The East Blacksea Region Muwaqqithanes Through Yearbooks (Salnâme)

Abstract

Throughout history some cities in which Islam spread over, meant different geographic latitude and longitude thus the determination of prayer time and the direction of qibla required a seperate observation and calculation.The muslim world did not underestimate this problem and with the growing information and experiences about this issue, instruments such as sundial were modified into a more delicate more detailed form. In the next centuries these missions were commended to special astronomers called muwaqqit and after a period of time, the office of muwaqqithane which is an architectural unit belonged to these specialists was added almost every big mosque. the offices of muwaqqithane are places which has distinctive architecture and in which sun's location is monitored, time of azaan and salaah are announced to community . In the Otoman-Turkish civilization, the offices of muwaqqithane which were some of the public buildings known as soup kitchen or /imaret are important education institutions in our history.These buildings constructed in the yards of particular mosques and small mosques in the cities and towns, were widely instituted as a component of social complexes especially after the conquest of Istanbul and continued their activities with the islamic foundation incomes as a component of social complexes. At the last days of Ottoman Empire, increased numbers of mechanical watches and particularly, because of clock towers which was built at the age of Sowdan Abdülhamit II. Decreased interests in the muwaqqit. After Republic the offices of muwaqqit ruled by head-muwaqqit functioned until the shutdown on September 20, 1952. In the first chapter of this study ,which aims to introduce the office of muwaqqit that are some of our institutions which have great importance in our history and our culture yet we are losing today, after general information was given about the office of muwaqqithane and working systems, in the second chapter by editing information and documents which have a place in the literature, past and present photographs and survey workings, unsought the office of muwaqqit in East Blacksea region are introduced.