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Late on the afternoon of May 29, Sultan Muhammad II entered Constantinople.
Escorted by his finest Janissaries, he rode slowly to the Cathedral of
Hagia Sophia. Entering it, he declared that it should be made into a
mosque. The sultan himself climbed onto the altar slab and bowed to Allah.
The dead, including civilians killed during the massacres after the walls were breached, were said to number 4,000. Because the city had refused to surrender, the sultan granted his soldiers their customary three days for looting. The looters stripped churches and palaces of their treasures and destroyed religious icons. They stripped the jeweled covers from books and then burned the contents. They also took many prisoners. On the fourth day, the sultan ordered all booty, including captives, displayed before him and distributed it among his soldiers according to Ottoman custom. Many of the captives were released after paying their captor a ransom. The sultan released some of the captives without ransom so that all might marvel at his generosity.
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