Istanbul, Not Constantinople -- What The Four Lads Can Teach Us About The Middle East
Note: “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” is a novelty song recorded by the Four Lads and written on the 500th anniversary, in 1953, of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans.
In July of 2020, an event occurred in Istanbul that garnered little attention in the West: the Turkish government announced that it would convert the Hagia Sophia, once known as the Church of the Holy Wisdom, from a secular museum to a mosque. Completed in 537 A.D. by the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian I, the Hagia Sophia was, from the time it was built, the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years. It was the holy see of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople who, while not possessing the authority of the Pope in the Roman Catholic Church, was still considered the preeminent leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the first among equals. As a result, the church was the religious and spiritual center of that religion, the St. Peter’s of the eastern church, for over 900 years, until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
The conversion of the church to a mosque was not the first in its history. Upon conquering Constantinople, Sultan Mehmed II effected the first conversion. He decreed that much of the artwork in the church, which depicted Jesus, Mary, and numerous saints, be painted over. Four minarets were also built around the cathedral, giving it the Islamic look that it retains to this day. It served as the principal mosque of the newly named Istanbul until it was replaced by the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, otherwise known as the Blue Mosque.
In 1934, as part of his secularization of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk converted the Hagia Sophia from a mosque to a museum. Much of the cathedral’s original iconography was restored, and it became Istanbul’s leading tourist attraction for the next 85 years. As a consequence, the recent conversion back to a mosque had repercussions beyond the purely theological.
The reaction to this latest conversion by Western observers was mixed. Certain cultural organizations, such as UNESCO, which had designated the cathedral as a World Heritage site, strongly condemned the move, with UNESCO expressing its regret that the decision had been made unilaterally, without input from various stakeholders and communities, and also expressing its concerns that modifications to the cathedral would impact the monument’s “outstanding universal value.” UNESCO’s statement also stated that any alterations to the cathedral would violate the treaty governing World Heritage sites.
The reaction of religious leaders was, in the words of the New York Times, “relatively muted.” Pope Francis merely stated that he was “pained” by the decision.
While the rhetoric of Christian leaders was restrained, the rhetoric of Turkish President Recep Erdoğan was not. His decision to convert the Hagia Sophia back to a mosque was the result of his years-long campaign to restore the cathedral to its prior use as a mosque, which itself was part of a broader campaign to undo the secular reforms of President Atatürk and reshape Turkey as an explicitly Muslim country. His rhetoric, apparently uninformed by the principles of decolonization and in contrast to that of Christian leaders, was hardly muted:
“We maintained these lands and made them our homeland with our blood, our flag, and the sound of prayer from the mosques. This is why the re-opening of the Hagia Sophia as a mosque is important, as it is a legacy of conquest.”
The conquest to which Erdoğan referred was the Ottomans’ capture of Constantinople and the extinguishment of the Byzantine empire. As recounted in Charles Oman’s short and readable The History of Byzantine Empire, written before the demise of the Ottoman Empire, the fall of Constantinople was a critical chapter in the long struggle between Islam and the West, a struggle that continues today.
The Byzantine Empire -- Origins
As most students of ancient Rome know, the Byzantine Empire was the successor to the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Roman armies, led by Julius Caesar’s rival, Pompey, had conquered much of the Middle East, largely Hellenized after the earlier invasions of Alexander the Great, in 63 B.C. This conquest was completed when Augustus formally incorporated the Kingdom of Egypt into the Roman empire in 30 B.C. The Middle East was an integral part of the Roman Empire, providing much of its wealth and foodstuffs.
The process of splitting the empire dates, according to most historians, from the rule of Diocletian that began in 284. Most of the threats to Rome were coming from the East, and Diocletian appointed co-rulers (the Tetrarchy) in order to have authority closer at hand in far off provinces. Because of these military threats, the center of the Empire as a whole began to move east, as Diocletian maintained his court across from the Balkan peninsula. Byzantium was strategically placed at the center between East and West.
Due to its location, Byzantium was in the middle of several internecine wars between contenders to be Emperor, until rule was eventually solidified in one person by Emperor Constantine. Constantine recognized the shift in the balance of the empire, and determined to build his new capital in what he renamed Constantinople. When Constantine died, each half of the empire was ruled by one of his sons, which set off another century of civil wars. Most historians date the final split of the empire from the death of Theodosius I in 395, when each of his sons was granted half the empire.
The Byzantine Empire – Its Early Days
The Byzantine Empire stretched from Greece, through the Middle East, and along the northern coast of Africa. What is now modern Turkey was thoroughly Hellenized as a result of its long occupation, first by the Macedonians, and later the Romans. Up until the 15th Century, during the entirety of the Empire, all of the indigenous inhabitants of Asia Minor practiced Christianity and spoke Greek as their first language.
From its inception, the Byzantine Empire was beset by enemies on all sides. In the East, it was confronted by the armies of Persia. But its greater threats came from the West, from the Visigoths and then the Slavs. The former, led by their chief, Alaric, were successfully diverted to Italy, where they famously sacked Rome, hastening the end of the western empire. The Byzantine Empire remained frequently at odds with the Slavic tribes, particularly the Bulgars, using a combination of arms, diplomacy, and missionary work to keep them at bay.
It was because of these constant wars with the Slavs and the Persians that an exhausted Byzantium was ill-equipped to deal with the first invasion of the Middle East by Muslim Arabs in the 7th Century. The Arabs quickly conquered Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and eventually the North African provinces. They ultimately advanced to the gates of Constantinople, where they were twice defeated.
