Arap Camii: The Gothic Church that Became a Mosque

Why is it significant?

Stand in the courtyard and look up at the minaret. Something is off. It is square, made of stone, with narrow pointed windows and a pointed roof instead of a balcony and a spire. That is because it was built as a church bell tower.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stand in the courtyard and look up at the minaret. Something is off. It is square, made of stone, with narrow pointed windows and a pointed roof instead of a balcony and a spire. That is because it was built as a church bell tower.

Around 1325, Dominican friars in Genoese Galata built a large church here, dedicated to Saint Paul and later known as San Domenico. It is the only medieval Gothic church building surviving in Istanbul, a little piece of Genoa or Siena dropped among the workshops of Karaköy. After the Ottoman conquest, Mehmed II converted it into a mosque.

Then came its name. In 1492 the Catholic monarchs completed the conquest of Granada, and in the decades that followed, Muslims and Jews were driven out of Spain. Many found refuge in the Ottoman Empire, and the mosque was given to the Muslim refugees from Andalusia. Locals called them Arabs, and the building has been the Arap Camii, the Arab Mosque, ever since.

There is an older legend, too. Some say a mosque was founded on this spot by the Arab commander Maslama during the great siege of Constantinople in 717 and 718, and that the church simply took its place. There is no evidence for it, but it is the kind of story that a city with this many layers loves to tell.

The building keeps its secrets well. During restoration work early in the twentieth century, gravestones of Genoese families were found beneath the floor, carved with coats of arms and Latin inscriptions. Inside, beneath a wooden roof, the long hall still has the proportions of a friars' church. Now walk back east a few steps to the wide street of old banks, Bankalar Caddesi, and look for a pair of curving staircases climbing the hill like a ribbon.