The Süleymaniye Mosque

You're on the summit of Istanbul's third hill, in front of the mosque many consider the high point of Ottoman architecture. It was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent, the sultan who took the empire to its greatest extent, and designed by Mimar Sinan, the architect behind hundreds of buildings over half a century.

1Seven years of work

The inscription over the door gives 1550 as the year of foundation and 1557 as the inauguration. The dome rises some 53 metres. Sinan didn't set out to copy Hagia Sophia but to solve its problems: he spread the weight with semi-domes and buttresses tucked into the side galleries, so the interior would be a single space, clean and full of light.

2A city around it

The mosque was only the centre of a külliye, a social complex. Around it stood Koranic schools, a medical school, a hospital, a public kitchen, a caravanserai and baths. Several of the buildings are still in public use today.

Its four minarets have ten balconies between them; it's often said they recall that Suleiman was the tenth Ottoman sultan.

3Three tombs

Behind the qibla wall, in the garden, are the octagonal mausoleums of Suleiman, who died in 1566, and of his wife Hürrem Sultan, whom Europe knew as Roxelana. And outside the precinct, on a corner to the north, Sinan lies in a surprisingly modest tomb he designed himself.

4What to look for

• The four minarets at the corners of the courtyard, of different heights.
• The view of the Golden Horn from the garden terrace.
• Sinan's tomb, at the street corner by the north wall.