The Rüstem Pasha Mosque () is an Ottoman

mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...

located in the Hasırcılar Çarşısı (Strawmat Weavers Market) in the Tahtakale neighborhood of the

Fatih Fatih () is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 15 km2, and its population is 368,227 (2022). It is home to almost all of the provincial authorities (including the mayor's office, police headquarters, metro ...

district of

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

, near the Spice Bazaar. Named after Rüstem Pasha, who served as

Grand Vizier Grand vizier (; ; ) was the title of the effective head of government of many sovereign states in the Islamic world. It was first held by officials in the later Abbasid Caliphate. It was then held in the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Soko ...

of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

under Sultan Suleiman I, it was designed by the Ottoman imperial architect

Mimar Sinan Mimar Sinan (; , ; – 17 July 1588) also known as Koca Mi'mâr Sinân Âğâ, ("Sinan Agha (title), Agha the Grand Architect" or "Grand Sinan") was the chief Ottoman Empire, Ottoman architect, engineer and mathematician for sultans Suleiman ...

and completed in around 1563. The mosque is noted for the many different designs of İznik tiles that cover almost every vertical surface both in the interior and under the entrance porch.

History

Rüstem Pasha

The Rüstem Pasha Mosque was designed by Ottoman imperial architect

for the

Rüstem Pasha. Rüstem Pasha was the

husband A husband is a man involved in a marital relationship, commonly referred to as a spouse. The specific rights, responsibilities, and societal status attributed to a husband can vary significantly across different cultures and historical perio ...

of Mihrimah Sultan, one of the daughters of

Suleiman the Magnificent Suleiman I (; , ; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the Western world and as Suleiman the Lawgiver () in his own realm, was the List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman sultan between 1520 a ...

Hurrem Sultan Hürrem Sultan (; , "''the joyful one''"; 1505– 15 April 1558), also known as Roxelana (), was the chief consort, the first Haseki Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and the legal wife of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and the mother ...

, and served as Grand Vizier (a role comparable to a European prime minister) from 1544 to 1553 and from 1555 to 1561. Rüstem Pasha commissioned a number of important buildings, including religious schools, mosques, and other structures. Before his death in 1561, he hoped to construct a final mosque of his own in Istanbul — in part to repair his controversial legacy — though the extent to which he had outlined his intentions for the eponymous mosque remains ambiguous. Sultan Suleiman I authorized the project in 1562 after the Grand Vizier's death. It was assigned to the Ottoman's chief architect,

. The Rüstem Pasha Mosque is unique among Sinan's many mosques for the lavishly decorated, tiled interior. Rüstem Pasha may have ordered the mosque's characteristic İznik tiles in order to support court designer Kara Memi, who was known for elegant floral designs.

Dating the mosque

Efforts to precisely date the Rüstem Pasha Mosque have proved difficult, in part because of the lack of a foundation inscription. Michael D. Willis’ analysis of its İznik tiles suggest that they date to 1555. Other sources suggest that some of them could have been crafted after Rüstem Pasha's death in 1561. More recent analyses of primary sources has determined that the mosque was probably built between 1561 and 1563. Plans for the mosque were only set in motion beginning in 1561, and deeds for the purchase of land date to 1562. One water deed implies that the mosque was incomplete in December 1562, so the mosque was likely only operational by late 1563.

Usage

The Rüstem Pasha Mosque was originally designed as a Friday mosque, as reflected in Suleiman's ferman (his imperial command ordering construction of the mosque). More recently, it was used for film storage. In 2021 it reopened for worship after extensive restoration.

Architecture

Exterior

This small mosque was built on a high terrace over a complex of vaulted shops, whose rents were intended to financially support the

complex. Its elevation makes it a more visible component of the Istanbul skyline. Narrow, twisting interior flights of steps in the corners give access to a spacious courtyard. The mosque has a double porch with five domed bays, from which projects a deep and low roof supported by a row of columns.Freely, Blue Guide Istanbul Due to the lack of space on the elevated terrace, the ablution kiosk was located at street level.

