THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF MINARET

I. THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF MINARET
Minarets are tower-like structures usually
associated with mosques or other religious buildings. They contain platforms, reached
through stairs built inside the minaret, on which the 'muezzin' stands to call Muslims to
prayer. 1
In trying to understand how the tower got its special meaning in Islamic societies,
scholars have attempted—with mixed success—to trace minarets back to various traditions
of tower building in the pre-Islamic cultures of Eurasia. Over a century ago, for example, A.
J. Butler, the British historian of Roman Egypt, speculated that the multistoried form of the
typical Cairene minaret of the Mamluk period might have been derived from the Pharos
(lighthouse) of Alexandria, one of the wonders of the ancient world, which—although long
destroyed—is known from descriptions by ancient writers to have been square in the lower
part of its shaft, octagonal in the middle and cylindrical at the top. Butler’s contemporary,
the German architectural historian Hermann Thiersch, elaborated this theory by publishing
a detailed study of the history of the Pharos. He showed that the ancient tower had stood
well into Islamic times and could have inspired Mamluk builders in Egypt.2
Not all minarets had three different cross-sections like the Egyptian ones—some had
entirely square shafts and some had cylindrical ones. He therefore suggested that square
minarets, such as those found in Syria, North Africa and Spain, were derived from church
towers. His church-tower theory was strengthened by the survival of the Arabic term
sawma’a, used in medieval North Africa and Spain to refer to minarets. Derived from the
Arabic word once used to describe the cell of a Christian monk, sawma’a is the source of
the obsolete Spanish word, zoma, or "tower."
But this theory still left cylindrical towers unexplained. Thiersch believed that
cylindrical minarets, like those common in Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, derived
from Roman and Byzantine monumental victory columns—an explanation that supported
his view that minarets were erected principally as symbols of Islam’s triumph over other
religions. But while it was relatively easy to see how square church towers in Syria might
have led to square minarets in Syria, Thiersch was unable to explain how—or why—
something like Trajan’s Column in Rome could have inspired Central Asian builders to
erect cylindrical brick minarets. 3
Still other experts thought that minarets were themselves direct descendants of the
Mesopotamian ziggurats. Many have remarked on the supposed resemblance of the
Malwiya, the 50-meters spiral tower erected at Samarra, Iraq in the middle of the ninth
century, to a ziggurat. However, though there is a centuries-old tradition of representing
the Tower of Babel, the most famous ziggurat of all, as a spiral tower, in fact, modern
archeologists have determined that only a few ziggurats—such as the one at Khorsabad and
perhaps another at Babylon—actually did spiral, and those were square, not round, spirals.
The vast majority of ziggurats were actually square stepped towers, with separate flights of
stairs at right angles to their sides, so whatever inspired the Malwiya, it was not a ziggurat
of the usual type.4
The first mosque to have had towers is the Great Mosque of Damascus, erected early in
the eighth century, which had relatively short, square towers—some of them are still
visible today—at its four corners. These structures, however, were left over from the
building’s earlier incarnation as the enclosure surrounding the Roman temple to Jupiter
that once stood on the site. Historians do not know what purpose, if any, the Roman
towers may have served in Umayyad times, although it is quite possible that muezzins
would have climbed them to give the call to prayer from their tops. Many centuries later,
two of these short towers were surmounted by taller towers in the Mamluk style and a new
third tower was built on the north side of the mosque. 5
In Anatolia, which was opened to Muslim settlement after the battle of Malazgirt in 1071,
the first minarets followed the Iranian model, having slender cylindrical brick shafts with a
stone base, sometimes decorated with glazed tiles, a circular balcony and a conical roof.
The Ottomans, who expanded from northwest Anatolia into eastern Europe, further
developed this type in stone, and the presence of multiple minarets came to indicate that a
mosque had been founded by a sultan. The Üç Serefeli ("Three-Balcony") Mosque in Edirne,
built for Sultan Murat II in 1438, is the first Ottoman mosque to have had not only multiple
minarets but also multiple balconies on a single minaret. Each of its four stone towers has
a differently decorated shaft; that at the northwest corner rises to 67 meters and has three
balconies, giving the building its popular name. 6
The combination of tall pointed minarets and large lead covered domes gives Ottoman
architecture its distinctive form. In most mosques in the Ottoman Empire this was
achieved with a single minaret attached to the corner of a mosque. However, in the major
cities of the empire mosques were built with two, four or even six minarets. At some point
it seems to have been established that only a reigning sultan could erect more than one
minaret per mosque.
