Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Mosque

The Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Mosque ( Turkish Sokollu Mehmet Paşa Camii ) is an Ottoman mosque in the Istanbul district of Fatih . It is part of a religious foundation of the Ottoman Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pascha and his wife İsmihan Sultan . The architect Sinan planned and built it in the 1560s and 1570s. The mosque is part of a socio-religious complex ( Külliye ), consisting of the mosque itself, a medrese , a dervish convent ( Tekke ), public latrines and a water reservoir with a street well. The building is known for the outstanding quality of its faience tiles made of İznik ceramic .

location

The mosque is located on a rocky hill in the district of Kadırga , below the hippodrome in the Istanbul district of Fatih. The terrain slopes down to the northwest as well as to the southeast.

history

The mosque was built by the court architect Sinan for the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and his wife İsmihan Sultan. İsmihan was the daughter of Selim II and granddaughter of Suleyman I. According to an inscription at the northern entrance to the inner courtyard, the mosque was completed in 979 according to the Islamic calendar (1571/72). Although İsmihan and her husband jointly founded the mosque, only Sokollu Mehmed Pascha is mentioned in the inscription.

architecture


Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Mosque Left : floor plan, right : section

Mihrab and minbar

Inner courtyard with Şadirvan

The mosque is located on a rocky slope. Architect Sinan solved the height difference problem with a two-story courtyard. The basement was divided into shops whose rents helped to finance the maintenance of the mosque. On the upper floor there is now a spacious courtyard with colonnades , smaller rooms each with a small window, a fireplace and a niche in which bedding could be stored. The apartments for the medrese were located here. On the fourth side is the mosque itself, which opens onto the courtyard via a vestibule that is higher than the colonnades, but incorporates its design features with small domes and seven bays with round arches. These rest on six pillars made of proconnesian marble . Above the large windows and the portals in the two outer arches there are white inscriptions on a blue background with red, floral frames. The minaret, with a single balcony, rises from the southeast corner of the vestibule. Its wall ribs ending in pointed arches with marked rosettes take up the decor of the large interior pillars. The central Şadirvan in the courtyard is spanned by a dome supported by twelve pillars.

The church was built over a hexagonal floor plan in a rectangle of 15.5 x 19 m and is spanned by a dome with four accompanying half-domes. The central dome is 13 meters wide and 22 meters high. Half-domes with stalactite vaults flank the arches. These fit into the asymmetrical triangles between the main dome and the walls of the prayer hall. The architectural solution of this transition zone in the Sokollu Mehmed Mosque is unique and contributes to the uniform perception of the interior. There are wide side galleries in the east and west.

The interior of the mosque is decorated with magnificent İznik ceramic tiles with floral and vegetal decor in blue, red and green and panels with white Thuluth script on a blue background. The central shield wall of the Qibla is fully tiled. The columns are made of multi-colored marble. The minbar is made of white marble with a conical lid and clad with faience. The windows of the mihrab are decorated with stained glass. A fragment of the Kaaba in Mecca is located above the main entrance, framed by a gold-plated brass bezel . Other fragments of the Kaaba are in the minbar and mihrab. Parts of the mosque still have the original painting, including in the vestibule of the north entrance on the consoles of the balconies above the entrance and on the ceilings of the side galleries.

Since the building site of the complex slopes down to the southwest, the inner courtyard of the medrese is built on an embankment. Your main entrance is on the southwest side. From the wide entrance arch, a steep staircase leads under the domed lecture hall up to the inner courtyard of the medrese. An open corridor leads from the stairs along the west side of the mosque. At the end he turns at a right angle through an archway into a gatehouse with a dome, which leads to a corner of the inner courtyard of the madrasah. From the north-eastern entrance gate in the surrounding wall one gets into a small forecourt, from this into a gatehouse of the same construction as the south-western one in the opposite corner of the courtyard.

Behind the mosque is located, unusual for the Ottoman architecture of the 16th century, a former Sufi - Tekke . This is separated from the mosque and medrese by a wall with a narrow passage on the entrance level and is almost hidden behind the symmetrical and monumental complex of mosque and medrese. Sokollu Mehmed Pasha had the tekke built for his own spiritual advisor, the influential Halveti Sheikh - Tarīqa Nureddinzade Mustafa Muslihuddin, a prominent supporter of the Ottoman state religion . The madrasah is built around a domed ceremonial hall (tevhidhane) and two courtyards. A staircase behind the ceremonial hall connects the two courtyards, which are on different levels. Thirty dervish cells are arranged around the courtyards, 21 at the level of the entrance and nine one floor below in the south-western section of the courtyard. There is a larger room in the south corner on the entrance level. Exactly underneath are rooms that were probably used to supply the Tekke, as the pasha's deed of foundation does not record its own kitchen ( Imaret ) . On the floor below the Tevhidhane there are baths and latrines that are accessible from the lower courtyard. In the east corner on the entrance level there is a windowless room, which was probably used for spiritual contemplation ( halvet ).

literature

Suraiyah Faroqhi: Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire . IB Tauris, 2005, ISBN 1-85043-760-2 .
JM Rogers: Sinan: Makers of Islamic Civilization . IB Tauris, 2007, ISBN 1-84511-096-X .

Web links

Commons : Sokollu Mehmet Pasha Mosque - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Sokullu Mehmet Paşa ve Ismihan Sultan Külliyesi (Kadırga) on ArchNet, accessed May 13, 2019

Detailed photos of the mosque on pbase.com, accessed May 13, 2019

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Gülru Necipoğlu: The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire . Reaction Books, London 2005, ISBN 978-1-86189-253-9
^ ^A ^b Godfrey Goodwin: A History of Ottoman Architecture . Thames and Hudson, London 1971, ISBN 978-0-500-27429-3 , pp. 274-276 .
^ ^A ^b Walter B. Denny: Iznik: The Artistry of Ottoman Ceramics . Thames & Hudson, London 2004, ISBN 978-0-500-51192-3 .
↑ ArchNet
↑ Zeynep Yürekli: A Building between the Public and Private Realms of the Ottoman elite: The Sufi Convent of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha in Istanbul . In: Muqarnas . tape 20 , 2003, p. 159-185 , JSTOR : 1523331 .

41.004722222222 28.972222222222Coordinates: 41 ° 0 ′ 17 ″ N , 28 ° 58 ′ 20 ″ E

[gn-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Gülru Necipoğlu: The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire . Reaction Books, London 2005, ISBN 978-1-86189-253-9

[Goodwin-2] A ^b Godfrey Goodwin: A History of Ottoman Architecture . Thames and Hudson, London 1971, ISBN 978-0-500-27429-3 , pp. 274-276 .

[Denny-3] A ^b Walter B. Denny: Iznik: The Artistry of Ottoman Ceramics . Thames & Hudson, London 2004, ISBN 978-0-500-51192-3 .

[4] ArchNet

[5] Zeynep Yürekli: A Building between the Public and Private Realms of the Ottoman elite: The Sufi Convent of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha in Istanbul . In: Muqarnas . tape 20 , 2003, p. 159-185 , JSTOR : 1523331 .