Explore Ottoman Fountains – Observer Travel
In the old Ottoman Istanbul days every two hundred meters there use to be a fountain. Many of them do not exist anymore. The one that still exists doesn’t have enough interest from local people. Ottoman gave so much importance to fountains not only water is vital for human beings but there is also religious thinking behind that.
In many religion, there are right and left angels on our shoulder who writes good and bad. This understanding is very strong in Islam.
Every Muslim wants to leave something for the afterlife. Before plastic come into our lifestyle there were no water pipes bringing water to the houses. Mostly young ladies use to go close fountains with their buckets to bring water to their houses. (There would be another article to write later about what they use to chat about when they were filing their buckets.) But how much chatting would make them happy, “bringing water to the home job” was the opposite. And if there were not a close fountain to your home you may fight every day with your mother not to go for water.
Any fountain that had been built closer to their house was a celebration for that young ladies. Anyone who built a fountain would shower by those ladies’ good prayers.
Building a fountain was not so expensive but so important for humans. That is why many fountains has been built during the Ottoman empire.
Some small some enormous size. Especially fountains built by Sultans were extremely beautiful. In the present day, you can see one of the most fascinating ones at the front of the Topkapi palace entrance.
Hanifi YILMAZ