II. CONSTRUCTION OF MINARET
The minaret is one of the important elements of Ottoman architecture which bring
completion to a mosque. Minarets basically consist of following parts:
The pencil-shaped Ottoman minaret is a tall, faceted or fluted mostly polygonal
cylindrical shaft which has a ring on upper or lower part, resting on triangular buttresses,
(Transition zone) “pabuç” above the bases “kürsü” Transition zones mostly decorated with
Turkish triangle motives. Foundations, usually the ground underneath the towering
minarets are excavated until a hard foundation is reached. Gravel and other supporting
materials may be used as a foundation, and it is rare that one is built directly upon
ground-level soil.
Minaret has a circular balcony “serefe”, wider than the shaft and resting on a band of
muqarnas which looks like superimposed rows of fish scale. From the balcony rises a
small, cylindrical shaft called “petek” with a conical cap resting on two rows of fish scale.
The caps mostly covered with lead sheets and on the top of them, glazed alems consist of
kova, cubes, ring, armut, neck and crescent take place. 7
Stone masonry, basically a structural element, but it can also be employed to provide
decoration. Ashlar masonry, preferred for monumental structures for its longevity and
stability, has become the traditional material fort he minaret, which is itself the symbol of
mosque architecture, both as a structural and decorative feature. Massive stone facades
support these minarets whose shaft, also of stone, are shaped and interlocked both with
each other and with the facade wall. The main supporting element of the minaret is the
stairwell, while the stalactite structure beneath the minaret balconies both supports them
and acts as decorative feature. Some minarets as of the Sehzade mosque are decorated
throughout the length of the shaft. Shafts tend to be cylindrical or fluted, with stalactite
motives clustered around the balconies. The balustrade is also a focus of motive.8
The varied minarets of early Ottoman mosques gave way to soberer and plainer types,
particularly under the masterful hand of Sinan, the greatest Ottoman architect. Sinan’s
mosque for Süleyman the Magnificent in Istanbul (1550-1556) has two pairs of minarets
framing the courtyard: The taller two measure 76 meters and have three balconies each.
Sinan’s mosque for Sultan Selim in Edirne has four identical minarets framing the dome;
each stands over 70 meters tall and has three balconies reached by three nested helical
staircases.
     Seventeenth-century European travelers to the Ottoman Empire record that teams of
muezzins gave the call to prayer antiphonally from the several balconies of minarets, but
the increasing height and multiplication of minarets in Ottoman times cannot be explained
by piety alone. For architects, the minarets served to frame the domed masses of the
mosque; for patrons they remained a powerful symbol of Islam—and the Ottoman sultanate
—triumphant. Ottoman minarets consequently became a familiar sight as Ottoman
domination extended around the Mediterranean basin into Syria, Arabia, Egypt, North
Africa, Greece and the Balkans. The traditional square minaret continued to hold its own in
Morocco, where the Ottomans never ruled. 9
III. ANALYSING OF MONUMENTS
MINARETS OF SULEYMANIYE
The complex, which was built for Süleyman the Magnificent, was to be the largest of its
kind in Otoman architecture to be built after the century-old Fatih complex. At the centre
of the complex stands the mosque, which is surrounded by four medreses, a medical
college, stores, a Koranic college, mental hospital, soup kitchens, an infirmary, baths, a
school and two mausoleums. The size and complexity of the site, in actual fact, renders it
an example of urban design rather than an enclosed complex in the classical sense. The
function and structural organization of the buildings reinforce this. A geometrical
arrangement is discernable among them, although this was only achieved through
remarkable engineering to accommodate the uneven and steeply sloping site on the upper
slopes of the Golden Horn. Two of the medreses are built on successive levels to the north-
east of the site, and a series of terraces were constructed over the rest of the site. 10
The dome and the courtyard of the mosque, which is its foil, are no new development,
although Sinan has abandoned the square in favour of a rectangular court forty-four by
fifty-seven meters; nor is his use of four minarets: both concepts are related to the Üç
Şerefeli Cami at Edirne. But there the minarets were archaic, whereas Sinan has archieved
classical symmetry; moreover his are beautifully proportioned, with the two taller at the
