Ali Paşa Çarşısı

The Ali Paşa Bazaar is a covered market in the centre of Edirne, running along the edge of Kaleiçi, the old walled quarter, and known as a work of Mimar Sinan. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, it was built to provide income for the charitable buildings in Babaeski of Semiz Ali Paşa, who served as grand vizier between 1561 and 1565. Its construction date is known from a chronogram quatrain by a poet from Edirne that gives the year 1568-69. That Sinan was its architect is clear from the Tezkiretü'l-ebniye, which lists his works, and Evliya Çelebi also attributes the bazaar to Sinan. In that list the building is recorded as a bazaar and caravanserai. The TDV notes that this record is puzzling, since there is no part that points to a caravanserai, and that the question of whether an extension of the bazaar was originally planned as a caravanserai remains unanswered. This small riddle is an interesting detail to keep in mind as you walk through the bazaar. The TDV considers the Ali Paşa Bazaar one of the foremost among the markets built for trade in the Ottoman period. Architecturally, the Ali Paşa Bazaar is a typical arasta. According to the TDV, vaulted shop bays line both sides of a vaulted street about 300 metres long. The long central vault is reinforced with arches, and each shop opens onto the central street through an arch. The walls use alternating stone courses and brick bands, while the arches of the main gates are of coloured interlocking stone and their frames of dressed limestone. Because the bazaar runs in a straight line, the prayer place was set exactly in the middle, where four piers raised in a square space form a prayer square. The bazaar has six gates. Apart from the Kule Gate and the Balıkhane Gate at the two ends, there are four more gates giving access from side streets. The TDV explains that these side gates do not sit exactly on the axis but within irregularly placed spaces, and that this results from the street pattern of the time. In other words, the bazaar was built to fit the urban fabric that already existed. The number of shops is given differently in the sources. The endowment record dated 1568-69 speaks of 211 bays and twenty-five cells. Evliya Çelebi gives the length of the bazaar as a thousand paces and writes that there were 360 shops on its two sides. The clean and well-kept covered market with 365 shops described by the English traveller Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who wrote letters from Edirne in 1718, is also thought most probably to be this one. The TDV states that today the number of shops within the architectural frame is about 100 to 110. Evliya Çelebi also tells us that the bazaar had gates like castle gates at its two ends, that its masonry vault was covered with lead and that very valuable goods were sold here. According to the 17th-century writer Hıbri Abdurrahman Efendi, two of the six hot water taps set up in the city for ritual washing were in this bazaar. The bazaar's splendour faded in the 19th century, and over time the shops passed into separate private ownership. The building was repaired in 1867-68 and largely restored again in 1947. According to the TDV, the bazaar, which long stood half empty, came back to life from the 1960s onwards as the city revived. Today it is one of the busiest shopping streets in Edirne. As you walk through, look up and see how the red and white bands of the vault repeat into the distance. Stop at the prayer square in the middle to study the roof carried by the four piers, then compare the arches of the gates at the two ends. The name Kule Gate, meaning tower gate, is a reminder that the bazaar borders Kaleiçi and the line of the old city walls. As shop opening hours may change, check current information from local sources. The bazaar is a short walk from the Üç Şerefeli Mosque, the Bedesten and the Macedonian Tower.