By the middle of the tenth century, however, the Byzantines had successfully dealt with the Bulgars, ultimately absorbing them into the Empire. As a result, they were able to launch a counter-offensive against the Arabs. The Byzantines retook much of the Middle East that they had lost, recapturing Aleppo and Antioch, and advancing into Palestine as far as Nazareth.
However, the Byzantine Empire was once again beset by forces from the West, in this instance the Normans, who drove the last remaining Byzantine troops out of Italy and invaded Greece. This occurred as a new Muslim force arose, the Seljuk Turks, who once again forced the Byzantines back into western Anatolia. The situation became even more complicated with the First Crusade, as Norman troops invaded Palestine, purportedly to aid the Byzantines in their fight against the Turks, but instead setting up their own principalities. The Byzantine emperor recovered suzerainty as far south as Antioch, but this only deepened the schism between the Byzantines and the West.
It was this schism that brought about the downfall of the Byzantine Empire. Norman forces comprising the Third Crusade, ostensibly sent to fight in Palestine, instead invaded Constantinople, capturing it in 1204 and installing their own rulers. The weakened Empire, despite removing its Latin rulers, never recovered from this disaster.
The Byzantine Empire -- The Final Days
It was a depleted and exhausted Byzantine empire that faced its final threat posed by a third Muslim invader, this time the Ottoman Turks from northwest Anatolia who had arisen from the breakup of the Seljuk empire. In addition to military and political setbacks, Constantinople in the 14th century had been struck by the Black Death, which claimed half of its inhabitants. By 1453, the Byzantines had lost virtually all of their territory, and occupied a small sliver of land around Constantinople. The only hope that the city had was the strength of its walls, which had withstood many previous sieges. However, after repulsing several attacks, the heavily outnumbered defenders were eventually overwhelmed.
The Turkish troops were allowed three days to plunder the city. The atrocities were recounted by numerous contemporary observers. Leonard of Chios, perhaps the best known of the eyewitnesses, described the plunder, murder, and other atrocities committed by the Turks:
The heathen infidels entered Sancta Sophia, the wonderful shrine of the Holy Wisdom, which not even the temple of Solomon could equal, and showed no respect for the sacred altars or holy images, but destroyed them, and gouged the eyes from the saints. They broke and scattered their holy relics too, and then their sacrilegious hands reached out for the sacred vessels of God, and they stuffed their pouches with gold and silver taken from the holy images and from the sacred vessels. Screams and cries rose to the heavens, and everyone of both sexes, and all the precious metal and property of all kinds in the city, were subject to their pillage . . .
Women were raped, virgins deflowered and youths forced to take part in shameful obscenities. The nuns left behind, even those who were obviously such, were disgraced with foul debaucheries.
Thousands of citizens had been slaughtered, and tens of thousands of Byzantine prisoners were sold into slavery. When Mehmed finally entered the city after three days, even he was appalled by the destruction that his troops had wrought, and he regretted the permission he had given to loot it. He is said to have wept when he saw the consequences of his order. He pardoned all those who had evaded capture, and it is reported that he personally paid the ransoms of some of the prisoners.
The Byzantine Empire -- The Aftermath
Although many consider the Roman Empire as a relic of antiquity, the eastern half of that empire survived for over 1500 years. Indeed, it was less than 40 years before Christopher Columbus discovered the New World that the Turks established their capital in what they named Istanbul, completing their conquest of what had been a predominantly Greek area.
Although the Greeks were driven from power in Asia Minor, their influence continued up until the 20th century. Millions of Greeks lived in Turkey until the end of World War I when, as a result of massacres perpetrated by the Turks, wherein hundreds of thousands of Greeks and millions of Armenians were estimated to have been killed, the Allies authorized Greece to occupy certain portions of Turkey to protect the Christian minorities therein. This occupation resulted in a three-year war between Turkey and Greece, which was concluded by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1924. That treaty provided for the forced repatriation of ethnic Greeks back to Greece, and ethnic Turks back to Turkey. While the estimates of the Greeks returned varies, it has been reported that the Christian population of Turkey was reduced from more than 4 million to 700,000. Hostilities between Greece and Turkey continue to this day.
Even with the expulsion of the Greeks in the 1920s, the influence of Greece upon Turkey continues. A study conducted by the website Ancestry.com determined that many, if not a majority of Turks are actually genetically Greek, descended from the native Anatolian population that preceded the Ottoman invasion. This study produced a firestorm in Turkey, and many government officials called for a boycott of the website. Experts suspected that many Greeks converted to Islam after the Ottoman victory and assimilated in order to seek advancement in a society now governed by Turks.
The Lesson of Constantinople
When viewed through the lens of Byzantine history, right up to the 20th century, it is hard not to see events in today’s Middle East and conclude that plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. At the risk of sounding simplistic, the enmity between Greeks and Turks, the massacres, and the forced repatriation, bear many similarities to the conflict between Israelis and their Muslim neighbors today. Indeed, the savagery of the Hamas attacks echoes that of the Turks almost six centuries ago. One principal difference, however, is that the murder, rape, and taking of captives that brought a hardened, medieval warrior such as Mehmed the Conqueror to tears appears to be a matter of indifference to many modern intellectuals in America’s universities today.
What the fall of the Byzantine Empire also tells us is that history is complicated. It is far too complicated to be encapsulated by simplistic jargon, a few slogans, a chart of intersectionality, or some preconceived “narrative.” Thomas Sowell, when asked what caused his journey, starting as a Marxist and ending a conservative, famously answered, “facts.” Unfortunately, that is a lesson that clearly still needs to be learned. More distressingly, it is a lesson that clearly is no longer taught.
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