Selimiye

The first mosque in our 'journey' is the Selimiye mosque in Edirne, Turkey. I first heard about it from my Turkish friends in Greece. 

The Selimiye Mosque (Turkish: Selimiye Camii) is an Ottoman mosque in the city of Edirne, Turkey. The mosque was commissioned by Sultan Selim II and was built by architect Mimar Sinan between 1569 and 1575. It was considered by Sinan to be his masterpiece and is one of the highest achievements of Islamic architecture.

This impressive mosque sits on top of the highest hilltop of Edirne and it stands at the center of a külliye (a complex of a hospital, school, library and/or baths around a mosque) which comprises a medrese (Islamic academy teaches both Islamic and scientific lessons), a dar-ül hadis (Al-Hadith school), a timekeeper’s room and an arasta (row of shops).

 It seems that under one of the marble legs of the muezzin’s stand, the motif of an upside down tulip catches the eye. This tulip motif represents a piece of the story of this truly crowning glory of Edirne.
 According to this story, the site where the mosque was built was once a tulip garden. The owner, however, did not want to sell his garden. In the end, she sold the plot on condition that the mosque would be decorated with the motif of a tulip. Mimar Sinan, kept to the agreement of the sale and put the tulip motif upside down. The tulip motif represents the once tulip garden, and its being upside down represents the owner’s stubbornness.  

All the above pictures were taken from Google.

According to G. Necipoglu in 'The Age of Sinan, architectural culture in the Ottoman Empire'' the Selimiye was the first grand sultanic mosque that travellers from Europe and the Balkans encountered on their way to Istanbul, and the last one they saw on their way back.

The Selimiye was an expression of the love Sultan Selim II felt for Edirne. the people of the city had supported him faithfully in his bid to be the Sultan while he was posted there between 1548 and 1550 as lieutenant governor, in command of defending the western border of the empire. 

The mosque was built, according to the foundation inscription, between 1568 and 1575. It was common practice at the time for the sultans to lay the foundations of a mosque before embarking on a military campaign with the hope that the 'spoils' of the war would be dedicated to its construction and its waqf (endowments). The fact that the mosque was designed and the foundations of such a monumental structure laid just before the conquest of Cyprus shows the confidence and certainty the Sultan felt about his forthcoming victory. It is indeed a historical fact that the mosque was funded by the Sultan's legal share of the booty from Cyprus.

One of the aims of my blog is to take my own pictures for this journey, in the meantime I will use what I find on Google.