A fire, an earthquake and an ammunition blaze all hit this mosque, and more than four hundred and fifty years after it opened, it is still a working mosque.
This is the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul.
Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent wanted a mosque to rival Hagia Sophia. His architect, Sinan, began it in 1550 on a hill above the Golden Horn, and more than three thousand workers built it in seven years.
It opened in 1557. The great dome rises about fifty-three metres. Its founding documents say lavish gold and jewels were avoided.
Four minarets stand at the corners of the courtyard, with ten balconies between them. Tradition says the ten balconies mark Suleiman as the tenth Ottoman sultan.
A popular tradition says Sinan designed air channels to carry the smoke of the oil lamps to a chamber above the entrance, where the soot was gathered to make ink.
A great fire damaged the mosque in 1660. In 1766, an earthquake brought down part of the dome, and much of Sinan's original decoration was lost.
In the First World War, the courtyard served as a weapons depot, and ignited ammunition set the mosque on fire again. Full restoration was not finished until 1956.
A restoration from 2007 to 2010 removed damaging cement repairs and strengthened the dome.
Suleiman and his wife Hurrem Sultan rest in the garden, and Sinan's modest tomb stands just outside the north wall.
Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent chose the architect Mimar Sinan to create a mosque in memory of his son Şehzade (Crown Prince) Mehmed. Suleiman was so impressed with the ensuing Şehzade Mosque that he asked Sinan to design a mosque for himself too. This mosque would represent the pre-eminence of the Ottoman Empire.
In the era of the mosque's construction, Suleiman controlled a huge empire that, after his father Selim's conquest of the Mamluk Sultanate in 1517, covered much of the Islamic world, encouraging him to define his role as an Islamic ruler. During this time, he was also engaged in confrontation with the Safavids, a Shi'a dynasty in Iran, and successfully forced them to make symbolic political concessions in the Treaty of Amasya in 1555. In this context, Suleiman promoted the Ottoman state's reliance on the Shari'a (Islamic law), the ulama (Islamic legal scholars), and orthodox Sunni ideology as a pillar of the sultan's authority and legitimacy. This is reflected in the function and organization of the madrasas and other educational facilities that were built as part of the new mosque's complex (külliye). The latter were given a much larger staff than previous madrasas and the endowment deed (waqf) for the mosque complex designated various religious officials that were to be closely associated with the Ottoman state. More generally, the monumental mosque and its extensive facilities formed a political display of the sultan's power. Among other functions, it served as an impressive setting for the sultan's public appearances at Friday prayers.
Suleiman's intention was to build a mosque that would surpass all others built by his predecessors. Suleiman appears to have represented himself at times as a "second Solomon" and his construction projects in both Jerusalem and Constantinople (Istanbul) appear to reflect this. Architecturally, Suleiman's mausoleum (built behind the mosque) references the Dome of the Rock, which was built on the site of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. According to popular tradition, Justinian I boasted upon the completion of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople: "Solomon, I have surpassed thee!" Suleiman's mosque, in turn, references the Hagia Sophia, Justinian's creation, in its design and layout. The mosque recalls the Hagia Sophia and the Bayezid II Mosque in its basic form, but as Sinan had already moved beyond this design with the Şehzade Mosque and he rarely revisited old designs during his career, it is likely that this design choice was requested by the sultan himself. The Hagia Sophia, which was converted into a mosque during the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453, had remained an idealized symbol of sovereignty in Ottoman culture and this probably motivated Suleiman to emulate or surpass it with his own mosque.
Construction
The mosque was built on the site of the old Ottoman palace (Eski Saray) which was still in use at the time and had to be demolished. The Arabic inscription above the entrance to the prayer hall gives a foundation date of 1550 and an inauguration date of 1557. In reality, the planning of the mosque began before 1550 and parts of the complex were not completed until after 1557. The final construction expenses were recorded in 1559, relating to some of the madrasas and to the mausoleum of Suleiman's wife, Hürrem Sultan (d. 1558). The mausoleum for Suleiman himself was built after his death on the orders of his son and successor, Selim II, between 1566 and 1568.
Damages and restorations
The Süleymaniye was damaged in the great fire of 1660 and was restored by Sultan Mehmed IV. Part of the dome collapsed during the earthquake of 1766. Repairs damaged what was left of Sinan's original decoration (recent cleaning has shown that he experimented with blue, before making red the dominant colour of the dome).
