Among these ontological markers of Kasap ƒlyas, the Davud Paœa wharf is of special importance. This wharf, which probably preexisted the mahalle, was far from being essential to the general port activities of a large city like Istanbul. The most important wharfs were always, in Byzantine as in Ottoman times, located along the coast of the Golden Horn, which was a magnificent natural harbor. To these were brought most of the goods imported to the city and the main wharfs used for passenger transportation were also situated along the coast of this harbor. The Davudpaœa wharf was nev-
ertheless one of the very few jetties situated on the Marmara Sea coast of the walled city. Along a one-mile stretch of coastline from Langa to Samatya, among the vegetable gardens and the fishermen’s huts, there were but two small jetties: that of Yenikapı, mostly used for bringing fruits and vegetables from the Asian coast in the nineteenth century, and our Davudpaœa wharf.16
The Davudpaœa wharf served as a basic point of reference for a much wider area than our neighborhood.
This wharf epitomizes the functional articulation of Kasap ƒlyas to the rest of the city. To this small wooden wharf, barges brought such construction materials as wood for burning, timber, coal, straw, sand, and gravel. These were then stored in a number of nearby warehouses within the Kasap ƒlyas mahalle, all situated between the Davudpaœa wharf and the main thoroughfare of Kasap ƒlyas that passed between the mosque and the hamam. Records suggest that the presence of warehouses in the area was as ancient as the wharf, or as the neighborhood itself. As early as 1511 a deed of trust mentions the existence of a “seller of wood/timber near the Davudpaœa wharf.”17 Traces of these shops and warehouses are to be found throughout the centuries.
These warehouses obviously did not address themselves to the sole inhabitants of Kasap ƒlyas, or even to the larger Davudpaœa area of which Kasap ƒlyas was a part. Most of these goods were commodities of first necessity, whether for fuel (wood and coal), for transportation (straw), or for construction and repair work (sand and gravel). As a matter-of-fact, the general layout of the city of Istanbul commanded that an important part of the import, transportation, and domestic distribution of these bulk goods be done by sea, to avoid the hilly and dense maze of narrow streets in the city center. They had to be stored in warehouses situated not too far away from their port of disembarkment. From there, retail trade and distribution could proceed. The Davudpaœa wharf and the warehouses in our mahalle serviced a large portion of the city, in fact almost the whole of the Marmara seacoast west of Langa.
Our neighborhood therefore had an urban commercial function whose importance exceeded the narrow limits of a small and residential mahalle. Wood and timber was brought to the capital-city of the Ottoman Empire from various Black Sea ports and their first points of entry were situated along the southern shore of the Golden Horn (in Cibali and Odun iskelesi, to be more precise).18
The Davudpaœa wharf and the warehouses in the Kasap ƒlyas mahalle served as one of the main transiting points for urban retailing and distribution.
The centuries-long presence of the wharf and of the attached warehouses did put a durable imprint on Kasap ƒlyas. The owners of the warehouses used local labor and facilities, and many of the street-porters living within the mahalle were partly or fully employed in the transportation and distribution of timber, sand, and so forth. The whole area acquired, as we shall see, a certain disrepute due to the presence of the porters and of various warehouse workers, a largely “nonfamilial” and mostly migrant group within an otherwise almost completely residential area. The small wooden Davudpaœa wharf
was also sometimes also used for public transportation. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century listings of boats and barges operating in Istanbul show that a few, though not many, of them were permanently attached to the Davudpaœa wharf. These boats and barges must have carried passengers to and from the city center, that is, to and from other wharfs situated on the Golden Horn. This public transportation activity probably continued until the 1860s, when the mahalle was connected to central Istanbul by a tramway line. Although Istanbul is a typical port-city surrounded by water on three sides and where various types of boats were, for centuries, the most important means of public transportation, there are few serious studies on the history of marine transportation within the city.19
The Davudpaœa wharf also had its political heyday in the early sixteenth century, for it was, in a way, involved in the political fight between Selim and Korkut, both sons of Sultan Bayezid the Second (reigned between 1481 and 1512) and potential heirs to the Ottoman throne. When the throne seemed
to be up for grabs Korkut, who was then governor of Manisa, secretly moved to Bandyrma, took a boat that crossed the Sea of Marmara, and landed in Istanbul on April 9, 1512. His intention was to rally the various Janissary corps stationed in Istanbul and to convince them to join him in order to
overtrow his father. The attempt was not crowned with success and it was Selim, later nicknamed “The Grim,” who finally mounted the Ottoman throne.
