Sinan / Classical
Hadım İbrahim Pasha Mosque
1551 · Fatih / Silivrikapı
A compact classical Sinan mosque (1551) by the Silivrikapı gate — a 'domed cube' with a 12 m dome on eight buttresses and three window tiers, with Iznik tile panels. Built for a eunuch vizier of Suleiman.
- Dome
- 12 m
- Minarets
- 1
- Built
- 1551
- Architect
- Mimar Sinan
- Patron
- Hadım İbrahim Pasha, eunuch vizier of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent
- District
- Fatih / Silivrikapı
History
Hadım İbrahim Pasha Mosque stands by the Silivrikapı gate, inside the city walls, in the Fatih district. It was designed by Mimar Sinan for Hadım İbrahim Pasha — a eunuch of Bosniak origin who served as Chief White Eunuch of the Topkapı Palace under Suleiman the Magnificent, then as Governor of Anatolia and vizier. Construction was completed in 1551. İbrahim Pasha led a modest life and enjoyed a rare, unanimously high reputation for a courtier; he is buried in an open, roofless türbe to the west of his mosque — the original tomb collapsed over time and was only meagrely repaired.
Architecture
The mosque is a compact work of the classical Sinan: a 'domed cube' with an attached portico. The main dome, 12 metres in diameter, rests on eight internal buttresses and is lit by three tiers of windows that flood the small hall with light. The portico is covered by five small domes on arches with marble columns. The interior is decorated with panels of coloured Iznik tiles. The stone minaret, at the southwest end of the portico, was rebuilt in 1763–1764. For all its modest size, the mosque shows the clarity of plan and measured proportion characteristic of Sinan.
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