Interior

The building is basically an

octagon In geometry, an octagon () is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, which alternates two types of edges. A truncated octagon, t is a ...

inscribed in a rectangle. The main

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

rests on four semi-domes; not on the axes but in the diagonals of the building. The arches of the dome spring from four octagonal pillars— two on the north, two on the south— and from piers projecting from the east and west walls. To the north and south are galleries supported by pillars and by small

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

columns between them.

İznik tiling

Sinan's architecture is known for emphasizing the structure of the buildings over the internal decoration. The Rüstem Pasha Mosque marked a substantial deviation from his typical style (and traditional Ottoman architecture) as it relied heavily on İznik tiling instead of favouring a more sparse interior. The Anatolian town of İznik was the heart of the Ottoman ceramics industry, which became a central component of the empire's artistic production after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. While it has been theorized that the tiling may have been inspired by Sinan's wife Mihrimah, it could also be that Rüstem Pasha himself requested the tiling for economic reasons and to support a court artist specializing in floral designs. The Rüstem Pasha Mosque is famous for its large quantities of İznik tiles in a very wide variety of floral and geometric designs, which cover not only the façade of the porch but also the

mihrab ''Mihrab'' (, ', 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'' wall". ...

minbar A minbar (; sometimes romanized as ''mimber'') is a pulpit in a mosque where the imam (leader of prayers) stands to deliver sermons (, ''khutbah''). It is also used in other similar contexts, such as in a Hussainiya where the speaker sits and le ...

and walls. There are approximately 2300 tiles arranged in around 80 different patterns. These tiles exhibit the early use of

Armenian bole Armenian bole, also known as bolus armenus or bole armoniac, is an earthy clay, usually red, native to Armenia but also found in other places. The term Armenian was later referred to a specific quality of the clay. Originally used in medication, i ...

, a tomato-red pigment that would become characteristic of İznik pottery. While this red hue is applied more thinly on most of the tiles, it was applied heavily on the tiles near the qibla wall and appeared scarlet in colour. The bright emerald green colour is only used in a panel added above an exterior doorway at a later date, and a study of the qibla tiling indicates that turquoise was the greenest hue available to the mosque's builders prior to the addition of that emerald green. Some of the tiles, particularly those in a large panel under the portico to the left main entrance, are decorated with sage green and dark manganese purple that are characteristic of the earlier 'Damascus ware' colour scheme. Yet the mosque's tiling does not feature the olive green found to be characteristic of Damascus tiles. No other mosque makes such a lavish use of İznik tiles; with later mosques Sinan used tiles more sparingly. According to Willis, some of the tiles in the Rüstem Pasha Mosque are of European origin (specifically Italian and Dutch) and also date to the eighteenth century.

The qibla wall and mihrab

The Rüstem Pasha Mosque's qibla wall includes a number of new and experimental painting styles in addition to the traditional ceramic tiles. This is consistent with the mosque's unique emphasis on İznik tiles and parallels other buildings designed by Sinan, such as the Süleymaniye Complex. Walter B. Denny hypothesizes that this could have been “deemed a project too large for one designer,” and that several other aspiring architects added to Sinan's contributions. The qibla wall features mostly blue tiles in a variety of shades, including turquoise and cobalt. Some