What pertains to the Kasap ƒlyas mahalle in this adventure is that, to mount his political coup, Prince Korkut had chosen the Davudpaœa wharf when he disembarked upon his arrival at Istanbul.20 That is hardly surprising for, in all military and political logic, he needed a wharf that was both well-known to navigators and was not too centrally situated. It can be surmised that, had Prince Korkut’s political gamble succeeded, the fortunes of the small and secondary Davudpaœa wharf and of the mahalles in its environs might well have received an economic and political boost.
Even in the early sixteenth century, however, the significance of this minor wharf was not limited to the sole Kasap ƒlyas mahalle, within the bounds of which it happened to operate. The Davudpaœa wharf, minor though it was, was used as a basic topographical landmark for a much wider area. In
fact, the whole of the Marmara coast all the way from the Langa vegetable gardens to the Greek and Armenian quarters of Samatya were using this wharf as a topographical marker. For instance, in two deeds of trust dated April 1530 and October 1542,21 the small mosque of Bayezid-i Cedid, situated about half a mile to the west of the Kasap ƒlyas mosque, and nearer in fact to the district of Samatya than to Davudpaœa, is described as “the mosque of Sultan Bayezid near the Davudpaœa wharf.” Moreover, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, not only this or that particular building or plot of land, but whole mahalles were described with reference to the Davudpaœa wharf. In many of the local deeds of trust drawn in the late seventeenth century, the neighborhood where the donated property is situated is described as “…the Kasap ƒlyas mahalle near the Davudpaœa wharf.”22 So is the neighboring mahalle always referred to as “…the Bayezid-i cedid mahalle near the Davudpaœa wharf.”
Later, the inhabitants of Kasap ƒlyas even came to be designated, in some nineteenth-century sources, as those from the Davudpaœa wharf (Davudpaœa Iskeleli). This designation was meant to differentiate those who lived in the parts of the Davudpaœa District nearer to the seaside and to the wharf—that is, in the Kasap ƒlyas mahalle—from those who resided up the hill, near the grand vizier’s mosque and the religious court contiguous to it. These people were therefore called those from the Davudpaœa Court (Davudpaœa Mahkemeli).23 When local fire brigades were constituted within Istanbul in the middle of the nineteenth century, the volunteers from the Kasap ƒlyas mahalle were, almost naturally, incorporated into the Davudpaœa Wharf fire brigade, and those from the upper parts of the district into the Davudpaœa Court brigade.

To determine the precise boundaries of the sixteenth-century Kasap ƒlyas mahalle is an attempt both vain and impossible. The mahalles—or, rather, those that survived until the twentieth century—were officially assigned precise and artificial boundaries only in 1927.14 For centuries the Kasap ƒlyas mosque, the Davudpaœa complex, the hamam, the wharf, and the city ramparts bordering on the sea of Marmara were sufficient definitional landmarks.
There is nevertheless reason to suppose that the area and borders of the Kasap ƒlyas mahalle did not change to a very considerable extent during the last few centuries. To the west and to the east of it, the two neighboring mahalles (Sancaktar Hayrettin alias Bayezid-i Cedid, and Kürkçübaœı) have
always been the same. The southernly limits of Kasap ƒlyas were, then as now, naturally set by the city walls and by the sea of Marmara. To the north, there were two neighboring mahalles (Hubyar and Abacızade) in the sixteenth century but these had later disappeared and had been absorbed into
other northernly neighborhoods.
To sum up, Kasap ƒlyas extended, then as now, over a rectangular area, with the long sides of the rectangle being oriented approximately in the eastwest direction. Compared with the other intramural Istanbul mahalles, Kasap ƒlyas has never been a small neighborhood. In the nineteenth century, Istanbul neighborhoods usually covered an area ranging from one to five hectares.15
Kasap ƒlyas, toward the end of the nineteenth century, had a total area of no less than six hectares. Only a little more than half that area was effectively inhabited, though, and the Davud Paœa vegetable gardens took up the rest.
