| Toklu Dede Mosque | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Location | Istanbul,Turkey |
 | |
| Geographic coordinates | 41°02′23″N28°56′33″E / 41.0396°N 28.9424°E /41.0396; 28.9424 |
| Architecture | |
| Type | Mosque |
| Style | Byzantine architecture |
Toklu Dede Mosque (Turkish:Toklu Dede Mescidi), was anOttomanmosque inIstanbul, Turkey.[1] The building was originally aByzantineEastern Orthodox church of unknown dedication.[1] It was almost completely destroyed in 1929.[1][2]
The edifice lay inIstanbul, in the district ofFatih, in the neighborhood (Turkish:Mahalle) ofAyvansaray. The only remaining part of the building – the south wall – is enclosed in a modern house atToklu Ibrahim Dede Sokak, a few meters inside thewalled city, a short distance from the shore of theGolden Horn, at the junction between theBlachernae wall and the largely pulled downGolden Horn walls.
The origin of this building, which was erected at the northern foot of thesixth hill ofConstantinople in the neighborhood ofta Karianou,[3] part of theBlachernae quarter, is obscure. The small shrine lay on the inner side of the Wall ofHeraclius, less than 100 m west of the now demolished Gate of Küçük Ayvansaray (in Greek the Koiliomene Gate) of theGolden Horn Walls, and east of theGate of Blachernae.[4] The church, – in common with the nearbyAtik Mustafa Pasha Mosque, also originally a Byzantine church – has been identified with Saint Thekla of the Palace ofBlachernae (Greek:Άγία Θέκλα τοῦ Παλατίου τῶν Βλαχερνών,Hagia Thekla tou Palatiou tōn Vlakhernōn).[5] However, the building lay too far from theBlachernae Palace, so that this identification, based only on the similarity of the name, should be rejected.[6] Stylistically the church belongs to theKomnenian era (middle/second half of the 11th century).[1][7] At the beginning of the 14th century – in thePalaiologan era – the church underwent minor architectonic changes and itsfresco decoration was renewed.[1]
After theFall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, between the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century the church was converted into a small mosque (Mescid) by Toklu Ibrahim Dede, a former soldier ofMehmed the Conqueror,[8] who was the custodian of the nearbytürbe of Ebû Șeybet ül Hudrî, like the more famousAbu Ayyub al-Ansari (the standard bearer ofMuhammad), acompanion of the Prophet.[1] Both died during thefirst Arab siege of Constantinople and were buried outside the wall of Heraclius. Thetürbe of Ebû Șeybet ül Hudrî is now placed in the citadel between the Wall of Heraclius and that ofLeo the Armenian.[9]
In 1929 the owner of the building demolished it almost completely, leaving in place only the south wall and the apse. With the demolition the paintings, whose existence was known since 1890, came again to light. The first surveying of the remains occurred in 1954.[1] As of 2012, only the surviving south wall, enclosed in a new building, and the name of the road where it once lay remember the small edifice.
The building had a rectangular plan with external sides of 14.2 m and 6.7 m.[1] A square singlenave was surmounted by abarrel vault and covered at its center by a dome with a diameter of about 4 m.[7][10] This was supported by arches carried by angular piers.[10] The nave was preceded by anesonarthex and ended towards East with abema and a polygonalapse adorned internally and externally with shallow niches.[1][7][11] The plan of the building is similar on a reduced size to that of theChora Church.[10] The edifice'sbrickwork consisted of courses of rows of white stones alternating with rows of redbricks. The external wall were divided with half pillars and withlesenes surmounted by arches.[7] The church was decorated with 14th-century frescoes, among them images of the SaintsEleuterus,Abercius,Polykarpos,Spyridon,Procopius andNicetas, some of them framed inmedallions. The barrel vault above the altar was decorated with a fresco representing theNativity of Jesus.[1]
