How the culture of the Janissaries - the crack troops of the Ottoman Empire - shaped Sinan and his unique architectural talents

摘要

Before Sinan was an architect, he was a soldier. But not just any old solider. Sinan was in the Sultan's elite guard. He was the toughest. The most trusted. The smartest of the lot. Sinan was a Janissary. For 200 years the Janissaries - a European derivation of the Turkish word yeni?eri, which means 'new troop' - were the driving force behind the empire's expansion. When Sultan Murad I established the Janissaries in 1383, the empire was largely confined to the lower Balkans. By the time Sinan was erecting his great mosques, bridges and aqueducts, in the second half of the 16th century, it was the most powerful state in the world. The Ottomans - and the marshal prowess of the janissaries - had conquered Anatolia, north Africa, Iraq and Arabia. They'd taken a slice off Persia and bitten deep into Europe too, swallowing up Hungary.