Süleymaniye Mosque

The Süleymaniye crowns Istanbul's Third Hill, and from the water its silhouette — a great central dome shouldered by cascading half-domes and four slender minarets — is one of the defining outlines of the old city's skyline. It was built for Suleiman the Magnificent by his chief architect Mimar Sinan; the inscription over the entrance gives 1550 for the foundation and 1557 for the inauguration. Suleiman meant it to surpass everything built by his predecessors, and to answer Justinian's Hagia Sophia across the city: the plan, with a central dome flanked by half-domes front and back, deliberately echoes the Byzantine church, recast a thousand years later in the Ottoman idiom.

The prayer hall is almost square, a single vast space under a dome 53 m high and 26.5 m across — exactly half its height. Walls of windows light it evenly; the decoration is restrained, which makes the few rich accents count: İznik tiles only around the mihrab, with blue, turquoise and red flowers on white and large calligraphic roundels, and stained-glass windows in the qibla wall usually attributed to Sarhoş İbrahim, spelling the names of God, the Prophet and the first four caliphs. Four huge porphyry columns were cut to size for the interior, and marble was brought from the ancient Hippodrome and other sites. The courtyard is one of the grandest in Ottoman architecture, its colonnade on columns of marble, granite and porphyry with muqarnas capitals. The four minarets stand at its corners, the two tallest reaching about 76 m with their caps; together they carry ten balconies, said to mark Suleiman as the tenth sultan of his line.

The mosque was only the centre of a whole foundation: madrasas, a school of medicine and a hospital, a public kitchen, a caravanserai and baths surrounded it, arranged around the mosque on the hilltop. Behind the qibla wall, in a walled garden cemetery, stand the octagonal tombs of Suleiman and of his wife Hürrem Sultan (Roxelana); Suleiman's tomb has some of the earliest İznik tiles with the brilliant emerald green that became a hallmark of the kilns. The terraces behind the mosque give one of the finest views over the Golden Horn. With its surroundings, the Süleymaniye forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Historic Areas of Istanbul.

Getting there

The mosque stands on the Third Hill, about 600 m from Eminönü on the Golden Horn. İstanbul Airport (IST) is about 35 km away. From Eminönü, with its ferry piers and tram stop, it is a short uphill walk.