Mahomet III. was distinguished by vice and imbecility; but his reign was embellished by learned and upright men. Risman Ben Ac Hissar wrote a treatise on government for the use of his master, which, notwithstanding the excellent precepts contained in it, seems to have but little improved his weak and vicious sovereign. The treatise has come down to us, with many sage maxims. One was−“that it is the duty of a prince to govern with equity, for his own interest is concerned in it: justice is the support of the throne, and Allah requires that those persons only should be entrusted with power and dignity, who show themselves worthy of exercising them.” Another, more shrewd, declares that “a thousand friends are too few, and one enemy too many;” but the only injunction that seems to have had any weight with the heedless monarch was, that “he should not only honour and respect the Ulemah (men of the law,) but promote all his undertakings by securing the aid of their prayers, for they have the inheritance of the gifts of the Prophet.” Influenced by this advice, he determined on building a mosque, and adding another imperial Djami to the capital: in order to make it more splendid than that of any of his predecessors, he sent architects to collect the models of the Christian cathedrals in Europe, that his mosque might be constructed from the perfections of them all. This heterodox intention, however, was opposed by the Ulemah, who denounced it as a desecration of a temple dedicated to the Prophet; and while he hesitated in his architectural plans, and before he had matured the whole design, death overtook him, and he left his mosque unfinished.
It was reserved for Osman, or Ottoman, to complete it. His vizir died immensely rich, and, by the maxims of the Turkish empire, his wealth reverted to the sovereign. “The Sultan,” says the law, “never loses his inheritance to wealth, for, cast it upon the ocean, and let it sink to the bottom, it wall again rise to the surface, and become visible.” Enabled, it should appear, by this accession of means, he set about completing the unfinished mosque of his predecessor. This he effected, though his pious work did not propitiate Allah to alter his decrees with respect to his own fate; it was very miserable. He was seized by Daud, his rebellious vizir, and sent a prisoner to the Seven Towers; here, at the age of nineteen, in the prime of life, vigour of youth, and bloom of beauty, he was strangled, his features mutilated, and one of his ears cut off, and sent as a grateful present to his successor.
Notwithstanding the intentions of its first architect, the design of the mosque of Osman is purely Oriental; yet it has an elegant appearance. The approach is by an arcade, supported by a colonnade of light and lofty pillars, enclosing the court. The whole of the interior is covered by an expansive dome, without any visible support of columns. Our illustration represents the court with the congregation gathering for prayers, and some of them engaged in the usual preparations. Nothing can be more grave and solemn than these. The people seem impressed with their pious purpose before they enter the house of prayer. They divest themselves of their gayest apparel, because they suppose humility of appearance is required before God. As they approach, the groups appear to be more than usually serious and silent, as if meditating on what they were about to do. When arrived at the reservoir of water provided for ablution, they wash their face, hands, and feet, from a feeling that personal purity is indicative of purity of the mind. When ascending the steps leading to the entrance, they deposit their shoes, from a conviction that the place they are about to enter is holy ground; and before the gate they sometimes prostrate themselves in reverence to the tomb of the Prophet, whose relative direction and position is always designated in every mosque. Before the door is suspended a curtain, which it is necessary to push aside on entering, and it immediately falls back, to screen the congregation from profane eyes. The floor is generally covered with carpets, on which the people kneel, and then fall prostrate on their faces, resuming occasionally their erect position. During their prayer there is no turning of the head, no wandering of the eye, to mark any abstraction of thought, but every faculty both of mind and body seems wrapt and bound up in the solemn act they are performing. Travellers who have noticed this total engagement of the attention of a Turk when he supposes himself in the presence of his Maker, and contrasts it with the languid and careless inattention so often observed and complained of in our churches, have remarked, “that Christian men might take a lesson from men who were not Christians, in what manner they should worship their common God.”