Architectural anatomy of an Ottoman execution

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2013.72.3.301

Architectural Anatomy of an Ottoman Execution provides an architectural analysis of the execution in 1416 of Sheikh Bedreddin as the leader of one of the largest rebellions in Ottoman history. Saygin Salgirli argues that the selection of the execution site in the proximity of three Ottoman monuments in Serres, northern Greece (the Çandarlı Mosque, the first covered market of Serres, and the Gazi Evrenos hospice-kitchen), was closely related to the Ottoman political practice of governance through local institutions established with the hope of maintaining social consensus. By focusing on the relationship between the three monuments and their audiences, Salgirli stresses the contradiction between the conceived and the experienced political effects of the monuments as one of the main reasons behind the Rebellion of 1416. The same contradiction eventually led to the failure of the intended effect of Bedreddin’s public execution, both as a display of authority and as an attempt to reinforce social consensus.