Constantinople old and new

by H. G. Dwight

In nothing is the natural soberness of the Turk more manifest than in his holidays. He keeps fewer of them than his Christian compatriot, and most of them he celebrates in such a way that an outsider would scarcely suspect the fact. This is partly, perhaps, a matter of temperament, and partly because Islam has not yet passed a certain stage of evolution. A holiday, that is, is still a holy day. Secular and patriotic festivals are everywhere of comparatively recent origin. In Turkey, where church and state are one to a degree now unknown in Western countries, there was no real national holiday until 1909. Then the first anniversary of the re-establishment of the constitution was celebrated on the 23d of July (July 10, old style). A highly picturesque celebration it was, too, in Constantinople at least, with its magnificent array of rugs and mediæval tents on the Hill of Liberty, its review of troops by the Sultan, its procession of the guilds of the city, and its evening illuminations.

Illuminations, however, were not invented by the constitution. Long before a 23d or a 4th of July were, the splendour-loving Sultan Ahmed III discovered how unparalleled a theatre for such displays were the steep shores of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus. The accession day of the reigning sovereign made an annual occasion for great families to set their houses and gardens on fire with an infinity of little oil-lamps and, in all literalness, to keep open house. This was the one purely secular holiday of the year—unless I except the day of Hîd’r Eless. I have already pronounced the name of this mysterious divinity, who is also called Hîzîr, and whom Mohammedan legend associates with the Fountain of Life and with the change of the seasons. He is a distant relative of the prophet Elijah, of the god Apollo, and I suspect of personages still more antique. His day coincides with that of the Greek St. George, namely, April 23d, old style, or May 6th according to our mode of reckoning. I must add that he is frowned upon in orthodox circles, and feasted only in Constantinople or other localities subject to Greek influence. Nevertheless, many men who scorn the authenticity of his claims to reverence scorn not to go forth into the fields on his day, where they roast a lamb on a spit, eat pilaf, and otherwise rejoice over the return of the sun. And you should follow them to Kiat Haneh, if you wish to see a sight—so great and so characteristic is the press of those who celebrate the day. Perhaps they do so the more willingly because their coreligionaries the Persians keep in that way, a few weeks earlier, their own feast of No-rouz. No-rouz, New Day, is the most sensible New Year’s I know, falling as it does at the vernal equinox. The Turks also observe No-rouz, to the degree of sending each other pots of sweetmeat and poetical wishes that life may be as free from bitterness.

Having made these exceptions to the rule that holidays are holy days in Turkey, I now perceive I must make one more. It is almost as trifling as the last, however, for New Year’s is scarcely a holiday at all with the Turks. It is not a day of feasting, of visit-paying, or of present-giving. Persons of sufficiently exalted rank go to the palace to felicitate the Sultan or to inscribe their names in his register, and each receives a new gold piece—of no great denomination in these economical days. Ordinary mortals content themselves with exchanging good wishes and small change—lucky pennies, as it were. A penny is the luckier if it is obtained on some pretext, without mentioning the day. About this day is none of the monotonous invariability which distinguishes our own calendar. It is, indeed, the first day of the first month, Mouharrem, but of the old lunar year of Arabia. It therefore falls eleven days earlier every year, making the backward round of the seasons in a cycle of thirty-three years. A further element of latitude enters into its determination, and that of other strictly Mohammedan holidays, by the fact that the month is not supposed to begin until the new moon has been discovered by the naked eye. In the good old times this verification of the calendar gave rise to most refreshing divergences of opinion. New Year’s might be celebrated in different towns on a number of different days, according to the cloudiness of the sky; or, in case of a conflict of authorities, two days might even be celebrated in the same town. But the advent of the telegraph and a growing laxity in interpretations have brought it about that some one in the empire is pretty sure to see the new moon at the right hour. The day of the ascertaining of the new moon has a name of its own, arifeh. And mark that a Mohammedan, like a Hebrew day, begins and ends at sunset. The celebration of the eve of a holiday in Western countries is doubtless due to the old prevalence of the same usage.

The true holidays of Islam are connected with the life and teachings of its founder. These are seven in number. They commemorate the birth of the Prophet (12th of the third moon, Rebi ül Evvel); his conception (6th of the seventh moon, Rejeb); his ascension—accomplished, be it remembered, during his lifetime—(27th Rejeb); the revelation and completion of his mission (15th of the eighth moon, Shaban, and 27th of the ninth, Ramazan); the close of the fast of Ramazan (1st Shevval); and the sacrifice of Abraham (10th of the last moon, Zilhijeh). This is not the place to discourse of comparative religions, but it is interesting to note in passing the relation between these observances and those of the two other great religions which had their origin so near Arabia. This relation is further indicated by the lenten month of Ramazan and by the paschal week of Kourban Baïram. It is characteristic, however, of the puritanism of Islam and of the Prophet’s desire to put from him every pretence of divinity that his own anniversaries are celebrated the most simply. They have never been an occasion, like the great Christian festivals, for general feasting. On Mohammed’s birthday, to be sure—known as Mevloud, from a celebrated panegyric of the Prophet read in the mosques on that day—the hours of prayer are announced by cannon, and sweets are distributed, particularly to the poor and to orphan children. On that day, also, the Sultan goes in state to mosque. But otherwise the outsider knows of these anniversaries only by the illumination of the galleries of minarets. Whence the seven holy nights have come to be called the Nights of Lamps.

