The mosques of Suleiman II., Ahmed I. and Mohammed the Conqueror, (by whom Constantinople was captured; in 1453,) are magnificent edifices, each; with a grand dome in the centre, and a smaller dome at each corner. The arrowy minarets rise around each mosque and add to the picturesque effect; their practical use is like that of a bell tower, as from the gallery near the summit the Muezzin chants the call for the people to come to prayer. No bells are allowed in the minarets, nor in fact in all Constantinople, as their sound is offensive to Moslem ears.
The mosque of Ahmed has six minarets; up to the time of its construction the mosque of the Kaaba at Mecca was the only one with six minarets, and as it was the holiest of all places in Islam, it was considered rather “off color” for Ahmed to put an equal number on his own edifice. He compromised the matter by ordering another minaret for the Kaaba, and paying the bills for its construction, and thus it happens that this mosque has seven instead of six minarets.
This same mosque, the Ahmediah, is in the middle of a large yard planted with trees, and affording a very pleasant shade from the heat of the day. The interior of the mosque is simple, but magnificent; the vast central dome is upheld by four immense pillars, each more than thirty feet in diameter, and cut on the outside so as to resemble a bundle of columns. There are half domes opening into the central one, and there are numerous pillars of marble and granite, sustaining arches at the sides and ends of the building. The absence of any decorations, save the texts from the Koran and the names of God, give an aspect of severity to the interior, especially when one has become familiar with the profuse adornments of Italian churches.
The founders of mosques generally, but not always, intend them for their own burial places. What is left of Ahmed I., and I fancy there isn’t much left now, is laid away, not in the mosque itself, but in a tomb close at hand, and forming a sort of adjunct to the grand building.
We had to take off our shoes on entering it, just as we did on entering the mosque, and all the other mosques; we brought along our slippers to wear in these excursions, and our guide walking ahead with six pairs under his arm, might have been easily taken for a second-hand dealer in foot gear. The Judge, the heavy man of the party, had wet his feet a little, and as his boots were very tight, he had hard work to doff and don them at each halting place.
He sat on the pavement in front of a mosque, while the guide undertook to remove the refractory boots. They stuck faster at each change, and toward the last it became necessary to hold him, or have him sit astride a post during the operation. Otherwise the guide pulled him all around the yard as a country doctor does a patient when extracting an obstinate tooth.
We feared it would be necessary for all of us to sit on him, or pile stones on him while the guide pulled, but happily this did not become necessary.
