Sokollu Mehmet Pasha Mosque

About Sokollu Mehmet Pasha Mosque

Mosque in İstanbul, Turkey

The Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Mosque in the Kadırga quarter of Fatih is one of Istanbul's most beautiful small mosques and one of the least visited. It was commissioned jointly by the grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, de facto ruler of the Ottoman Empire in its 16th-century golden age, and his wife Ismihan Sultan, daughter of Sultan Selim II, and was designed by the imperial architect Mimar Sinan, who completed it in 979 AH / 1571 CE on the site of a Byzantine church. It is one of three mosques in the city bearing the grand vizier's name. The sloping site posed an architectural challenge that Sinan resolved by raising a forecourt above a row of shops and a madrasa, so that visitors climb a staircase into a courtyard ringed by the madrasa cells with an ablution fountain at its centre. The interior holds some of the finest surviving Iznik tiles from the height of their production, covering the qibla wall, the mihrab and the column capitals with delicate floral patterns. The mosque is unique in containing four small fragments of the Black Stone of the Kaaba, set in gilded frames within marble panels: one above the main entrance, one above the mihrab, one above the door of the minbar and one beneath the minbar's canopy, which makes a visit especially moving for Muslim travellers.

Where:

Istanbul, Türkiye