OTTOMAN CULTURE

DAILY LIFE
What is culture?
 Culture comes from the Latin cultura.
 It means to cultivate.

 To cultivate means “to prepare and work on

(land) in order to raise crops”.
 When the concept of culture first emerged in
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe,
it connoted a process of cultivation or
improvement, as in agriculture.
 In the nineteenth century, it began to be used
for the betterment or refinement of the
individual, especially through education.
DEFINITIONS: “CULTURE”
 Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of
knowledge, experience, beliefs, values,
attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion,
acquired by a group of people in the course
of generations.
 Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by
a large group of people.
 Culture is communication, communication is
culture.
 Culture is cultivated behavior; that what a
person learned, accumulated, experienced
through social learning.
 A culture is a way of life.
Looking from the perspective of
culture
 Culture is very important concept in history.
 Cultural history is different from political
history.
 Cultural history is more comprehensive or
inclusive.
 It includes a wide range of topics such as
slaves, women, trade, music, festivals etc.
 Ottoman periodization: growth, rise,
stagnation, decline and demise.
 What is main parameter in this categorization?

Ottoman culture
 Preparation of a specific website on Ottoman
culture.
 What are the main titles?


Major topics of ottoman culture
 Festivals and ceremonies
 Public baths

 mesires

 Clothing

 Food culture

 Home design

 Way of thinking
The end of ottoman culture and
tradition
 The Ottoman empire lasted until the twentieth
century.
 While historians like to talk about empires in
terms of growth and decline,
 The real end to the Ottoman culture came
with the secularization of Turkey after World
War II along European models of
government.
 The transition to a secular state was not an
easy process.
 Secularization represents the real break with
the Ottoman tradition and heritage.
URBAN CULTIRE AND
LIFESTYLE
***
Religous identity
 There was no municipal law in the Ottoman
towns.
 Religious identity was very important.

 Ottomans defined themselves on the basis of

religion.
 Imams in neigborhood, tax collecting

 Millet system

 Lifestyle

 clothing


Urban identity
 At the same time, there was a powerful urban
identity.
 What do you understand from “urban
identity”?
 Settlement to a city requires a special
permission, especially for Istanbul.
 Kefalet system for settlement to a new
neigborhood.
 Tax collecting was based on neighborhood.

 Guild system was organized in the towns.

 Matrakçı Nasuh depicted different cities with

different characters in his miniatures.

Matrakçi Nasuh

 He was a 16th century Ottoman

mathematician, teacher, historian,
geographer, cartographer, swordmaster, and
miniaturist of Bosnian origin.
 He was educated and taught at Enderun
School.
 He is very famous with his miniatures.

 He created a naturalist style which focuses on

panoramic views of landscapes and cities
painted with the greatest detail.
 His most famous work is the Istanbul
landscape picture, shows almost every
street and building of the city.

-Matrakçı Nasuh'un İnönü - Bozüyük


Minyatürü (1533 - 1536)

Beyan'ı Menazil'i Sefer'i Irkeyn'i
Sultan Süleyman Han

inönü
**


baghdad
-


eskişehir
ISTANBUL
*


TATVAN
-


TEBRIZ
Basic Characteristics of Ottoman
Quarters/neigborhoods
 The neighborhood or mahalle was the basis of
the urban fabric of the residential areas of
the city.
 Ottoman cities were divided as quarters
 Mosques, churches or synagogues constituted
the basis of a neighborhood and remained
significant institutions in neighborhood life
 There were different quarters in terms of size
from five families to a hundred families.
 Blind passageways
 Division of labor and living areas
 Solidarity
 Narrow streets

URBAN INSTITUTIONS AND
PLACES

MARKETS, PUBLIC BATHS AND MESIRES

Markets as an integrating factor
 The local market was an important a part of urban life.
 There were small shops in the Ottoman quarters.
 There was a division of labor and living areas. But daily
needs necessitated the existence of some shops
inside the neighborhood.
 These shops were especially important for women,
because women rarely went to the shops at the
center of the city.
 The shopping was a good excuse for Ottoman women.
Anaother excuses were as going to the bath and
visiting the relatives.
 Ottoman women were not totaly free for going out from
the house.
 However, while women’s going to bath was never
totally forbidden but shopping by women often
became the target of authorities.