junction of court and building possessing three balconies while the shorter at the extreme
North corners of the court have only two. This contrast in size helps greatly emphasize the
powerful axial movement from the north to south which is such an outstanding feature
and also the underlying pyramidal form, strongest of all architectural statements, of the
silhouette so grandly set above the Horn. 11
The corresponding corner-blocks on the North side are incorporated into the bases of
the taller minarets, while the four central buttresses avoid projecting into the portico by
forming the traditional recesses inside the mosque itself. The South corner-blocks are
excessively strong and their function is partly aesthetic, in that they balance those t the
North corners which have to support minarets which reach the height of 63.80 meters
exclusive of their lead caps. These may have been elongated in the seventeenth century,
and bring the total height to seventy-six meters. All four minarets are multi-faceted, and
their ten galleries are borne by sharply carved and vigorously pendant stalactite consoles
with balustrades designed in a diversity of traditional geometric patterns. Beneath the lead
caps light-blue glazed tiles lighten the effect as if they were windows. The square bases
which are simply panelled on each face, with pilasters set into their corners, reach to the
height of the portico over the west and east doors and their feet reach to the height of the
courtyard wall. The huge and clumsy bases of the earlier periods are now reduced to
harmonious proportions and the Stone shafts are as lissom as they are strong. Moreover,
the tapering of their trunks between an above their galleries is subtly handled so that their
diminution is felt rather than perceived and so adds to their appearance of height. 12
Measurements from minaret bases :
Height to the ceiling of porch of the taller minaret base, 3.35 meters, height of the door,
1.89 meters + 22 cm of threshold, width of the door interior 62 cm, height of the frame, 3.16
meters, width of frame 1.66 meters. The measurement of edge of shorter minarets
octagonal formed of base is 1.51 meters, height of the door from bottom of lentil, 1.85 + 21
cm. of threshold, moulding under the threshold is 24 cm., width of the door interior is 62
cm. eight of the frame, 3 meters, thickness of the lentil, 21 cm.
MINARETS OF SEHZADE
This was the first imperial complex to be built by Mimar Sinan. The complex consists of
a mosque, medrese, primary school, hospital, stable, caravanserai, timekeeper's room and
tombs.
     Although the complex bears the name of Sultan Suleyman's son Sehzade (Prince)
Mehmed, Suleyman originally intended the complex to be dedicated to himself, but upon
the sudden death of a son he had hoped would one day be Sultan he decided to dedicate it
to the Sehzade. The complex is located on a plateau dominating the city immediately beside
the Old Palace (now the University of Istanbul) and between the Fatih and Bayezid
complexes.
     The mosque is roofed by a central dome supported by four half domes. The plan
consisting of a cruciform element set within a square is the ultimate point of development
in the framework of the Ottoman architectural tradition. Previous steps in this
development are to be seen in the Uc Serefeli Mosque in Edirne, the old Fatih Mosque in
Istanbul and the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque in Uskudar. 13 With the Sehzade also for the first
time in Ottoman architecture solid walls are replaced by a colonnade. The minarets are
adorned in search of enrichment. The use of pink and white marble in the voussoirs is
attractive as are the motifs in relief which cover the twin minarets (because although
dedicated to Mehmet this is a sultan’s mosque). This charm Sinan was to reject as
dangerously sweet afterwards. The minarets are set the extreme north-east and north-west
of the mosque. Façate on bases which act as terminals for the lateral galleries outside.
Their twin şerefes are carried on stalactite corbels. The caps are tall but they have been
restored and the original ones would have been squat in the earlier sixteenth-country
manner. The serve as fine foils to the upsurge of dome and semi-dome and robust
decagonal turrets. This is the first formal, classical build-up in logical but aesthetic terms of
the exterior mass of a great mosque’s roofing. 14
Measurements from minaret bases :
Height from upper frame of the base, 2.92 meters, length of the door interior, 1.97
meters, width of the door interior, 62 cm, height of the lower frame 2.48 meters, width of
frame 1.50 meters.