The streets of Istanbul received official names only in the 1860s. The people of Istanbul gave names to the more important streets before the nineteenth century, but nothing points to the existence of street names as early as the sixteenth century. There were no house or gate numbers either and the
modern construct of an “address” could not apply.
The truth is that none of the real estate property in Kasap ƒlyas set up as a pious foundation in the sixteenth century can now be located with any degree of precision within the mahalle. For in the deeds of trust, these properties were always described with reference to the nearest well-known land-
mark and to the names of the owners of the neighboring houses or property.
The landmarks most often used in the sixteenth-century Kasap ƒlyas mahalle were, besides its namesake mosque and the hamam, the city ramparts, the Davud Paœa gate on the same ramparts, and the wharf.

The specifications of the sixteenth-century Kasap ƒlyas vakıfs list the broad range of endowments that were set up by the local inhabitants.11 First of all, various amounts of cash, ranging from one thousand to thirty thousand aspers (akçe) were donated. In most of the deeds of trust it was clearly specified that the yearly return of these moneys would be 10 percent. Then there is real estate (a total of sixteen houses and five shops, all situated within the mahalle) which had been endowed. This is quite considerable, given that Kasap ƒlyas could not, in all probability have contained at the time much more than fifty or sixty houses. Besides cash and real estate, some utensils for daily use (a
cauldron, a large tray, a copper bucket, a basin, a pickaxe, a spade, etc.) were also bequeathed to the Kasap ƒlyas mosque, as well as, more appropriately, some manuscript copies of the Coran.
Three of the twenty-six vakıfs provided funds for the upkeep of a dervish lodge (tekke) situated elsewhere. The Süleyman Halife tekke belonging to the Halvetî Sufi order was situated in the neighborhood of Sofular, about a kilometer to the east, and three Kasap ƒlyas deeds of trust dating
from 1515 and 1521 provided funding for this lodge. This leads us to presume that there existed no such tekkes in or near Kasap ƒlyas in the first half of the sixteenth century.12
The deeds of trust directly and openly state that their object is one of local common benefit. The upkeep and repair of the Kasap ƒlyas mosque is the most often-cited aim and endowed moneys and their future revenues are clearly earmarked for that specific purpose. The provision of oil for the oillamps of the mosque and the purchase of candles for lighting the mosque on special days is also important. The care and cleaning of the two communal water-wells of the mahalle have also been provided for, as well as the expenses of a small local primary school (muallimhane) which was endowed as early as 1514. In another important chunk of the deeds of trust both the management
of, and the revenues that would accrue from, the bequeathed property (houses and shops) are directly left to those who are to officiate as imam and/or as müezzin of the Kasap ƒlyas mosque. These indirect donations to the imam are often conditional upon his regular recitation of Coranic prayers for the rest of the soul of the deceased donor. The existence of officiating local religious leaders must be seen as an object of common benefit from the point of view of the local community.
From a strictly technical and legalist point of view, though, about half of the sixteenth-century Kasap ƒlyas pious foundations belonged to the type called hereditary (evlâtlık or zürrî) vakıfs. Technically, this means that the initial donor could decide that the donated cash or property forming the initial endowment would at first be entrusted either to one or more of his direct descendants or to another person of his choice. The endowed property would then be managed by these selected “heirs” and would revert to the trusteeship of the imam of the local mosque only after the death of those persons or the complete extinction of their line of descendants. As suggested by Barkan and Ayverdi in their introduction to their modern edition of the 1546 list of Istanbul vakıfs, this mode of constitution of the vakıfs could also have been used as a way of bypassing the very strict Islamic rules (ferâiz or
muhallefât) concerning the partition of inheritances.13
In the middle of the sixteenth century, the imam of the Kasap ƒlyas mosque who was also the local leader of Kasap ƒlyas, was managing the revenues of twenty-six different local pious foundations. From among these, the use of, and/or the revenues accruing from, six houses and three shops had
been given to him by the various donors. As we shall see, the imams of the Ottoman Kasap ƒlyas mahalle have always enjoyed fairly comfortable income levels, and the basis for their regular income flow seems to have been already established in the early sixteenth century.

