Selimiye Mosque

Selimiye Mosque stands on a hill at the centre of Edirne, in north west Turkey near the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne was the Ottoman capital before Istanbul, and the mosque dominates the city skyline.

Sultan Selim II commissioned the mosque, and it was built between 1568 and 1575 by Mimar Sinan, the chief imperial architect. Sinan was in his eighties when it was completed and called it his masterpiece.

The mosque is built around a single great dome about 31 metres across, resting on eight massive piers. The dome rises over a single open prayer hall, so the whole interior can be seen at once. Four slender minarets, each with three balconies, stand at the corners and rise over 70 metres, among the tallest of any Ottoman mosque. Hundreds of windows light the interior, which is decorated with Iznik tiles, calligraphy and a marble minbar.

The mosque is the centre of a külliye, or social complex, that included a madrasa, a school for Quran reading and a covered market, the Arasta. In 2011 the Selimiye Mosque and its Social Complex were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. A museum of Turkish and Islamic art occupies part of the complex.

The mosque is open to visitors outside prayer times and entry is free. Edirne is about two and a half to three hours by road from Istanbul.

Exact measurements? The main dome is about 31.28 metres in diameter and rises roughly 42 metres above the floor. Each of the four identical minarets is 70.89 metres tall. Under the centre of the dome stands the muezzin's platform, a raised wooden gallery painted in bright colours and carried on twelve low arches.

The two madrasas of the complex now hold museums. The Dar-ul Hadis madrasa, a former school of hadith, houses the Edirne Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, first opened in 1925 and reopened in 2012 after restoration. The Dar-ul Kurra, the school for Quran recitation, holds the Selimiye Foundation Museum, opened in 2006.

The mosque has needed care since soon after it was finished. Sinan himself repaired lightning damage in 1584. Artillery struck the dome during the siege of Edirne in 1913, and Ataturk asked for the scar to be left as a reminder. Large restorations ran from 1954 to 1971 and from 1982 to 1984, and a full restoration began in late 2021, so scaffolding may cover parts of the building. The mosque also appeared on the back of Turkey's 10,000 lira notes issued between 1982 and 1995.