Take a look at that gateway with its great curving canopy. It might pass for the entrance to any palace, yet its name echoed for centuries through every chancellery in Europe: Bab-ı Ali, in French "la Sublime Porte", the Sublime Porte.

1A gate that was a government

In the traditions of the East, rulers dispensed justice and announced their decisions at the palace gate, so "the gate" came to stand for power itself. At first the term referred to the entrance of the sultan's palace; from the mid-17th century, when the grand vizier set up his residence and offices here, it came to mean this building. European diplomats, who wrote in French, didn't say "the Ottoman government" but simply "the Porte".

2The raid of 1913

On 23 January 1913, in the middle of the Balkan Wars, a group of officers from the Committee of Union and Progress, led by Enver Bey, burst into the building during a cabinet meeting. In the shooting, the Minister of War, Nazım Pasha, was killed, and the grand vizier was forced to resign. The episode paved the way for the rule of the so-called Young Turks.

The buildings burned several times, in 1839 and 1911 among others; the gate and its name outlived them all.

Today it houses the Istanbul Governor's Office. The street climbing to your right, Babıali, was for decades home to Turkey's great newspapers.

3What to look for

  • The canopy, wide and wavy, which sheltered those waiting for an audience.
  • The Ottoman coat of arms at the top of the gateway.
  • The columns framing the entrance, in 19th-century European taste.
Nineteenth-century engraving of the Sublime Porte with officials and visitors
The Sublime Porte in a nineteenth-century engraving, before the fires that transformed the building.

Documented

Bab-ı Ali was the seat of the grand vizierate and, by extension, the name of the Ottoman government; it was stormed in a coup on 23 January 1913 and now houses the Istanbul Governor's Office.

Sources and credits

Carter V. Findley, «Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789-1922» (1980); Erik J. Zürcher, «Turkey: A Modern History» (2004); Istanbul Governor's Office (İstanbul Valiliği), history of the building.

Photos:

  • The Sublime Porte gateway, with its curved canopy and Ottoman coat of arms: Giovanni Dall'Orto, CC BY-SA 2.5.
  • Nineteenth-century engraving of the Sublime Porte with officials and visitors: Artista desconocido, Dominio público.

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