Less than a century after the conquest, Kasap ƒlyas had already acquired the location that it still occupies within the semt and mahalle topography of Istanbul. Set on the slopes of the last of the “seven hills” of the historical Istanbul peninsula, on land gently sloping toward the sea south of the Davud Paœa Mosque, Kasap ƒlyas was then, as it is today, embedded in the larger Davud Paœa semt.
The high number of endowments for local common benefit established in Kasap ƒlyas is a sure indicator of a strong sense of local identity and of a relatively high degree of social cohesion. The decisions that many of the inhabitants of the mahalle took, in the first half of the sixteenth century,
concerning the transmission of their property, shows that they really believed in the perennity of their neighborhood. Those who established a foundation for local common benefit in their neighborhood chose to dispose of their goods in a manner that would establish an eternal link between them and
their neighborhood community. A local identity, a sense of local belonging, was evidently already there, for such potent material effects would not have been produced without a strong collective belief in local common goals and benefits. The first deed of trust (vakfiye) established in the neighborhood is, as a matter-of-fact also the earliest within the whole Davud Paœa district and is dated May 1501 (¥evval 906 a.h.). That first local vakıf provides for the repair and maintenance of a local public convenience, a well for public use (bi’r-i mâ-yı müœterek) situated in the neighborhood.3
Was the comparatively large number of local endowments due to the fact that Kasap ƒlyas was particularly populous or particularly well-off in the sixteenth century? On the matter of populousness, just the contrary is true. As we shall see, though large in area, the mahalle was always, in the sixteenth as well as in later centuries, rather sparsely populated. As to riches, the available sources do not allow for that sort of a comparison at a mahalle level in the sixteenth century, but, as we shall see, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century data would, if anything, point in just the opposite direction.
Starting from the very end of the fifteenth century, the inhabitants of that small bit of Istanbul seem to have strongly believed that they could meaningfully bequeath their possessions (in cash or as real estate property) for a strictly local cause and purpose. Besides believing in the perennity of the mosque and of the mahalle itself, the inhabitants who endowed a foundation for local common benefit must have put a good deal of confidence in the personality of the local religious leaders (i.e., the imam and the müezzin of the Kasap ƒlyas mosque) who would automatically have to function as trustees and would have to manage the trust fund or the real estate property in accordance with the desires of the founder.
Besides, Kasap ƒlyas, through the prestige of its local religious leaders, seems to have acquired a particular urban aura. Indeed, the trusteeship of a number of houses situated in Arap Taceddin and in the adjacent “new” mahalle had also been given to the imam of the Kasap ƒlyas mosque. However, not even a single item of property situated in our neighborhood had been given in trust to a local religious foundation situated elsewhere in the city in the first half of the sixteenth century.

Points of Reference
In the last quarter of the fifteenth century three buildings played a definitional role in the formation of our neighborhood and of its local identity: (1) the Davud Paœa complex (külliye) which gave its name to the whole area and was situated up the hill above Kasap ƒlyas. Built in 1485 by the grand vizier Koca Davud Paœa (d. 1498), it was composed of a large mosque, a shrine (türbe), a small theological school (medrese), and a soup kitchen for the poor (imaret); (2) the Kasap ƒlyas mosque, built probably not long before 1494, which is the date of its deed of trust; and (3) the large Davud Paœa double bath (çifte hamam4) situated right in the middle of our mahalle and built probably at the same time as the Davud Paœa complex itself. As it was nearer to the city walls bordering on the sea of Marmara than to the Davud Paœa complex, the Davud Paœa public bath was often designated as Deniz Hamamı, or Denizciler Hamami (The Seamen’s Hamam).
