Süleymaniye Mosque: Sinan's Masterpiece on the Hill
Why is it significant?
Walk into the arcaded courtyard and stop in the middle. Four minarets stand at its corners, the domes rise in steps towards the sky, and everything around you, every arch and column, is built to the same calm rhythm.
Key Facts
| Place | Süleymaniye Mosque: Sinan's Masterpiece on the Hill |
|---|---|
| Address | Süleymaniye, Prof. Sıddık Sami Onar Caddesi No:1, 34116 Fatih/İstanbul, Türkiye |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.01630, 28.96360 |
| Part of Walk | Sinan's City: Istanbul from the Grand Bazaar to Süleymaniye |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk into the arcaded courtyard and stop in the middle. Four minarets stand at its corners, the domes rise in steps towards the sky, and everything around you, every arch and column, is built to the same calm rhythm.
This is the Süleymaniye, the mosque of Süleyman the Magnificent, built by his chief architect, Mimar Sinan, between 1550 and 1557. The great dome is about twenty-six and a half metres across and its crown rises some fifty-three metres above the floor. Sinan had a model, of course: Hagia Sophia, a thousand years older, down the hill. Here he took its plan of a dome on two half-domes and cleaned it, simplified it, made it Ottoman.
The legends are part of the building. The four minarets, they say, mark Süleyman as the fourth sultan to rule from this city, and their ten balconies make him the tenth sultan of his dynasty. Inside, ostrich eggs were hung among the lamps, said to keep spiders away. And the story goes that the smoke of hundreds of oil lamps was drawn into a small room above the entrance, where the soot was collected and turned into ink for the calligraphers.
But a mosque was never just a mosque. Around you stood colleges, a school of medicine, a hospital, a soup kitchen that fed the poor, a hamam, shops, and a library. This whole hilltop was a university town, built on one design. Sinan himself, near the end of his life, called the Şehzade Mosque his apprentice work, the Süleymaniye his journeyman work, and the Selimiye in Edirne his masterpiece. For most people who stand here, that is hard to believe.
Before you leave, walk to the terrace on the northern side and look down over the Golden Horn to Galata. The hill was chosen so that the mosque would crown the skyline for every ship arriving. Then walk around to the garden behind the prayer hall, where a sultan and the woman he loved lie a few steps apart.