Sword of Osman
The Sword of Osman (
The girding of the Sword of Osman was a vital ceremony and took place within two weeks of a sultan's ascension to the throne. The practice started when Osman I was girt with the sword of Islam by his mentor and father-in-law
The fact that the emblem by which a sultan was enthroned consisted of a sword was highly symbolic. It showed that the office with which he was invested was first and foremost that of a warrior. The Sword of Osman was girded on to the new sultan by the Sharif of Konya, a Mevlevi dervish, who was summoned to Constantinople for that purpose. Such a privilege was reserved to the men of this Sufi order from the time Osman I had established his residence in Sögüt in 1299, before the capital was moved to Bursa and later to Constantinople.[6]
Until the late 19th century, non-Muslims were banned from entering the Eyüp Mosque and witnessing the girding ceremony. The first to depart from that tradition was Mehmed V, whose girding ceremony was open to people of different faiths. Held on 10 May 1909, it was attended by representatives of all the religious communities present in the empire, notably the Sheikh ul-Islam, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, the chief rabbi (Hakham Bashi) and a representative of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The fact that non-Muslims were allowed to see the ceremony enabled The New York Times to write an extremely detailed account of it.[7] Mehmed V's brother and successor, Mehmed VI, whose girding ceremony was held on 4 July 1918, went even further by allowing the ceremony to be filmed. Since he was the last reigning Ottoman sultan, that is the only such ceremony that was ever put on film.[8] The Sword of Osman is held in the Imperial Treasury section of Topkapı Palace.
References
- OCLC 6298914. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
- ^ Hasluck 2007, pp. 604–622
- ^ Caruso, Lauren (2013). Bay'ah: Succession, Allegiance, and Rituals of Legitimization in the Islamic World (PDF) (MA). The University of Georgia. p. 37. Retrieved 6 September 2021.
- ^ Bagley 1969, p. 2
- ^ Quataert 2005, p. 93
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
- ^ Abdullah Kirbaçoglu (cinematographer) (1918-07-04). Crowning of Mehmed VI as last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 (Documentary). Amsterdam: MokumTV. Archived from the original on 2021-12-20. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
Bibliography
- Bagley, Frank R. C. (1969). The Last Great Muslim Empires. Leiden: BRILL. OCLC 310742207. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
- ISBN 978-1-4067-5887-0. Retrieved 2009-05-02.
- Quataert, Donald (2005). The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. OCLC 59280221. Retrieved 2009-04-18.