Together with the Davud Paœa gate on the city walls bordering the sea of Marmara and the small wharf that jutted out from the piece of land just outside the gate, these three buildings were the main formative landmarks of both the Davud Paœa semt and the Kasap ƒlyas mahalle in the last quarter of
the fifteenth century. These three buildings put their imprint on the area, became the basic topographical points of reference for a local identity, and contributed to the formation of a durable local consciousness. Indeed, neither the name of the Davud Paœa District nor that of Kasap ƒlyas appear in a previous listing of Istanbul pious foundations dated from 1472.5 The last quarter of the fifteenth century was crucial in that respect.

Were there any traces of any Byzantine building, monument, road, church, and so forth or of any other pre-Ottoman center of attraction that could have served as a point of reference to the newly formed mahalle? Judging from the speed with which local identities were formed in the neighborhood after the Ottoman conquest, the answer seems to be negative. The Byzantine monument nearest to the Kasap ƒlyas mahalle would be the Arcadius column, at the center of a small forum that was situated about a quarter of a mile to the north and was within the bounds of the Cerrahpaœa District, where the basis of the column can still be seen. To the west of Davudpaœa, the neighboring semt of Samatya derives its name from the Greek Psammathia. To the east of Kasap
ƒlyas are the large vegetable gardens of Langa, whose Turkish name is a direct descendent of the Byzantine Vlanga. No onomastic or topographical traces have been transmitted to Ottoman Istanbul, however, either of Xerolophus, the Byzantine denomination of the hills of the Davudpaœa District, or of Hagios Emilianos, the name of a church and of a gate in the city ramparts, both in the same district.6 The district was in no way an important Byzantine economic or political center. It did not become a primary urban center under Ottoman rule either. The construction of durable local identities in Ottoman Davudpaœa and in Kasap ƒlyas seem to have owed little to what the district
had contained in Byzantine times.
The area was very sparsely populated in the late Byzantine period. Sources show that the whole Marmara coast from the point of the Seraglio to the Castle of the Seven Towers was hardly inhabited.7 Buildings were rare in the first decades of the Turkish conquest as well. Many maps and engravings of the period show vast empty areas all along the coast. The Buondelmonti map of the end of the fifteenth century as well as the Vavassore map dating from the 1520s show, despite the usual inaccuracies of scale and perspective, that the seacoast of the walled city of Istanbul was lined with gardens, vineyards, orchards, and windmills and contained large areas of empty land. In all of the
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century historic maps and charts, very few houses, churches, and mosques appear along the Marmara coast of intramural Istanbul.8
Deserted though it was in the decades preceding the Turkish conquest, the Davudpaœa area was not given priority when Istanbul had to be repopulated after the Ottoman takeover. Some of the neighboring districts did receive an influx of immigrant population, but not Kasap ƒlyas and Davudpaœa.
As part of the policy of repopulating Istanbul, for instance, many Armenian communities were brought from around the Anatolian towns of Tokat and Sivas in the years immediately following the conquest, and they were settled in the neighboring districts of Samatya, Langa, and Sulumanastır.9 For all we know, our district and mahalle were not directly concerned by any of these forced population movements. The neighborhood identities that took shape in the mahalle and in the district were not connected to any “imported” network of preexisting relationships (a common geographic origin, ethnic or religious groupings, etc.) which would have simply been superimposed upon a new topographical locus. The available evidence seems to indicate that local identities and local solidarities in Kasap ƒlyas were formed on the spot, the two mosques, the hamam (a place for meeting as much as one for taking baths) and the wharf having served as basic mental and geographic landmarks.
The account-books of the large and central Süleymaniye mosque, built between 1550 and 1557, barely a decade after the 1546 list of pious foundations, contain another bit of evidence indicative of this early formation of the Davudpaœa and Kasap ƒlyas local identities.10 In the absence of family surnames, almost all of the workers employed on the construction site of the large sultanic mosque were clearly identified by their place of origin. For those coming from outside the capital, the name of their town of origin was added to their name and for the Istanbulites, that of their district within the
city. Next to those coming from the adjoining districts of Langa or Samatya, many workers (stonemasons, carpenters, etc.) on the construction site, from 1550 on, were clearly identified as “such and such from Davudpaœa.”

It was a chilly November day of the year 1494 (Safer 900 a.h.). ƒlyas slowly climbed the steep hill toward the large mosque of the Grand Vizier Davudpaœa. Its lofty dome and tall minaret overlooked the whole district, the large semt to which it had come to give its name.
