Suleymaniye Mosque

The Suleymaniye Mosque stands on the third hill of Istanbul and is regarded as Mimar Sinan's principal work in the capital itself. It was built between 1550 and 1557 for Suleiman the Magnificent, and the architect deliberately argued with Hagia Sophia: the central dome, about twenty-seven metres in diameter, rests on four massive piers and opens out into two semi-domes along the longitudinal axis. The four minarets in the courtyard mean that the patron was the fourth Ottoman sultan to reign from Istanbul, while their ten balconies say that he was the tenth sultan of the dynasty. The complex was never only a mosque: madrasas, a hospital, a kitchen for the poor, a bathhouse and a caravanserai stood around it, and some of these buildings survive. From the terrace behind the mosque a view opens over the Golden Horn and Galata. In the cemetery behind the mihrab stand the turbes of Suleiman himself and of Roxelana, and a little to one side is Sinan's modest tomb. Inside, the walls are almost free of painted decoration, but the stained glass gives coloured light, and the acoustics are amplified by clay vessels built into the vaults. The fire of 1660 and the later alterations changed the interior, but in the nineteenth century the building was returned to an appearance close to the original.

On the map