Eyüpsultan

Eyüpsultan or Eyüp (ˈejyp) is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 228 km2, and its population is 422,913 (2022). The district extends from the Golden Horn all the way to the shore of the Black Sea. Eyüp is also the name of a prominent neighborhood and former village in the district, located at the confluence of the Kâğıthane and Alibey streams at the head of the Golden Horn. The Eyüp neighborhood is a historically important area, especially for Turkey's Muslims, due to the presence of the tomb of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari. It became a district centre in 1936, after some parts of Fatih, Çatalca and Sarıyer were joined; later it also included Gaziosmanpaşa and Bayrampaşa districts. Its present boundaries were established after the borough of Yayla was given to Sultangazi in 2009. Its neighbours are Sarıyer in the east, Kâğıthane and Beyoğlu in the southeast, Gaziosmanpaşa, Bayrampaşa, Fatih and Sultangazi in the south, Başakşehir in the southwest and Arnavutköy in the west. It was named after Abu Ayyub al-Ansari by the Ottoman Turks. Modern Eyüp was the site of a settlement already in the Byzantine period, best known as Kosmidion (Κοσμίδιον). Its name derives from the local monastery of the Anargyroi (Saints Cosmas and Damian), which was established in the fifth century. According to a later legend, it was founded by the magister Paulinus, who was executed by Theodosius II (r. 408–450) when the latter suspected him—erroneously—of having an affair with empress Aelia Eudocia. In reality, however, the monastery was probably founded ca. 480 by Paulina, the mother of the general and failed usurper Leontius. From her, the quarter was initially known as ta Paoulines (τα Παυλίνης, "Paulina's [quarter]"). The monastery was of some importance in the sixth century: its abbots participated in synods of 518 and 536, a collection of miracles associated with its patron saints appeared, and the monastery received a major renovation as part of the building programme of Justinian I (r. 527–565).