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Suleymaniye Kulliya |
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 Istanbul
has 7 hills that have been culturally and historically important
to the city for centuries. As contemporary Istanbul has grown to
encompass dozens of square kilometers that extend far past its
historical borders. it is believed that these seven hills are
equally distributed geographically. Yet, these 7 hills of
Istanbul, which have lent themselves to Istanbul's nickname as "the
city of seven hills,' are all located in the historic peninsula.
Hagia Sophia is situated on one of these hills, which is called
the 1st hill due to its location overlooking both the Bosphorus
and the Golden Hom. On the 3rd hill stands Suleymaniye Mosque, a
splendid architectural monument that perfectly reflects its
builder, Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, "the Lawgiver.' Sultan
Suleyman, who came to power in 1520 and ruled the empire until
his death in 1566, is not just the Ottoman sultan whose reign
lasted the longest; he is also responsible for extending the
empire to its farthest borders to become a great power and a
world empire.
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 Sultan
Süleyman wanted a monument as glamorous as the Hagia Sofia built by
Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. Thus, the Suleymaniye Kulliya (complex)
was born in the hands of the great master Architect Sinan. Sinan
started to build this mosque, which was later referred by him as a
product of his journeyman stage, in 1550 and he completed it in 7
years, which was quite quiek for those times. The architectural plan
of Suleymaniye Mosque is similar to that of Hagia Sophia.
However, the width of the dome, which is a significant indicator of
its magnificence, could not reach the dimensions of Hagia Sophia's
dome. Sinan built a domethe same size of Hagia Sophia's for the
Selimiye Mosque, which he regarded as a product of his master stage.
Suleymaniye Mosque's dome is 53 m in height and 26.5 m in diameter
and was placed on 4 great pillars, as was the case for other big
Ottoman mosques. All the details of Suleymaniye Mosque were thought
out in the thoroughness and detail of an artistic production. Its
ebony doors, specially handcrafted glasses that filter the light of
the changing seasons, and ceramic masterpieces of the artisans of
Iznik, which would later be the center of Ottoman ceramic art, still
adorn the building. Suleymaniye Mosque is a complex of buildings
with the mosque in the center, as is typically the ease in other
Ottoman kulliyas.
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The complex, largest in Istanbul, consists of four madrasas, a
medical madrasa, a hospital, a primary school, a caravanserai, shops,
a hammam, a tomb, and other buildings. Its soup kitchen fed over one
thousand poor people from the three main religions every day for
centuries.
In 1990, this soup kitchen was turned into a restaurant serving the
most authentic dishes of the Ottoman palace's cuisine. The tombs of
Sultan Süleyman, his wife Hürrem Sultan, who was a good example of
how powerful a woman could be in the Ottoman state tradition, their
daughter Mihrimah Sultan, and of severalother sultans are situated
in the Suleymaniye Kulliya. |
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Suleymaniye Library |
The Suleymaniye Kulliya served the palace like an Ottoman university.
Thousands of young people were educated in the madrasas of this
kulliya. Many manuscripts were collected here and what remains today
from the madrasas was turned into a library. This library was
declared by UNESCO a worldcultural heritage since it has one of the
most romprehensive book collections in the world with over 70,000
manuscripts and 110,000 books.
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Cevahir Minaret |
The construction process of the Suleymaniye Kulliya was halted
temporarily in order to wait for the base to settle. The Iranian
Shah made an incorrect assumption regarding the reason for this
pause and sent jewelers to Süleyman the Lawgiver to "contribute to
the construction process of the mosque. "
Sultan Süleyman reacted harshly to the Shah 's diplomatic
tactlessness by asking his men to squeeze the precious stones sent
by the Shah and to mix them with chippings used in the construction
of the mosque. Sinan put these jewels into the mortar of a minaret.
Later, this minaret was called "the Cevahir Minaresi" (Jewelry
Minaret in Turkish) due to the diamonds of the minaret that shone
with the sunlight of the Golden Horn.
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Anatolian Kavak and Lighthouse