Obviously, the Davudpaœa mosque was much larger and loftier than the small mescit ƒlyas himself had built down the hill. But how could he, a simple butcher, have ever competed with the fortune of
a grand vizier? There was no point in being dissatisfied with the comparison. Turning back, ƒlyas looked down the hill toward the Marmara Sea and marveled at all that had been accomplished.
ƒlyas had seen glorious days indeed. He sometimes felt that the whole city of Istanbul was his. True, he was only a simple butcher.
But he had been given, in his time, the incomparable honor of feeding and serving the army that conquered this magnificent city. He had been appointed chief butcher of the sultan’s army, and had
served his master as best as he could. He did not only feed the Blessed Army; he was also part of it. This meant that he too had waged a Holy War in his own right. That was more than four decades ago. For weeks and months in the spring of the year 1453 (857 a.h.) ƒlyas and his aides had borne the heavy responsibility of slaughtering sheep and providing the besieging army with a sufficient
amount of meat. Once Constantinople was taken, who could deny his vital contribution to the victory?
And yes, after the conquest, when the time came for sharing the spoils, he was not forgotten. The glorious Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror allotted his chief butcher, ƒlyas, a large piece of land within the walled city. The other chief butcher of the conquering army, Demirhan, had also received his share. He had, however, died soon after the conquest. Demirhan’s lot was perhaps better situated,
as it overlooked the bustling Golden Horn from the top of a steeper hill near the Byzantine church of Christ Pantocrator and was nearer to the commercial center of the city. But it was much smaller in area and already rather densely populated by Christians. As to his own share, near the city walls and overlooking the sea of Marmara, it was much larger and virtually empty. Luckily, ƒlyas had to face a territory that was practically a tabula rasa. Indeed, after the conquest the quasi-deserted city had to be almost totally repopulated. Settlers had to be brought in, new neighborhoods had to be formed, mosques had to be built, and Byzantium had to be given a new and Muslim stamp. So, in a sense, Kasap ƒlyas’ Holy War was far from having ended with the capture of the city. His personal Holy War was in fact only beginning.
He remembered the very day he had set foot on “his” bit of Istanbul. That was also the first time he had entered the conquered city itself. Approaching his territory on a boat, he had found landing
on a small old wharf made of a few creaking planks. The infidels called it the Agios Emilianos wharf. Part of the Muslim army had already used it as a landing place during the two-month long siege
of Constantinople. This wharf was the nearest sea access to his portion of the city. ƒlyas had then looked at the area in and around the city walls bordering on the sea of Marmara and he had chosen
the best place to build his mosque: not too close to the sea and the city walls, but not too high up the hill either, a plot of land bordering on the small side road that led from the Forum Bovis of the
infidels to the city walls near the Seven Towers. Then he had boats bring to the seaside blocks of stone, limestone, and sand to make mortar, wood for construction, and so forth. Workers were hired
and building began. Very soon, however, the building of the mosque had to come to a temporary halt. ƒlyas remembered why. He was sitting on a block of stone watching the workers unloading the boats and carrying the various building materials from the wharf to the construction site of the mosque. The actions of one of these workers struck him. The man took a heavy stone or a sack full of limestone from the boat moored at the wharf, brought it to the building site and, without leaving it there, carried the same sack or stone back to the boat again. The action was repeated quite a few times. ƒlyas was puzzled. When asked for the reason for his strange behavior, the man answered that “he felt he had to do his share of daily work, and that he had no choice but to work for a living; however, as he was impure, he felt he should not contribute to the building of a holy place of worship while in a state of ritual impurity.” ƒlyas was struck by the man’s honesty and piety. On the spot, he gave the order to
stop all work on the building site of the mosque. Then, he gave priority to building a large hamam first, so that the workers could wash and regularly perform their ritual ablutions. A location just
across from the mosque was selected for the purpose. The mosque itself was finally completed only after the public bath was built and in operation. With the mosque and the shops built just next to it,
the providential public bath would become an essential part of the new mahalle.
