Trabzon

The first action of the Ottoman sultans after a conquest was to convert the cathedral of each town into a Friday prayer mosque, where the ‘hutbe’ was read in the name of the sovereign sultan. This was the case in Trabzon too, where the Theotokos Chrysokephalos monastery was converted into a mosque (today the Fatih Camii).

There are 8 converted churches today (the conversions taking place in 1461, 1486/1532, 1523/1553, 1557, 1572, 1665, 1953 and 1965 respectively) and one dervish lodge (converted in 1923) serving as mosques. The conversions could be explained by the increase of the Muslim population up to a majority by the 16th century, whereas, in the late 17th century, Islam began to be used as a political force. After the National Salvation War [Turkish War of Independence] and the emigration of the non-muslim populations,, the churches were abandoned, mostly used for non-religous activities as the Muslim population of the city was diminished too., Those churches not destroyed or ruined were converted in time into mosques.

The city life during the classical Ottoman period flourished around the mosques where the Friday prayers were performed and these mosques were called either grand mosques, central mosques or bazaar mosques. If the settlement was as big and important enough as Trabzon had been, the public edifices such as the medreses, the bedestens (vaulted bazaars), fountains or hans (in-wall caravansarays) were built being mostly financed by pious foundations. Moreover, civil life revolved around the mahale/district mosques. Trabzon had been one of the administrative centres where the people brought from other cities of the Ottoman Empire settled, registered and organized their lives around these mosques (the Christian districts were also named after their churches). So we know today the districts named after such mosques and therefore learn about the first settlements after the conquest, though we do not know the whereabouts of all these mosques/districts and we have have no tangible traces for some of them (as for the 1523 Mahalle-i Mescid-i Kıssıhan, the Mahalle-i Mescid-i Mevlana Şüca, the Mahalle-i Mescid-i Ali Baba, etc.).

Trabzon has been a ‘şehzade sancağı’, the administrative province centre where one of the princes served as governor; so the foundations built by the dynasty members, as well as the high-ranked bureaucrats and the wealthy, were not absent. Today nothing else survives from the first era of the Ottoman rule apart from the religous/sacred [places], the mosques.

Thirty mosques can be identified between 1486-1583 in Trabzon while according to the Trabzon Vilayet Salname, there were 44 mosques in the city in 1879. [1] But as in the classical era, there is also no list in the modern years inherited by the Ottomans and it is always possible to come across a small mosque (mescid) in the archive documents (and the şeriyye sicilleri – court registeres), not mentioned in the district names or anywhere else.

There were many mosques rebuilt, ruined or destroyed during the Ottoman times and this mentality still goes on, especially with the implementation of the modern city plans, for which historical buildings of any kind can be seen as an obstruction, mainly for the construction of new roads, which the classical district life did not need.

[1]Trabzon Vilayet Salnamesi, 1296/ 1879, V. 11, p. 122.

[2] C: converted; R: ruin or remnants present, Rb: completely rebuilt, Nt: no trace.

References

Açık Turan; “Mahalle ve Camii: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Mahalle Tipleri Hakkında Trabzon Üzerinden Bir Değerlendirme”, OTAM, 2014, 35, 1-39.

Bryer, A. A. M. and David Winfield; The Byzantine Monuments and Topography of the Pontos, Dumbarton Oaks Studies, Washington D.C., 1985.

[Eldem], Halil Edhem; Trabzon’da Osmanlı Kitabeleri, haz. İsmail Hacıfettahoğlu, Trabzon Belediyesi Kültür Y., Trabzon, 2001.

Kansız, İsmail (ed.); Trabzon Kent İçi Kültür Varlıkları Envanteri, Trabzon Kültür ve Turizm Md. Y., Trabzon, 2010.

Karpuz, Haşim; “Trabzon’da Yok Olan Türk Devri Eserleri”, Sanat Tarihi Yıllığı, Nu: 12, İstanbul, 1983, 95-116.

Karpuz, Haşim; Trabzon, Kültür Bakanlığı Y., Ankara, 1990.

Mehmed Aşıkî; Menâzırü’l-Evâlim, ed. Mahmut Ak, Türk Tarih Kurumu, Ankara, 2007.

Trabzon Vilayeti; Trabzon Vilayet Salnamesi, 1296 (1879), V. 11, Kudret Emiroğlu, Trabzon İli ve İlçeleri Eğitim, Kültür ve Sosyal Yardımlaşma Vakfı, Ankara, 1999.

Tuluk, Ömer İskender ve Halil İbrahim Düzenli (ed.); Trabzon Kent Mirası, Yer, Yapı, Hafıza, Klasik Y., İstanbul, 2010.

Tuluk, Ömer İskender ve Halil İbrahim Düzenli ve Evrim Düzenli; “Yitik Mirasın İzinde: Trabzon’da Osmanlı Cami ve Mescidleri (1461-1583)”, Trabzon Kent Mirası, Yer, Yapı, Hafıza, Tuluk, Ömer İskender ve Halil İbrahim Düzenli (ed.), Klasik Y., İstanbul, 2010, 55-92.