c) MINARETS OF ATİK VALIDE
Atik Valide is Sinan’s largest complex after the Süleymaniye. Built fort he mother of
Murat III, Nurbanu Valide Sultan, it includes a mosque, a medrese, a han, alms houses, an
infirmary and schools of the Koran and Koranic Law. The mosque employs a plan which is
a variation on the six-piered dome system used by the architect earlier in the mosques of
Semiz Ali Paşa and Sokullu Mehmet Paşa at Kadırga, with the latter addition as a pair of
cupolas flanking the main dome which depart from the original plan. The complex as a
whole is much more interest than the mosque alone, and is notably successful in adapting
to the site, especially in the arrangement of interlinked fourcourts, which are spacious
enough to be considered terraced gardens. 15
The mosque has two polygonal shafted minarets, which were probably restored in the
nineteenth century, because it is a royal foundation and the egg decoration at the lower
part of the balcony and girlands from top of petek. There are some reluctants to accept this
mosque as the work of Sinan, because the plan is sophisticated reversion to that of Sinan
Pasha with the dome carried on six supports but there seems no reason to doubt that the
conception was his originally. The minarets can be reached from the portico and from
inside, which is exceptional at this period.16
MINARETS OF MIHRIMAH SULTAN AT USKUDAR
The mosque was built for Mihrimah Sultan, daughter of Süleyman the Magnificent,
together with a series of buildings, namely a medrese, infirmary, baths, alms house and
school. The mosque is one of Sinan’s more interesting early structural experiments,
although the other buildings in this small complex tend to abide by the general structural
rules for such complexes. While he was actually building the Şehzade, with its four semi-
domes, in the Mihrimah, at the same time he employed a plan involving three semi-domes
flanking the central dome. It is actually the first and only time he used that plan.17
The square main block of the harem of the mosque is as uncompromising as that of the
Valide Cami at Manisa. It rises starkly from behind the broad roofs and domes, its main
dome crowning all. The half-domes on the east and west are obscured to some extent, and
this gives the impression that the elegant minarets are set unusually far apart, the whole
effect being of stateliness which must have been greater still before the foreshore in front
of the building was cobbled and crowded with taxis and trucks. The second minaret, which
is so essential for the balanced design of the complex, shows this to be a sultan’s mosque;
the greater mosque which Mihrimah built for herself at Edirnekapı has only one. The
polygonal shaped shafts of minarets have thick rows of muqarnas at balcony level and have
entrance doors at the portico. 18 These two minarets, a privilege of royalty, viewed across
masts of ships and sinuous lateen sails announce the landmark.19
MINARETS OF MIHRIMAH SULTAN AT EDIRNEKAPI
The mosque is part of a complex including a medrese, mausoleum, baths and stores;
the medrese flanking the court, and the other buildings arranged close by in a compact
group. The mosque is one of Sinan’s less-innovative structures, but is, nevertheless, among
the most successful examples of the classical Ottoman style. The plan, a simple arrangement
of a row of three cupolas on either side of a raised dome, provides the framework for a
number of features which were unusual for the period. The support system, although
apparently simple, is in fact truly skeletal in a modern sense, with load-bearing members
taking all the weight of the superstructure, especially in the central domed area, where the
grand piers and intervening arches bear the entire load of the dome, leaving the walls free
to bear only their own weight. Piercing such curtain walls for illumination is a relatively
easy matter, and here the result is a highly-illuminated interior enclosed by walls pierced
by large numbers of windows. 20
Here on the sixth hill where the mosque constructed, once stood the monastery of St
Georgious and, although it is the most far-flung of the great mosques in the city, he raised
it high on a platform set on vaults and gave it a tall and slender minaret so that it could be
seen from afar both from within the walls and by the travelers from Edirne. Its height also
served as a foil to the dome. A single minaret is always less satisfactory than two, and one
of normal dimensions would have looked weak beside so large a cupola. As the Sultan's
daughter, Mihrimah was entitled to two minarets, but as legend has it, she ordered Sinan
to stop at one as a symbol of her desperate loneliness.
The mosque and its dependencies have twice suffered from severe earthquakes. The
Hadika reports that some of the stairs in the minaret were damaged in the first quake of
1719 and had to be replaced by a ladder. The mosque and the medrese also suffered. The
much more severe quake of 1894 brought the all too slender minaret crashing down
athwart the north-west corner of the mosque and its portico. A result has been the
disfiguring of the interior by twentieth-century stencilling.21 Because of the destruction
appeared both in the mosque and the minaret after earthquake of 1999, the minaret had
demolished in 2006 and rebuilding with new material process is still going on.
Measurements from minaret bases :
Width of minaret door frame, 1.89 meters, width of door interior, 1.30 meters, height of
the door interior, 2.04 meters, height of door frame, 2.67 meters.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Creswell. K. A. C.; “The Evolution of the Minaret with Special Reference to Egypt”,
Burlington Magazine 48, 1926, s: 134-140.
Egli, H.; Sinan, an Interpretation , İstanbul, 1997.
Eyice, S.;  “ İstanbul’da Bazı Cami ve Mescid Minareleri”, Türkiyat Mecmuası X , İstanbul,
1953, s:
Goodwin, G.; A History of Ottoman Architecture, London, 1971.
Kuban, D.; Sinan’ın Sanatı ve Selimiye, İstanbul, 1997.
Sözen, M.; Arts in the Age of Sinan, İstanbul, 1988.
Sözen, M.; Sinan Architect of Ages, İstanbul, 1988.