Sinan / Classical
Cihangir Mosque
1559–1560 · Beyoğlu / Cihangir
A memorial mosque for a dead prince, standing on one of the most panoramic hilltops in Istanbul — so dominant that the entire surrounding district took its name. The actual visible fabric is not Sinan's, but an 1889 reconstruction under Abdülhamid II that quotes the Mihrimah-Edirnekapı dome-on-four-piers scheme as an homage.
- Minarets
- 2
- Built
- 1559–1560
- Architect
- Mimar Sinan
- Patron
- Süleyman the Magnificent (in memory of Şehzade Cihangir)
- District
- Beyoğlu / Cihangir
History
The Cihangir Mosque was built in 1559 by order of Süleyman the Magnificent as a memorial mosque for his youngest son Şehzade Cihangir (1531–1553), who died in Aleppo shortly after the execution of his elder half-brother Şehzade Mustafa; his body was brought to Istanbul and buried in the Şehzade Mosque beside his brother Mehmed. The architect was Mimar Sinan; his building was square, with a single dome and a single minaret. The Cihangir quarter of Beyoğlu, where the mosque stands high above the Bosphorus, takes its name from this prince. Over its history the mosque burned down five times and was damaged by earthquakes. The present building is the result of a comprehensive reconstruction in 1889 commissioned by Sultan Abdülhamid II; almost nothing survives of Sinan's 1559 original, and the architect of the 1889 replacement is not definitively identified. The mosque gave its name to the bohemian Cihangir district of Istanbul and remains one of its chief vertical landmarks.
Architecture
The present (1889) building is a square hall under a single dome, adapted to the strongly sloping site. Its design deliberately echoes one of Sinan's central innovations — the 'dome on four corner piers' scheme first used at Mihrimah Sultan in Edirnekapı (1560s): the non-load-bearing side walls allow large fan-shaped upper windows, giving the interior an unusually luminous quality. Standing on a crest above the Bosphorus, the mosque functions as a visual beacon — a siting logic already present in Sinan's 1559 plan. Two minarets stand at the corners of the portico.
In Sinan's evolution
A commemorative commission of 1559 — between Süleymaniye (completed 1557) and the Mihrimah Edirnekapı experiments of the 1560s. Because the Sinan-era building is lost, it contributes little to the direct architectural record; its importance for the Sinan canon is documentary (tezkerets, archives) and topographic (choice of hilltop as a landmark site).
Sinan Tree →Photographs
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