[1] The Süleymaniye Mosque is one of the best-known sights of Istanbul and from its location on the Third Hill it commands an extensive view of the city around the Golden Horn.

[6][4] Like other Ottoman imperial foundations, the mosque is part of a larger külliye (religious and charitable complex) which included madrasas, a public kitchen, and a hospital, among others.

Behind the qibla wall of the mosque is an enclosed cemetery containing the separate octagonal mausoleums of Suleiman the Magnificent and his wife Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana).

Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent chose the architect Mimar Sinan to create a mosque in memory of his son Şehzade (Crown Prince) Mehmed.

The final construction expenses were recorded in 1559, relating to some of the madrasas and to the mausoleum of Suleiman's wife, Hürrem Sultan (d.

According to popular tradition, Justinian I boasted upon the completion of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople: "Solomon, I have surpassed thee!"

Repairs damaged what was left of Sinan's original decoration (recent cleaning has shown that he experimented with blue, before making red the dominant colour of the dome).

The entrance portal consists of a recess covered by a triangular vault sculpted with muqarnas, with slender pilasters on either side.

[19] The windows on either side of the portal mark the presence of interior rooms which housed the muvakkithane (chamber of the timekeeper).

[18] The courtyard, measuring around 47 by 57 metres (154 by 187 feet),[20] is of exceptional grandeur with a colonnaded peristyle supported by tall columns of marble, granite and porphyry.

[22] The mosque is equipped with water taps outside the courtyard, between the side entrances of the prayer hall, which are used for performing ablutions.

[23] Behind the southeast portico, the main entrance to the prayer hall is set within a recess with a complex muqarnas canopy.

The text was composed by Ebussuud Efendi and its calligraphy, in thuluth script, was created by Hasan Çelebi, a student of Ahmed Karahisari.

[29] By making the outer minarets shorter than the inner ones, Sinan also increased the overall visual impression of a structure rising towards the central dome.

[27] The interior of the mosque is almost a square, measuring 58.5 by 57.5 metres (192 by 189 feet), forming a single vast space dominated by its central dome.

The dome and semi-domes are supported by a limited number of load-bearing pillars and buttresses, allowing for more windows in the walls between them and minimizing any obstructive divisions within the prayer space.

Thus, on the outside, the arrangement of arches, turrets, and semi-domes forms a more harmonious, almost pyramid-like progression to the central dome, emphasizing the latter as the visual culmination of the structure.

[39][40] The documents of the mosque's waqf (religious endowment) explicitly claim that ostentatious ornamentation of gold or jewels was avoided in order to conform with the traditions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

[41] It's possible that Suleiman and Sinan regarded calligraphy as the primary form of decoration, in the spirit of a period when the Ottoman sultan championed a more austere Sunni orthodoxy.

[42] The present-day painting of the central dome dates from a 19th-century restoration by the Fossati brothers, who chose to roughly imitate Ottoman Baroque decoration.

[43] Except for the inscriptions carved in stone, most of the other calligraphy found throughout the mosque is painted and was thus likely restored in later periods.

This is framed inside a marble surface in the same shape as the central (northwest) gate of the mosque's courtyard (aligned on the same axis as the mihrab).

[16] Next to the mihrab is the minbar, which is crafted in traditional Ottoman form: a narrow staircase, with triangular sides, climbing from a portal to a canopy.

The decoration is simplified in comparison with more ornate Ottoman examples, limited to the geometric patterning of the balustrades and the gilded stars on a blue ground covering the conical cap of the canopy.

[39][50] The mausoleum is surrounded by a peristyle (portico) with a projecting roof supported by 24 columns; the entrance faces towards the east rather than the usual north.

[51] These are the earliest known tiles decorated with the bright emerald green colour that would become a common feature of Iznik ceramics.

[8] Due to the sloping nature of the site around the mosque, many of the structures are built above massive substructures that created a more level ground.

[56] The original complex consisted of the mosque itself, four madrasas or religious colleges (medrese), a small primary school (mekteb), a medical school (darüttıb), a hospital (darüşşifa or timarhane), a public kitchen (imaret) that served food to the poor, a caravanserai or guesthouse (tabhane), public baths (hamam), a specialized school (darülhadis) for the learning of hadith, a small domed building for the employees of the cemetery (attached to the latter's southeast wall), and rows of small shops integrated into the outer edges and along the street on the southwest side of the mosque.

The Salis Medrese and Rabı Medrese, located on the northeast side of the mosque where the ground slopes down towards the Golden Horn, have a "stepped" design in which the courtyard descends in three terraces connected by stairs while the domed rooms are built at progressively lower levels alongside it.

[67][64] A small primary school (sibyan mekteb), consisting of two domed rooms, is attached to the eastern corner of the Evvel Medrese, though separated from the main building by a narrow garden.