Prophet Muhammad’s cloak to be displayed in Istanbul during Ramadan

Prophet Muhammad’s cloak, Hirka-i Serif, opens to visitors at Istanbul’s Hirka-i Serif Mosque

As part of a Ramadan tradition, the Hirka-i Serif, a cloak worn by Prophet Muhammad, will be open for display and visitation in Istanbul’s Fatih district from Friday morning.

During the month of Ramadan, Hirka-i Serif can be seen between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays and between 9 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. on weekends.

Hirka-i Serif 

The sacred relic’s exhibition opens on the first Friday of every Ramadan in the mosque located in the city’s Fatih district and remains on display until the end of the month.

The Hirka-i Serif was bequeathed to Owais al-Qarani, who went to Medina to see the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century but had to return to Yemen due to his mother’s illness without seeing the prophet. Impressed by the story, the prophet presented his cloak to al-Qarni via companions and he received the garment in Yemen. 

 Al-Qarani had no children and the relic was passed down to his brother and is still under the protection of the same family. The al-Qarani family lived in southern Anatolia for centuries; however, they later migrated to Türkiye’s Kusadasi in the Aegean region. In the 17th century, Ottoman Sultan Ahmet I asked them to bring the holy relic to Istanbul, where other holy relics of Islam were being preserved. After the cloak was taken to Istanbul, two keys were made, one for the sultan and one for the al-Qarani family, for the locked box that the cloak was displayed in.

Istanbul hosts most of its holy relics at Topkapi Palace since Ottoman Sultan Selim’s conquest of Egypt in the 16th century, where he seized items of the prophet then in the custody of the Mamluk caliphate, along with the control of the global caliphate of the Muslims.

Among them are a battle standard from the prophetic era, a tooth of the prophet, hair from the prophet’s beard, his sandals, and a bowl he used.

Source: Newsroom