Eternity and a Day in Istanbul

Edition: Journal of Musicology (2026) 43 (4): 469–489.

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This article aims to contribute to recent scholarship on sound’s uses and functions in Ottoman culture and society, and focuses specifically on how Ottoman subjectivities, temporalities, and power relations were reflected in the lives of sounds. The main question is the juxtaposition or entangled nature of auditory culture with modern temporality. Although there is a growing body of research on the history of Ottoman time and temporality, auditory history is still very marginal in Ottoman studies. Relying on documents from the Ottoman Archives, literature in different Ottoman languages, travelogues, scientific writings, newspapers, letters, and diaries, I ask the following questions: To what degree might we understand late Ottoman sounds to have a temporal dimension, such that they convey not only social or cultural signifiers but also time itself, ingrained in aurality? Conversely, can we conceptualize Ottoman time as having inherently sonic dimensions to it? And do the unique temporalities of Ottoman culture animate and represent certain sonic qualities? In order to contribute to Ottoman cultural history with insights from sound studies, I specifically focus on imperial silence as an aspiration to timelessness, the temporal messages of numerous and distinct religious sounds, the daily echoes of urban life in the cries of street vendors, the sounds of non-human actors, and environmental reverberations, hums, and resonances.