102 Reviews of Books

PURE WATER FOR THIRSTY MUSLIMS. A STUDY OF MUSTAFA 'ALI OF GALLIPOLI'S KUNHV L-AHBAR. By
JAN SCHMIDT. (Publicaties van het Oosters Institut, III.) pp. xvi, 496. Leiden, Het Oosters Institut,
1991. Dfl. 150.

Mustafa 'All of Gallipoli (1541-1600) and Evliya Celebi, the seventeenth-century author of the
Seyahatname, share the unusual distinction of being the only Ottoman literary figures whose work
has been the subject of several scholarly investigations of the highest quality. Jan Schmidt's study of
'All's monumental history, the Kiinhii'l-Ahbar, is a welcome addition to Andreas' Tietze's stylistic
analyses, editions and translations of some of 'All's works, and to Cornell Fleischer's biography,
Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire. Schmidt has provided an invaluable guide to the
Kiinh. For anyone who is intending to work with the text, the Introduction and Appendices will be
essential reading. The Introduction provides a brief biography of the author, the history of the text
itself and an account of its reception, while the Appendices give a clearly laid out and succinct
summary of the contents, and a catalogue raisonnee of all the known manuscripts. This catalogue is
in itself a major achievement. The three main chapters of the book, however, give an analytical
description of the contents of the Kiinh, an approach which the author has used to evaluate 'All's
concept of history and his originality as a historian. The titles of the chapters themselves provide the
best description of their content: "Sources, source criticism and the voice of the author"; "World
picture and the pattern of history"; and "Themes, language and style". In these chapters Schmidt
has not only provided a model of literary analysis, but in taking up and questioning some of the
themes raised by other scholars - notably Fleischer's insistence on 'All's originality as a historian -
he has also laid the grounds for a fruitful debate.
COLIN IMBER

SINAN: OTTOMAN ARCHITECTURE AND ITS VALUES TODAY. By GODFREY GOODWIN, pp. 132, 160 illus.,
3 maps. London, Saqi Books, 1993.

This is a remarkable book about a remarkable architect. Godfrey Goodwin's study of Sinan is a
brilliant and typical essay in his inimitable style, and distinguished above all for its approach. Most
of us would rather acknowledge genius than discuss it, and whilst minor art historians nibble like
minnows at the edge of greatness, Godfrey Goodwin has the courage to tackle his subject full on.
We all know that Sinan was one of the greatest of architects of all time, but we seldom ask why.
Here, for once, is a supremely elegant analysis of what made him great, and also why his
achievements have a real relevance for us today.
The facts about Sinan's life are few, but startling. He was born in the last decade of the fifteenth
century, and died a natural death in 1588, aged one hundred (A.H.). Although he was employed as
an engineer during his military career, he was not appointed Royal Architect until he was fifty, so
all his major works were created during the second half of his life. But as the author points out, no
one without the organisational skills he acquired during his long and distinguished army career could
ever have marshalled the infinitely complex supplies of manpower and materials needed to build
such major monuments as the Siileymaniye.
What is intriguing about Sinan is that he was essentially receptive to the contemporary aesthetic
of the world into which he was born, and then proceeded to ring every conceivable change in the
repertoire of architectural forms that he had inherited. Goodwin is careful to point out the
importance of the past, not only the Byzantine legacy of Haghia Sophia, but also earlier Ottoman
monuments in Amasya, Bursa and Istanbul and most important of all, the Uc §efereli mosque in
Edirne.

