Confronting the New. Power Dynamics among Muslims, Christians and Jews in Sixteenth-Century Istanbul
After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottomans turned the city into the capital of an Islamic empire and one of the most populous and diverse cities of the early modern world. The sixteenth century was crucial in this transformation process, marked by extensive construction programs and migrations of various ethnic and religious populations from southern Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa. New palaces, mosques, and markets radically altered the urban topography of the former Byzantine city, at the same time as new elites established it as the political, economic, cultural, and religious center of the empire’s diverse communities.
Due to disciplinary boundaries, scholarship tends to deal with Istanbul’s various population groups separately. In contrast, our session brings together scholars focusing on Muslim, Christian, and Jewish perspectives to explore the complex power dynamics shaping the city’s development at the dawn of the modern era. By adopting this holistic approach, we will analyze the power negotiations occurring both within and between the city’s established and emerging communities to explain aspects of the spatial, social, and religious transformations of early modern Istanbul. Understanding power as an act of social action and drawing from a diverse corpus of material and textual sources, including documentation in Ottoman, Greek and Hebrew, we ask in individual case studies what means and strategies the contemporaries employed in order to manifest their place within urban society and topography. How far were established elites able to draw on old privileges, traditions, and local knowledge? What contributions did the newcomers make, advancing their individual cases while also changing the urban and social geography? After a five-minute introduction, we plan to present three twenty-minute papers, followed by twenty-five minutes for Q & A at the end.
Several monuments and landmarks inherited from Byzantine Constantinople continued to be used during Ottoman times and were infused with new life under the new regime. The Hagia Sophia became the chief sultanic mosque of the Ottoman capital and served as a major focal point in the ceremonial life of the city. Other religious buildings, such as the monastery of the Virgin Pammakaristos, were given new and important functions in the hands of the Christians.
This paper explores the ways the Muslim and Christian communities of Istanbul repurposed and reused the churches and monasteries from the Byzantine past in order to assert their power within the new urban landscape that emerged during the first century after the Conquest.
Since Byzantine times, Constantinople/Istanbul was home to a Greek-speaking Jewry. Around 1500, these Jews, native to the region, saw themselves confronted with thousands of Jewish refugees from the Iberian Peninsula.
This paper looks at the events from the perspective of the local Jewish community. Based on a selection of legal opinions by the Istanbuli rabbi Elijah Mizrahi (1450–1526), it analyzes reactions to encounters and conflicts with the Iberian newcomers: to what extent was Mizrahi able to manifest his position as leading rabbi among the heterogeneous Jewish population. The paper will present a snapshot of intra-Jewish power negotiations and anchor them in a specific urban setting.
Establishing Istanbul as the capital of an Islamic empire required the development of a robust religious infrastructure. Over the sixteenth century, the Ottomans created a distinctive hierarchical legal and educational system, intricately linked to the dynasty and its imperial vision. They built mosques and medreses, populating them with scholars who were drawn by the new opportunities or brought to the city against their will.
This paper examines how scholars who arrived from Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Iran after the Ottoman conquests over the Mamluks and Safavids established themselves. It highlights how these men networked with local elites and negotiated their position within the emerging religious framework, shaping Ottoman Istanbul and Islam for centuries to come.