Many of those who worked on Kasap ƒlyas’ construction site were also among his former aides in his work as a butcher. They were all used to slaughtering sheep and cattle and all of them enjoyed a good bite of mutton or beef. Save one. This odd man was strangely averse to eating meat and would never even have a taste of it. No wonder he was nicknamed “Etyemez” (meat-averse!). It was very strange, therefore, that this man could take part in a long-term enterprise whose very existence rested on the provision and consumption of animal meat. Naturally, ƒlyas ended up by banishing this misfit. The man was told to go and settle as far away as possible from the mosque and from the center of ƒlyas’s new mahalle. The vegetarian went and settled on a small bit of land at the extreme western tip of the large area put by the Sultan under ƒlyas’s responsibility. The vegetarian’s place of banishment was later to become a separate neighborhood known as Etyemez. Nevertheless, this neighborhood always remained morally part and parcel of Kasap ƒlyas’s dependencies.
But all of this was a long, long time ago. ƒlyas the butcher was now old and felt tired as he climbed up the hill on a narrow dirt road. He knew that the end was not very far, but he was ready to
go, and at peace with himself. He had already accomplished the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Haj. Besides, he had just made his will and had given away all of his possessions to endow a holy foundation. The foundation, his perpetual vakıf, was to take care of his mosque, the mosque he had built himself, the visible product of his dedication, of his piety and hard work. This mosque that bore his name, the Kasap ƒlyas mosque, was standing just below him, toward the foot of the hill on land gently sloping toward the sea. He had indeed richly endowed it. Apart from the yearly revenues accruing from the thirty thousand aspers in cash that had bequeathed to his foundation, there would also be the rental incomes from no less than sixteen shops and six rooms, all adjoining the mosque. These moneys would certainly be more than sufficient for the upkeep. An imam as well as a müezzin would be appointed on a permanent basis and the imam would be the trustee of his foundation. The wages of the Coran reciters, those of the Friday preachers and of the cleaners and caretakers of his mosque, as well as the expenses for the necessary upkeep and repair work would be paid out of his foundation’s revenues.
Besides, with the public bath and the shops all near the city gate leading to the seaside and to the wharf, he was sure that a small center of attraction had already taken shape. Through his efforts, a
durable neighborhood community, a real mahalle had been formed. However rich or prestigious the adjacent mahalles might become, he was sure that his mahalle would always have both chronological and spiritual precedence over its surroundings. In time, the Kasap ƒlyas mahalle would, no doubt, put its stamp on the whole district. It seemed then that Kasap ƒlyas had waged his personal Holy War
with a great deal of success. As for himself, he had made sure that, when the time came, his body would be laid to rest in the small plot of land just behind the mosque. That would be a perfect location for watching his neighborhood, the Kasap ƒlyas mahalle, grow and prosper—and forever remain a basic building block of Muslim Istanbul.

It is not totally impossible for these events to have really taken place. This narrative is, as a matterof-fact, just a combination of various local myths and legends of Kasap ƒlyas with the few elements of truth that can be gathered from sixteenth-century sources.
As to the first serious historical source of detailed information on the mahalle, it dates from 1546, no less than half a century after the putative decease of its mythical founder and almost a century after the conquest of Istanbul.1 In the detailed list of vakıfs established in 1546 and published by Barkan and Ayverdi, the Kasap ƒlyas mahalle is listed as one of fourteen neighborhoods that were then part of the Davud Paœa area.2 In this collation of Istanbul pious foundations, the details of no less than 2,490 deeds of trust are enumerated and these are distributed over a total of 219 mahalles of Istanbul intra muros. This shows an average of 11 vakıfs per Istanbul neighborhood, though for most of the mahalles the number of deeds of trust did not exceed four or five. Among the neighborhoods adjacent to Kasap ƒlyas, for instance, only three vakıfs were registered for the Sancaktar Hayreddin mahalle, two for Abacızâde, eight for Kürkçübaœı, nine for Hubyar, and eighteen for Davud Paœa. With a total of twenty six local pious foundations Kasap ƒlyas was indeed the record holder in and around the Davud Paœa area, and was also among the ten mahalles of Istanbul having the highest number of
local vakıfs.