The Bosphorus - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 466

flanking conical-capped towers are landmarks on the Asian shore of
the Bosphorus.
It was more or less on this site, probably, that the Empress
Theodora, Justinian's wife, established her famous hospice for fallen
women, called Metanoia, or Repentance, of which Procopius writes
with such bitter irony: “Theodora also devoted considerable attention
to the punishment of women caught in carnal sin. She picked up
some five hundred harlots in the forum, who earned a miserable
living by selling themselves there for three obols, and sent them to
the opposite mainland, where they were locked up in the monastery
called Repentance to force them to reform their way of life. Some of
them, however, threw themselves from the parapets at night and thus
freed themselves from an undesired salvation.” The irony consists in
the fact that, according to Procopius, Theodora was herself a harlot,
and utterly unrepentent.
Çengelköy, the Village of the Hooks, so-called according to Evliya
because after the Conquest a store of Byzantine anchor hooks was
found here, is an exceptionally pretty village with at least one extremely
handsome yalı, that of Sadullah Paşa, dating from the late eighteenth
century. The seaside village square is very picturesque, shaded by
venerable plane trees and graced by a lovely baroque fountain. There
are good restaurants on the square where one can dine while gazing
down the Bosphorus towards the skyline of Stamboul.
BEYLERBEY
We now approach the Bosphorus Bridge once again as we come to
the village of Beylerbey, known anciently as Stavros, or the Cross.
Next to the iskele there is an imperial mosque known popularly as
Beylerbey Camii. According to its dedicatory inscription, this was
built in 1778 by Abdül Hamit I as part of a very extensive pious
foundation, the other buildings of which, however, are not grouped
round the mosque, as is the usual practice, but are near Yeni Cami
in the old city. The mosque, a work of the architect Mehmet Tahir, is
an attractive example of the baroque style, its dome arches arranged
in an octagon, vigorously emphasized within and without, its mihrab
in a projecting apse, richly decorated with an assortment of tiles of