Rüstem Paşa Mosque: A Garden of İznik Tiles

Why is it significant?

Climb the narrow stone stairs from the busy market street, and at the top you come out onto a terrace, above the shops, above the porters and the noise. Then you step into the porch... and stop, because the walls are blue.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Climb the narrow stone stairs from the busy market street, and at the top you come out onto a terrace, above the shops, above the porters and the noise. Then you step into the porch... and stop, because the walls are blue.

The Rüstem Paşa Mosque is covered in İznik tiles, inside and on the porch, more lavishly than any other mosque in the city. Tulips, carnations, hyacinths, pomegranates and vines, in cobalt, turquoise and a brilliant tomato red that İznik potters had only just learned to make. It was built by Sinan around 1561 to 1563, at the very peak of İznik ceramics, and it feels like walking into a jewellery box.

Why so lavish? Because of the man who paid for it. Rüstem Pasha was Süleyman's grand vizier for many years and the husband of the sultan's daughter Mihrimah. He was also one of the richest men in the empire, a master of the treasury, and not loved for it. He died in 1561, and the mosque was completed after his death.

His enemies gave him a nickname: the louse of fortune. The story goes that before the wedding, rivals spread a rumour that Rüstem had leprosy, hoping to stop the match. Doctors examined him and found a louse in his clothes, and since people believed that lice never lived on lepers, he was declared healthy. So the insect made his career.

Now notice the clever engineering. The mosque stands on a platform of vaulted rooms, and those rooms were rented out as shops and storerooms, so the market below paid for the prayer hall above. Religion and commerce are stacked here like floors in a house. Go back down the stairs, turn right along the market street, and follow the smell of cumin and coffee to the last stop, where the bazaar meets the water.