Everyone knows the Süleymaniye, the mosque whose four minarets complete Istanbul's skyline on the hill above the Golden Horn. The life of the man who built it, however, is usually squeezed into a couple of sentences. In fact the story of Mimar Sinan is that of a young man from a village near Kayseri who became first a carpenter, then a soldier and finally, for close to half a century, chief architect of the empire. This article follows that life in order, shows which building in today's Istanbul stands for each stage, and explains how to visit them.

Most of what we know about Sinan comes from Tezkiretü'l-bünyan, written by his close friend, the poet Sai Mustafa Çelebi, probably in 1586-1587. It combines a life story compiled from Sinan's own recollections with a list of his works. Tezkiretü'l-ebniye by the same author and three short treatises kept together in the Topkapı Palace archive complete the picture. Sinan also summed up his professional growth with three buildings. He called the Şehzade Mosque "my apprentice work", the Süleymaniye "my journeyman work" and the Selimiye in Edirne "my masterpiece". The title of this article comes from those three steps.

From Ağırnas to Istanbul

Sinan was born in the village of Ağırnas near Kayseri. The year is not known for certain. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam accepts that he was born before 1491, while other sources give 1488-1490. According to the sentences attributed to him in the Tezkire, he was taken in the devşirme levy during the reign of Selim I, at the time when boys were collected from the province of Kayseri for the first time. Documents show that he kept corresponding with his relatives in Kayseri in later years.

He is said to have been about twenty-two when he reached Istanbul, a late age for a devşirme recruit. The TDV notes that he grew up in a Turkish-speaking environment and wrote poetry from his youth. He seems to have begun his training at a school overlooking the Hippodrome (Atmeydanı), close to the palace and Ayasofya. There, by his own account, he chose carpentry of his own free will. That craft, which started with timber, would support everything he did later, from dome formwork to bridge scaffolding.

His given name was Yusuf. Almost every document calls him Sinan, but the inscription on the Büyükçekmece Bridge carries a phrase meaning "the work of Yusuf son of Abdullah". Because Abdullah was the usual father's name recorded for devşirme recruits, the TDV regards this as the only known signature Sinan left on a building. We will come back to that bridge.

A Master Trained on Campaign

Sinan spent his youth with the army. It is accepted that he took part in the Egyptian campaign and that these journeys introduced him to Seljuk and Safavid buildings, ancient monuments and the pyramids of Egypt. Claims that he fought at Çaldıran are doubtful. By his own account he travelled through Arab and Persian lands in the sultan's service, trying to learn something from every palace dome and every ruin he saw.

The first campaigns he definitely names are Süleyman the Magnificent's expeditions to Belgrade in 1521 and Rhodes in 1522. He served in them as a Janissary foot soldier and then joined the mounted sekban troops. After the Battle of Mohács he became an officer (yayabaşı) of the cadet corps, then an officer of the palace troops, and later head of the crossbowmen (zemberekçibaşı). During the Iraq campaign of 1534, on the orders of Lütfi Pasha, he built three galleys at Tatvan on Lake Van, armed them and took command of them himself. In 1537 he joined the Corfu campaign with the rank of haseki.

The turning point came during the Moldavian campaign of 1538. The army needed a bridge to cross the River Prut, and on Lütfi Pasha's recommendation the job went to Sinan. According to the TDV he built it in thirteen days. When it was suggested that a tower be added to guard the bridge, he objected, argued with Lütfi Pasha about it and even feared he would be punished. The result was the opposite. Lütfi Pasha appreciated his skill and appointed Sinan to replace the chief architect Acem Ali, who had died in 1537.

Chief Architect of the Court

Sinan took over as chief architect around 1538-1539, at the age of forty-eight or forty-nine, and kept the post until his death, for about fifty years. He served Süleyman the Magnificent, Selim II and Murad III. On his seal and in his signature he presents himself as head of the court architects, yet he never forgets to put the word "fakir", the humble servant in need, in front of the title.

