HISTORY OF EYUP
In
the interior of the Halic (The Golden Horn), is Eyup,
the city of the dead. The road which descends to the right
leads us directly to this city of cemeteries and tombs.
First of all, we must explain that the fact that Eyup
is situated in a place on the Golden Horn protected from
the winds, made of it in the past that part of Old Istanbul
where the palace and leisure spots were. For tourists
arriving by sea, passing by the narrow Byzantine aqueduct
and a whole series of tasteless buildings and factories,
there is an element of disillusionment: Today the whole
of Eyup is surrounded by poor districts. However, a hundred
years ago, this was not the view which was presented.
For 70 years factories and workshops have been taking
the place of palaces and great tombs. In the 18th Century,
along these banks, as the imaret bahcesi or garden where
the poor were succoured, of the Sultan-Mother, the summer
palace of Sultana Hatice. the
palace of Sultan Heybetullah, the palace of
'Hancerli Sultan'. In the past century the palace of the
Egyptian prince Mustafa Fazil was there, and the yali
of the Kazasker (supreme religious head) Izzet Efendi.
It was at Eyup that great composers of classical Turkish
music, Haci Arif Bey, Zekai Dede and Itri Efendi lived.
This last was a great lover of flowers and a very fine
garden installed at his house.
As for the places of repose at Eyup, their names are sufficient
to describe them:
Bulbul
deresi :
the stream of the nightingale,
Kirk Selviler :
the forty crypresses,
Aga Kirligi :
the Aga's field,
Idris Kosku :
the lodge of Idris,
Can Kuyusu :
the well of life,
Deniz Hamami :
the sea-bath, etc.
Eyup
was a town of water and flowers. The number of historic
fountains still to be found there is a proof of this.
The Eyup of today is a district that belongs to another
world, and has nothing in common with this one. Nowhere
else on earth has tomb architecture achieved such monumental
proportions, and transformed a cemetery into a city.
In the market or this town is still to be found some traditional
Turkish craftsmanship. The testi (porous vases) in painted
earthenware, and carefes, also in painted clay, which
emit a whistling sound when one whistles into them, together
with various toys.
The mosque which rises in the centre of the square is
a sacred place of Islam. Eba-Eyup-el Ensari, Prophet's
standard bearer, came to Istanbul with an Arab army. According
to the legend, having erected the town for a conference,
he was killed by an arrow as he was leaving and buried
there. Years later, after the conquest of Istanbul by
Mehmet II, the Sultan's Hoca, as under the influence of
a revelation, was inspired to discover the place where
the Saint was buried. Digging was undertaken at the indicated
spot, and the tomb, coffin and remains of the saint were
unearthed. This mosque was the first to be built by the
Conqueror.
In 1800 Selim III had the mosque demolished right down
to its foundations. Then, appropriating the surrounding
land,he had it rebuilt in its present form. Each Sultan,
on acceding to the throne, comes to gird on his sword
in this mosque, in accordance with a custom several centuries
old.
With its thousands of pigeons and the continual tide of
visitors, the courtyard of the mosque is full of animation.
The
interior of the Tomb of the Saint, which one can visit
after waiting one's turn, is a place full of mystery,
with its coloured tiles, its half-light and its mystical
atmosphere. All round the mosque and extending in all
directions are thousands of tombs. Countless personages
of the Ottoman Empire, soldiers, politicians, poets, sultans,
members of religious sects, sleep their last sleep here.
In one corner of the mosque under a cupola supported by
four white marble, columns, and open on every side, reposes
Lala Mustafa Pasa. It was he who conquered, in the 16th
century the island of Cyprus, which we have heard so much
about lately. Eyup has thousands more tombs and it would
take days and days to examine them one by one. We draw
your attention only to one very original mosque which
points through the tombs in the direction of the town.
This building of several storeys in the mosque of Zal
Mahmut Pasa, a work of the famous Sinan.
Directly behind the mosque of Eyup a road paved with stone
leads up to the summit of the slope. If you have a car
you must leave it at the square, and make your way up
on foot. At the beginning of the slope, to the right,
on a promontory, a tomb crested with a turban rises like
a mute witness to the extent of the Ottoman Empire, The
inscription tells us that he who reposes here was born
in Bosnia, was a muftu in Algeria, and rests now in Istanbul;
combining in his person the history of three continents.
Arriving at the top of the slope, to your right, in a
corner with a view over the whole panorama, you will find
an oriental-style cafe. It is here that Pierre Loti. the
French writer, every time he disembarked at Istanbul,
came to contemplate the aqueduct of Halic, Eyup and its
gardens and graves, the great tombs and the silhouette
of Istanbul outlined in the distance. In our days, the
wooden house with the portrait and the books of the writer,
has been preserved just as it was in the time of Pierre
Loti. You can sit on the terrace and drink a coffee or
tea, while you look out over the view and dream of what
life was like here 75 years ago.
The flanks of the mountain are covered with cypress and
plane trees and greenery. The banks are lined with wooden
yalis whose reflections lie on the water. Opposite is
Istanbul, her domes and minarets in all their nobility.
In the evening particularly, they seem to melt into the
purples and lilacs of the sky, for Istanbul, during these
twilight hours, with its clouds and horizon, is a subtle
wending of colors, rose-pink, violet, purple as intermingled
as the colors in herpigeons' feathers.
