The Ottoman "Taj Mahal" - an architectural masterpiece in danger - Turkish Daily News Jan 26, 2002

The Ottoman "Taj Mahal" - an architectural masterpiece in danger - Turkish Daily News Jan 26, 2002: "The Ottoman 'Taj Mahal' - an architectural masterpiece in danger
# The outstanding and astonishing walled cemetery complex, an Ottoman 'Taj Mahal', called 'the Turkish cemetery' by the Maltese, to distinguish it from the adjacent Jewish cemetery, seems to be the property of the Turkish Govenment and its upkeep is therefore the responsibility today of the Turkish Government but, the buildings are suffering from a complete lack of any attention and of vital repair work.

T.M.P.Duggan

Strange though it may seem, in a period of apparent westernization, under the Ottoman Sultans Abdul Aziz (1861-76) and Sultan Abdulhamit IInd (1876-1909), some of the architects employed by these Sultans faced up to the Islamic architectural past and began to search for an Ottoman international Islamic architectural identity and style. They looked, not to the classic Ottoman architecture of Mimar Sinan and his followers from the 16th and 17th centuries, but instead, went further back to the Islamic architecture of the 14th and 15th centuries in Turkey and to the examples of superb Islamic architecture from 12th to 14th century Andalusia, particularly from Granada and Seville in Spain and also from 17th and 18th century Moghul India.

This change in Ottoman architectural style is more pronounced in th"