The Şişli Mosque ( tr, Şişli Camii) is a mosque located in Şişli Square between the

Büyükdere Avenue Büyükdere Avenue ( tr, Büyükdere Caddesi) is a major avenue which runs through the districts of Şişli (Esentepe quarter), Beşiktaş (Levent quarter) and Sarıyer (Maslak quarter) on the European side of Istanbul, Turkey. It begins at Şi ...

, the Halaskargazi and Abide-i Hürriyet streets in the Şişli district of

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. Due to lack of any mosque in Şişli, which got incorporated into the urban area with the rapid expansion of the city in the 1940s, the residents demanded the building of a mosque. With the initiative of Mayor Lütfi Kırdar, a land of was left over to a symbolic price to the trustees of the mosque. Designed in classical Ottoman architectural style by architect Ali Vasfi Egeli, its construction began in 1945, and it was opened to worship in 1949. It is the first mosque in Turkey ever built after 1923, in the Republican era. The mosque, built of

gritstone Gritstone or grit is a hard, coarse-grained, siliceous sandstone. This term is especially applied to such sandstones that are quarried for building material. British gritstone was used for millstones to mill flour, to grind wood into pulp for pa ...

(coarse-grained sandstone)

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

, is situated in a walled courtyard having three gates. The building has a

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

ed entrance porch, is topped with a main dome flanked by three half-domes, and has a

minaret A minaret (; ar, منارة, translit=manāra, or ar, مِئْذَنة, translit=miʾḏana, links=no; tr, minare; fa, گل‌دسته, translit=goldaste) is a type of tower typically built into or adjacent to mosques. Minarets are generall ...

featuring one gallery with muqarnas. Over the hobnailed main entrance door, a calligraphic inscription in

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...

is fixed, which was created by Hamid Aytaç (1891-1982). In the center of the courtyard, a

dodecagon In geometry, a dodecagon or 12-gon is any twelve-sided polygon. Regular dodecagon A regular dodecagon is a figure with sides of the same length and internal angles of the same size. It has twelve lines of reflective symmetry and rotational sym ...

-shaped

sadirvan A shadirvan ( fa, شادروان, tr, şadırvan, ar, شاذروان) is a type of fountain that is usually built in the courtyard or near the entrance of mosques, caravanserais, khanqahs, and madrasas, with the main purpose of providing ...

spends water for ritual washing

wudu Wuḍūʾ ( ar, الوضوء ' ) is the Islamic procedure for cleansing parts of the body, a type of ritual purification, or ablution. The 4 Fardh (Mandatory) acts of ''Wudu'' consists of washing the face, arms, then wiping the head and the feet ...

. The courtyard houses also spaces for the

imam Imam (; ar, إمام '; plural: ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a worship leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Islamic worship services, lead prayers, ser ...

, muezzin, other mosque officials, and a library. The entrance to the mosque is reached by stairs. Inside, a marble fountain is situated in the center. Pews are located on both sides of the entrance. The ground is covered by a rose-colored carpet, and heated underground. The ceiling is decorated. There are calligraphic scripts on the inner walls. The windows over the marble-made

mihrab Mihrab ( ar, محراب, ', pl. ') is a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the ''qibla'', the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca towards which Muslims should face when praying. The wall in which a ''mihrab'' appears is thus the "qibla w ...

are of

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sisli Mosque Şişli Mosques in Istanbul Mosques completed in 1949 20th-century mosques 20th-century religious buildings and structures in Turkey