Death and Life in the Ottoman Palace - (Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire) by Douglas Scott Brookes

About the Book

Delves into a royal tomb in order to expand our understanding of Ottoman palace culture

Book Synopsis

This book reveals multiple aspects of life in the Ottoman palace, in both its public space (the chancery) and private space (the royal household and the harem). It does so by exploring the Sultan Abdülhamid I Tomb in Istanbul, investigating the paths that open to us through the graves of the royalty in the mausoleum and those of the courtiers, eunuchs, concubines and female harem managers in the garden graveyard around it. The treasure of information at this graveyard allows us to piece together a wide spectrum of details that illuminate the court funerary culture of the era, from architecture and calligraphy to funerals and epitaphs to turbans and fezzes and poetry, as we come to an understanding of the role of royal cemeteries in strengthening the bonds between the reigning House and the populace and enhancing the legitimacy of the dynasty's rule.
The book first introduces the tomb complex to the reader, interpreting its architecture, art and poetry, before exploring the lives and careers of 65 of the 86 people interred here between the first burial, in 1780, and the last, in 1863. Along the way, it reveals intriguing stories - from that of Sultan Abdulhamid's daughter Zeyneb, born (against the dynasty's rules) when he was a prince and raised in secrecy outside the palace until he came to the throne, to that of Prince Murad, exhumed and reburied late one night in 1812. By exploring the history revealed through these life stories, the book sheds light on Ottoman palace life and culture in an era that witnessed the most wrenching changes of modern Ottoman history seen until then - the reforms forcibly introduced by Sultan Mahmud II after 1826 - and uncovers manifestations of these changes in this graveyard.

Review Quotes

Douglas Brookes's meticulous study zooms in on a small graveyard in Istanbul which has been the resting place for several members of the Ottoman dynasty as well as other officials of the imperial court who expired from the 1780s to 1860s. The book can rightly be regarded as a micro-history that takes this cemetery as its starting point. Readers not only learn the building's history, its architectural and physical features but in a more detailed fashion about the people buried here. The author narrates these people's lives and informs us of the circumstances in which they died, their illnesses, their pedigree. This approach brings about an unusual and gratifying peek into some of the dynamics of the Ottoman court in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.