Turkey boasts both a past and a present that is far from boring. In its history, it bounces around between rulers, and currently, it bounces between religions, as well as which traditions to follow within them. While there, you can bounce quite quickly between sites, as well as grab a boat along the Bosphorus river and bounce between continents. I have to say, this was a difficult first city to learn about without my team of experts, so if I bounce around between ideas, you'll have to pardon.
Wayyyy back in the day, Rome had 2 empires. The Western Roman empire, which keeps its name, and the Eastern Roman empire which finds its own capital, Constantinople (Istanbul), and becomes the Byzantium empire which gains autonomy & spreads. While the West converts to Christianity, the East becomes Orthodox - nationalistic (ie you have Serbian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, etc. Somewhere around the 700s, Islam spreads rapidly into these countries, with the Ottoman empire being mostly Muslim. However, the Byzantium empire shrinks over time, and the Catholics hate the Orthodox more than the Muslim. In 1453, the Ottomans take Constantinople, Byzantium collapses, and the Ottomans rule - allowing Jews & Christians to live in the land for a somewhat larger tax than the Muslims.
At the end of WWI, the Ottoman empire is crumbling. This cool cat named Ataturk comes along, and creates the modern nation-state that is Turkey. Whereas before being Turkish meant you were a lowly herder, now it gives a huge sense of pride. Turks are extremely proud of their country - ie when a youTube videa was posted that insulted Ataturk, youTube was banned in Turkey.
Soooo.... that is why you see churches, mosques, and I'm assuming synagogues all over Turkey, and all according to certain time periods. Hagia Sophia, which I didn't get to see, is a church dating back to the 6th century, whereas the Blue Mosque dates back only to the 17th century. I eavesdropped on a tour guide who explained that there was a lot of Roman architectural influence in the mosque, which makes sense. He also pointed out that, despite being built over 1000 years later, the Blue Mosque is lower, and has a smaller diameter than the Hagia Sophia, quite impressive for those Orthodox Byzantines. (Wow! I just wikipedia'd - apparently from the mid 1400s to mid 1900s, it was turned into a mosque - AND this recalls in my memory somebody telling me that they actually found that the Catholic iconographic sculpting inside was covered over, and only recently discovered). The Hagia Sophia is currently secularized and turned into a Museum. Now that's some bouncing around...
My second day in Istanbul, I bounced around the Bosphorus river, which separates Istanbul into two continents, same city. While on the boat, we passed several palaces, a clock tower, mosques, and 'feriay' which are palaces for people who work in the Sultan's palace. We got off the boat on the European and Asian side to see things like Ortakoy mosque, the Rumeli fortress, and at the very end, another run down castle whose name I forgot, facing the Black Sea. Apparently, having more than 1 minaret means the mosque belongs to a Sultan, who requested it to be built, but none have more than 6 minarets, as the Mosque at Mecca has 7 (told to us by our tourguide, wiki says 9 ?!).
Apparently, Ottoman architecture is synthesis between Mediterranean & Middle East and they helped transform Mosques from simple buildings with lots of ornate decorations to having vaults, domes, semi-domes, and , etc.
Other cool Mosque fact: Mosques have medallions with the name of Allah and Mohammed in beautiful Arabic calligraphy. They also put the first 3 (?) calif. Turkish Mosques add another 3 - the wife of Mohammed and their two sons, Hasan & Hussein. (I think it should total 8, 2 per side of the Mosque). One of the reasons for the split into Sunni & Shia is that Sunni believe that the 2 sons were killed by ... (somebody on the opposite side I guess?), so they add those two names on the Mosques, whereas Shia wouldn't. Most of Turkey is Sunni, and Turkey kind-of bounces with its Islamic laws: call for prayer is heard 5 times a day & pork is forbidden, but women are not required to (and I think it's even frowed upon in public institutions) to cover their heads & there is drinking a'plenty!
Didn't do as much food tasting as I would have liked because I got sick, but I did try this Ali Nazik (meat, sauced with eggplant puree, garlic, and yoghurt) which looks gross but was quite tasty!
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