How many buildings he made is disputed. Comparing the sources of the period gives a list of 452 structures, while some handbooks put the figure at around 350. The lists include mosques, small mosques, madrasas, tombs, soup kitchens, hospitals, water channels, bridges, caravanserais, palaces and baths. Clearly Sinan did not build all of them in person. As the TDV stresses, he headed a system in which he drew plans, reviewed projects and supervised distant building sites through his assistants. Buildings rose from designs drawn on paper, and masters and foremen carried those plans to every corner of the empire. It is more accurate, then, to think of Sinan not as a lone genius but as the head of a school that ran a large team. Sedefkar Mehmed Ağa, architect of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, came out of this school.

New buildings were only part of the chief architect's job. Repairing old structures, removing buildings that crowded and damaged monuments, the width of streets and the fire risk created by narrow lanes were also among his responsibilities.

His first work in Istanbul as chief architect was the complex built for Hürrem Sultan in the Avratpazarı district, today's Haseki. Its mosque was built in 1538-1539 as a single-domed building. The madrasa followed a year later, the soup kitchen and hospital years afterwards. When the mosque became too small for its congregation, Sedefkar Mehmed Ağa removed its east wall in 1612 and added a second domed hall of the same size. At Haseki, in other words, you can see the work of the master and of an architect from his school side by side.

The Apprentice Work, Şehzade

Süleyman's son Prince Mehmed died in 1543 while governor at Manisa. The sultan decided to build a complex in his name and gave the job to Sinan. Work began in June 1543. The tomb where the prince was buried was finished first, the foundations of the mosque were laid on 23 May 1544 and the mosque opened for worship in August 1548. The complex gave its name, Şehzadebaşı, to this stretch of the road from Beyazıt to Edirnekapı.

In the Şehzade Mosque the central dome is supported by four half domes, and the whole roof rests on arches carried by four great piers. Here Sinan produced the first example of his distinctive pyramidal roof composition. He hid the buttresses inside arcaded galleries and opened the walls, which no longer had to carry the load, with many windows. In the TDV's assessment, the dense relief decoration on the facades and minarets reflects the experimental enthusiasm of the apprentice years. In later buildings Sinan would let the architecture itself, rather than surface ornament, do the talking.

In the same years a complex was rising for Mihrimah Sultan beside the Üsküdar landing. According to its inscription the mosque was completed in 1547, and its central dome is supported by half domes on three sides. The narrow shoreline plot left no room for a classical courtyard, so Sinan gave it a double portico instead. Known locally as the İskele (Landing) Mosque, it stands right across from the ferry pier.

In the Şehzade graveyard, look at the ribbed dome, the coloured stonework and the tiles that cover the entire interior of Prince Mehmed's tomb. The tomb of Rüstem Pasha in the same garden repeats this arrangement in a plainer form.

The Journeyman Work, Süleymaniye

In 1550 Süleyman asked for a complex in his own name. The site chosen was part of the grounds of the Old Palace at Beyazıt, the best point on the ridge sloping down to the Golden Horn. By the accepted date the foundations were laid on 13 June 1550 in a ceremony attended by the sultan, and Şeyhülislam Ebussuud Efendi placed the first stone where the mihrab wall would rise. The main dome was closed on 16 August 1557 and the mosque opened on 15 October 1557, seven years after the foundations. Sinan describes the opening himself. He offers the key to the sultan, who hands it back, saying it is more fitting for the builder to open the house he has built.

The main dome is 27.40 metres across and rises a little over 50 metres from the floor to the crown. Towards the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara it is braced by great arches instead of half domes, and towards the mihrab and the courtyard by two half domes of the same diameter. Because the walls were lightened like screens, hundreds of windows could be opened and the interior stays bright. Two details stand out. Sixty-four jars set into the dome shell with their mouths facing inward help spread sound evenly, and the soot from hundreds of oil lamps was drawn by air currents into a "soot room" above the entrance.

