Selimiye Mosque

The Selimiye Mosque is in Edirne, a city in Türkiye.

A mosque is a building where Muslims gather to pray. This one has a big round dome and four tall, thin towers called minarets.

The Selimiye Mosque stands in the city of Edirne, in Türkiye. UNESCO says its single great dome and four slender minarets rise above the city's skyline.

It is the center of a külliye, a group of buildings put up around a mosque and run as one institution. Around the mosque are two schools, a covered market, a clock house, a library and a large outer courtyard. The architect Sinan said this complex was his best work.

The complex stands in Edirne, a former Ottoman capital, on a site that ICOMOS says once held the first Ottoman palace in the city. UNESCO describes it as the most harmonious expression ever achieved of the Ottoman külliye, a group of buildings constructed around a mosque and managed as a single institution.

The mosque, with its fountain court and two madrasas (schools), sits at the heart of a walled outer court measuring 190 by 130 m. The property also includes the Arasta, a covered market built to earn income for the foundation, a primary school, a clock house and a library. UNESCO inscribed it in 2011 under criteria (i) and (iv).

Each minaret has three little balconies, one above another.

Inside, the walls shine with blue and white tiles decorated with flowers and trees.

The four minarets are fluted, with grooves running up them, and reach 70.89 meters to their pointed tops. Each has three balconies, and two of them have three separate staircases that wind around each other.

Inside, tiles from the town of Iznik, made when Iznik tile-making was at its best, show flowers, tulips and blossoming fruit trees. Along one side of the outer courtyard, a covered market called the Arasta has 124 shops on a lane about 225 meters long. Its earnings helped pay for the complex.

The four fluted stone minarets are 3.8 m in diameter at the base and rise 70.89 m to their lead-covered cones; each has three corbelled balconies, and the two on the north side contain three independent, intertwining stairways, one to each balcony.

ICOMOS calls the Iznik tiles the high point of Iznik production in the second half of the 16th century, with designs attributed to Sinan featuring tulips, apple trees and fruit trees in blossom; carved doors and ivory-inlaid shutters show similar craftsmanship. The Arasta has 124 shops in two rows along a covered lane of about 225 m, and the library held 8,117 books, 3,384 of them manuscripts, when ICOMOS evaluated the site; the two madrasas now serve as museums.

In the photo, the mosque rises behind a garden.

In front stands a statue of a seated man. It shows Sinan, the builder!

The photo was taken on 1 May 2025. A statue of the architect Sinan, seated, stands on a stone base with his name carved on it. Behind the flower beds and lawns, the mosque's gray dome and four tall minarets rise against a cloudy blue sky, with smaller domes below.

In 2011 UNESCO said the complex was well maintained and that the views of it across the city must stay protected. It also said the mosque and the Arasta market kept their original use.

The photograph (1 May 2025) shows, in the foreground, a seated statue of the architect on a stone plinth inscribed 'Mimar Koca Sinan', with flower beds, lawns and paths behind it, and the mosque beyond: the great lead-gray dome, its four slender minarets with their balconies, and rows of smaller domes.

UNESCO judged in 2011 that the complex was well maintained and unaffected by development, but stressed that view corridors to this landmark must remain protected. It noted that the mosque and the Arasta keep their original use and function, while the madrasas have been slightly adapted as museums. A management plan overseen by the Edirne municipality was being prepared at inscription.