From the first moment of the conquest of Constantinople "Istanbul" in 1453 AD / 857 AH, Sultan Mehmed II "Al-Fatih" embarked on implementing his vision of his new Ottoman capital, and he not only wanted a Turkish or Islamic city, but was also keen to reflect the enormous ethnic and cultural diversity of his expanding empire.
The conqueror himself was of mixed race, and he was close to the Serbian princess Mara Despina Brankoviون Khatun who later ruled her country and allied himself with the conqueror, the son of her ex-husband Sultan Murad II, while some historians argue that this was because his mother, Khadija, were Khatun, also of Serbian origin, Her mention as "Khatoon bint Abdullah" suggests that she converted to Islam, as Abdullah's name was given to new Muslims.
Knowing the Latin and Roman languages, the Orthodox culture, and the Christian religion, the Sultan liked to see the diversity in his kingdom, and he not only encouraged the Greeks and Armenians to settle in Constantinople after its conquest, but also sometimes forced them to do so, according to the book of British historian Philip Mansell "Constantinople .. The city the world desires, 1453-1924.
Mansell, who has studied at many British universities and wrote books on the history of the Ottomans and France, says that the successor of the conqueror Bayezid II marched on his father's path in observing religious diversity until he sent ships to transport Jews to his capital from Andalusia from which they were expelled at the end of the 15th century and bestowed on their protection Among the Christian attacks targeting them, words such as massacre, ghetto, and "ghetto area", and the Inquisition had no meaning in Ottoman Constantinople, according to the British historian.
Instead of imposing monotheism on all, the Ottomans were proud of the fact that their empire provided shelter to dozens of peoples, races, and genders, and took advantage of their diverse talents.
The British historian cites the case of Mimar Sinan, a Christian origin architect who built the greatest architectural masterpieces of the Ottomans.
Open from another angle
The conquest of Constantinople cannot be separated by the Ottoman Empire from the long imperial struggle over the ancient city. The emerging Ottoman Empire, which mediated the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Sultanate, took its capital from Konya in western Anatolia as its capital in the early 14th century, before moving to Bursa on the borders of the Byzantine Empire and on the opposite side Constantinople from the Sea of Marmara.
By 1366, the Ottoman capital moved from Bursa in Asia to Edirne in Europe, west of Constantinople, "Istanbul", becoming the last "Greek island in the Ottoman Sea" and in the next thirty years, the Ottomans defeated the two great Orthodox kingdoms in Bulgaria and Serbia, the two kingdoms that aspired to win Constantinople, according to the British historian.
The beginning of the thirteenth century witnessed the establishment of the Fourth Crusade, with the aim of extracting Jerusalem from the hands of Muslims during the time of the Crusades, but the point of the Crusader fighters turned to the Byzantine capital.
The Crusader soldiers looted the city, killing many of its inhabitants, which aggravated the "great schism" between the Eastern Orthodox Church (with its capital Constantinople) and the Roman Catholic Church based in the "Vatican".
The "Fourth Crusade" against Constantinople (then Orthodox) contributed to the weakening of the prosperous Byzantine capital, and later suffered from severe isolation, economic bankruptcy, and its population decreased to less than 40 thousand people only, and parts of the ancient city became empty of its thrones, which facilitated its opening at the hands of The Ottomans at the end.
After the conquest, Al-Fateh needed to restore its new capital to its former prosperity, so each neighborhood preserved its name, architecture, language, traditions, its own places of worship, shops, fountains, and night guards.
While Al-Fateh brought new Greek residents to reconstruct the city, some of its ancient regions did not lose their original Greek inhabitants, such as the Samatia neighborhood (present-day Koca Mustafa Pasha) in the southwest of the city near the walls, and the neighborhood surrendered separately to the Fatih Sultan, avoiding the fighting, which explains the large number of The ancient churches in it today.
