Istanbul Sultan Boat Mosque - Egypt

Photograph of the selamlik (ceremony of the Ottoman Sultan's Friday prayer), in the Ottoman Capital of Istanbul (Constantinople). A rare occasion for his citizens and visiting westerners to catch a glimpse of the secluded Monarch and Khalife. From this capital he ruled over an extensive, though slowly shrinking and discontented, empire in Asia that included Syria (Aleppo, Damascus, Mont-Liban, Palestine, Jordan), Mesopotamia, The Hejaz, Yemen, and officially Egypt, and north Africa. "He (Sultan Abdülaziz), went by Imperial Kayik (boat) to the Ortaköy camii (mosque) on the Bosphorus, built by Nikolos (of the Armenian architectural dynasty of the Balians) in 1853-4 on the Bosphorus. The oars worked in perfect unison, dipping and rising as one single pair. Along the banks of the Bosphorus bands played, troops presented arms, and people made low reverences. The Sultan, the city and the sea united to celebrate God and the empire" CONSTANTINOPLE, Philip Mansel 1995.