The first and most sacred of the mosques is that of Eyûb, with the türbeh of that great warrior by its side. It is the one mosque which no Christian may enter or even approach. On the accession of each new sultan he "must be girded with the sabre of the great Osman by the hands of the general of the Mevlevi Dervishes, who comes across Asia Minor from distant Konieh for the proud purpose. Only two Sultans since Mohammed II. have omitted the ceremonial, or have performed it elsewhere, and the reign of each was brief and calamitous."
Both mosque and türbeh, the most sacred buildings in all Stambûl to the Moslem, are kept, it is said, with ceaseless care, and redecorated again and again with increased splendour. Near them is a great street of tombs, where sleep the long line of sheikhs-ul-Islam.
In that crowded suburb, still fanatically Mohammedan, the stranger lingers but few moments. He seeks the characteristic expression of Moslem reverence in the great buildings that crown the hills. In the heat of the afternoon he climbs the hill to where once the great church of the Holy Apostles stood. Lingering on the terrace he looks over the Golden Horn and the vast city, a city of gardens and minarets, stretching as far as the eye can see. As the hour for prayer draws near, men pour from every street, across through the market, or by the open arid space that extends westwards till the narrow streets close round, stretching down to the harbour. Hundreds and hundreds they seem, of all ages, in every kind of attire, of every race, some light-haired and fresh-coloured, as of more than half European blood; some, negroes from Africa, but all males and all Moslems. They enter the great mosque; the Christian must stand back, even from the court; a few minutes and the stream pours out again and leaves but a few pious lingerers still at their prayers or some children sitting before their teacher and reciting to him the Koran.
It is the great mosque of Mohammed II., built in 1463-69 for the Conqueror by a Greek Christian, Christodoulos. It covers a great extent of ground, with its schools, its türbehs, and its great court. The court is cloistered, and it has eighteen splendid columns, which came, there can be little doubt, from the Church of the Apostles. Six are of red granite, twelve of verde antico; the simple carving of the capitals belongs to a period when Byzantine art was at its best. In the midst of the court is a fountain shaded by cypresses. It is almost always deserted, save for a few children here and there at play.
MOSQUE OF SULEIMAN FROM THE GOLDEN HORN
We enter the mosque itself by the great door at the south. Its size is its most impressive feature. The decoration is simple; great black arabesques on a white ground: dignified, but, in the full sunlight which pours through the great windows, too dazzling. At the right above the entrance is the blue tablet on which is inscribed that traditional prophecy of the prophet: "They shall conquer Constantinople; happy the prince, happy the army, which shall achieve the conquest."
Outside, to the East, is the plain octagon in which is laid, alone, the Conqueror Mohammed. The great turban hangs over the head, a heavy velvet pall over the chest which contains the coffin. Two big brass candlesticks, a Koran copied by the hand of the Conqueror himself, in a reliquary a tooth of the prophet: that is all the türbeh contains. But the simplicity is, for this generation at least, spoilt by the "thorough restoration" the whole has received, and its brightness of new paint. Mohammed, of all the sultans, remains alone in his glory. There are other türbehs round his, his mother, his wife, the wife of Abdul Hamid I., who is said to have been a Creole from Martinique, and the schoolfellow of the Empress Josephine—she was the mother of Mahmûd II.—these and others throng the enclosure. But the memory of Mohammed is still unchallenged among all his successors, and still pilgrims, hour by hour, stand on the broad marble step and look reverently within on his last resting-place.