Orthodoxy in Constantinople
Muhammad al-Fatih went further, because of the ancient differences between supporters and opponents of reconciliation with the Catholic Pope, there was no Orthodox Patriarch in Constantinople in 1453, when the Sultan opened the city, and the Sultan could leave the position vacant, but Al-Fatih was the most open king of his era And, he sought to revive the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which had headed the Orthodox Church in Constantinople since the fourth century, according to the British historian.
The monk born in Constantinople, George Janadius Scolarios, was a leader of the Orthodox who opposed the union with Rome, and he was captured and treated generously near Edirne, and after the conquest the Sultan made him a patriarch and a high priest for the Christians, and he granted him many rights and privileges under the church’s rule, and made its ecclesiastical authority no less than that granted to the church previously in The era of Byzantine emperors.
The British historian says that a "deal" has been concluded between the Sultan and the patriarch, in which Al-Fateh vows to protect the head of the Orthodox Church in Constantinople from competing Slavic Orthodox Churches and Muslim militants alike.
In return, the patriarch helped collect taxes for the sultan, and thus the conqueror ensured the loyalty of many Greeks to prevent them from seeking refuge with his Catholic enemies in Venice and the papacy who were trying to annex Constantinople to them.
In his capacity as head of the Orthodox, the patriarch administered an independent Orthodox legal system, based on the law of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, with powers that included fines, imprisonment, and exile.
The Fatih Sultan expressed his appreciation for the Greek culture, as well as the prosperity that the Greeks could bring to his capital, and the Ottoman capital served as a bridge between Islam and Christianity.
Several years after the conquest, the sultan went with Muslim scholars to the patriarch's house and asked Gennadius to write an explanation of Christianity, which he translated from Greek into Turkish for the sultan, entitled "A Summary of the Christian Faith."
Catholics, Italians and Galata
The Armenians were another Christian element that the Sultan brought to Constantinople, having lived since at least the sixth century BC in eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus and preserved their own doctrine in the nature of Christ, their language and their own alphabet.
Although the last Armenian kingdom disappeared in southern Anatolia in the 14th century, the Armenians emerged in the eastern Mediterranean as jewelers, craftsmen, builders, and merchants, and the Sultan saw their presence with his new capital as an important addition.
An inscription on the façade of the current Armenian Patriarchate in the Kumkapi area of Istanbul, "Constantinople" shows that Muhammad II, the "conqueror", appointed an Armenian patriarch in Constantinople in 1461, and Armenians viewed the Sultan as a world champion like Alexander the Great, where different peoples could resort to his protection.
North of the Golden Horn, i.e. outside of Constantinople, “Istanbul”, which includes the neighborhoods within the walls and south of the Golden Horn, the Galata region was controlled by the Italian Genoese, and it was a semi-independent colony that controlled regional trade from the weak and dying Byzantine Empire.
The Galata neighborhood included Catholic and Italian churches, and during the conquest of Constantinople, Galat was more prosperous and crowded than the ancient city south of the golden century that had been living for decades of decline.
Genoa and the Ottoman Empire were long-standing allies, and the Sultan granted a privilege of protection after the conquest in the Greek language to “the people of Galata and their nobles” in exchange for paying taxes and still preserved in the British Library, and the concession permitted the Galata residents to keep their property, and “to follow their own customs and rites” except for ringing bells Churches.
The Galata model demonstrates, as the author says, that East and West can coexist together, stressing that the Ottoman Sultanate was not anti-Christian Europe, as French historian Fernan Braudel says, and it is "the refuge of the world" as the author describes, and unlike Western Europe, there were no restrictions On freedom of trade while there were few restrictions on building various religious temples.
However, it is not possible to imagine the entire Ottoman time free of sectarian and national problems and riots, as the policies of tolerance were negatively affected by the pressure of military defeats of the Sultanate and the escalation of national Balkan movements in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
In the twentieth century, it was expected that the Turks would eventually respond to the nationalist movements that tore apart their empire to launch their own national project, as Istanbul was no longer the "refuge of the world" and the founder of modern Turkey turned her back to build the capital of the new Turkish Republic in Ankara.