Why ‘İstanbul’?

The fact is that İstanbul is rich not only in religious, political and military history but also in names and epithets. Necdet Sakaoğlu writes in the “İstanbul Ansiklopedisi” that 135 names have been used for the city. It is hardly uncommon for a city to have alternative names and epithets: Paris, City of Light. New York, also called Gotham, was once known as New Amsterdam. Cairo, Mother of the World, is also known as “Misr” (which is Arabic for “Egypt”). Damascus is sometimes called “Sham,” another name for Syria.

But no city compares with İstanbul in the variety of names used by different cultures at different times in history. To be fair, many of these 135 names are simply alternative renderings of Byzantium or Constantinople in various languages (e.g., Bizantion, Bizantiyya, Constantinopoli and Konstantiyya). But even discounting these linguistic variations, there are various names that carry special meaning, like New Rome, Caesar’s City or the City of Michael or Stephen or Constantine, not to mention “İslambol.” Each name reflects a particular culture’s attachment to the city. Remarkably diverse cultures have at one time or another laid claim to the city’s identity and asserted their own idea of what the city represents.

Based on Sakaoğlu’s articles in the İstanbul Ansiklopedisi,” the city’s complex history of names can be simplified as follows:

The earliest name of the city was Lycos (after the river now known as the Bayrampaşa River and covered by Vatan Caddesi). In the first century, Pliny the Younger used this name in reference to the settlement. Eventually a king by the name of Bizas is said to have ruled the settlement, which became know as Byzantium. According to Sakaoğlu, a 4th-century source mentions both “Lycos” and “Byzantium” as names for the city. Emperor Constantine made Byzantium the capital of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, building forums, palaces and walls and generally giving the city new stature and identity. “Constantinople” became the official name of the city in the fifth century.” Istanbul” (undotted “I” and emphatic, palatal “s”) and “Stamboul” (as well as Bizantiyya and Konstantiyya) were long used in Arabic texts. In addition to wide use of “Istanbul” (and variants), the Ottomans also coined official epithets for their capital city, e.g., “Âsitane” and “Dersaadet.” During the course of language reform and the introduction of the new alphabet in the early days of the republic, the name of the city was officially made “İstanbul” with a dotted “İ.” An undotted “I” was possible, but, according to Sakaoğlu, the dotted “İ” was chosen because it was distinctively Turkish. As for the European proclivity for the name “Constantinople,” Sakaoğlu, citing Evliya Çelebi, says that European residents of the city had tended to use “Constantinople” for centuries. Furthermore, Sakaoğlu suggests that once the palace moved from the old city to Beşiktaş in the 19th century, foreign residents of Galata and Pera again preferred the name “Constantinople” to the more Islamic sounding “Dersaadet” (House of Felicity) in referring to the historic peninsula.

But where does the name “İstanbul” come from? “Constantinople” is a mouthful, and people generally look for easier, simpler was to say things. It makes little difference whether “İstanbul” is a shorter version of “Constantinople” or a variation on a colloquial designation, e.g. “Eis Tin Polin” (In The City). What matters is that the name “İstanbul” has been around for centuries and is attested in Ottoman-language histories, poetry, etc.

Despite the fact that “İstanbul” has no literal meaning in Turkish, some argue that the name, particularly when written/pronounced with the dotted “İ,” resonates with Islam. This is because in Ottoman orthography, the dental “s” of “İstanbul” (dotted “İ”) is the same as the “s” in “Islam,” and one of the names coined for the city is Islambol/Islambul (both written the same way in Ottoman script but depending on pronunciation of the final vowel, the first means “Full of Islam” and the second means “Find Islam”). Linguistically, the name İstanbul, with its modern Turkish spelling, straddles Christianity and Islam.

The history of Ottoman epithets for the city is noteworthy, as they emphasize not only the city as the seat of government but as a place of spiritual well being and sanctity. İstanbul is sublime (aliyye or high, lofty), it is a threshold (âsitan) and a setting for mystical happiness or contentment (saadet). The phrases “Gate of Paradise” and “Threshold of Divinity” are not, as far as I know, listed among the official Ottoman epithets for İstanbul, but they are implicit in the various uses of Âsitane.

Âsitane comes from the Persian âsitan/âstan, which according to Sakaoğlu, means threshold, doorway, entry and beginning, as well as ruler’s palace or a place of battle. The word is also used to refer to a sufi lodge or a saint’s tomb, hence a place of prayer and meditation, a place for approaching God. Âsitane was commonly used in official correspondence until the beginning of the Tanzimat -- a period of reformation that began in 1839 and ended in 1876; the preferred epithet then became Dersaadet (House of Felicity) during the last century of the empire. İstanbul thus, is a place close to heaven, a place from which one may approach the holy, a source incomparable happiness (not to mention power and authority).