LITTLE HAGIA SOPHIA MOSQUE

LITTLE HAGIA SOPHIA MOSQUE

The building was built by the order of Justinian – he is also the founder of Hagia Sophia- towards the year 530. Because the two works bear some similarities in terms of plan, it was called Little Hagia Sophia in the Ottoman period. In the same courtyard, there was a basilica type church presented to the names of Peter and Paul, and there was also a pavilion of the Great Palace called Hormisdas palace. According to the founding legend, Justinianos I, while being punished for being involved in an uprising against his uncle, Justinus, was saved when the Saints Sergios and Bakkhos testified in his favor by entering the dream of Justinus, and when he became emperor, he built the church in the name of these saints to pay his debt of gratitude.

According to another legend; After Emperor Anastasios I, Justin, who was the commander of the palace guards but was illiterate, was chosen by the army to take the throne. At the end of his reign, Justin I left his nephew Justinian as heir. Theodora, wife of Justinian, who came to the throne, is a woman who attracted the reaction of the Roman aristocracy because she was a dancer in the acropolis. Among those who reacted to Theodora was Anikia Juliana, one of the powerful women of the Roman aristocracy and famous as the patroness of the arts. Juliana chooses a different way to show her reaction; In order to show the power and piety of the Roman aristocracy, she had a magnificent church built in the name of St Polyeuktos of Melitene (Malatya), who was killed in 251. This church, which was built in the vicinity of Istanbul Municipality today, has not survived; It was damaged in the earthquake of 1010, looted by the Latins who entered the city in 1204, and its pillars and some architectural pieces were transported to Venice with their holy relics. These pieces brought to Venice were used in St. Mark's Basilica. The famous Akka Pillars of San Marco did not originate from the city of Akka in Palestine, as the name suggests, but from the Polyeuktos Church in Istanbul. Theodora's response to this magnificent response of Anikia Juliana was with the Church of Sergius and Bacchus.

The Little Hagia Sophia Mosque is a good example of a centrally planned Early Byzantine period structure dominated by a large dome. The dome shell is not completely flat, but is woven in a wavy form. A similar but different application of the central plan is also seen in the Church of St. Vitale in Ravenna, in northeastern Italy. Different variations of this plan are also available at the Dome of the Rock (Qubbeh al-Sahra) in Quds. Therefore, the building has an important place in the history of world architecture.

Most of the changes made on it after it was converted into a mosque are examples of classical Turkish art. With the mausoleum and graveyard, bath, zaviye (darvish lodge), madrasah (college of that time), and kindergarten buildings added during the Ottoman period, it ceased to be a mere building and turned into a complex. Kulliye (complex) is a structure that Turkish-Islamic States frequently applied, which puts the mosque in the center and creates an environment for social life around it.

Thus, the Little Hagia Sophia Mosque has survived to the present day as a work in which Byzantine and Turkish architectures are intricately intertwined.