is used as an “accent,” adding to the general theme of blueness in this section of the mosque. These tiles are almost all “repeating modules” and do not appear to be specially designed for the Rüstem Pasha Mosque. Emblematic is the Rüstem Pasha Border, which consists of cobalt tiles, a white rosace, and turquoise embellishments, and recurs throughout the mosque. The tiles in this section feature rose buds, lotus palmettes, and leaves, consistent with the floral decoration characteristic of this mosque. Despite these details, the qibla tiling is relatively simple: most of the details utilize only two shades of paint, both blue (known as “two-blue” painting), which results in a somewhat monotonous presentation. Inset in the wall is a mihrab shaped like a half-dodecagon. Between the two mihrab frames rests a panel featuring calligraphy; above them, there are three windows. The repeating tile patterns are shaped to conform to the structure of the mosque, so many are cut in unusual and arbitrary ways. For example, the bottom of the mihrab tiles are cut arbitrarily when they reach the floor. The lack of a foundation leads to an abrupt shift from the tiling to the floor. Wedged between the mihrab frame and niche is cambered tiling featuring a bright shade of red which stands out because that shade of red is not found elsewhere and contrasts with the dark red used as an accent on many other qibla tiles. This cambered section also is much more ornate than the relatively plain two-blue tiling on either side. The mihrab frame tiles are quite different as they feature embellished white tiles and include blue guard stripe borders. While these borders feature the two-blue painting style, they are less dry than the two-blue tiling found elsewhere on the qibla wall. The border stripes frame both the mihrab and the calligraphy (in the

thuluth ''Thuluth'' (, ' or , '; , ''Sols''; Turkish: ''Sülüs'', from ' "one-third") is an Arabic script variety of Islamic calligraphy. The straight angular forms of Kufic were replaced in the new script by curved and oblique lines. In ''Thuluth'', ...

script) panel above the frame tiles. The result is a unique structure in Istanbul and among Sinan's other works.

Gallery

File:DSC04137a Istanbul - Rüstem Pasha camii - Foto G. Dall'Orto 26-5-2006.jpg, Portico File:DSC04138 Istanbul - Rüstem Pasha camii - Foto G. Dall'Orto 26-5-2006.jpg, Iznik tiles at entrance File:Rüstem Pasha mosque tiles.jpg, Iznik tiles File:DSC04153 Istanbul - Rüstem Pasha camii - Foto G. Dall'Orto 26-5-2006.jpg, Interior view File:DSC04157 Istanbul - Rüstem Pasha camii - Foto G. Dall'Orto 26-5-2006.jpg, Interior view File:DSC04142 Istanbul - Rstem Pasha camii - Foto G. Dall'Orto 26-5-2006.jpg, Mihrab File:676-Istanbul Rüstem Pasha Mosque-0910-1836.jpg, Rüstem Pasha mosque view from street in the west File:Rüstem Pasha Mosque courtyard and porch in 2003 1826.jpg, Double porticoed north façade with the main entrance File:675-Istanbul Rüstem Pasha Mosque-0910-1835.jpg, Rüstem Pasha mosque Iznik tiles hotchpotch File:Istanbul ramble 1272.jpg, Rüstem Pasha mosque Iznik tiles File:650-Istanbul Rüstem Pasha Mosque-0910-1809.jpg, Rüstem Pasha mosque Iznik tiles around entrance File:645-Istanbul Rüstem Pasha Mosque-0910-1804.jpg, Rüstem Pasha mosque Iznik tiles around entrance File:Istanbul Rustem Pasha 229.jpg, Rüstem Pasha mosque interior view File:655-Istanbul Rüstem Pasha Mosque-0910-1814.jpg, Rüstem Pasha mosque in dome File:Istanbul ramble 1265.jpg, Rüstem Pasha mosque Iznik tiles with Kaaba File:Istanbul ramble 1263.jpg, Rüstem Pasha mosque Iznik tiles File:078 Istanbul Rustem Pasha mosque-june 2004.jpg, Rüstem Pasha mosque Iznik tiles File:077 Istanbul Rustem Pasha mosque-june 2004.jpg, Rüstem Pasha mosque Iznik tiles File:065 Istanbul Rustem Pasha mosque-june 2004.jpg, Rüstem Pasha mosque Iznik tiles File:044 Istanbul Rustem Pasha mosque-june 2004.jpg, Rüstem Pasha mosque Iznik tiles

References

Sources

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External links

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160 photographs in gallery
PBase

3dmekanlar. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rustem Pasha Mosque Religious buildings and structures completed in 1563 Mimar Sinan buildings Ottoman mosques in Istanbul Fatih Mosques completed in the 1560s