Suleymaniye Mosque

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Historic Areas Of Istanbul, 1985); Imperial Mosque Complex By Mimar Sinan, Free Entry · Istanbul, Istanbul

Mimar Sinan was in his sixties and already the empire's chief architect when he built this for Suleyman the Magnificent between 1550 and 1557, and most people who look carefully at both agree it is the better building of the two great Istanbul mosques. It sits on the third hill with a terrace over the Golden Horn, and the whole complex was designed as a working piece of city - madrasas, a hospital, a soup kitchen, a caravanserai, a hamam and a primary school arranged around the mosque, several of them still in use. The interior is the opposite of the Blue Mosque's: restrained, almost colourless, with the structure itself doing the work and light coming down through a fifty-three-metre dome. Sinan buried himself in a small tomb at the corner of the grounds, and Suleyman and Hurrem Sultan lie in the garden behind. Entry is free and there is rarely a queue, which after Sultanahmet feels like an oversight.

Suleymaniye Mahallesi, Prof. Siddik Sami Onar Caddesi, Fatih, Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkiye

Open daily and free. Tourist visiting is suspended for roughly ninety minutes around each of the five daily prayers and for longer at Friday midday. The tombs of Suleyman and Hurrem Sultan in the garden keep their own shorter hours and close on some days. The terrace and courtyard are open more widely than the prayer hall. Prayer times move with the sun.

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