Architecture and design
Courtyard
Like the other imperial mosques in Istanbul, the entrance to the mosque is preceded by a forecourt with a central fountain. The main front gate, on the northwest side of the mosque, projects outward from and above the walls on either side. The entrance portal consists of a recess covered by a triangular vault sculpted with muqarnas, with slender pilasters on either side. Above the muqarnas canopy is an inscription featuring the Sunni version of the shahada (profession of faith). The windows on either side of the portal mark the presence of interior rooms which housed the muvakkithane (chamber of the timekeeper).
The courtyard, measuring around 47 by 57 metres (154 by 187 feet), is of exceptional grandeur with a colonnaded peristyle supported by tall columns of marble, granite and porphyry. The columns are topped by classic Ottoman "stalactite" capitals (carved with muqarnas). On the southeast side of the courtyard, the portico preceding the prayer hall is higher than those on the other three sides, giving this façade a greater monumentality. The three center arches of the northwest portico, corresponding to the front entrance, are also higher than the other arches around them. According to Godfrey Goodwin, reconciling these elements of different heights along the peristyle was Sinan's main aesthetic difficulty. The facade of the prayer hall is also decorated with rectangular Iznik tile window lunettes. It was the first building in which the Iznik tiles included the brightly coloured tomato-red clay under the glaze.
The mosque is equipped with water taps outside the courtyard, between the side entrances of the prayer hall, which are used for performing ablutions. As a result, the drinking fountain in the center of the courtyard is purely decorative. It is a rectangular marble enclosure with a ceiling. The fountain was designed so that water sprayed from the ceiling into the basin below, an unusual feature noted by some 16th-century writers.
Behind the southeast portico, the main entrance to the prayer hall is set within a recess with a complex muqarnas canopy. This is preceded by a dome with a more distinctive design than the other domes of the peristyle. The entrance portal features a foundation inscription carved onto three rectangular panels (two vertical panels on the side and an horizontal one on top). The text was composed by Ebussuud Efendi and its calligraphy, in thuluth script, was created by Hasan Çelebi, a student of Ahmed Karahisari. It states the sultan's name and titles, his genealogy, and a prayer for the continuation of the Ottoman dynasty. The wooden doors of the entrance are made of carved wood, including walnut, ebony, and olive wood, and they are inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl.
The side entrances of the mosque courtyard have inscriptions as well. The western gate to the courtyard has an inscription reading, "Peace be unto thee! Thou art good, so enter ye to dwell therein" (Quran 39:73). The other entrances of the mosque have similar inscriptions which compare its gates with the gates of paradise.
More to know
Mausoleums
Behind the qibla wall (southeast wall) of the mosque is an enclosed cemetery which contains the separate mausoleums (türbe) of Sultan Suleiman I and his wife Hürrem Sultan (Roxelana).
The large octagonal mausoleum of Suleiman the Magnificent bears the date of 1566, the year of his death, but it was probably not completed until the following year. It is one of the largest Ottoman mausoleums and its design has been compared to the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, on which it may have been modeled on the latter. The mausoleum is surrounded by a peristyle (portico) with a projecting roof supported by 24 columns; the entrance faces towards the east rather than the usual north. Beneath the portico on either side of the entrance are Iznik tiled panels. These are the earliest known tiles decorated with the bright emerald green colour that would become a common feature of Iznik ceramics. The dome, 14 meters in diameter, is the first major example of a double-shelled dome in Sinan's architecture. The interior has a false dome supported on eight columns within the outer shell. There are 14 windows at ground level and an additional 24 windows with stained glass set in the tympana under the arches. The walls and pendentives are covered with polychrome Iznik tiles. Above the windows runs a band of inscriptive tiled panels. The text quotes the Throne verse and the following two verses from the Quran 2:255-258. In addition to the tomb of Suleiman the Magnificent, the mausoleum houses the tomb of his daughter Mihrimah Sultan and those of two later sultans: Suleiman II (ruled 1687–1691) and Ahmed II (ruled 1691–1695).
Hurrem Sultan's octagonal mausoleum is dated 1558, the year of her death. The 16-sided interior is decorated with Iznik tiles. The seven rectangular windows are surmounted by tiled lunettes and epigraphic panels. Between the windows are eight mihrab-like hooded niches. The ceiling is now whitewashed but was probably once painted in bright colours.
The History, Architecture and later sections are adapted from the Wikipedia article “Süleymaniye Mosque”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full article. Text has been shortened.
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