Historical mosque orientation in Turkey: Central-Western Anatolia Region, 1150-1590

摘要

The orientation of buildings in the ancient civilisations has been referred to the movements of several celestial bodies above the horizon on characteristics dates (two solstices and equinoxes). However, Muslims have used a sacred direction {qibla) towards Kaaba located in the courtyard in the Sacred Mosque in Mecca to pray and to perform various ritual acts in their daily lives since the early days of Islam. Thus, the mosques had then to orientate towards the qibla direction, being indicated by a niche in the focal point of the qiftfa-wall wherever they were building on the Earth. This article focuses on the mosque orientation in Turkey before the seventeenth century with regard to the astronomical knowledge derived from Arabic sources before Islam, mathematical theory and spherical computation derived from Greek sources and traditions based on the early Islamic period. The mosque orientations are compared to the qibla directions that are used in sacred geography which was determined by the producers of folk astronomy and in the application of the geometric or trigonometric formulae in mathematical astronomy.