The four minarets with ten balconies in all are popularly explained by Süleyman being the tenth Ottoman sultan. What that reading meant to Sinan is unknown. The placing of the minarets on the plan is the same as at the Üç Şerefeli Mosque in Edirne.

The Süleymaniye is far more than a mosque. On about sixty dönüms of land there are madrasas teaching at different levels, a school of hadith, a medical school, a hospital, a school for Quran reciters, a primary school, a soup kitchen, a hostel, an inn, a bath and rows of shops. Evliya Çelebi writes that the buildings were covered by "a thousand domes" and that 3000 people worked there. The Evvel and Sani madrasas west of the mosque now house the Süleymaniye Library. The tombs of Süleyman and Hürrem Sultan in the graveyard on the qibla side are also Sinan's work.

The Masterpiece, Selimiye, and the Last Years

By Sinan's own account his masterpiece is not in Istanbul but in Edirne. When the Selimiye, built for Selim II, was completed, Sinan was eighty-three according to the TDV and was by then known as "Koca", the elder, because of his age. If you want to see the Selimiye, Radar's day trip to Edirne and the Selimiye is a good place to start.

The traces of his last years in Istanbul are plentiful. At Kadırga, in the complex associated with Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and his wife İsmihan Sultan, the mosque and madrasa share one courtyard, and the inscription over their common gate gives the date 1572. The complex sits on terraces on a slope, and a flight of steps beyond the main gate leads up to the ablution courtyard. The Kılıç Ali Pasha Mosque at Tophane was completed in 1580. The TDV reads it as an experiment in which Sinan reinterpreted the plan of Ayasofya on a much smaller scale and in a structurally safer way.

Under Selim II the houses crowding around Ayasofya and damaging it were cleared, and Sinan reinforced the building with external buttresses. During the same works he built the tomb of Selim II, the first tomb in the grounds of Ayasofya, completed in 1576-1577. The kitchens of Topkapı Palace, damaged in the fire of 1574, were also rebuilt by him on their original structure. When Sinan left for the pilgrimage in 1584, he appointed an architect known as Mehmed Subaşı as his deputy. After his return he carried on with his duties despite his great age.

Sinan and the Baths

The lists of Sinan's works include forty-eight baths, and in Istanbul you can still see some of them in use as hamams.

The best known is the Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamam between Ayasofya and the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. Built for Hürrem Sultan, Süleyman's wife, in 1556-1557, it stands near the remains of the ancient Baths of Zeuxippus. The women's and men's sections are set back to back on the same axis and are the same size, and the building is 75 metres long in all. It was used as a bath until 1910 and then served as anything from a prison to a store for petrol and paper. After repairs in 1957-1958 and a restoration begun in 2008, it has worked as a hamam again since 2011.

The Kılıç Ali Pasha Hamam at Tophane was completed together with the rest of the complex, and one document dates the end of the works to 16 February 1583. Its changing hall is covered by a dome 14.10 metres across. The hot section departs from the usual bath plan, using a layout seen in thermal baths, with a round centre opening into arches arranged like a star. For many years it served as a place where the homeless spent the night, and it was later brought back into working order.

The Çemberlitaş Hamam is an interesting question mark. When the inscription over its door was cleaned, the date 1584 and a chronogram poem by Sai Mustafa Çelebi became legible. It emerged that Nurbanu Valide Sultan, mother of Murad III, had built it to provide income for her Atik Valide complex in Üsküdar. The Atik Valide complex is Sinan's work and the bath dates from his years as chief architect, yet the Çemberlitaş Hamam does not appear in the lists of his works. The TDV therefore treats the attribution as an open question. Part of the changing hall was cut away in 1868 when Divanyolu was widened, while the men's section remained in use as a bath.

