Çubuklu Garden (MEGT)

Istanbul, Türkiye

Çubuklu Garden is one of the Bosphorus gardens dated by Evliya Çelebi to the reign of Süleyman I:

Bayezid-i Veli, who had summoned Prince Selim to come there from Trabzon, became angry with him and struck him eight times with a stick, representing the first eight years of his sultanate. My son, he said do not raise your hand. Praise God and pray that he may make you worthy to be sultan. Take this stick, plant it that you may eat of its fruit for eight years. Selim took the dry cornel cherry stick and planted it, praying, Oh God, give fruit from this dry stick and let it be famous throughout the world. Amen, replied Bayezid-i Veli and Şemşeddin, and from that very hour the stick began to put forth green branches and green leaves. Each fruit it produced weighed five dirhems. Whether this miracle should be ascribed to Bayezid or Selim or Şemşeddin, who knows? But because of this, the place is known as Çubuklu Bahçesi. There are no cornel cherries in the world like these. Each weighs five dirhems and the crimson color is like that of a Medina date. Later, Selim Han was sultan for eight years, corresponding to the eight painful blows. In 922, when he conquered Egypt and became the caliph, he made improvements at Çubuklu Bahçesi. (Seyahatnâmesi, 1:139b–140a)

Eremya Çelebi (XVII. asırda İstanbul, 46) takes his readers on a tour of the Bosphorus and says that vegetable gardens were found in Çubuklu Garden. The translator adds a note that the cornel cherry trees and their fruit were famous and mentions a palace used when the sultan came hunting there. 

Famous in the spring for its beauty and nightingales, Çubuklu was renovated at the beginning of eighteenth century in the reign of Ahmed III, when Grand Vizier Nevşehirli İbrahim Paşa had a large pool with a beautiful fountain made and had plane trees and other trees planted by the river.

İnciciyan says of Çubuklu: This imperial garden stretched along the shore and there were three large buildings among the shrubs and trees. On the level ground by the sea was the imperial palace and in front of the garden a small wood where the sultan used to go hunting. Formerly this was occupied by the monastery of the Vigilant Monks. Further on comes Büyük Çubuklu with its marvelous fountain. Neither of the two places known as Çubuklu is inhabited (XVIII. asırda İstanbul, 102).

During Sultan Abdülmecid's reign, Sadrazam Rıfat Paşa had small lakes with cascades, pools, and statues in the European style made on the hill behind the former Feyzabad Kasrı, and he built five seaside mansions for the children. He also gave free parcels of land to the people so they could make a village here where people could enjoy the songs of the nightingales.

The text for this entry is adapted from Nurhan Atasoy, Garden for the Sultan, 324–25.

Source: Travel Account, 17th century, Travel Account, 18th century

-Nurhan Atasoy, Seyit Ali Kahraman

Sources:

Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi: Topkapı Sarayı Bağdat 304 Yazmasının transkripsiyonu (Open in Zotero)

İstanbul tarihi: XVII. asırda İstanbul (Open in Zotero)

XVIII. asırda İstanbul (Open in Zotero)

A Garden for the Sultan: Gardens and Flowers in the Ottoman Culture (Open in Zotero)

Originally published at: Atasoy, Nurhan, and Seyit Ali Kahraman “Çubuklu Garden” Middle East Gardens Traditions. Dumbarton Oaks, December 1, 2014. https://www.doaks.org/resources/middle-east-garden-traditions/catalogue/C98. Archived at: https://perma.cc/5UDZ-R9BM.