The streets of Turkish cities change after sundown during Ramadan, with families and friends congregating to break the fast out of doors, particularly in summer. The coming darkness also presents the opportunity to behold one of the uniquely Turkish contributions to Islamic culture – the “mahya,” a string of lights set between two minarets that usually spell out a religiously themed message.

No one seems to know where the Turkish word mahya comes from, but everybody agrees that stringing lights between minarets is an Ottoman custom. There are several stories concerning the beginning of the practice; one story concerns calligrapher Hafız Ahmed Kefevi, who was one of the muezzins at Fatih Mosque in 1614. He was so pleased with a handkerchief that he had embroidered that he took it to Sultan Ahmed I, who liked it so much that he ordered it to be publicly displayed by hanging it with ropes strung between two of the minarets of his mosque.

Another story sets the first occasion for the mahya to be strung up during the reign of Sultan Ahmed III at the suggestion of his grand vizier and imperial son-in-law, Nevşehirli Ibrahim Paşa, in 1721. Given the wide discrepancy in dates, it is no surprise that people are confused as to the practice’s origin.

Whatever gave rise to the use of mahya, it has continued over the centuries. It may have and probably did start out as a series of lanterns hanging down off the muezzin’s balcony. This hardly allowed for the creation of words or pictures since the strings of lanterns were vertical. The practice was referred to as “putting a caftan” on a minaret.

The practice was confined to mosques with two minarets which had to meet the requirement of having at least two balconies for muezzins so that they would be tall enough to accommodate the writing meant to be seen at a distance. That basically ruled out all mosques with the exception of the big mosques of Istanbul, although the late Professor Süheyl Ünver writes of seeing mahya inside small mosques when he was a boy. One surviving story explains that the people of Üsküdar were envious of the mosques on the historic peninsula and wanted their own. So they petitioned the sultan, which resulted in his ordering a second minaret to be built on the Mihrimah Mosque in Üsküdar’s central square.

Construction of mahyas

The construction of the mahya was carried out by experienced teams. Ropes, pulleys, hooks, lanterns, oil for lighting the lanterns and gloves to protect the hands were required to erect the signs. Ropes were easy to come by given Istanbul’s maritime connections, while people who constructed minarets would have been able to carry the equipment up the staircases inside the minarets; the difficult step, however, was putting the oil in iron boxes, attaching them to the ropes, lighting the oil and then stringing them out between the minarets. It is easy to appreciate the work given the constant presence of wind in Istanbul.

Expert “mahyacıs” (mahya makers) would have calculated how many ropes were needed and how they must strung to show off the creation. Today’s mahyas are simple compared to methods used in the Ottoman period. For instance, in imperial times, any writing would have been done in the Arabic script, which could be manipulated into artistic creations.

It is also known that pictures were very popular and were sometimes animated. One particular mahya, for instance, showed a boat with fish swimming below it. Teams of mahyacıs would compete with each other every year, offering their designs to the sultan. He would then choose the ones he wanted to see. Written slogans included ones wishing long life to the sultan or comments on the sacredness of the month of Ramadan.

Mahyas were customarily only strung during the month of Ramadan in the Ottoman period, but today the electric lights that replace the lanterns are lit on national days and other religious days. The change occurred in the 19th century when mahya lanterns were strung up on the hill in Emirgan to welcome the khedive (governor) of Egypt and in Beşiktaş to welcome Sultan Abdülaziz when he returned from Europe.

Today the mahya compete with billboards and electric lights and have lost much of the magic they possessed when the city’s people used to make their way through the streets only by lantern light. The Foundations Directorate, however, is fighting to keep the tradition alive. k HDN