Some examples are lost. Hürrem Sultan's double bath in Eminönü stood opposite what is now the southern entrance of the Spice Bazaar. It was demolished around 1930 and an office block was built in its place. The bath of the Süleymaniye complex, on the other hand, still stands as part of the complex.

The only way to see the interiors of these baths is to use them as a hamam. Bear in mind that women's and men's sections are separate and that hours and prices can change.

Engineer of Water and Roads

According to the TDV, Sinan's most important work in engineering terms, and his largest by volume, is not a mosque but the Kırkçeşme water system that brought water to Istanbul. The sources say that Süleyman, seeing water seeping from an old channel near Kağıthane, had the possibility of bringing water from that area investigated and put Sinan in charge. Sinan studied the springs and streams coming from the Belgrad Forest and reported that it could be done. The grand vizier Rüstem Pasha opposed the plan, arguing that plentiful water would swell the population and make the city harder to feed, and even had a water expert working with Sinan imprisoned. The sultan ordered the work to continue anyway. Begun in 1554, it was finished before 1563. Arches destroyed in a flood on 20 September 1563 were repaired, and the system went back into service in 1564. The Süleymaniye complex had cost 35 million akçe, the Kırkçeşme system 50 million.

The main galleries of the line are more than 55 kilometres long in total. Along them stand thirty-three aqueduct bridges large and small, and the five monumental ones among them are Kovukkemer, Paşa Kemeri, Uzunkemer, Moğlova Kemeri and Güzelcekemer. Two-storeyed Uzunkemer, 711 metres long, is the largest structure of the system. The Moğlova (Mağlova) Aqueduct spans the Alibey stream about four kilometres southwest of Kemerburgaz. It is 258 metres long at the top, and counting the depth of its foundations it is calculated to rise some 47 metres. By widening the piers downward like pyramids and opening relieving arches inside them, Sinan created a structure that resists lateral forces yet looks slender. Today the lower part of the aqueduct lies under the waters of the Alibey Dam.

The Büyükçekmece Bridge on the road to the Balkans is a product of the same engineering. An older bridge had crossed the marshland here but had fallen into ruin. Instead of linking the two edges of the marsh with a short bridge, Sinan designed a much longer one running across the whole marsh. He wrote that the old bridge had been set in the swamp, away from the sea, and that its foundations had failed for that reason, and he placed the new one further south. Cofferdams the size of a galleon were built for each pier, piles were driven into them and lead was poured between them. Begun on Süleyman's orders, the bridge was completed under his son Selim II in 1567-1568, after the sultan died on the Szigetvár campaign.

The bridge is 635.57 metres long and 7.17 metres wide. It rises and falls in four sections with twenty-eight arches. The gaps without parapets between the sections are thought to have been left so that floodwater could spill over without damaging the bridge. The phrase "the work of Yusuf son of Abdullah" on the inscription kiosk is the signature mentioned earlier. Because traffic now uses a modern bridge nearby, the historic bridge is relatively well preserved. The area at its head also has the Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Mosque, the Kurşunlu Han and the fountain of Süleyman the Magnificent.

The Tomb at the Süleymaniye

Sinan died in 1588. On the corner of a small triangular plot between two streets, north of the Süleymaniye, a domed public fountain was built first, and Sinan's tomb was built right behind it. The tomb resembles a garden pavilion, with a hipped roof on stone arches over a stone sarcophagus. On the side of the enclosure wall facing the mosque is a verse inscription by Sai Mustafa Çelebi, whose lines end by saying that Sinan, elder of architects, has passed from this world. According to the TDV there is no other complex that finds room for the architect's tomb alongside that of the sultan who founded it.

The tomb is easy to find. In front of the Süleymaniye's wall on the Golden Horn side, turn left as you come out of the gate of the Istanbul Müftülüğü and look for a plain white stone structure at the top of Fetva Yokuşu. Sinan's endowment deed also tells us about his family. His wife Mihri died before him and his son Mehmed Bey fell in battle. The deed names two daughters and two grandchildren and lists houses, shops, a garden and a water channel among his property.

