A sound status among the Ottoman elite: architectural patrons of sixteenth-century Istanbul mosques and their recitation programs

Abstract

The architectural form of the mosques built by Mimar Sinan, who served as the imperial master architect of the Ottoman dynasty between 1539 and his death in 1588 CE, clearly reflected to contemporary viewers from within Ottoman culture the status and wealth of the respective buildings' patrons. The majority of these patrons who commissioned and funded mosques were members of the ruling elite and grandees. Not only the quality of construction materials and the level of sophistication in the architectural details and furnishings but also the presence and number of domes and minarets established a hierarchy based on a certain "decorum," as expressed by the art historian Gülru Necipoğlu.¹ In addition to these two variables of the patrons' status and the form and size of the mosques' establishment, their correlation to a third variable in the context of this Ottoman architectural decorum deserves closer scrutiny: what has so far not been considered is the role played by Qurʾanic recitation, an integral part of the experience of mosque space. This oversight is surprising, considering that mosques' endowment charters (vakfiyye) carefully specify the suras (chapters) and ayas (verses) to be read, as well as the number and salary of reciters.² Based on a survey of fourteen of Mimar Sinan's mosques in Istanbul, this chapter investigates whether there existed a hierarchy in recitation parallel to the hierarchy of architectural form, and if so, in what shape. In other words, how did architectural patrons use sound in order to convey their status among the Ottoman elite?