Sokollu Mehmet Paşa Mosque: Sinan's Jewel on the Slope
Why is it significant?
Climb the steps from the street, pass under the gateway, and you find yourself in a small enclosed world: a domed ablution fountain in the middle of a courtyard, ringed by arcades of student cells.
Key Facts
| Place | Sokollu Mehmet Paşa Mosque: Sinan's Jewel on the Slope |
|---|---|
| Address | Küçük Ayasofya, Şehit Mehmet Paşa Yokuşu No:20, 34122 Fatih/İstanbul, Türkiye |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.00480, 28.97220 |
| Part of Walk | Constantinople Underfoot: Byzantine Istanbul Beneath Sultanahmet |
| Generated | Generated |
Climb the steps from the street, pass under the gateway, and you find yourself in a small enclosed world: a domed ablution fountain in the middle of a courtyard, ringed by arcades of student cells. The whole complex is folded into the slope, so the prayer hall sits higher than the street you came from.
It was built in 1571 and 1572 by Mimar Sinan, the greatest architect of the Ottoman Empire, for one of its most powerful men, the grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Paşa, and his wife Esmahan Sultan, a daughter of Sultan Selim the Second. Sokollu was born to a Christian family in Bosnia, taken as a boy through the devşirme levy, and rose to serve three sultans as grand vizier.
Step inside and the walls glow. The İznik tiles here, turquoise and cobalt and a deep tomato red, are counted among the finest of the late sixteenth century, the golden age of İznik. Sinan was given a steep and cramped plot, and still he made the interior feel generous, light and calm. In a city of monumental mosques, this one wins people over by its proportions, not its size.
Look carefully above the entrance, at the prayer niche and at the pulpit. Small black fragments are set into the marble, framed in gold. Tradition says they are pieces of the Black Stone of the Kaaba in Mecca. Nobody can prove it either way, but people have touched them in reverence for centuries.
Sokollu's own end was abrupt. In 1579 a man dressed as a dervish approached him with a petition and stabbed him. The statesman who had held the empire together under three sultans was gone in a moment, and the balance of power at court shifted for good. From the mosque, keep heading downhill towards the flat ground near the sea, and stop at the little park in Kadırga. You are about to walk onto the bottom of a harbour.