal value that radiates peace and happiness to humanity like a spring of love, is inseparable from Konya. The Mesnevi, printed in millions of copies up to the present day, flourished within the spiritual climate of Konya. The Anatolian soil, which nurtured spiritual guides such as Hacı Bayram-ı Veli, Hacı Bektaş, and Yunus Emre, became the center of Turkish-Islamic civilization and the source of knowledge, mysticism, and education.
The Ottomans, who inherited the legacy of the Seljuks, incorporated Western Anatolia, the Middle East, and the Balkans into the boundaries of Islamic culture from the 14th century onward. They integrated all these regions into Ottoman geography and developed them. Ottoman cities, even more inclusive, became settlement centers where people of all nations, faiths, and social strata lived together. They adorned cities such as İznik, Bursa, Edirne, and Istanbul with original Ottoman architectural structures while respecting the Byzantine heritage. Among the architectural monuments that emerged in Ottoman cities, monumental mosques held the foremost position. These symbolic structures became the shared values of the community, defining the identity of cities.
The conquest of Istanbul, which changed the course not only of Turkish history but of world history, is regarded as the greatest and most blessed victory of the Islamic world. Istanbul, as a world capital, possessed immense strategic depth by virtue of its location. It lay at the center of the world’s geography before the discovery of the American continent. Situated at the crossroads of Asia, Europe, and Africa—the three continents—Istanbul connects the Mediterranean, the cradle of world civilization, with the Black Sea. Rome, Byzantium, and finally the Ottoman State governed the world from Istanbul. According to the Turkish state tradition, rulers known as khan, sultan, and bey placed great importance on urban development to make cities prosperous. The Turks not only took care to maintain the towns they settled in but also strove to develop newly conquered cities in the same manner.
Fatih Sultan Mehmet, who embraced the ideal of conquering Istanbul, also placed great importance on the physical fabric of cities. Before launching the war to conquer Istanbul, Fatih first sought peaceful avenues and conveyed his message to the city’s population. Fatih Sultan Mehmet Han made great efforts to secure Istanbul’s surrender without suffering the destruction of war. He wished for this jewel of the world to pass into the hands of the Ottoman State without damage to its historical fabric. Despite his youth, Fatih demonstrated remarkable maturity, expressing his emphasis on urban structure in his own vakfiye with the following verse:
Hüner bir şehir bünyâd etmektir (Skill and knowledge lie in building a city),
Reaya kalbini abâd etmektir (To enliven the hearts of the people and the nation).
Since civilizations emerged within cities, the history of civilization is, in effect, the history of cities. The monuments of civilization constructed by the Turks in the cities they settled endowed these towns with a Turkish-Islamic identity. The Bursa Ulu Camii, the Istanbul Süleymaniye Külliyesi, and the Edirne Selimiye Camii, built during the Ottoman period, are symbolic structures that continue to bear witness to civilization in these cities. In this regard, as Kuban (2010: 304) notes, the era of Kanuni Sultan Süleyman still represents the developmental phase of Turkish Istanbul, and the Süleymaniye Külliyesi is a mark left by Sinan and Kanuni Sultan Süleyman on Istanbul, simultaneously serving as the most important 16th-century urban declaration illuminating the Turkish concept of the city.
Traces of Ottoman cultural heritage—marked by külliyes, caravanserais, imarets, roads, and bridges that developed cities and towns—can be observed across a vast geographical area in structures preserved to the present day. The Ottoman approach, which did not neglect important cities of the entire Islamic world such as Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Basra, Damascus, and Aleppo, enriched their urban fabrics through the monuments it erected. Undoubtedly, the towering figure of this period, where the most intense developments in culture and art occurred, is Mimar Sinan. When his constructions are compared with those of contemporary Christian Europe, it becomes evident that Sinan surpassed Italian Renaissance architects in terms of construction techniques and did not lag behind the most distinguished architects and engineers of his time (Kos, 2019: 198–199). The 16th century of the Ottoman Empire, particularly the reign of Kanuni Sultan Süleyman, symbolizes the brightest period of the Turkish and Islamic world. During this era, large külliyes were constructed, enriching settlement fabrics with the most advanced architectural complexes of Ottoman urbanism. Thus, the capital Istanbul became the world’s most important center of attraction.
Ottoman architecture, which emphasized mosque-centered külliye design, achieved great success in urban planning during the 16th century. During this period, urban planning was conceived around mosques and külliyes. Thus, the külliye became the core of both social welfare and urban design, with the mosque and its surroundings replacing the ancient forum (Kuban, 2010: 306). The Ottoman Empire, as a global state, carried out numerous urban development projects encompassing Crimea and the Balkans. Alongside religious architecture, Ottoman-era civil architecture continued the development of settlement centers outside Istanbul. In the Balkans, architectural fabrics of settlements such as Sarajevo, Skopje, and Ohrid rapidly acquired the character of Turkish neighborhoods and emerged prominently as settlements similar to Kastamonu, Safranbolu, Amasya, Kütahya, and Bursa. The Mostar Bridge, constructed in the Bosnian city of Mostar and bearing the same name as the city, carries the same aesthetic as traditional Anatolian architecture and remains an Ottoman masterpiece that continues to attract global interest.
This bridge, which adds value to Mostar and serves as its symbol, attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists annually, providing significant economic income to the local population. Istanbul, from the 16th century onward, also gained renown as the world’s most important port city. Istanbul, which contributed substantially to the national income, became the most prosperous city due to the state’s dominance over the Mediterranean. These developments made possible the urban development of Istanbul and its adornment with grand monuments.
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