The city of Istanbul, once Constantinople, purportedly hosts the tombs of many Sahaba, the revered Companions of the Prophet Muhammad. In these earliest of days, it was often at the very walls of the city itself that some Companions of the Prophet reportedly breathed their last breath. The present post is the first of a series that will document the lives and alleged burial sites of many of these Sahaba.
During our last visit to the city in May of we visited many- but far from all- of these in order to properly locate and photo-document them. Our guide to the city John Freely reports:. They replaced the stone, formed a little mound of the earth they had dug up, and laid the foundations of the mausoleum amidst the prayers of the whole army. This pleasant story, though still current and recounted in one form or another by the guides and guidebooks, seems rather unlikely โ apart from its supernatural elements โ because it appears that the tomb had always been known and respected even by the Byzantines.
Various Arab historians note that it was made a condition of peace, after the first Arab siege, that the tomb should be preserved.
An Arab traveller during the reign of Manuel I Comnenus r. Probably, Fatih restored or rebuilt it on a grander scale. It was reported that the Greeks frequent his grave, renovate it, and pray there for rain in times of drought. Philip K. His legendary tomb soon became a shrine even for the Christian Greeks, who made pilgrimages to it in times of drought to pray for rain. During the siege of Constantinople in by the Turks, the tomb was miraculously discovered by rays of lightโฆ and a mosque was built on the site.
Hitti, History of the Arabs , Zayd b. Kulayb b. Ghanm b. His grave is at the foot of the fortress in Constantinople, in the Byzantine territory. The Muslim army fulfilled the desire of the companion of the Messenger of God. There they buried him. Rather than wrestling with questions of historicity, the posts of this series will focus more on what the available narratives and sources have to report about the Companions supposedly buried in Istanbul.
