Lonely Planet İstanbul Guide

Mehmet died in 1481 and was succeeded by Beyazıt II (r 1481–1512), who was ousted by his son, the ruthless Selim the Grim (r 1512–20), famed for executing seven grand viziers and numerous relatives during his relatively short reign. The building boom that Mehmet kicked off was continued by his successors, with Süleyman the Magnificent (r 1520–66) and his architect Mimar Sinan being responsible for an enormous amount of construction. The city was endowed with buildings commissioned by the sultan and his family, court and grand viziers; these include the city’s largest and grandest mosque, the Süleymaniye (1550). Later sultans built mosques and a series of palaces along the Bosphorus, among them Dolmabahçe. However, what had been the most civilised city on earth in the time of Süleyman eventually declined along with the Ottoman Empire, and by the 19th century İstanbul had lost much of its former glory. Nevertheless, it continued to be seen by many Europeans as the ‘Paris of the East’ and, to affirm this, the first great international luxury express train, the famous Orient Express, connected İstanbul and the French capital in 1883. The city’s decline reflected that of the sultanate. The concept of democracy, imported from the West, took off in the 19th century and the sultans were forced to make concessions towards it. In 1876 Sultan Abdül Hamid II allowed the creation of an Ottoman constitution and the first-ever Ottoman parliament. However, these concessions didn’t last long, with the sultan disabling the constitution in 1876 and suspending the parliament in 1878. A group of educated Turks took exception to this and established the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP), better known as the Young Turks, to fight for the reformation of the Ottoman sultanate and the introduction of democratic reform. In 1908 they forced the sultan to abdicate, reinstated the constitution and assumed governance of the empire. One of the factors leading to the the Young Turks’ decision to ally themselves with the Central Powers in WWI was their fear that the Allies (particularly Russia) coveted İstanbul. Unfortunately, the alliance led to their political demise when the Central Powers were defeated. The Young