The sultan and all his grandees, confident in the means of protection, entered the serraglio, took down the sangiac-sheriff, or sacred standard of Mahomet, and, headed by a number of Oulemas reciting apposite passages from the Koran, proceeded forthwith to the imperial mosque of Achmet, in the square of the Hippodrome, at a very few paces from the palace.
Source: wiktionary