Imperial Council

This was a place for the most important talks in the Ottoman Empire.

It was called Under the Dome, or Kubealtı. It was also called the Imperial Council, or Divan-ı Hümayun. Here, the affairs of the empire were discussed.

The building was made during the rule of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent. He was also called Sultan Süleyman the Lawgiver. He ordered that the work of the empire should be discussed here. The council met four times a week.

The building is semi-open and has two domes. One room near it was the record office. It was called the Defterhane. All official papers were kept there.

Later, the building was renewed during the rule of Sultan Selim the Third. It was renewed again during the rule of Mahmud the Second. The inside decoration was changed to match the taste of those times.

The work had a clear order. State affairs were discussed under one dome. The decisions were written under the other dome.

In the part renewed in the style of the 16th century, the Grand Vizier sat near the window of the Tower of Justice. The Grand Vizier was the sultan’s chief minister. Other viziers sat to his right. The military judges of Anatolia and Rumelia sat to his left. The chief court calligrapher sat on a divan at the back. A calligrapher was a person who wrote in a very fine and beautiful way. The clerks worked in the other room.

The sultan did not usually join the meetings in person. But sometimes he listened from a hidden gilded screen. Gilded means covered with gold. If the sultan wanted to speak more about a matter, he closed the screen. Then he held a private meeting with the vizier in the Audience Chamber, called the Arz Odası.

The last meeting here was in 1876. In that meeting, the council members decided to remove Murad the Fifth from the throne.

After Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the Turkish Republic in 1923, the hidden screen was removed.

This building also had strong symbols. The dome stood for the universe. The globe hanging from the dome stood for Ottoman power over the world. The chain stood for reason. People thought that one end of the chain was held by the Grand Vizier. This showed that the state should be ruled fairly.

The place was built as an open space, so the discussions could be heard. On the days when the council members met, the mehter performed. The mehter was the old Ottoman military band.

A later imperial band was called Mızıka-yı Hümayun. In 1910, it recorded the March of Sultan Mehmet Reşat. This music is remembered as a sign of the end of an era.