Culture

Traditions, food, holidays and daily life

30 guides

Photograph of the tughra of Süleyman the Magnificent on paper: three tall staffs, two large ovals filled with gold and blue flowers, a long band to the right and a block of stacked letters

The Ottoman Tughra: Five Parts of a Sultan’s Monogram

What a tughra is, its five named parts shown on a real museum sheet, and how its shape...

A black-and-white photograph of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem: a ribbed dome on a drum above an eight-sided tiled building, with a roofed porch at the front

Ottoman Palestine: How It Was Governed and What Remains

How the Ottoman state ran Palestine for four centuries: provinces, communities, land law, railways and the buildings that...

Portrait of Sultan Mahmud II in a dark military coat with gold shoulder tassels, a white glove in one hand and a red fez with a jewelled plume, a long cloak over one shoulder

Sultan Mahmud II: Janissaries, the New Army and the Fez

Mahmud II ruled 1808 to 1839: the end of the Janissary corps, a new army, the fez, a...

Black-and-white lithograph portrait of a bearded man in a fez and an embroidered uniform with epaulettes, printed with the words Abdul Medjid, Sultan van Turkije

Sultan Abdülmecid I: Two Edicts, Four Loans and Dolmabahçe

Who Abdülmecid I was, what the Gülhane and Reform edicts promised, how the Crimean War led to four...

Sepia photograph of a young man with a moustache in a fez, seen from the chest up, in a richly embroidered uniform with a sash and fringed epaulettes; his face is turned to the left

Sultan Murad V: The Ottoman Sultan of 93 Days

Murad V in short: the night he became sultan, the 93 days of 1876, his deposition, Çırağan Palace...

Illustration: an old walnut tree shades a park bench with an open notebook and a pen, above the Bosphorus with a ferry and Istanbul domes in the distance

Nazım Hikmet Poems: 10 Essential Poems, What They Mean & Where to Read Them

Ten essential Nazım Hikmet poems, from Seni Düşünmek to The Walnut Tree: read them in Turkish with our...