Lonely Planet İstanbul Guide

MOSQUE grand mosque here, the Karaites were moved to Hasköy, a district further up the Golden Horn that still bears traces of their presence. The mosque’s proportions aren’t as pleasing as the city’s other imperial mosques and neither are its tiles. This reflects the fact that there was a diminution in the quality of the products coming out of the İznik workshops in the second half of the 17th century. Compare the tiles here with the exquisite examples found in the nearby Rüstem Paşa Mosque, which are from the high period of İznik tile work, and this will immediately become apparent. Nonetheless, the mosque is a popular place of worship and a much-loved adornment to the city skyline. Note that it is closed to visitors during prayer times and on Fridays before 2.30pm. Across the road from the mosque is the türbe (tomb) of Valide Sultan Turhan Hadice. Buried with her are no fewer than six sultans, including her son Mehmet IV, plus dozens of imperial princes and princesses. Her türbe was closed for restoration at the time of research. If it is open, be sure to visit the Hünkar Kasrı, once the sultan’s waiting room, located above the grand archway on the eastern side of the mosque. NURUOSMANIYE MOSQUE ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; Nuruosmaniye Camii, Light of Osman Mosque; Vezir Han Caddesi, Beyazıt; j Çemberlıtaş) Facing one of the major gateways into the Grand Bazaar, this large mosque complex was built in Ottoman baroque style between 1748 and 1755. Construction was started by order of Mahmut I and finished during the reign of his successor, Osman III. Meticulously restored in recent years, it has a central prayer hall topped by one of the largest domes ever built in an Ottoman mosque, a unique polygonal rear courtyard and a külliye comprising medrese, imaret, kütüphane and türbe . Though designed in the then highly fashionable and modern baroque style, the mosque has very strong echoes of Aya Sofya – specifically the lofty dome, colonnaded mezzanine galleries, broad band of calligraphy around the interior (in this case a marble relief of the Sura Al-Fath) and 174 windows topped with Roman arches. Despite its prominent position on the busy pedestrian route