Equally characteristic, in a different way, are the two general holidays of the Mohammedan calendar. They are both known as Baïram—feast—and the outsider has no difficulty in being aware of them. Indeed, it would be rather difficult to remain unaware of so much cannon firing and flag flying. The month of Ramazan has certain festal features, but they are largely discounted by the total fast which every good Moslem observes during the daylight hours. The close of Ramazan is marked by three days of unlimited festivity. This, the lesser Baïram, is called Sheker, or sometimes Mendil Baïram—Sugar or Handkerchief Feast. Then people exchange sweets and handkerchiefs, if nothing else. It is, however, the time to tip servants and dependants, to make presents, to discharge debts, and in general to fulfil the law of the Prophet by dispensing zekyaat, the surplus of one’s goods. I was once presented with an interesting little leaflet, printed in silver, which was less a discreet advertisement than a tract as to the true Moslem’s duty in this regard. It represented half a fruit of the tree touba, under which in paradise all true believers will gather on the resurrection day, and the seeds of this fruit were circles in which were printed the exact quantity of certain comestibles to be given away at Baïram. Preparations for this generosity may be seen during the afternoons of Ramazan, when the bazaars and the fashionable street of Shah-zadeh-Bashi are crowded with shoppers. The courtyard of the mosque of Baïezid is also turned into a fair during Ramazan. There the beau monde of Stamboul resorts, that is to say the masculine part of it, two or three hours before sunset. Sweetmeats are by no means all that you may buy. Eatables of all sorts, perfumes, tobacco, cigarette-holders, and beads of amber and other materials are also sold, besides silks and rugs. In Abd ül Hamid’s time there was always a booth for the sale of porcelain from his little factory at Yîldîz. And every year the ancient pottery works of Kütahya send up a consignment of their decorative blue ware.

Baïram sweets

Both Baïrams are an occasion for paying visits. Everybody calls on everybody else, so that it is a wonder if anybody is found at home. In the case of the Sultan, however, there is no uncertainty. On the first morning of each Baïram he holds a great levee, which is attended by every one of a certain rank. The ceremony has taken place every year since the time of Baïezid the Thunderbolt, who held his court in Broussa in the fourteenth century. Foreigners take no part in this mouayedeh (exchange of feast-day wishes), or baise-main, as they prefer to call it, but the diplomatic corps and other notables of the European colony are invited to watch it from the gallery of the throne-room. Or sometimes a humbler individual may be introduced in the suite of his embassy, as was the fortune of the present scribe on the occasion of the first baise-main of Sultan Mehmed V.

It rather reminded me of youthful operatic days to march through the endless corridors and to climb the immeasurable stairs of Dolma Ba’hcheh Palace and to look down at last from the high east gallery of the throne-room. The top galleries of my youthful days, however, did not contain gilt chairs upholstered in blue and white satin or buffets set out with gold plate and presided over by lackeys in red and gold. The lackeys, though, did look a little like the stage. While a Turk makes a magnificent soldier or horseman, he never attains, impassive though he be, the sublime superiority of a European footman. Is it that his livery is unnatural, or is the human in him too strong to be quite purged away? The operatic impression was further carried out by a crystal chandelier, swinging from the dome exactly where it would cut off somebody’s view, and by the rococo arches surrounding the central square of the throne-room. This huge space was empty save for a crystal candelabrum standing at each corner and a covered throne in the middle of the west side. The throne was a small red-and-gold sofa, as we presently saw when an old gentleman removed the cover. He also looked carefully under the throne, as might a queen apprehensive of burglars or mice; but I suppose it was to make sure no bomb was there.

In the meantime the courtiers began to assemble: the cabinet at the left of the throne, the army and navy—in much gold lace—at right angles to the cabinet, the church under the east gallery. On the south side of the hall, facing the military, stood for the first time the new parliament. The senators, who have all been official personages in their day, wore their various uniforms of state. The deputies looked very European in evening dress and white gloves, but capped, of course, with the fez of rigour. Last to come in, taking their stand at the right of the throne, were the imperial princes. They had been waiting with the Sultan in an adjoining room, where they had paid homage to him in private. Then, preceded by the grand master of ceremonies, the Sultan himself entered. Every one made a temenna to the ground, that graceful triple sweep of the hand which is the Turkish form of salutation, while a choir hidden under one of the galleries chanted: “Thou wilt live long with thy glory, O Sultan, if God wills. Great art thou, but forget not that One is greater.” For those who had made obeisance the year before and many other years to Abd ül Hamid II there must have been something strangely moving in the spectacle of the kindly faced old man, after all not very majestic in person, who walked a little as if his shoes were too tight, yet who took his place at the head of that great company with the natural dignity of his house and race. He wore a stubby new beard, acquired since his accession; for it is not meet that the Commander of the Faithful should go shorn.