Haghia Sophia - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 54

were always kept full of water “to cool the Mohammedans overheated
by their pious gesticulations.” The marble preacher's throne is located
in the middle of the northern arcade. The four marble platforms for
the readers of the Kuran are the large one next to the south-east pier
and the three smaller ones that are built up against the other piers.
The most noteworthy of the later Ottoman additions are the very
elegant library built beyond the south aisle by Sultan Mahmut I in
1739, and the imperial loge to the left of the apse, constructed by the
Fossatis for Sultan Abdül Mecit in 1847-9.
Of the Fossatis' decorations the most obtrusive and regrettable are
the eight huge green levhas, or medallions, which hang from the piers
at gallery level. These were done by the calligrapher Mustafa Izzet
Efendi and contain in golden letters the Holy Names; that is, those
of Allah, the Prophet Muhammed, and the first Caliphs and Imams.
The great inscription in the dome is also by Mustafa Izzet Efendi.
This replaces an earlier inscription with the same text, Surah 24:35
from the Kuran.
For a vivid picture of what Haghia Sophia was like as a mosque
we turn to the Seyahatname , where Evliya Çelebi describes the
building as it was in the reign of Sultan Murat IV, in the middle of
the seventeenth century. From Evliya's description we see that Haghia
Sophia partook once again of the glories of the age, just as it had 11
centuries before in the reign of Justinian:
This mosque, which has no equal on earth, can only be
compared to the tabernacle of the seventh heaven, and its dome
to the cupola of the ninth. All of those who see it remain lost
on contemplating its beauties; it is the place where heavenly
inspiration descends into the minds of the devout and which
gives a foretaste even here below of the Garden of Eden. Sultan
Murat IV, who took great delight in this incomparable mosque,
erected a wooden enclosure within it near the southern door,
and when he went to prayer on Friday caused cages containing
a great number of singing birds, and particularly nightingales,
to be hung there, so that their sweet notes, mingled with those
of the müezzins' voices, filled the mosque with a harmony