Suleymaniye Camii

One of the things you should not miss is of course the Suleymaniye Camii (i.e. Mosque), designed and build by Mimar Sinan, the most important architect of the Ottoman Empire. The inside is less decorated than you might expect, but the proportions and the total impression is breath-taking.

The Suleymaniye Mosque is in fact a "külliye" which means more than just a mosque but also a hospital with insane asylum, a theological school (medrese), a public kitchen, a caravanserai, a public bath and the graves (türbe) of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent and his wife Roxelana.

The Suleymaniye complex is not the largest of its kind in Istanbul (this is the külliye of the Fatih Mosque), but it is the most beautiful and great imbalanced in its proportions. Also Mimar Sinan, architect of the Suleymaniye, is buried here in a small türbe. The modesty of this türbe has been often compared with the signature that an artist leaves on his paintings - so is the türbe in relation to the imperial mosques complex.

The prayer-room of the Suleymaniye is almost square in plan, measuring 58.5 by 57.5 meters, surmounted by a dome 27.5 meters in diameter, with its crown 47 meters above the floor. The mosque is easy to recognize from many places all over the city for it has four characteristic minarets with together 10 balconies which shall symbolize Sultan Suleyman who was the 10th Sultan of the Ottoman dynasty.