A prohibition about women’s shopping

 “Haslar ve tevabiinde vaki mahalatta sakin ehl-i

İslamdan bazıları mahallelerinde olan cevami ve
mesacide varmayıp taklil-i cemaata bais oldukları
istima olunmakla imdi mahallatta sakin cemaat-ı
müslimin cevami ve mesacide müdavemet ve vukat-ı
hamsede eda-i salat-ı mefrüzeye muvazebet edip
hatunlarına bed renk ferace giy­dirmeyip peçe ile
vecihlerin dahi gereği gibi setr ve başların eğri
bağlamayıp adet-i kadim üzere bağlatıp çarşı ve
pazarda eğer müslim ve eğer kefere ve Yahudî
dükkanlarında bey ve şira bahanesiyle oturtup meks
etmelerine ruhsat vermeyip men’ olunmak üzere
mahallat imamları ve esnaf kethüdaları getürtüp
muhkem tenbîh ve tekîd ve dekakîn ashabına işae
eyleyesiz. Emri maruf ve nehyi anilmünker vacibat-ı
diniyyeden olmakla şöyleki hafiyyeten tecesüs
olunur, hılafina hareket edenler ahz olundukta
mahkem haklarından gelinmek mukarrerdir. Ana göre
habir ve agah ve mazmun-i münîfin tefhim eyleyesiz
Open bazaars
 In addition to small local shops, there were
open bazaars. İstanbul was popular with its
large number of open neighborhood bazaars.
Almost every neighborhood has its own local
bazaar .
 They founded in certain days of the week and
called with this name such as Salı pazarı
between Galata and Tophane, Çarşamba
pazarı in Fethiye and Perşembe pazarı in
Karaköy.

PUBLIC BATHS
 The public bath (hamam) was a complementary
unit of spatial organization in Istanbul.
 There was at least one public bath in a
neighborhood in accordance with its population.
 These baths were built within the structure of
mosque complexes.
 They were serving in certain days and hours of the
week for men and women.
 In Istanbul, most of the pubic baths in the market
places were çifte hamam.
 Çifte hamams were designed to serve men and
women at the same time but in different places.
 The door of the men’s bath was near the mosque,
the door of women’s bath was mostly on a
different side and did not look on the main
street.
-


Woman visit to public bath with her slave

MESIRE AS AN OTTOMAN URBAN
TRADITION
 Mesires as one of the outing spaces like
festivals had an important place in urban
daily life of Istanbul.
 As a term, mesire is not synonym with picnic
Istanbul context.
 In Ottoman sources, mesire was defined as a
space [ism-i mekan of seyr], or mesiregah
where people ride for amusement and
excursion [tenezzüh and teferrüc are defined
as acts related to mesire].

***
 the mesire and the picnic are different in
nature.
 Mesires were not escaping from noisy and
polluted city life to the rural areas.
 These were concepts of the modern era, and
running away from urban life was supposed
to be an act associated with the picnics of
today.
 Therefore, mesires were not physically
separated from urban structure of Istanbul.
MESIRE AND RELIGOUS SPACES
 According to Evliya Çelebi, Istanbul has many
mesires, park-like landscapes, such as as
Atmeydanı, Ağa Çayırı in Silivrikapı, Yeni
Bahçe in Topkapı, Baruthane in Haliç, Vefa
and Fatih Mosque’s around, Beyazid
Mosque’s square, and Sülaymaniye, Şehzade
and Aya Sofya Mosque’s squares.
 As it was seen, these mesires were mostly
associated with the most important mosques
of Istanbul.
 Then, one can easily say that resting and
entertaining could be connected with
religious activities.

EYÜP AS MESİREGAH AND PILGRIMAGE
 For example, Eyüp was an important
mesiregah as well as being a center of inner
pilgrimage.
 People from different mahalles of Istanbul had
visited Eyüp Sultan’s tomb and mosque and
afterwards spread out around the mosque to
pass the time.
 In modern urban life, it might seem
controversial.
 In traditional Ottoman society, religiosity and
sacredness were not separated from the
worldly.

Kağithane mesiresi