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 Reviews of Books 103

While mosques such as the §ehzade demonstrate Sinan's mastery of the Ottoman style, with the
single central dome as a focus for the structure, his introduction of exedra allowed a novel fluidity
of interior space; and the exteriors incorporate arcades which have more than a hint of Renaissance
facades. He was also a master of the tricky site, the mosque of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha being a prime
example. So when he was commanded to construct the Suleymaniye complex, he reacted in
typically bold style. The movement of the royal palace to Topkapi Saray allowed him freedom to
carve up the old Saray at will. His solution was to improve and enlarge the already commanding
site by constructing a great plane surface upon which to build the mosque and the subsidiary
structures, very much akin to the haram area which serves as a foundation for the Dome of the Rock
in Jerusalem. The vaults alone which support this platform took a year to build. On this tabula rasa
he then designed the Suleymaniye mosque, whose great dome and ascending quartet of slim minarets
has defined the skyline of Istanbul for eternity. But when you approach the building on foot, it is
distanced from you by the encompassing space. The necklace of buildings which surround the
mosque and royal cemetery on all sides include several medreses, an imaret, a daru'isifa, haman, water-
cistern and even a wrestling-ground. Sinan's own house, sebil and tomb were located at the north-
eastern extremity of the complex, almost exactly on an imaginary diagonal line drawn through the
core of the central mosque.
The author leads you as it were by the hand throughout the mosque, pointing out how the lateral
thrust is contained by massive buttresses with parallel sets of galleries and arcades ingeniously inserted
between them, giving the exterior its distinctive, Italianate facade, like "one-sided courtyards". This
still allows the great pile of domes and semi-domes to build up into a magnificent climax. When one
considers the breadth and complexity of Sinan's commission - to build an imperial mosque, a royal
cemetery, and dozens of related institutions on an irregular site, one can only marvel at his sense of
using disorderly terrain to ultimate advantage. Everything fits; and yet everything is different, and
the solutions to the design problems of individual buildings show an extraordinary diversity. As
Goodwin neatly puts it, it has "the simplicity of any equation once it has been solved". He is also
particularly astute in his analysis of light; for instance, when discussing the Mihrimah mosque at
Edirne Kapi, with its four towers supporting massive walls honeycombed with windows, he
observes, "light is not enough, it must be given form, and when light has form, it has mystery".
This train of thought leads on to one of the most perceptive sections in the book, on the
importance of light. Here, of all things, he contrasts a house by Richard Neutra in Santa Barbara
with the curtain walls of the Mihrimah mosque. Both have allowed the maximum amount of light
to penetrate the interior, in Neutra's case by removing the walls entirely and substituting glass. But
for Sinan this was only a stage, and a lesson learned before he designed the Selimiye mosque in
Edirne, with its infinitely more subtle use of different qualities of light. Again, as Goodwin phrases
it, "Light in itself has no value... great architects trap it and redirect it."
The Selimiye was Sinan's masterpiece; here all his experience is crystallised in final form. From
this point onward, Goodwin diversifies; discussions of the form and function of domes and minarets,
negative space and decoration, mathematics and architecture, are studded with original and
provocative ideas. These flank the second major section in the work, on space and form. Here again
Goodwin's originality of thought is evident; who but he could have contrasted Taksim in Istanbul
and the Place de la Concorde (both bad) with the meydan in Isfahan (good), arguing that "space
can be stretched too far... [and] loses impact or conclusions for lack of defined form or function".
This spills over into an analysis of space in Islamic miniature painting, which he uses as a key to a
correct understanding of Sinan's perception of form. As he sees it, the Selimiye "developed ideas
beyond the imagination and grasp " of his successors.
Throughout his study of Sinan, Godfrey Goodwin finds words to talk about greatness; every page

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 104 Reviews of Books

is sprinkled with striking phrases, analogies and comparisons. Like a good cookery book, one's
immediate reaction is to rush to the kitchen and try out the recipes; in this case, a quick trip to
Turkey with the work in hand. Impossible to paraphrase, one can only quote the author's masterly
conclusion in full:

To consider the work of Sinan is not to consider a style of architecture which is only one man deep. But it is,
indeed, a matter of profundity. What has been postulated here is that he has until now been seen in the narrow
concept of only one style as if he were a silhouette or a stage set of a single culture. This is to exile the mind to
the level of popular guidebooks... He brought new enlightenment when he was alive yet he would only be a
memory were that all. It is not. His is one of those who went before and left an example with which to stimulate
the living eye.
JOHN CARSWELL

T H E KHANATE OP EREVAN UNDER QAJAR RULE 1795-1828. By GEORGE A. BOURNOUTIAN. (Persian

Studies Series, No. 13.) pp. xxvii, 355, 6 maps, Costa Mesa, Calif, and New York, Mazda Publishers
in association with Bibliotheca Persica, 1992. US 835.00.

This is substantially the same book as the same author's Eastern Armenia in the Last Decades of Persian
Rule, 1807—1828 (California, 1982), reviewed in JRAS 1984, 1, pp. 150-2. The geographical and
temporal scope of the new book have been slightly expanded, the chapters retitled and reordered and
some details added to take account of points made in reviews of the earlier work and of recent
publications, but there is no major change from the earlier work such as might induce scholars to
rush to obtain the new version. Indeed the principal justification for the present book is that the first
book is now difficult to find.
In the circumstances it is unnecessary to say much about the work except that those who are
interested in the period and who do not know the book should certainly read it. Bournoutian's
knowledge of the sources is enviable: he uses sources in Russian, Armenian and Persian and materials
from the archives of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. And his interpretation is new; departing
from the gloomy picture of a backward and anarchical province which has often characterised
Russian and Soviet writing on the subject Bournoutian emphasises the positive elements of Qajar
rule, notably during the sway of the governor from 1807 to 1827, Husayn Qull Khan Qajar.
Bournoutian covers political, economic and social affairs and provides a remarkable amount of
information about conditions in the province. His book is hard going at times but rewarding
reading.
M. E. YAPP

PERSIAN LITERATURE: A BIO-BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SURVEY BEGUN BY THE LATE C. A. STOREY. VOL. V. PART
1. POETRY TO CA. A.D. IIOO. By FRANCOIS DE BLOIS. pp. 240 +errata slip. London, The Royal Asiatic
Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1992. £14.95.

Charles Ambrose Storey, who succeeded R. A. Nicholson to the Sir Thomas Adams Chair of
Arabic at Cambridge University, undertook to fill a notable gap in Middle Eastern studies by
providing a bio-bibliographical survey of Persian literature in the broadest sense, comprised of
authors, manuscripts and printed works, as a counterpart to Carl Brockelmann's Ceschichte der
arabischen Litteratur. The first fascicle appeared in 1927, but Storey, who died in 1967, leaving his
whole estate to the Royal Asiatic Society, did not succeed in completing the task. His work, some

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