{"id":1016,"date":"2016-10-23T16:20:15","date_gmt":"2016-10-23T15:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courtauld.org.uk\/crossingfrontiers\/?page_id=1016"},"modified":"2019-01-24T22:04:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T22:04:53","slug":"mosque-hospital","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.courtauld.ac.uk\/crossingfrontiers\/crossing-frontiers\/turkey\/divrigi\/mosque-hospital\/","title":{"rendered":"Mosque-Hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oya Pancaro\u011flu<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Mosque-Hospital Complex (1228-29) of the Mengujekid dynasty in Divri\u011fi is often referred to as a \u201cunique\u201d monument in medieval Anatolia.\u00a0 This perception is based especially on the form and decoration of the portals that give access to the two buildings.\u00a0 While it is true that these sumptuous portals are not comparable to any other surviving medieval Anatolian example, it is also the case that the complex is, in a number of other aspects, a true child of its times.\u00a0 The \u201cunique\u201d label does entirely not stand up to scrutiny if, for example, the architectural combination of two buildings into one socio-religious complex or their generally recognizable plans are taken into consideration.\u00a0 Moreover, the possibility that the \u201cunique\u201d portals were actually not that unusual in their own time and place is strengthened in light of the fact that no medieval architecture has been preserved in Erzincan\u2014the main seat of the Mengujekid dynasty in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries and a place likely to have had similar architecture\u2014due to its location on the North Anatolian Fault.<\/p>\n

The Divri\u011fi complex was built on the order of two members of the Mengujekid dynasty. The foundation inscription of the mosque ascribes it to Ahmadshah who was the ruler of Divri\u011fi at the time. The hospital inscription proclaims its founder as the \u201cjust queen\u201d (al-malika al-\u2018adila<\/em>) Turan Malik, the daughter of Fakhr al-Din Bahramshah (r. 1160s-1225), the best known of the Mengujekid rulers of Erzincan whose reputation rests as much on the sheer longevity of his reign as it does on his \u201cgood works\u201d reported by medieval historians.\u00a0 A common assumption is that the two patrons\u2014who were also cousins\u2014were married; though not impossible, there is no evidence for such a link between the two. What is more thought provoking is that the complex was built in the same year as the annexation of Erzincan by the Seljuk sultan \u2018Ala al-Din Kayqubad (r. 1220-37), sending its Mengujekid ruler, the brother of Turan Malik, into exile. Divri\u011fi appears not to have been annexed although a visually awkward and cramped inscription proclaiming the name of the Seljuk sultan on the north portal of the mosque suggests that Ahmadshah may have hastened to express his submission as a political maneuver to avoid the same fate.<\/p>\n

There is no denying that the portals are perhaps the most impressive part of the complex.\u00a0 The hospital portal consists of a grand arch enclosing a recessed fa\u00e7ade punctuated by a mullioned window above a relatively diminutive doorway (which may have been constricted later). The grand arch is enlivened by a variety of projecting decorative elements, both geometric and vegetal. \u00a0Adding to the variety were two depictions of human heads though these were unfortunately de-faced, sometime before the early twentieth century.\u00a0 The mosque has two main portals\u2014on the western and northern fa\u00e7ades\u2014and a small private royal entrance (sometimes described as a window) on the eastern fa\u00e7ade. The latter gave access to the now largely stripped down wooden gallery in the southeastern corner of the mosque\u2019s interior.\u00a0 The western portal, along with a good portion of the western fa\u00e7ade, appears to have been (re-)built at a later date, probably following a partial collapse that also seems to have necessitated the bulky cylindrical buttress in the north-west corner above which rises the sixteenth-century Ottoman minaret.\u00a0 The north portal of the mosque is a towering feature\u2014one of the highest portals of medieval Anatolia\u2014that is densely decorated with a great variety of vegetal and geometric motifs.\u00a0 Both in terms of their decorative features and their architectural compositions, the three major portals of the complex are without equal in the surviving medieval architecture of Anatolia. The eastern royal portal, on the other hand, follows the general trend for monumental portals of the period in Anatolia with low relief interlacing geometric designs and a muqarnas hood.<\/p>\n

Signatures of the builders involved in the construction of the complex are found in three locations. One, naming a certain Khurramshah b. Mughith al-Khilati, is located on the western arch carrying the dome in front of the mihrab in the mosque.\u00a0 The same name, but with a slight variation perhaps due to a scribal error, appears to be inscribed on the eastern wall of the hall opposite the entrance to the hospital.\u00a0 The third signature, on the mosque\u2019s eastern portal, is too damaged to read with certainty but it appears to include the word al-Khilati.\u00a0 Thus, whether or not the three signatures denote three different individuals, these names clearly refer to the city of Ahlat (Akhlat).\u00a0 It is worth noting that, in a previous generation, the late twelfth-century ruler of Divri\u011fi, Sayf al-Din Shahanshah, had also employed a builder from Ahlat for the construction of his tomb (the Sitte Melik). Seen together with the minbar of the mosque which is signed by a craftsman named Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-Tiflisi and dated 1241, these signatures reveal Divri\u011fi as a junction in an extensive network of travelling craftsmen in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.<\/p>\n

Image Gallery<\/h4>\n