Nicaea
Iznik
In 1331, Orhan I captured Iznik from the Byzantines and for a short period the town became the capital of the expanding Ottoman emirate. The large church of Hagia Sophia in the centre of the town was converted into a mosque and became known as the Orhan Mosque. A madrasa and baths were built nearby. In 1334 Orhan built a mosque and an imaret (soup kitchen) just outside the Yenisehir gate (YenişehKapısı) on the south side of the town.
The Arab traveller, Ibn Battuta, stayed in Iznik at the end of 1331 soon after the capture of the town by Orhan. According to Ibn Battuta, the town was in ruins and only inhabited by a small number of people who were in the service of the sultan. Within the city walls were gardens and cultivated plots with each house surrounded by an orchard. The town produced fruit, walnuts, chestnuts and large sweet grapes.
A census in 1520 recorded 379 Muslim and 23 Christian households while a census taken a century later in 1624 recorded 351 Muslim and 10 Christian households. Assuming five members for each household, these figures suggest that the population was around 2,000. Various estimates in the 18th and 19th centuries give similar numbers. The town was poor and the population small even when the ceramic production was at its peak during the second half of the 16th century.
The Byzantine city is estimated to have had a population of 20–30,000 but in the Ottoman period the town was never prosperous and occupied only a small fraction of the walled area. A succession of visitors described the town in unflattering terms. After his visit in 1779 the Italian archaeologist DomenicoSestini wrote that Iznik was nothing but an abandoned town with no life, no noise and no movement. In 1797 James Dallaway described Iznik as "a wretched village of long lanes and mud walls..."
