Here we explain Istanbul’s ten most splendid mosques with their interesting stories
Istanbul is a city steeped in history, dotted with grand monuments and iconic buildings that speak of a glorious past.
“They are very carefully thought out structures,” says Hayri Fehmi Yilmaz, a Turkish art historian, referring to how Istanbul’s Ottoman mosques were designed and constructed by their Ottoman builders. The mosque was built on the burial place of the city’s founder Constantine, where the former Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles stood. The Ottoman ruler was buried in his mosque complex,
“In Ottoman history, there was no other mosque built for an Ottoman prince,” says Yilmaz, referring to the Sehzade Mosque, whose architecture and two minarets signify that the commissioner is a sultan and show that it’s meant to be built for a living ruler. “Sinan used his architecture design of Sehzade Mosque, which resembles Ayasofya, for other prominent projects he pursued later,” Yilmaz says, adding that it inspired many other mosque designs, including modern Turkish worshipping structures.
Sultan Ahmed Mosque is the only mosque in Istanbul with six minarets. Unlike many Ottoman sultans, its builder Ahmed I initiated the mosque project at a very young age when he was 19. “Ottoman rulers were very careful about where they would build a mosque. The mosque’s land should be accrued as a halal property. As a result, according to one account, the Ottoman sultan told him ‘do the construction without touching anyone's property’,” says Yilmaz.
The Kilic Ali Pasha complex, which once also hosted Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, author of of the classic, as a war prisoner of the admiral, was built by Sinan, who was in his 90s during the commission, making it one of his last masterpieces. Across vast territories of the empire, many female members of the Ottoman dynasty like Mihrimah Sultan also commissioned mosques, fountains and hospitals to meet the needs of the public.