Seeing Sinan in Istanbul Today

Sinan's buildings are scattered across the city, so rather than trying to see them all in one day it works better to think area by area. Radar's five-mosque route in the footsteps of Mimar Sinan links the Süleymaniye, Şehzade, Rüstem Pasha, the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque at Edirnekapı and the Şemsi Pasha Mosque in Üsküdar. You can treat the other buildings in this article as short outings that complement that route.

Sultanahmet and Kadırga. Start at the facade of the Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamam, look at the buttresses of Ayasofya and the tomb of Selim II in its grounds, then walk downhill to the Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Mosque at Kadırga.
Tophane and Üsküdar. After the Kılıç Ali Pasha Mosque and its bath, take the ferry to Üsküdar. The Mihrimah Sultan Mosque across from the pier and the Atik Valide complex built for Nurbanu Sultan can be seen on the same day.
Where the story begins. The Hürrem Sultan complex at Haseki, Sinan's first work in Istanbul as chief architect, is a good starting point if you want to follow him in order.
Half a day out of town. The bridge of Süleyman the Magnificent at Büyükçekmece and the buildings at its head.

Visit mosques outside prayer times, and especially avoid the Friday noon prayer. Women cover their hair, everyone covers shoulders and knees, shoes come off at the entrance and people keep quiet inside. For more detail, see Radar's article on what to know before visiting a mosque.

Knowing what to look for changes how you see Sinan's buildings. Stand under the dome and try to follow the weight down to the piers and arches, look for where the buttresses are hidden, and count the windows in the walls. The TDV counts Sinan's systematic opening of non-load-bearing walls with windows among his most important contributions, replacing the dim interiors of earlier periods with spaces filled with daylight. And see the Süleymaniye from a distance too, from the shore at Galata or Üsküdar. Sinan placed the complex on its hill so that it would present the strongest silhouette to people looking from those sides of the city.

In the lines passed down as his testament, Sinan asks those who see his works to judge his efforts fairly and to remember him with a prayer. Walking through these buildings, that fairness is not hard to give.

Sources

TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Sinan (Selçuk Mülayim), https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/sinan
TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Süleymaniye Camii ve Külliyesi, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/suleymaniye-camii-ve-kulliyesi
TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Şehzade Külliyesi, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/sehzade-kulliyesi
TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Haseki Külliyesi, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/haseki-kulliyesi
TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Mihrimah Sultan Külliyesi (Üsküdar), https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/mihrimah-sultan-kulliyesi--uskudar
TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Sokullu Mehmed Paşa Külliyesi (Kadırga), https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/sokullu-mehmed-pasa-kulliyesi--eminonu
TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Kılıç Ali Paşa Külliyesi, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/kilic-ali-pasa-kulliyesi
TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Çemberlitaş Hamamı, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/cemberlitas-hamami
TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Haseki Hamamı, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/haseki-hamami
TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Kırkçeşme Suları, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/kirkcesme-sulari
TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Moğlova Kemeri, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/moglova-kemeri
TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Büyükçekmece Köprüsü, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/buyukcekmece-koprusu
TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Topkapı Sarayı, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/topkapi-sarayi
İBB Kültürel Miras, Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamamı, https://kulturelmiras.ibb.istanbul/haseki-hurrem-sultan-hamami/
İBB Kültürel Miras, Ayasofya Türbeleri (II. Selim Türbesi), https://kulturelmiras.ibb.istanbul/ayasofya-turbeleri-ii-selim-turbesi/
Wikipedia (Turkish), Mimar Sinan, https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimar_Sinan
Wikipedia (Turkish), Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Köprüsü, https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanuni_Sultan_S%C3%BCleyman_K%C3%B6pr%C3%BCs%C3%BC

Mimar Sinan, From Apprentice to Master