page_title: Süleymaniye Mosque
section_title: Exterior
hierarchical_section_title: Süleymaniye Mosque / Architecture / Exterior
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: La cour de la mosquée Süleymaniye à Istanbul, en Turquie. English: Courtyard of the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey.
context_page_description: The Süleymaniye Mosque is an Ottoman imperial mosque located on the Third Hill of Istanbul, Turkey. The mosque was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent and designed by the imperial architect Mimar Sinan. An inscription specifies the foundation date as 1550 and the inauguration date as 1557. Behind the qibla wall of the mosque is an enclosure containing the separate octagonal mausoleums of Suleiman the Magnificent and that of his wife Hurrem Sultan. The Süleymaniye Mosque is the second largest mosque in the city, and one of the best-known sights of Istanbul.
context_section_description: Like the other imperial mosques in Istanbul, the entrance to the mosque itself is preceded by a forecourt with a central fountain. The courtyard is of exceptional grandeur with a colonnaded peristyle with columns of marble, granite and porphyry. The northwest facade of the mosque is decorated with rectangular Iznik tile window lunettes. The mosque is the first building where the Iznik tiles include the brightly coloured tomato red clay under the glaze.
  At the four corners of the courtyard are the four minarets. The two taller minarets have three galleries (serifes) and rise to a high of 63.8 m (209 ft) without their lead caps and 76 m (249 ft) including the caps. Four minarets were used for mosques endowed by a sultan (princes and princesses could construct two minarets; others only one). The minarets have a total of 10 galleries, which by tradition indicates that Suleiman I was the 10th Ottoman sultan.
  The main dome is 53 metres (174 feet) high and has a diameter of 26.5 metres (86.9 feet) which is exactly half the height. At the time it was built, the dome was the highest in the Ottoman Empire, when measured from sea level, but still lower from its base and smaller in diameter than that of Hagia Sophia.
caption: North facade with the forecourt and the central fountain
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